countering open theism

Posted on September 18, 2013 by christopher fisher

The prime indicator of an individual who identifies with Open Theism is a claim that the God of the Bible does not know future actions; not only is that not a characteristic of God depicted in the Bible but it would violate any claim of God to be involved in a genuine relationship with mankind. If the future was set (and God in the Bible is depicted as changing the future), then mankind would be fated to perform certain actions. Before the world began, mankind (through nothing they could ever change) would be fated to go to heaven or hell. It would be outside the realm of possibility to change this fate. Exhaustive foreknowledge is fatalism.

There are multiple views in Open Theism about God’s knowledge. The prevailing view is that God is omniscient (defined as knowing everything possible to know). This would not include future events, as a nonexistent event is not knowable. It is argued that God knows everything, but the future is not set. Some versions also maintain that God knows all possible future outcomes (every different fork of events). A very small minority of Open Theists claim that God not only does not know the future, but also that He can choose not to know current events (because He is God and God can do everything).

In order for Calvinism to be correct and Open Theism to be wrong, not only does the Calvinist have to prove that God knows everything currently, but also that He knows everything in the past and in the future. Just proving that God knows all current events affects only a fraction of self-described Open Theists.

There are two main evidences that Calvinists use to make a claim that God has omniscience (with exhaustive knowledge of the future). The first evidence is to quote verses that make blanket statements about God’s knowledge. What the Calvinist needs to show in these verses, in order to sway the Open Theist, are two things:

1.1. The verse is not an idiom. Jesus was said to know everything (Joh 16:30 and 21:17), but even Jesus admitted that He did not (Mar 13:32). The people who were speaking to Jesus were using an idiom known as hyperbole. “Everything” was limited to the context and meant “a whole lot”. The Calvinist needs to show that the Bible is not using a hyperbole.

1.2. The verse includes exhaustive foreknowledge of the future. Most Open Theists would enthusiastically endorse the statement “God knows everything”. Everything does not include the future because the future is not a “thing”. When God counts hairs on the heads of people, it is present tense. Just pointing to verses indicating vast knowledge cannot be just assumed to include non-events, events that do not exist because people did not make them happen.

The other type of evidence that Calvinists use is specific predictions. If God predicts something accurately, something that would be impossible to predict without exhaustive foreknowledge, Open Theists would have to concede that they are wrong. What the Calvinist needs to show in these verses, in order to sway the Open Theist, are two things:

2.1. That the event is not a prediction based on rational information. I can predict that I America will elect a liberal (Democrat or Republican) next election. I can predict that low skilled workers become less employable when the minimum wage is increased and some lose their jobs. These predictions are not hard to make. I do not have to see the future in detail. The predictions are based on current knowledge. Because God knows everything (or everything He wants to know), His predictions can be much more accurate than mine.

2.2. That the event is not a prediction based on the God causing the event. When God caused the global flood in Noah’s days, no man/angel/animal could stop Him. If God says He will do something, sometimes He makes it happen through His power. These events do not require exhaustive foreknowledge.

When Calvinists try to quote verses, they need to show the prediction was accurate enough, with enough human free will involvement, and enough unknowns in order for this event not to be predictable or causable by God (if He did not know the future).

Open Theists have quite a few ways to show that Calvinism is wrong. Because Calvinism relies on blanket statements (God knows the future exhaustively) all the Open Theist needs to do is to show one instance in which God did not know the future. If God is surprised (Jer 32:35), regrets his own actions (Gen 6:6), learns something new (Gen 22:12), changes His mind (1Sa 15:11), shortens/lengthens events (2Ki 20:6), or makes a failed prophecy (Eze 26:14 and Eze 29:18), then Calvinists are at a loss.

The common way Calvinists deal with these texts are to:

1. Explain how the text does not indicate what the Open Theists claim the text states. For example, in the Garden of Eden God asks where Adam is hiding. Calvinists say that this was God attempting to coax Adam into self-confession and this does not represent a lack of knowledge. There needs to be some sort of logical intent. It makes sense that God wants Adam to self-identify, so the verse is not good evidence of God not having present knowledge (no Open Theist claims it is). But if God is saying He will go find information (Gen 18:21), then intent is harder to identify.

