some things that sound bad are just a big part of learning
like a young child learning to walk its normal to fall down some times until the child learns to walk
I think where people miss the point there are normal things that seem bad that are just part of life and there are things that were caused by not doing what God has plan us to do
that which is plan is the way God teaches us to walk in love better but that which not plan is how we destroy our kind
so what I am saying sickness came from bad things done either in our life or in the life of our family before us
like eating to much salt it can harm the body but the body still needs salt but in the right severing
all of these choiches of our family has been wrote in our DNA
I really love this subject and what I am trying to say both sides are half right because the truth has many sides and causes and efects
I posted once on a teaching that G. W!negarner did that explained predestination.
I have no idea whether or not it was academically accurate but it spoke to me in a very loud and clear way.
I'll have to see if I can find that post. If not, I'll try to restate it.But for now, here's a brief glimpse.
-------------------------------------
Long and short of it is, seeing something and causing something are two distinctly different things.
If you look down the street and see a car about to hit a light pole, it's not at all the same as causing the car to hit the light pole.And, having the option of stopping it is out of the question.
Re: the cancer thing.
I don't buy it.
Sure God saw it in his foreknowledge, but cause it? NOPE. can't buy it.
God can teach you all kinds of great truths without causing you to suffer in the process.
Thanks, Waysider. I really like the anaology of the car crash.
My thoughts exactly on cancer. I decided the only thing I can do for this woman is pray for her. She seems quite happy and convinced. I did want to ask her "And exactly WHAT did you learn?"
I don't believe for a minute that God predestinated me to have IDDM, nor do I believe it was brought on as the Lord's discipline or by my negative believing. This is corruptible flesh. I was born wearing a set of bad genes. and I was under incredible stress; less than two years later we were out of TWI (thank God).
But lessee, have I actually learned anything? Well, I can count carbohydrates. I can help others who are diabetic. And I can smell a boatload of legalism a mile away. I can also smell a load of theological BS two miles away. And hopefully that is something I learned that I can use to help others. The devil gives you lemons, God gives you a recipe for lemonaide.
I've been having some interesting experiences with our church. I truly love the people there and I believe they love God. I decided to stick around to be the little light in the corner, giving off a glow. Or maybe the little mosquito buzzing in their ears that nobody can quite manage to swat.
It is refreshing to be able to ask questions in a church type setting. We went to a small group leadership training last night and I asked Mr. Garden if he thought I would get a face melting for asking questions in the question-and-answer session. He was astonished that I would ask. When we arrived, everyone, including both pastors, whom I suspect I made a bit uncomfortable, were sweet as candy. We had a meal together, no serious stuff at all. They think we need a balance between the belief in free will and the belief in predestination. Of course they don't understand that foreknowledge and predestination, as you mentioned, are two different matters entirely. I think most people need less complicated theology and more simple faith.
Come to think of it, and I may have heard or read this before, if God predestinated everything (without exception) that is going to happen to everyone, for example God made Hitler the way he was to do the things he did, then THERE IS NO EVIL. Unless of course God is the author of evil as well as good. And that doesn't fit with anything scriptural or logical. It sure doesn't fit with the example of Jesus Christ.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
Jeremiah 18 and 19 have the record of God telling Jeremiah to visit a potter to see how he works with clay to make pots and bowls and such. God tells Jeremiah that it's an example He wants him to use in telling Israel how He is working with them.
The O.T. has a lot about God "exalting" some and destroying others. Some are chosen, some aren't, etc.
What I see in Romans, Jeremiah and other records is that people, often "God's own people", look at how God works and don't understand His purposes. Why are they exalted and WE aren't? We're your Chosen, we're of our father Abraham, we're the ones most likely to succeed as it were. In our eyes we're deserving - regardless of what we're doing - and those other guys certainly aren't.
But we don't see as God does, and it may not always be a big mystery of God's inscrutable will. Man might say "why them, why this way, why now, why why why, God?" because man doesn't like or agree with the outcomes he sees. But God's judgment is what it is first of all, His business, and as stated based on a perfect system of justice that includes everything we see and know, plus everything we don't.
So a seemingly undeserving person might be successful and "blessed" by God in this life where we wouldn't give them the time of day. In the O.T. there's quite a few examples of people like that. I think it lends itself to a view of life that has to accept that it's not just the immediate causes and effects and facts and history man might use to evaluate who God "blesses" and who he doesn't, but a much larger and broader range.
Like Israel and Gentiles - why should the Gentile nations ever have a part in redemption, in "Israel's Messiah?" The promises of God are to the Jews, not these other nations. Yet, we see that God sends Christ to all mankind and a new "nation", body, is formed. The last go to the front of the line. In fact, the front of the line is completely redefined.
Where I kind of see this in relation to your topic is that when I think of God's foreknowledge, like you, I think that's a gimme and not a major factor in how or what God does. It's just the way it is.
With our lives being predestined - I think we can see that God has purpose and like the potter with his clay, He's forming and molding that purpose in our lives. He "works and wills in us to do His good pleasure".
That working and willing is a very personal individual work, where we are made to be the earthen vessesl, saved by grace, and now born with this "treasure" we become what He will have us to be.
I don't see that in the control of our individual actions and our fates. We know that God works with those whom we might often refuse, even while we ourselves are being molded in ways that we don't see.
