It's perplexing to me how Calvinist's don't trust God not to sin, unless he is bound by something other than His will to do right. I think of this as pirates of the caribbean theology (there is always some greater power).
Love that observation it Ihc! Thank you! Calvinists in debate with us, including Matt Slick and D. James Kennedy's prof. of New Testament Dr. Samuel Lamerson, say that if God is free, then they couldn't trust Him. They could only trust Him, they say, shockingly, IF He has no choice in these matters. However, God demonstrated His love toward us by sacrificing His Son (Rom. 8:5) and His faithfulness is an ability, not an inability.
UreaSmith if you listened to the debate you would not think it was silly. In the context of the debate it is a valid comment. Matt Slick repeatedly questioned Gods commitment to righteousness if He was not bound by His decree. You may not think this way, but Mr. Slick does.
UreaSmith as Will pointed out in the debate what would God have to gain by trading away His freedom? Besides all that do you really think life is a big roose? We are really just acting out a script?
The arrogance of Matt Slick is really off-putting. If a doctrine doesn't make you more like Jesus, it's time to re-think your doctrine. Love the gentle, unassuming demeanor of Will Duffy!
When Calvinists say (like at 1:45:43) that the God of Open Theism isn't a God of Hope it is very upsetting. You believe in a god who damns billions of people to hell before they're even born, then say he's a god of hope?! What about those billions of people who go to hell without ever having had the chance to be saved??
I love how Matt Slick says "insults are not a part of this" after literally mocking and insulting will multiple times in the first two hours. His arrogance and blindness are astounding.
Great point about patience and being slow to anger requiring duration! Long-suffering requires a timeline! A timeless God cannot have the attributes of the God of the Bible.
OAO, he may see it himself but if not, I'll pass along your encouragement to Will Duffy. Yes, as will quoted in the debate from opentheism.org/verses ... 3 - God has qualities that can only be had if He exists in time, like patience, slow to anger, and hope. Patience: 1 Peter 3:20; Ex. 34:6; Num. 14:18; Neh. 9:30; Ps. 86:15; Rom. 2:4; 9:22; 1 Tim. 1:16; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 3:9, 15; Jer. 15:15; and "God is Love" 1 John 4:8, 16 and "Love is patient" 1 Cor. 13:4 and He is "the God of patience" Rom. 15:5 etc. Endurance: God endured His people’s cries Luke 18:7; the wicked Rom. 9:22; hostility Heb. 12:3; the cross Heb. 12:2 Slow to anger and long-suffering: Neh. 9:17; Ps. 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nah. 1:3; Sustain emotion: I will not remain angry forever Jer. 3:12 Faithfulness: from everlasting to everlasting He endures in faithfulness for He is "the faithful God" Deut 7:9; possessing great faithfulness Lam. 3:23; Ps. 36:5; 37:3; 71:22; Ps. 89:24; God's faithfulness is not an inability (because He cannot change) but an ability (which He must actively maintain) Ps. 89:33; 92:2; 98:3; 119:75; 119:90; 143:1; Isa. 11:5; 25:1; Hos. 2:20; Hope: for hope that is seen is not hope, yet God hopes Romans 8:24 & 15:13 (and all the “expectation” verses like Isa. 5:1-4; Jer. 3:7; Zeph. 3:7; Jer. 18) [See more at that link; this page is being maintained and updated as time permits and more and more scriptures added.]
Matt slick: No offense (after being offending) I’m not evading the question ( while constantly evading the question pretending he doesn’t understand) Matt slick is super arrogant acting like he is the teacher and his opponent is a dumb student. And even not letting him answer telling him what the real answer is. Matt slick wants to pastorally correct his opponent but how can he when his opponent was predestined to believe this?
When debating Calvanists it’s important to get them to admit that God cause all murders, rapes, disease, pain suffering, destruction, etc. Calvanists beleive that God causes all murder, rape, pain, suffering, etc. Causing all sin is sining.
Hi Paul! A Calvinists commenter here, Charlie Ray, responded to you agreeing that from the Calvinist persepctive (and with Ray being rather honest about this), "God causes all the evils in the world." And then he added, "God cannot sin." It's revealing that those of us who say that God is good by an exercise of His will, freely, voluntarily, teach that God is NOT the source of evil, and so many of those who teach that God cannot sin also teach that He decrees all sin (as did kgov.com/Calvin himself).
It was hard to listen to Slick dump lists of text with no context and basically assert "I win" or quote a text, demand his opponent to accept it without qualifying it first and then accuse his opponent of rejecting the word of God.
@@cranmer1959 Yes, as do, I assert, all Calvinists. Slick just happens to be one of the more influential Calvinists in the world right now, because of his years of online CARM work. (Charlie, we've been podcasting consistently since the 1990s, and that's a major reason who our kgov.com theologythursday.com and rsr.org are so fabulously discoverable via online searches and why we've been able to reach so many thousands of unbelievers with the Gospel and Christians with a stronger biblical worldview.)
Overall, I was a little disappointed with the debate. Matt Slick has talked down to people every time I've seen him. That get's old fast. So does his barrage of proof-texting. I can understand why Will's focus was on the freedom of God, but that's probably not where I would have focused. Immutability is an important doctrine in this debate, obviously, but the distinction between strong and weak immutability wasn't very clearly drawn. In other words, God's character and nature were defended by both Will and Matt (that's weak immutability), but strong immutability is what Slick is forced to defend. That is, God cannot change in anyway, and knowledge, to Slick, constitutes a change. While I agree with Will that perfection does not necessarily imply immutability, gaining knowledge hardly implies a fundamental change to ones character, nature, or even essence. In fact, I think it's an absurd idea that demonstrably false. For example, I would ask him something like, "Did you know that my mom is a nurse?" Gaining the knowledge that my mom is a nurse does not change anyones essential nature. You don't suddenly become inhuman for having gained some knowledge. So this idea of God's knowledge is really central to this debate. God's freedom is obviously very important, but I would personally not go so far as to say that God can sin, no more than I would say that God can make a rock so heavy he can't move it, or a one ended stick or...take your pick. I don't think God can act against his nature. However, I do think Will was right (at least, I'm leaning this way) in that Jesus' human nature had the ability to sin. After all, that was the risk God took in the incarnation; it really did cost him! And after all, Satan certainly did think Jesus could sin, or else why tempt him? Determinism? In response to the "communication of attributes" argument, I would want to know why the divine nature of holiness necessarily overrides the human nature of freedom to sin. I suppose one could argue that, of course, God's nature overrides the human nature. But that seems to be more of an emotional argument than actually stating anything philosophically substantive, let alone actually getting any of this from the Bible itself. Another distinction that I thought was fair to draw but was hardly an equivocation was on God's ability. Matt was actually trying to create a distinction that Will was not trying to conflate. The sense in which Matt denied God's ability to, say, create a new decree or think a new thought was just (if not near enough) the sense in which Will meant it. The power of God is assumed by the question. The question was about the freedom of God. Will, I wish you'd noticed that and told him to answer the question. The interesting thing is that Matt actually fell into the muck there. Later, when he chastised Will for saying God could sin but does not, he became the pot calling the kettle black. Think about it. In one part of the debate he said that God has the power to make new decree but would not do so because of he is true to his decree, basically, his integrity. (I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but that's the gist.) Is that not essentially what Will's argument is? Except it's to say that God has the freedom to choose to be unrighteous but remains righteous because of his character and so on. I just thought that was interesting. Really, that pot calling the kettle black instance draws out, again, the difference between strong and weak immutability. So overall, I wish it had been a more interesting debate. Instead, I feel like Matt was condescending-no surprise there. I appreciate Will being able to stay cool. My comments are in no way a slam on Will's ability to think on his feet. I had plenty of time to think about it. Thanks for reading my comment.
Philip, many great insights. But let me challenge your claim above, about sin. Love must be freely given. That means that for one to be able to love, he must be able to withhold that love, that is, he must be able to hate. God loves. And His love too must be freely given. Otherwise it would not be love. The Father loves the Son freely. That means that he could withhold that love. He does not love the Son by any inevitability but by His choice. Likewise, God is faithful. His faithfulness is not an inability but an ability. Finally, as exposed by the Calvinist who can only trust God's decreee but not God Himself, likewise, there is no need to fear God being free, even when it comes to love.
Bob Enyart, thanks for the response. I definitely see where you’re coming from, and I think it’s a reasonable argument. It’s not something I would just dismiss out of hand like Mr Slick. In part, I wonder if it’s a case of saying the same thing on different ways. I thought that while watching the debate. What I mean is that Will or you might say God chooses to remain faithful, but behind that is a deep and abiding trust in who God is. And so God never will betray our trust. Slick says he can’t. And behind that is more of a metaphysical view of God’s essence and all that. So there is a distinction, but even Slick would ultimately have to say it’s because of who God is. So there maybe some nuances in there, but there’s also some common ground to explore. Personally, I don’t think God will ever betray our trust because of who he his, and his character is such that he cannot be anything but who he is. I would also push back on the way in which you argue for this idea and that is by logical inference. For God to truly love, he must be able to hate. It sounds reasonable, but I don’t think it can’t be stated as a self-evident maxim. I actually believe that love and goodness can exist by virtue of its own existence. In that sense, hate is the absence of love, so conceptually hate requires the possibility of love, but not the other way around. Incidentally, I think it’s God’s love and justice that removes his love from some who don’t want God’s love. Also, I want to see some argument from scripture for the idea that love requires the possibility of hate. My initial thoughts would be that “God is Love” is what scripture says. He does love, but that’s because he is love. I would say that God is free in many ways. For instance, He’s not bound by time, but by that I mean he’s not stuck in some weird eternal stasis that only exists in the minds of philosophers. So in that sense, I agree God is free to think a new thought or write a new song. I would also say I’m on the fence about the impeccability of Christ. My initial study into it left me feeling like that doctrine is not very well supported. So that opens up an interesting can of worms. Anyway, I’d like to hear your thoughts on what I said about gaining knowledge implying a change in nature. It honestly only occurred to me a couple weeks ago, and I really felt like it was something so simple and yet so often overlooked. I’m sure objectors will bring up passages like Hod is perfect in knowledge, but generally speaking those passages seem to be more qualitative than quantitative. Last thing, I hope my comment about being disappointed didn’t come off too harshly. I know a lot of work went into this debate, and that’s something I really appreciate. I just wish these debates were more productive. A lot of my disappointment comes from the antagonistic nature of it. It’s cordial, but there’s very little depth. I also don’t really like the cross examination. It turns into a game of trapping each other with loaded questions. It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback, but hopefully those are some constructive criticisms.
Thanks again Philip for sharing some great thoughts. Yes, of course you are correct: gaining knowledge does not fundamentally affect one's character/nature/essence, yet as you said, Calvinists [and many Arminians] argue that God is utterly immutable, such that if He were to gain ANY knowledge (including opentheism.org/experiential-knowledge ) that would break Him, because "anything perfect cannot change". But Baby Jesus was perfect in every way while His body changed each moment and while His Person grew in wisdom and knowledge and in "favor with" the Father. God's creation was perfect. (Can a Calvinist say otherwise, as though God couldn't or wouldn't create perfectly?) Of course the perfect physical creation changed as each fish swam and bird flew. Plato typically made an assertion and in dialgoue woud then defend it with evidence. But not with his claim that "anything perfect cannot change". That he merely asserted. He didn't know that the perfect God the Son would become flesh, and apparently overlooked that perfect acorns become oaks (whereas an imperfect one might forever remain an acorn). A stone idol is impeccable, impassable, and immutable in that it cannot sin, emote, or change. These are standard "settled view" quantitative attributes (see opentheism.org/attributes ) whereas the five primary biblical attributes of God are opentheism.org/qualitative. Here's where we may differ Philip, when you write that God's "character is such that he cannot be anything but who he is." You can take away a man's freedom but not his free will. A will cannot be constrained in any way. For example, Satan wills to be God Isaiah 14:14. Man wills to be God. Some "will" to defeat God or to make Him "cease" Isa. 30:11 and desist. Some men "will" even that they did not exist, that the universe does not exist, and that God did not exist or could be obliterated. No other greater counterfactual things could be "willed" than these. Similarly extreme, but in righteousness, God the Son (Jesus) willed that Israel would turn to Him (Luke 13:34) and God the Father wills that all would be saved (1 Tim. 2:4; the Greek uses 'thelo', strong word for "will"; resolved, determined, purpose, intend). Of course we all influence one another and our commitments influence the exercising of our wills. Nothing, however, can actually constrain our willing or God's willing. At this point, people not accustomed to thinking such thoughts will conflate will with ability. But that's confusion and sometimes obfuscation. So God is righteous by His will. A will is an ability to decide. And God has demonstrated His love toward us (and the Son's love for the Father) in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). God loved those who hated Him, and those who continue to hate Him. For God so loved the world. Thus, He sought a counterfactual relationship, which He mostly was unable to bring about (for "they limited the Holy One of Israel" Ps. 78:41), and He still seeks such a relationship with each of the unbelievers currenly on the Earth. However, like the wicked who will/desire counterfactually, God's desire, that is, His will, to love and be loved, by those who hate Him, was not constrained as He reached out to them. As a result, we trust Him not because of any inability but because of His ability, willingness, and faithfulness. As you mentioned logical inference and whether or not it is self-evident that "love must be freely given", I think Philip that these examples suffice to prove that "will" is not constrained and cannot be constrained. Realizing then that love is a choice; that is, that love is a commitment (to the good of another), we can know that love is a particular kind of exercising of the will, and that therefore, love must be free because the will cannot be actually constrained. Finally, I for one was thankful to read your constructive criticism and get your assessment. If the world were still perfect, this debate wouldn't occur. In our temporarily imperfect world, debates often can make stepwise progress. We're confident that history was made. The 2-minute "aftermath" video ruclips.net/video/zLiPpcqSKVQ/видео.html of my debate with James White, in which White and R.C. Sproul Jr. both startlingly denied that God the Son took upon Himself a human nature, was a testament to our argument's strength that the Incarnation proves that God exists in time. (Just Google: Is God outside of time. Google answers: "Not according to the Bible." :) Popular Calvinist theologian Matt Slick watched that debate and read our others preparing to debate Will Duffy. During a 2-week period, he made major concessions to open theism and announced in the debate that "He [no longer] says that God is outside of time", and [now admits] that God experiences sequence. These are major developments as we press our perspective, that open theism is not based on man's freedom but on God's.
Matt always compared God's foreknowledge to us knowing the sun will rise tomorrow. We know the sun will rise tomorrow based on our understanding of celestial mechanics and because it has risen every other day. That is to say, we know the sun will rise tomorrow because of induction. So Matt seems to be proposing God reasons inductively, which undermines his omnipotence. It's just a bad analogy.
At our BEL RUclips channel we moderate comments to keep the threads on topic whereas many folks try to change the topic to their own favorite issues. So here's the first part of a great comment that came in today that then went off topic: "No question that Will won this debate. Matt could not answer the simplest of questions and many times intentionally distracted from the topic. Also there seems to be a pattern emerging in these free will debates where the Calvinists Matt Slick/James White/Zacharaides/Hernandez are aggressive, arrogant, egotistical, proud, incoherent and the other part are calm and logical."
Here's my favorite issue: God is eternally unchanging. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Tim. 1:17 KJV)
Slick again took a page from the James White "guilt by association fallacy" playbook and used the word "Mormonism" about 100 times in the debate against an open theist. It's always humorous to hear someone like Matt Slick claim to know something about Calvinism by pompously stating he's studied it for 3 decades and yet completely show his ignorance of John Calvin's own writings. "Hence we maintain that, by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined." John Calvin, Inst. I.16.8. That's not anti-Calvinist fatalism detractor talk....that's a quote from the man for whom your theology is named. If everything that comes to pass has been meticulously decreed by God (an assertion lacking biblical verses) such that it could not come to pass any differently than what God has foreordained, then there is no way out of the fatalism box. Calvinists routinely affirm that God's will is ALWAYS done. If God's will is always done, then man can not but do God's will. Therefore events and actions are necessary and immutable. There could not be any freedom of a will or act by man that runs contrary to what God meticulously ordained in his eternal decree. THAT IS FATALISM. An individual eternally predestined to be reprobated in an unconditional decree cannot avoid reprobation. THAT IS FATALISM. If the choice of socks an individual wears each morning has already been determined for him in an eternal decree then he doesn't choose his socks but God chooses his socks. He can't choose against what God has decreed for him to do. THAT IS FATALISM. "The hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it superintends external actions; nor would God have effected by the hand of man what he decreed, unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted." John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God (tr. J. K. S. Reid) (London, 1961)175f.
Hello Acts 17:11. Glad to make your acquaintance. Along those lines, we're creating a response to that accusation at opentheism.org/mormonism. Just fyi.
1711 ( hey, at least your username isn't 1611, as in kgov.com/kjo ) thanks for that quote from Calvin. Will Duffy and I did a radio show and provided an online list of all such quotes from Calvin's chapter 18, at kgov.com/calvinism. We're adding your quote to that page. Thanks again!
If calvanist really believe what they say why would they even engage with others since nothing can change what has been predestined? It doesnt seem consistent. It is a very sad and hopeless doctrine.
calvinists prove they use their philosophy as the authority and not the bible, by not ever being able to answer a question without jumping through 45 hoops while tip toeing around the hedges.
Hey guys! Questions that have helped to focus discussion after the debate include: Does the Father love the Son freely? Must love be free? Is love an exercise of the will? Can anything constrain a will? When we love someone, isn't it really that person's "will" that we are loving? Is the will the core attribute of a sentient being? Was Christ's temptation real?
Exactly, it's really irritating when someone gets away with such an obvious attempt to evade a question. Whenever cornered by a scripture that contradicts your claims, just call it a figure of speech - problem solved!
Totally irrelevant, but Jason it cracks me up at 11:53 that you look like a really small person standing on Matt's laptop - that super-wide angle webcam is doing some funny things in that shot!
The arrogant demeanor, the disrespectful attitude, the dishonest debate techniques, and the constant accusations towards Will Duffy while doing the same thing he's accusing him of, was completely out of bounds by Matt Slick for what was suppose to be a respectful debate. It was hard to watch Matt throughout the entire debate. Even if he was right (not saying he was) it wouldn't matter to most people because no one would want to spend time talking to Matt. Ugh......... That was hard to sit through without wanting to hit Matt through the screen.
@@cranmer1959 Abusive ad hominem was eternally decreed by God (if Calvinism's true). Such abuse was decreed by God long before any particular such abuser was conceived (if Calvinism's true). The very desires to abuse in the abuser's heart were put there by God (if Calvinism's true). The ad hominem words that the abuser used were conceived and ordered by God (if Calvinism's true). And God even wrote this very comment, from before He laid the foundations of the earth (if Calvinism's true).
@@BobEnyartLive Correct. God foreordained reprobation and every sin you will ever commit. But since you are held accountable by God it will not remove your responsibility for your actions. You are a free moral agent and you are the author of your own sins even if God foreordained everything in such a way that you would choose to go to hell by your own choices. The fact that you seek to twist the Scriptures and deceive other is God's will. But will you have an excuse on judgment day? I think not.
Did Slick use the excuse of the light to distract people from noticing he put his computer back basically where it started when they asked him to move it?
@Will Duffy Sorry about the whole cataracts thing. May you increase in empathy for your experience. If someone had to read this to him, thank you for your kindness to Will. Peace.
@@lynnoakes3545 Hey Lynn, if by sovereign you mean that God decreed all wickedness and perversion, then your very doctrine attacks His righteousness. And if by elect and chosen you ignore that many of the chosen priests, prophets, and kings, and the vast majority of the Chosen People, went to hell, and if you ignore the New Testament statement that the Elect had become enemies of the Gosepl, then I'd say you misunderstand those biblical concepts too. Feel free to check out our Chosen: It's Not What You Think, at ruclips.net/video/a9n1ASwC7s0/видео.html.
@@lynnoakes3545 Hey Lynn! Yeah, we talk about those guys all the time. Realize though that the priests whom God chose by name and said that they could serve Him forever, they were not false priests. They were real priests, chosen, who ended up going to hell. And the Elect in the New Testament who became enemies of the Gospel, they were really Elect. ruclips.net/video/a9n1ASwC7s0/видео.html Chosen: It's Not What You Think!
Jeremiah 1:5 "I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations." So much for God not knowing any one before their birth and Jeremiah doing anything contrary to what God has ordained and HINT,this is how it is with all of us.Whatever God has ordained for us,we will become.
Hi Tim, thanks for stopping by! You've accidentally misrepresented Will Duffy's point. Of course Will (and all of us) are familiar with that great verse, Jer. 1:5. We've quoted it a hundred times. How you've misrepresented Will is in that he never implied that God didn't "know anyone before their BIRTH". As an active supporter of the God-given right to life of the unborn child, Will strongly affirms, even in this debate, that God has a relationship and even loves children in the womb. (Matt Slick is the one who claims, wrongly, that God hates babies in the womb.) Will pointed out that the Bible never says that God knew anyone before they were CONCEIVED, or before their parents were born, or before the foundation of the world, or from eternity past. Will acknowledged, if I recall, that if the Bible said such a thing, then open theism would be falsified.
Bob,God has declared the end of time from the very beginning of time and everything in between.God wrote all of human history before creation and the characters in God's book are US all.God's novel does not change,He wrote it and it can never change because this whole story was written exactly as He wanted to be and everything exists to GLORIFY GOD.IT IS HIS STORY and each day we learn a little more of what God has written as we live our lives.This is the God of the Bible,He is not ignorant of anything,only man is ignorant.So please,don't try to bring God down to an ignorant,foolish,man's level.
Tim Ballentine Do you believe God created future human beings to live in the future and run on the program he decreed for them? Do you believe God created you to not rape a child but your neighbor to rape a child? If you answer yes, do you believe this God is loving? If you still affirm this is the God you believe in, then which side of this two-faced God decreed you to worship Him? You must also believe then that God preordained the mess humans would become in rejecting Him. If you were God what would your goal be in creating life that then destroys it?
nobody claims he doesn't know anything. He knows his promises, and he keeps them. Just because He knows that he will create someone and appoint them a prophet, does not mean he knows all choices made by everyone. The bible indicates he does not, so you are actually deleting all the times where God sure shows us regret, repentance, sorrow, surprise, etc, and just clinging to a specific thing God did choose to make happen lol
Why is it that Matt Slick and James White can't answer simple questions. They come across like disingenuous lawyers. They have to qualify everything and keep comparing every statement made by open theist to some obscure philosophical reference that even if any one knew what it actually meant in the first place including themselves would not contribute anything meaningful to the debate. Also they can't explain it themselves I don't understand Calvinism any better after this debate because rather than try to carefully explain his position Matt just insults, denigrates, and dismisses valid points made by open theist. I don't buy for a minute that Matt holds all this enlightening knowledge that no one else but Calvinists can understand. Will Duffy did a great job when he was talking but I think he would have been better if he was more responsive and assertive. Overall good job Will Duffy and I am glad Matt at least followed through and showed up but if he would drop the pompous routine it would have been more productive.
that's what calvinism does to your brain. it's so logically, reasonably, and biblically incoherent, you have to answer every question with a zillion qualifiers.
This debate is summed up 1:18:37-1:22:45. Because this is where open theism, and i mean this respectfully, is heretical. The very nature/essence of God is challenged. God is HOLY therefore HE CANNOT sin. Not because he chooses not, it's because by very nature or essence he can't. ( Job 34:10 ".....far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should do wrong."). I don't know how an open theist can claim their god is immutable(Mal 3:6) when he's constantly repenting and changing his mind? The open theist God who can sin ( Does that mean he could lie? Titus says He CAN'T Titus 1:2); who doesn't know himself; a "risk taker"? A God who doesn't know he's holy? And then elsewhere we learned from open theist; the Father can hate the Son and vice versa; God who "hopes" or "wishes" things could be better; constantly learning from His own mistakes; desiring what he does not get and no hope of getting; repenting all the time and completely restrained by man's "free" will. It's a God who's powerless and CAN'T quite get things right! It seems to me that the God of open theism is a constant failure! A God options rather than decrees. But Will makes the mistake of viewing the anthropomorphic language as inherent to Gods essence/nature rather than in a COMMUNICABLE sense. The open theist has it backward. In conclusion I'll say this. And i mean this respectfully. In listening to Will his god is a mixture of humanism and mormonism. He seems to view God as a really advanced man who strives yet hasn't quite attained a level a absoluteness. But his loving zeal drives who to keep on striving and "take those risk"s", that may or may not come to pass. And he does it all because he loves you and would never violate your "free" will. Man is sovereign; his will is NEVER to be violated. And when that view is held it eventually leads to open theism. God bless!
I don't know how anyone can NOT be an open theist when God absolutely repents. Do you deny the passages that clearly state that God repented? What do you do with those?
Open Theists do not claim that God is immutable and neither does the bible, not in the sense you mean it. The doctrine of immutability, which teaches that God cannot change in any way whatsoever, was introduced into Christianity by Augustine who learned it from Aristotle. The Westminster Confession even uses the exact same argument that Aristotle made in Plato's writings. The bible teaches and Open Theists affirm that God does not change in His righteous character. WHO God is does not change. He is consistent and stable and always will be. But the bible repeatedly discusses and Open Theists also affirm that God changes His mind and that He become a man and died and then there's all that resurrection stuff that is so obscurely hidden and barely discussed at all except in nearly every single book of the New Testament. Sorry for the sarcasm there but seriously, how can anyone deny that God changes after reading a single book of the bible? God changing His mind is found all the way through Genesis and the changes He goes through in Matthew are so profound as to define the Christian faith itself!
Hi mmttomb3, thanks for your comment. Please consider the replies from contemplate and Clete Pfeiffer! Also, as I share with others who are as stunned as you are about Will Duffy's simple statement, please consider this. A Calvinist will trust God's decrees, but not God Himself. Calvinists say they can trust God's decrees, but as Matt Slick indicated, not God Himself. The Father loves the Son freely, as the Son loves the Father and the Holy Spirit freely. There is no compulsion and inevitability in it. A stone idol is impeccable, impassible, and immutable. It cannot sin, emote, or change. God, on the other hand, is our living personal God who possess an actual, free will. He is not a mathematical equation, a power repository, or a philosophical construct. He is a person with a will. You're invited to see this also in my opening statement vs Dr. James White at opentheism.org/white#opening-stmt. Thanks again mt3! Show less REPLY
mmttomb3 , please take a grammar course before attempting to explain away scripture with more scripture. What you are doing is causing others to think the Bible is fallible.
Hey s4c. Perhaps you can see how this is biblical by calling it "gaining experiential knowledge". Most Calvinists deny that God has all knowledge by rejecting that He has or even can have experiential knowledge. Yet the Bible explicitly declares that God has experiential knowledge, as with the "go down and look" see for Myself verses, the Incarnation-related temptation verses, and the learned verses. (Similarly, by the unbiblical claim that God is outside of time, most Calvinists and even Arminians deny that He can know anything in sequence. So, unlike open theists, Calvinists view predestination and foreknowedge as mere figures of speech and not as literally true of God.) Thus, by denying that God has experiential knowledge, Calvinists do not believe Him omniscient, i.e., that He has all knowldege, for their theology inherently rejects that God can possess an entire category of knowledge, namely, experiential knowledge. Selah.
A deleted comment had a Reply which we wanted to save: The Mirabilis Dec 4, 2017 @1:20:54 - 1:21:09 on the video of the debate Slick asks Duffy … “ Can God the Father sin “ ? Duffy answers … “ I believe so… Yeh Absolutely. “
Mirabilis, hi! Calvinists will trust God's decrees, but not God Himself. I'm answering Matt Slick here. Calvinists say they can trust God's decrees, but as Matt Slick indicated, not God Himself. (See this for example also in my debate with D. James' Kennedy's Dr. Sam Lamerson at tiny.cc/opentheism.) They can only trust Him if He is not free. That's not biblical. This is perhaps the answer that Matt wouldn't give when Will Duffy asked Slick: Why would God have traded away His freedom? Why trade away God's freedom, say, to decree something, by decreeing everything that He would ever decree, so that He is no longer able to decree anything new, as you've admitted and as Calvinist theology requires? Perhaps the answer Matt withheld is, "Perhaps we Calvinists say that we could not trust God if He were truly free (i.e., if He really had libertarian free will), because really, God wouldn't trust Himself with free will. So that's why He decreed it away and, as I affirmed in the debate, He cannot think a new thought, write a new song, design a new butterfly, or issue a new decree."
Would anyone consider the possibility that there might be contradictions in the scripture between multiple authors and competing ideas regarding Free Will and determinism?
@@BobEnyartLive thanks for the reply Bob. If I grant that the Bible is inspired by God, how do we get to inerrancy? Is it reasonable to accept the entirety of the Bible as God's perfect word/will? If yes, why?
2:30:01 - "I am going to go ahead to ahead and reject Chalcedon here; I'm gonna go with the Bible: Jesus was not in any way, shape, or form omnipresent on earth." This was an incredible moment in the Q&A.
What Matt Slick misses when he so confidently quotes John 1:13 is what is written in the previous verses: "He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did RECEIVE him, to those who BELIEVED in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God." Only when you consider the context do you understand the sequence involved. First you receive/believe, and THEN you get the right to be regenerated. Calvinists are good at ignoring context. Now who is doing the receiving here? Is God the one receiving? No, it is man! (whoops, I guess I just exalted man!) Only AFTER receiving Christ does one get the RIGHT to BECOME children of God. Regeneration, which of course is what not conception by the "will of man", does NOT precede this!
Great points Paul, thanks! Also, thanks for your comment about Category 31 of our 33 Categories at opentheism.org/verses.html. You begin that lengthy comment concerning "some standing here" (Matt 16 verse 28) and you conclude that it is "definitely referring to the transfiguration, and not the second coming of Christ". If you ever read my book at kgov.com/the-plot please let me know if you keep the same conclusion. Anyway, an excerpt: The Air of Expectancy The following passages fit Daniel‘s timetable. These verses show overwhelmingly that Jesus and the Twelve expected Christ‘s Second Coming to occur soon. The actual expectation was that Christ would return so quickly and establish His Kingdom that not enough time would pass for all of His disciples to die. As Luke recorded: - ...there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God. -Luke 9:27 Mark reported Jesus‘ same remark and included just a couple more words than Luke‘s account (as different reporters will sometimes do): - ...there are some standing here who will not taste death till [fn 11] they see the kingdom of God present with power -Mark 9:1 And as Matthew reported: - ...there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom -Mat. 16:28 Footnote 11: Death will occur in the Kingdom also, but much more rarely. ―No more shall an infant from there [Jerusalem] live but a few days... for the child shall die one hundred years old‖ (Isaiah 65:20). Moving Sale: Everything Must Go! The apostles themselves took literally Christ‘s promise to return soon and establish His Kingdom. That explains why they administered a program in early Acts in which their followers sold their homes and gave the money to the apostles for the needs of the church (Acts 4:34)! The apostles used income from these real estate sales to make ―the daily distribution‖ (Acts 6:1) to provide food for their converts (Acts 6:2-3). No one should miss the point, however: they were selling their homes. The apostles took the entire proceeds (Acts 5:2) from home sales. Such collections are either tremendous fraud, lower than the worst TV evangelist, or an example of great faith in Christ and His soon return. The apostles were faithful men of God. They were not infallible, but neither were they charlatans or blithering idiots. The biblical narrative admits and corrects the few errors the apostles made. But the selling of their homes was not a foolish blunder. Plainly, the Twelve believed deeply in, and administered a program of, Christ‘s soon return. These expectancy passages challenge many believers, however, because Christ‘s disciples died long ago and His earthly Kingdom has not yet been established. Therefore, Christians wrestle with these verses to come up with some meaning other than the apparent, literal meaning. This chapter makes such a dodge unnecessary. The Acts 2 Supposition Some of those who do not know what to make of these texts try to dilute them, usually by spiritualizing them, suggesting that Christ was not referring to His earthly Kingdom. These often suggest that by the term "kingdom" Jesus referred not to the earthly Kingdom but that He meant His church after Pentecost. However this is untenable since His resurrection was only a short way off. Saying that - some would not die implies that many or even most would die. That, however, is not plausible in the short time span between these statements and that great Pentecost. Although many hold this position, it is easily refuted. In such a brief time frame, if Christ was speaking of the Acts 2 church, He could not then have said: - Some standing here shall not die until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. If He was speaking of the church as of Pentecost He rather should have said: "No one shall die until..." Or: "Hardly anyone shall die until..." The overwhelming thrust of Old Testament prophecy and Christ‘s New Testament teaching indicate that this statement referred to the literal earthly Kingdom. ... Many other passages show the urgency of the short amount of time left. Speaking of the Tribulation (Mat. 10:17-23), Christ concluded saying: - When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. -Mat. 10:23 Israel was and is a small piece of land, about the size of New Jersey and Jesus was speaking to twelve men (Mat. 10:5). Thus, He was here predicting His Coming in a relatively short period of time. After all, as John reports: - Then this saying went out among the brethren that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, ―If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? -John 21:23 Further, in describing the Tribulation, Christ told His disciples ―when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near‖ (Luke 21:31; see also Luke 21:28). In other words, Jesus expected that the Twelve would see the Great Tribulation. Jesus also said something so simple a child can understand, but which has perplexed countless theologians: - Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. -Mat. 24:34
Hi Keith! Thanks for being here. Hmm. The righteous angels are holy. They can sin. Holy doesn't mean that you lack freedom. To love requires the ability to hate. Because love must be freely given, the Father's love for the Son is free, not compelled. (I've always wondered if Calvinist men tell their fiances, "Actually, I had no choice.") And of course Jesus, as the second Adam, was fully man, and that means that like pre-Fall Adam, He had the ability to sin, which is why His resisting temptation is praiseworthy and His sinlessness is victory. As Hebrews teaches us, He is better able to understand our temptation because He too was tempted, though without sin, that is, without the nurturing of the sin He was being tempted with.
