Open Theism

ImagoDei wrote:" If for our benefit as sentient 6 says, then how do we know what else in the Bible is only written for our benefit, and it not to be taken literally. This is a slippery slope, saying that things in the Bible are not literal"


I agree, but one thing about this I find confusing. Jesus is the son of God. Jesus taught using a lot of parables. If a method of explaining things used by Jesus were stories, why should we think that God did not use similar methods throughout the scriptures? Why would God incarnate suddenly change up how he goes about getting certain points across once in the flesh? Could some things be simply too complex for us to grasp, hence a parable? But why only from Jesus but not the Father in say, Genesis?

The passage or the context makes it clear when something is not literal. For example, wisdom personified in Proverbs 8, it is clear metaphor by the words used.

New Creation wrote:

In Exodus 32:10 God tells Moses to leave Him alone, Moses then pleads with Him to remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and so God relents.

You state that this is from a human perspective and it doesn't really mean what it says. If that is true, then how can you trust anything in the Bible? What is your criteria for determining when a passage means what it says and when it doesn't?

I don't have time for a long answer but quickly i'll say this - I believe they mean what they say. But I am not saying they mean that God changes his mind like sinful, fallible humans do. Because we relent and change our minds too. What I am not saying is that Moses was reminding God that he should keep His promises and acting like an advisor to Him. What I am also saying is that intercession is part of Gods divine decree.

New Creation wrote:

But God repented. Now, if you are going to say that He planned to repent, then why did He tell Moses in the first place what He was going to do? If for our benefit as sentient 6 says, then how do we know what else in the Bible is only written for our benefit, and it not to be taken literally. This is a slippery slope, saying that things in the Bible are not literal.

1 Samuel 15:29 - The Glory of Israel will not lie or repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent.


We don't know what is for our benefit or what shapes and molds our faith while we are going through things. We do know what Moses went through and what shaped and molded His faith because we read about His interactions with God. Once again, I guess I am just trying to convey that whatever the Spirit is trying to teach us about these passages, one of them is not that God repents as a man does.

....short answer.

A few verses that have been on my mind since the start of this thread:

Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
- Psalm 139:4

For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
- 1 John 3:20

Would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart.

- Psalm 44:21

Hardcore Christian wrote:A few verses that have been on my mind since the start of this thread:

Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
- Psalm 139:4

For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
- 1 John 3:20

Would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart.
- Psalm 44:21

All beautiful verses.

Psalm 139:4 is beautiful because it shows that God had an intimate relationship with David in such a way that David was entirely predictable. It is a song from David to God, a personal note.

1 John 3:20 does not contradict my teachings. Not once in this thread have I said God does not know everything. What I said was "God knows all that He chooses to know out of what is knowable." He chooses to know the hearts of those that are His.

Psalm 44:21 is also beautiful because it teaches God's discovery. The King James even shows that He searches it out.

We grow in our relationship with Him, and He grows in His relationship with us, not due to lack of maturity on His part, but due to the choices we make which shape who we are and how we will love Him. How much joy does He get when we sing a NEW song unto Him?

d@v!d wrote:I think that a helpful direction for those in this discussion would be to go over and try to agree on the principles of interpretation.

..very true.

ImagoDei wrote:
I agree, but one thing about this I find confusing. Jesus is the son of God. Jesus taught using a lot of parables. If a method of explaining things used by Jesus were stories, why should we think that God did not use similar methods throughout the scriptures? Why would God incarnate suddenly change up how he goes about getting certain points across once in the flesh? Could some things be simply too complex for us to grasp, hence a parable? But why only from Jesus but not the Father in say, Genesis?

I think the texts are clear when there is a historic narrative and when Jesus is using parables, metaphors or figures of speech to drive home a point ( or make sure things are unclear for some of the hearers ).

New Creation wrote:

But God repented.

Did he ? 3000 unbelievers were put too the sword shortly after.

New creation, how much does your view of free will factor into your beliefs about God ? Do you believe in libertarian free will ? The fallen nature of man ? And if so, too what extent ?

