Is Open Theism Heresy?

[Cameron143]

Absolute control over a person is not intimacy, I have never seen a relationship of intimacy where one person is trying to control every aspect of the other person's development.

Not talking about control implicitly. I'm talking about intimate knowledge of all that is created.
If I create a device that claps out of a piece of wood by pressing a button, I would know that whenever the button was pressed, the device would clap.
Now imagine having created a human brain, and understanding how it works in every detail. Imagine knowing what a person will do as a result of simply the way the Creator made it. Knowing every synapse that will fire. Knowing even the exact time the body will release endorphins or hormones, and produce a function in the body. What if God knew the brain so intimately as to effect that timing Himself? Isn't He currently upholding all things by the word of His power?

 

[posthuman]

Man does not know how to draw a triangular circle. You Just said that God does know how to draw a triangular circle.

a cone casts a circular shadow from one direction, and a triangular shadow from another.

if all i had to do to perform what you thought was impossible was raise it by one dimension, what can God do, Whose thoughts and ways are infinitely higher than ours?


who are you to declare what God doesn't know, or what is impossible for Him?
i consider it clear that it is always wiser to praise Him too much, than to think too little of Him.

 

[posthuman]

Man does not know how to draw a triangular circle. You Just said that God does know how to draw a triangular circle.

you just said that whatever man doesn't know, God doesn't know.

 

[posthuman]

.

Does a person overseeing a spoon-making machine that makes each spoon unique by some randomising process create each spoon? Or does he form the spoons using a process already in play? God has created a process by which humans reproduce. Personally, I don't think He predetermines or controls which sperm merges with which egg to provide which predetermined gene content will be in each zygote's chromosomes. God's invention of the process and His use of the process to form babies could be said to be creating those persons, if the worker who invents a machine to make unique spoons and then uses it to make many of them could be said to be creating spoons. Do you feel that God creating each person helps your position on Open Theism somehow?

you sure sound agnostic.

 

[posthuman]

I believe God is intricately involved in every aspect of our world.

.. except you don't believe He purposefully created you; you believe yourself to be an unpredicted accidental creation of randomness.

so you don't actually believe He is 'involved' in you apart from having billions of years ago created a random number generator, that He never imagined would have produced you.

you must be quite surprising to Him!

 

[posthuman]

however what Scripture declares is quite a different narrative:

Proverbs 16:33​

The lot is cast into the lap; ​

but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.​

​

'the lot' is an unpredictable ((from human perspective)) random event: completely unknowable future when it is cast.

but the Scripture says God controls and knows it. it is in fact because of the omniscience of God extending over the unknowable, unpredictable, random future, that the people of God used the lot to determine God's will - only He and He alone can do this.

 

[posthuman]

PaulThomson said:
And yet you are binding God to having to know all the future based on human rationale.



Nothing in those texts says that God exhaustively knows the future. The only way to to get to Exhaustive Divine Foreknowledge from those texts is to add presuppositions from human rationale.

God knew you would say that

 

[PaulThomson]

you just said that whatever man doesn't know, God doesn't know.

Anyone who understands basic logic will understand that I did not say that.

 

[PaulThomson]

PaulThomson said:
Please highlight the parts of the biblical citations in your previous post that directly declare exhaustive divine foreknowledge of the future.

Isaiah said God is the only God who knows the END from the BEGINNING. If God knows how things will END that means He knows everything in between the end and the beginning.

For God to know the END before something begins that is DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE of the FUTURE.

You clearly don't read the Bible very well because ALPHA and OMEGA has been a concept since FOREVER. But the fact you don't know this makes me question everything you post in every topic.

You did not do what I asked? You ran away to another illogical assertion.

 

[lrs68]

You did not do what I asked? You ran away to another illogical assertion.

You weren't talking to me to begin with but the fact Isaiah makes the claim, Paul confirms it in Colossians, and Jesus Himself quotes it in Revelation does more than than you ask but solidifies your views aren't scriptural.

 

[PaulThomson]

a cone casts a circular shadow from one direction, and a triangular shadow from another.

if all i had to do to perform what you thought was impossible was raise it by one dimension, what can God do, Whose thoughts and ways are infinitely higher than ours?


who are you to declare what God doesn't know, or what is impossible for Him?
i consider it clear that it is always wiser to praise Him too much, than to think too little of Him.