@@BobEnyartLive I do not disagree with your statement about Jesus... In the debate, Will Duffy was asked if God could sin. He answers in the affirmitive... You seem to think also, that God the Father could sin... from what you said on the radio, You did not reference Jesus time on Earth so it sounds like you were talking about God the Father. If however you don't think this, then no problem,.. If however you think that about God the Father then I stand by my original statement, you don't know God...
@@keithlilley9003 Hey Keith, yes, we were talking about Jesus (who is "Holy, Holy, Holy", and is fully God, so anything that Jesus could do, God could do, because Jesus is God). But we do mean the Father also, as I replied to your comment that God is holy, by pointing out that so are the angels, and yet they could sin. The ability to love requires the ability to hate. The Father loves the Son freely and love is SO AWESOME because the one LOVING could in fact withhold that love.
@@EnHacore1 The Father loves the Son freely. He could sin if He were to selfishly withdraw that love; if He tried to turn the Holy Spirit against the Son; if He... a thousand ways, a million ways. For, to love requires the ability to hate and love must be freely given. So the Father's love for the Son is free, not compelled. I don't know if you're a Calvinist. (I doubt it.) But whether you are or not, do you know if Calvinist men tell their fiances, "Actually, I had no real choice in the matter."
So far, all I've got from Slick is that he understands his theology and categories quite well, but is woefully inept and ignorant of the actual contents of Scripture.
Thanks Jonathan for that observation. Interestingly though, when we all get to heaven, I'm not certain that Matt will look back on his work and agree that he understood his own theology. I think he spends a lot of effort trying to misrepresent his own theology. (On the other hand, maybe you're correct, and his efforts indicate that he understands his theology all too well.)
While Will most certainly did win this debate, I still have issues about this. Indeed everyone has free will, but can man's free will overrun God's will?
if God created us to be free agents and accountable, and he so chose to create us with the true ability to choose and choose otherwise, then the answer is yes, b/c God purposed us to be in His image (which involves personal free agency in choices)
Very telling part of the debate was when Matt simply quoted scripture and Duffy would quickly react saying "I don't agree, or I reject your interpretation." Matt Slick would remind Duffy that he wasn't interpreting scripture but simply quoting it. Well done Mr. Slick, you exposed their hatred of the God of scripture. They've crafted for themselves a god that suits their sensibilities. Very sad.
Hi Sebastian Bryan. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Yes, Will Duffy's entire opening statement was amazing! To clarify his point on these two doctrines. They could conceivably "make sense" in the timelessness of Arminianism and Calvinism IF they are taken as figures of speech referring to God, but they can only be LITERALLY true of God in an open theist understanding. As per the transcript at opentheism.org/duffy#opening : "Bold statement #1: Only open theists believe in PREdestination and FOREknowledge [as literally true of God]. The term predestination means “to determine BEFOREhand” and FOREknowledge means “to know BEFOREhand”. [The vast majority of] Settled view theists (the opposite of open theists) believe God is outside of time and therefore does everything simultaneously and never does or knows one thing before or after another. So only open theists believe that the literal definitions of these words apply to God, as we believe God lives and acts in time, in sequence." If you're interested in more Sebastian, I invite you to see kgov.com/time.
Bob Enyart I was convinced of open theism a few years ago when I saw the verses that expresses Gods grief. Grief would imply failed expectation, which makes no sense in a closed future that exaustively knows everything, etc. I was wondering if there are any other audio debates of open theism besides James white and yourself, and Sanders. I believed this view was heresy because it was contrary to what I've always heard until I looked at the Bible and thought it through. Jesse Morrel truly turned me to really consider the perspective and I believed he was wise in a lot of areas and just way off on this particular view. However, two years passed me wrestling with this very idea until finally I saw God says what He means, and means what He says.
Love it Sebastian! As someone posted elsewhere, Matt Slick acts as though the Bible is baby talk about God and Calvinism is adult talk about Him. As to other debates, I'm not sure which may be audio, but you may want to check out the list at opentheism.org/debates (and I'm glad you reminded me of that, because we now need to add the Slick/Duffy debates to that page).
This isn't exactly what you're asking for Sebastian but it's related. At kgov.com/300 we've posted quotes from the first three centuries of Christian writers affirming human free will (and then, of course, they would affirm that God himself has free will, which is the foundation of open theism).
I'm a bit confused about what Matt Slick said in the debate where at 1:30:10 it appears that he is denying unconditional election. And yet on his website he writes: "In the context of the term “unconditional election”, this election is the sovereign act of God where, from before the foundation of the world, he chose those whom he would save". So if God chooses whom he would save before the foundation of the world, then doesn't that mean that "people are either saved or not at the moment of conception?" Anyone know what he means?
Gary Hopkins wrote elsewhere: "I think I figured it out: Opentheism makes sense to everyone who wants the Bible to make sense. Calvinism makes sense to everyone who doesn't want the Bible to make sense." To which Kenny Burchard added: Open Theism: "The God of the Bible is like the God described inside the actual Bible." Calvinism: "Don't be thrown off by how the God of the Bible is presented in the Bible. Here. Use this decoder ring and you'll understand what God is really like. Just remember: Bible=Baby Talk about God. Calvinism= Grown-up Talk about God.
Matt clearly won the debate, and Will was continuously passively-aggressively talking over Matt. I don't know how Matt was so patient.. Open Theism is a dangerous heresy.
Strider 223, thanks for stopping by. We haven't removed your comment primarily so we could use it to remind folks that we require greater respect from our commenters on this BEL Channel than is common on RUclips. If a comment, such as "Are you deaf?" can be lifted and used elsewhere in virtually any disagreement, regardless of topic, that's often a sign that it has unnecessarily crossed over into disrespect. Of course, disrespect itself is often called for (see my article kgov.com/nicer-than-god ) but there's no shortage of it on RUclips. But on our channel, not so much. So, when you said, "Matt was talking over Will Duffy in virtually every question", that can't be lifted and used against opponents in virtually any disagreement. That was perfect. Are you deaf was not.
The Calvinist(Matt) does not deny that love must be freely given in the context that true love cannot exist without also having the ability to hate. This is wholly problematic to the Calvinist theology, as the Open Theist(Will) explained, because God therefore would have forced his creatures(only some of them) to love Him. In the theology of Calvinism it is easy to envision a twisted pretzel considering their belief that God forced(by decree) some to love Him, and freely allowed others to choose to love or hate Him, yet some who once claimed to love God ended up hating Him (Darwin), and others once claimed to hate God yet ended up loving Him (Strobel), and if you agree the future is settled from eternity past then this twisted pretzel leaves everyone wondering if they are truly saved from their sin. If God decreed it why would He send His Son to become flesh as a sacrifice for all since all sin and fall short of the glory of God?
Slick says that God's highest order is His Glory. I guess then that it is glorious to empty oneself, to become a curse for us, to become sin, to die a tortured death for another. No, those things aren't glory, those things are love.
I think when Matt Slick asked if God's will is influenced by anything I think Will should have answered yes, because we can see several times in scripture that God changes his mind due to prayer.
Absolutely Paul. God's will, or more precisely, God, is influenced by much, including by prayer. I know that Will too agrees with you. So when that was asked (feel free to post the timestamp) he must have been taking the question from a different perspective, perhaps sort of how I just did not with my "precisely" comment. The word "will" is used BOTH as 1) the ability to decide, and 2) an instance of such a decision. So maybe (I don't know; I haven't asked him), Will was answering from the perspective the the primary definition of the term.
Does God really change his mind? Or is prayer for our benefit and to cause us to change? God deals with us as changing human beings but did God really not know which way He would go when He made the decree to create and to cause the beginning of time? Providence means that God governs everything that happens in time and He does so from His eternal plan from timeless eternity. There is no past, present or future in God's immutable mind. He knows everything at once.
@@cranmer1959 God really changes His mind and prayer is not make-work and Jesus taught that persistent prayers can convince God and Moses, et al., knew that also and effectively acted upon that open theism knowledge. See many examples at opentheism.org/verses. Charlie, you are affirming what we wrote there, that only those who agree with open theists that God does not exist outside of time can affirm the doctrine foreknowledge. As you describe so much of what the Bible says elsewhere as "baby talk" about God, you along with virtually all Calvinists would have to deny that God could have FOREknowledge of anything for as you just (wrongly) claimed, "There is no past, present or future in God's immutable mind. He knows everything at once." Then He could not have FOREknowledge, could He; that would only be a figure of speech from our perspective; and He couldn't PREdestine anything either. Again, just baby talk. I know it sounds like heresy to Calvinists, but they should repent and acknowledge that God, yes, God, can actually think a new thought. (Better to become an open theist here than when you get to heaven.)
@Will Duffy I am only nearly eight years in relationship with my Father. Because of you on youtube with Doug I just found out I am close to being an open theist. Although I think there are some parts where open theism is missing some theory of context in some areas. Please have a look at my content and see if you think you would want to have a chat, hopefully on my channel, hopefully but not necessarily live. On youtube "Demolish_Doctrine". Peace.
WD: "So, that verse doesn't mean what it says." MS: "No, that verse doesn't mean what you think it says." And that's pretty much the entire debate. My opinion is better than your opinion. They both appeal to scripture as their authority, but obviously neither has an infallible authority.
Hey MR! In every debate, and every pushback on every issue (including yours right here), neither side has infallible authority and both sides have differing opinions. And that's pretty much every disagreement in the history of the world. That doesn't tell us anything. Your considered opinion though, on some particular being discussed, now, that might be of value here. Thanks!
Just because they both make those claims doesn't mean they are both wrong, and no they are not opinions, this is why school is important, know your history, study how koine Greek was used, know your grammar, and you could actually see who is consistent with the whole bible
@@michaelvahle9845 Vahle, hey, thanks for your input! I think you'll find a stronger explanation though than what you're suggesting here in the Table of Contents for my debate with Dr. Lamerson, at kgov.com/open-theism#toc. From Round 1, or specifically, with the Hermeneutics JONAH and NOAH in Rounds 6B & 7B. You can also visit kgov.com/hermeneutics if you're so inclined.
Will Duffy needs to brush up on John 6, Philippians 1, Romans 9, etc. I do think he also needs to better understand certain categories of philosophy pertaining to nature and change.
Hello Jonathan, thanks for visiting. I think you might agree with the following. Matt Slick offered to teach Will Duffy about Romans 9 yet when Will asked him about Jeremiah 18, Matt said that he was unfamiliar with that chapter! (Wow, that's the Potter and the Clay chapter.) So Matt would not respond. (He didn't recognize the verse Will read nor knew the Jer. 18 reference. Wow.) That is one of the foundational chapters that Romans 9 refers to. Like with the two babies in Rebecca's womb Jacob and Esau being "two nations" (Gen. 25), in Jeremiah God immediately interprets the potter and the clay parable as being about when "that NATION against whom I have SPOKEN turns from its evil, I will REPENT of the disaster that I THOUGHT to bring upon it." So Matt told Will in the debate he couldn't address this passage because he was unfamiliar with it. One who understands Romans 9 will be intimate with Jeremiah 18. Jonathan, I invite you to review at opentheism.org "Is Calvinism Biblical?" with Dr. Larry Bray. My post 1a [and 2a] begins "with Romans 9 [showing that it's about nations, as post 2a extends], John 15, Isaiah 46 and Psalm 139."
I agree with Jonathan and Bob here. Will missed a great opportunity with John 6 & 10 (despite the good one liner about figure of speech). Will, you should really check out Soteriology 101 podcast from Leighton flowers, at least those on John 6, 10, and the messianic secret. Leighton is not a mid-acts dispensationalist, but it certainly does fit. I would add that Matt Slick is well aware of the view Leighton holds to. Bob, my thoughts exactly. I told my dad the same thing. “How does he not know Jer 18?!” Matt slick should be Matt “Script.”
It is lamentable that, Open Theists, although strong on the questions of God's limited foreknowledge of human decisions, tend towards diminishing God by treating Him as if He had the unstable passions of man. They are making God in the image of man. They should stick with their challenge to the philosophical idea of the simultaneity of God's view of creatures. God committed Himself to observing His creatures in time, and to adjusting His dealings with them in accordance with their responses to Him. God sees into minds and hearts, and therefore knows what people are going to do. He knows about evil by having observed it in time, and He is master of dealing with it, and bringing about His good purposes by overcoming it, in love for us.
Hey anselman, thanks for sharing your thoughts on these incredibly important issues. Since God made us in His likeness, you might be able to see how we open theists take the Bible literally when it says that God grieves, has joy, is angered, etc. Regarding God commiting Himself to observing us "in time", that suggests that he had some kind of time-related alternative. Please Google: Is God outside of time, and if you're so inclined, read the #1 ranked article. It'd be fun to hear your response. Thanks again!
@@BobEnyartLive Thank you, Bob. I have located your article, and will make time to carefully read it, and get back to you. In the meantime, my initial response on the question of passions is that humans are in a fallen state, and therefore are in danger of projecting their unstable and imperfect emotions on to God. I appreciate the importance of the open theist questions, as they reflect issues I have addressed in my own thinking from a very early age, as I began to explore theology. Best wishes, and "speak" to you later.
@@BobEnyartLive The article was very interesting. My response is as one who has a rather simple mind and no concern to uphold a particular philosophy if it can be shown to poorly represent Scripture. I do think that the weakest point in classical Christian philosophy is the notion of God seeing all time in an instant, rather than viewing it sequentially. And certainly the most horrific notion is that God has "from all eternity" had before His mind the evil and perverse thoughts and deeds of humans and fallen angels. That would make evil as eternal as God. We may not dismiss Plato's ideas altogether on the grounds that he held some morally reprehensible views. St Paul commended some of the thoughts of the Greek poets (Acts 17.28). It is reasonable to hold that God has enabled non-believers to arrive at a measure of truth and wisdom, as they bear the image of God-or a vestige of it depending on your theology. St Paul was indeed scathing about the danger of arrogance and ignorance in philosophising, but the Church has rightly sought to express truths about God in the Greek philosophical language, Messiah being Christ and Logos, and the Trinity being Persons in one substance etc. So, it doesn't do to be dismissive of a relation to "pagan Greek philosophy", although I would argue that the simultaneity of God's view of time is a wrong conclusion. If it is Plato who gave us that, then he should not have been accepted in that matter. The Church Fathers and orthodox theologians did not uncritically endorse Plato and Aristotle, but sought to adapt them by correcting them in line with revelation and Scripture. I think that the Christian doctrine of God's immutability does not involve a denial that He may think a new thought, just as it does not deny His becoming Creator, or becoming incarnate as God-Man. God, in His Trinitarian self, is essentially unchanging. It is the creation that is subject to change by God's actions upon it. God's knowledge of Himself does not change. He does not undergo any change of character or purpose. When He created rational creatures with individual wills, He did not cease to have a thorough knowledge of their essential nature, or of Himself. God being perfectly holy never had any imagination of the particular evils which rebellious creatures would invent. He learned of this by observation, but He already knew the essential "nature" of evil as the possible turning away from God and goodness. The act of creation was the beginning of time. Scripture references to God's duration are all in the context of His revelation to the understanding of His time-bound creatures. God's adaptation of His actions towards creatures in view of their responses to Him is always an expression of His unchanging character and benevolent purposes toward His creation. Contrary to what Will affirmed in the debate, God can never sin.
@@anselman3156 Hey anselman. Yes, of course we could wrongly attribute to God aspects of our own uniquely creaturely or fallen nature. But that does not mean, as I believe you would concur, that we have grounds for rejecting the passion that the Bible attributes to God.
@@anselman3156 Hi again! Here are a few responses to your thoughts. "[T]he weakest point in classical Christian philosophy is the notion of God seeing all time in an instant..." I agree, that this is one of the weakest points. "[T]he most horrific notion is that God has 'from all eternity' had before His mind the evil and perverse thoughts and deeds of humans and fallen angels. That would make evil as eternal as God." Agreed on that point, but even a corollary of that is terrible. Regarding the notion that God has from all eternity before His mind the goodness of creation and the holy angels (etc.), would mean that God was never God apart from the creation. This is the same problem as the claim that sovereignty is an essential aspect of deity. If that were true, then God could not be God apart from the creation, nor apart from any and every bit of creation, including John Calvin himself and each and every person. Thus the humanism of Plato's philosophy leaks out even in the best attempt of the Calvinist to claim that their theology is the greatest elevation of God, when in truth it is based on humanism. I think you might agree with a lot of that anselman. Then you wrote: "We may not dismiss Plato's ideas altogether on the grounds that he held some morally reprehensible views." Of course, that would be a fallacy, and nothing like that is called for by any open theists I know. The difference would be in a theologian drawing making a Hollywood anology or drawing on an insight that appeared in a blockbuster film as compared to that same theologian telling you that he has a commitment to the movie industry and interprets the Bible in the light of Hollywood. That is what Augustine wrote in his Confessions (though, regarding Plato), and Augustine is the most influential Christian theologian (unless, that is, we loosen the qualifications and consider Plato).
Open theism is “hypothetical”. When you listen to a open theist talk is never about realities, “God of Hope” Hope comes from Him, Hope is a result of who He is.. it isn’t saying in context that God actually hopes..
Thanks AT for commenting. If you would like to see a list of Scriptures that we think show that God Himself hopes (unlike your claim), they're at opentheism.org/verses.html. There we list 33 Categories of types of open theist verses. The very first, Category 1, lists many verses that indicate that God Himself hopes. After a quick review, I think of the 33 categories the only ones that directly address your comment are the many different verses listed in categories 1, 3, and 11. In case you're interested.
Bob Enyart 2 Corinthians 1:3 refers to God as the father of mercy and God of comfort...same construction as God of Hope.. read the context, it’s saying God is the source and giver
@@eagleclaw1179 Amber, hey! That's a valid argument, if it stood alone, but it doesn't. There are all those many verses I offered to you that shows that God does hope! God is a God of love, too. That doesn't only mean that He is the source of Love, but that He is Love. He is the source of comfort, but He Himself within Himself is also the Comforter and He is the father of mercy but also He Himself is merciful, that is, He is full of mercy. And He is patient, something He can't be if He weren't in time and wouldn't be if He didn't have hope. And He endures, something He can't do if He weren't in time and wouldn't be if He didn't have hope. And He is slow to anger, long-suffering, and yet provoked to wrath, things that couldn't happen if God weren't in time, wouldn't happen if He didn't have hope, etc. (See those 3 of 33 Categories of open theists verses!) Thanks again!
Bob Enyart My point is using God of hope, doesn’t stand, as reasons stated above.. As soon as you try to put Scripture up against Scripture, you lose. As a Christian the Scripture is harmonious. I understand what you would like God to be, but God’s Revelation isn’t on your side... I just pointed out a misuse of a Scripture, and your response is, “oh but I have more”. The usage and context of God of Hope does not mean God hopes, the context proves that. When you have someone who is willing to do that with one verse they will do it with all.
@@eagleclaw1179 Hi Amber, I do appreciate talking to you about this most important of matters, the attributes of God, what is He like, and how does the Bible describe Him. A gracious debater (if you will) first works to understand his opponent's point, and then puts it in the best possible light (before mercilessly dismantling it :). So let me restate your point to see if I understand it. You object to me claiming that the Bible's "God is hope" tells us that He Himself hopes. (I also appreciate you realizing that if God has true hope, as the Bible itself defines hope, then that means that the future is not settled. So in defense of Christian theology as you understand it, you are arguing that the "God of hope" does not mean that He Himself has hope.) One of your arguments is that Him being the "God of comfort" and "Father of mercy" show that God Himself isn't these things, or doesn't have these things, but only that He's the source of these things. So when the Bible says that He is the "God of love", what does that mean? I'm sure you would agree that this doesn't mean that He is only the "source" of love. As the "God of love" He also has love, and even, as the Bible says, He "is love." And "love is patient", so that tells us that God is patient, also because the Bible repeatedly says that He is patient and in so many ways demonstrates and shows to us that He is patient (including with the verses I pointed you to), such that He is the "God of patience", not only as the source, but He Himself is "longsuffering" and "slow to wrath". (See all the verses there at opentheism.org/verses.html Category 3 out of 33.) As the God of love, and "love thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth" and love "hopes all things, endures all things". So the God of Love, hopes. (Of course the "all things", for those of us who love, and for our God who loves, is a figure of speech. We don't hope that the past gets changed, that Lucifer never rebels, nor that hating righteousness will become a virtue.) God is love, and love is patient, and God is patient, and love hopes, so He is the God of Hope. He hopes, also as shown through the many verses not only in Category 3 at opentheism.org/verses.html but also in Category 11, the opentheism.org/verses.html#expectations verses! Amber, before mercilessly dismantling my argument, are you first trying to understand it? For example, could you now explain it to someone else? And are you then putting it in the best possible light, before you have your way with it? If you read Romans 13:5 again you just might see that Paul is saying, May the God of Hope enable you to hope. Just as the God of Love enables us to love. And the God of patience enables us to be patient. Of course even the verse you referenced doesn't at all preclude our understanding that the God of Mercy enables us to be merciful. And, if you're interested, though in a very different context, "Comfort" came up, in my open theism debate with D. James Kennedy's prof of New Testament, Dr. Samuel Lamerson. And it just struck me that though in a different context (about Noah and repentance) it addresses your argument too. So we could also look at what the Bible tells us about that and God.
YesYouNeedJesus Yeah I agree. The openness of the future isn’t contingent upon the possibility of Him sinning. I would disagree highly with the idea that God could sin. It’s something that isn’t consistent with His nature which defeats that possibility.
Hi Lance! First, to God's freedom, the future is open because God is free, and I believe just as certain and related is the truth that God can love because He is free. Secondly, to your (kind) concern for Mr. Duffy, consider Lance that Calvinists will trust God's decrees, but not God Himself, if He is truly free. Calvinists say they can trust God's decrees, but as Matt Slick indicated, not God Himself. (See this for example also in my debate with D. James' Kennedy's Dr. Sam Lamerson at tiny.cc/opentheism.) They can only trust Him if He is not free. That's not biblical. This is perhaps the answer that Matt wouldn't give when Will Duffy asked Slick: Why would God have traded away His freedom? Why trade away God's freedom, say, His freedom to decree more things, by decreeing EVERYTHING that He would EVER decree, so that He is no longer able to decree anything new, as Matt Slick has admitted he believes and as Calvinist theology requires? Perhaps the answer that Matt withheld is, "Perhaps we Calvinists say that we could not trust God if He were truly free (i.e., if He really had libertarian free will), because really, God wouldn't even trust Himself with free will. So that's why He decreed it away and, as I affirmed in the debate, He cannot think a new thought, write a new song, design a new butterfly, or issue a new decree, because, unless He strapped Himself like that, just like we wouldn't trust Him, He probably wouldn't trust Himself either. Freedom is a dangerous thing. Not even God should have it." So Lance, please consider everything here that you are buying into when you accept the unbiblical "impeccability" attribute. Afterall, a stone ido is immutable, impassible, and impeccable, in that it cannot change, emote, or sin. Not even much of an idol there, is it?
Hi Lance! Sorry that this interaction is apparently putting you through emotional pain. I am thankful though that you care so much about me, Will and others that you try so hard to reach us. Consider though, WE believe literally in God's FOREknowledge and PREdestination. You don't. Why don't you? Because you deny God's freedom and think He is outside of kgov.com/time (agreeing with James White and most all settled view proponents), you believe that God is atemporal, that is, in an "eternal now", and so that He does or knows nothing in sequence but does and knows everything simultaneously. Thus, in the same way that Calvinists dismiss God "repenting" as just a figure of speech meant for our benefit, so too, your theology forces you to dismiss God's FOREknowledge as a figure of speech, for our benefit, because you believe that God is not free to plan something before doing it (PREdestine) or to know something in advance (FOREknowledge). Lance, it is your theologians who are "imposing philosophy", like utter immutability, impassibility, and impeccability, onto the Scriptures. For these quantitative philosophical constructs are not biblical, and could not apply to a "Living" God" (as He's called 30 times in the Bible), but do describe a stone idol, which cannot change in any way, has no emotion, and because it is not free, cannot sin.
Hey CoJ, thanks for being here. Well, unless all thought and all words are meaningless, you're in error here. The Person we are discussing is God the Son. God the Son took on a human nature. You cannot take upon yourself a new nature and not change. Unless of course all thought and all words are meaningless. Further, at the Incarnation the Father became a Father of a Son with two natures. As the hypostatic union term indicates, Jesus is fully God and fully man. However, that hypostatic union was not eternal, from everlasting. For God the Son "became" Man. And He, God the Son, became the "Son of Man". There are not four persons of the Godhead. Jesus is not another person, but the Second Person of the Trinity. For as God said to Isaiah, "I BECAME your Savior." God can become things. He became the Creator when he created. See opentheism.org/verses#22. Thanks again!
Something else for CoJ to consider, as we discuss at kgov.com/deity#eternal-son. If God the Son had not been the Son from eternity past then there would have been no Eternal Father either, for there could be no Everlasting Father without an Everlasting Son. Thus both have existed, as Father and Son, along with the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God, from everlasting.
@@BobEnyartLive Jesus never said that He is God, he said that I go to my God and your God, even in revelation he refers to the Father as Bod, there is now but one God( the Father) and one Lord ( Jesus Christ), Stephen saw the Son if Man sitting at the right hand if God, in eternity past God became a Father at one point in time when He gave birth to His Son, who is the same as God due to His DNA a Son through whom and by whom all things came into existence, I do believe Origen, Justin Martir and Tertuliann who were handed down the teachings directly from the apostles had a deeper understanding then us, they were also looking at free will the way an open theist would, but they all agreed that Father gave birth to Jesus
@@repentjersey9971 Hey Church of Heresy. Sad to hear about your claims. But please consider, from kgov.com/deity ... Thus Saith the Lord: If we count how many times the Old Testament prophets said, "Thus says the Lord" we find them using that phrase, in the New King James Version of the Bible, about 420 times. The New Testament on the other hand, never once records that phrase. Jesus Christ, with all the red ink devoted to recording His words, never once used that ubiquitous phrase, "Thus saith the Lord." Rather, Jesus proclaims, "I say unto you," in the Gospels! Not a single "Thus says the Lord," but rather, "I say to you," 135 times. The following chart (see the link for the full chart CoJ) demonstrates biblically that these two phrases, Thus saith the Lord, and I say unto you, indicate the same thing, that God is speaking. For Jesus Christ made it clear that He Himself was at the heart of His teaching. Unlike the righteous priests and kings, prophets and the apostles, the Lord focused His message on Himself: Christ's Self-focus: - "Follow Me" 19x Mt. 4:19; 8:22; 10:38; 16:24; 19:21; Mk. 1:17; 2:14; 8:34; 10:21; Lk. 5:27; 9:59; 18:22; Jn. 1:43; 8:12; 10:27; 12:26; 13:36; 21:19, 22 - Pray and act "in My name" 18x Mt. 7:22; 18:5; 18:20; [24:5]; Mk. 9:37, 39, 41; [13:6]; Lk. 9:48; [21:8]; 24:47; Jn. 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:23-24, 26; Acts 9:15 - "the Holy Spirit" comes "in My name" Jn. 14:26 - "for My name's sake" leave family and property Mt. 19:29; or even be killed 5x Mt. 24:9; [Lk. 21:12, 17;] Jn. 15:21; Acts 9:16 - Believe in the "name of the… Son" and "in the Son" 3x Jn. 3:18, 36; 9:35 and "in Him [Jesus]" 4x Jn. 3:18; 6:29, 40; 8:31 - "believe in Me" 14x Mt. 18:6; Mk. 9:42; Jn. 3:15-16, 18; 6:35, 47; 7:38; 11:25, 26; 12:44, 46; 14:1, 12; 16:8; 17:20 - You "are sanctified by faith in Me" Acts 26:18 - Live "in Me" Jn. 11:26 - "come after Me" Mk. 8:34; Lk. 14:27 - Abide "in Me" Jn. 15:2, 4:5, 7 "abide in Me" or else Jn. 15:6 "abide in My love" Jn. 15:9-10 See more at kgov.com/deity ...
Atheist TheCatfish75134 commented but we deleted it was rsr.org/filthy. Afterall, atheists debase men into animals so from that perspective, while some resist the urge, most can't hardly communicate without constant vulgar references to defecation, genitals, sex acts, etc.
I disagree with much of what Slick said, but he is right in recognizing that many open theists re-imagine God on the level of a kind of exalted man. Duffy says here that God could sin! Clarke Pinnock was sympathetic to Mormon ideas about God having a body. Some open theists think of God as having the unstable passions of human beings.
@@anselman3156 Hey anselman! Don't know about Pinnock, but many open theists and others acknowledge God's passions. I don't see though where any open theist author, etc., has ever said that God has "unstable passions". And as for God's righteousness, is it really so terrible so say that God is Holy because He chooses to be Holy, rather than that He has no choice? I think in zeal theologians unwisely turn God's righteousness into an inability. A stone idol is much closer to the IMs than is the Living God, being immutable, impassable, impeccable.
@@BobEnyartLive God does not just choose not to be ill-tempered and malicious, His nature is such that He could never be these things. It should not be viewed as a negative inability, but a positive and reassuring consistency in God's character. Evil is the product of rebellious creatures. God is goodness itself, not just someone who could just as readily do evil.
@@anselman3156 Hey anselman! There are a few things in your reply that encourage me. One, you recognize that it would be diminishing to God to turn his faithfulness into an INABILITY. That's awesome that you see that. Many cannot. Give that some time to work its way through your thinking. And secondly, of course you would agree, if it turned out that you were wrong, and that God chooses to be holy with a fierce commitment to righteousness, that would also (if it turned out to be true) easily be recognized as a positive and reassuring consistency in God's character. And yes, God is goodness itself. And, yes, He is a "Someone"! That's so vital to always remember and keep central in our minds. Because systematic theology has turned God more into a series of mathematical equations, static and unchanging, more so than who He actually is, the Living, Personal, Relational, Good, and Loving God. And as a Person, He has a will; if He didn't, He couldn't be a Person, and of course the Bible repeatedly affirms that God has a will, just as it repeatedly affirms that He is the LIVING God. And a will is the ability to decide. (And God's righteousness is not against His will, nor is it apart from His will, but as the Bible shows us, it is willful. And good thing for that, because LOVE must be freely given. And if the Father was UNABLE to love the Son FREELY, then He couldn't love Him at all.) So, again, I'm encouraged anselman by your reply. Please pray and think on these things! In Christ, -Bob E.
