Matt Slick Bible Study - 11/15/17 - Open Theism

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We're live? We're on? We're on now? Okay. November 15th, 19 - no,
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November 15th, 2017, do the cutout, edit that out. And next week we're not going to have study because it's
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Thanksgiving Eve and there you go for that. And then what we're going to do, we're talking about moving this to another night because people are requesting and moving to another night, maybe
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Friday again, and we'll see what happens. So there's that and I'm going to pray open and then
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I'm going to teach about open theism and I'm hoping that we'll get some interesting stuff and I'll tell you why we're doing open theism.
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All right, Lord Jesus we ask that you be with us tonight and bless us and that as we seek to learn, to be exposed to things,
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Lord, that you and your great grace would manifest yourself to us. That you'd open up the hearts and the minds of the people who need to hear what needs to be said and that you would cause them to hear your truth and your word.
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Lord, just ask that you'd bless what I teach and Lord, we just give this time and ask that you would bind the evil one and any demonic anything that might hinder the teaching and the time.
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We ask this Jesus in your precious name. Amen. All right, so in November 30th
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I'm flying out to Denver and I'll be out there for a couple of days. I'm flying out Thursday be back Saturday night and I'm going to be in two debates.
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One is on open theism. Does open theism, I forget the exact title, is open theism the proper representation of God or something like that?
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And then the second one does, on the second night, does Calvinism represent God is loving? And so I'm like, yes, let's do it.
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And open theism, so I'll talk about what it is a little bit and my opponent sought me out and he has a website on open theism and it's been difficult to find information on what he's actually taught and I went through and read some of his material.
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Interesting comments coming out of that during our debate and also his pastor apparently,
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I was reading through his material today, his opening statement, man talk about bad logic, bad thinking, seriously.
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In fact, it's bad enough that I've decided I'm going to write a rebuttal to his opening statement by just commenting into various areas of what he said.
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It is demonstrating some very bad thinking, but I'm serious, bad thinking.
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And so I thought what we talked about, I'll do, you know, talk about open theism, what is open theism?
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Open theism is a teaching that the future is open, that God does not know everything in the future exhaustively.
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And because he does not know everything in the future exhaustively, therefore he doesn't know what's really going to happen in a lot of areas.
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So that's called open theism. Now basically what it is, in my opinion, and I'm just going to be talking generically and I've got reasons,
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I'm going to be generic, I'm not going to give too many specifics, I don't want to show my hand for the debate, but open theism is a heresy.
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And it's a man -centered theology that reduces God and elevates man. Now it reduces
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God because what it essentially is doing is stating that God is limited to time, has certain aspects and attributes that must work in concert with time, and also that was called, generally speaking, they hold to libertarian free will, open theists do.
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What's libertarianism? Libertarianism is the teaching that human, there's kind of two ways to talk about it, there's libertarianism and compatibilism.
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Libertarianism says that man's free will is, well let me do it this way, compatibilism says that God's election and predestination is compatible, the doctrine of God's predestination and election is compatible with human free will.
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Libertarianism would say that's not the case, that God's foreknowledge and God's infinite knowledge of things is not compatible with human free will.
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The reason they'll say that is because a person, when he decides to wear a shirt, like I decided to wear this shirt tonight and I thought about, actually
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I had to try another shirt on that had a Japanese symbol for grace, but I decided to wear this one instead, and so when
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I decided to wear this shirt tonight, was I free to make a different decision? Well yes, in one sense
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I was free, in another sense no, but the open theist would say if God knew that you're going to choose this, so when it came time to you to choose to wear it, you weren't free to choose anything else.
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It's horrible logic, it's bad thinking, but this is one of the arguments that they use because they want human freedom, human ability, human centeredness, man centeredness, humanism, the idea that man's freedom is the, in a sense, the end all.
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That's not what open theists would say, they say the greatest attribute of God is his love and his desire to love people freely in what's called libertarian free will, and though not all open theists hold purely to libertarianism, there are variations and things like this, but I'm only going to speak in in the basic generic terms, and so in order for man to be free,
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God can't exhaustively, perfectly know every choice we're going to make, otherwise we're not free to make a choice contrary to that when we make a choice.