2. Explain that it is an anthropomorphism (anthropopathism). They claim that the text looks like it represents a lack of knowledge (learning something new, being surprised, or changing the future), but it is really a metaphor to communicate to humans a divine truth. In order for this to be true, the metaphor needs to actually describe something. Wings might symbolize protection, and arms might symbolize strength. But the Bible saying that God repented of making men (and proceeding to kill all but 8) (Gen 6:6), saying that He learned new information (“now I know”) (Gen 22:12), saying that something never entered His mind (Jer 32:35), saying that He does the opposite of things He thought He was going to do (Jer 18:8), saying people did not respond the way He thought they would (Isa 5:4), those things must have some meaning.

Likewise, Open Theists can also point to general statements about God to make their points. A verse might say that God’s general principle is that He reacts to man’s decisions and does not do what “He thought to do” (Jer 18:8) (Eze 18:21).

It is a good question as to how Calvinists deal with these texts, because the most commonly experienced method is deflection.

But now to the Biblical case for Omniscience (exhaustive foreknowledge of the future). In sermons, Calvinists tend to use a smorgasbord of verses to make this point. A list is presented, with no context, and the implications of the verses are just assumed to be Calvinistic. There are never any follow-up studies on the verses in the context of the original verse, so the smorgasbord cannot be claimed just to be a concise overview. This is an infantile way to do theology. Verses should all be understood in context.

A Calvinist sent me a sermon on “omniscience”. Before listening to the sermon some obvious predictions were made: In all the general verses there will be no attempt to explain why they are not an idiom and no attempt will be made to show how that “knowledge” includes the future. For any specific verse, no attempt will be made to explain how it cannot be predicted or caused by God. Additional prediction: the pastor will not address any verses that actually question omniscience.

When listening to the Calvinist’s sermon on omniscience, the following verses were used. The verse will be quoted along with the pastor’s summary or statement about the verse and then a brief comment by myself:

Psa 147:5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.

Pastor: “God’s knowledge of things knows no boundaries.”
My comment: Infinite is the same word for the amount of corn that Joseph collected. It is an obvious idiom, and “understanding” means “intelligence” (not knowledge).

Job 37:16 Do you know how the clouds are balanced, Those wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?

Pastor: “God’s understanding is infinite. Combine that with he is perfect in knowledge.”
My comment: This is a quote from someone God condemns for not knowing what they are talking about. Probably this is not a good person to quote.

Heb 4:13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Pastor: “He knows everything… God knows all things completely.”
My comment: This is about present knowledge and is limited to animals and humans. It was also not shown to not be an idiom.

Isa 40:13 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, Or as His counselor has taught Him?

Pastor: “Obviously nobody.”
My comment: In the Bible, the obvious answer to a rhetorical question might itself be an idiom. Paul asks who can resist God’s will (Rom 9:19), implying “no one”. But in Luke 7:13 the lawyers resist God’s will (same Greek word). This verse has nothing to do with knowledge, and the pastor ignores the fact that sometimes God crowd-sources for ideas (1Ki 22:20).

Mat 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.
Mat 10:30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Pastor: “God knows every hair on your head… because He is perfect in knowledge.”
My comment: There can be a case made that God allows (makes a positive decision for) animals to die and that God knows human beings. But this does not address exhaustive current knowledge much less exhausted future knowledge.

1Jn 3:20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

Pastor: “God not only knows all things, but He knows them completely.”
My comment: This seems to be in the context of people thinking evil but doing good. The context is about someone who appears righteous on the outside, and the verse is stating that God can see through the outside into the “heart” (a Hebrew idiom for “mind”). “All things” might be referring to these thoughts, like a wife confronting her cheating husband and saying “I know everything”.

Psalm 139 – [Too long to quote, but Psalm 139 is a song by David extolling David’s special relationship with God]

Act 15:18 “Known to God from eternity are all His works.

Pastor: “He has known them from eternity.”
My comment: The context seems to be Peter explaining the history of God’s interaction with the Gentiles and reminding his listeners that God remembers God’s own history with the Gentiles. This is not talking about future events, but past events. Eternity is more accurately translated “ages”.