Anselman replied but not to the specifics above other than to say, "you're wrong", and he wrongly stated, if I'm reading him correctly... here, I'll quote him, that "our basic fallacy" is that we are presenting God, "as one who has overcome the inclination to do evil." That's unhelpful because of course we say no such thing. And that we say that God "overcomes" His ability to decide, but we say no such thing and that too appears unhelpful. He doesn't overcome His will but celebrates His will! And Anselman concludes, "That is wrong thinking on your part." You haven't given us much to go on here Anselman, but I think that's because if you review the discussion we're having, you'll see that these observations are stronger than at first you may have assumed.
Jomarshun, thanks for visiting and asking a good question. From the resource that Will Duffy mentioned during the debate, opentheism.org/verses , the 6th of the 33 categories, says this: 6 - God Says Certain Things Happened that Never Entered His Mind They burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings which I did not command or speak nor did it come into My mind Jer. 19:5; they cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech which I did not command them nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin Jer. 32:35; they burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to sacrifice them which I did not command nor did it come into My heart Jer. 7:31; [For other sins like adultery and theft God never says, It didn't enter My mind and I didn't command it. So why say this regarding child sacrifice? First, He did command the sacrificial system. And second, He commanded Abraham to offer up his son Gen. 22:2; Heb. 11:17. (God prevented that from happening. But 2000 years later the Father Himself would offer up His Son Rom. 8:32 and on that very same kgov.com/mt-moriah 2 Chron. 3:1.) Thus God made two things abundantly clear. Back when He ordered Abraham to demonstrate the kind of love (commitment) that the Father Himself would later demonstrate (Rom. 5:8), first, He certainly had not commanded that men sacrifice their children, and secondly, it hadn't even entered His mind that men would actually do such a thing. See also Lev. 18:21; 20:2-5; Deut. 12:31; 18:9-10; 2 Kings 3:27; 2 Kings 16:3; 17:17, 31; 21:6; 23:10; 2 Chr. 28:3; 33:6; Ps. 106:35-38; Isa 57:5; Ezek. 16:20-21; 20:26, 31; 23:37]
Yeah, that's interesting Will. Some leading modern Calvinists including those we debate say that God decreed all sin but that: - He's not responsible for all sin (that's a non-sequitur), and that - He doesn't want that sin (which would mean something compelled Him).
Please tell me something, do all open theists believe in monothelitism and in kenosis the same way Will Duffy believes in them? Or is this something not necessarily included in the standard open view of God.
Thanks Clete! Irvigon, please consider, as Paul describes in Romans 7, our will (the ability to decide) is complex and can weigh competing interests, and though we have a single will, it can struggle to decide between alternatives. (I want to do what is right, at one level, but at another level, I don't, so that I can sense a battle within me.) That does not mean, as of course you would agree, that we believers have two wills. We are a New Creation in Christ, and yet we still struggle with our "flesh" awaiting deliverance from it. Still, I am only one person, and not two, and so I do not have two wills. Jesus was One Person. That Person is God the Son ( our 2-minute debate aftermath James White catastrophe notwithstanding ruclips.net/video/zLiPpcqSKVQ/видео.html ). Jesus did not have multiple personalities. God the Son did not have multiple personalities. God the Son BECAME flesh and took upon HImself a human nature as He took upon Himself the name Jesus. He didn't split Himself into two personas/wills.
Hello Bob, the Chalcedon position is that Christ is one person with two natures - human and divine. Since we get our will as a part of our human nature, this means that for Christ to be fully human He also needs human will added to His divine will. Otherwise the human nature he gained would have been incomplete if it was without a human will. The idea that Christ is one person, with two natures but with only one both human and divine will was marked as a heresy called Monothelitism. I've read books on open theism and neither monothelirism nor dyothelitism are described as official open theist position on the will of Christ. This probably means it's seen as a separate belief distinct from open theism.
Yes, thanks Irvigon, I appreciate your very clear statement of the issue. The Bible speaks of persons and wills (i.e., the person of God and God's will) and where a translation may say "divine nature" the Greek is literally, divinity, just as speaking of us as men, it may just say anthropos. We speak as psychologists and philosophers about these natures, which is fine. If we were able to itemize all the particulars that come along with a "nature", i.e., with whatever aspects of our existence that make us Man and that make God God, there are probably many that would not need to be duplicated for Jesus to take on a human nature. Being human entails existence. God the Son didn't have to take on a separate existence. Being human entails being a person. He wouldn't need to add another person to the Person that He already was. (Thus, Jesus was not two persons.) Being human entails being conscious. Our God wouldn't need to take on a separate consciousness to become human. (As we know, He wasn't merging Himself with a human being; he BECAME a human being.) Being human entails the ability to discern between right and wrong. He probably didn't need a separate discernment. Being human entails etc., etc., etc., if we could discern all the particulars that come along with a "nature", we could see that taking on another wouldn't mean having to duplicate all the particulars of that nature that you already have. That's an example of what we mean when we say that theologians have turned God into a mathematical equation or a philosophical construct, when in reality, He is a person. To take on a human nature means: to become a man. Because we think He didn't need a separate thinker. Because we emote He didn't need a new emoter. He already was a person, with existence, consciousness, discernment, a will, etc. What He took upon Himself was whatever other particulars were necessary for Him to also be a Man, including for example that His Soul and Spirit are now interfaced to an actual body, though glorified, with a head and torso, arms and legs, for He is now, actually, "the Man Jesus Christ". (Doing so undoubtedly fulfilled many of God's objectives, some of the primary ones being: 1) So that He could experience for Himself what it was that He created; 2) So that as His creation, we could better relate to Him: a great thing to remember for this Christmas; 3) to answer the question He poses in the Bible, "What more could I have done?", to save men; and 4) that by becoming a Man and living a perfectly Holy life He was able to save to the uttermost those human beings who trust in HIm.) So He did not have to become a two-headed, multiple personality, separate-willed entity. Rather, He is God the Son, become flesh.
Merry Christmas, Bob! God bless you, your family and your church! I've talked about these things with people I know, some hold your position, but discussion on a comment section has never been my thing. If we knew each other personally we could go out, discuss things in depth with verses and so on but I am from Europe. Great debate by the way, I really enjoyed how Will attacked the calvinistic idea of the decree at the second part of the debate. I'm looking forward to watch more discussions next year.
I think it would have been better if Will agreed that God knows all possibilities in the future as if each was the only possibility. Thus God knows everyone from before birth by virtue of possibility.
Hey Yodahe, it's awesome that you're goal is to portray God with as much glory as you can. However, you're argument may be far more filthy and perverse than you've ever stopped to realize. See my brief explanation of this at killingmolinism.com. UPDATE: Y.A. read this, and note something he says in his reaction, about "absurdity".
@@BobEnyartLive Okay I read it. The Arrow of time being reversed part was both very interesting and confusing. We can get to that later. But I don't understand why you assume that God knowing so many filthy moments is an issue. It's perfectly okay. Absurd maybe, but entirely coherent. And you said that God would have to travel the infinite future to know all possibilities. I don't think the future is infinite (At least not for this universe). It's perfectly okay for God to know a crazy amount of possibilities. Also, even if it were infinite, since you seemed to not have an issue with an infinite past, why should you have a problem with an infinite future? I think he has infinite intellect that allows him to see each painfully different possibility as if it were an actuality. Regarding the arrow of time, well let me save it for now
@@yodaheabebe7268 Thanks for the dialog Y.A. For 30 years on the radio we've pointed out that classical theology undermines God as a person, and treats Him as though He were some kind of metaphysical mathematical equation. Your response helps make our point. The (Greek & Latin philosophical) classical attributes of God are quantitative. How much, and how little, such as OMNIscient, OMNIpresent, OMNIpotent IMpassible, IMmutable. The biblical kgov.com/attributes of God are qualitative, that our eternal God is Living, Personal, Relational, Good, and Loving. So, after you read the short essay killingmolinism.com you wrote that what it describes, though necessary of God if Molinism were true, is "perfectly okay" being "Absurd maybe, but entirely coherent." Remember that we are trying to understand God. He is not a set of equations that may or may not be coherent. He is a person. And as such, He is not "absurd". I do agree with you that God's intellect is capable beyond our ability to fathom. Regarding crossing infinity though, yes, God has existed from the beginningless past. We discuss the challenges to that at kgov.com/time#crossing-infinity. His knowledge includes the account of His own past existence, ever-changing present experience, and future intentions. However, to have comprehensive knowledge of an infinite number of never-ending infinite futures (that is, of the infinite futures of all the plausible beings He could create) is not just difficult and something that a big-enough intellect could handle; instead, it is a logical impossibility.
@@BobEnyartLive Honestly, I enjoy conversation with you. I don't think that quantitative attributes are wrong or necessarily negate God's qualitative attributes. Any person's attributes can be described in that manner as well. God's infinite intellect doesn't make him not a risk taker. He only knows what can be known, thus the free will of humans would still be a risk at the end of the day. So he'd still be loving and personal. I meant coherent as a statement about God - not contradictory. So not him but the idea that he can know all possible things - including the filthy ones. I honestly don't think that makes him somehow computer like or anything. Yeah his tolerance for filth will have to be far higher than ours but that's not somehow reducing his personhood. With regards to God's intellect, if he has infinite intellect, it's not a contradiction to have infinite knowledge. Don't you think? I don't see the logical impossibility there.
Wow.... Will duffy declares that God can sin. That's worse than the statement that Bob Enyart made where he claimed Jesus could have sinned, and torn apart the entire godhead....
Hi Chad! Thanks so much for commenting! We reply to your concern as follows. Calvinists will trust God's decrees but not God Himself, if He is truly free. The Calvinists who we've debated (including Dr. Sam Lamerson and Matt Slick) say that they can trust God's decrees, but not God Himself, if He were free. (See this above from Matt Slick and in my debate with D. James' Kennedy's Dr. Sam Lamerson at tiny.cc/opentheism.) Why do Calvinists say that they can only trust God if He is not free? That's not biblical. When Will Duffy asked Slick: Why would God have traded away His freedom? Why trade away God's freedom, say, His freedom to decree something, by decreeing everything that God would ever decree, so that He is no longer able to decree anything new? (Matt basically admitted that's what Calvinist theology holds, as we've been explaining for a quarter century now.) The answer that Matt withheld may be, "Perhaps we Calvinists say that we could not trust God if He were truly free (i.e., if He really had libertarian free will), because really, God wouldn't trust Himself with free will. So that's why He decreed it away and, as I affirmed in the debate, that's why I say that God cannot think a new thought, write a new song, design a new butterfly, or issue a new decree."
Bob... of course I trust in God's decree. He decreed the cross, and I have put my faith in that finished work and his established promises. According to you, God is free to sin, and theoretically could go back on his gift of salvation, and change his mind not to save those who trust in his finished work.
@@cranmer1959 No Calvinist is a consistent Calvinist. Further, Calvinists do not even ATTEMPT to live as though everything that will happen will inexorably happen. That belief, if actually held, for example, would utterly change the way decisions are made. Calvinists are like my end-times obsessed friends who won't sell me their entire estates for $1,000. I'd pay them now but their estate would not be transferable until 2040; they want ME to believe their doctrine, to make THEM feel better about it, but deep down, they don't really believe it.
Can God create a god greater than Himself? It's a nonsensical argument. God is perfect by nature, logically a perfect God couldn't make an imperfect decision so it's a logical impossibility to say God can sin or otherwise change his mind. The ability to become imperfect isn't consistent with the property of perfection, which means all choices are perfectly correct.
Hi again jon doe! Yes, of course it's absurd to ask for God to create a god greater than Himself. But that in no way affirms your next claim that a perfect God could not make an imperfect decision. The unbiblical emphasis on the quantitative attributes (the OMNIs & the IMs; how much and how little) have turned God into a series of inabilities. It's said He is immutabile, impassible, and impeccible, but without realizing it, those theologians were not describing God but a stone idol. For a stone idol cannot change, cannot emote, and cannot sin. God's will is free jon. If you begin with that fundamental biblical truth, free because He is a Personal God, and a person Must have a will, then you can recover the Living, Personal, Relational, Good, and Loving God (the five primary qualitative biblical attributes). You can see all this at opentheism.org/quantitative-attributes.
I don't agree with Slick on very much, but he creamed the other guy. I came to this debate (and others on the subject) with a mind wide open because I'm undecided. But the open theists do so terribly, I know I must reject that view.
What if God only predestined certain, pertinent events that would fulfill His ultimate plan of salvation for mankind i.e., the new covenant........and all other events that don't matter are left "open" to human volition? Isn't that exactly how the Bible reads? Otherwise, how else does one reconcile the myriad "free will" verses and the few "predestination" verses?
Hey Seth, so honored that you stopped by. The 33 categories of open theist verses that Will Duffy mentioned appear at opentheism.org/verses.html. Also, at the bottom of that list, there are another 7, for a total of 40 (not verses, but entire categories), the Top Seven Categories of Verses that DON'T Exist, which are - That say God is outside of Time (timeless, in an eternal now, not was nor will be but only is, has no past, has no future, see kgov.com/time ) - That say God knows everything that will ever happen - That God can intervene in the past - That God has decreed everything that will ever happen - That God created time - God exists in the past and or the future - That God knew us before we were conceived. So, even if you think that we aren't prepared for these debates (see others to evaluate at kgov.com/debates ), perhaps the force of so many Scriptures will help you reconsider. (And also, of course, if Matt were right, you didn't have a truly "open" mind at all, but rather, decreed from eternity past, predestined, your mind was programmed to side with Matt, just as Will Duffy's was to disagree. But really, you just don't believe that, do you.)
You did not watch, listen, or comprehend the topic of this debate if you believe Matt Slick creamed anybody. Matt read from his computer for most of his lecturing and was debating an opponent who was in his first ever debate.
שת בנ־אברהם Matt twisted himself into a pretzel defending what he believed God decreed he he would say before the Creation. My takeaway from the debate is whether the Bible teaches humans have free will (Open Theism), or humans don't have free will (Calvanism). If you came away from the debate believing you have no free will then you would side with Mr. Slick (Calvanism) and you merely experienced that which God decreed for you before His Creation and you do not think for yourself, you are but a collection of flesh, bones, and muscle that operates on the program God put into your very being before the Creation. You must also believe then that God programmed the pedophile that rapes young children and the murderer that ends life. Is this the God you worship? Is this the God of the Bible?
If you believed he creamed him you clearly didn’t watch the cross examination where he dodged nearly every question and kept asking for interpretations on words that his opponent interrupted multiple times. You clearly did not come with an open mind.
They sure live up to their last name..exchange Duffy with Berean “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” - Luke 2:52 (KJV)
Jesus was a man. Men learn. God does not learn. Since Jesus was a genuine man, he was limited in every way that we are. But Jesus was also the divine Logos incarnate. Therefore Jesus must have been two persons. He was a human person and the divine Person of the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity. The divine Logos was not changed by the incarnation. Jesus died on the cross, not the Logos.
@@cranmer1959 They interaction of the web is bringing to the surface the heresy that permeates Calvinism. Jesus was not two persons. Jesus is God the Son; God the Son became flesh. Charlie, you know this. It's called the Incarnation, and it's the central doctrine of Christianity. Yet, like R.C. Sproul Jr. and James White in our debate aftermath, opentheism.org/white#aftermath we're seeing that so many Calvinists are willing to throw the Incarnation under the bus to save their pagan utter immutability and exhaustive foreknowledge. See the 15 scriptures at opentheism.org/white#god-the-sons-humanity. Also Charlie, you didn't read Nathan's full verse. It speaks not only of Jesus changing, but of the Father changing, for Jesus "increased in favour" with His Father, as of course would happen as the Father saw His eternal Son actually go through with the most extraordinary thing ever, that He became a man and was there in Israel, growing and maturing in the human body that He humbly took upon Himself.
@@BobEnyartLive Maybe your god is dead? He died on the cross, right? Or just maybe the incarnation happened because God cannot die. God sent Jesus to become human because God cannot die.
Calvinists, here's Charlie's reply. He does as bad as R.C. Sproul Jr and Dr. James White. Realize what a mess your doctrine is getting you into: "@Bob Enyart ...the incarnation happened because God cannot die. God sent Jesus to become human because God cannot die." We're hearing such inanity, and heresy, from Calvinists everywhere who are forced to consider the Incarnation in light of their false doctrines about God. For those interested, you can check out kgov.com/attributes.
@@cranmer1959 Hey Charlie, thanks for being here and commenting, but please consider, that's another straw man. Rather than rewrite, I'll copy my reply to your previous comment, and the same thing is happening here. CR: Open Theism teaches that God cannot do anything about evil. Debate over. BE: Hey Charlie! Well, I've been teaching open theism for 35 years, debated a few credentialed and popular opponents, read countless materials, and I've never heard anyone, not even our opponents, say that O.T. teaches that God cannot do anything about evil. Perhaps your comment though helps us, in an important way, understand the thought process of those arguing against open theism. It seems that they can hardly stop themselves from reacting as though we claim that God has NO knowledge, NO power, NO wisdom, NO righteousness, NO... on and on. That's called a straw man, and yes, I'd join you guys in opposing any such teaching. Like when Dr. Lamerson seriously argued, Well then, how could God know that a rooster would crow, as though the Creator of heaven and earth could't accomplish that. See for example, kgov.com/on-how-to-make-a-rooster-crow.
@@BobEnyartLive Please explain why the man who shot his wife did so independently of God's sovereignty? It was God's eternal will that the man would shoot his wife.
@@cranmer1959 That's the ultimate victim mentality for everything from domestic violence to international terror. If you were correct then Christ would be no more in God's will than the Anti-Christ. Calvinists, especially Charlie of the kgov.com/calvin-institutes-book-1-chapter#18 type like you and John, actually do what they fear open theism might do, make God into a sinner.
Amen, completely agree.. The God of Calvanism is a terrible monster.. He doesn't force people to commit suicide or abort their babies.. Those "phrases of speach" were much more
Duffy is so far off in bizarro land !! @1:20:54 - 1:21:09 on the video of the debate Slick asks Duffy … “ Can God the Father sin “ ? Duffy answers … “ I believe so… Yeh Absolutely. “ The Open Theist has absolutely no objective basis to know if God will always tell them the truth or even that He is telling them the truth right now !!
The Mirabilis We know he is telling the truth because of his free will and dedication to righteousness. They talked about God not betraying us because he has shown to be loyal to his followers in the Bible, not because he has an inability to do otherwise. Which one seems like a more stronger and loving God? You can't love if you don't have the ability to hate.
God is at war or will be with the dark powers. Is it a sin to confuse, obstruct, confound or deceive in a war ? Would Jesus really tell the truth to the Nazis where he was hiding Ann Frank ? My question would be did Satan really know who he was tempting ? That he was playing to script like Peter and the roosters. Jesus could have called down a legion of angels, but that would be counter to the will of the Father and a sin. So that ability to sin goes away how ?
Hi florinu123k. Thanks for stopping by. You're implying, like Matt Slick did explicitly twice in this debate, that we open theists believe that God is not perfect, and that He sins. By the way, at opentheism.org/mormonism you can see that the LDS founder, Joseph Smith, believed what you and most all settled view theologians believe, that God is outside of time and in an "eternal now".
Around 1:37:45 is where I draw the line with guys like Matt Slick. Even though I disagree with Will's view of Open Theism, I don't believe he denies God's word as Matt Slick ends up claiming. No Matt, he, and many of us, disagree with your interpretation of the Bible. Matt continually throws out proof text after proof text without any ability to actually understand context and when you disagree with his interpretation, he says you are a hater of God's word. This is childish and one of the many reasons I've lost a lot of respect for the guy. smh
" I don't believe he denies God's word as Matt Slick ends up claiming." Umm... he denies that God knows the future. That's a denial of the very nature of God.
Chad Daniels, but that is different than denying the very passages that Matt Slick is saying he does. Matt Slick references a passage and if you don't agree with his interpretation, he then says you deny God's word. That is ridiculous and a horrible debate tactic. And I agree, open theism is wrong in that it claims that God doesn't know the future.
"And I agree, open theism is wrong in that it claims that God doesn't know the future." And you don't believe that denying that God knows the future is denying God's word? How do you know that God knows the future?
Chad Daniels, please read carefully. Will denying that God knows the future is not the same as denying God's word as a whole. Meaning, that just because Will denies that God knows the future does not mean that when Matt Slick presents certain scriptural interpretations that Will doesn't agree with that he's denying God's word. No, he's denying Matt Slick's interpretation of said scriptures. Just because I disagree with Will's theology does not mean that all the scriptures in the Bible that he disagrees with my interpretation means that he denies God's word. That's a ridiculous argument. Just because someone rejects your interpretation does not equate to them denying God's word. Matt does that all the time. "Oh, you don't agree with my interpretation so you hate God's word." NO, we just disagree with YOUR interpretation of it.
" Will denying that God knows the future is not the same as denying God's word as a whole" I see you qualified your statement with "Denying God's word as a whole." So... you didn't answer my question. Why do you believe that God knows the future?
Why do you say that? I believe that I am ABSOLUTELY free. There is NOTHING in all the universe, including God almighty, that overrides my will. I also believe that God exhaustively knows everything, from before creation to the end of all things (hypothetically speaking).
@@buzzbbird Hey bbb, yes, a "will" is one of the primary components that makes a person a person, and a will is the ability to decide. So someone would have to be expunged, or unpersonified, to lose their will. I'm wondering buzzbbird if you've looked at the list Will Duffy and I have assembled over at opentheism.org/verses. Is there a cateory (out of the 33) that in your estimation we are not overstating the scriptures listed and that you think has some merit?
@@BobEnyartLive i will be happy to look, but I am against Open theism. the ONLY reason Open theism even exists is because Calvinism exists. It accepts that god controls all that God knows. But since it recognizes that man has free will, it disagrees with Calvinism on that, rather than disagreeing with Calvinism on its other precept, of the false definition of Sovereignty. God DOES know the future exhaustively, and while his knowledge is contingent upon what we we will do. When asked HOW God knows? I do not even need to pretend that I have an answer. god did not tell humanity HOW he is God.
@@buzzbbird You're making great points bbb, except that for exhaustive foreknowledge you're only making an assertion. And for that assertion to be valid, it would have to trump or otherwise correct our understanding of the 500+ verses in 33 categories at opentheism.org/verses. And that assertion would also have to overcome the observation made there in our bonus list of The Top Seven Categories of Verses that Don’t Exist, that could, if the future were exhaustively foreknown.
Tim, in an open theism construct, God still declares that certain things will happen. If He doesn't change His mind, He makes them happen. We call it PROPHECY.
Ah, my brother we meet again! I'm not sure that this video or any of the others I have watched so far depict the "open theism construct" as you have defined it here. However, in your "modified" construct, as you have expressed it to me, you do try to close some of the holes presented by open theism. I am thinking of a sinking ship....at what time do I stop trying to plug all of the leaks and abandon ship? ;-)
Michael Orion I'm not totally clear on your question. The ship may have absolutely nothing to do wit God's overarching plan for mankind. Can you elaborate the question?
I was just razzing your commitment to "open theism" and your devotion to "plug all the leaks" you find by modifying the construct so heavily that other open theists would no longer recognize it. It was just in jest ;-)
Johnathan Pritchett commented on Dec. 3, 2017 "Will Duffy needs to brush up on John 6, Philippians 1, Romans 9, etc. I do think he also needs to better understand certain categories of philosophy pertaining to nature and change." I replied on Dec. 4, 2017: Hello Jonathan, thanks for visiting. Was this telling? Matt Slick offered to teach Will Duffy about Romans 9 yet when Will asked him about Jeremiah 18, Matt said he was unfamiliar with that chapter! (It's the Potter and the Clay chapter.) So Matt would not respond. (He didn't recognize the verse Will read nor knew the Jer. 18 reference. Wow.) That is one of the foundational chapters that Romans 9 refers to. Like with the two babies in Rebecca's womb Jacob and Esau being "two nations" (Gen. 25), in Jeremiah God immediately interprets the potter and the clay parable as being about when "that NATION against whom I have SPOKEN turns from its evil, I will REPENT of the disaster that I THOUGHT to bring upon it." So Matt told Will in the debate he couldn't address this passage because he was unfamiliar with it. One who understands Romans 9 will be intimate with Jeremiah 18. Jonathan, I invite you to review at opentheism.org "Is Calvinism Biblical?" with Dr. Larry Bray. My post 1a begins "with Romans 9 [showing that it's about nations, as post 2a extends], John 15, Isaiah 46 and Psalm 139."
Heidi Carico, hello! You make rather interesting observations and have quite a way of writing. Thanks for commenting! I'll invite you though to make a different comment though about what you said about open theists, that we believe in, "A Jesus who has no power over anyone or anything". When you wrote that, you might have been thinking about some other camp. Open theists affirm that God created the world with His power, has brought judgment against the world with the rsr.org/flood and has frequently supernaturally intervened to both bless and judge individuals and nations. Further, that Jesus will return to judge the world, great and small, rich and poor, and only those who trust in Him will He save to eternal life and those who reject Him will learn of their horrific punishment at the Great White Throne Judgment. In these and countless other ways the Scriptures have demonstrated the power that Jesus has over people and things. So, assuming Heidi that you actually do have something against open theists, and that we may benefit from your criticism if we can see that it is valid, I invite you to repost. If you take me up on that invitation though, it would be wonderful if you could start in humility by realizing that you made a false accusation against us. I think you'd want to start that way, since, as you would put it, a Jesus who overlooks false accusations is not the Jesus of the Bible. Thanks again! -Pastor Bob Enyart, Denver Bible Church Heidi Carico posted the following (around 10:30 a.m. Dec. 3, 2017, M.T.) All these debates by human sinners who call themselves teachers prove James 3:1 correct: "Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." The following false Jesuses are preached by seminary graduates which proves Jesus right in Mt. 11:25 that God has hidden the truth from those who are considered wise and learned by human standards. So seminary degrees do not make anyone "Men of God", the Holy Spirit does: A Jesus who supports sodomy, (Lutherans, Presby. Congregationalists, Methodists, Episcopalians and some Baptists) a Jesus who says there is no hell, (Universalist 'churches') a Jesus who's a hippie guru who came to bring peace to the earth instead of a sword, (ecumenicists including Catholics, Lutherans and Rick Warren) a Jesus who supports Muslims who deny him,(Rick Warren followers) a Jesus who’s a handsome stud with long hair, made of wood, stone, gold and bronze,(Catholics) A Jesus who's of the world, fun and entertaining (Evangelicals), A Jesus who came from another planet (Mormons), A Jesus who has no power over anyone or anything (Open Theists), A Jesus who speaks gibberish (Pentecostals)a Jesus who makes woman the head of man (most denominations), a Jesus who supported the rich man's decision to keep his money and possessions, (Joyce Meyer, Joel Olsteen and Pentecostals)a Jesus who's going to come back, 2, 3, or more times,(E-free and charismatic 'churches') a Jesus who's already come back, (Preterists) a Jesus who isn’t necessary since man can conquer sin by his own free will, (most denominations) a Jesus who didn’t turn the other cheek, but instead, killed his enemies, (Catholics and Protestants), a Jesus who didn’t come to save the lost sheep of Israel because Israel isn’t the church (Evangelicals, Catholics) a Jesus who didn't die for most people, (Calvinists) a Jesus who isn’t divine, (JW's) and just about every other Jesus of one's imagination, none of whom is the Jesus of the bible.
What is really being asked here is, "Is God good and is He capable of doing evil?" In short, "Is God moral?" The term "sin" has to do with transgressing the law, which is a different issue altogether. Right and wrong existed long before the law was given. It was not against the law for Cain to murder his brother, for example, but it was wrong or immoral. The critical issue in morality is choice. Actions that are not chosen are outside of the purview of morality. Therefore, if God is good then He must be so by choice - by definition. But accepting the idea that God has the ability to do something wrong is not to accept that his doing so can actually happen. God is, after all, omnipotent and cannot be forced to do anything He does not want to do or otherwise defeated or forcible coerced. This along with the fact that He has existed for an eternity without deviation from perfectly flawless righteousness and wisdom all speaks to God's eternally perfect moral character.
Thanks for asking Jomarshun, and for your reply Clete! Jomarshun, what you are asking about is something that Socrates discussed long ago in a dialogue called Euthyphro's Dilemma. If you Google: christian answer to euthyphro, I think you'll find our article at TheologyOnline.com. Truth and righteousness flow from God, and just as truth is non-contradictory, so is morality. So, if God were to contradict Himself, that would not make the contradiction true, just because God said it. Likewise, if God were to morally contradict Himself, that would not make Him good just because He did it. That's arbitrary, and God's truth and morality are not arbitrary. Further, belief in such arbitrariness is one of the factors that led to the selling of indulgences, because, if God could command Thou shalt bear false witness, and Thou shalt commit adultery, as easily as otherwise, then He could also permit the church to sell permsission to wealthy patrons to do those things.
Really cool of you to reply. Thank you. But isn't there a difference between God being good and being truthful? Truthfulness (that which is so, despite any opinion of it) and morality are different, no? God is truthful because he does not lie about what is. But morality is based on decisions, isn't it? My initial question "Ultimately, what is 'sin'?" was intended to ponder whether or not 'good' is subjective as it pertains to how God deems it. It is good to obey God. He states His preference for obedience over sacrifice. But, obedience to God led to killing, abandonment, rejection, tolerance (of what we'd presume to be despicable [Hosea]). In the end, isn't obedience (regardless of how our current instincts may protest) higher than reasoning how his command is moral? I would think the book of Job kind of highlights the importance of being careful when we strive to reason how God's actions and commands measure up to how we perceive morality. I don't know if I sound difficult. I don't mean to.
@ 2:39 The question asked of Matt Slick is basically...."who is the "us" in Eph 1 :4?" There seems to be a consensus among all camps that "us" is the "church", predestined to be such or otherwise. The standard non-calvinist explaining away of the text is to say that all believers were predestined to be in Christ when they chose to believe. In other words, it's not the salvation that was predestined but it is the status of being "in Christ" that was predestined for any and all that would volitionally believe. I think there is a much more pragmatic way of comprehending the text. But it first requires one, even an open theist, to be open to the idea that not everything in God's plan can be manifest by human will alone and that God did in fact use some predestination once in a while to bring about a specific framework in which free will, as a standard, can be the goal of His new covenant, overarching plan.
Imagine for a moment that Paul really is speaking of individual, salvific predestination but only for a handful. It's stated in Acts 10 41 that "a few witnesses" were chosen to be so. I'm a partial open theist and I'm going to assert up front that it was specifically the apostles who were predestinated from before the foundation, Paul included as one born out of due season and the real twelfth. Allow me to elaborate. It was me who posed the question to Will "as an open theist, can you admit that some things were predestined....." No one can possibly think that 12 apostles were a happenstance of man's free will....nor any other fulfilled prophecy. We non calvinists, to be credible, must admit that God declared many things ( "for God does nothing without first declaring it to His prophets") and then intervened in man's free will to literally make them happen. There are two distinct groups Paul refers to, noticing the pronouns "us", "we" and "you". The first two verses are simply the greeting so if we can set those aside for a moment.... Vs's 3- 12 are really just one long run-on sentence in the Greek. Only the pronouns "us" and "we" are used. If Paul continued that way, then you and I, and all other believers, could include ourselves in that group. But the moment "you" appears in vs 13, we have to acknowledge two groups of believers. The first group is said to have every spiritual blessing in the heavens.They were made known the mystery of God's will (given eyes to see and ears to hear) and they had been predestinated (literally chosen) according to a specific purpose. But notice....they were chosen "before" the foundation and in verse 12 these "us's" and "we's" are defined as "we" who FIRST trusted in Christ.
In vs 13, Paul tells the Ephesians, using "you", that they were "also" (denoting two groups) included in those blessings "after" they heard the word and believed. Then they were sealed with the Holy Spirit. Now we can doctrinally include ourselves into the second group but never the first. So, we have one small group predestinated "before" and another group, infinitely larger, believing "after" they hear the gospel. I've been rebutted by many calvinists with them saying that it's ridiculous that the "us's" and "we's are only regarding the apostles. They say "the book is written to all of us believers, therefore "us" and "we" are all believers". What faulty logic. Just because Paul is writing TO the Ephesians, that doesn't necessitate the pronouns "we" and "us" to refer to the Ephesians especially when "you" is used in contrast.