New Creation wrote:

All beautiful verses.

Psalm 139:4 is beautiful because it shows that God had an intimate relationship with David in such a way that David was entirely predictable. It is a song from David to God, a personal note.

Is being " predictable " the same as knowing something ?

I believe that God isn't limited by time, I believe He created time itself, because He is eternal. If God were limited by time then we could not have eternal life, because God would not be eternal. God is self-existent, He has no beginning and no end, God just is. Our minds can't comprehend such a thing, God is just that big. Finite minds such as ourselves cannot grasp that which is of an Infinite mind. 


Does anyone remember a number line? It has both positive and negative numbers, positive on the right and negative on the left, with a "0" in the center. Both are represented as infinite and never ending in either direction. Let's make the negative side represent the past, and the positive represent the future, while the "0" will represent the present. And then let's take the entire number line and call it "time".

You can think of time as a number line, with God holding the pencil.

sentient 6 wrote:

ImagoDei wrote:
I agree, but one thing about this I find confusing. Jesus is the son of God. Jesus taught using a lot of parables. If a method of explaining things used by Jesus were stories, why should we think that God did not use similar methods throughout the scriptures? Why would God incarnate suddenly change up how he goes about getting certain points across once in the flesh? Could some things be simply too complex for us to grasp, hence a parable? But why only from Jesus but not the Father in say, Genesis?

I think the texts are clear when there is a historic narrative and when Jesus is using parables, metaphors or figures of speech to drive home a point ( or make sure things are unclear for some of the hearers ).

And the Moses text in Exodus 32 is a historic narrative, not a parable.

sentient 6 wrote:

New Creation wrote:

But God repented.

Did he ? 3000 unbelievers were put too the sword shortly after.

But not all of Israel as God had stated.

sentient 6 wrote:New creation, how much does your view of free will factor into your beliefs about God ? Do you believe in libertarian free will ? The fallen nature of man ? And if so, too what extent ?

Yes, we have libertarian free will. Although that is kind of overstating it. Free will is will that is free. It is libertarian. It is neither known by God ahead of time nor is it determined by God ahead of time.

sentient 6 wrote:

New Creation wrote:

All beautiful verses.

Psalm 139:4 is beautiful because it shows that God had an intimate relationship with David in such a way that David was entirely predictable. It is a song from David to God, a personal note.

Is being " predictable " the same as knowing something ?

No. As I've already shown, not all prophecies come true. I can show more if needed.

Mysterious Gamer Dude wrote:I believe that God isn't limited by time, I believe He created time itself, because He is eternal. If God were limited by time then we could not have eternal life, because God would not be eternal. God is self-existent, He has no beginning and no end, God just is. Our minds can't comprehend such a thing, God is just that big. Finite minds such as ourselves cannot grasp that which is of an Infinite mind. 


Does anyone remember a number line? It has both positive and negative numbers, positive on the right and negative on the left, with a "0" in the center. Both are represented as infinite and never ending in either direction. Let's make the negative side represent the past, and the positive represent the future, while the "0" will represent the present. And then let's take the entire number line and call it "time".

You can think of time as a number line, with God holding the pencil.

Time is not a thing to be created. It has no substance. As stated early on in this thread, it is a measurement. Strictly speaking, it is the measurement between events. Eternity is not the absence of time, it is time eternal. Nowhere in the Bible is it taught that God exists outside of time. In fact, quite the opposite.

I don't believe in future. I don't think there is a future as something that is already existing but yet to come. I don't believe God is able to see in that future because that is just not possible just as it is not possible to have a round square.

That said, I believe in ideas.
I believe every possible future scenario exists as an idea.
I believe God knows absolutely each and every one of them.

I believe the prophets were able to take a peek into those ideas.

I believe some of the future scenarios are things that are bound to happen. Some situations are things that will happen no matter what people do. Sometimes all the possible actions people do will lead into a certain situation. This can be prophecied with 100% accuracy. I believe the death of Jesus Christ on the cross was one of those situations. That whatever people would choose, it would always lead to this certain situation if there would be a man like Jesus around. So as God chose to reveal himself in Jesus at that point in history, it became an idea to be seen by the prophets.


