If God experiences time in much the same way we do, and if he doesn't have complete foreknowledge of all that will come to pass, and if the enemy's machinations can take him by surprise, doesn't it follow that in the end he may not be victorious?
So the criticism may turn out to be misplaced if the semblance of "evil" ultimately turns out to be turned to fulfill the greatest of God's good purposes in creation.
That's what any standard theodicy would posit, I think. But one thing that aroused these questions in me is hearing an open theist pastor say that for many years she parroted the standard theodicies while finding no real comfort in the face of tragedies like genocide, until she came to the realization that "God doesn't always get what he wants." (Direct quote.) That's what she now believes about the relationship between evil in the world and God. That he has constrained himself from always intervening and that therefore he doesn't always get what he wants. Hence my "outmaneuvered" language. I suppose she might go on to claim that one day God will make it all aright, but that doesn't seem concordant with what I remember of her lecture.
Where are those passages that say those things ? That God experiences time as we do? And does not have foreknowledge? Or all knowledge?If God experiences time in much the same way we do, and if he doesn't have complete foreknowledge of all that will come to pass, and if the enemy's machinations can take him by surprise, doesn't it follow that in the end he may not be victorious?
Where are those passages that say those things ? That God experiences time as we do? And does not have foreknowledge? Or all knowledge?
Well, like I said before, there are a lot of voices within OT, not all of them as articulate as others.
For example, this particular pastor is self-contradictory in the "direct quote" that you provided. After all, if God self-constrains involvement within creation in order to allow human freedom, then this self-constraint is (logically) consistent with that which God desires. Therefore, even if certain unsavory events unfold within creation, one could still technically affirm that God "gets what he wants", for the possibility of freedom is itself a realization of divine desire. So far from "not always getting what God wants", theodicy (in such a framework) would be PRECISELY the ultimate expression of God getting exactly what God wants, and that infallibly.
From there, I'm not sure either of us can do much more than just going back and forth asserting that open theism either is or isn't consistent with God's sovereignty. You're welcome to continue responding, and I'll probably keep this up as long as you do, but if not, I thank you for the discussion.
I'm happy to continue with the conversation, but I'm not sure how useful it is for me to play the defendant for a strain of OT that is (mostly) based on second-hand conversations. I'm not suggesting that you are misrepresenting what you heard, but I feel at a bit of loss to try to reconcile what's being said without more context of the pastor's thinking.
I did as you suggest.If by "passages" you mean Bible verses, I don't think they're anywhere. That was my summary of open theism. If you're unfamiliar, look it up.
If God experiences time in much the same way we do, and if he doesn't have complete foreknowledge of all that will come to pass, and if the enemy's machinations can take him by surprise, doesn't it follow that in the end he may not be victorious?
God is eternally knowledgeable.
So much so that he knew us before we were even in our mothers womb. If he does not know what we will freely do in the future, as the open theism description states, then he wouldn't have known us before the womb. Because he wouldn't have known our mother would become pregnant so as to have his spirit give us life in the womb.
I've not read anyone launch into the absurd as yet.I'm not sure anyone--including OT's--disagrees with that. The question is what the domain of possible knowledge actually entails. From an OT's perspective, the future does not exist, therefore it is not an object of knowledge. After all, we wouldn't say that God has knowledge of those things that don't exist...it would be akin to saying that God has knowledge of no-thing, which is absurd. So let's not misrepresent positions just for the sake of sound bites and easy rhetorical wins.
I think you would do better in this discussion if you didn't limit God with your own belief system that contradicts itself using haughty language.I think we have to allow for the limitations of language when we read statements like this. By saying that God knows something "before" it happens, we have to implant God within the contingency and temporality of the universe. While God can certainly participate within the same, God is fundamentally other-than, and transcendent of, the universe in which tensed language has any reference. So when we read in the Scriptures that God "knows" things "before" they happen, I think we need to temper the literalness that we apply in order to avoid imposing our limited, contingent epistemologies upon the infinite, unfettered knowledge of God.
If God experiences time in much the same way we do, and if he doesn't have complete foreknowledge of all that will come to pass, and if the enemy's machinations can take him by surprise, doesn't it follow that in the end he may not be victorious?
If God experiences time in much the same way we do, and if he doesn't have complete foreknowledge of all that will come to pass, and if the enemy's machinations can take him by surprise, doesn't it follow that in the end he may not be victorious?
God doesn't fit that definition.
According to the best known version of open theism, yes, I think that would be the conclusion.
How could God lose if he's omnipotent? Or does open theism deny omnipotence as well?
It doesn't seem to be the conclusion of Alexandriaisburning, however. Do you feel he's advocating a unique strand of the doctrine?
I think you would do better in this discussion if you didn't limit God with your own belief system that contradicts itself using haughty language.
If Open Theism denies omniscience, it must deny omnipotence as well, after all.
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