Is Open Theism Heresy?

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posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
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Your sins and iniquities, I remember no more. Can God choose to not remember our sins?
not sure not remembering, and not knowing, are the same thing.

also, omniscient God not remembering sin is an incredibly profound mystery! :love:
 

John146

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2016
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not sure not remembering, and not knowing, are the same thing.

also, omniscient God not remembering sin is an incredibly profound mystery! :love:
When we are walking the streets of gold, the Lord is not going to look upon me and all the sins I committed in my past life. We will have his righteousness.
 

Dino246

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2015
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When we are walking the streets of gold, the Lord is not going to look upon me and all the sins I committed in my past life. We will have his righteousness.
What you overlook is that His “not remembering” is not merely a heavenly thing. It’s real now.
 

CS1

Well-known member
May 23, 2012
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All in light of Genesis 3:15. There’s a lot to explain. Nineveh was Israel’s enemy and set out for violence. Satan was seeking to devour the seed. God was going to step in and defend the seed line of Christ. When Nineveh repented of their violence, God repented. He did not need to destroy them.
FYI, Genesis 3:15 has nothing to do with Jonah contextually
 

CS1

Well-known member
May 23, 2012
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What you wrote was:
CS1 said:
"But we are talking about GOD, not someone who holds to open theism. In the Divine Nature of God, he is omniscience
the context to this Attribute is Omni" means "all" and "science" refers to knowledge, so "omniscience" literally translates to "all-knowing."

Fully and completely without Limitations. Human rationality cannot demolish GOD nature."

Of that post you say.
"You may disagree, but one was provided, and Scripture was given. You have not provided any scripture to refute my understanding; therefore, your argument is weak."

But you gave no scripture in that previous post. Which scripture and post are you alluding to?

"An exception should be made for God because He is God and not human" is not a justified exception.

yes, I did. Now you are just cherry-picking
 

CS1

Well-known member
May 23, 2012
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Yes. Jesus of Nazareth in a foetus in Mary was the same self-aware centre of consciousness who has always existed and who participated in the creation of the universe.

Jesus is the humanity God came as. The Spirit of Christ has always been in the Eternal God Head.
 

Jimbone

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2014
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By your logic, if God does not know what it feels like to rape a child, and to be raped as a child, He is not omniscient.
Wow, your mind is warped and the way you choose to think of this is kind of stupid in my opinion. That's you're stupid logic not mine, I've never thought or believed anything close to this and it's a pathetic strawman to throw out there to try to strong arm a win in a conversation. Weak man. I reject this very thought. What a sad waste of brainpower thinking on such nonsense. So your God is ignorant of the things in and of His own creation. What a stupid God and I reject such a weak and pathetic imagined being. God knows rape and hates it, that's why He will judge every rapist justly. God doesn't have to be a child rapist to know everything, again a very stupid argument.
 

John146

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2016
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FYI, Genesis 3:15 has nothing to do with Jonah contextually
All throughout the OT, Satan is looking to kill the woman, that nation of Israel, ultimately to devour the seed. Nineveh was being used by Satan to wipeout Israel, eliminating the seed. Almost all OT stories has it's place within the battle of the seed line of Christ.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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not sure not remembering, and not knowing, are the same thing.

also, omniscient God not remembering sin is an incredibly profound mystery! :love:
Gen 9:15
And I will remember H2142 my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Gen 9:16
And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember H2142 the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

Clearly, the Hebrew ZaKaR does not mean "not having something in one's awareness and being prompted to put one's mind on to that something of which one was not previously aware". God is not going to forget that He had made a covenant between Himself and mankind, and every living thing. It seems to mean here "to act upon knowledge one has". So when God says , He will remeber our sins no more, He means He will not act upon the knowledge He has of our sins.

So, in Gen 8:1
"And God remembered H2142 Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged," God acted upon His knowledge of Noah and the creatures with him on the ark.

In Gen 19:29
"And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered H2142 Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt," God acted upon the knowledge He had of Abraham and Abraham's concern for Lot.

And in Gen 30:22
"And God remembered H2142 Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb," God acted upon the knowledge He had of Rachel and her prayers for a child.

I could go on to the other occurrences of ZaKaR.

In Gen 40:14
"But think H2142 on me when it shall be well with thee, and shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention H2142 of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house:" Joseph asks the butler to act upon his knowledge (Qal of ZaKaR) of Joseph and to cause Pharaoh to act upon his knowledge (Hiphil of ZaKaR) of Joseph in prison.