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Now there's some logical problems with that, and there's some problems, but so in libertarianism, man is not restricted by his sinful nature, so in the
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Bible, the Bible says that the natural man cannot receive the things of God for their foolishness to him, 1 Corinthians 2 .14,
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he's a slave of sin, a hater of God, Romans 14, 6 through 20, or 4, Romans 6, 14 through 20, actually in Romans 3, 10, 11, and 12, talks about they don't seek for God, can do no good, so even though the
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Bible tells us that the human is enslaved to sin, what they will say is that he's not enslaved to sin such that he cannot, of his own free will, make a choice to believe in God, and this is basically an
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Arminian position, Wesleyan kind of Arminianism, and unbiblical, and so nevertheless, so there's different reasons that the the open theist will say
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God doesn't know the future, one of the reasons is the future doesn't exist, so God can't know the future if it doesn't exist, now that's philosophically difficult to justify because an open theist at this point is now venturing into the nature of time, and what is time, you define your terms, what is time as it relates to the future, the past, the present, things like that, and I've noticed that in the literature by open theists, they beg the question a great deal, they assume certain things without defining their terms, and they can't justify their positions, here's another one that they will say,
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God chooses not to know the future even though it can be known, this is another view, so God chooses what areas of the future not to know,
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I find that problematic because how does he know what part not to know, you know, but they will have their responses, they're not dumb, okay, there's some intelligent people who hold to this, and they hold to what they see in scripture as well, in open theism, because, now check this out, because God does not know exhaustively the future, then it's possible for God to make mistakes, because if he doesn't know what's going to happen, he might expect something and be surprised by it, so God can make mistakes, and he takes risks, he takes risks with people's future free will choices, now
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I found a very rare document, archaeologically I had to spend a lot of money and go over the
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Middle East and do some digging on my own, and I found this rare document from the open theist perspective of things that God himself actually says from the open theist perspective when things don't go right, they're written down, and I just kind of transcribed it here, and so I did some translation from the original
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Blarney Yiddish language, and so some of the things that God would say in the open theist perspective is things like this, oops, so because, you know,
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God takes risks, and God could also say duh, and uh -oh, and oh no, and dang it, and shucks, let me get back to you on that, wow, that was a surprise,
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I hope it works out, oh no, now what's he gonna do this time, no, I haven't heard a joke about the open theist, let's see, please, oh please, please, please believe in me,
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I'll not do that again, that didn't turn out so well, did it, I'll try and get it right next time,
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I'd answer your prayer, but I don't know what's gonna happen, hey, I just learned something, well,
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I can always go to plan B, well, I can always go to plan C, well, I can always go to plan D, so these are some of the things that, you know, in a facetious manner, this issue of God taking risks and making mistakes, how could you trust the
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God of open theism, how could you seriously trust the God of open theism if he doesn't know the future exhaustively, because does that mean that you might not really be saved, or he might goof, or he might sin, now, yeah, there's more, so at any rate, could it be possible for him to sin, could be possible, he doesn't know, he could violate his own nature, don't know, it gets some odd stuff in here, so God learns in open theism, he learns what actual, actually happens, so he doesn't know what's actually going to happen, so one of the places they'll go to is
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Genesis 22, and you know, and Abraham's raising the knife over Isaac, and God says, now
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I, stop, don't do that, now I know that you're really gonna do this, right, well, the
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Bible says he knows all things, right, 1 John 3 20, well, see, when you're in the open theist realm, what that really means is he all, he knows all things that are knowable, but doesn't say that, it just says he knows all things, but what they'll do is they'll have those, well, it means, you know, it just means, you know, knowable, he doesn't know that stuff, we know that from other places, and they'll go to other places in the scripture,
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I'll talk about some things, we're pretty kind of tough, I can see why the open theist would say some of the things that they do, but, oh, what was
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I saying, oh yeah, so Genesis 22, so now I know, well, there's a thing we know called anthropomorphism, anthropos morphe,
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Greek anthropos and morphe, man form, so when, for example, Adam and Eve were in the garden, the pre -incarnate
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Christ came walking with them, and this is an anthropomorphism, a human manifestation of the divine,
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Christ Jesus is an anthropomorphism, it's a human manifestation of the divine, and so we would have these occurrences in the
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Old Testament as well, where God is seen in various places, etc, and of course, never the father, another topic, and so doesn't
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God know what's in the heart of people, well, some open theists have to say that he doesn't even know that, doesn't know,
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God's got a hope things work out, and there's some open theists that will say yes,
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God knows the present exhaustively, well, if he knows the present exhaustively, then doesn't he know what's going to happen when, when
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Abraham raises the knife, and he says don't do it, how does he know he's really going to do it, how do you know the last second, halfway down, he wasn't going to do it, how does he know, he doesn't know, you know, it could be the last split second, he might just go,
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I can't quite do it, right, but God, when you raise it up, oh God said, now I know, wait a minute, he's got a couple of seconds over here,