Like that potters wheel, the days of life turn, come and go and we choose and act. Within that God works and the "clay" of our lives is shaped and molded. Where it's hard or unwieldy there's stress as shape takes form. Throughout life there's those "ups and downs", hills and valleys, but in all God is there with us, and always there for us to go to.
Since the biblical god is holding people responsible for their actions, it follows that he isn't causing those actions when he manifests his foreknowledge, merely reporting them.
Another question might be whether the future is mutable, that is, whether what the biblical god, or any other hypothetical viewer of the future, sees a future written in stone, or one that can change based on people's actions. I think an argument can be made that it is mutable, e.g. when Isaiah was told that he would die, but was given a reprieve after he changed his attitude.
God created the heavens and earth in the beginning. In the beginning of what? In the beginning of this universe, this "expanse", this construct that houses all we know, all we can "see" and much more we cannot. This construct is a space-time continuum; time is a dimension and an integral part of our universe. Man did not make or create time, God did when He created the heavens and earth in the beginning. Remember, God "inhabbits" eternity, he is timeless and beyond time and space. He was before "time" began and He will someday bring about a new heavens and earth in which "time will be no more", as the song says. This new construct will be eternal, just as God Himself is, will it not?? We will have everlasting life, correct? No end, because He has no end. God can certainly see all we will ever experience in this heavens and earth for He is above, beyond and greater than this expanse, for He created it and was God before it was created. If we have no will, however limited in comparison to Him, then this truly is a cosmic-sized joke..... :D
What is Eternity? Here are just two explanations/essays on the question. As for myself – I believe the term is an expression of infinite time. No beginning, nor end. God has no beginning, nor end and therefore God exists in time and it follows from that, that time wasn't created when the Universe was created. Time has always existed. I suppose it all hinges on how you define the term. And the beauty of it is -- no one is right or wrong because no one really knows.
The only maddening thing is when predestinationists go off and create a doctrine which circumvents God's commandments. Like John Calvin, (see the John Calvin thread)
We are free will beings. That fact that God can know what we will choose, in no way diminishes our responsiblity for our own choices.
The other thing is, what if God choses not to foreknow some things? Its certainly a possibility, because just because he knows what we will choose DOES NOT make him accountable for our choices. (This is what the Calvinists would say, they think since God foreknows things ;that that makes him accountable for their CHOICES, NO IT DOES NOT.)
I didn't do a very good job of explaining what I meant when I said man invented time.
What I meant ( I'm hoping this explains it) is that man can't grasp the concept of "time/eternity" having no end.
Thus, what he has done is to invent a system that will divide out small portions of that endless continuum that make more immediate sense. That explains the concept of minutes, days, seasons, etc.
In reality, it is a continuously evolving transition that follows a somewhat predictable sequence that man has isolated and
used to give some sort of quantitative value.
And so, God can look down at the helix that spirals down around the cone representing "time/eternity" and observe any given moment, whether it be in the next millennium or the last, in an observational but non-participating fashion.
This also explains the dilemma with Isaiah's death prediction and reprieve.
God could see the points in time that represented the precipitating conditions, the resultant death, and the subsequent changes that resulted in a reprieve all at the same time.
Thus,for God to say He saw Isaiah's death represented on that spiral staircase of "time/eternity" would be an observation not an interference.
At least I think that's the way I remember him teaching it.
The original conundrum posed, "Do we have free will or are we robots?", is a false dilemma.
As JohnnyGSocks pointed out, foreknowledge is a given. Likewise, man's 'free will' is not much mentioned in the Bible because it is a given. It is not much mentioned in the Bible becasuse it is not man's big problem. Man's bigger problem is what he does with his will vs. God's will, and that the Bible addresses in spades.
It seems to me that there is good vs. evil, and I think one of the most successful weapons in Satan's arsenal is that Christians think God is the author of bad things that happen to us. "Everything happens for a reason," they say. Well, sometimes the reason isn't godly, and sometimes bad things happen to good people because we live in corruptible flesh.
WG
WG: Have to put in my feelings. I think what everyone else said was awesome. I agree that they are two separate things; foreknowledge/predestination. Does not John 3:16 tell us that God so loved the world.... good and bad, believer and unbeliever, etc. GS is great because we can get other peoples views that sometime help us see the whole picture. We may just be looking through the peephole, so to speak. Of course, sometimes it just confuses us more. :blink:
Does everything happen for reason? Perhaps. Look at the story of Joseph. He told his brothers when all was said and done that they meant what they did to him for harm, but God meant it for good. Providence. Had Joseph not been in Egypt and gone through what he did, he wouldn't have been in the position to save Israel from starving to death. Wasn't there an easier way for God to accomplish this? Surely seems like it. But perhaps that is where free will comes in. God works with what He can. Joseph's brothers hated him and gave him to slavery....but it also took Joseph a long time to get out of that mess and into another and out of that mess and into another .... however, Joseph ALWAYS gave God the glory. Perhaps that's the lesson we should reap from the whole account. God can work with us when we are humble and realize we can't do it ourselves. Of course, sometimes it takes us to be at rock bottom (like Joseph in prison) before we turn to God for help. As they say, YOU NEVER KNOW HOW MUCH YOU NEED GOD UNTIL HE'S ALL YOU'VE GOT.
I guess I would say that when the world (or Satan) hands you lemons, God hands you the recipe for lemonade. God knew in His foreknowledge what would happen to Joseph, but Joseph's faith and reliance on God opened the door for God to work with him and in him to save his people. Likewise Moses. What if he hadn't turned aside to see the burning bush?