I believe we have free will to do anything we want. I think free will is proven every single time I sin. I'm not going to put blame of my sin to my creator. My sins are something I choose to do, over and over again. Sometimes I feel like there was a sign that I should not take steps towards the sin I'm about to do. And I still do it. If it were a real sign and my sorry ass still didn't follow that sign, wouldn't that also prove we have the choice to follow what we choose? Otherwise, if we didn't have a free will to choose, unfollowed signs like that would've been put into action by God in vain. If God knows we don't follow the sign, why would he make the sign? I believe every unfollowed sign proves free will exists.

I believe God does not know what we will choose, or he chooses to not see what we will do, to let us make our beds, sow our seeds and reap what we sow. He knows what we choose and why we choose but doesn't know what we will choose.
God, however, knows every possible outcome of our actions and he lets us choose our paths freely. He knows the possible outcomes because the ideas of them exist. The actualizations of the outcomes exist only in the moment they happen. They do not exist as something already happened in future, because future does not exist. So, in a way, God at the same time doesn't know what we choose but still knows every possible potential choice we can make and what the results of each of them would be. Therefore he knows everything there is logically possible to know. Knowing the future, however, is in most cases impossible because future does not exist. God doesn't make logically impossible things. He doesn't make square circles.




What comes to time, I believe time is both the measurement between events and the rate of corrosion and change in things (we can also measure). There is no past and there is no future. Time is movement. When time ends, everything becomes changeless for eternity. I believe this is how heaven and hell are eternal. Unclean fallen soul in an endless state of inability to change is surely an intolerable torment. But imagine what a cleansed soul in eternity must be like! Our ability to clean ourselves completely is impossible and this is why Jesus Christ is so important and he is available to each of us, no matter what we have done, where we have been and what our heritage is.



In the scale of 1-100, how big of a herecy I just wrote is?

So what about the Book Of Revelation?

Is it literal? or a parable? figurative?

How did God predict it? if he doesnt know the future?

Is the whole book a prophecy that wont come true?
Why was it left in the Bible if its false? or past the time it was meant to happen in?

Just some questions to throw into the conversation

I think The Book of Revelation with all its symbolism can easily be explained with what I wrote about the nature of "future".

God knows certain things are bound to happen. They are the only possible things at the end of all of the possible paths.

Also, there is of course also the possibility of God choosing to make something happen at a certain point in the existence of his creation. If he has decided to make something happen, then that also is an idea of a future and it's also bound to happen if it's something God absolutely decided to to instead of keeping a few options around.

For example, the end will happen because God made the universe in such a way that it has an end. That is something that can be told by God to happen and can be seen by prophets and it will not change.

The thing about future existing as ideas, and the thing about ideas in general, is that ideas can be understood in literal and figurative and symbolic ways. When someone gets to see the idea, he might understand the idea as an exact same way it physically will happen, but he also might understand the idea in a more symbolic sense where he taps into the core of the idea without being able to see how it actually physically looks like. I'd say that if the revelation could show us the exact future instead of the idea of the future, it would've been written in much more literal approach.

If you saw a box on the table yesterday, it doesn't physically exist in yesterday anymore but it the idea of the box on the table yesterday still exists as an idea.
If you plan to throw a box on the floor tomorrow, the box on the floor tomorrow doesn't physically exist in today, but the box on the floor tomorrow exists as an idea today.
And God knows you had seen the box on the table yesterday. And he knows you plan on throwing the box on the floor tomorrow. And he knows you eventually might not throw it and he knows if there is a potential another situation growing that might stop you from throwing it on the floor (maybe there is a friend planning on visiting you tomorrow).
He perfectly knows everything you have done, everything you plan to do and every possible outcome whether you decided to execute the plan or not. And he allows you to make your own choices. If there is something that every possible path you take leads you on, then that is something that is bound to happen and God could say this is your 100% definite future.