Since the book was written to tell Gentiles that they are no longer "far" but have been "drawn near", it makes perfect sense to greet them, and then tell them what chosen Jews (namely, the apostles) received , and then tell them that they are now included...not in the predestination, for it is impossible to believe something before you were born...but, the blessings in Christ. In keeping with the premise of the book, Paul quotes Isaiah in Eph 2 14, which was really a prophecy about Jew and Gentile becoming one new man, Jesus being our "peace". "I create the fruit of the lips; (the gospel) Peace, peace to him that is far off (gentiles) and to him that is near (Jews) saith the LORD; and I will heal him" Isa 57:19 "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us" Eph 2:13-14
Paul typically refers to the apostles as "us" and "we" in his epistles so this is not a stretch at all. Read 1 cor 4 all the way through and you'll see what I mean but here's vs 9........ "For I think that God hath set forth US the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for WE are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men" 1Co 4:9 That leads us to the other thorn in the non-calvinist's side....romans 8, in which we also see two groups of believers. It was the apostles that were "appointed unto death" while the other new believers were "reigning as kings" as 1 Cor 4 says. So when Romans 8 goes into the "golden chain" of redemption, it's speaking of the apostles. They were the ones who were "killed all day long" and "counted as sheep for the slaughter". Ask yourself, in the next verse, who's the "your" and who's the "we" referring to? " As it is written: 'For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Rom 8:36 Paul is quoting psalm 44 in which the psalmist describes the plight of Israel, counted as sheep for the slaughter, yet, Paul is applying it to the apostles, Israel's representatives. The apostles, referred to in Romans 8 36, were the ones, as Eph 1 also states, who were "called according to a purpose" ; who were predestinated "to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren". "Many brethren" because they were called to spread the gospel first. Which finally leads us to Jn 17 because there, we see yet again the same "two groups", one small group who was "given" to Jesus by the Father.....and an infinitely larger group that will "believe through their (the first group's) words". In Vs's 6-19, Jesus prays only for those "given" to Him and He says that "none was lost save Judas", relegating this group to the eleven. Then in vs 20, Jesus opens up the prayer to include "all those that will believe through their word". These "given" ones in Jn 17 are the same "given" ones that Jesus referred to in Jn 6. They were alluded to in the 12 baskets in which the fragments (remnants) of food were placed in so that "nothing be lost". They are literally the "remnant" and the "elect" from a blinded nation in which no one could go to Jesus unless the Father drew them first. They were given the mysteries of God while all the others spoken to in parables. They were the exception to the national blindness of Israel,receiving eyes to see and ears to hear. So all the texts show that the small, remnant, elect apostles were predestinated from before the foundation to be, according to purpose, the witnesses of Christ and the first to hope in Christ preaching the gospel so that "whosoever" can believe their words and be saved.
Sir with all due respect the point you make of "us" and "we" as ONLY applied to the apostles makes no sense. It seems rather strange that Paul opens his address to the "saints" and then use "we and "us" in relation to the apostles only ONLY thru v12. The "we" and "us" referred are the "saints" the corporate body; jew and gentile believers. Paul's whole point is that God's church is built by him (Matt. 16:18), and filled by him (Acts 2:47); all according to HIS sovereign predestined plan; according to HIS glorious grace and purpose NOT MANS! V13, "in him you also", is a direct address to gentile in reference to God's plan. The hearing is the MEANS with which God saves his people(Rom. 10:14-15). Paul is not saying "well "we" apostles were chosen but you gentiles had to use your free will to get into the plan." No! My friend when you come to the text with "free" will eyes you'll never see that the distinction, with regards to people groups, are WITHIN the same electing purpose and plan, not distinct methods plans. In other words a plan and purpose for salvation for "us" apostles and a different one for you gentiles.
It's interesting when Calvinist get upset with the idea from open theists that God could do evil - when they spend all their time trying to justify their belief that he actually does evil for his glory. Through scripture he manifests an objective standard of righteousness which Calvinist say he violates - God claims to be against David murdering a man and taking his wife (because it's contrary to who God is (loving, righteous etc) - that doesn't matter because the true (secret will of God) is w/e actually happens regardless of whether it's good or evil. And yet we read that David did ALL God's will EXCEPT in the case of Uriah the Hittite. So David did something that was against what God wanted him to do. It was against God's will - yet Calvinist tell us everything that happens is God's will and no one can resist it.
"trying to justify their belief that he actually does evil for his glory" No Calvinist believes that God does evil. Maybe learn about God before you accuse him of evil.
Hi Chad, thanks for responding to Coach DC. You recognize of course that CDC was accusing your theology and not God. You illustrated the longstanding tension wherein Calvinists say that God decreed everything (including all evil), but He's not responsible for it. Hitler never killed anyone; he only decreed it; but that makes him no less responsible for doing evil. Obviously you know this, but to be explicit, as a Calvinist when you say, "Our theology does not make God an evildoer," we don't agree with you. We think you will eventually see that you are wrong. Likewise, when Will Duffy described God's qualities that show that He exists in time (like patience and endurance, see opentheism.org/verses), every leading Calvinist who says, "We teach all the time that God is patient, and that He exists outside of time", in no way has answered the challenge that God's patience falsifies the outside-of-time theology. (In this historic debate, as Matt Slick prepared by reviewing our previous debates arguing the Incarnation proves that God exists in sequence and in time kgov.com/time , Matt became the first leading Calvinist to argue publicly "I don't say that God is outside of time" and "I don't say that there's an eternal now." Wow! Progress.)
Enyart - "CDC was accusing your theology and not God." That is correct. Yes, every Calvinist imputes evil to God - just as Matt did - He just uses theological acrobatics and euphemisms because the raw truth is nauseating to even him. (Does God do or force ppl from a predestined decree/cause) to do contrary to the manifestation of who He is in scripture? For example if God is clearly saying "Do not murder.., Israel - don't do that" and they do it (like sacrificing their kids to false Gods) - but God had said "You should not do that" - but, before he even created anything He some how decided that he would make sure they did it and that's the ONLY choice they could make - then you are saying God did it through them. No matter how you try to finesse it - If I write an AI for a robot to perform certain actions then it's not just the robot performing them - I'm performing them through the robot. The robot is just carrying out my commands - what I have made sure will happen - it has no choice to do otherwise. This is why I say that for Calvinist w/e is happening is the truth about what God is doing and who he is - doesn't matter if scripture says God is against rape, murder etc (Blaspheming the holy spirit) - if it's happening that's the real truth for the Calvinist about what God has predestined and is currently doing. That's why they have this dual will of God - one is secret, one is revealed and they contradict each other. It's the "Kingdom divided against itself" that Jesus said "Can not stand" - God does evil things that he predestined before he even created anyone (before anyone did good or bad) but pretends he is against those evil things and then gets mad at those he made do them (It's all a show - his frustration, sorrow, anger) This is exactly what Calvinist essentially believe.
Chad... Were their acts evil? You said God doesn't do evil correct? But you do believe God (as you just said) predestined them (Made them) to do what they did (No other choice for them even before they were born) - your interpretation is that God (Before they were even born) made sure they would play a part in rejecting the messiah and crucifying him - correct? You believe the *murder* of Christ was predestined before the foundation of the world, right? That there was no other way for him to give up his life and atone for sin.
If God doesn't have the ability to sin , then righteousness is meaningless. If God doesn't have the ability to hate, then love is also meaningless. The same truths that pertain to us pertain to God also.
Hey Apologia5, thanks for asking for a justification. I don't know if Chris saw your comment, but let me share what I offered to Philip Hawkins above. Love must be freely given. (That should be self-evident. But consider as one example that God loves the world and all sides at least agree that He was free to love us or not.) Because love must be freely given, therefore, to be able to love one must be able to withhold that love, that is, he must be able to hate. God loves. And His love too must be freely given. Otherwise it would not be love. The Father loves the Son freely. That means that he could withhold that love. He does not love the Son by any inevitability but by His choice. Likewise, God is faithful. His faithfulness is not an inability but an ability. Finally, as exposed by the Calvinist who can only trust God's decreee but not God Himself, likewise, there is no need to fear God being free, even when it comes to love.
As is typical at 1:33:42 Matt is misrepresenting John 6:65. Since this is the passage where Jesus tells the Jews that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, or they have no life in them. While this was figurative they took it literally and were offended. Thus God grants people who want to believe understanding and those who don't are left in the dark, which is why Jesus spoke in parables. It is amazing how in cross Matt is suddenly so ignorant of the Bible and all the passages that Will asks him about. I also like how Will rightly catches Matt in his circular reasoning. As to those who find the idea that God could sin or that Jesus could sin so heretical it is why we can have faith in Him because he doesn't and Jesus didn't. We can trust God because he Gave his Son, and if God were to turn his back on us now He would be then turning His back on what His Son did and making it all for nothing. Thus He would be causing the disruption in the Godhead that Matt is so shocked could happen.
Hi Jurist! Thanks for those observations! I'm not sure Johnathan Pritchett will respond to this, so I'll ask you, since you brought up Matt being cross examined. Did you note when Matt Slick offered to teach Will Duffy about Romans 9? Yet when Will asked him about Jeremiah 18, Matt said he was unfamiliar with that chapter! But it's the Potter and the Clay chapter! So Matt would not respond. (He didn't recognize the verse Will read, didn't offer to review it quickly it, nor knew the Jer. 18 reference. Wow.) That is one of the foundational chapters that Romans 9 refers to. Like with the two babies in Rebecca's womb Jacob and Esau representing "two nations" (Gen. 25), in Jeremiah God immediately interprets the potter and the clay parable as being about when "that NATION against whom I have SPOKEN turns from its evil, I will REPENT of the disaster that I THOUGHT to bring upon it." Matt said that being unfamiliar with this passage, he was unable to discuss it with Will. Anyone who understands Romans 9 knows Jeremiah 18 intimately. Jurist, btw, at opentheism.org "Is Calvinism Biblical" with Dr. Larry Bray my post 1a begins "with Romans 9 [showing that it's about nations, as post 2a extends], John 15, Isaiah 46 and Psalm 139." Open theists can START with the Calvinists' own proof text. Fun stuff!
He also misinterprets and misrepresents 1 Corinthians 2:14, incorrectly equating it to mean that the unregenerate natural man cannot understand or receive the Gospel, but Paul is not talking about the Gospel. He's talking about the deeper things of God that only mature believers can receive, as noted in the few verses later in chapter 3 where Paul tells the babes in Christ (immature Christians) that they cannot receive these deeper things. This cannot be the Gospel because they are Christians, albeit immature, and have already received the Gospel and accepted it.
nadohe11, well said. Paul there immediately adds, saying to the Corinthian believers "you are God’s field, you are God’s building." Yet "I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal."
Regarding Jesus speaking in secret parables and John 6:65, as Jurist put it, "Since this is the passage where Jesus tells the Jews that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood... while this was figurative they took it literally and were offended. Thus God grants people who want to believe understanding and those who don't are left in the dark, which is why Jesus spoke in parables." Yes. Jesus parables were not like Navajo code talkers. He was "hiding in plain sight." His words could not have been simpler. "A farmer plants some seed..." So of those willfully ignorant, "their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes... so that I would heal them." Jesus interpreted His parables for His disciples, but if you list everything He said to the public at large, you will see that it was extensive and lacked nothing that they would need to hear from God for their stage in the outworking of His plans. (And yes, open theists believe God has plans, believe it or not! :)
God can make ontological evil he just chooses not to because He is good. We know He is good because for eternity past He never did the Son wrong. The Son loved the Father so much that he layed down his own life because it was the will of the father, that He did so. The Son has his own will but He chooses to submit His will to the will of the Father. Nature's don't have wills, spirits have wills. The affect of the law on our spirit is what causes us to sin. Jesus choose not to sin because of the love He had for the Father. It's a beautiful story Calvinists destroy with "cannot". :(
Great points Ihc, including that spirits (i.e., persons) have wills. Our personhood is bound up not in our physical body but in our soul (that is, for humans, in our soul/spirit). And Jesus was the express image of the Person of God, and so, made in His likeness, we too are persons!
Yikes Dom! There, forget about kgov.com/doubly-redundant. Right there, Matt is triply redundant, with his "autonomous libertarian free will." Yikes! Quadruple anyone?
If Einstein and his theory of relativity is right, then Time is a variable created within the framework of the universe...if this is so, God created Time itself. Consequently, open theism has a major flaw. Watch this short video that shows Einsteins theory of time dilation is correct: "simple relativity: understanding Einsteins special theory of relativity"
Time is an idea not a thing. It is a convention of language used to convey information about the duration and sequence of events. Space is similar. Space is that which is between things that exist but it is just an idea not a thing. It too is a convention of language use to convey information about distance and relative position of things that actually do exist. Speed is a corollary of these two ideas. Motion happens but speed is just a description of that motion relative to something else, it does not have its own ontological existence.
Einstein, in his special theory of relativity, postulated the constancy and finiteness of the speed of light for all observers. He showed that this postulate, together with a reasonable definition for what it means for two events to be simultaneous, requires that distances appear compressed and time intervals appear lengthened for events associated with objects in motion relative to an inertial observer...see Wikipedia and time. In other words, time is not a fixed measurement, rather it depends on the velocity of the observers. Therefore, I think it is not a stretch to posit that since time is not constant, it is a measurable variable within the universe and creation.
Clete, You are so right. Why can't seemingly smart people understand that the term "time" is never used to denote a physical object? All of the proponents of evolution and the big bang theory say that time was created in the big bang. They speak of it as if it's a "thing".....something you can dilate, speed up, slow down, travel through and something that can be created either by God or randomness. Why do Christians give so much credence to the atheistic scientists? The Bible shows God to operate in real "time". God is "patient" not willing that any should perish. Jesus "waits" at the right hand of the Father. At the seventh trumpet there's silence in heaven for about the space of half an hour....etc. If God created "time" there would have to be a point in time that this event occurred. Therefore, the existence of "time", if we can state it as such, is a pre-requisite to the creation of "time".
contemplate; because God operates outside of time does not mean he cannot interact with His creation. Relativity has been affirmed and reaffirmed over the last 100 years. Laws do not have physical attributes, as you say, but describe an intangible reality by which the universe operates. God created the laws of the universe. James 4:12.
Brett RCG, Existence implies duration. Duration is time. Therefore, the idea of existence outside of time is self-contradictory and therefore false. If you want a rational worldview, you’ll need to drop your Ancient Greek ideas about God. You’ll do better to just stick with the Bible and let Aristotle and Plato go by the wayside.
Hey Paul. Of course, words have spheres of meaning. It is, however, not unusual to site love as one of God's attributes. For example, zondervanacademic.com/blog/attributes-of-god. Over the last 30 years, as at kgov.com/attributes we've made our case of how to improve upon the typical list of attributes, and it's mostly all just to make this single point. The quantitative attributes (OMNIs and IMs; how much, how little) are Greek and Latin philosophical misdirections, for example impassible, immutable, impeccable, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscience, whereas the top five biblical qualitative attributes of our eternal God are that He is Living, Personal, Relational, Good, and Loving.
Bob Enyart Hey thanks for the reply! I tend to believe that Love is the essence that makes possible the centrality of will in the Perichoresis. Devine attributes follow. Incredible debate with White in 2014. I just now saw it on you tube.
@@paullaymon5133 Thanks Paul! I'd still say that because words have spheres of meaning, its absolutely valid to include love, as theologians occasionally (maybe often?) have done through the centuries. But I do have to disagree with one point. LOVE cannot make the WILL possible. Will is the ability to decide, and love is a commitment for good, so love must be freely given, and that requires an act of the will. Jesus willingly submits to the Father, as the Holy Spirit willingly minsters to the Father and Son. And so on. And, yes, that debate was quite the event! :)
@@cranmer1959 Hey Charlie! Love is the commitment to good, that is, especially, the commitment to the good of someone. (We can say that we love a sunset, or a ribeye, but that's a bit different. :)
"God can't do ontological evil" - We do not say he can - Matt does. The puppet is not the doer of anything good or evil - it's the one who controls it. The puppet can only do what the controller makes it do. And in Matt's theology - no matter how he tries to dance around it - God is the controller of all the puppets (us). And w/e you pin this guy down on that it's, "You don't understand what I'm saying" (your ignorant) He gets frustrated because he wants to be able to say YES to 2 questions. Does God predestine every thought and action (that obviously includes evil by the biblical manifested revelation of what evil is (not to mention general revelation) - YES 2: Is God righteous and unable to do evil? YES. Puppet Master is not the cause of the puppet doing evil. K.
Thanks for asking Lance. Many times in many ways the Bible teaches us that if it is in your heart (i.e., also, in your decree), then you are responsible for it. Mat. 5:28; 5:21-22; etc.
Lance Baize --- Please explain to the class how it is possible for there to be a permissive prescriptive will tucked neatly *inside* a deterministic decretive will and the permissive prescriptive will *is not* part and parcel of the deterministic decretive will? Thanks,
That's an assertion Lance - Maybe you don't understand his question? Where is the flaw in it? - How about this - "Oh...! -Jerusalem Jerusalem - how OFTEN would I have gathered you under my wings (dot dot dot) (which "will" of God is this?) BUT... YOU were not WILLING" Calvinist read it this way .. "How often I would have gathered you....(Throughout the biblical history God seems to want this) but I was not willing" God pretended to want/will something he had already predetermined/want/will/command (pick one) to the contrary that would not - wait - COULD not happen - So he both worked towards something he already predetermined would not happen - then pretended like it was Israel's fault and got upset when they kept rejecting Him which is exactly what He wanted them to do all along. So really he was upset with them for being OBEDIENT. Because is God determines everything (thought/action) of human beings then there is no such thing as disobedience. - Everyone is always doing exactly what God truly wants them to do - Kind of like you perusing a woman to be your wife - knowing ahead of time she would never choose you for that because you had predetermined her not to and then getting upset about it because it won't happen.
Hey Jacob, thanks for being here. The Koran speaks of the "decree" of Allah and Islam does split, that is true, over both whether there is any actual human freedom and over whether the future is settled. The vast majority of Muslims though are Sunnis; there's about 1.4 billion of them. And Sunnis are known for believing (somehow, and not unlike many Calvinists, Arminians, and Molinists) in both human freedom and the settled future. Teaching on fate (or "decree" in the Koran, and which some ancient pagan philosophers called "providence") predates the Greeks and goes back to the Sumerians. See for ex. their creation myth Enuma rsr.org/Elish.
@@BobEnyartLive Thank you for having me. And thanks for the information. I have a question though. I believe that Will Duffy, though I could have him mixed up with a different open theist, believed that God is in fact omniscient in the sense that He knows all that there is (the future does not exist). How does this view make sense of Genesis 18:21 "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." ?
@@israelcowl6764 Will explains that God knows everything that is knowable THAT HE WANTS TO KNOW. With that understanding, then as you can read Jacob at kgov.com/sodom#incarnation-preparation ... God will go down to Sodom to see what they have done: In Genesis, in expectation of becoming Incarnate a few thousand years later, God the Son actually tried on the wearing of a body, He walked (Gen. 3:8), of course He breathed air, spoke from His mouth in an audible voice (Gen. 3:9), even ate (Gen. 18:1, 6-8; 19:3) and slept (Gen. 19:4). And in anticipation of the decades He would spend on Earth immediately following the Incarnation, for these first earthly appearances, signficantly, He briefly emptied Himself of knowledge, power, and presence. God the Son would dramatically limit His knowledge, when living as the Son of Man in Galilee. So thousands of years earlier, when Genesis records Him walking on Earth, the Scriptures show that then He briefly limited His knowledge. Why do this? Because He was experiencing, for Himself, what it would be like to live that way, like a man, on Earth, with lessened knowledge, for over thirty years. A teacher may wrongly claim that all of God's actions to Him are as nothing, but creating, humbling Himself, becoming incarnate, suffering, becoming "sin for us", overcoming death, none of these extraordinary actions in God's life were as nothing. They were significant to Him beyond our comprehension. Becoming Man was among the most significant conceivable events in the life of God the Son. And regarding knowledge, as He then acknowledged, No man, no angel, nor even God the Son knew the timing of His own Second Coming. For "of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32; Mat. 24:36). Likewise, in one of His first forays into what would be His future Incarnation experience, just after Adam and Eve sinned: And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? ..." (Gen. 3:8-11) God of course asks rhetorical questions. But something far more significant was going on in Genesis. The Incarnation that He would soon enough experience would be to Him no minor feat. Just as God impressed Himself with the grandeur of the creation (Gen. 1:31), so too, and of far greater demand and impact, God the Son would become a Man! In doing so He would empty Himself (Phil. 2:7) of vast quantities of knowledge, presence, and power. For He was able to remain fully God while diminishing such quantitative attributes. But He could not have remained God if He had emptied Himself of His biblical qualitative attributes (of being living, personal, relational, good, and loving). Thus prefiguring the Incarnation, God the Son, having taken upon Himself very temporarily the form of a man, and breathing, walking, talking, and eating, and emptying Himself of presence and knowledge, then said, "I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know" (Gen. 18:21). For the Holy Spirit could have whispered in His ear or the Father could have spoken from heaven, but instead, He sought the information for Himself, so "I will know." He would receive that information as a Man, and then judge as a Man, that is, as the Son of Man! He also emptied Himself of power, which is why "the LORD" who was on Earth (the pre-incarnate God the Son) rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah from His Father, that is, "from the LORD out of the heavens" (Gen. 19:24). In Eden too, the Son had emptied Himself of knowledge and presence. He tried on the Incarnation. He did not ask the Spirit nor His Father, nor did His Incarnation fitting come with x-ray vision to look through the trees of the Garden to see where Adam was hiding. Instead, He asked, as undoubtedly He did of friends and family many times while on Earth in the decades after the Incarnation, "Where are you?"
I do think Duffy's scriptural rebuttal of Matt's traditional proof text for "Calvinism" was weak. He should have been better prepared to put those verses in a larger context and explain how they are not proof texts for Calvinism. Matt's theological "Words" and arrogant condescending manner came across as insecure and weak itself.. Just saying it's all "Figurative" but Will doesn't understand.. ( is not sufficient at all) It tells us though that Matt does believe God's clear words in those verses are not sincere, literal but he can't explain what the figure of speech means that is directly the opposite of what the texts says. God clearly said in multiple places that Israel SHOULD NOT murder their kids to false Gods (or murder them in general..) That he 1: DID NOT COMMAND IT 2: That they SHOULD do this thing (murder). And if He didn't want it, (But every choice we make is the only one we can make based on God's decree) how were they able to resist his will and do this thing? How does God "Often" want to gather Israel to Him, but they and their evil "WILL" rebelled and rejected God's will? You have to say that Jesus was not being sincere or honest there and I guess that was also "Figurative" language.
Chad - Open Theism doesn't teach God doesn't know things - He knows his own plans - He knows how his creation operates because he created it. He knows the sun will come up, because he predestined it to rise and set..until he decides otherwise. He also knows his own plans with in human creation. He knows how our emotions work, our bodily functions, our range of choices and capacity for good and evil.. but is God ever surprised or hopeful? Does any scripture suggest this? ("I said she would return to me - but she did not return.." "What more could I have done - I looked for grapes.. but... I got thorns") God sorrows, gets frustrated, angry at his own decrees?? Why? He knows all this is going to happen because he decreed it..( Lets say you really like this girl and .. you want to marry her - but.. you wrote a DNA script inside her to never respond affirmatively. (So you KNOW she is never going to respond to your marriage proposals as you predestined her to reject you - reprogrammed) BUT you are constantly trying to get her to respond and then blaming her for it and getting upset when she doesn't. Thoughts?
Slick's computer (Surface Book2 15") costs AT LEAST $2500...and yet he begs for money everyday on his show...I guess we know why...he could've bought something for $500 or less but had to have the best...sad but typical of so-called evangelists.
Can you show me the video or quote where Slick "begs" for money? I so don't think he asks "everyday on his show". Slick uses his computer every day for his ministry and to further the Gospel, does video, live stream etc. Seems like it would be rather beneficial to have a good laptop opposed to a $500 one.
Slick begs for money during all of his daily call-in shows. He doesn't preface these solicitations by saying that he will use the money to buy premium/luxury computers. There is no justification for a "man of god" spending $2500+ on a lap top...that's like Slick saying he needs a high end BMW to drive around and tell people about Jesus.
You still haven't demonstrated how Slick "begs" for money. Also who or what determines the standard for what is too much? You think a Christian should only spend $500 on a laptop, how did you come to that number? What criteria did you use? Why not $600 or $490? Do you not own anything that you could have bought for cheaper? Do you own a shirt that costs more than $10? If so, why spend more when you don't really NEED it? I'm just using that as an example to potentially point out hypocrisy.
Hey Charlie! Well, I've been teaching open theism for 35 years, debated a few credentialed and popular opponents, read countless materials, and I've never heard anyone, not even our opponents, say that O.T. teaches that God cannot do anything about evil. Perhaps your comment though helps us, in an important way, understand the thought process of those arguing against open theism. It seems that they can hardly stop themselves from reacting as though we claim that God has NO knowledge, NO power, NO wisdom, NO righteousness, NO... on and on. That's called a straw man, and yes, I'd join you guys in opposing any such teaching. Like when Dr. Lamerson seriously argued, Well then, how could God know that a rooster would crow, as though the Creator of heaven and earth could't accomplish that. See for example, kgov.com/on-how-to-make-a-rooster-crow.
@@BobEnyartLive God has been around since day 1. But before creation He was eternally and timelessly pre-existent. I will trust God's written word over your impotent and changing god who is subject to his own creation.
@@cranmer1959 Hi Charlie. So I see that even with that explicit statement to the contrary, you persist in mischaracterizing our God who, unlike a static utterly immutable deity, can think new thoughts, write new songs, design new butterflies, etc. You call that God impotent. And the one who you think has eternally traded away His own freedom and even His ability to think a new thought, you think is the true one. When you see God Himself in heaven, you will now even more than otherwise realize how merciful He is, in that even though you referred to the Living, changing God as impotent, regardless, He has forgiven you because you believed in Christ. And yes, we should trust God's written word. So, if you Google: Is God outside of time, I think you'll find our article at kgov.com/time on the first page of results. If you read that article, you'll find many Bible verses contradicting your claim that God pre-existed timelessly (a self-contradictory statement anyway). Thanks again!
I'm excerpting here replies from a user with initials cw: "@Bob Enyart [quoting Charlie Ray], 'O.T. teaches that God cannot do anything about evil. 1+1=2 Bob. Odd that you've been teaching a view for that long and still never understood the implications." BE's reply from above, regarding: "the thought process of those arguing against open theism. It seems that they can hardly stop themselves from reacting as though we claim that God has NO knowledge, NO power, NO wisdom, NO righteousness, NO... on and on. That's the straw man logical fallacy..." cw continued: "If God is in an inferior status to his own creation, as he would be if he were subject to time, then the physical world is superior to God." BE: Hmm. That's confusing to unpack and assessing the thought processes of those against open theism has its challenges. If we were to put this argument in its best possible light making all kinds of assumptions in its favor, in order to respond to it as though it had merit, there would still be this problem. If both God and creation were subject to time, than that would not indicate which was subject to which. Just Google though: Is God outside of time, and check out the article on the first page of results at kgov.com/time. Many reading that article have seen that the Bible indicates scores of times that God is in time, and that the Scriptures falsify the claim that He is outside of time. Then cw added, "More importantly, open theism claims that God is not eternal, but that God is subjected to time..." BE: This is not only another straw man fallacy but it becomes such by re-defining the word "eternal" to mean "timeless". However, as Ryan Mullins in The End of the Timeless God points out, Jesus does not give to His followers "timeless" life but never-ending life, that is, eternal life. Eternal does not mean atemporal. And cw says, "Open theism is just more postmodernism being injected into Christianity to erase all truth from the religion..." BE: At our website opentheism.org folks can click on the timeline showing Christians teaching explicit open theism centuries before postmodernism and, in a related observation, at our page kgov.com/300 you can see (and hear) that Christians taught free will for the first 300 years of the church, as affirmed by Oxford professor of historical theology Alister McGrath, who sympathized with Augustinian "providence" that, "The pre-Augustinian theological tradition is practically of one voice in asserting the freedom of the human will." cw, as in my opentheism.org/debate with D. James Kennedy's Prof. of New Testament Dr. Samuel Lamerson, we don't quote extrabilbilcal sources like this to prove open theism (for that we quote the Scriptures) but to disprove the constant extrabiblical claims of Reformed theologians.
Separately, Charlie Ray wrote to us: "You have not defined what eternal means. Eternal means timeless." False. Jesus does not give us timeless life, but "eternal life", that is, never ending life! Many theologians have tried to win the debate by definition, that is, by defining eternal to mean... their doctrine! That is an easy way to 1) win a debate, and 2) lose a blessing. There's more at kgov.com/time.
It's perplexing to me how Calvinist's don't trust God not to sin, unless he is bound by something other than His will to do right. I think of this as pirates of the caribbean theology (there is always some greater power).
Love that observation it Ihc! Thank you! Calvinists in debate with us, including Matt Slick and D. James Kennedy's prof. of New Testament Dr. Samuel Lamerson, say that if God is free, then they couldn't trust Him. They could only trust Him, they say, shockingly, IF He has no choice in these matters. However, God demonstrated His love toward us by sacrificing His Son (Rom. 8:5) and His faithfulness is an ability, not an inability.
Silliest thing I ever heard. We trust God because He has made promises and has revealed to us that it is impossible for Him to lie.
UreaSmith if you listened to the debate you would not think it was silly. In the context of the debate it is a valid comment. Matt Slick repeatedly questioned Gods commitment to righteousness if He was not bound by His decree. You may not think this way, but Mr. Slick does.
If God makes a decree then of course he's bound Himself to it since He has told us that it's impossible for Him to lie.
UreaSmith as Will pointed out in the debate what would God have to gain by trading away His freedom? Besides all that do you really think life is a big roose? We are really just acting out a script?
The arrogance of Matt Slick is really off-putting. If a doctrine doesn't make you more like Jesus, it's time to re-think your doctrine. Love the gentle, unassuming demeanor of Will Duffy!
When Calvinists say (like at 1:45:43) that the God of Open Theism isn't a God of Hope it is very upsetting. You believe in a god who damns billions of people to hell before they're even born, then say he's a god of hope?! What about those billions of people who go to hell without ever having had the chance to be saved??
I love how Matt Slick says "insults are not a part of this" after literally mocking and insulting will multiple times in the first two hours. His arrogance and blindness are astounding.
Go Will Go!!
Great point about patience and being slow to anger requiring duration! Long-suffering requires a timeline! A timeless God cannot have the attributes of the God of the Bible.
OAO, he may see it himself but if not, I'll pass along your encouragement to Will Duffy. Yes, as will quoted in the debate from opentheism.org/verses ...
3 - God has qualities that can only be had if He exists in time, like patience, slow to anger, and hope.
Patience: 1 Peter 3:20; Ex. 34:6; Num. 14:18; Neh. 9:30; Ps. 86:15; Rom. 2:4; 9:22; 1 Tim. 1:16; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 3:9, 15; Jer. 15:15; and "God is Love" 1 John 4:8, 16 and "Love is patient" 1 Cor. 13:4 and He is "the God of patience" Rom. 15:5 etc.
Endurance: God endured His people’s cries Luke 18:7; the wicked Rom. 9:22; hostility Heb. 12:3; the cross Heb. 12:2
Slow to anger and long-suffering: Neh. 9:17; Ps. 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nah. 1:3;
Sustain emotion: I will not remain angry forever Jer. 3:12
Faithfulness: from everlasting to everlasting He endures in faithfulness for He is "the faithful God" Deut 7:9; possessing great faithfulness Lam. 3:23; Ps. 36:5; 37:3; 71:22; Ps. 89:24; God's faithfulness is not an inability (because He cannot change) but an ability (which He must actively maintain) Ps. 89:33; 92:2; 98:3; 119:75; 119:90; 143:1; Isa. 11:5; 25:1; Hos. 2:20;
Hope: for hope that is seen is not hope, yet God hopes Romans 8:24 & 15:13 (and all the “expectation” verses like Isa. 5:1-4; Jer. 3:7; Zeph. 3:7; Jer. 18)
[See more at that link; this page is being maintained and updated as time permits and more and more scriptures added.]