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Abraham could have changed his mind, so if first God to do this at this point, God's got to know, right, he's got to learn, right, it doesn't make any sense, now some open theists will say that God doesn't even know that, he doesn't know the present exhaustively,
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God's sitting there going like this, what's he going to do, I hope it works out, now if that's the case, how is
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God going to prophesy, how's he going to prophesy and bring things about exactly that what he wants, you know, there's a prophecy, and I could maybe get the notes and some stuff, but there's a prophecy out there on the web, they go through, there are websites do it, where the very number of days that Jesus is prophesied to walk in to, or ride into Jerusalem, when he rode in on the donkey, and the prophecy from I think it's
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Daniel, is when you look at it, it's 173 ,385 days, or some ridiculous number, it's 170 something thousand days, and it's prophesied, and he says from the time of the time, from this mark, from that, this many times, it goes through and you add it up, bang, well in the
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God of open theism, I could just see God going, okay, let's hope this works, come on sevens, and he's hoping that eternity turns out, or that things turn out right, because he doesn't know how things are going to work out, he doesn't know if people are going to choose the right things, how can he ordain these things, and force these things, and make them happen, unless he manipulates eternity, excuse me, manipulates the present, constantly as he's directing people, well this
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I think is a real intellectual problem for the open theist position, I'm sure they could have some answers to that, but what
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I've been doing the past couple, three days now, is going through the arguments from this open theist
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I'm going to be debating, and his pastor who's an open theist, and logical fallacies, man, like come on, you know, and this is what happens when you don't submit to the word of God, you get logical fallacies, so anyway,
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God can make mistakes in open theism, God learns, he takes risks, does not know the future, man's free will is basically paramount, and the greatest attribute of God is love, now get to one more point here in a little bit, but they elevate
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God's love above basically everything else, it's greatest attribute is love, now let me ask you guys a question, is that true, is the greatest attribute of God, is
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God love, well you know what, let's just say yeah, because that means he's going to love me, if he loves me, the all -powerful king of the universe is going to want to make me a little bit more comfortable, so that's his greatest attribute, in other words,
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I'm going to find something that gives me what I need out of God, now people can say that well, no,
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God's to love the world, yeah, but he also says in Isaiah 43 7, the reason he created us was for his glory, so we could say that the reason he created us is for his glory, not to love us, because he specifically says so, he does not say in the bible that the reason he created us was to love us, but for his glory, so I could say well, the greatest attribute of God is his self -glory, his glorification of himself, because nothing greater in the universe exists than he's worthy of honored glory, you say that, and I got a verse that says that's why he made us, it wasn't so he could love us, so I could make the case, so what the problem here is that this attribute of love is elevated above others, and it has a psychological and emotional advantage to do that, just don't you want
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God to be loving and kind and and the best for you, oh yeah, that's how we want God, of course, that's how we want him, well good, don't you want him also to like and to be loving, yes, that's what
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I want, and I like how you're saying don't you want, don't you want, don't we want, don't we want, it's about what we want, and that's exactly what happens in open theism, they elevate the attribute of God's love above other things, so his sovereignty, his omniscience, omnipotence, which they deny, his omniscience, omnipotence, they deny these things, and yeah,
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I'm not going to say too many things, I don't want to give too much away, can't get back, all right, so we'll get into some other stuff, one of the things they say in open theism, one of the basic tenets is that God can change his mind, now
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God can change his mind, so let's have a little, have a little fun here, all right, okay,
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I'm gonna do big, big letters and stuff, it looks good, it looks good, do you read that, you can read that, okay, okay, so here's, this is infinity past, that's a symbol for infinity, is that too big or too small,
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I mean too small, a little bigger would be better, a little bigger, yes, here, I'm making it bigger, then I immediately mess up, there you go, okay, that's a symbol for infinity, all right, so we have, we have time, okay, all right, and so we have these verses where God changes his mind, for example,
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Exodus 32 14, let me go to right there, I'm going to read something to you, I'm going to show you something, a lot of Christians aren't, aren't aware of these verses,
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Exodus 32 14, and last one, there's an open theist, all right, uh -oh,
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I may be an open theist here, that's right, hey, what's going on here, how come
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I, it won't work, that's weird, okay, all right, so the
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Lord changed his mind about the harm which he had said he would do to his people, that's what it says right there, the
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Lord changed his mind, there's other verses that talk about this, Numbers 14 11, all right,
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Numbers 14 11 says, the Lord said to Moses, how long will this people spurn me, and how long will they not believe in me, despite all the signs which
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I performed in their midst, he doesn't even know, how long are they going to do this, that doesn't mean that he doesn't know, you know, how long are you going to be, you know, how long, you know, just stop talking, so God changes his mind, right, and there's a bunch of verses like this,
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God has regrets, God seems to be surprised, God didn't know what people would do, God tells people to learn what they will do,
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God shows uncertainty about the future, these are some of the things that they claim, now
