Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You quoted me and then said:

“That sounds a lot like injustice to me and any earthly judge who would act this way would have the world in an uproar about his injustice.”

That’s because you think God is obligated to save everybody- He is not. There is nothing unjust about God choosing to save some who did not deserve to be saved. In fact, this is the heart of the gospel is it not. Grace is only grace when it is underserved otherwise as Paul says, it no longer becomes grace.

God did redeem His image and this is a work of mercy that we did not deserve.

I told you Arminians don’t like it!

It is because God abandoning His own image is unthinkable and the fact that Calvinists ignore God’s obligation to Himself makes Him out to be an uncaring, unloving God who loves to create His own image to go to hell. Think about that. Is this really the God of the Bible whose “good pleasure” is to create His own image to go to hell? Why did you so easily accept that when you were an Arminian? Did you not ever think to defend God’s image and God’s name? Or were you only thinking about mankind and forgetting that within each of us is God’s image?

But anyway a few comments. The open theist sovereignty is identical to what both you and Kay say.

Mark, my friend, you are showing your ignorance here.

The open theist believes God ‘chose to limit himself’ which is identical to your description of His soveriegnty- he chose not to determine all things unconditionally.

The true open theist believes that God cannot know the future on everything because the future in some areas is unknowable. Here is an open theism quote from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism

Practically, open theism makes the case for a personal God who is open to influence through the prayers, decisions, and actions of people. Although many specific outcomes of the future are unknowable, God’s foreknowledge of the future includes that which is determined as time progresses often in light of free decisions that have been made and what has been sociologically determined. So God knows everything that has been determined as well as what has not yet been determined but remains open. As such, he is able to anticipate the future, yet remains fluid to respond and react to prayer and decisions made either contrary or advantageous to His plan or presuppositions.

Do you see from this definition that God “limits Himself” or is it that some things are “open” and not determined so therefore not fully knowable but “fluid”? The true open theism view does not have God limiting Himself but rather that God’s foreknowledge of the future happens as events happen so that God does not know all things in advance from eternity past. It isn’t even close to what I believe.

Now I said it is logical to the Arminan position, I did not say I think it is logical. I agree with you that it is completely unbiblical. However if one holds to autonomous free-will then one can see the problem if the future is actually fixed- it’s not free at all.

There is no problem because there is two completely different levels of being. For God all things are fixed since He knows the future and He exists in the future just as He lives in the present and the past. But for our existence, the future has not yet happened so what we do now does matter. This is the same kind of mystery that is about God’s attributes of omnipresence. We cannot completely understand how God can be everywhere at the same time and that there is nowhere where He is not. But what is a mystery to us is reality with God. When we realize that the future is complete to God just as His omnipresence is the eternal “now”, we should be able to understand that we cannot comprehend God’s ways. We have to live within this time and know that for us the future is open even though from God’s side it is set.

An Arminian believes the future is fixed because they believe in divine foreknowledge.

I do not believe that the future is fixed because I believe in divine foreknowlege. I believe that the future is fixed because God lives in the future in the eternal present. It is because of God’s nature as omnipresent in every time and in every place that I believe the future is fixed. It isn’t just God’s knowledge but about God’s being.

However if the future is fixed then it is not free. See the problem? That is precisely why open theism has gained support. The rational logical conclusion of Arminianism leads there.

This is not true. We may not be able to understand how the future is already fixed in God’s eyes, but open in our experience, but God has made it clear as He deals with us in our own time existence, that we need to make decisions. If God acts as if our own time that we live in is not fixed for us so that He pleads with us to change and to turn to Him, then we need to accept that even if we cannot understand it. It is when people try to understand God’s mysteries that He has not revealed for us to understand, that is how people get confused and want to put God into a box so that they can understand Him. But we cannot put God into a box. By doing so people have fallen into error.

To be continued…