I only have a moment right now, but it is fascinating to have Airola enter the thread and share his views. I disagree that God knows all possible futures. Since future is forever, without end, this means an endless string of possibilities and events. God cannot know this future nor all possible futures since that means He would be thinking forever about forever.

By the way, there is time in Heaven for all who are curious. Revelation 8:1 "...silence in heaven for about half an hour..."

Hardcore Christian wrote:So what about the Book Of Revelation?

Is it literal? or a parable? figurative?

How did God predict it? if he doesnt know the future?

Is the whole book a prophecy that wont come true?
Why was it left in the Bible if its false? or past the time it was meant to happen in?

Just some questions to throw into the conversation

It is literal and God intends for it to happen.

How did God predict it? It's one thing to predict an event or series of events because God knows it will happen. It's another to predict because God makes it happen.

It very well could come true. Some details could change. We shall see!

New Creation wrote:I only have a moment right now, but it is fascinating to have Airola enter the thread and share his views. I disagree that God knows all possible futures. Since future is forever, without end, this means an endless string of possibilities and events. God cannot know this future nor all possible futures since that means He would be thinking forever about forever.

Wow, I hadn't thought about the possibility of a paradox like that. That's a good call.

However, I'm thinking about this in the context of our universe and our physical existence. This world will end at some point. I was thinking about all the possible future events concerning the current human life on this planet. There is not an endless string of possibilities for us as this world and the universe will end at some point. So God would know every possible outcome of every possible choice anyone ever does until the end of the world.

I also believe that God doesn't think in a "timely" manner like we do, or that at least his thinking is way faster than ours. Our thinking speed is reduced greatly by the physical way our brains process the thoughts. Since God doesn't have a physical brain, his mind is faster and sharper than any computer we could ever even imagine existing. I believe God can think of the situation now and the situation 10,000 years from now and every situation in between immediately all at the same time effortlessly. Since God knows where everything exists and he knows our thoughts and what we are doing, his mind can go through the logical conclusions of our actions and he can see the logic in which the possible action would connect with other peoples possible actions.
Note that when we decide to do something, it often makes huge amounts of different possibilities to disappear. It of course also brings forth new possibilities but as each of our lives are limited, the amount of possible futures for each of us gets smaller and smaller, therefore the amount of God's thoughts about possible futures also get smaller and smaller,

Airola wrote:I also believe that God doesn't think in a "timely" manner like we do

So how is God limited inside of time?

If time is just a measurement created by man, hence the future is a time created by man

Why is God limited to not knowing the future?

If he exists outside of our time, how does He not know the future

All in all, having God be limited by time, just limits His character and who He is
I don't understand how you can believe He doesn't know the future when all it does is limits God's character, it restricts who He is

When in reality He is way bigger and greater than anything we can even imagine

Airola wrote:

New Creation wrote:I only have a moment right now, but it is fascinating to have Airola enter the thread and share his views. I disagree that God knows all possible futures. Since future is forever, without end, this means an endless string of possibilities and events. God cannot know this future nor all possible futures since that means He would be thinking forever about forever.

Wow, I hadn't thought about the possibility of a paradox like that. That's a good call.

However, I'm thinking about this in the context of our universe and our physical existence. This world will end at some point. I was thinking about all the possible future events concerning the current human life on this planet. There is not an endless string of possibilities for us as this world and the universe will end at some point. So God would know every possible outcome of every possible choice anyone ever does until the end of the world.

I also believe that God doesn't think in a "timely" manner like we do, or that at least his thinking is way faster than ours. Our thinking speed is reduced greatly by the physical way our brains process the thoughts. Since God doesn't have a physical brain, his mind is faster and sharper than any computer we could ever even imagine existing. I believe God can think of the situation now and the situation 10,000 years from now and every situation in between immediately all at the same time effortlessly. Since God knows where everything exists and he knows our thoughts and what we are doing, his mind can go through the logical conclusions of our actions and he can see the logic in which the possible action would connect with other peoples possible actions.
Note that when we decide to do something, it often makes huge amounts of different possibilities to disappear. It of course also brings forth new possibilities but as each of our lives are limited, the amount of possible futures for each of us gets smaller and smaller, therefore the amount of God's thoughts about possible futures also get smaller and smaller,

We will make decisions in heaven and we will be no less real then than we are now. The implications still arise.