Another example would be the man born blind in John 9. It is popularly taught that God predestined the man to be born blind specifically so that His son could come along and heal him. This sounds like a set-up to me. I don't think it is in the nature of God to do that to someone. Take out the man-inserted punctuation and it makes more sense.
I do believe, however, that adverse experiences make us stronger (or weaker, depending on our attitude). When some of this subject came up, people talked about how "that which does not kill us makes us stronger." A couple of people are very glad and thankful for diseases that came their way because it was such a great learning experience. They are sure that God predestined them to suffer this disease to improve their faith.
I improve my faith by studying the Bible and trying to live love. I do have insulin dependent diabetes, so I had to think whether I am a stronger person because of it and what I have learned. I would say I am a stronger person IN SPITE of it, and yes, I have learned. I can count carbohydrates and measure insulin doses. I can also, because of TWI's reaction to my diagnosis, smell a boatload of legalism a mile away, and a boatload of BS two miles away. Does this mean God predestined me to become diabetic? I don't think so. It's just what I picked up on as a result.
Sorry for the slight just an added explanation of the reason this subject came up.
I totally agree. I don't know if that makes us right, but it's good to know people can still agree on things. I am sorry you are living with such an awful disease. Once when I ran a PFAL class one of the students who was diabetic didn't show up. I couldn't get him on the phone or to answer his door or anything. Finally, I called the cops and they opened his door and there he was near dead because he was 'BELIEVING' to get healed from his disease. Instead he had put himself into a diabetic coma. Of course, I was blamed for him missing a session. Goodness. I liked that you said you were stronger in spite of your illness. Good for you!
We were having a discussion yesterday in church that grew out of someone's question about Judas Iscariot. God knew in His foreknowledge that Judas would betray Jesus, but was it a result of choices Judas made, or was he programmed that way by God? It worked its way over to foreknowledge and predestination. Some folks seem to believe in total predestination, God plans everything and you are not really able to make choices.
This would seem to me to mean that nothing is evil, because all things come from God. Wars, pestilence, disease all predestinated and all good, because God gives only good gifts. One woman actually told how thankful she is that God predestinated her to have breast cancer because she has "learned so much" going through this. It would seem to me that if God predestinated me to have a terrible disease, then treating the disease is a sin, because God wants me to suffer and die.
I completely believe that God has foreknowledge of all things. That's just because He's God, after all. But has He set up all our lives before we are even born, and does He pick and choose everything that happens to us? It was suggested that nothing is evil because everything comes from God. I quoted Romans, "The last enemy to be defeated is death" and the pastor and others said that death is not evil. Dying may be unpleasant, but you can look forward to death because then you get to meet Jesus!!!!
It seems to me that there is good vs. evil, and I think one of the most successful weapons in Satan's arsenal is that Christians think God is the author of bad things that happen to us. "Everything happens for a reason," they say. Well, sometimes the reason isn't godly, and sometimes bad things happen to good people because we live in corruptible flesh.
I would never, never wish on my son sickness, disease, or death, and he is not a faithful, obedient son. He says he hates me and wants nothing to do with me, yet I am here for him in case he changes his thinking. If I could do anything for him, it would be to heal his body and his mind, and then just wrap my arms around him and tell him how much I love him. Am I a better parent than God Almighty?
WG
hello! imagine you go to see a parade. you take a small child along,there is a wooden fence that is taller than the child but you are taller than the fence. there is a small hole in the fence that the child just can see through and only see the part of the parade that is directly in front of him.however since you are taller than the fence you can see the entire parade front to back and tell the child what is coming next. in either peter ,timothy or one of those books around there is scripture that says 1000 years are as a day to GOD and a day as a thousand years.GOD invented time and it says GOD is all knowing.GOD sees our life from beginning to end just like the man at the parade.GOD being a loving GOD doesnt want to see us get hurt so HE will warn us of trouble and other things ,HE sees the entire parade.
shfit, you just reminded me of something - I think that example you gave it a very goodone.
I saw a comic strip in last Sunday's paper that made me think of this topic. In it one of the characters mused on what if - life counted "down" instead of out? Started counting down from the end. We'd know exactly how much time was left. Would it make a difference in how I lived?
It gave me chills for a second. Because I realized that yes, it would. My perspective would be entirely different.
Or would it? If I knew my lifetime that way, I might just try to do more of what I woud have anyway.
But however we'd live the reality of a fixed amount of time would be more constant. In a sense, that's the way a lifetime is counted now - we just don't know the final end moment.
If - God knows that final moment, sees the expanse of time from an eternal perspective where all the factors are knowable, does it effect how He interacts with us? I think it could within certain parameters. It couldn't be total, otherwise we'd all be ending up in very similar states. I guess...it's hard to tell. :)
Again I think of the example of the potters wheel and the interaction between God and us.
Since the biblical god is holding people responsible for their actions, it follows that he isn't causing those actions when he manifests his foreknowledge, merely reporting them.
Another question might be whether the future is mutable, that is, whether what the biblical god, or any other hypothetical viewer of the future, sees a future written in stone, or one that can change based on people's actions. I think an argument can be made that it is mutable, e.g. when Isaiah was told that he would die, but was given a reprieve after he changed his attitude.