Psa 33:13 The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men.
Psa 33:14 From the place of His dwelling He looks On all the inhabitants of the earth;
Psa 33:15 He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.

Pastor: “He knows all things past and all things present.”
My comment: The verse again is talking about current knowledge and not even exhaustive current knowledge.

Isa 46:9 Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me,
Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’

Pastor: “See God knows all things future”
My comment: This is God saying that He declares well in advance things that He will do. No one disagrees with that. The pastor did not meet the criteria about showing how God did not predict things based on current knowledge or predict things based on His own knowledge of what He is going to do.

Mat 11:20 Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent:
Mat 11:21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Mat 11:22 But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.

Pastor: “God knows all things possible”
My comment: Jesus admits to not knowing everything (Mar 13:32). The pastor, elsewhere, admits to Jesus not knowing everything (calling Omniscience a latent characteristic). It is kind of weird. Jesus does not know the end of times, but He knows alternative realities for past events. The better understanding is Jesus is insulting His listeners.

1Pe 1:2 elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.

Pastor: “People are elect based on the foreknowledge of God.”
My comment: Does this deal with individuals or groups? Did God elect “believers” or “Joe Smith”? In other words, did God say “anyone who believes in me is elect” or did He say “Joe Smith is elect”? Also, does foreknowledge mean “before the world began” or “sometime before now”?

Pro 15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, Keeping watch on the evil and the good.

Pastor: “God is all knowing; He knows all things completely.”
My comment: I have dealt with this elsewhere. The better understanding of this verse is that God uses angels to gather information on individuals. If this is true, this verse is powerful evidence against Calvinists.

There it is, the concise case for God’s exhaustive knowledge of past, present, and future events. My predictions came true, and not because I knew the future exhaustively.

One other thing of note, when the pastor was talking about God testing Abraham with Isaac, the pastor skipped over the crucial verse which his theology needs to interpret out of reality:

Gen 22:12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

God is stating He acquired new information.

In a sermon on omniscience, the pastor failed to prove his point. He failed to take verses in context or discuss the context. Even when talking about Psalms 139 (the only scripture read in context), he ignored the point that David was writing this and David had a special relationship with God. The pastor took everything David wrote and generalized it, not a hint about an individual pouring his heart out to God. The pastor did not address idioms or verses that are used against omniscience. And the pastor never even showed any verses stressing exhausted current knowledge.

When the Calvinist sent this sermon to me, it is telling that he thought it was powerful. This reaffirms the point that Calvinists just assume their theology into the verses and then expect that quoting their verses is enough to convince people. Tellingly, they do not like explaining context or addressing actual opposing points.

Posted in Bible, Calvinism, God, Jesus, Omniscience, Open Theism, People, Theology | Leave a comment

an accurate image of Jesus

Posted on September 16, 2013 by christopher fisher

In my previous post I mentioned that a Calvinist was trying to take me to task for titling one of my posts “Jesus was dirty”. He took this as blasphemous. Why would he do so?

The Gnostics had a very warped view of Jesus. The Gnostics had a very interesting view of what “divine” meant. Here is Valentinus:

He was continent, enduring all things. Jesus digested divinity; he ate and drank in a special way, without excreting his solids. He had such a great capacity for continence that the nourishment within him was not corrupted, for he did not experience corruption.

Notice the Gnostic focus on changing the image of Jesus into something more palatable for the Platonistic mindset. To the Gnostic, Jesus was the Messiah and thus did not exhibit the things they saw as degrading. They wished to remake Jesus into a Platonic image; this involved removing the human side of Jesus.

The Gnostics, due to their Platonism, tried to ignore the nature of Jesus (His life, His teachings, what He wore, what He ate, how He lived). Marcion went so far as depicting Jesus as a spirit and attempting to make Jesus not born at all.

But the Bible is clear. Jesus came in the flesh. He was a man. When we try to white wash Him (picturing Him as a clean hippy with conditioned hair and gleaming white teeth) we are buying into the Platonistic mindset. When we do so, we ignore the Biblical point being made. Jesus was a man, experienced our problems, and lived in the real world. He lived through hunger, work, sleep, adolescence, and even bacteria. We should not be distancing Jesus from mankind with our images of earthly physical perfection, especially when He is set as our example.