Hardcore Christian wrote:

Airola wrote:I also believe that God doesn't think in a "timely" manner like we do

So how is God limited inside of time?

If time is just a measurement created by man, hence the future is a time created by man

Why is God limited to not knowing the future?

If he exists outside of our time, how does He not know the future

All in all, having God be limited by time, just limits His character and who He is
I don't understand how you can believe He doesn't know the future when all it does is limits God's character, it restricts who He is

When in reality He is way bigger and greater than anything we can even imagine

Man did not create the measurement of time. Time is the distance between two or more events. It applies to all beings, whether they be physical or spiritual. If the Father tells the Holy Spirit "I love you", how much time does that take? It takes some length.

He does not exist outside of our time, he exists inside of time right along with us. Time is not a prison, it is simply a duration. People can measure it how they want.

You say that not knowing the future limits God. That's like saying that God is limited because he can't go to a place that doesn't exist.

Also, Bob Enyart has been a personal friend for about 18 years. If you have not watched this debate yet, you'll want to. It's a very good one.

New Creation wrote:Man did not create the measurement of time. Time is the distance between two or more events. It applies to all beings, whether they be physical or spiritual. If the Father tells the Holy Spirit "I love you", how much time does that take? It takes some length.

He does not exist outside of our time, he exists inside of time right along with us. Time is not a prison, it is simply a duration. People can measure it how they want.

You say that not knowing the future limits God. That's like saying that God is limited because he can't go to a place that doesn't exist.

But doesn't He actually exist outside of time? Because He has no beginning and no end? There wasnt an event A or B when He was created because He never was created

Unless Him never having a beginning is defined as a moment in time to you?

And where in the Bible does it say that Time applies to all physical and spiritual beings?

How would The Trinity or anything spiritual be restricted by time? Where does it say that?

The thing with the Bible is it leaves many things open to the imagination when it comes down to God's power, because we can never and will never be able to fathom it

Hardcore Christian wrote:

Airola wrote:I also believe that God doesn't think in a "timely" manner like we do

So how is God limited inside of time?

If time is just a measurement created by man, hence the future is a time created by man

Why is God limited to not knowing the future?

If he exists outside of our time, how does He not know the future

All in all, having God be limited by time, just limits His character and who He is
I don't understand how you can believe He doesn't know the future when all it does is limits God's character, it restricts who He is

When in reality He is way bigger and greater than anything we can even imagine

No, I believe future does not exist at all. There's nothing to see in future because there isn't a future. All that is, is now.
Being outside of our time is being outside of physical change and corrosion. Time is not a dimension. You can calculate the "distance" between two events by measuring values and numbers. That "distance" is something we can associate with time. But even if we can measure the distance between those two events and we can even calculate other events with the knowledge of that, those events do not physically exist anywhere.

Speed affects time, yes. But it doesn't mean we can "time travel" with enough speed. It's just that speed affects molecyles and atoms etc in a manner that makes them move, change and corrode at another pace. That's why with enough speed a person might sense time passing very differently from how people who are not going that speed sense. Speed affects our brains. That's also why if you would send a clock move extremely fast it would show different time than what a clock that is not in that speedy journey would show. It doesn't mean the clock has broken into time dimension and it's not a proof of a time travel of any sort. It just shows that the combinations of atoms that make clock a clock are affected by speed in a manner that it makes those atoms move and change at a different pace.

Future does not exist but ideas of future do exist. Logical conclusions of what future might hold exist. When God has made a certain idea of a certain event and has decided that it will happen, then it will happen unless he changes his mind. He wouldn't be able to give us free will if all events in future already physically exist in some "timely" dimension and if those event would be bound to happen no matter what. But because future does not exist, we can have free will.