I think this is very solid reasoning on God's sovereignty & man's responsibility. It's interesting to look at the Old Testament account of God and the Pharaoh that Romans 9 refers to. There's a lot of references to hardening the Pharaoh's heart. Ten times the account states that God hardened the Pharaoh's heart: Exodus 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8, 17. However, there are also ten passages that state the Pharaoh hardened his own heart: Exodus 7:3, 14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34, 35; 13:15. Perhaps Scripture is challenging us to see some kind of balance or tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility.
…As far as your question on the mutability of the future – not sure about that one. I think the Bible does indicate that some things will turn out a certain way – and what's mind boggling to me is considering all the variables along the way that somehow converge to make it so. But does that make every aspect of the future set in stone? Not sure.
This brings me to your mentioning of Hezekiah's healing in Isaiah 38 – that's an interesting point of God "reversing" a prophecy. It makes me think of how Jonah got upset with God's "change of plans" for Nineveh [Jonah 3:10; 4:1, 2].
I don't have any explanation here – just wondering how firm the future is. I've also been thinking about the potter/clay analogy of Romans 9, mentioned on this thread. Isaiah 64 speaks of the potter/clay analogy – the prophet acknowledges God's sovereignty as the potter and humbly asks for His mercy and help in shaping people's lives:
Isaiah 64:1-8 NASB
1 Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down,
That the mountains might quake at Your presence—
2 As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil--
To make Your name known to Your adversaries,
That the nations may tremble at Your presence!
3 When You did awesome things which we did not expect,
You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence.
4 For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear,
Nor has the eye seen a God besides You,
Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.
5 You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness,
Who remembers You in Your ways
Behold, You were angry, for we sinned,
We continued in them a long time;
And shall we be saved?
6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
And all of us wither like a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 There is no one who calls on Your name,
Who arouses himself to take hold of You;
For You have hidden Your face from us
And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.
8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father,
We are the clay, and You our potter;
And all of us are the work of Your hand.
Jeremiah 18 likens God to a potter who will remake the House of Israel into a good vessel – if they will repent:
Jeremiah 18:1-11 NASB
1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying,
2 "Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will announce My words to you."
3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.
4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me saying,
6 "Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
7 "At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it;
8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.
9 "Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it;
10 if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.
11 "So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, 'Thus says the LORD, "Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds."'
Maybe we push the potter/clay analogy too far – in thinking the clay represents us as mindless lumps. Perhaps we're more involved in this "shaping" process than we realize. Yes, the clay pictures us as malleable creatures – shaped by a higher power – but one may also infer from Scripture that our response is a key element in this shaping process. Think about passages that exhort us to do the right thing, hold to certain beliefs, and maintain the appropriate attitudes. And consider the above passages that seem to forward a kind of contingency aspect of the future.
I don't think it's God making us into something that we're really not...Sometimes I see it as God being like Michelangelo – a master sculptor with a plan to free the form already inside the stone . But it's an art form with a twist – in that we are a responsive "medium" – things that God orchestrates behind the scenes, our prayers, His responses to our prayers, the decisions we make, how we respond to circumstances…the good & bad experiences…the successes & failures...the challenges & graces...the blessings & hardships...are all tools that chip away to reveal the essential being inside.
Ok, on a more serious note, not that the other post wasn't serious...
I think if free will is an illusion as some say, that it would be very easy for the creator of the heaven, earth and everything on it including humans to make us think we have free will while said creator controls everything from... well, from everywhere,
I guess, or from the beginning.
...every action has a reaction...
Imagine our brains or our "free will" portion of it as our reaction center. It is where our senses bring input and we determine based on what we know, our life experiences, our cognitive abilities (all things God would know from the begining) how to react to that input and a decision is made. That decision has consequences... other reactions which produce other reactions and others etc. with each person making a decision on how to react for themselves. In reality these brain functions are all chemical and electrical responses linked to one another. Think of God as the grand chemist who set a reaction in motion.
Not unlike a game of pool, but much more complicated. If the creator knows our reaction mechanisms, how we work, how we think, in the finest detail, to the end that he knows the final outcome, how is he not unlike the most perfect person playing pool watching all the balls eventually fall exactly in the pockets he wanted, straight from the break shot (let there be light... or whatever your favor of religion says). Did this perfect pool player physically take the 9 ball and put it in the side pocket? Well, no, but kinda. He was watching from the omnipotent perspective as the balls rolled around the table, but upon hitting the cue ball this perfect player knew exactly where every ball was going to go and hit it in a way that insured it.
Or
Think if God is everywhere, in the spaces in between, how easy would it be for God to be like the neuroscientist with an open skull in front of them. They probe this part of the brain and you speak, another part and a memory is invoked, another and you laugh or cry. If God is everywhere, he is "all up in your head" with the power of the universe at his fingertips. :D
IMO, if there is a God it is more like an energy that is everywhere, not an intelligence. "We live and move" in it.
Or God is like a grad student outside our dimension doing an experiment in Chaos theory... and here we are. :blink:
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year2027
God first
Beloved Watered Garden
God loves you my dear friend
some things that sound bad are just a big part of learning
like a young child learning to walk its normal to fall down some times until the child learns to walk
I think where people miss the point there are normal things that seem bad that are just part of life and there are things that were caused by not doing what God has plan us to do
that which is plan is the way God teaches us to walk in love better but that which not plan is how we destroy our kind
so what I am saying sickness came from bad things done either in our life or in the life of our family before us
like eating to much salt it can harm the body but the body still needs salt but in the right severing
all of these choiches of our family has been wrote in our DNA
I really love this subject and what I am trying to say both sides are half right because the truth has many sides and causes and efects
thank you
with love and a holy kiss blowing your way Roy
PS I hope to hear your son huging you soon
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waysider
Hi,WG
I posted once on a teaching that G. W!negarner did that explained predestination.