Posted in Bible, Calvinism, Gnostics, Jesus, People, Theology | Leave a comment

some music

Posted on September 16, 2013 by christopher fisher

Surprisingly my favorite Christian song is one by a pop Christian, tobyMac. The chorus covers one truth that is forgotten in modern Christianity:

 

 

Here is what I consider my theme song: Heretic Pride by the Mountain Goats. Of course, one man’s “Heretic” is another man’s “Orthodox”. The song seems to mirror the death of Stephen. An angry crowd drags a Heretic out and kills him. He endures it and experiences some sort of vision with an understanding a reckoning will occur one day:

 

 

A third song. A Calvinist claimed that some of my titles were blasphemous, such as “Jesus was dirty” (he would rather ignore Jesus’ physical nature). Is this song blasphemous? It might be written tongue-in-cheek or might be taken to read as a polemic against “modern” caricatures of Jesus. It is hard to tell. Blasphemy, like all sin, is based on intent. It does not help that blasphemy does not to seem to have a clear cut definition.

 

 

edit: A fourth song. In this one, apparently based on real events, the singer exhibits hatred of God because his wife and unborn child were killed in a hurricane. This is the consequences of the Calvinist popular portrayal of God:

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low stability theologians

Posted on September 15, 2013 by christopher fisher

In one of my favorite Bryan Caplan posts he contrasts two types of people: people high in stability and those low in stability:

People high in Stability realize that, objectively speaking, life in First World countries is good and getting better all the time. As long as government leaves well enough alone, our problems will take care of themselves.

People low in Stability, on the other hand, habitually blow minor problems out of proportion. Even when they live in First World countries, they manage to convince themselves that the sky is falling. Their typically neurotic response is to beg for Big Brother to save them from their largely imaginary problems. When government solutions don’t work out, they misinterpret it as further proof that life is hopeless – not that their “solutions” were ill-conceived.

Although Caplan is specifically speaking about economics, these categories map nicely to theology. In the book of James, James specifically talks about the double-minded man. That is, the man who believes contradictions (such as Jesus not knowing something yet still being omniscient).

Jas 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Double-mindedness is closely connected with instability. Those who believe contradictory things then tend to react in hysterical (in the sense of hysterics) ways when pressed on their beliefs. It is the nature of the beast.

Some theologians are low in stability. I would mark anyone who reacts in an emotional way to any question or criticism. They tend not to allow for any interpretation or reading of a verse except the one they advocate. They also avoid direct points and try to change subjects when the subject becomes uncomfortable. Those who are high in stability are willing to list out various understandings of texts and be able to identify the most probable interpretation along with other acceptable interpretations.

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the definition of soveriegnty

Posted on September 13, 2013 by christopher fisher

Calvinists love to redefine words such that they do not resemble any human understanding of that word. The world “election” comes to mind. Calvinists say it is nothing we do or say that influences our election. This is not a concept found in any culture but Calvinism. For example, a president has everything to do with whether he is elected or not. Uninfluenced “election” is not a human concept. Here is the main body of an similar point on “sovereignty”:

There is no “sovereignty” in human experience like the “sovereignty” Calvinists insist we must attribute to God in order “really” to believe in “God’s sovereignty.” In ordinary human language “sovereignty” NEVER means total control of every thought and every intention of every subject. And yet it has become a Calvinist mantra that non-Calvinists “do not believe in God’s sovereignty.” I have a tape of a talk where R. C. Sproul says that Arminians “say they believe in God’s sovereignty” but he goes on to say “there’s precious little sovereignty left” (after Arminians qualify it). And yet he doesn’t admit there (or anywhere I’m aware of) that his own view of God’s sovereignty (which I call divine determinism) is not at all like sovereignty as we ordinarily mean it. That’s like saying of an absolute monarch who doesn’t control every subject’s every thought and intention and every molecule in the universe that he doesn’t really exercise sovereignty. It’s an idiosyncratic notion of “sovereignty.”