What does the verse mean?
Its a figure of speech.
What does the figure of speech mean?
Its a figure of speech.
...lawl
Matt slick: No offense (after being offending)
I’m not evading the question ( while constantly evading the question pretending he doesn’t understand)
Matt slick is super arrogant acting like he is the teacher and his opponent is a dumb student. And even not letting him answer telling him what the real answer is.
Matt slick wants to pastorally correct his opponent but how can he when his opponent was predestined to believe this?
This should be great!
When debating Calvanists it’s important to get them to admit that God cause all murders, rapes, disease, pain suffering, destruction, etc.
Calvanists beleive that God causes all murder, rape, pain, suffering, etc. Causing all sin is sining.
Hi Paul! A Calvinists commenter here, Charlie Ray, responded to you agreeing that from the Calvinist persepctive (and with Ray being rather honest about this), "God causes all the evils in the world." And then he added, "God cannot sin." It's revealing that those of us who say that God is good by an exercise of His will, freely, voluntarily, teach that God is NOT the source of evil, and so many of those who teach that God cannot sin also teach that He decrees all sin (as did kgov.com/Calvin himself).
It was hard to listen to Slick dump lists of text with no context and basically assert "I win" or quote a text, demand his opponent to accept it without qualifying it first and then accuse his opponent of rejecting the word of God.
Very disappointed with the relentless histrionics and question dodging by Mr Slick.
Not just that, he displayed no grace and came off as a tool. He was condescending the whole time.... it was pathetic.
Slick is a terrible representative of Calvinism. He constantly contradicts himself.
@@cranmer1959 Yes, as do, I assert, all Calvinists. Slick just happens to be one of the more influential Calvinists in the world right now, because of his years of online CARM work. (Charlie, we've been podcasting consistently since the 1990s, and that's a major reason who our kgov.com theologythursday.com and rsr.org are so fabulously discoverable via online searches and why we've been able to reach so many thousands of unbelievers with the Gospel and Christians with a stronger biblical worldview.)
Overall, I was a little disappointed with the debate. Matt Slick has talked down to people every time I've seen him. That get's old fast. So does his barrage of proof-texting. I can understand why Will's focus was on the freedom of God, but that's probably not where I would have focused.
Immutability is an important doctrine in this debate, obviously, but the distinction between strong and weak immutability wasn't very clearly drawn. In other words, God's character and nature were defended by both Will and Matt (that's weak immutability), but strong immutability is what Slick is forced to defend. That is, God cannot change in anyway, and knowledge, to Slick, constitutes a change. While I agree with Will that perfection does not necessarily imply immutability, gaining knowledge hardly implies a fundamental change to ones character, nature, or even essence.
In fact, I think it's an absurd idea that demonstrably false. For example, I would ask him something like, "Did you know that my mom is a nurse?" Gaining the knowledge that my mom is a nurse does not change anyones essential nature. You don't suddenly become inhuman for having gained some knowledge. So this idea of God's knowledge is really central to this debate.
God's freedom is obviously very important, but I would personally not go so far as to say that God can sin, no more than I would say that God can make a rock so heavy he can't move it, or a one ended stick or...take your pick. I don't think God can act against his nature. However, I do think Will was right (at least, I'm leaning this way) in that Jesus' human nature had the ability to sin. After all, that was the risk God took in the incarnation; it really did cost him! And after all, Satan certainly did think Jesus could sin, or else why tempt him? Determinism? In response to the "communication of attributes" argument, I would want to know why the divine nature of holiness necessarily overrides the human nature of freedom to sin. I suppose one could argue that, of course, God's nature overrides the human nature. But that seems to be more of an emotional argument than actually stating anything philosophically substantive, let alone actually getting any of this from the Bible itself.
Another distinction that I thought was fair to draw but was hardly an equivocation was on God's ability. Matt was actually trying to create a distinction that Will was not trying to conflate. The sense in which Matt denied God's ability to, say, create a new decree or think a new thought was just (if not near enough) the sense in which Will meant it. The power of God is assumed by the question. The question was about the freedom of God. Will, I wish you'd noticed that and told him to answer the question.
The interesting thing is that Matt actually fell into the muck there. Later, when he chastised Will for saying God could sin but does not, he became the pot calling the kettle black. Think about it. In one part of the debate he said that God has the power to make new decree but would not do so because of he is true to his decree, basically, his integrity. (I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but that's the gist.) Is that not essentially what Will's argument is? Except it's to say that God has the freedom to choose to be unrighteous but remains righteous because of his character and so on. I just thought that was interesting. Really, that pot calling the kettle black instance draws out, again, the difference between strong and weak immutability.
So overall, I wish it had been a more interesting debate. Instead, I feel like Matt was condescending-no surprise there. I appreciate Will being able to stay cool. My comments are in no way a slam on Will's ability to think on his feet. I had plenty of time to think about it. Thanks for reading my comment.
Philip, many great insights. But let me challenge your claim above, about sin. Love must be freely given. That means that for one to be able to love, he must be able to withhold that love, that is, he must be able to hate. God loves. And His love too must be freely given. Otherwise it would not be love. The Father loves the Son freely. That means that he could withhold that love. He does not love the Son by any inevitability but by His choice. Likewise, God is faithful. His faithfulness is not an inability but an ability. Finally, as exposed by the Calvinist who can only trust God's decreee but not God Himself, likewise, there is no need to fear God being free, even when it comes to love.
Bob Enyart, thanks for the response. I definitely see where you’re coming from, and I think it’s a reasonable argument. It’s not something I would just dismiss out of hand like Mr Slick. In part, I wonder if it’s a case of saying the same thing on different ways. I thought that while watching the debate. What I mean is that Will or you might say God chooses to remain faithful, but behind that is a deep and abiding trust in who God is. And so God never will betray our trust. Slick says he can’t. And behind that is more of a metaphysical view of God’s essence and all that. So there is a distinction, but even Slick would ultimately have to say it’s because of who God is. So there maybe some nuances in there, but there’s also some common ground to explore.
Personally, I don’t think God will ever betray our trust because of who he his, and his character is such that he cannot be anything but who he is.
I would also push back on the way in which you argue for this idea and that is by logical inference. For God to truly love, he must be able to hate. It sounds reasonable, but I don’t think it can’t be stated as a self-evident maxim. I actually believe that love and goodness can exist by virtue of its own existence. In that sense, hate is the absence of love, so conceptually hate requires the possibility of love, but not the other way around. Incidentally, I think it’s God’s love and justice that removes his love from some who don’t want God’s love.
Also, I want to see some argument from scripture for the idea that love requires the possibility of hate. My initial thoughts would be that “God is Love” is what scripture says. He does love, but that’s because he is love.
I would say that God is free in many ways. For instance, He’s not bound by time, but by that I mean he’s not stuck in some weird eternal stasis that only exists in the minds of philosophers. So in that sense, I agree God is free to think a new thought or write a new song. I would also say I’m on the fence about the impeccability of Christ. My initial study into it left me feeling like that doctrine is not very well supported. So that opens up an interesting can of worms.
Anyway, I’d like to hear your thoughts on what I said about gaining knowledge implying a change in nature. It honestly only occurred to me a couple weeks ago, and I really felt like it was something so simple and yet so often overlooked. I’m sure objectors will bring up passages like Hod is perfect in knowledge, but generally speaking those passages seem to be more qualitative than quantitative.
Last thing, I hope my comment about being disappointed didn’t come off too harshly. I know a lot of work went into this debate, and that’s something I really appreciate. I just wish these debates were more productive. A lot of my disappointment comes from the antagonistic nature of it. It’s cordial, but there’s very little depth. I also don’t really like the cross examination. It turns into a game of trapping each other with loaded questions. It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback, but hopefully those are some constructive criticisms.
Thanks again Philip for sharing some great thoughts. Yes, of course you are correct: gaining knowledge does not fundamentally affect one's character/nature/essence, yet as you said, Calvinists [and many Arminians] argue that God is utterly immutable, such that if He were to gain ANY knowledge (including opentheism.org/experiential-knowledge ) that would break Him, because "anything perfect cannot change". But Baby Jesus was perfect in every way while His body changed each moment and while His Person grew in wisdom and knowledge and in "favor with" the Father. God's creation was perfect. (Can a Calvinist say otherwise, as though God couldn't or wouldn't create perfectly?) Of course the perfect physical creation changed as each fish swam and bird flew. Plato typically made an assertion and in dialgoue woud then defend it with evidence. But not with his claim that "anything perfect cannot change". That he merely asserted. He didn't know that the perfect God the Son would become flesh, and apparently overlooked that perfect acorns become oaks (whereas an imperfect one might forever remain an acorn). A stone idol is impeccable, impassable, and immutable in that it cannot sin, emote, or change. These are standard "settled view" quantitative attributes (see opentheism.org/attributes ) whereas the five primary biblical attributes of God are opentheism.org/qualitative.
Here's where we may differ Philip, when you write that God's "character is such that he cannot be anything but who he is." You can take away a man's freedom but not his free will. A will cannot be constrained in any way. For example, Satan wills to be God Isaiah 14:14. Man wills to be God. Some "will" to defeat God or to make Him "cease" Isa. 30:11 and desist. Some men "will" even that they did not exist, that the universe does not exist, and that God did not exist or could be obliterated. No other greater counterfactual things could be "willed" than these. Similarly extreme, but in righteousness, God the Son (Jesus) willed that Israel would turn to Him (Luke 13:34) and God the Father wills that all would be saved (1 Tim. 2:4; the Greek uses 'thelo', strong word for "will"; resolved, determined, purpose, intend). Of course we all influence one another and our commitments influence the exercising of our wills. Nothing, however, can actually constrain our willing or God's willing. At this point, people not accustomed to thinking such thoughts will conflate will with ability. But that's confusion and sometimes obfuscation. So God is righteous by His will. A will is an ability to decide. And God has demonstrated His love toward us (and the Son's love for the Father) in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). God loved those who hated Him, and those who continue to hate Him. For God so loved the world. Thus, He sought a counterfactual relationship, which He mostly was unable to bring about (for "they limited the Holy One of Israel" Ps. 78:41), and He still seeks such a relationship with each of the unbelievers currenly on the Earth. However, like the wicked who will/desire counterfactually, God's desire, that is, His will, to love and be loved, by those who hate Him, was not constrained as He reached out to them. As a result, we trust Him not because of any inability but because of His ability, willingness, and faithfulness.
As you mentioned logical inference and whether or not it is self-evident that "love must be freely given", I think Philip that these examples suffice to prove that "will" is not constrained and cannot be constrained. Realizing then that love is a choice; that is, that love is a commitment (to the good of another), we can know that love is a particular kind of exercising of the will, and that therefore, love must be free because the will cannot be actually constrained.
Finally, I for one was thankful to read your constructive criticism and get your assessment. If the world were still perfect, this debate wouldn't occur. In our temporarily imperfect world, debates often can make stepwise progress. We're confident that history was made. The 2-minute "aftermath" video ruclips.net/video/zLiPpcqSKVQ/видео.html of my debate with James White, in which White and R.C. Sproul Jr. both startlingly denied that God the Son took upon Himself a human nature, was a testament to our argument's strength that the Incarnation proves that God exists in time. (Just Google: Is God outside of time. Google answers: "Not according to the Bible." :) Popular Calvinist theologian Matt Slick watched that debate and read our others preparing to debate Will Duffy. During a 2-week period, he made major concessions to open theism and announced in the debate that "He [no longer] says that God is outside of time", and [now admits] that God experiences sequence. These are major developments as we press our perspective, that open theism is not based on man's freedom but on God's.
It looks to me that mr Slick isn't very comfortable in the same room with someone with a different point of view
Slick is an agnostic half the time. When pinned down he says he doesn't know anything.
It would seem to me that it would take more power to have the capacity to sin and not do so, than simply not having that capacity at all.
Brilliant observation Ron.
Matt always compared God's foreknowledge to us knowing the sun will rise tomorrow. We know the sun will rise tomorrow based on our understanding of celestial mechanics and because it has risen every other day. That is to say, we know the sun will rise tomorrow because of induction. So Matt seems to be proposing God reasons inductively, which undermines his omnipotence. It's just a bad analogy.
Also still kind of implies open theism to an extent
At our BEL RUclips channel we moderate comments to keep the threads on topic whereas many folks try to change the topic to their own favorite issues. So here's the first part of a great comment that came in today that then went off topic: "No question that Will won this debate. Matt could not answer the simplest of questions and many times intentionally distracted from the topic. Also there seems to be a pattern emerging in these free will debates where the Calvinists Matt Slick/James White/Zacharaides/Hernandez are aggressive, arrogant, egotistical, proud, incoherent and the other part are calm and logical."
Here's my favorite issue: God is eternally unchanging.
Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Tim. 1:17 KJV)
Slick again took a page from the James White "guilt by association fallacy" playbook and used the word "Mormonism" about 100 times in the debate against an open theist. It's always humorous to hear someone like Matt Slick claim to know something about Calvinism by pompously stating he's studied it for 3 decades and yet completely show his ignorance of John Calvin's own writings.
"Hence we maintain that, by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined." John Calvin, Inst. I.16.8. That's not anti-Calvinist fatalism detractor talk....that's a quote from the man for whom your theology is named.
If everything that comes to pass has been meticulously decreed by God (an assertion lacking biblical verses) such that it could not come to pass any differently than what God has foreordained, then there is no way out of the fatalism box. Calvinists routinely affirm that God's will is ALWAYS done. If God's will is always done, then man can not but do God's will. Therefore events and actions are necessary and immutable. There could not be any freedom of a will or act by man that runs contrary to what God meticulously ordained in his eternal decree. THAT IS FATALISM. An individual eternally predestined to be reprobated in an unconditional decree cannot avoid reprobation. THAT IS FATALISM. If the choice of socks an individual wears each morning has already been determined for him in an eternal decree then he doesn't choose his socks but God chooses his socks. He can't choose against what God has decreed for him to do. THAT IS FATALISM.
"The hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it superintends external actions; nor would God have effected by the hand of man what he decreed, unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted." John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God (tr. J. K. S. Reid) (London, 1961)175f.
Hello Acts 17:11. Glad to make your acquaintance. Along those lines, we're creating a response to that accusation at opentheism.org/mormonism. Just fyi.
1711 ( hey, at least your username isn't 1611, as in kgov.com/kjo ) thanks for that quote from Calvin. Will Duffy and I did a radio show and provided an online list of all such quotes from Calvin's chapter 18, at kgov.com/calvinism. We're adding your quote to that page. Thanks again!
Link doesn't work. Can you see that? ;-)
I also see every reason to believe in Open Theism considering the many times God repented in the Old Testament
If calvanist really believe what they say why would they even engage with others since nothing can change what has been predestined? It doesnt seem consistent. It is a very sad and hopeless doctrine.
calvinists prove they use their philosophy as the authority and not the bible, by not ever being able to answer a question without jumping through 45 hoops while tip toeing around the hedges.
Big Dog absolutely!!!!
Hey guys! Questions that have helped to focus discussion after the debate include: Does the Father love the Son freely? Must love be free? Is love an exercise of the will? Can anything constrain a will? When we love someone, isn't it really that person's "will" that we are loving? Is the will the core attribute of a sentient being? Was Christ's temptation real?
It's hard to listen to Matt talk to Will like he is stupid.
Does Matt Slick actually add any arguments that haven't long been refuted?
Michael Faber Yeah, he adds confusion in defining the terms.
It’s really telling how terrified Matt is of being pinned down on the meaning of the “figure of speech” “it never entered my mind.”
Exactly, it's really irritating when someone gets away with such an obvious attempt to evade a question. Whenever cornered by a scripture that contradicts your claims, just call it a figure of speech - problem solved!
God will grant any one to come to Him who is sincere, because He knows our hearts, not hard.
Totally irrelevant, but Jason it cracks me up at 11:53 that you look like a really small person standing on Matt's laptop - that super-wide angle webcam is doing some funny things in that shot!
Ha, yes, funny! :) (And then, would it be more or less funny if that perspective had been decreed from the foundations of the world?)
The arrogant demeanor, the disrespectful attitude, the dishonest debate techniques, and the constant accusations towards Will Duffy while doing the same thing he's accusing him of, was completely out of bounds by Matt Slick for what was suppose to be a respectful debate. It was hard to watch Matt throughout the entire debate. Even if he was right (not saying he was) it wouldn't matter to most people because no one would want to spend time talking to Matt. Ugh......... That was hard to sit through without wanting to hit Matt through the screen.
Abusive ad hominem does not deal with the substance.
@@cranmer1959 Abusive ad hominem was eternally decreed by God (if Calvinism's true). Such abuse was decreed by God long before any particular such abuser was conceived (if Calvinism's true). The very desires to abuse in the abuser's heart were put there by God (if Calvinism's true). The ad hominem words that the abuser used were conceived and ordered by God (if Calvinism's true). And God even wrote this very comment, from before He laid the foundations of the earth (if Calvinism's true).
@@BobEnyartLive Correct. God foreordained reprobation and every sin you will ever commit. But since you are held accountable by God it will not remove your responsibility for your actions. You are a free moral agent and you are the author of your own sins even if God foreordained everything in such a way that you would choose to go to hell by your own choices. The fact that you seek to twist the Scriptures and deceive other is God's will. But will you have an excuse on judgment day? I think not.
@@cranmer1959 What?
Will you did a great job.
Did Slick use the excuse of the light to distract people from noticing he put his computer back basically where it started when they asked him to move it?
@Will Duffy
Sorry about the whole cataracts thing. May you increase in empathy for your experience.
If someone had to read this to him, thank you for your kindness to Will.
Peace.
Nice debate.
Consider this update before commenting on the debate...RUclips "Matt Slick Lies to Avoid a Question"
Most interesting! I loved this debate!!!
Who can not get excited by Gods election, chosen, and sovereign, righteousness. Backed up by scripture!!! ❤️
@@lynnoakes3545 Hey Lynn, if by sovereign you mean that God decreed all wickedness and perversion, then your very doctrine attacks His righteousness. And if by elect and chosen you ignore that many of the chosen priests, prophets, and kings, and the vast majority of the Chosen People, went to hell, and if you ignore the New Testament statement that the Elect had become enemies of the Gosepl, then I'd say you misunderstand those biblical concepts too. Feel free to check out our Chosen: It's Not What You Think, at ruclips.net/video/a9n1ASwC7s0/видео.html.
You tend to forget there were lots of false prophets out there too.
@@lynnoakes3545 Hey Lynn! Yeah, we talk about those guys all the time. Realize though that the priests whom God chose by name and said that they could serve Him forever, they were not false priests. They were real priests, chosen, who ended up going to hell. And the Elect in the New Testament who became enemies of the Gospel, they were really Elect. ruclips.net/video/a9n1ASwC7s0/видео.html Chosen: It's Not What You Think!
Jeremiah 1:5
"I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations." So much for God not knowing any one before their birth and Jeremiah doing anything contrary to what God has ordained and HINT,this is how it is with all of us.Whatever God has ordained for us,we will become.
Hi Tim, thanks for stopping by! You've accidentally misrepresented Will Duffy's point. Of course Will (and all of us) are familiar with that great verse, Jer. 1:5. We've quoted it a hundred times. How you've misrepresented Will is in that he never implied that God didn't "know anyone before their BIRTH". As an active supporter of the God-given right to life of the unborn child, Will strongly affirms, even in this debate, that God has a relationship and even loves children in the womb. (Matt Slick is the one who claims, wrongly, that God hates babies in the womb.) Will pointed out that the Bible never says that God knew anyone before they were CONCEIVED, or before their parents were born, or before the foundation of the world, or from eternity past. Will acknowledged, if I recall, that if the Bible said such a thing, then open theism would be falsified.
Bob,God has declared the end of time from the very beginning of time and everything in between.God wrote all of human history before creation and the characters in God's book are US all.God's novel does not change,He wrote it and it can never change because this whole story was written exactly as He wanted to be and everything exists to GLORIFY GOD.IT IS HIS STORY and each day we learn a little more of what God has written as we live our lives.This is the God of the Bible,He is not ignorant of anything,only man is ignorant.So please,don't try to bring God down to an ignorant,foolish,man's level.
Tim Ballentine Do you believe God created future human beings to live in the future and run on the program he decreed for them? Do you believe God created you to not rape a child but your neighbor to rape a child? If you answer yes, do you believe this God is loving? If you still affirm this is the God you believe in, then which side of this two-faced God decreed you to worship Him? You must also believe then that God preordained the mess humans would become in rejecting Him. If you were God what would your goal be in creating life that then destroys it?
nobody claims he doesn't know anything. He knows his promises, and he keeps them. Just because He knows that he will create someone and appoint them a prophet, does not mean he knows all choices made by everyone. The bible indicates he does not, so you are actually deleting all the times where God sure shows us regret, repentance, sorrow, surprise, etc, and just clinging to a specific thing God did choose to make happen lol
Immidiately one LIKE just for doing these debatets!!!
Why is it that Matt Slick and James White can't answer simple questions. They come across like disingenuous lawyers. They have to qualify everything and keep comparing every statement made by open theist to some obscure philosophical reference that even if any one knew what it actually meant in the first place including themselves would not contribute anything meaningful to the debate. Also they can't explain it themselves I don't understand Calvinism any better after this debate because rather than try to carefully explain his position Matt just insults, denigrates, and dismisses valid points made by open theist. I don't buy for a minute that Matt holds all this enlightening knowledge that no one else but Calvinists can understand. Will Duffy did a great job when he was talking but I think he would have been better if he was more responsive and assertive. Overall good job Will Duffy and I am glad Matt at least followed through and showed up but if he would drop the pompous routine it would have been more productive.
Thanks Daniel for your thoughtful assessment!
that's what calvinism does to your brain. it's so logically, reasonably, and biblically incoherent, you have to answer every question with a zillion qualifiers.
This debate is summed up 1:18:37-1:22:45. Because this is where open theism, and i mean this respectfully, is heretical. The very nature/essence of God is challenged. God is HOLY therefore HE CANNOT sin. Not because he chooses not, it's because by very nature or essence he can't. ( Job 34:10 ".....far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should do wrong."). I don't know how an open theist can claim their god is immutable(Mal 3:6) when he's constantly repenting and changing his mind? The open theist God who can sin ( Does that mean he could lie? Titus says He CAN'T Titus 1:2); who doesn't know himself; a "risk taker"? A God who doesn't know he's holy? And then elsewhere we learned from open theist; the Father can hate the Son and vice versa; God who "hopes" or "wishes" things could be better; constantly learning from His own mistakes; desiring what he does not get and no hope of getting; repenting all the time and completely restrained by man's "free" will. It's a God who's powerless and CAN'T quite get things right! It seems to me that the God of open theism is a constant failure! A God options rather than decrees. But Will makes the mistake of viewing the anthropomorphic language as inherent to Gods essence/nature rather than in a COMMUNICABLE sense. The open theist has it backward. In conclusion I'll say this. And i mean this respectfully. In listening to Will his god is a mixture of humanism and mormonism. He seems to view God as a really advanced man who strives yet hasn't quite attained a level a absoluteness. But his loving zeal drives who to keep on striving and "take those risk"s", that may or may not come to pass. And he does it all because he loves you and would never violate your "free" will. Man is sovereign; his will is NEVER to be violated. And when that view is held it eventually leads to open theism. God bless!
I don't know how anyone can NOT be an open theist when God absolutely repents. Do you deny the passages that clearly state that God repented? What do you do with those?
Open Theists do not claim that God is immutable and neither does the bible, not in the sense you mean it. The doctrine of immutability, which teaches that God cannot change in any way whatsoever, was introduced into Christianity by Augustine who learned it from Aristotle. The Westminster Confession even uses the exact same argument that Aristotle made in Plato's writings.
The bible teaches and Open Theists affirm that God does not change in His righteous character. WHO God is does not change. He is consistent and stable and always will be. But the bible repeatedly discusses and Open Theists also affirm that God changes His mind and that He become a man and died and then there's all that resurrection stuff that is so obscurely hidden and barely discussed at all except in nearly every single book of the New Testament.
Sorry for the sarcasm there but seriously, how can anyone deny that God changes after reading a single book of the bible? God changing His mind is found all the way through Genesis and the changes He goes through in Matthew are so profound as to define the Christian faith itself!
Hi mmttomb3, thanks for your comment. Please consider the replies from contemplate and Clete Pfeiffer! Also, as I share with others who are as stunned as you are about Will Duffy's simple statement, please consider this. A Calvinist will trust God's decrees, but not God Himself. Calvinists say they can trust God's decrees, but as Matt Slick indicated, not God Himself. The Father loves the Son freely, as the Son loves the Father and the Holy Spirit freely. There is no compulsion and inevitability in it. A stone idol is impeccable, impassible, and immutable. It cannot sin, emote, or change. God, on the other hand, is our living personal God who possess an actual, free will. He is not a mathematical equation, a power repository, or a philosophical construct. He is a person with a will. You're invited to see this also in my opening statement vs Dr. James White at opentheism.org/white#opening-stmt. Thanks again mt3!
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mmttomb3 , please take a grammar course before attempting to explain away scripture with more scripture. What you are doing is causing others to think the Bible is fallible.
Hey s4c. Perhaps you can see how this is biblical by calling it "gaining experiential knowledge". Most Calvinists deny that God has all knowledge by rejecting that He has or even can have experiential knowledge. Yet the Bible explicitly declares that God has experiential knowledge, as with the "go down and look" see for Myself verses, the Incarnation-related temptation verses, and the learned verses. (Similarly, by the unbiblical claim that God is outside of time, most Calvinists and even Arminians deny that He can know anything in sequence. So, unlike open theists, Calvinists view predestination and foreknowedge as mere figures of speech and not as literally true of God.) Thus, by denying that God has experiential knowledge, Calvinists do not believe Him omniscient, i.e., that He has all knowldege, for their theology inherently rejects that God can possess an entire category of knowledge, namely, experiential knowledge. Selah.
A deleted comment had a Reply which we wanted to save:
The Mirabilis
Dec 4, 2017
@1:20:54 - 1:21:09 on the video of the debate
Slick asks Duffy …
“ Can God the Father sin “ ?
Duffy answers …
“ I believe so… Yeh Absolutely. “
Mirabilis, hi! Calvinists will trust God's decrees, but not God Himself. I'm answering Matt Slick here. Calvinists say they can trust God's decrees, but as Matt Slick indicated, not God Himself. (See this for example also in my debate with D. James' Kennedy's Dr. Sam Lamerson at tiny.cc/opentheism.) They can only trust Him if He is not free. That's not biblical. This is perhaps the answer that Matt wouldn't give when Will Duffy asked Slick: Why would God have traded away His freedom? Why trade away God's freedom, say, to decree something, by decreeing everything that He would ever decree, so that He is no longer able to decree anything new, as you've admitted and as Calvinist theology requires? Perhaps the answer Matt withheld is, "Perhaps we Calvinists say that we could not trust God if He were truly free (i.e., if He really had libertarian free will), because really, God wouldn't trust Himself with free will. So that's why He decreed it away and, as I affirmed in the debate, He cannot think a new thought, write a new song, design a new butterfly, or issue a new decree."
Would anyone consider the possibility that there might be contradictions in the scripture between multiple authors and competing ideas regarding Free Will and determinism?
tex, hi! When you learn that the Bible was inspired by God, you'll see why evangelical Christians reject that possibility.
@@BobEnyartLive thanks for the reply Bob. If I grant that the Bible is inspired by God, how do we get to inerrancy? Is it reasonable to accept the entirety of the Bible as God's perfect word/will? If yes, why?
@@tex959 Hey tex. Inerrancy as to the original autographs, which is the mainstream conservative Christian scholarship position.
2:30:01 - "I am going to go ahead to ahead and reject Chalcedon here; I'm gonna go with the Bible: Jesus was not in any way, shape, or form omnipresent on earth." This was an incredible moment in the Q&A.
What Matt Slick misses when he so confidently quotes John 1:13 is what is written in the previous verses:
"He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did RECEIVE him, to those who BELIEVED in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God."
Only when you consider the context do you understand the sequence involved. First you receive/believe, and THEN you get the right to be regenerated. Calvinists are good at ignoring context.
Now who is doing the receiving here? Is God the one receiving? No, it is man! (whoops, I guess I just exalted man!)
Only AFTER receiving Christ does one get the RIGHT to BECOME children of God.
Regeneration, which of course is what not conception by the "will of man", does NOT precede this!
Great points Paul, thanks! Also, thanks for your comment about Category 31 of our 33 Categories at opentheism.org/verses.html. You begin that lengthy comment concerning "some standing here" (Matt 16 verse 28) and you conclude that it is "definitely referring to the transfiguration, and not the second coming of Christ". If you ever read my book at kgov.com/the-plot please let me know if you keep the same conclusion. Anyway, an excerpt:
The Air of Expectancy
The following passages fit Daniel‘s timetable. These verses show overwhelmingly that Jesus and the Twelve expected Christ‘s Second Coming to occur soon. The actual expectation was that Christ would return so quickly and establish His Kingdom that not enough time would pass for all of His disciples to die. As Luke recorded:
- ...there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God. -Luke 9:27
Mark reported Jesus‘ same remark and included just a couple more words than Luke‘s account (as different reporters will sometimes do):
- ...there are some standing here who will not taste death till [fn 11] they see the kingdom of God present with power -Mark 9:1
And as Matthew reported:
- ...there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom -Mat. 16:28
Footnote 11: Death will occur in the Kingdom also, but much more rarely. ―No more shall an infant from there [Jerusalem] live but a few days... for the child shall die one hundred years old‖ (Isaiah 65:20).
Moving Sale: Everything Must Go!
The apostles themselves took literally Christ‘s promise to return soon and establish His Kingdom. That explains why they administered a program in early Acts in which their followers sold their homes and gave the money to the apostles for the needs of the church (Acts 4:34)! The apostles used income from these real estate sales to make ―the daily distribution‖ (Acts 6:1) to provide food for their converts (Acts 6:2-3). No one should miss the point, however: they were selling their homes.
The apostles took the entire proceeds (Acts 5:2) from home sales. Such collections are either tremendous fraud, lower than the worst TV evangelist, or an example of great faith in Christ and His soon return. The apostles were faithful men of God. They were not infallible, but neither were they charlatans or blithering idiots. The biblical narrative admits and corrects the few errors the apostles made. But the selling of their homes was not a foolish blunder. Plainly, the Twelve believed deeply in, and administered a program of, Christ‘s soon return.
These expectancy passages challenge many believers, however, because Christ‘s disciples died long ago and His earthly Kingdom has not yet been established. Therefore, Christians wrestle with these verses to come up with some meaning other than the apparent, literal meaning. This chapter makes such a dodge unnecessary.
The Acts 2 Supposition
Some of those who do not know what to make of these texts try to dilute them, usually by spiritualizing them, suggesting that Christ was not referring to His earthly Kingdom. These often suggest that by the term "kingdom" Jesus referred not to the earthly Kingdom but that He meant His church after Pentecost. However this is untenable since His resurrection was only a short way off. Saying that - some would not die implies that many or even most would die. That, however, is not plausible in the short time span between these statements and that great Pentecost.
Although many hold this position, it is easily refuted. In such a brief time frame, if Christ was speaking of the Acts 2 church, He could not then have said:
- Some standing here shall not die until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.
If He was speaking of the church as of Pentecost He rather should have said:
"No one shall die until..." Or: "Hardly anyone shall die until..."
The overwhelming thrust of Old Testament prophecy and Christ‘s New Testament teaching indicate that this statement referred to the literal earthly Kingdom.
...
Many other passages show the urgency of the short amount of time left. Speaking of the Tribulation (Mat. 10:17-23), Christ concluded saying:
- When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. -Mat. 10:23
Israel was and is a small piece of land, about the size of New Jersey and Jesus was speaking to twelve men (Mat. 10:5). Thus, He was here predicting His Coming in a relatively short period of time. After all, as John reports:
- Then this saying went out among the brethren that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, ―If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? -John 21:23
Further, in describing the Tribulation, Christ told His disciples ―when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near‖ (Luke 21:31; see also Luke 21:28). In other words, Jesus expected that the Twelve would see the Great Tribulation. Jesus also said something so simple a child can understand, but which has perplexed countless theologians:
- Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. -Mat. 24:34
For you to think that God can sin, tells me that you do not know who God is...
