Well, I might as well answer the rest of the questions posted by David Field on this website:
2. Can you conceive of God being unwise?
The problem with this question is that is assumes our “wants” and “desires” can dictate God’s essential attributes. The only essential attribute of God is the definition of who/what God is: “the creator of the universe”. There is no further “essential” characteristics than that, despite what we perceive as the “best” god we can conjure up. Luckily, the true God (the God of the Bible) is wise.
3. Where in Scripture did you get the idea that a certain formulation of ‘freedom’ is the paramount value to God?
Rephrased: where in the Bible do we get the idea that God values a love relationship over all things? Try the central message of the Bible:
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
If God knows the future, that means the future is set. Before the beginning of the world, each man’s actions have been known. Man can no more choose to love God than a robot can choose to violate its coding. For love to work it needs a give and take relationship. God laments throughout the Bible that people reject him. God is hurt by our rejection. He asks, “what more could I do?”. These are not the actions of a stone idol that never changes, these are the actions of a living God:
Isa 5:4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
God wants a love relationship with man.
4. How do you decide on interpretation?
Above all, common sense should trump. The interpretation should be consistent with the character of God and the nature of God, while controlling for speakers, audiences, and figures of speech. So, quoting Job’s “friends” on the nature of God, as I have seen Calvinists do, is not valid. When Norman Geisler quotes Exo 3:14 “I AM WHO I AM”, and then claims this shows God’s “aseity”, he should be ignored for pulling nonsense out of thin air. I am sure Moses took that to mean obscure Greek metaphysical concepts.
5. Where in Scripture did you get your definition of ‘relationship’? …That is a far cry from demonstrating that the relationship between one who is the infinite creator of time and one of his time-bound creatures must necessarily take the same form.
There are a lot of things in the Bible that the Bible does not self-define (even if the Bible did self-define everything it would be cyclical thinking because the words in the definitions would have to be defined as well). Calvinists think that they alone are the soul arbitragers of words in the Bible. If God repents, they say he did the exact opposite (he didn’t repent), even through when humans repent (using the same Hebrew word), they claim us as flawed creatures.
Due to the fact that “creator of time” is a non-concept, similar to a “square circle”, the question borders on absurdity. He should rephrase it: “Why should Christians not scrap in total, everything we know about relationships and instead claim that a relationship can be held with a static (“dead”) god?”
If God is a liar, and Calvinists often portray him as such, then when he speaks to us in our language he might mean something, not only radically different, but often completely opposite of the words he uses. God is not a liar and his words are true.
Instead God consistently defines himself by his relationships (relationships he describes in detail). He is the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. He talked to them, debated with them, led them through character tests. God is not a static and dead god of the pagans.
6. Do you think that God is in time and will one day have more knowledge, greater wisdom and fewer disappointments than he does now? So that God is not now what once he was, not now what he one day will be, does not have the entirety of his life now and is dependent upon his relationship with creation to arrive at fullness of Godhood?
This is another loaded and inane question. One of the major problems with Calvinists is that they see themselves as some sort of initiated seers (much like the Greek Mystery cults that Calvinism is based on). As such, they like to assume disputed propositions to be true before the debate begins. Their questions read like self-praising and snobbish rubbish.
Ask the Calvinist: Will Jesus reach his full Godhood potential when he learns when the end of times will be? (Mar 13:32)
Calvinism is so utterly foreign to the Bible, that it boggles the mind. Jesus was God. Jesus did not know everything. Having “complete” knowledge is not the pinnacle of being, but something to be despised (see my previous post).
7. How do you know that God won’t ‘take a turn for the worse’?
In response, how do you know God is not a master liar? How do you know that reality is not an elaborate trick and all your concepts of God are not a God-made cosmic joke. I guess we will just have to take God’s word for it.
8. Were the Greek fathers unbiblical?
I will have to defer until I post an extended thesis on the matter. The Fathers of the Christian Church were demonstratively ingrained in Greek platonic/mystery thinking, a thinking Paul mocks (see Col).
9. What is your relationship between theology and culture? Why… are you so uncritical of the relationship between your theological endeavour and the culture of your own day?
The question being asked is another loaded question with no real answer. The reason Open Theists care more about what the Church Fathers’ pagan views, is because that is what shaped the modern Church.
I want to be intellectually honest. To do so, I must take the Bible at face value. Why would I do this when modern most Christians/Atheists/etc discount me as a radical nut job (aka modern culture rejects me) unless I am in pursuit of the truth? If anything, modern culture pushes for the static god of Plato.
10. Who keeps moving?
A lot of truck drivers keep moving. Astronauts and other pilot types keep moving. David Field has run out of questions and instead wants to be nutty.
He seems to want to make a point in the guise of a question. He asks about Clark Pinnock. Although I own one of Pinnock’s books, I have never cracked it open. I know practically nothing about the man. I wish Calvinists would be more forthright in their points and actually ask questions instead of taking cheap shots.
11. The best language? Do you regret the language in which you describe the God whom countless brethren of yours claim to adore and serve
Human language is an odd phenomenon. Words easily become perverted when used by the evil. “Liberal” and “gay” do not mean what they used to, neither does “predestination“, “foreknowledge”, and “almighty”.
Do I regret that evil people have hijacked the Church and daily profane God? Yes.
12. Can God deliver on his promises?
When God says he will save those who believe, how can anyone possibly thwart him? When God makes a promise, partially based on human behavior and capibility (such as when God told Nebuchadnezzar he would take Tyre), it might no pan out. But if God really wanted to fulfill his non-dependent promises, who could stop Him?
13. Has God withdrawn from a part of life?
God no longer has a priest nation, whose destiny he is actively seeking to sculpt. If that means he withdrew, then yes.
14. How do you care pastorally for those in pain?
I tell them God is not a sadist and he did not inflict pain on you so you could learn some unidentifiable thing that would be unnecessary if he never inflicted pain on anyone.
15. What is your teaching about prayer? How do you know, when God doesn’t answer your prayers whether this is because he lovingly won’t answer or because he disappointingly can’t answer?
To Calvinists, they see prayer as a medium of getting things, much like a giant vending machine. In reality, prayer is talking to God, our creator. We should pray to praise him, ask for blessings, and thank him for salvation. Asking for our wishes to be granted, especially outrageous wishes, is a foolhardy pursuit.
As to unanswered prayers. When we pray, we need to steer clear of asking for the impossible (eg. asking that God force people to love him) and that for which there is no reasonable expectation that God would fulfill (eg. one million dollars). We should definitely not feel slighted if God does not fulfill a request for which he has no obligation (eg. heal cancer).
Why do Calvinists pray? Is it to fulfill a meaningless gesture that has no relevance to anything? They probably like voting in American elections as well.
That concludes this set of loaded, inane, and generally incomprehensible questions. A strong theme surrounding questions that Calvinists ask is that they do not reference the Bible, ask for answers concerning Bible verses, or have anything to do with the written word of God. It is almost like Calvinism is a pagan religion.
reality is not optional 