Posted in Bible, Calvinism, God, Open Theism, Theology | Leave a comment

the simon- ehrlich bet

Posted on September 13, 2013 by christopher fisher

“If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” – Paul Ehrlich, 1971

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich published the book “The Population Bomb”. The first couple sentences of the book set the tone for the entire book:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spiteof any crash programs embarked upon now. (p. xi)

…a minimum of ten million people, most of them children, will starve to death during each year of the 1970s. But this is a mere handful compared to the numbers that will be starving before the end of the century (p. 3)

In hindsight, the claim is ludicrous. Even sites with extreme bias report even now that only 7.5 million die max per year. This is all while food production per capita is rising every year since Ehrlich’s prediction. Ehrlich was making the claim that an increasing population would put increases pressures on the world’s resources leading to these mass catastrophes. He was predicting that a increasing population would destroy the world. In his book he gives three scenarios (imaginative stores meant to scare us about the coming disaster):

The first scenario deals with a president facing political pressure because the amount of food produced is declining at 15% or more per year. A telling statement is uttered by an Ehrlich-friendly character: “The poor slob still thinks politics and economics are more important than ecology.” This results in chemical war that reduces the population drastically.

The second scenario deals with a deadly disease that wipes out large sections of humanity. The world succumbs because people are starving and hungry. The survivors implement “strict population control” as their remedy.

The third scenario describes a case in which strict population control is taken rapidly, averting a total collapse of the world. Although 70 million still die per year due to starvation, the population control averts the worst.

In 2013, it is clear Ehrlich was ludicrous. But in his day, these teachings made him a celebrity.

Of course, while Ehrlich was preaching death and destruction due to increasing population the exact opposite occurred. Human wellbeing skyrocketed. People began living longer, better, happier lives. How was Ehrlich rewarded? A noble prize and academic renown.

Another, lesser known economist, Julian Simon, predicted the exact opposite of Ehrlich. He understood that increasing populations were good. Human ingenuity is the ultimate resource, not soil, oil, and wheat.

In 1980, Simon decided to wager Ehrlich. Of course, Ehrlich would not bet on his actual predictions (such as England not existing in 2000 or mass starvation). Instead they would bet on commodity prices of a select few resources. If the commodities rose in price, they were becoming more scarce. If the commodities dropped in price, they were becoming more abundant. For good measure, Simon allowed Ehrlich to pick the commodities.

Of course all Ehrlich’s predictions failed. If he was an Old Testament prophet, he would have been covered with enough stones to be legally declared a mountain. But tellingly, a bet designed to be very attractive to Ehrlich (in which he was picking the variables) was also one he lost. Ehrlich defenders claim that this is only a coincidence. If the bet dates or timeframe shifts, Ehrlich could have won. Because defenders are ludicrous people, they also point out that Simon did not want to take a followup bet which bet on things like the amount of topsoil in the future (what topsoil has to do with overall wellbeing is beyond me). But what the critics ignore is that is all beside the point. Ehrlich was predicting mass starvation, destruction and death. Even if Ehrlich won by a couple hundred dollars, he still would be ridiculously far from his real predictions.

To top it all off, Ehrlich was militantly wrong and arrogant. He cursed out those who were his ideological opponents, even as their predictions were coming true.

Where is Ehrlich now? He is now a defender of Global Warming alarmism, even as the warming rate has stopped and the ice is increasing in the arctic. Ehrlich’s name appeared in the Climategate leaked emails. This is very telling about the intellectual honesty of Climate alarmists. Where are the bets?

Posted in Economics, Human Nature, Hypocrisy, Leftists, Science, Standard of Living | 1 Comment

paul contradicts the idolaters

Posted on September 12, 2013 by christopher fisher

In this YouTube video, NT Wright has a very interesting section (@12:00 point) in which he identifies Paul’s clear teaching that mankind is made in the image of God:

In every city that Paul visited, he first went to the Jewish places of worship. The Gentiles he ended up proselytizing where those who were “God fearers”, Gentiles studying to convert to Judaism. In Athens, Paul extends his proselytization to the marketplace, possibly because Athens was the premier think-tank of his day. Paul spent his time debating an entire different class of people than his previous ministries. He debated the pagan philosophers, as explained by the video.