When we dream, the things in our dreams do not physically exist, but they are ideas that are so vivid we sometimes think a dream we see is physically real. It feels so real. It looks so real. The things in our dreams don't physically exist, but the ideas in our dreams exist. A prophecy is a kind of a dream. It is an idea of future. When it comes from God it is not just a dream but it's a peek into the potential future God knows can happen in his all-knowingness. And sometimes it's a peek into the only possible future which is either caused by our actions being such that no else future can happen in any of the combinations of actions, or it's a future God has decided to make happen.

For example, before Jesus, there in theory was a potential future without Jesus. But God knew that letting Jesus happen in that exact moment in that exact place would be the best option to make his initial plan to happen with still letting us have our free will. He knew all the possible futures with and without Jesus and saw which would be the time and place for Jesus. Note that those futures didn't actually physically exist anywhere, but they were ideas and logical conclusions to a huge amount of combinations of actions. God doesn't gamble when he has the knowledge of every possible resolution to every possible combination of actions. It doesn't make him less powerful, but it makes him the absolutely most powerful being there can logically be. I mention logic here because we can't say God does logically impossible things, like if he suddenly makes a square circle. That is just a combination of words and the actualization of that combination is impossible. If future doesn't exist, then an actual future physically existing somewhere is impossible too and God won't do anything about it because it's not a thing that is, just as God won't do anything for square circles because they also are not things that are.

New Creation wrote:We will make decisions in heaven and we will be no less real then than we are now. The implications still arise.

I'm not sure if there is anymore a reason to know the possible future events in heaven as it is the most perfect place imaginable.

New Creation wrote:

Hardcore Christian wrote:

Things I have to ask you as well, Adam is:

How did God plan for the Messiah if He didn't know man was going to sin? Yet Christ was at Creation? (In the beginning was the Word)

How did God give prophecies in the Old Testament if he was just guessing? What if he got one wrong, wouldnt He then be a liar?

Not all prophecies came true. Would you like examples?

Ok well thats a whole other discussion, anyway

No, it's central to this discussion. Prophecies fail because people change. Look at Nineveh. God said it would be destroyed and it was not.

I don't think what happened with Ninevah is a failed prophecy.  It's similar to if I said to my kid "I'm going to send you to your room for not cleaning the house".  The kid could apologize, and if I wanted to, out of mercy and compassion, not send him to his room.  Would that make me inconsistent and a person who doesn't keep my word because I relented?  I would sure hope not.  If that is the case with us, we shouldn't think that if God relents, it somehow makes his prophecy false.  Jonah's words to Ninevah were not a prophecy in the sense that as soon as the words left his lips, they can't be reversed, and no matter what anybody did, it couldn't be changed.  They were simply a warning.

God makes it very clear about stuff like this in Jeremiah 18:

"If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted,10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it." (Jeremiah 18:7-11)

sentient 6 wrote:An infallible God was corrected by his fallible creature ? God was acting impulsively and Moses showed Him a better way ? I think what is more consistent with what is revealed about God is that God is showing that intercession is part of His plan and will. That this is merely another instance were God has chosen to have His servants to be part of His plans. That this was more for Moses as a spiritual leader than it was for God. God knew what He would do all along, but what we see is His plans being acted out in time and set course of events. 

I very much agree.  It's somewhat similar to the story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.  Some people could argue God was being deceptive to Abraham by telling him to go do something (and even, imagine it, sinning by telling him to kill his own son), and then later telling him to not do it.  But is that really the case?  Or did God use it for a much bigger purpose and reason?  What happened in the story was a foreshadow in a sense that God would provide his Son Jesus for a sacrifice.  I'm guessing most people didn't make that connection of the deeper meaning until after Jesus was given as the sacrifice many centuries later.  Only after they saw what happened with Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, would the deeper meaning of that story be known.  

We know so little compared to the infinite wisdom and purposes of what God does.  Just like God wasn't deceiving Abraham, the same can be said that God was not relenting with Moses just because he changed his mind.  There is a much deeper meaning to it than that.  What sentient 6 said about showing that intercession is a major part of his plan and will, I think is a major key to understanding why it happened this way with Moses.