God is Holy Holy Holy...
Is40:13 , 55:7-9
Hi Keith! Thanks for being here. Hmm. The righteous angels are holy. They can sin. Holy doesn't mean that you lack freedom. To love requires the ability to hate. Because love must be freely given, the Father's love for the Son is free, not compelled. (I've always wondered if Calvinist men tell their fiances, "Actually, I had no choice.") And of course Jesus, as the second Adam, was fully man, and that means that like pre-Fall Adam, He had the ability to sin, which is why His resisting temptation is praiseworthy and His sinlessness is victory. As Hebrews teaches us, He is better able to understand our temptation because He too was tempted, though without sin, that is, without the nurturing of the sin He was being tempted with.
@@BobEnyartLive
I do not disagree with your statement about Jesus...
In the debate, Will Duffy was asked if God could sin.
He answers in the affirmitive...
You seem to think also, that God the Father could sin... from what you said on the radio,
You did not reference Jesus time on Earth so it sounds like you were talking about God the Father. If however you don't think this, then no problem,..
If however you think that about God the Father then I stand by my original statement, you don't know God...
@@keithlilley9003 Hey Keith, yes, we were talking about Jesus (who is "Holy, Holy, Holy", and is fully God, so anything that Jesus could do, God could do, because Jesus is God). But we do mean the Father also, as I replied to your comment that God is holy, by pointing out that so are the angels, and yet they could sin. The ability to love requires the ability to hate. The Father loves the Son freely and love is SO AWESOME because the one LOVING could in fact withhold that love.
@BobEnyart can you please clarify and give an example of how God the Father could sin?
@@EnHacore1 The Father loves the Son freely. He could sin if He were to selfishly withdraw that love; if He tried to turn the Holy Spirit against the Son; if He... a thousand ways, a million ways. For, to love requires the ability to hate and love must be freely given. So the Father's love for the Son is free, not compelled. I don't know if you're a Calvinist. (I doubt it.) But whether you are or not, do you know if Calvinist men tell their fiances, "Actually, I had no real choice in the matter."
So far, all I've got from Slick is that he understands his theology and categories quite well, but is woefully inept and ignorant of the actual contents of Scripture.
Thanks Jonathan for that observation. Interestingly though, when we all get to heaven, I'm not certain that Matt will look back on his work and agree that he understood his own theology. I think he spends a lot of effort trying to misrepresent his own theology. (On the other hand, maybe you're correct, and his efforts indicate that he understands his theology all too well.)
While Will most certainly did win this debate, I still have issues about this. Indeed everyone has free will, but can man's free will overrun God's will?
Thanks Nathan! Luke 7:30 "The Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by John."
if God created us to be free agents and accountable, and he so chose to create us with the true ability to choose and choose otherwise, then the answer is yes, b/c God purposed us to be in His image (which involves personal free agency in choices)
There could have been better moderating during the cross examination
Very telling part of the debate was when Matt simply quoted scripture and Duffy would quickly react saying "I don't agree, or I reject your interpretation." Matt Slick would remind Duffy that he wasn't interpreting scripture but simply quoting it. Well done Mr. Slick, you exposed their hatred of the God of scripture. They've crafted for themselves a god that suits their sensibilities. Very sad.
UreaSmith Very telling....RUclips "Matt Slick Lies to Avoid a Question "
Do you agree with Matt Slick's admission in the debate that open theism has been correct the entire time in claiming God is not outside of time?
No, he got that wrong. I agree with the majority of Orthodox Christians throughout history that believe that God created time and exist outside of it.
Wow right out of the park, predestination and foreknowledge only makes sense if God is in time and not outside of time. That was an amazing opener.
Hi Sebastian Bryan. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Yes, Will Duffy's entire opening statement was amazing! To clarify his point on these two doctrines. They could conceivably "make sense" in the timelessness of Arminianism and Calvinism IF they are taken as figures of speech referring to God, but they can only be LITERALLY true of God in an open theist understanding. As per the transcript at opentheism.org/duffy#opening : "Bold statement #1: Only open theists believe in PREdestination and FOREknowledge [as literally true of God]. The term predestination means “to determine BEFOREhand” and FOREknowledge means “to know BEFOREhand”. [The vast majority of] Settled view theists (the opposite of open theists) believe God is outside of time and therefore does everything simultaneously and never does or knows one thing before or after another. So only open theists believe that the literal definitions of these words apply to God, as we believe God lives and acts in time, in sequence." If you're interested in more Sebastian, I invite you to see kgov.com/time.
Bob Enyart I was convinced of open theism a few years ago when I saw the verses that expresses Gods grief. Grief would imply failed expectation, which makes no sense in a closed future that exaustively knows everything, etc.
I was wondering if there are any other audio debates of open theism besides James white and yourself, and Sanders.
I believed this view was heresy because it was contrary to what I've always heard until I looked at the Bible and thought it through. Jesse Morrel truly turned me to really consider the perspective and I believed he was wise in a lot of areas and just way off on this particular view. However, two years passed me wrestling with this very idea until finally I saw God says what He means, and means what He says.
Love it Sebastian! As someone posted elsewhere, Matt Slick acts as though the Bible is baby talk about God and Calvinism is adult talk about Him. As to other debates, I'm not sure which may be audio, but you may want to check out the list at opentheism.org/debates (and I'm glad you reminded me of that, because we now need to add the Slick/Duffy debates to that page).
Bob Enyart also are there any historical books or pdfs about the views of men for or against the open view from the early church 0-400 a.d.
This isn't exactly what you're asking for Sebastian but it's related. At kgov.com/300 we've posted quotes from the first three centuries of Christian writers affirming human free will (and then, of course, they would affirm that God himself has free will, which is the foundation of open theism).
I'm a bit confused about what Matt Slick said in the debate where at 1:30:10 it appears that he is denying unconditional election.
And yet on his website he writes:
"In the context of the term “unconditional election”, this election is the sovereign act of God where, from before the foundation of the world, he chose those whom he would save".
So if God chooses whom he would save before the foundation of the world, then doesn't that mean that "people are either saved or not at the moment of conception?"
Anyone know what he means?
Gary Hopkins wrote elsewhere: "I think I figured it out: Opentheism makes sense to everyone who wants the Bible to make sense. Calvinism makes sense to everyone who doesn't want the Bible to make sense." To which Kenny Burchard added:
Open Theism: "The God of the Bible is like the God described inside the actual Bible."
Calvinism: "Don't be thrown off by how the God of the Bible is presented in the Bible. Here. Use this decoder ring and you'll understand what God is really like. Just remember:
Bible=Baby Talk about God.
Calvinism= Grown-up Talk about God.
Matt clearly won the debate, and Will was continuously passively-aggressively talking over Matt. I don't know how Matt was so patient.. Open Theism is a dangerous heresy.
Are you deaf? Matt was talking over will EVERY QUESTION. Im just guessing your supporting your "candidate " to the end
Strider 223, thanks for stopping by. We haven't removed your comment primarily so we could use it to remind folks that we require greater respect from our commenters on this BEL Channel than is common on RUclips. If a comment, such as "Are you deaf?" can be lifted and used elsewhere in virtually any disagreement, regardless of topic, that's often a sign that it has unnecessarily crossed over into disrespect. Of course, disrespect itself is often called for (see my article kgov.com/nicer-than-god ) but there's no shortage of it on RUclips. But on our channel, not so much. So, when you said, "Matt was talking over Will Duffy in virtually every question", that can't be lifted and used against opponents in virtually any disagreement. That was perfect. Are you deaf was not.
You’ve got to be kidding
The Calvinist(Matt) does not deny that love must be freely given in the context that true love cannot exist without also having the ability to hate. This is wholly problematic to the Calvinist theology, as the Open Theist(Will) explained, because God therefore would have forced his creatures(only some of them) to love Him. In the theology of Calvinism it is easy to envision a twisted pretzel considering their belief that God forced(by decree) some to love Him, and freely allowed others to choose to love or hate Him, yet some who once claimed to love God ended up hating Him (Darwin), and others once claimed to hate God yet ended up loving Him (Strobel), and if you agree the future is settled from eternity past then this twisted pretzel leaves everyone wondering if they are truly saved from their sin. If God decreed it why would He send His Son to become flesh as a sacrifice for all since all sin and fall short of the glory of God?
Slick says that God's highest order is His Glory. I guess then that it is glorious to empty oneself, to become a curse for us, to become sin, to die a tortured death for another. No, those things aren't glory, those things are love.
Wow!
I think when Matt Slick asked if God's will is influenced by anything I think Will should have answered yes, because we can see several times in scripture that God changes his mind due to prayer.
Absolutely Paul. God's will, or more precisely, God, is influenced by much, including by prayer. I know that Will too agrees with you. So when that was asked (feel free to post the timestamp) he must have been taking the question from a different perspective, perhaps sort of how I just did not with my "precisely" comment. The word "will" is used BOTH as 1) the ability to decide, and 2) an instance of such a decision. So maybe (I don't know; I haven't asked him), Will was answering from the perspective the the primary definition of the term.
Does God really change his mind? Or is prayer for our benefit and to cause us to change? God deals with us as changing human beings but did God really not know which way He would go when He made the decree to create and to cause the beginning of time? Providence means that God governs everything that happens in time and He does so from His eternal plan from timeless eternity. There is no past, present or future in God's immutable mind. He knows everything at once.
@@cranmer1959 God really changes His mind and prayer is not make-work and Jesus taught that persistent prayers can convince God and Moses, et al., knew that also and effectively acted upon that open theism knowledge. See many examples at opentheism.org/verses. Charlie, you are affirming what we wrote there, that only those who agree with open theists that God does not exist outside of time can affirm the doctrine foreknowledge. As you describe so much of what the Bible says elsewhere as "baby talk" about God, you along with virtually all Calvinists would have to deny that God could have FOREknowledge of anything for as you just (wrongly) claimed, "There is no past, present or future in God's immutable mind. He knows everything at once." Then He could not have FOREknowledge, could He; that would only be a figure of speech from our perspective; and He couldn't PREdestine anything either. Again, just baby talk. I know it sounds like heresy to Calvinists, but they should repent and acknowledge that God, yes, God, can actually think a new thought. (Better to become an open theist here than when you get to heaven.)
@@BobEnyartLive If God can think a new thought, then God is not omniscient.
1.45.40 so unless god is bound you cant trust him....now who is trying to control god matt.
@Will Duffy
I am only nearly eight years in relationship with my Father. Because of you on youtube with Doug I just found out I am close to being an open theist. Although I think there are some parts where open theism is missing some theory of context in some areas. Please have a look at my content and see if you think you would want to have a chat, hopefully on my channel, hopefully but not necessarily live. On youtube "Demolish_Doctrine".
Peace.
WD: "So, that verse doesn't mean what it says."
MS: "No, that verse doesn't mean what you think it says."
And that's pretty much the entire debate. My opinion is better than your opinion. They both appeal to scripture as their authority, but obviously neither has an infallible authority.
Hey MR! In every debate, and every pushback on every issue (including yours right here), neither side has infallible authority and both sides have differing opinions. And that's pretty much every disagreement in the history of the world. That doesn't tell us anything. Your considered opinion though, on some particular being discussed, now, that might be of value here. Thanks!
Mark Rome roman catholic cult
Yes, I have an infallible authority- the Catholic Church which Jesus Christ founded.
Just because they both make those claims doesn't mean they are both wrong, and no they are not opinions, this is why school is important, know your history, study how koine Greek was used, know your grammar, and you could actually see who is consistent with the whole bible
@@michaelvahle9845 Vahle, hey, thanks for your input! I think you'll find a stronger explanation though than what you're suggesting here in the Table of Contents for my debate with Dr. Lamerson, at kgov.com/open-theism#toc. From Round 1, or specifically, with the Hermeneutics JONAH and NOAH in Rounds 6B & 7B. You can also visit kgov.com/hermeneutics if you're so inclined.
Will Duffy needs to brush up on John 6, Philippians 1, Romans 9, etc.
I do think he also needs to better understand certain categories of philosophy pertaining to nature and change.
Hello Jonathan, thanks for visiting. I think you might agree with the following. Matt Slick offered to teach Will Duffy about Romans 9 yet when Will asked him about Jeremiah 18, Matt said that he was unfamiliar with that chapter! (Wow, that's the Potter and the Clay chapter.) So Matt would not respond. (He didn't recognize the verse Will read nor knew the Jer. 18 reference. Wow.) That is one of the foundational chapters that Romans 9 refers to. Like with the two babies in Rebecca's womb Jacob and Esau being "two nations" (Gen. 25), in Jeremiah God immediately interprets the potter and the clay parable as being about when "that NATION against whom I have SPOKEN turns from its evil, I will REPENT of the disaster that I THOUGHT to bring upon it." So Matt told Will in the debate he couldn't address this passage because he was unfamiliar with it. One who understands Romans 9 will be intimate with Jeremiah 18. Jonathan, I invite you to review at opentheism.org "Is Calvinism Biblical?" with Dr. Larry Bray. My post 1a [and 2a] begins "with Romans 9 [showing that it's about nations, as post 2a extends], John 15, Isaiah 46 and Psalm 139."
I agree with Jonathan and Bob here. Will missed a great opportunity with John 6 & 10 (despite the good one liner about figure of speech). Will, you should really check out Soteriology 101 podcast from Leighton flowers, at least those on John 6, 10, and the messianic secret. Leighton is not a mid-acts dispensationalist, but it certainly does fit.
I would add that Matt Slick is well aware of the view Leighton holds to.
Bob, my thoughts exactly. I told my dad the same thing. “How does he not know Jer 18?!” Matt slick should be Matt “Script.”
Johnathan, what's with the hit and run?
It is lamentable that, Open Theists, although strong on the questions of God's limited foreknowledge of human decisions, tend towards diminishing God by treating Him as if He had the unstable passions of man. They are making God in the image of man. They should stick with their challenge to the philosophical idea of the simultaneity of God's view of creatures. God committed Himself to observing His creatures in time, and to adjusting His dealings with them in accordance with their responses to Him. God sees into minds and hearts, and therefore knows what people are going to do. He knows about evil by having observed it in time, and He is master of dealing with it, and bringing about His good purposes by overcoming it, in love for us.
Hey anselman, thanks for sharing your thoughts on these incredibly important issues. Since God made us in His likeness, you might be able to see how we open theists take the Bible literally when it says that God grieves, has joy, is angered, etc. Regarding God commiting Himself to observing us "in time", that suggests that he had some kind of time-related alternative. Please Google: Is God outside of time, and if you're so inclined, read the #1 ranked article. It'd be fun to hear your response. Thanks again!
@@BobEnyartLive Thank you, Bob. I have located your article, and will make time to carefully read it, and get back to you. In the meantime, my initial response on the question of passions is that humans are in a fallen state, and therefore are in danger of projecting their unstable and imperfect emotions on to God. I appreciate the importance of the open theist questions, as they reflect issues I have addressed in my own thinking from a very early age, as I began to explore theology. Best wishes, and "speak" to you later.
@@BobEnyartLive The article was very interesting. My response is as one who has a rather simple mind and no concern to uphold a particular philosophy if it can be shown to poorly represent Scripture. I do think that the weakest point in classical Christian philosophy is the notion of God seeing all time in an instant, rather than viewing it sequentially. And certainly the most horrific notion is that God has "from all eternity" had before His mind the evil and perverse thoughts and deeds of humans and fallen angels. That would make evil as eternal as God. We may not dismiss Plato's ideas altogether on the grounds that he held some morally reprehensible views. St Paul commended some of the thoughts of the Greek poets (Acts 17.28). It is reasonable to hold that God has enabled non-believers to arrive at a measure of truth and wisdom, as they bear the image of God-or a vestige of it depending on your theology. St Paul was indeed scathing about the danger of arrogance and ignorance in philosophising, but the Church has rightly sought to express truths about God in the Greek philosophical language, Messiah being Christ and Logos, and the Trinity being Persons in one substance etc. So, it doesn't do to be dismissive of a relation to "pagan Greek philosophy", although I would argue that the simultaneity of God's view of time is a wrong conclusion. If it is Plato who gave us that, then he should not have been accepted in that matter. The Church Fathers and orthodox theologians did not uncritically endorse Plato and Aristotle, but sought to adapt them by correcting them in line with revelation and Scripture. I think that the Christian doctrine of God's immutability does not involve a denial that He may think a new thought, just as it does not deny His becoming Creator, or becoming incarnate as God-Man. God, in His Trinitarian self, is essentially unchanging. It is the creation that is subject to change by God's actions upon it. God's knowledge of Himself does not change. He does not undergo any change of character or purpose. When He created rational creatures with individual wills, He did not cease to have a thorough knowledge of their essential nature, or of Himself. God being perfectly holy never had any imagination of the particular evils which rebellious creatures would invent. He learned of this by observation, but He already knew the essential "nature" of evil as the possible turning away from God and goodness. The act of creation was the beginning of time. Scripture references to God's duration are all in the context of His revelation to the understanding of His time-bound creatures. God's adaptation of His actions towards creatures in view of their responses to Him is always an expression of His unchanging character and benevolent purposes toward His creation. Contrary to what Will affirmed in the debate, God can never sin.
@@anselman3156 Hey anselman. Yes, of course we could wrongly attribute to God aspects of our own uniquely creaturely or fallen nature. But that does not mean, as I believe you would concur, that we have grounds for rejecting the passion that the Bible attributes to God.
@@anselman3156 Hi again! Here are a few responses to your thoughts.
"[T]he weakest point in classical Christian philosophy is the notion of God seeing all time in an instant..." I agree, that this is one of the weakest points. "[T]he most horrific notion is that God has 'from all eternity' had before His mind the evil and perverse thoughts and deeds of humans and fallen angels. That would make evil as eternal as God." Agreed on that point, but even a corollary of that is terrible. Regarding the notion that God has from all eternity before His mind the goodness of creation and the holy angels (etc.), would mean that God was never God apart from the creation. This is the same problem as the claim that sovereignty is an essential aspect of deity. If that were true, then God could not be God apart from the creation, nor apart from any and every bit of creation, including John Calvin himself and each and every person. Thus the humanism of Plato's philosophy leaks out even in the best attempt of the Calvinist to claim that their theology is the greatest elevation of God, when in truth it is based on humanism. I think you might agree with a lot of that anselman.
Then you wrote: "We may not dismiss Plato's ideas altogether on the grounds that he held some morally reprehensible views." Of course, that would be a fallacy, and nothing like that is called for by any open theists I know. The difference would be in a theologian drawing making a Hollywood anology or drawing on an insight that appeared in a blockbuster film as compared to that same theologian telling you that he has a commitment to the movie industry and interprets the Bible in the light of Hollywood. That is what Augustine wrote in his Confessions (though, regarding Plato), and Augustine is the most influential Christian theologian (unless, that is, we loosen the qualifications and consider Plato).
Why does God seemingly only decree that the supremely arrogant become Calvinist teachers?
i've noticed this too lol. all the debates i ever see, the calvinists are angry and short fused, and arrogant.
Open theism is “hypothetical”. When you listen to a open theist talk is never about realities,
“God of Hope” Hope comes from Him, Hope is a result of who He is.. it isn’t saying in context that God actually hopes..
Thanks AT for commenting. If you would like to see a list of Scriptures that we think show that God Himself hopes (unlike your claim), they're at opentheism.org/verses.html. There we list 33 Categories of types of open theist verses. The very first, Category 1, lists many verses that indicate that God Himself hopes. After a quick review, I think of the 33 categories the only ones that directly address your comment are the many different verses listed in categories 1, 3, and 11. In case you're interested.
Bob Enyart 2 Corinthians 1:3 refers to God as the father of mercy and God of comfort...same construction as God of Hope.. read the context, it’s saying God is the source and giver
@@eagleclaw1179 Amber, hey! That's a valid argument, if it stood alone, but it doesn't. There are all those many verses I offered to you that shows that God does hope! God is a God of love, too. That doesn't only mean that He is the source of Love, but that He is Love. He is the source of comfort, but He Himself within Himself is also the Comforter and He is the father of mercy but also He Himself is merciful, that is, He is full of mercy. And He is patient, something He can't be if He weren't in time and wouldn't be if He didn't have hope. And He endures, something He can't do if He weren't in time and wouldn't be if He didn't have hope. And He is slow to anger, long-suffering, and yet provoked to wrath, things that couldn't happen if God weren't in time, wouldn't happen if He didn't have hope, etc. (See those 3 of 33 Categories of open theists verses!) Thanks again!
Bob Enyart My point is using God of hope, doesn’t stand, as reasons stated above..
As soon as you try to put Scripture up against Scripture, you lose.
As a Christian the Scripture is harmonious. I understand what you would like God to be, but God’s Revelation isn’t on your side...
I just pointed out a misuse of a Scripture, and your response is, “oh but I have more”. The usage and context of God of Hope does not mean God hopes, the context proves that.
When you have someone who is willing to do that with one verse they will do it with all.
@@eagleclaw1179 Hi Amber, I do appreciate talking to you about this most important of matters, the attributes of God, what is He like, and how does the Bible describe Him. A gracious debater (if you will) first works to understand his opponent's point, and then puts it in the best possible light (before mercilessly dismantling it :). So let me restate your point to see if I understand it. You object to me claiming that the Bible's "God is hope" tells us that He Himself hopes. (I also appreciate you realizing that if God has true hope, as the Bible itself defines hope, then that means that the future is not settled. So in defense of Christian theology as you understand it, you are arguing that the "God of hope" does not mean that He Himself has hope.) One of your arguments is that Him being the "God of comfort" and "Father of mercy" show that God Himself isn't these things, or doesn't have these things, but only that He's the source of these things. So when the Bible says that He is the "God of love", what does that mean? I'm sure you would agree that this doesn't mean that He is only the "source" of love. As the "God of love" He also has love, and even, as the Bible says, He "is love." And "love is patient", so that tells us that God is patient, also because the Bible repeatedly says that He is patient and in so many ways demonstrates and shows to us that He is patient (including with the verses I pointed you to), such that He is the "God of patience", not only as the source, but He Himself is "longsuffering" and "slow to wrath". (See all the verses there at opentheism.org/verses.html Category 3 out of 33.) As the God of love, and "love thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth" and love "hopes all things, endures all things". So the God of Love, hopes. (Of course the "all things", for those of us who love, and for our God who loves, is a figure of speech. We don't hope that the past gets changed, that Lucifer never rebels, nor that hating righteousness will become a virtue.) God is love, and love is patient, and God is patient, and love hopes, so He is the God of Hope. He hopes, also as shown through the many verses not only in Category 3 at opentheism.org/verses.html but also in Category 11, the opentheism.org/verses.html#expectations verses! Amber, before mercilessly dismantling my argument, are you first trying to understand it? For example, could you now explain it to someone else? And are you then putting it in the best possible light, before you have your way with it? If you read Romans 13:5 again you just might see that Paul is saying, May the God of Hope enable you to hope. Just as the God of Love enables us to love. And the God of patience enables us to be patient. Of course even the verse you referenced doesn't at all preclude our understanding that the God of Mercy enables us to be merciful. And, if you're interested, though in a very different context, "Comfort" came up, in my open theism debate with D. James Kennedy's prof of New Testament, Dr. Samuel Lamerson. And it just struck me that though in a different context (about Noah and repentance) it addresses your argument too. So we could also look at what the Bible tells us about that and God.
If God can't sin, the future is still open.
YesYouNeedJesus
Yeah I agree. The openness of the future isn’t contingent upon the possibility of Him sinning.
I would disagree highly with the idea that God could sin. It’s something that isn’t consistent with His nature which defeats that possibility.
Hi Lance! First, to God's freedom, the future is open because God is free, and I believe just as certain and related is the truth that God can love because He is free. Secondly, to your (kind) concern for Mr. Duffy, consider Lance that Calvinists will trust God's decrees, but not God Himself, if He is truly free. Calvinists say they can trust God's decrees, but as Matt Slick indicated, not God Himself. (See this for example also in my debate with D. James' Kennedy's Dr. Sam Lamerson at tiny.cc/opentheism.) They can only trust Him if He is not free. That's not biblical. This is perhaps the answer that Matt wouldn't give when Will Duffy asked Slick: Why would God have traded away His freedom? Why trade away God's freedom, say, His freedom to decree more things, by decreeing EVERYTHING that He would EVER decree, so that He is no longer able to decree anything new, as Matt Slick has admitted he believes and as Calvinist theology requires? Perhaps the answer that Matt withheld is, "Perhaps we Calvinists say that we could not trust God if He were truly free (i.e., if He really had libertarian free will), because really, God wouldn't even trust Himself with free will. So that's why He decreed it away and, as I affirmed in the debate, He cannot think a new thought, write a new song, design a new butterfly, or issue a new decree, because, unless He strapped Himself like that, just like we wouldn't trust Him, He probably wouldn't trust Himself either. Freedom is a dangerous thing. Not even God should have it." So Lance, please consider everything here that you are buying into when you accept the unbiblical "impeccability" attribute. Afterall, a stone ido is immutable, impassible, and impeccable, in that it cannot change, emote, or sin. Not even much of an idol there, is it?
Hi Lance! Sorry that this interaction is apparently putting you through emotional pain. I am thankful though that you care so much about me, Will and others that you try so hard to reach us. Consider though, WE believe literally in God's FOREknowledge and PREdestination. You don't. Why don't you? Because you deny God's freedom and think He is outside of kgov.com/time (agreeing with James White and most all settled view proponents), you believe that God is atemporal, that is, in an "eternal now", and so that He does or knows nothing in sequence but does and knows everything simultaneously. Thus, in the same way that Calvinists dismiss God "repenting" as just a figure of speech meant for our benefit, so too, your theology forces you to dismiss God's FOREknowledge as a figure of speech, for our benefit, because you believe that God is not free to plan something before doing it (PREdestine) or to know something in advance (FOREknowledge). Lance, it is your theologians who are "imposing philosophy", like utter immutability, impassibility, and impeccability, onto the Scriptures. For these quantitative philosophical constructs are not biblical, and could not apply to a "Living" God" (as He's called 30 times in the Bible), but do describe a stone idol, which cannot change in any way, has no emotion, and because it is not free, cannot sin.
it was a human nature added to His divine nature, it was not a change in His Nature but a human nature was added to the divine nature of Jesus
Hey CoJ, thanks for being here. Well, unless all thought and all words are meaningless, you're in error here. The Person we are discussing is God the Son. God the Son took on a human nature. You cannot take upon yourself a new nature and not change. Unless of course all thought and all words are meaningless. Further, at the Incarnation the Father became a Father of a Son with two natures. As the hypostatic union term indicates, Jesus is fully God and fully man. However, that hypostatic union was not eternal, from everlasting. For God the Son "became" Man. And He, God the Son, became the "Son of Man". There are not four persons of the Godhead. Jesus is not another person, but the Second Person of the Trinity. For as God said to Isaiah, "I BECAME your Savior." God can become things. He became the Creator when he created. See opentheism.org/verses#22. Thanks again!
Something else for CoJ to consider, as we discuss at kgov.com/deity#eternal-son. If God the Son had not been the Son from eternity past then there would have been no Eternal Father either, for there could be no Everlasting Father without an Everlasting Son. Thus both have existed, as Father and Son, along with the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God, from everlasting.
@@BobEnyartLive Jesus never said that He is God, he said that I go to my God and your God, even in revelation he refers to the Father as Bod, there is now but one God( the Father) and one Lord ( Jesus Christ), Stephen saw the Son if Man sitting at the right hand if God, in eternity past God became a Father at one point in time when He gave birth to His Son, who is the same as God due to His DNA a Son through whom and by whom all things came into existence, I do believe Origen, Justin Martir and Tertuliann who were handed down the teachings directly from the apostles had a deeper understanding then us, they were also looking at free will the way an open theist would, but they all agreed that Father gave birth to Jesus
@@repentjersey9971 Hey Church of Heresy. Sad to hear about your claims. But please consider, from kgov.com/deity ...
Thus Saith the Lord: If we count how many times the Old Testament prophets said, "Thus says the Lord" we find them using that phrase, in the New King James Version of the Bible, about 420 times. The New Testament on the other hand, never once records that phrase. Jesus Christ, with all the red ink devoted to recording His words, never once used that ubiquitous phrase, "Thus saith the Lord." Rather, Jesus proclaims, "I say unto you," in the Gospels! Not a single "Thus says the Lord," but rather, "I say to you," 135 times.
The following chart (see the link for the full chart CoJ) demonstrates biblically that these two phrases, Thus saith the Lord, and I say unto you, indicate the same thing, that God is speaking. For Jesus Christ made it clear that He Himself was at the heart of His teaching. Unlike the righteous priests and kings, prophets and the apostles, the Lord focused His message on Himself:
Christ's Self-focus:
- "Follow Me" 19x Mt. 4:19; 8:22; 10:38; 16:24; 19:21; Mk. 1:17; 2:14; 8:34; 10:21; Lk. 5:27; 9:59; 18:22; Jn. 1:43; 8:12; 10:27; 12:26; 13:36; 21:19, 22
- Pray and act "in My name" 18x Mt. 7:22; 18:5; 18:20; [24:5]; Mk. 9:37, 39, 41; [13:6]; Lk. 9:48; [21:8]; 24:47; Jn. 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:23-24, 26; Acts 9:15
- "the Holy Spirit" comes "in My name" Jn. 14:26
- "for My name's sake" leave family and property Mt. 19:29; or even be killed 5x Mt. 24:9; [Lk. 21:12, 17;] Jn. 15:21; Acts 9:16
- Believe in the "name of the… Son" and "in the Son" 3x Jn. 3:18, 36; 9:35 and "in Him [Jesus]" 4x Jn. 3:18; 6:29, 40; 8:31
- "believe in Me" 14x Mt. 18:6; Mk. 9:42; Jn. 3:15-16, 18; 6:35, 47; 7:38; 11:25, 26; 12:44, 46; 14:1, 12; 16:8; 17:20
- You "are sanctified by faith in Me" Acts 26:18
- Live "in Me" Jn. 11:26
- "come after Me" Mk. 8:34; Lk. 14:27
- Abide "in Me" Jn. 15:2, 4:5, 7 "abide in Me" or else Jn. 15:6 "abide in My love" Jn. 15:9-10
See more at kgov.com/deity ...
Atheist TheCatfish75134 commented but we deleted it was rsr.org/filthy. Afterall, atheists debase men into animals so from that perspective, while some resist the urge, most can't hardly communicate without constant vulgar references to defecation, genitals, sex acts, etc.
Boogeyman tactics by Slick. Associating Open Theism with Mormonism.
I disagree with much of what Slick said, but he is right in recognizing that many open theists re-imagine God on the level of a kind of exalted man. Duffy says here that God could sin! Clarke Pinnock was sympathetic to Mormon ideas about God having a body. Some open theists think of God as having the unstable passions of human beings.
@@anselman3156 Hey anselman! Don't know about Pinnock, but many open theists and others acknowledge God's passions. I don't see though where any open theist author, etc., has ever said that God has "unstable passions". And as for God's righteousness, is it really so terrible so say that God is Holy because He chooses to be Holy, rather than that He has no choice? I think in zeal theologians unwisely turn God's righteousness into an inability. A stone idol is much closer to the IMs than is the Living God, being immutable, impassable, impeccable.
@@BobEnyartLive God does not just choose not to be ill-tempered and malicious, His nature is such that He could never be these things. It should not be viewed as a negative inability, but a positive and reassuring consistency in God's character. Evil is the product of rebellious creatures. God is goodness itself, not just someone who could just as readily do evil.