Paul enters the city and finds a frightful number of idols. He then explains to the Athenians that they are too superstitious and he was there to explain to them the true God. This speech is very important because in it Paul contrasts the created idols with the true images of God: human beings.

Act 17:27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
Act 17:28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
Act 17:29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.

In verse 29 Paul talks about static materials like stone or gold. Paul then talks about the shape of the idols “man’s devising”. He contrasts that to the living, breathing God of the Bible. How does he do this? In verse 28, he explains that we are the truth image of God and we are living and breathing. Paul argues we are like God because we live and breathe. We live dynamically. Our shape is not devised, but purposefully the image of God. God is shown through us, not the pagan images.

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God is true and faithful

Posted on September 12, 2013 by christopher fisher

One of the primary utterances in the Old Testament about God is his faithfulness. Here is Walter Brueggemann in his Theology of the Old Testament:

Israel’s characteristic adjectival vocabulary about Yahweh is completely lacking in terms that have dominated classical theology, such as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. This sharp contrast suggested that classical theology, insofar as it is dominated by such interpretive categories and such concerns, is engaged in issues that are not crucial for Israel’s testimony about Yahweh and are in fact quite remote from Israel’s primary utterance…

…given the range of recital of adjectives concerning Yahweh in the stylized testimony of Israel, the primary propensity of Israel is to focus on Yahweh’s fidelity, expressed particularly in the terms of merciful, gracious, abounding in steadfast love, and faithfulness…

Israel praises God for being true and faithful. Just their praise for this is evidence that God is not forced to be so. You do not praise a robot for cleaning the floor, the robot had no choice in the matter. Because God is faithful and true, we should praise him for being so.

In 1942, Corrie Ten Boom hid Jews from the Nazis. She then lied to the Nazi’s concerning this action. Does this make Corrie Ten Boom “faithful” or “unfaithful”? Does this make her “true” or “untrue”? She is definitely true and faithful to the Jews she hid, even though she is lying to the Nazis.

God does the same. God tells us about lying to his enemies. He tells us that He first lies to our enemies and then kills them:

Eze 14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

In 1 Kings 22, we see this in action where God lies to 400 false prophets at once:

1Ki 22:23 Therefore look! The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you.”

So is God truth, true, and faithful? Yes. Does God lie to his enemies? The Bible says so.

Posted in Bible, God, Morality, Theology | 1 Comment

omnipotence – full of contradictions

Posted on September 9, 2013 by christopher fisher

In college I sent a copy of a draft manuscript to one Christian girl in order for her review. Being remote, she and I began instant messaging each other about the text of the script. In the text I had challenged the “omnipotence” of God. To this she took offense.

We began the conversation. I asked her if God could make a “square circle, an object having all the properties of a square yet being a circle”. She said “yes, God can do anything”. I asked her if God could make “a rock so big he could not lift it”. She said “yes, God can do anything”. Then I asked her if He then could lift that rock. She then said “yes, God can do anything”. I asked if God could transform Himself in a powerless turtle, in a sense that He retains zero power. She said “yes, God can do anything”. I then asked her if he could turn himself back into God. She said “yes, God can do anything”. Getting frustrated, I remembered that I was talked to a Calvinist and I finally asked “Can God sin?”. She said “no”. She then got angry, unfriended me, and never spoke to me again.

The concept that God can do “anything” is rooted in the pagan notion that God should be defined as the most perfect thing that man can imagine. One of the real problems with this is that values are subjective. If pink was considered the “perfect” color, Calvinists would argue that God was “pink”. It was only because the Platonists valued “immutability”, “timelessness”, “omnipresence” (outside of physical location) that these attributes were later prescribed onto God by the Platonist Early Church Fathers. The Platonist attributes were in vogue, so they were readily adopted by willing accomplices.

But this puts modern Christians in a precarious situation. They not only have to defend those attributes against the text of the Bible, but also against other negative attributes. Because the meaning of “omnipotence” has morphed in Christianity from meaning a “perfect image of power” to “being able to do everything”, Omnipotence has become contradictory to other Platonistic attributes.

Omniscient: Omniscience is the teaching that God knows everything (past, present, and future). If God can do everything then can He limit His knowledge? Can God forget our sin and remember it no more? Can God learn new things (like if Abraham really “feared” God)? Can he create new ideas? If God is omniscient, He is not omnipotent.