I have no idea whether or not it was academically accurate but it spoke to me in a very loud and clear way.
I'll have to see if I can find that post. If not, I'll try to restate it.But for now, here's a brief glimpse.
-------------------------------------
Long and short of it is, seeing something and causing something are two distinctly different things.
If you look down the street and see a car about to hit a light pole, it's not at all the same as causing the car to hit the light pole.And, having the option of stopping it is out of the question.
Re: the cancer thing.
I don't buy it.
Sure God saw it in his foreknowledge, but cause it? NOPE. can't buy it.
God can teach you all kinds of great truths without causing you to suffer in the process.
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Watered Garden
Thanks, Waysider. I really like the anaology of the car crash.
My thoughts exactly on cancer. I decided the only thing I can do for this woman is pray for her. She seems quite happy and convinced. I did want to ask her "And exactly WHAT did you learn?"
I don't believe for a minute that God predestinated me to have IDDM, nor do I believe it was brought on as the Lord's discipline or by my negative believing. This is corruptible flesh. I was born wearing a set of bad genes. and I was under incredible stress; less than two years later we were out of TWI (thank God).
But lessee, have I actually learned anything? Well, I can count carbohydrates. I can help others who are diabetic. And I can smell a boatload of legalism a mile away. I can also smell a load of theological BS two miles away. And hopefully that is something I learned that I can use to help others. The devil gives you lemons, God gives you a recipe for lemonaide.
I've been having some interesting experiences with our church. I truly love the people there and I believe they love God. I decided to stick around to be the little light in the corner, giving off a glow. Or maybe the little mosquito buzzing in their ears that nobody can quite manage to swat.
It is refreshing to be able to ask questions in a church type setting. We went to a small group leadership training last night and I asked Mr. Garden if he thought I would get a face melting for asking questions in the question-and-answer session. He was astonished that I would ask. When we arrived, everyone, including both pastors, whom I suspect I made a bit uncomfortable, were sweet as candy. We had a meal together, no serious stuff at all. They think we need a balance between the belief in free will and the belief in predestination. Of course they don't understand that foreknowledge and predestination, as you mentioned, are two different matters entirely. I think most people need less complicated theology and more simple faith.
Come to think of it, and I may have heard or read this before, if God predestinated everything (without exception) that is going to happen to everyone, for example God made Hitler the way he was to do the things he did, then THERE IS NO EVIL. Unless of course God is the author of evil as well as good. And that doesn't fit with anything scriptural or logical. It sure doesn't fit with the example of Jesus Christ.
WG
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bowtwi
WG said,
"I think most people need less complicated theology and more simple faith."
Amen, sister!!!
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waysider
Well, I couldn't find my previous post on this so I'll post the essence of it again.
I heard G@yle W!n3g@rner teach this a long time ago.
I don't know if it is Biblically accurate but it makes a lot of sense.
Foreknowledge
Picture an ice cream cone, without the ice cream, in 3-D.
Now, turn it upside-down.
The ice cream cone represents eternity.
Now, picture a line that extends from top to bottom and spirals around like a spiral staircase that has a zillion steps.
Any step on that spiral staircase represents a moment in time.
(You see, "eternity" is much too large a concept for the human mind to grasp.
Therefore, man invented "time" as a means of measuring out portions of eternity in quantities small enough to comprehend.)
Now, God is seated at the top of the cone.(the apex)
He can look down toward the base of the cone and see any step on the staircase.
Thus, He can look backward and forward at any moment in eternity(Which you and I call "Time".)
He's not manipulating what happens on those steps, He's just observing like a security camera in a parking lot,
at least when He is operating "foreknowledge".
And there you have one explanation of Foreknowledge.
Right or wrong?
You be the judge.
.
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socks
Couple items fer ya -
Romans 9:14 - 26
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
Jeremiah 18 and 19 have the record of God telling Jeremiah to visit a potter to see how he works with clay to make pots and bowls and such. God tells Jeremiah that it's an example He wants him to use in telling Israel how He is working with them.
The O.T. has a lot about God "exalting" some and destroying others. Some are chosen, some aren't, etc.
What I see in Romans, Jeremiah and other records is that people, often "God's own people", look at how God works and don't understand His purposes. Why are they exalted and WE aren't? We're your Chosen, we're of our father Abraham, we're the ones most likely to succeed as it were. In our eyes we're deserving - regardless of what we're doing - and those other guys certainly aren't.
But we don't see as God does, and it may not always be a big mystery of God's inscrutable will. Man might say "why them, why this way, why now, why why why, God?" because man doesn't like or agree with the outcomes he sees. But God's judgment is what it is first of all, His business, and as stated based on a perfect system of justice that includes everything we see and know, plus everything we don't.
So a seemingly undeserving person might be successful and "blessed" by God in this life where we wouldn't give them the time of day. In the O.T. there's quite a few examples of people like that. I think it lends itself to a view of life that has to accept that it's not just the immediate causes and effects and facts and history man might use to evaluate who God "blesses" and who he doesn't, but a much larger and broader range.
Like Israel and Gentiles - why should the Gentile nations ever have a part in redemption, in "Israel's Messiah?" The promises of God are to the Jews, not these other nations. Yet, we see that God sends Christ to all mankind and a new "nation", body, is formed. The last go to the front of the line. In fact, the front of the line is completely redefined.