@@anselman3156 Hey anselman! There are a few things in your reply that encourage me. One, you recognize that it would be diminishing to God to turn his faithfulness into an INABILITY. That's awesome that you see that. Many cannot. Give that some time to work its way through your thinking. And secondly, of course you would agree, if it turned out that you were wrong, and that God chooses to be holy with a fierce commitment to righteousness, that would also (if it turned out to be true) easily be recognized as a positive and reassuring consistency in God's character. And yes, God is goodness itself. And, yes, He is a "Someone"! That's so vital to always remember and keep central in our minds. Because systematic theology has turned God more into a series of mathematical equations, static and unchanging, more so than who He actually is, the Living, Personal, Relational, Good, and Loving God. And as a Person, He has a will; if He didn't, He couldn't be a Person, and of course the Bible repeatedly affirms that God has a will, just as it repeatedly affirms that He is the LIVING God. And a will is the ability to decide. (And God's righteousness is not against His will, nor is it apart from His will, but as the Bible shows us, it is willful. And good thing for that, because LOVE must be freely given. And if the Father was UNABLE to love the Son FREELY, then He couldn't love Him at all.) So, again, I'm encouraged anselman by your reply. Please pray and think on these things! In Christ, -Bob E.
Anselman replied but not to the specifics above other than to say, "you're wrong", and he wrongly stated, if I'm reading him correctly... here, I'll quote him, that "our basic fallacy" is that we are presenting God, "as one who has overcome the inclination to do evil." That's unhelpful because of course we say no such thing. And that we say that God "overcomes" His ability to decide, but we say no such thing and that too appears unhelpful. He doesn't overcome His will but celebrates His will! And Anselman concludes, "That is wrong thinking on your part." You haven't given us much to go on here Anselman, but I think that's because if you review the discussion we're having, you'll see that these observations are stronger than at first you may have assumed.
1:04:00 "It never entered my mind..."
Can that not mean that it's not ever what He wanted?
If words mean anything at all, It means......it never entered God's mind.
Jomarshun, thanks for visiting and asking a good question. From the resource that Will Duffy mentioned during the debate, opentheism.org/verses , the 6th of the 33 categories, says this:
6 - God Says Certain Things Happened that Never Entered His Mind
They burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings which I did not command or speak nor did it come into My mind Jer. 19:5; they cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech which I did not command them nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin Jer. 32:35; they burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to sacrifice them which I did not command nor did it come into My heart Jer. 7:31; [For other sins like adultery and theft God never says, It didn't enter My mind and I didn't command it. So why say this regarding child sacrifice? First, He did command the sacrificial system. And second, He commanded Abraham to offer up his son Gen. 22:2; Heb. 11:17. (God prevented that from happening. But 2000 years later the Father Himself would offer up His Son Rom. 8:32 and on that very same kgov.com/mt-moriah 2 Chron. 3:1.) Thus God made two things abundantly clear. Back when He ordered Abraham to demonstrate the kind of love (commitment) that the Father Himself would later demonstrate (Rom. 5:8), first, He certainly had not commanded that men sacrifice their children, and secondly, it hadn't even entered His mind that men would actually do such a thing. See also Lev. 18:21; 20:2-5; Deut. 12:31; 18:9-10; 2 Kings 3:27; 2 Kings 16:3; 17:17, 31; 21:6; 23:10; 2 Chr. 28:3; 33:6; Ps. 106:35-38; Isa 57:5; Ezek. 16:20-21; 20:26, 31; 23:37]
Jomarshun, Calvinists teach that everything that happens is what God wanted to happen. So even if it means what you say, that still refutes Calvinism.
Yeah, that's interesting Will. Some leading modern Calvinists including those we debate say that God decreed all sin but that:
- He's not responsible for all sin (that's a non-sequitur), and that
- He doesn't want that sin (which would mean something compelled Him).
I take it to mean,it never entered His mind to command them to burn their children or worship other gods.
Please tell me something, do all open theists believe in monothelitism and in kenosis the same way Will Duffy believes in them? Or is this something not necessarily included in the standard open view of God.
Open Theism is the idea that the future is not settled. It is not about the nature of the incarnation.
Thanks Clete! Irvigon, please consider, as Paul describes in Romans 7, our will (the ability to decide) is complex and can weigh competing interests, and though we have a single will, it can struggle to decide between alternatives. (I want to do what is right, at one level, but at another level, I don't, so that I can sense a battle within me.) That does not mean, as of course you would agree, that we believers have two wills. We are a New Creation in Christ, and yet we still struggle with our "flesh" awaiting deliverance from it. Still, I am only one person, and not two, and so I do not have two wills. Jesus was One Person. That Person is God the Son ( our 2-minute debate aftermath James White catastrophe notwithstanding ruclips.net/video/zLiPpcqSKVQ/видео.html ). Jesus did not have multiple personalities. God the Son did not have multiple personalities. God the Son BECAME flesh and took upon HImself a human nature as He took upon Himself the name Jesus. He didn't split Himself into two personas/wills.
Hello Bob, the Chalcedon position is that Christ is one person with two natures - human and divine. Since we get our will as a part of our human nature, this means that for Christ to be fully human He also needs human will added to His divine will. Otherwise the human nature he gained would have been incomplete if it was without a human will. The idea that Christ is one person, with two natures but with only one both human and divine will was marked as a heresy called Monothelitism. I've read books on open theism and neither monothelirism nor dyothelitism are described as official open theist position on the will of Christ. This probably means it's seen as a separate belief distinct from open theism.
Yes, thanks Irvigon, I appreciate your very clear statement of the issue. The Bible speaks of persons and wills (i.e., the person of God and God's will) and where a translation may say "divine nature" the Greek is literally, divinity, just as speaking of us as men, it may just say anthropos. We speak as psychologists and philosophers about these natures, which is fine. If we were able to itemize all the particulars that come along with a "nature", i.e., with whatever aspects of our existence that make us Man and that make God God, there are probably many that would not need to be duplicated for Jesus to take on a human nature. Being human entails existence. God the Son didn't have to take on a separate existence. Being human entails being a person. He wouldn't need to add another person to the Person that He already was. (Thus, Jesus was not two persons.) Being human entails being conscious. Our God wouldn't need to take on a separate consciousness to become human. (As we know, He wasn't merging Himself with a human being; he BECAME a human being.) Being human entails the ability to discern between right and wrong. He probably didn't need a separate discernment. Being human entails etc., etc., etc., if we could discern all the particulars that come along with a "nature", we could see that taking on another wouldn't mean having to duplicate all the particulars of that nature that you already have. That's an example of what we mean when we say that theologians have turned God into a mathematical equation or a philosophical construct, when in reality, He is a person. To take on a human nature means: to become a man. Because we think He didn't need a separate thinker. Because we emote He didn't need a new emoter. He already was a person, with existence, consciousness, discernment, a will, etc. What He took upon Himself was whatever other particulars were necessary for Him to also be a Man, including for example that His Soul and Spirit are now interfaced to an actual body, though glorified, with a head and torso, arms and legs, for He is now, actually, "the Man Jesus Christ". (Doing so undoubtedly fulfilled many of God's objectives, some of the primary ones being: 1) So that He could experience for Himself what it was that He created; 2) So that as His creation, we could better relate to Him: a great thing to remember for this Christmas; 3) to answer the question He poses in the Bible, "What more could I have done?", to save men; and 4) that by becoming a Man and living a perfectly Holy life He was able to save to the uttermost those human beings who trust in HIm.) So He did not have to become a two-headed, multiple personality, separate-willed entity. Rather, He is God the Son, become flesh.
Merry Christmas, Bob! God bless you, your family and your church! I've talked about these things with people I know, some hold your position, but discussion on a comment section has never been my thing. If we knew each other personally we could go out, discuss things in depth with verses and so on but I am from Europe. Great debate by the way, I really enjoyed how Will attacked the calvinistic idea of the decree at the second part of the debate. I'm looking forward to watch more discussions next year.
I think it would have been better if Will agreed that God knows all possibilities in the future as if each was the only possibility. Thus God knows everyone from before birth by virtue of possibility.
Hey Yodahe, it's awesome that you're goal is to portray God with as much glory as you can. However, you're argument may be far more filthy and perverse than you've ever stopped to realize. See my brief explanation of this at killingmolinism.com.
UPDATE: Y.A. read this, and note something he says in his reaction, about "absurdity".
@@BobEnyartLive Oh wow. really? Okay thank you I'll read it.
@@BobEnyartLive Okay I read it. The Arrow of time being reversed part was both very interesting and confusing. We can get to that later. But I don't understand why you assume that God knowing so many filthy moments is an issue. It's perfectly okay. Absurd maybe, but entirely coherent. And you said that God would have to travel the infinite future to know all possibilities. I don't think the future is infinite (At least not for this universe). It's perfectly okay for God to know a crazy amount of possibilities. Also, even if it were infinite, since you seemed to not have an issue with an infinite past, why should you have a problem with an infinite future? I think he has infinite intellect that allows him to see each painfully different possibility as if it were an actuality. Regarding the arrow of time, well let me save it for now
@@yodaheabebe7268 Thanks for the dialog Y.A. For 30 years on the radio we've pointed out that classical theology undermines God as a person, and treats Him as though He were some kind of metaphysical mathematical equation. Your response helps make our point. The (Greek & Latin philosophical) classical attributes of God are quantitative. How much, and how little, such as OMNIscient, OMNIpresent, OMNIpotent IMpassible, IMmutable. The biblical kgov.com/attributes of God are qualitative, that our eternal God is Living, Personal, Relational, Good, and Loving.
So, after you read the short essay killingmolinism.com you wrote that what it describes, though necessary of God if Molinism were true, is "perfectly okay" being "Absurd maybe, but entirely coherent." Remember that we are trying to understand God. He is not a set of equations that may or may not be coherent. He is a person. And as such, He is not "absurd".
I do agree with you that God's intellect is capable beyond our ability to fathom. Regarding crossing infinity though, yes, God has existed from the beginningless past. We discuss the challenges to that at kgov.com/time#crossing-infinity. His knowledge includes the account of His own past existence, ever-changing present experience, and future intentions. However, to have comprehensive knowledge of an infinite number of never-ending infinite futures (that is, of the infinite futures of all the plausible beings He could create) is not just difficult and something that a big-enough intellect could handle; instead, it is a logical impossibility.
@@BobEnyartLive Honestly, I enjoy conversation with you.
I don't think that quantitative attributes are wrong or necessarily negate God's qualitative attributes. Any person's attributes can be described in that manner as well. God's infinite intellect doesn't make him not a risk taker. He only knows what can be known, thus the free will of humans would still be a risk at the end of the day. So he'd still be loving and personal.
I meant coherent as a statement about God - not contradictory. So not him but the idea that he can know all possible things - including the filthy ones. I honestly don't think that makes him somehow computer like or anything. Yeah his tolerance for filth will have to be far higher than ours but that's not somehow reducing his personhood.
With regards to God's intellect, if he has infinite intellect, it's not a contradiction to have infinite knowledge. Don't you think? I don't see the logical impossibility there.
Wow.... Will duffy declares that God can sin. That's worse than the statement that Bob Enyart made where he claimed Jesus could have sinned, and torn apart the entire godhead....
Hi Chad! Thanks so much for commenting! We reply to your concern as follows. Calvinists will trust God's decrees but not God Himself, if He is truly free. The Calvinists who we've debated (including Dr. Sam Lamerson and Matt Slick) say that they can trust God's decrees, but not God Himself, if He were free. (See this above from Matt Slick and in my debate with D. James' Kennedy's Dr. Sam Lamerson at tiny.cc/opentheism.) Why do Calvinists say that they can only trust God if He is not free? That's not biblical. When Will Duffy asked Slick: Why would God have traded away His freedom? Why trade away God's freedom, say, His freedom to decree something, by decreeing everything that God would ever decree, so that He is no longer able to decree anything new? (Matt basically admitted that's what Calvinist theology holds, as we've been explaining for a quarter century now.) The answer that Matt withheld may be, "Perhaps we Calvinists say that we could not trust God if He were truly free (i.e., if He really had libertarian free will), because really, God wouldn't trust Himself with free will. So that's why He decreed it away and, as I affirmed in the debate, that's why I say that God cannot think a new thought, write a new song, design a new butterfly, or issue a new decree."
Bob... of course I trust in God's decree. He decreed the cross, and I have put my faith in that finished work and his established promises.
According to you, God is free to sin, and theoretically could go back on his gift of salvation, and change his mind not to save those who trust in his finished work.
Matt, you are so deceived..
Matt Slick is not a consistent Calvinist.
@@cranmer1959 No Calvinist is a consistent Calvinist. Further, Calvinists do not even ATTEMPT to live as though everything that will happen will inexorably happen. That belief, if actually held, for example, would utterly change the way decisions are made. Calvinists are like my end-times obsessed friends who won't sell me their entire estates for $1,000. I'd pay them now but their estate would not be transferable until 2040; they want ME to believe their doctrine, to make THEM feel better about it, but deep down, they don't really believe it.
Can God create a god greater than Himself? It's a nonsensical argument. God is perfect by nature, logically a perfect God couldn't make an imperfect decision so it's a logical impossibility to say God can sin or otherwise change his mind. The ability to become imperfect isn't consistent with the property of perfection, which means all choices are perfectly correct.
Hi again jon doe! Yes, of course it's absurd to ask for God to create a god greater than Himself. But that in no way affirms your next claim that a perfect God could not make an imperfect decision. The unbiblical emphasis on the quantitative attributes (the OMNIs & the IMs; how much and how little) have turned God into a series of inabilities. It's said He is immutabile, impassible, and impeccible, but without realizing it, those theologians were not describing God but a stone idol. For a stone idol cannot change, cannot emote, and cannot sin. God's will is free jon. If you begin with that fundamental biblical truth, free because He is a Personal God, and a person Must have a will, then you can recover the Living, Personal, Relational, Good, and Loving God (the five primary qualitative biblical attributes). You can see all this at opentheism.org/quantitative-attributes.
I don't agree with Slick on very much, but he creamed the other guy. I came to this debate (and others on the subject) with a mind wide open because I'm undecided. But the open theists do so terribly, I know I must reject that view.
What if God only predestined certain, pertinent events that would fulfill His ultimate plan of salvation for mankind i.e., the new covenant........and all other events that don't matter are left "open" to human volition? Isn't that exactly how the Bible reads? Otherwise, how else does one reconcile the myriad "free will" verses and the few "predestination" verses?
Hey Seth, so honored that you stopped by. The 33 categories of open theist verses that Will Duffy mentioned appear at opentheism.org/verses.html. Also, at the bottom of that list, there are another 7, for a total of 40 (not verses, but entire categories), the Top Seven Categories of Verses that DON'T Exist, which are
- That say God is outside of Time (timeless, in an eternal now, not was nor will be but only is, has no past, has no future, see kgov.com/time )
- That say God knows everything that will ever happen
- That God can intervene in the past
- That God has decreed everything that will ever happen
- That God created time
- God exists in the past and or the future
- That God knew us before we were conceived.
So, even if you think that we aren't prepared for these debates (see others to evaluate at kgov.com/debates ), perhaps the force of so many Scriptures will help you reconsider. (And also, of course, if Matt were right, you didn't have a truly "open" mind at all, but rather, decreed from eternity past, predestined, your mind was programmed to side with Matt, just as Will Duffy's was to disagree. But really, you just don't believe that, do you.)
You did not watch, listen, or comprehend the topic of this debate if you believe Matt Slick creamed anybody. Matt read from his computer for most of his lecturing and was debating an opponent who was in his first ever debate.
שת בנ־אברהם Matt twisted himself into a pretzel defending what he believed God decreed he he would say before the Creation. My takeaway from the debate is whether the Bible teaches humans have free will (Open Theism), or humans don't have free will (Calvanism). If you came away from the debate believing you have no free will then you would side with Mr. Slick (Calvanism) and you merely experienced that which God decreed for you before His Creation and you do not think for yourself, you are but a collection of flesh, bones, and muscle that operates on the program God put into your very being before the Creation. You must also believe then that God programmed the pedophile that rapes young children and the murderer that ends life. Is this the God you worship? Is this the God of the Bible?
If you believed he creamed him you clearly didn’t watch the cross examination where he dodged nearly every question and kept asking for interpretations on words that his opponent interrupted multiple times. You clearly did not come with an open mind.
They sure live up to their last name..exchange Duffy with Berean
“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”
- Luke 2:52 (KJV)
Jesus was a man. Men learn. God does not learn. Since Jesus was a genuine man, he was limited in every way that we are. But Jesus was also the divine Logos incarnate. Therefore Jesus must have been two persons. He was a human person and the divine Person of the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity. The divine Logos was not changed by the incarnation. Jesus died on the cross, not the Logos.
@@cranmer1959 They interaction of the web is bringing to the surface the heresy that permeates Calvinism. Jesus was not two persons. Jesus is God the Son; God the Son became flesh. Charlie, you know this. It's called the Incarnation, and it's the central doctrine of Christianity. Yet, like R.C. Sproul Jr. and James White in our debate aftermath, opentheism.org/white#aftermath we're seeing that so many Calvinists are willing to throw the Incarnation under the bus to save their pagan utter immutability and exhaustive foreknowledge. See the 15 scriptures at opentheism.org/white#god-the-sons-humanity. Also Charlie, you didn't read Nathan's full verse. It speaks not only of Jesus changing, but of the Father changing, for Jesus "increased in favour" with His Father, as of course would happen as the Father saw His eternal Son actually go through with the most extraordinary thing ever, that He became a man and was there in Israel, growing and maturing in the human body that He humbly took upon Himself.
@@BobEnyartLive Maybe your god is dead? He died on the cross, right? Or just maybe the incarnation happened because God cannot die. God sent Jesus to become human because God cannot die.
Calvinists, here's Charlie's reply. He does as bad as R.C. Sproul Jr and Dr. James White. Realize what a mess your doctrine is getting you into: "@Bob Enyart ...the incarnation happened because God cannot die. God sent Jesus to become human because God cannot die." We're hearing such inanity, and heresy, from Calvinists everywhere who are forced to consider the Incarnation in light of their false doctrines about God. For those interested, you can check out kgov.com/attributes.
Despite what Slick says , Open Theism is more in alignment to giving glory to GOD than Calvinism is .
A God who changes with the wind cannot be trusted to keep His promises.
@@cranmer1959 Hey Charlie, thanks for being here and commenting, but please consider, that's another straw man. Rather than rewrite, I'll copy my reply to your previous comment, and the same thing is happening here.
CR: Open Theism teaches that God cannot do anything about evil. Debate over.
BE: Hey Charlie! Well, I've been teaching open theism for 35 years, debated a few credentialed and popular opponents, read countless materials, and I've never heard anyone, not even our opponents, say that O.T. teaches that God cannot do anything about evil. Perhaps your comment though helps us, in an important way, understand the thought process of those arguing against open theism. It seems that they can hardly stop themselves from reacting as though we claim that God has NO knowledge, NO power, NO wisdom, NO righteousness, NO... on and on. That's called a straw man, and yes, I'd join you guys in opposing any such teaching. Like when Dr. Lamerson seriously argued, Well then, how could God know that a rooster would crow, as though the Creator of heaven and earth could't accomplish that. See for example, kgov.com/on-how-to-make-a-rooster-crow.
@@BobEnyartLive Please explain why the man who shot his wife did so independently of God's sovereignty? It was God's eternal will that the man would shoot his wife.
@@cranmer1959 That's the ultimate victim mentality for everything from domestic violence to international terror. If you were correct then Christ would be no more in God's will than the Anti-Christ. Calvinists, especially Charlie of the kgov.com/calvin-institutes-book-1-chapter#18 type like you and John, actually do what they fear open theism might do, make God into a sinner.
Amen, completely agree.. The God of Calvanism is a terrible monster.. He doesn't force people to commit suicide or abort their babies.. Those "phrases of speach" were much more
Duffy is so far off in bizarro land !!
@1:20:54 - 1:21:09 on the video of the debate
Slick asks Duffy …
“ Can God the Father sin “ ?
Duffy answers …
“ I believe so… Yeh Absolutely. “
The Open Theist has absolutely no objective basis to know if God will always tell them the truth or even that He is telling them the truth right now !!
The Mirabilis We know he is telling the truth because of his free will and dedication to righteousness. They talked about God not betraying us because he has shown to be loyal to his followers in the Bible, not because he has an inability to do otherwise. Which one seems like a more stronger and loving God? You can't love if you don't have the ability to hate.
God is at war or will be with the dark powers. Is it a sin to confuse, obstruct, confound or deceive in a war ? Would Jesus really tell the truth to the Nazis where he was hiding Ann Frank ? My question would be did Satan really know who he was tempting ? That he was playing to script like Peter and the roosters. Jesus could have called down a legion of angels, but that would be counter to the will of the Father and a sin. So that ability to sin goes away how ?
What's better? Believe a God who can but won't sin. Or a Calvinist God who caused/planned all sin?
Hikara Swift -
How do you know for certain that God is not lying to you and everyone else right now and that the Bible is not filled with lies ?
Anthony83091
Both Calvinism and Open Theism are FALSE.
frankly, even mormons have a higher view of God. at least they believe that once their space alien became glorified he was perfected and won't sin.
Hi florinu123k. Thanks for stopping by. You're implying, like Matt Slick did explicitly twice in this debate, that we open theists believe that God is not perfect, and that He sins. By the way, at opentheism.org/mormonism you can see that the LDS founder, Joseph Smith, believed what you and most all settled view theologians believe, that God is outside of time and in an "eternal now".
Around 1:37:45 is where I draw the line with guys like Matt Slick. Even though I disagree with Will's view of Open Theism, I don't believe he denies God's word as Matt Slick ends up claiming. No Matt, he, and many of us, disagree with your interpretation of the Bible. Matt continually throws out proof text after proof text without any ability to actually understand context and when you disagree with his interpretation, he says you are a hater of God's word. This is childish and one of the many reasons I've lost a lot of respect for the guy. smh
" I don't believe he denies God's word as Matt Slick ends up claiming."
Umm... he denies that God knows the future. That's a denial of the very nature of God.
Chad Daniels, but that is different than denying the very passages that Matt Slick is saying he does. Matt Slick references a passage and if you don't agree with his interpretation, he then says you deny God's word. That is ridiculous and a horrible debate tactic.
And I agree, open theism is wrong in that it claims that God doesn't know the future.
"And I agree, open theism is wrong in that it claims that God doesn't know the future."
And you don't believe that denying that God knows the future is denying God's word? How do you know that God knows the future?
Chad Daniels, please read carefully. Will denying that God knows the future is not the same as denying God's word as a whole. Meaning, that just because Will denies that God knows the future does not mean that when Matt Slick presents certain scriptural interpretations that Will doesn't agree with that he's denying God's word. No, he's denying Matt Slick's interpretation of said scriptures. Just because I disagree with Will's theology does not mean that all the scriptures in the Bible that he disagrees with my interpretation means that he denies God's word. That's a ridiculous argument. Just because someone rejects your interpretation does not equate to them denying God's word. Matt does that all the time. "Oh, you don't agree with my interpretation so you hate God's word." NO, we just disagree with YOUR interpretation of it.
" Will denying that God knows the future is not the same as denying God's word as a whole"
I see you qualified your statement with "Denying God's word as a whole."
So... you didn't answer my question. Why do you believe that God knows the future?
Matt makes an error in reasoning to say that his god can know the future but we have choice.
Why do you say that?
I believe that I am ABSOLUTELY free. There is NOTHING in all the universe, including God almighty, that overrides my will.
I also believe that God exhaustively knows everything, from before creation to the end of all things (hypothetically speaking).
@@buzzbbird Hey bbb, yes, a "will" is one of the primary components that makes a person a person, and a will is the ability to decide. So someone would have to be expunged, or unpersonified, to lose their will. I'm wondering buzzbbird if you've looked at the list Will Duffy and I have assembled over at opentheism.org/verses. Is there a cateory (out of the 33) that in your estimation we are not overstating the scriptures listed and that you think has some merit?
@@BobEnyartLive i will be happy to look, but I am against Open theism. the ONLY reason Open theism even exists is because Calvinism exists. It accepts that god controls all that God knows. But since it recognizes that man has free will, it disagrees with Calvinism on that, rather than disagreeing with Calvinism on its other precept, of the false definition of Sovereignty.
God DOES know the future exhaustively, and while his knowledge is contingent upon what we we will do.
When asked HOW God knows? I do not even need to pretend that I have an answer. god did not tell humanity HOW he is God.
@@BobEnyartLive @BobEnyart
Do you have an email or
fb page wherein we may communicate?
@@buzzbbird You're making great points bbb, except that for exhaustive foreknowledge you're only making an assertion. And for that assertion to be valid, it would have to trump or otherwise correct our understanding of the 500+ verses in 33 categories at opentheism.org/verses. And that assertion would also have to overcome the observation made there in our bonus list of The Top Seven Categories of Verses that Don’t Exist, that could, if the future were exhaustively foreknown.
when Matt slick gets cornered he gets stupid
Slick believes that God is the cause of all sin. That is the same thing as saying God could sin.
So from the open theist perspective,God had no idea that Jesus would be born or that He would go to the cross.This is very sad.
Tim, in an open theism construct, God still declares that certain things will happen. If He doesn't change His mind, He makes them happen. We call it PROPHECY.
Ah, my brother we meet again! I'm not sure that this video or any of the others I have watched so far depict the "open theism construct" as you have defined it here. However, in your "modified" construct, as you have expressed it to me, you do try to close some of the holes presented by open theism. I am thinking of a sinking ship....at what time do I stop trying to plug all of the leaks and abandon ship? ;-)
Michael Orion I'm not totally clear on your question. The ship may have absolutely nothing to do wit God's overarching plan for mankind. Can you elaborate the question?
I was just razzing your commitment to "open theism" and your devotion to "plug all the leaks" you find by modifying the construct so heavily that other open theists would no longer recognize it. It was just in jest ;-)
Also, I'm not sure if you recognize me because of the name....So I will just say "A duck by any other name would sound just as quacky." ;-)
Both of these were unprepared for the cross-examination.
Johnathan Pritchett commented on Dec. 3, 2017
"Will Duffy needs to brush up on John 6, Philippians 1, Romans 9, etc.
I do think he also needs to better understand certain categories of philosophy pertaining to nature and change."
I replied on Dec. 4, 2017:
Hello Jonathan, thanks for visiting. Was this telling? Matt Slick offered to teach Will Duffy about Romans 9 yet when Will asked him about Jeremiah 18, Matt said he was unfamiliar with that chapter! (It's the Potter and the Clay chapter.) So Matt would not respond. (He didn't recognize the verse Will read nor knew the Jer. 18 reference. Wow.) That is one of the foundational chapters that Romans 9 refers to. Like with the two babies in Rebecca's womb Jacob and Esau being "two nations" (Gen. 25), in Jeremiah God immediately interprets the potter and the clay parable as being about when "that NATION against whom I have SPOKEN turns from its evil, I will REPENT of the disaster that I THOUGHT to bring upon it." So Matt told Will in the debate he couldn't address this passage because he was unfamiliar with it. One who understands Romans 9 will be intimate with Jeremiah 18. Jonathan, I invite you to review at opentheism.org "Is Calvinism Biblical?" with Dr. Larry Bray. My post 1a begins "with Romans 9 [showing that it's about nations, as post 2a extends], John 15, Isaiah 46 and Psalm 139."
Heidi Carico, hello! You make rather interesting observations and have quite a way of writing. Thanks for commenting! I'll invite you though to make a different comment though about what you said about open theists, that we believe in, "A Jesus who has no power over anyone or anything".
When you wrote that, you might have been thinking about some other camp. Open theists affirm that God created the world with His power, has brought judgment against the world with the rsr.org/flood and has frequently supernaturally intervened to both bless and judge individuals and nations. Further, that Jesus will return to judge the world, great and small, rich and poor, and only those who trust in Him will He save to eternal life and those who reject Him will learn of their horrific punishment at the Great White Throne Judgment. In these and countless other ways the Scriptures have demonstrated the power that Jesus has over people and things.
So, assuming Heidi that you actually do have something against open theists, and that we may benefit from your criticism if we can see that it is valid, I invite you to repost. If you take me up on that invitation though, it would be wonderful if you could start in humility by realizing that you made a false accusation against us. I think you'd want to start that way, since, as you would put it, a Jesus who overlooks false accusations is not the Jesus of the Bible.
Thanks again! -Pastor Bob Enyart, Denver Bible Church
Heidi Carico posted the following (around 10:30 a.m. Dec. 3, 2017, M.T.)
All these debates by human sinners who call themselves teachers prove James 3:1 correct: "Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." The following false Jesuses are preached by seminary graduates which proves Jesus right in Mt. 11:25 that God has hidden the truth from those who are considered wise and learned by human standards. So seminary degrees do not make anyone "Men of God", the Holy Spirit does:
A Jesus who supports sodomy, (Lutherans, Presby. Congregationalists, Methodists, Episcopalians and some Baptists) a Jesus who says there is no hell, (Universalist 'churches') a Jesus who's a hippie guru who came to bring peace to the earth instead of a sword, (ecumenicists including Catholics, Lutherans and Rick Warren) a Jesus who supports Muslims who deny him,(Rick Warren followers) a Jesus who’s a handsome stud with long hair, made of wood, stone, gold and bronze,(Catholics) A Jesus who's of the world, fun and entertaining (Evangelicals), A Jesus who came from another planet (Mormons), A Jesus who has no power over anyone or anything (Open Theists), A Jesus who speaks gibberish (Pentecostals)a Jesus who makes woman the head of man (most denominations), a Jesus who supported the rich man's decision to keep his money and possessions, (Joyce Meyer, Joel Olsteen and Pentecostals)a Jesus who's going to come back, 2, 3, or more times,(E-free and charismatic 'churches') a Jesus who's already come back, (Preterists) a Jesus who isn’t necessary since man can conquer sin by his own free will, (most denominations) a Jesus who didn’t turn the other cheek, but instead, killed his enemies, (Catholics and Protestants), a Jesus who didn’t come to save the lost sheep of Israel because Israel isn’t the church (Evangelicals, Catholics) a Jesus who didn't die for most people, (Calvinists) a Jesus who isn’t divine, (JW's) and just about every other Jesus of one's imagination, none of whom is the Jesus of the bible.
Ultimately, what is "sin"?
How can God "sin"?
What is really being asked here is, "Is God good and is He capable of doing evil?" In short, "Is God moral?" The term "sin" has to do with transgressing the law, which is a different issue altogether. Right and wrong existed long before the law was given. It was not against the law for Cain to murder his brother, for example, but it was wrong or immoral.
The critical issue in morality is choice. Actions that are not chosen are outside of the purview of morality. Therefore, if God is good then He must be so by choice - by definition.
But accepting the idea that God has the ability to do something wrong is not to accept that his doing so can actually happen. God is, after all, omnipotent and cannot be forced to do anything He does not want to do or otherwise defeated or forcible coerced. This along with the fact that He has existed for an eternity without deviation from perfectly flawless righteousness and wisdom all speaks to God's eternally perfect moral character.
Thanks for asking Jomarshun, and for your reply Clete! Jomarshun, what you are asking about is something that Socrates discussed long ago in a dialogue called Euthyphro's Dilemma. If you Google: christian answer to euthyphro, I think you'll find our article at TheologyOnline.com. Truth and righteousness flow from God, and just as truth is non-contradictory, so is morality. So, if God were to contradict Himself, that would not make the contradiction true, just because God said it. Likewise, if God were to morally contradict Himself, that would not make Him good just because He did it. That's arbitrary, and God's truth and morality are not arbitrary. Further, belief in such arbitrariness is one of the factors that led to the selling of indulgences, because, if God could command Thou shalt bear false witness, and Thou shalt commit adultery, as easily as otherwise, then He could also permit the church to sell permsission to wealthy patrons to do those things.
Really cool of you to reply. Thank you.
But isn't there a difference between God being good and being truthful? Truthfulness (that which is so, despite any opinion of it) and morality are different, no? God is truthful because he does not lie about what is.
But morality is based on decisions, isn't it?
My initial question "Ultimately, what is 'sin'?" was intended to ponder whether or not 'good' is subjective as it pertains to how God deems it. It is good to obey God. He states His preference for obedience over sacrifice. But, obedience to God led to killing, abandonment, rejection, tolerance (of what we'd presume to be despicable [Hosea]). In the end, isn't obedience (regardless of how our current instincts may protest) higher than reasoning how his command is moral? I would think the book of Job kind of highlights the importance of being careful when we strive to reason how God's actions and commands measure up to how we perceive morality.
I don't know if I sound difficult. I don't mean to.