Omnipresent: Omnipresence is the teaching that God is everywhere at once. Alternatively, that God is outside of the physical world. If God is everywhere (or nowhere) then can He choose to limit His location? Can God choose not to be somewhere (like Sodom and Gomorrah)? If God is omnipresent, He is not omnipotent.

Immutable: Immutability is the teaching that God cannot change. If God cannot change then can He humble Himself and become a man? Can God change his mind based on the acts of nations? Can God repent of making man and then initiate worldwide destruction? If God is immutable, He is not omnipotent.

The list goes on. Every attribute (real or invented) of God is contradicted by “omnipotence”. How do some Calvinists adapt? They redefine “omnipotence” to say God can do everything that is consistent with his nature. Notice that this is not omnipotence. In this the Calvinists claim that mankind can do a whole host of things that God cannot do.

Man can be temporally located. Man can forget things. Man can change. Man can write new songs. Man can change their minds. Man can sin.

These are possible actions. We see them every day. But the Calvinist says God cannot do the very actions that man does yet God “can do everything”. Everything does not mean everything to the Calvinists. In fact it means that God can do less than what humans can do.

Posted in Bible, Calvinism, God, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience, Open Theism, Theology | 1 Comment

genesis introduces man to God

Posted on September 7, 2013 by christopher fisher

When people pick up a Bible for the first time, they open to Genesis 1:1:

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The first sentence that man reads is an affirmation that God created the world. This is our first glimpse into the nature and character of God. He is a creative God. If anything were to be inherently defining God as “God”, it would be a creation of the universe: God’s opening revelation about Himself.

The next few verses talk about what God creates and how He creates them. He creates various material objects based on unit of time (“days”), He does so with His “words”, and then He follows up an ensures it is “good”. He is very particular in His timing of creation, because the very last thing God creates is man. While no other thing was described in the “image of God”, God chooses to create man “in the image of God”:

Gen 1:27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

God created man in His image. God is not selfish that He wants no other creature to be compared to Him in any sense. Instead, He makes us representative of Him. His purpose is to fellowship with us. This tells us God is relational: we can relate to Him, understand Him, and fellowship with Him.

God then delegates power to man. God is giving up His own power over the animals, as made apparent later in His first action towards Adam. God is not power hungry. He delegates power, power that He then actually allows man to exercise (Gen 2:19). God wants free-will beings. He wants to see how we will act, what choices we will make, and wants to be able to interact with us.

Man is the last of all God’s creation, the pinnacle, after which God declares all things good and chooses to rest.

In Genesis chapter 2, God gives Adam both a rule and activity. He limits Adam in one way and gives him choice in another. God starts by telling Adam that he will die if he eats of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (the Hebrew uses a common double wording emphasis the point that Adam will “die”):

Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
Gen 2:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Some Christians claim this is a spiritual death, but the text indicates the exact opposite. Adam had only this one rule, and the punishment was the ultimate punishment. This is contrasted with eternal life: the reason God excludes Adam from the Garden of Eden. He might “eat of the tree of Life and live forever”.

Right after this, God gives Adam his first task: to name the animals. God explicitly explains why He brings animals to Adam, because He wanted to “see what he would call them”. God’s first task for Adam is God looking to see how his creation acts when given choice. Like a father watching his baby play with new toys, God watches Adam name the animals. It is an exciting narrative, in which the reader can only but feel God’s anticipation:

Gen 2:19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
Gen 2:20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

After this wonderful action of God watching His creation act. Afterwards, He empathizes with Adam. Adam names hundreds or thousands of beautiful and unique animals, but Adam wants something more. He wants another human being with which to relate. God, knowing the feeling Himself, has pity on Adam and makes him a wife. This shows God relationship with man. God does not want to horde man’s affections all to Himself. He wants man to be happy, and God is will to shares Adam’s affections with a new creature who is specifically designed to relate to Adam.

Genesis 2 ends by picturing both man and women in their naïve innocence:

Gen 2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

It is a sad contrast to what will come.

Posted in Bible, Calvinism, God, Human Nature, Open Theism, Theology | 4 Comments