Where I kind of see this in relation to your topic is that when I think of God's foreknowledge, like you, I think that's a gimme and not a major factor in how or what God does. It's just the way it is.
With our lives being predestined - I think we can see that God has purpose and like the potter with his clay, He's forming and molding that purpose in our lives. He "works and wills in us to do His good pleasure".
That working and willing is a very personal individual work, where we are made to be the earthen vessesl, saved by grace, and now born with this "treasure" we become what He will have us to be.
I don't see that in the control of our individual actions and our fates. We know that God works with those whom we might often refuse, even while we ourselves are being molded in ways that we don't see.
Like that potters wheel, the days of life turn, come and go and we choose and act. Within that God works and the "clay" of our lives is shaped and molded. Where it's hard or unwieldy there's stress as shape takes form. Throughout life there's those "ups and downs", hills and valleys, but in all God is there with us, and always there for us to go to.
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Oakspear
Since the biblical god is holding people responsible for their actions, it follows that he isn't causing those actions when he manifests his foreknowledge, merely reporting them.
Another question might be whether the future is mutable, that is, whether what the biblical god, or any other hypothetical viewer of the future, sees a future written in stone, or one that can change based on people's actions. I think an argument can be made that it is mutable, e.g. when Isaiah was told that he would die, but was given a reprieve after he changed his attitude.
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alfakat
a few thoughts...
God created the heavens and earth in the beginning. In the beginning of what? In the beginning of this universe, this "expanse", this construct that houses all we know, all we can "see" and much more we cannot. This construct is a space-time continuum; time is a dimension and an integral part of our universe. Man did not make or create time, God did when He created the heavens and earth in the beginning. Remember, God "inhabbits" eternity, he is timeless and beyond time and space. He was before "time" began and He will someday bring about a new heavens and earth in which "time will be no more", as the song says. This new construct will be eternal, just as God Himself is, will it not?? We will have everlasting life, correct? No end, because He has no end. God can certainly see all we will ever experience in this heavens and earth for He is above, beyond and greater than this expanse, for He created it and was God before it was created. If we have no will, however limited in comparison to Him, then this truly is a cosmic-sized joke..... :D
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Larry N Moore
What is Eternity? Here are just two explanations/essays on the question. As for myself – I believe the term is an expression of infinite time. No beginning, nor end. God has no beginning, nor end and therefore God exists in time and it follows from that, that time wasn't created when the Universe was created. Time has always existed. I suppose it all hinges on how you define the term. And the beauty of it is -- no one is right or wrong because no one really knows.
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/eternity.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity
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Oakspear
I meant Hezikiah
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sky4it
Watered garden:
The only maddening thing is when predestinationists go off and create a doctrine which circumvents God's commandments. Like John Calvin, (see the John Calvin thread)
We are free will beings. That fact that God can know what we will choose, in no way diminishes our responsiblity for our own choices.
The other thing is, what if God choses not to foreknow some things? Its certainly a possibility, because just because he knows what we will choose DOES NOT make him accountable for our choices. (This is what the Calvinists would say, they think since God foreknows things ;that that makes him accountable for their CHOICES, NO IT DOES NOT.)
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waysider
I offer my apology.
I didn't do a very good job of explaining what I meant when I said man invented time.
What I meant ( I'm hoping this explains it) is that man can't grasp the concept of "time/eternity" having no end.
Thus, what he has done is to invent a system that will divide out small portions of that endless continuum that make more immediate sense. That explains the concept of minutes, days, seasons, etc.
In reality, it is a continuously evolving transition that follows a somewhat predictable sequence that man has isolated and
used to give some sort of quantitative value.
And so, God can look down at the helix that spirals down around the cone representing "time/eternity" and observe any given moment, whether it be in the next millennium or the last, in an observational but non-participating fashion.
This also explains the dilemma with Isaiah's death prediction and reprieve.
God could see the points in time that represented the precipitating conditions, the resultant death, and the subsequent changes that resulted in a reprieve all at the same time.
Thus,for God to say He saw Isaiah's death represented on that spiral staircase of "time/eternity" would be an observation not an interference.
At least I think that's the way I remember him teaching it.
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TheEvan
The original conundrum posed, "Do we have free will or are we robots?", is a false dilemma.
As JohnnyGSocks pointed out, foreknowledge is a given. Likewise, man's 'free will' is not much mentioned in the Bible because it is a given. It is not much mentioned in the Bible becasuse it is not man's big problem. Man's bigger problem is what he does with his will vs. God's will, and that the Bible addresses in spades.
GREAT post, socks.
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Watered Garden
Awesome posts, all of you. Thanks so much!
It's Black Friday and I work in a large membership/warehouse type store, and I gotta go fight traffic. More later!
Waysider, Oakspear, Alfakat, Socks, Sky4it et al, thanks again!