@ 2:39 The question asked of Matt Slick is basically...."who is the "us" in Eph 1 :4?" There seems to be a consensus among all camps that "us" is the "church", predestined to be such or otherwise. The standard non-calvinist explaining away of the text is to say that all believers were predestined to be in Christ when they chose to believe. In other words, it's not the salvation that was predestined but it is the status of being "in Christ" that was predestined for any and all that would volitionally believe.
I think there is a much more pragmatic way of comprehending the text. But it first requires one, even an open theist, to be open to the idea that not everything in God's plan can be manifest by human will alone and that God did in fact use some predestination once in a while to bring about a specific framework in which free will, as a standard, can be the goal of His new covenant, overarching plan.
Imagine for a moment that Paul really is speaking of individual, salvific predestination but only for a handful. It's stated in Acts 10 41 that "a few witnesses" were chosen to be so. I'm a partial open theist and I'm going to assert up front that it was specifically the apostles who were predestinated from before the foundation, Paul included as one born out of due season and the real twelfth. Allow me to elaborate. It was me who posed the question to Will "as an open theist, can you admit that some things were predestined....." No one can possibly think that 12 apostles were a happenstance of man's free will....nor any other fulfilled prophecy. We non calvinists, to be credible, must admit that God declared many things ( "for God does nothing without first declaring it to His prophets") and then intervened in man's free will to literally make them happen.
There are two distinct groups Paul refers to, noticing the pronouns "us", "we" and "you". The first two verses are simply the greeting so if we can set those aside for a moment.... Vs's 3- 12 are really just one long run-on sentence in the Greek. Only the pronouns "us" and "we" are used. If Paul continued that way, then you and I, and all other believers, could include ourselves in that group. But the moment "you" appears in vs 13, we have to acknowledge two groups of believers. The first group is said to have every spiritual blessing in the heavens.They were made known the mystery of God's will (given eyes to see and ears to hear) and they had been predestinated (literally chosen) according to a specific purpose. But notice....they were chosen "before" the foundation and in verse 12 these "us's" and "we's" are defined as "we" who FIRST trusted in Christ.
In vs 13, Paul tells the Ephesians, using "you", that they were "also" (denoting two groups) included in those blessings "after" they heard the word and believed. Then they were sealed with the Holy Spirit. Now we can doctrinally include ourselves into the second group but never the first. So, we have one small group predestinated "before" and another group, infinitely larger, believing "after" they hear the gospel.
I've been rebutted by many calvinists with them saying that it's ridiculous that the "us's" and "we's are only regarding the apostles. They say "the book is written to all of us believers, therefore "us" and "we" are all believers". What faulty logic. Just because Paul is writing TO the Ephesians, that doesn't necessitate the pronouns "we" and "us" to refer to the Ephesians especially when "you" is used in contrast.
Since the book was written to tell Gentiles that they are no longer "far" but have been "drawn near", it makes perfect sense to greet them, and then tell them what chosen Jews (namely, the apostles) received , and then tell them that they are now included...not in the predestination, for it is impossible to believe something before you were born...but, the blessings in Christ. In keeping with the premise of the book, Paul quotes Isaiah in Eph 2 14, which was really a prophecy about Jew and Gentile becoming one new man, Jesus being our "peace".
"I create the fruit of the lips; (the gospel) Peace, peace to him that is far off (gentiles) and to him that is near (Jews) saith the LORD; and I will heal him"
Isa 57:19
"But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us" Eph 2:13-14
Paul typically refers to the apostles as "us" and "we" in his epistles so this is not a stretch at all. Read 1 cor 4 all the way through and you'll see what I mean but here's vs 9........ "For I think that God hath set forth US the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for WE are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men" 1Co 4:9
That leads us to the other thorn in the non-calvinist's side....romans 8, in which we also see two groups of believers. It was the apostles that were "appointed unto death" while the other new believers were "reigning as kings" as 1 Cor 4 says. So when Romans 8 goes into the "golden chain" of redemption, it's speaking of the apostles. They were the ones who were "killed all day long" and "counted as sheep for the slaughter". Ask yourself, in the next verse, who's the "your" and who's the "we" referring to? " As it is written: 'For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Rom 8:36
Paul is quoting psalm 44 in which the psalmist describes the plight of Israel, counted as sheep for the slaughter, yet, Paul is applying it to the apostles, Israel's representatives. The apostles, referred to in Romans 8 36, were the ones, as Eph 1 also states, who were "called according to a purpose" ; who were predestinated "to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren". "Many brethren" because they were called to spread the gospel first.
Which finally leads us to Jn 17 because there, we see yet again the same "two groups", one small group who was "given" to Jesus by the Father.....and an infinitely larger group that will "believe through their (the first group's) words". In Vs's 6-19, Jesus prays only for those "given" to Him and He says that "none was lost save Judas", relegating this group to the eleven. Then in vs 20, Jesus opens up the prayer to include "all those that will believe through their word". These "given" ones in Jn 17 are the same "given" ones that Jesus referred to in Jn 6. They were alluded to in the 12 baskets in which the fragments (remnants) of food were placed in so that "nothing be lost". They are literally the "remnant" and the "elect" from a blinded nation in which no one could go to Jesus unless the Father drew them first. They were given the mysteries of God while all the others spoken to in parables. They were the exception to the national blindness of Israel,receiving eyes to see and ears to hear.
So all the texts show that the small, remnant, elect apostles were predestinated from before the foundation to be, according to purpose, the witnesses of Christ and the first to hope in Christ preaching the gospel so that "whosoever" can believe their words and be saved.
Sir with all due respect the point you make of "us" and "we" as ONLY applied to the apostles makes no sense. It seems rather strange that Paul opens his address to the "saints" and then use "we and "us" in relation to the apostles only ONLY thru v12. The "we" and "us" referred are the "saints" the corporate body; jew and gentile believers. Paul's whole point is that God's church is built by him (Matt. 16:18), and filled by him (Acts 2:47); all according to HIS sovereign predestined plan; according to HIS glorious grace and purpose NOT MANS! V13, "in him you also", is a direct address to gentile in reference to God's plan. The hearing is the MEANS with which God saves his people(Rom. 10:14-15). Paul is not saying "well "we" apostles were chosen but you gentiles had to use your free will to get into the plan." No! My friend when you come to the text with "free" will eyes you'll never see that the distinction, with regards to people groups, are WITHIN the same electing purpose and plan, not distinct methods plans. In other words a plan and purpose for salvation for "us" apostles and a different one for you gentiles.
It's interesting when Calvinist get upset with the idea from open theists that God could do evil - when they spend all their time trying to justify their belief that he actually does evil for his glory. Through scripture he manifests an objective standard of righteousness which Calvinist say he violates - God claims to be against David murdering a man and taking his wife (because it's contrary to who God is (loving, righteous etc) - that doesn't matter because the true (secret will of God) is w/e actually happens regardless of whether it's good or evil. And yet we read that David did ALL God's will EXCEPT in the case of Uriah the Hittite. So David did something that was against what God wanted him to do. It was against God's will - yet Calvinist tell us everything that happens is God's will and no one can resist it.
"trying to justify their belief that he actually does evil for his glory"
No Calvinist believes that God does evil. Maybe learn about God before you accuse him of evil.
Hi Chad, thanks for responding to Coach DC. You recognize of course that CDC was accusing your theology and not God. You illustrated the longstanding tension wherein Calvinists say that God decreed everything (including all evil), but He's not responsible for it. Hitler never killed anyone; he only decreed it; but that makes him no less responsible for doing evil. Obviously you know this, but to be explicit, as a Calvinist when you say, "Our theology does not make God an evildoer," we don't agree with you. We think you will eventually see that you are wrong. Likewise, when Will Duffy described God's qualities that show that He exists in time (like patience and endurance, see opentheism.org/verses), every leading Calvinist who says, "We teach all the time that God is patient, and that He exists outside of time", in no way has answered the challenge that God's patience falsifies the outside-of-time theology. (In this historic debate, as Matt Slick prepared by reviewing our previous debates arguing the Incarnation proves that God exists in sequence and in time kgov.com/time , Matt became the first leading Calvinist to argue publicly "I don't say that God is outside of time" and "I don't say that there's an eternal now." Wow! Progress.)
Enyart - "CDC was accusing your theology and not God." That is correct. Yes, every Calvinist imputes evil to God - just as Matt did - He just uses theological acrobatics and euphemisms because the raw truth is nauseating to even him. (Does God do or force ppl from a predestined decree/cause) to do contrary to the manifestation of who He is in scripture? For example if God is clearly saying "Do not murder.., Israel - don't do that" and they do it (like sacrificing their kids to false Gods) - but God had said "You should not do that" - but, before he even created anything He some how decided that he would make sure they did it and that's the ONLY choice they could make - then you are saying God did it through them. No matter how you try to finesse it - If I write an AI for a robot to perform certain actions then it's not just the robot performing them - I'm performing them through the robot. The robot is just carrying out my commands - what I have made sure will happen - it has no choice to do otherwise. This is why I say that for Calvinist w/e is happening is the truth about what God is doing and who he is - doesn't matter if scripture says God is against rape, murder etc (Blaspheming the holy spirit) - if it's happening that's the real truth for the Calvinist about what God has predestined and is currently doing. That's why they have this dual will of God - one is secret, one is revealed and they contradict each other. It's the "Kingdom divided against itself" that Jesus said "Can not stand" - God does evil things that he predestined before he even created anyone (before anyone did good or bad) but pretends he is against those evil things and then gets mad at those he made do them (It's all a show - his frustration, sorrow, anger) This is exactly what Calvinist essentially believe.
CDC... is God responsible for the acts of Herod and Pilate? The Bible says he predestined what they would do in regard to killing Christ.
Chad... Were their acts evil? You said God doesn't do evil correct? But you do believe God (as you just said) predestined them (Made them) to do what they did (No other choice for them even before they were born) - your interpretation is that God (Before they were even born) made sure they would play a part in rejecting the messiah and crucifying him - correct? You believe the *murder* of Christ was predestined before the foundation of the world, right? That there was no other way for him to give up his life and atone for sin.
If God doesn't have the ability to sin , then righteousness is meaningless. If God doesn't have the ability to hate, then love is also meaningless. The same truths that pertain to us pertain to God also.
You just made some assertions but didn't back them up or give evidence. Can you justify your claims?
Hey Apologia5, thanks for asking for a justification. I don't know if Chris saw your comment, but let me share what I offered to Philip Hawkins above. Love must be freely given. (That should be self-evident. But consider as one example that God loves the world and all sides at least agree that He was free to love us or not.) Because love must be freely given, therefore, to be able to love one must be able to withhold that love, that is, he must be able to hate. God loves. And His love too must be freely given. Otherwise it would not be love. The Father loves the Son freely. That means that he could withhold that love. He does not love the Son by any inevitability but by His choice. Likewise, God is faithful. His faithfulness is not an inability but an ability. Finally, as exposed by the Calvinist who can only trust God's decreee but not God Himself, likewise, there is no need to fear God being free, even when it comes to love.
As is typical at 1:33:42 Matt is misrepresenting John 6:65. Since this is the passage where Jesus tells the Jews that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, or they have no life in them. While this was figurative they took it literally and were offended. Thus God grants people who want to believe understanding and those who don't are left in the dark, which is why Jesus spoke in parables.
It is amazing how in cross Matt is suddenly so ignorant of the Bible and all the passages that Will asks him about. I also like how Will rightly catches Matt in his circular reasoning.
As to those who find the idea that God could sin or that Jesus could sin so heretical it is why we can have faith in Him because he doesn't and Jesus didn't. We can trust God because he Gave his Son, and if God were to turn his back on us now He would be then turning His back on what His Son did and making it all for nothing. Thus He would be causing the disruption in the Godhead that Matt is so shocked could happen.
Hi Jurist! Thanks for those observations! I'm not sure Johnathan Pritchett will respond to this, so I'll ask you, since you brought up Matt being cross examined. Did you note when Matt Slick offered to teach Will Duffy about Romans 9? Yet when Will asked him about Jeremiah 18, Matt said he was unfamiliar with that chapter! But it's the Potter and the Clay chapter! So Matt would not respond. (He didn't recognize the verse Will read, didn't offer to review it quickly it, nor knew the Jer. 18 reference. Wow.) That is one of the foundational chapters that Romans 9 refers to. Like with the two babies in Rebecca's womb Jacob and Esau representing "two nations" (Gen. 25), in Jeremiah God immediately interprets the potter and the clay parable as being about when "that NATION against whom I have SPOKEN turns from its evil, I will REPENT of the disaster that I THOUGHT to bring upon it." Matt said that being unfamiliar with this passage, he was unable to discuss it with Will. Anyone who understands Romans 9 knows Jeremiah 18 intimately. Jurist, btw, at opentheism.org "Is Calvinism Biblical" with Dr. Larry Bray my post 1a begins "with Romans 9 [showing that it's about nations, as post 2a extends], John 15, Isaiah 46 and Psalm 139." Open theists can START with the Calvinists' own proof text. Fun stuff!
He also misinterprets and misrepresents 1 Corinthians 2:14, incorrectly equating it to mean that the unregenerate natural man cannot understand or receive the Gospel, but Paul is not talking about the Gospel. He's talking about the deeper things of God that only mature believers can receive, as noted in the few verses later in chapter 3 where Paul tells the babes in Christ (immature Christians) that they cannot receive these deeper things. This cannot be the Gospel because they are Christians, albeit immature, and have already received the Gospel and accepted it.
nadohe11, well said. Paul there immediately adds, saying to the Corinthian believers "you are God’s field, you are God’s building." Yet "I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal."
Regarding Jesus speaking in secret parables and John 6:65, as Jurist put it, "Since this is the passage where Jesus tells the Jews that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood... while this was figurative they took it literally and were offended. Thus God grants people who want to believe understanding and those who don't are left in the dark, which is why Jesus spoke in parables." Yes. Jesus parables were not like Navajo code talkers. He was "hiding in plain sight." His words could not have been simpler. "A farmer plants some seed..." So of those willfully ignorant, "their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes... so that I would heal them." Jesus interpreted His parables for His disciples, but if you list everything He said to the public at large, you will see that it was extensive and lacked nothing that they would need to hear from God for their stage in the outworking of His plans. (And yes, open theists believe God has plans, believe it or not! :)
God can make ontological evil he just chooses not to because He is good. We know He is good because for eternity past He never did the Son wrong. The Son loved the Father so much that he layed down his own life because it was the will of the father, that He did so. The Son has his own will but He chooses to submit His will to the will of the Father. Nature's don't have wills, spirits have wills. The affect of the law on our spirit is what causes us to sin. Jesus choose not to sin because of the love He had for the Father. It's a beautiful story Calvinists destroy with "cannot". :(
Great points Ihc, including that spirits (i.e., persons) have wills. Our personhood is bound up not in our physical body but in our soul (that is, for humans, in our soul/spirit). And Jesus was the express image of the Person of God, and so, made in His likeness, we too are persons!
Bob Enyart Thanks and God Bless.
2:01:09
Yikes Dom! There, forget about kgov.com/doubly-redundant. Right there, Matt is triply redundant, with his "autonomous libertarian free will." Yikes! Quadruple anyone?
This Will guy... wow... terrible argumentation.
If Einstein and his theory of relativity is right, then Time is a variable created within the framework of the universe...if this is so, God created Time itself. Consequently, open theism has a major flaw.
Watch this short video that shows Einsteins theory of time dilation is correct: "simple relativity: understanding Einsteins special theory of relativity"
Time is an idea not a thing. It is a convention of language used to convey information about the duration and sequence of events. Space is similar. Space is that which is between things that exist but it is just an idea not a thing. It too is a convention of language use to convey information about distance and relative position of things that actually do exist. Speed is a corollary of these two ideas. Motion happens but speed is just a description of that motion relative to something else, it does not have its own ontological existence.
Einstein, in his special theory of relativity, postulated the constancy and finiteness of the speed of light for all observers. He showed that this postulate, together with a reasonable definition for what it means for two events to be simultaneous, requires that distances appear compressed and time intervals appear lengthened for events associated with objects in motion relative to an inertial observer...see Wikipedia and time. In other words, time is not a fixed measurement, rather it depends on the velocity of the observers. Therefore, I think it is not a stretch to posit that since time is not constant, it is a measurable variable within the universe and creation.
Clete, You are so right. Why can't seemingly smart people understand that the term "time" is never used to denote a physical object? All of the proponents of evolution and the big bang theory say that time was created in the big bang. They speak of it as if it's a "thing".....something you can dilate, speed up, slow down, travel through and something that can be created either by God or randomness. Why do Christians give so much credence to the atheistic scientists?
The Bible shows God to operate in real "time". God is "patient" not willing that any should perish. Jesus "waits" at the right hand of the Father. At the seventh trumpet there's silence in heaven for about the space of half an hour....etc. If God created "time" there would have to be a point in time that this event occurred. Therefore, the existence of "time", if we can state it as such, is a pre-requisite to the creation of "time".
contemplate; because God operates outside of time does not mean he cannot interact with His creation. Relativity has been affirmed and reaffirmed over the last 100 years. Laws do not have physical attributes, as you say, but describe an intangible reality by which the universe operates. God created the laws of the universe. James 4:12.
Brett RCG,
Existence implies duration. Duration is time.
Therefore, the idea of existence outside of time is self-contradictory and therefore false.
If you want a rational worldview, you’ll need to drop your Ancient Greek ideas about God. You’ll do better to just stick with the Bible and let Aristotle and Plato go by the wayside.
Love is not an attribute. It is his nature.
Hey Paul. Of course, words have spheres of meaning. It is, however, not unusual to site love as one of God's attributes. For example, zondervanacademic.com/blog/attributes-of-god. Over the last 30 years, as at kgov.com/attributes we've made our case of how to improve upon the typical list of attributes, and it's mostly all just to make this single point. The quantitative attributes (OMNIs and IMs; how much, how little) are Greek and Latin philosophical misdirections, for example impassible, immutable, impeccable, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscience, whereas the top five biblical qualitative attributes of our eternal God are that He is Living, Personal, Relational, Good, and Loving.
Bob Enyart Hey thanks for the reply! I tend to believe that Love is the essence that makes possible the centrality of will in the Perichoresis. Devine attributes follow.
Incredible debate with White in 2014. I just now saw it on you tube.
@@BobEnyartLive Define love.
@@paullaymon5133 Thanks Paul! I'd still say that because words have spheres of meaning, its absolutely valid to include love, as theologians occasionally (maybe often?) have done through the centuries. But I do have to disagree with one point. LOVE cannot make the WILL possible. Will is the ability to decide, and love is a commitment for good, so love must be freely given, and that requires an act of the will. Jesus willingly submits to the Father, as the Holy Spirit willingly minsters to the Father and Son. And so on. And, yes, that debate was quite the event! :)
@@cranmer1959 Hey Charlie! Love is the commitment to good, that is, especially, the commitment to the good of someone. (We can say that we love a sunset, or a ribeye, but that's a bit different. :)
Jer 18: 1-10
"God can't do ontological evil" - We do not say he can - Matt does. The puppet is not the doer of anything good or evil - it's the one who controls it. The puppet can only do what the controller makes it do. And in Matt's theology - no matter how he tries to dance around it - God is the controller of all the puppets (us). And w/e you pin this guy down on that it's, "You don't understand what I'm saying" (your ignorant) He gets frustrated because he wants to be able to say YES to 2 questions. Does God predestine every thought and action (that obviously includes evil by the biblical manifested revelation of what evil is (not to mention general revelation) - YES 2: Is God righteous and unable to do evil? YES. Puppet Master is not the cause of the puppet doing evil. K.
Thanks for asking Lance. Many times in many ways the Bible teaches us that if it is in your heart (i.e., also, in your decree), then you are responsible for it. Mat. 5:28; 5:21-22; etc.
Lance Baize --- Please explain to the class how it is possible for there to be a permissive prescriptive will tucked neatly *inside* a deterministic decretive will and the permissive prescriptive will *is not* part and parcel of the deterministic decretive will? Thanks,
That's an assertion Lance - Maybe you don't understand his question? Where is the flaw in it? - How about this - "Oh...! -Jerusalem Jerusalem - how OFTEN would I have gathered you under my wings (dot dot dot) (which "will" of God is this?) BUT... YOU were not WILLING" Calvinist read it this way .. "How often I would have gathered you....(Throughout the biblical history God seems to want this) but I was not willing" God pretended to want/will something he had already predetermined/want/will/command (pick one) to the contrary that would not - wait - COULD not happen - So he both worked towards something he already predetermined would not happen - then pretended like it was Israel's fault and got upset when they kept rejecting Him which is exactly what He wanted them to do all along. So really he was upset with them for being OBEDIENT. Because is God determines everything (thought/action) of human beings then there is no such thing as disobedience. - Everyone is always doing exactly what God truly wants them to do - Kind of like you perusing a woman to be your wife - knowing ahead of time she would never choose you for that because you had predetermined her not to and then getting upset about it because it won't happen.
Lance Baize --- What part of decretive will don't you understand?
1:46:17 well one of them is similar to Islam
Hey Jacob, thanks for being here. The Koran speaks of the "decree" of Allah and Islam does split, that is true, over both whether there is any actual human freedom and over whether the future is settled. The vast majority of Muslims though are Sunnis; there's about 1.4 billion of them. And Sunnis are known for believing (somehow, and not unlike many Calvinists, Arminians, and Molinists) in both human freedom and the settled future. Teaching on fate (or "decree" in the Koran, and which some ancient pagan philosophers called "providence") predates the Greeks and goes back to the Sumerians. See for ex. their creation myth Enuma rsr.org/Elish.
@@BobEnyartLive Thank you for having me. And thanks for the information. I have a question though. I believe that Will Duffy, though I could have him mixed up with a different open theist, believed that God is in fact omniscient in the sense that He knows all that there is (the future does not exist). How does this view make sense of Genesis 18:21 "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." ?
@@israelcowl6764 Will explains that God knows everything that is knowable THAT HE WANTS TO KNOW. With that understanding, then as you can read Jacob at kgov.com/sodom#incarnation-preparation ...
God will go down to Sodom to see what they have done: In Genesis, in expectation of becoming Incarnate a few thousand years later, God the Son actually tried on the wearing of a body, He walked (Gen. 3:8), of course He breathed air, spoke from His mouth in an audible voice (Gen. 3:9), even ate (Gen. 18:1, 6-8; 19:3) and slept (Gen. 19:4). And in anticipation of the decades He would spend on Earth immediately following the Incarnation, for these first earthly appearances, signficantly, He briefly emptied Himself of knowledge, power, and presence. God the Son would dramatically limit His knowledge, when living as the Son of Man in Galilee. So thousands of years earlier, when Genesis records Him walking on Earth, the Scriptures show that then He briefly limited His knowledge. Why do this? Because He was experiencing, for Himself, what it would be like to live that way, like a man, on Earth, with lessened knowledge, for over thirty years. A teacher may wrongly claim that all of God's actions to Him are as nothing, but creating, humbling Himself, becoming incarnate, suffering, becoming "sin for us", overcoming death, none of these extraordinary actions in God's life were as nothing. They were significant to Him beyond our comprehension. Becoming Man was among the most significant conceivable events in the life of God the Son. And regarding knowledge, as He then acknowledged, No man, no angel, nor even God the Son knew the timing of His own Second Coming. For "of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32; Mat. 24:36). Likewise, in one of His first forays into what would be His future Incarnation experience, just after Adam and Eve sinned:
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? ..." (Gen. 3:8-11)
God of course asks rhetorical questions. But something far more significant was going on in Genesis. The Incarnation that He would soon enough experience would be to Him no minor feat. Just as God impressed Himself with the grandeur of the creation (Gen. 1:31), so too, and of far greater demand and impact, God the Son would become a Man! In doing so He would empty Himself (Phil. 2:7) of vast quantities of knowledge, presence, and power. For He was able to remain fully God while diminishing such quantitative attributes. But He could not have remained God if He had emptied Himself of His biblical qualitative attributes (of being living, personal, relational, good, and loving). Thus prefiguring the Incarnation, God the Son, having taken upon Himself very temporarily the form of a man, and breathing, walking, talking, and eating, and emptying Himself of presence and knowledge, then said, "I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know" (Gen. 18:21). For the Holy Spirit could have whispered in His ear or the Father could have spoken from heaven, but instead, He sought the information for Himself, so "I will know." He would receive that information as a Man, and then judge as a Man, that is, as the Son of Man! He also emptied Himself of power, which is why "the LORD" who was on Earth (the pre-incarnate God the Son) rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah from His Father, that is, "from the LORD out of the heavens" (Gen. 19:24). In Eden too, the Son had emptied Himself of knowledge and presence. He tried on the Incarnation. He did not ask the Spirit nor His Father, nor did His Incarnation fitting come with x-ray vision to look through the trees of the Garden to see where Adam was hiding. Instead, He asked, as undoubtedly He did of friends and family many times while on Earth in the decades after the Incarnation, "Where are you?"
@@BobEnyartLive Thanks for the response Pastor Enyart. I'll look at the website as well.
I do think Duffy's scriptural rebuttal of Matt's traditional proof text for "Calvinism" was weak. He should have been better prepared to put those verses in a larger context and explain how they are not proof texts for Calvinism. Matt's theological "Words" and arrogant condescending manner came across as insecure and weak itself.. Just saying it's all "Figurative" but Will doesn't understand.. ( is not sufficient at all) It tells us though that Matt does believe God's clear words in those verses are not sincere, literal but he can't explain what the figure of speech means that is directly the opposite of what the texts says. God clearly said in multiple places that Israel SHOULD NOT murder their kids to false Gods (or murder them in general..) That he 1: DID NOT COMMAND IT 2: That they SHOULD do this thing (murder). And if He didn't want it, (But every choice we make is the only one we can make based on God's decree) how were they able to resist his will and do this thing? How does God "Often" want to gather Israel to Him, but they and their evil "WILL" rebelled and rejected God's will? You have to say that Jesus was not being sincere or honest there and I guess that was also "Figurative" language.
He's an open theist... what do you expect? His God doesn't even know what tomorrow will bring!!!
Chad - Open Theism doesn't teach God doesn't know things - He knows his own plans - He knows how his creation operates because he created it. He knows the sun will come up, because he predestined it to rise and set..until he decides otherwise. He also knows his own plans with in human creation. He knows how our emotions work, our bodily functions, our range of choices and capacity for good and evil.. but is God ever surprised or hopeful? Does any scripture suggest this? ("I said she would return to me - but she did not return.." "What more could I have done - I looked for grapes.. but... I got thorns") God sorrows, gets frustrated, angry at his own decrees?? Why? He knows all this is going to happen because he decreed it..( Lets say you really like this girl and .. you want to marry her - but.. you wrote a DNA script inside her to never respond affirmatively. (So you KNOW she is never going to respond to your marriage proposals as you predestined her to reject you - reprogrammed) BUT you are constantly trying to get her to respond and then blaming her for it and getting upset when she doesn't. Thoughts?
Slick's computer (Surface Book2 15") costs AT LEAST $2500...and yet he begs for money everyday on his show...I guess we know why...he could've bought something for $500 or less but had to have the best...sad but typical of so-called evangelists.
Can you show me the video or quote where Slick "begs" for money? I so don't think he asks "everyday on his show". Slick uses his computer every day for his ministry and to further the Gospel, does video, live stream etc. Seems like it would be rather beneficial to have a good laptop opposed to a $500 one.
Slick begs for money during all of his daily call-in shows. He doesn't preface these solicitations by saying that he will use the money to buy premium/luxury computers. There is no justification for a "man of god" spending $2500+ on a lap top...that's like Slick saying he needs a high end BMW to drive around and tell people about Jesus.
You still haven't demonstrated how Slick "begs" for money. Also who or what determines the standard for what is too much? You think a Christian should only spend $500 on a laptop, how did you come to that number? What criteria did you use? Why not $600 or $490? Do you not own anything that you could have bought for cheaper? Do you own a shirt that costs more than $10? If so, why spend more when you don't really NEED it? I'm just using that as an example to potentially point out hypocrisy.
Apologia5, thank you for defending Matt in this matter.
Open Theism teaches that God cannot do anything about evil. Debate over.
Hey Charlie! Well, I've been teaching open theism for 35 years, debated a few credentialed and popular opponents, read countless materials, and I've never heard anyone, not even our opponents, say that O.T. teaches that God cannot do anything about evil. Perhaps your comment though helps us, in an important way, understand the thought process of those arguing against open theism. It seems that they can hardly stop themselves from reacting as though we claim that God has NO knowledge, NO power, NO wisdom, NO righteousness, NO... on and on. That's called a straw man, and yes, I'd join you guys in opposing any such teaching. Like when Dr. Lamerson seriously argued, Well then, how could God know that a rooster would crow, as though the Creator of heaven and earth could't accomplish that. See for example, kgov.com/on-how-to-make-a-rooster-crow.
@@BobEnyartLive God has been around since day 1. But before creation He was eternally and timelessly pre-existent. I will trust God's written word over your impotent and changing god who is subject to his own creation.
@@cranmer1959 Hi Charlie. So I see that even with that explicit statement to the contrary, you persist in mischaracterizing our God who, unlike a static utterly immutable deity, can think new thoughts, write new songs, design new butterflies, etc. You call that God impotent. And the one who you think has eternally traded away His own freedom and even His ability to think a new thought, you think is the true one. When you see God Himself in heaven, you will now even more than otherwise realize how merciful He is, in that even though you referred to the Living, changing God as impotent, regardless, He has forgiven you because you believed in Christ. And yes, we should trust God's written word. So, if you Google: Is God outside of time, I think you'll find our article at kgov.com/time on the first page of results. If you read that article, you'll find many Bible verses contradicting your claim that God pre-existed timelessly (a self-contradictory statement anyway). Thanks again!
I'm excerpting here replies from a user with initials cw:
"@Bob Enyart [quoting Charlie Ray], 'O.T. teaches that God cannot do anything about evil. 1+1=2 Bob. Odd that you've been teaching a view for that long and still never understood the implications."
BE's reply from above, regarding: "the thought process of those arguing against open theism. It seems that they can hardly stop themselves from reacting as though we claim that God has NO knowledge, NO power, NO wisdom, NO righteousness, NO... on and on. That's the straw man logical fallacy..."
cw continued: "If God is in an inferior status to his own creation, as he would be if he were subject to time, then the physical world is superior to God."
BE: Hmm. That's confusing to unpack and assessing the thought processes of those against open theism has its challenges. If we were to put this argument in its best possible light making all kinds of assumptions in its favor, in order to respond to it as though it had merit, there would still be this problem. If both God and creation were subject to time, than that would not indicate which was subject to which.
Just Google though: Is God outside of time, and check out the article on the first page of results at kgov.com/time. Many reading that article have seen that the Bible indicates scores of times that God is in time, and that the Scriptures falsify the claim that He is outside of time.
Then cw added, "More importantly, open theism claims that God is not eternal, but that God is subjected to time..."
BE: This is not only another straw man fallacy but it becomes such by re-defining the word "eternal" to mean "timeless". However, as Ryan Mullins in The End of the Timeless God points out, Jesus does not give to His followers "timeless" life but never-ending life, that is, eternal life. Eternal does not mean atemporal.
And cw says, "Open theism is just more postmodernism being injected into Christianity to erase all truth from the religion..."
BE: At our website opentheism.org folks can click on the timeline showing Christians teaching explicit open theism centuries before postmodernism and, in a related observation, at our page kgov.com/300 you can see (and hear) that Christians taught free will for the first 300 years of the church, as affirmed by Oxford professor of historical theology Alister McGrath, who sympathized with Augustinian "providence" that, "The pre-Augustinian theological tradition is practically of one voice in asserting the freedom of the human will." cw, as in my opentheism.org/debate with D. James Kennedy's Prof. of New Testament Dr. Samuel Lamerson, we don't quote extrabilbilcal sources like this to prove open theism (for that we quote the Scriptures) but to disprove the constant extrabiblical claims of Reformed theologians.
Separately, Charlie Ray wrote to us: "You have not defined what eternal means. Eternal means timeless." False. Jesus does not give us timeless life, but "eternal life", that is, never ending life! Many theologians have tried to win the debate by definition, that is, by defining eternal to mean... their doctrine! That is an easy way to 1) win a debate, and 2) lose a blessing. There's more at kgov.com/time.