To accuse someone who thinks God does not foreknow exhaustively from eternity past all future events of thinking "too little" of God, you should be able to prove God does know more than the other person agrees He knows.

It is not more virtuous to allege too much of someone that to allege too little.

 

[PaulThomson]

You weren't talking to me to begin with but the fact Isaiah makes the claim, Paul confirms it in Colossians, and Jesus Himself quotes it in Revelation does more than than you ask but solidifies your views aren't scriptural.

You said,
lrs68 said:
"Isaiah said God is the only God who knows the END from the BEGINNING. If God knows how things will END that means He knows everything in between the end and the beginning.

For God to know the END before something begins that is DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE of the FUTURE.

You clearly don't read the Bible very well because ALPHA and OMEGA has been a concept since FOREVER. But the fact you don't know this makes me question everything you post in every topic."

First, please post the verses you are quoting to undergird your claim that Isaiah says "God is the only God who knows the END from the BEGINNING."

Secondly, please demonstrate that knowing the end from the beginning always implies knowing every detail between the beginning and the end. If I can present a counter-examplke where someone knows the end from the beginning but dies not know every deyail between, will you cncede you inference from Isaiah was presumptuous?

 

[CS1]

Please highlight the parts of the biblical citations in your previous post that directly declare exhaustive divine foreknowledge of the future.

Jeremiah 1:5



"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”


Psalm 139:13-18


For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.

 

[posthuman]

Anyone who understands basic logic will understand that I did not say that.

i was using your understanding of logic, so that we had common ground.

CS1 said God knows what man does not know.
you declared he had thus said God knows how to do something you think is impossible.
so, your logic is that what someone says is equal to claiming the entirety of the most extreme case you can imagine.

since you were saying that God doesn't know certain things that you don't know, it follows by your own logic that you claim God knows nothing that man doesn't know.

or is the logic you used addressing him not so valid? we can find another logic.

 

[posthuman]

as for me,
i believe God can create a rock so big that He can't move it.
and also that He can move it.

 

[John146]

Jeremiah 1:5



"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”


Psalm 139:13-18


For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.

Yep, God knew you in the womb, even before you were fully fashioned together.

 

[posthuman]

It is not more virtuous to allege too much of someone that to allege too little.

we aren't talking about just anyone here: we are talking about The Almighty.

can you think of anywhere in scripture that anyone ever found themselves in trouble because they ascribed too much glory to Him?

because i think i can readily find dozens of instances where people are rebuked for failing to glorify God, for thinking too little of Him.

 

[PaulThomson]

God knew you would say that

Yes He did. He knew before I said it. He could read the neurons pathways that were preparing me to say it. But I don't think He knew from all eternity past that I would say it.

 

[PaulThomson]

we aren't talking about just anyone here: we are talking about The Almighty.

can you think of anywhere in scripture that anyone ever found themselves in trouble because they ascribed too much glory to Him?

because i think i can readily find dozens of instances where people are rebuked for failing to glorify God, for thinking too little of Him.

Arguably, someone who thinks God is able to achieve His ends only if He knows every detail of history, even before he starts the world, thinks God is not smart enough to problem-solve unexpected challenges to His plans and overcome those glitches to nevertheless achieve His planned outcomes. I think the second description of God ascribes more intelligence to God, and fits the Bible narrative better. Others disagree. If your perspective works for you to get you loving God and loving all people and loving the creation, and produces good relationships with the same, all power to you.

 

[PaulThomson]

i was using your understanding of logic, so that we had common ground.

CS1 said God knows what man does not know.
you declared he had thus said God knows how to do something you think is impossible.
so, your logic is that what someone says is equal to claiming the entirety of the most extreme case you can imagine.

since you were saying that God doesn't know certain things that you don't know, it follows by your own logic that you claim God knows nothing that man doesn't know.

or is the logic you used addressing him not so valid? we can find another logic.

CSI is defending a position that God knows every detail of history and has known it from before creation even started. So when CSI says "God knows what man does not know," as a supporting argument for that view, I did not think CSI meant "God knows some things that man does not know." I think CSI was asserting that God knows everything that man does not know.

If CSI were merely saying that God knows some things that man does not, I don't see how CSI could think such an argument supports His primary claim that God has known all details of the future since eternity past. That would be like me arguing that my knowing some things my baby does not know proves I know all the future.