WG
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irisheyes
WG: Have to put in my feelings. I think what everyone else said was awesome. I agree that they are two separate things; foreknowledge/predestination. Does not John 3:16 tell us that God so loved the world.... good and bad, believer and unbeliever, etc. GS is great because we can get other peoples views that sometime help us see the whole picture. We may just be looking through the peephole, so to speak. Of course, sometimes it just confuses us more. :blink:
Does everything happen for reason? Perhaps. Look at the story of Joseph. He told his brothers when all was said and done that they meant what they did to him for harm, but God meant it for good. Providence. Had Joseph not been in Egypt and gone through what he did, he wouldn't have been in the position to save Israel from starving to death. Wasn't there an easier way for God to accomplish this? Surely seems like it. But perhaps that is where free will comes in. God works with what He can. Joseph's brothers hated him and gave him to slavery....but it also took Joseph a long time to get out of that mess and into another and out of that mess and into another .... however, Joseph ALWAYS gave God the glory. Perhaps that's the lesson we should reap from the whole account. God can work with us when we are humble and realize we can't do it ourselves. Of course, sometimes it takes us to be at rock bottom (like Joseph in prison) before we turn to God for help. As they say, YOU NEVER KNOW HOW MUCH YOU NEED GOD UNTIL HE'S ALL YOU'VE GOT.
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Watered Garden
I guess I would say that when the world (or Satan) hands you lemons, God hands you the recipe for lemonade. God knew in His foreknowledge what would happen to Joseph, but Joseph's faith and reliance on God opened the door for God to work with him and in him to save his people. Likewise Moses. What if he hadn't turned aside to see the burning bush?
Another example would be the man born blind in John 9. It is popularly taught that God predestined the man to be born blind specifically so that His son could come along and heal him. This sounds like a set-up to me. I don't think it is in the nature of God to do that to someone. Take out the man-inserted punctuation and it makes more sense.
I do believe, however, that adverse experiences make us stronger (or weaker, depending on our attitude). When some of this subject came up, people talked about how "that which does not kill us makes us stronger." A couple of people are very glad and thankful for diseases that came their way because it was such a great learning experience. They are sure that God predestined them to suffer this disease to improve their faith.
I improve my faith by studying the Bible and trying to live love. I do have insulin dependent diabetes, so I had to think whether I am a stronger person because of it and what I have learned. I would say I am a stronger person IN SPITE of it, and yes, I have learned. I can count carbohydrates and measure insulin doses. I can also, because of TWI's reaction to my diagnosis, smell a boatload of legalism a mile away, and a boatload of BS two miles away. Does this mean God predestined me to become diabetic? I don't think so. It's just what I picked up on as a result.
Sorry for the slight
just an added explanation of the reason this subject came up.
WG
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irisheyes
I totally agree. I don't know if that makes us right, but it's good to know people can still agree on things. I am sorry you are living with such an awful disease. Once when I ran a PFAL class one of the students who was diabetic didn't show up. I couldn't get him on the phone or to answer his door or anything. Finally, I called the cops and they opened his door and there he was near dead because he was 'BELIEVING' to get healed from his disease. Instead he had put himself into a diabetic coma. Of course, I was blamed for him missing a session. Goodness. I liked that you said you were stronger in spite of your illness. Good for you!
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shiftthis
hello! imagine you go to see a parade. you take a small child along,there is a wooden fence that is taller than the child but you are taller than the fence. there is a small hole in the fence that the child just can see through and only see the part of the parade that is directly in front of him.however since you are taller than the fence you can see the entire parade front to back and tell the child what is coming next. in either peter ,timothy or one of those books around there is scripture that says 1000 years are as a day to GOD and a day as a thousand years.GOD invented time and it says GOD is all knowing.GOD sees our life from beginning to end just like the man at the parade.GOD being a loving GOD doesnt want to see us get hurt so HE will warn us of trouble and other things ,HE sees the entire parade.
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socks
shfit, you just reminded me of something - I think that example you gave it a very goodone.
I saw a comic strip in last Sunday's paper that made me think of this topic. In it one of the characters mused on what if - life counted "down" instead of out? Started counting down from the end. We'd know exactly how much time was left. Would it make a difference in how I lived?
It gave me chills for a second. Because I realized that yes, it would. My perspective would be entirely different.
Or would it? If I knew my lifetime that way, I might just try to do more of what I woud have anyway.
But however we'd live the reality of a fixed amount of time would be more constant. In a sense, that's the way a lifetime is counted now - we just don't know the final end moment.
If - God knows that final moment, sees the expanse of time from an eternal perspective where all the factors are knowable, does it effect how He interacts with us? I think it could within certain parameters. It couldn't be total, otherwise we'd all be ending up in very similar states. I guess...it's hard to tell. :)
Again I think of the example of the potters wheel and the interaction between God and us.
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T-Bone
Great thread, interesting posts!
I think this is very solid reasoning on God's sovereignty & man's responsibility. It's interesting to look at the Old Testament account of God and the Pharaoh that Romans 9 refers to. There's a lot of references to hardening the Pharaoh's heart. Ten times the account states that God hardened the Pharaoh's heart: Exodus 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8, 17. However, there are also ten passages that state the Pharaoh hardened his own heart: Exodus 7:3, 14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34, 35; 13:15. Perhaps Scripture is challenging us to see some kind of balance or tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility.
…As far as your question on the mutability of the future – not sure about that one. I think the Bible does indicate that some things will turn out a certain way – and what's mind boggling to me is considering all the variables along the way that somehow converge to make it so. But does that make every aspect of the future set in stone? Not sure.
This brings me to your mentioning of Hezekiah's healing in Isaiah 38 – that's an interesting point of God "reversing" a prophecy. It makes me think of how Jonah got upset with God's "change of plans" for Nineveh [Jonah 3:10; 4:1, 2].