The usual sense of remembering is not what the Hebrew word ZaKaR means, despite it being translated as such in many Bible versions.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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Wow, your mind is warped and the way you choose to think of this is kind of stupid in my opinion. That's you're stupid logic not mine, I've never thought or believed anything close to this and it's a pathetic strawman to throw out there to try to strong arm a win in a conversation. Weak man. I reject this very thought. What a sad waste of brainpower thinking on such nonsense. So your God is ignorant of the things in and of His own creation. What a stupid God and I reject such a weak and pathetic imagined being. God knows rape and hates it, that's why He will judge every rapist justly. God doesn't have to be a child rapist to know everything, again a very stupid argument.
I was responding to your own assertion that -

Jimbone said:
So it's incoherent then? Because omniscient means knowing everything. So you can not say God is omniscient, but doesn't know some things. So it's just irrational? Open Theology embraces a none omniscient God?

Now you are arguing that there are things God does not know, which is the opposite of what you previously posted. So, who's really being irrational?
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,803
526
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Wow, your mind is warped and the way you choose to think of this is kind of stupid in my opinion. That's you're stupid logic not mine, I've never thought or believed anything close to this and it's a pathetic strawman to throw out there to try to strong arm a win in a conversation. Weak man. I reject this very thought. What a sad waste of brainpower thinking on such nonsense. So your God is ignorant of the things in and of His own creation. What a stupid God and I reject such a weak and pathetic imagined being. God knows rape and hates it, that's why He will judge every rapist justly. God doesn't have to be a child rapist to know everything, again a very stupid argument.
You must really hate Calvinism, then, because that theology asserts that every atrocity that has and will ever be perpetrated has been eternally in God's mind, and there never was a time when His mind was not polluted with all that evil. And He was not able to prevent any of those atrocities from happening, because they have all always been decreed by Him, and not one of them was ever not decreed by Him.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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The future is settled. Christians will be a part of the first resurrection, and they will reign and rule with Christ for 1000 years. At the end of those 1000 years, Satan will be cast into the lake of fire. Again, at the end of those 1000 years, there will be a second resurrection which will coincide with the Great White Throne Judgment, and anybody whose name is not found in the Lamb's book of life will similarly be cast into the lake of fire. After this, the new heaven, new earth, and new Jerusalem will come.

Oh, wait! Maybe not! Maybe there exists a variety of other possibilities!

What you are suggesting is pure nonsense.
At the beginning of a soccer game I can predict that a whistle will be blown by a referee to start the game, the teams will reverse direction in the middle of the game, the ref will blow a whistle at the end of the game, and the team who scored the most legal goals will be declared the winner, or if they both score the same it will be a draw. My ability to enunciate some general parameter for the game does not predetermine all the actions that will take place during the game.

You cannot logically conclude that because God has designated some parameter to the unfolding of history, He must necessarily have designated every action performed in history. Yes, scripture predicts some things. But that does not necessitate the conclusion that He has decreed all things.
 

HeIsHere

Well-known member
May 21, 2022
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At the beginning of a soccer game I can predict that a whistle will be blown by a referee to start the game, the teams will reverse direction in the middle of the game, the ref will blow a whistle at the end of the game, and the team who scored the most legal goals will be declared the winner, or if they both score the same it will be a draw. My ability to enunciate some general parameter for the game does not predetermine all the actions that will take place during the game.

You cannot logically conclude that because God has designated some parameter to the unfolding of history, He must necessarily have designated every action performed in history. Yes, scripture predicts some things. But that does not necessitate the conclusion that He has decreed all things.
So then it (open theism) is concerned with causation/determinism not foreknowledge or both?
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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Heretics are those who seek to draw men after themselves and their opinions on God's word, rather than to Christ to be taught by Him from His word. It comes from the Greek verb haireO: to take to oneself.

If my conscience agrees that my theology accords with scripture and describes God and Jesus Christ in such a way that They are worthy of my thanks, praise and worshipful service, and I am not demanding that other Christians adopt my particular understanding of God and join my sect, I am not a heretic, even though I may be mistaken in some of my ideas about God and Jesus Christ.

If I am certain my doctrines about God are correct and I require others who are loving and serving, and thanking and praising Jesus as Lord and Saviour, to conform to the distinctive tenets of my sect before I will accept them as brothers and sisters in Christ, I am a heretic by the standard of the words actual etymology.

You can be an Open Theist without being a heretic by this standard.
 
Nov 14, 2024
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But that does not necessitate the conclusion that He has decreed all things.
The issue here is foreknowledge, and not that God decreed all things.

You knew that already, right?

You have wasted enough of my time these past few days, so I am putting you on ignore.