I don't have any explanation here – just wondering how firm the future is. I've also been thinking about the potter/clay analogy of Romans 9, mentioned on this thread. Isaiah 64 speaks of the potter/clay analogy – the prophet acknowledges God's sovereignty as the potter and humbly asks for His mercy and help in shaping people's lives:
Isaiah 64:1-8 NASB
1 Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down,
That the mountains might quake at Your presence—
2 As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil--
To make Your name known to Your adversaries,
That the nations may tremble at Your presence!
3 When You did awesome things which we did not expect,
You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence.
4 For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear,
Nor has the eye seen a God besides You,
Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.
5 You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness,
Who remembers You in Your ways
Behold, You were angry, for we sinned,
We continued in them a long time;
And shall we be saved?
6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
And all of us wither like a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 There is no one who calls on Your name,
Who arouses himself to take hold of You;
For You have hidden Your face from us
And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.
8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father,
We are the clay, and You our potter;
And all of us are the work of Your hand.
Jeremiah 18 likens God to a potter who will remake the House of Israel into a good vessel – if they will repent:
Jeremiah 18:1-11 NASB
1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying,
2 "Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will announce My words to you."
3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.
4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me saying,
6 "Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
7 "At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it;
8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.
9 "Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it;
10 if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.
11 "So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, 'Thus says the LORD, "Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds."'
Maybe we push the potter/clay analogy too far – in thinking the clay represents us as mindless lumps. Perhaps we're more involved in this "shaping" process than we realize. Yes, the clay pictures us as malleable creatures – shaped by a higher power – but one may also infer from Scripture that our response is a key element in this shaping process. Think about passages that exhort us to do the right thing, hold to certain beliefs, and maintain the appropriate attitudes. And consider the above passages that seem to forward a kind of contingency aspect of the future.
I don't think it's God making us into something that we're really not...Sometimes I see it as God being like Michelangelo – a master sculptor with a plan to free the form already inside the stone . But it's an art form with a twist – in that we are a responsive "medium" – things that God orchestrates behind the scenes, our prayers, His responses to our prayers, the decisions we make, how we respond to circumstances…the good & bad experiences…the successes & failures...the challenges & graces...the blessings & hardships...are all tools that chip away to reveal the essential being inside.
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lindyhopper
sorry, I haven't read the whole thread but...
What if we are all robots with free will?
leaves... doing the robot.
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lindyhopper
Ok, on a more serious note, not that the other post wasn't serious...
I think if free will is an illusion as some say, that it would be very easy for the creator of the heaven, earth and everything on it including humans to make us think we have free will while said creator controls everything from... well, from everywhere,
I guess, or from the beginning.
...every action has a reaction...
Imagine our brains or our "free will" portion of it as our reaction center. It is where our senses bring input and we determine based on what we know, our life experiences, our cognitive abilities (all things God would know from the begining) how to react to that input and a decision is made. That decision has consequences... other reactions which produce other reactions and others etc. with each person making a decision on how to react for themselves. In reality these brain functions are all chemical and electrical responses linked to one another. Think of God as the grand chemist who set a reaction in motion.
Not unlike a game of pool, but much more complicated. If the creator knows our reaction mechanisms, how we work, how we think, in the finest detail, to the end that he knows the final outcome, how is he not unlike the most perfect person playing pool watching all the balls eventually fall exactly in the pockets he wanted, straight from the break shot (let there be light... or whatever your favor of religion says). Did this perfect pool player physically take the 9 ball and put it in the side pocket? Well, no, but kinda. He was watching from the omnipotent perspective as the balls rolled around the table, but upon hitting the cue ball this perfect player knew exactly where every ball was going to go and hit it in a way that insured it.
Or
Think if God is everywhere, in the spaces in between, how easy would it be for God to be like the neuroscientist with an open skull in front of them. They probe this part of the brain and you speak, another part and a memory is invoked, another and you laugh or cry. If God is everywhere, he is "all up in your head" with the power of the universe at his fingertips. :D
IMO, if there is a God it is more like an energy that is everywhere, not an intelligence. "We live and move" in it.
Or God is like a grad student outside our dimension doing an experiment in Chaos theory... and here we are. :blink:
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TheInvisibleDan
Hmmm...reminds me of that "Treehouse of Horror" Simpson's episode I saw a few years ago, where Homer turns his toaster into a time machine.
And if we were robots, would we even be aware of it ?
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sirguessalot
nice to "see" you "here" Dan
:B)
while reading around this and a few other threads
i spilled a rant here on shadows and taboos
here is a piece that seems to relate to this thread...
...
VPW said that he somehow solved "The mystery" of Christ
when it seems more likely that Mystery IS the nature of the mind of Christ
how the capacity to accept our radical degree of ignorance
and our radical depth of choicelessness
and how very little freedom we have ever had in this world
is the beginning of real freedom, real choice and real knowledge
our own vast field of ignorance is often our most important teacher and guide...simply for being THE MOST
our most important foil...and we are to "invite the demons to tea-time" if we ever want real lasting peace
such Mystery (the so-called "whore") is the playground of children of God
as much as a newborn's earliest discoveries will happen in the geography and terrain of their own mother's body
Mystery is a universal factor that we are to stop resisting
the unknown is going to teach us more than the known
and failure is going to teach us more than success
and a position of surrendering to such a space of grace
is going to get us farther than a position of control
we all ultimately return there anyway
might as well practice now
research your limitations
research your ends
we never chose that which we dont know
we never chose that which terrorizes us the most
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