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God changes his mind, let's just work with this, all right, so this is time, all right, so let's, we have here, his eternal decrees, in other words, this is what
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God says will happen, it's going to happen, eternal decrees, certain things he has decreed for the foundation of the world, for example, the crucifixion of Christ, all right, you go to Acts 4, 27, 28, now
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I'm going to expand this out a little bit, okay, you can still see me on the thing, so here we have people, all right, and they're milling around, these people are good people, bad people, going to go, and some things happen, now
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God wants this event to happen here, he wants event
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A to happen, and what he does is, he speaks and he prophesies, well, he can do that,
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I'll just do it this way, so he says here, he speaks, okay, he speaks and he says something, and then here, people react to what he says, and then they do something, so they do something, and God will say, hey,
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I didn't know that was going to happen, right, now, eternal decrees, which we know exist, because the
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Bible tells us that he works all things after the counsel of his will, he's agreed various things to get into that, he speaks, and then people do things, and in the open theist perspective,
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God didn't know this, so now there's a new, God's knowledge goes on, okay, so God has this, now he has knowledge, where before he didn't, so he spoke,
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God learned, because he was surprised by something, he had to change his mind about something, now here's the thing, people, time, we know 1
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John 3 20, God knows all things, he doesn't learn, open theist will say he learns, so in open theism,
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God learns, but we know, biblically speaking, he does not learn, so why would
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God be surprised or change his mind if he knows all of this, why would he say he's surprised, why would he do that, well, the open theist would say, well, the plain reading of scripture requires that we understand that what
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God is doing is actually telling us that he's surprised, he really is surprised, are you not believing that,
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Matt, I'll say, well, there are verses, I don't have it memorized, where God decrees every event, whatever he desires will come to pass, how could he be surprised if he decrees everything, if certain things are to occur, it wouldn't make sense, now, when
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Adam and Eve were in the garden, and they sinned, and they're hiding themselves, the pre -incarnate
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Jesus came up, and he said to the man, where are you, now, do you think that the pre -incarnate
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Christ is in the garden like this, where'd you go, where are you, are you out there anywhere, do you think that's what's happening, or are you thinking he knew exactly where he was, now, he knew where he was, okay, in the open theist perspective, the plain reading of scripture would mean
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God didn't know where Adam was, God's up here, behind a bush, you know, hey, hey, can you see me, stay right here, it doesn't make any sense, why would
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God speak like that, because we call it an anthropo, oh, it's a big word, my arm's getting tired, this is so difficult, anthropomorphism, okay,
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I'm sesquipedalian, that means I like big words, so an anthropomorphism is where God relates to us in a level and in a means that we understand, so he does that, we understand it, now, what color is divinity, how much does divinity weigh, any candy, so we don't know what divinity looks like, do we, how about this, what does humanity, the human essence, what does it look like, how much does the human essence weigh, these are non -sequiturs, it's like saying blue sleeps faster than Wednesday, doesn't make any sense, but in the human perspective, we can recognize life and personhood and the humanity and the essence of a person by the attributes that are displayed by a person, so I recognize personhood when
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I talk to someone, I say, you are a jerk, okay, and recognizing them,
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I'm saying you, and they say, oh yeah, you're a bigger jerk than me, so they're recognizing me, they have the idea of recognition, understanding, and we can say,
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I forget, let's go get a cup of coffee, okay, great, so we make a deal, we go get a cup of coffee together, so now we're doing something together, we have a relationship,
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I'm experiencing as that other person is experiencing personhood, I don't see personhood,
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I see the manifestation of personhood, you get my saying here, so we have something,
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I'm going to erase their stuff, you have something, you have the nature of something, and then you have the attributes, okay, so this is the essence, and when something exists, has an essence, has attributes, so this eraser exists, and it has attributes, it's this long, it's this, weighs this much, you know, doesn't taste good, things like that, but the attributes emanate out of the essence, they reflect the essence, so if you have personhood,
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I will be able to detect personhood by the attributes, the same with God, His existence means
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He has attributes, the problem with God is, and us in this relationship of discovering Him, is if He were to show
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His blue orb -ness of undulating, fifth -dimensional, tesseract stuff, we wouldn't know that was
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God, we'd go, what the heck is that, you know, we'd just go running, so what God has to do in order to communicate to us, so that we understand
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Him, is He has to anthropomorphize, He has to become one of us in our level, communicate on a way we can understand, this is the basics called the incarnation, well in this, we know that God, for all eternity, is going to relate to us in a way that we're going to understand, now
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I didn't know you're going to do that, that's right, on a human level, this is what's going on, hey Adam, where are you, of course he knew where he was, we see this first example of the human, the condescension of God in the garden, when he came down, and he was right there in the garden with Adam, he knew where he was, because he heard the sound of the
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Lord walking, and they hid themselves, which means it's getting close, the sound's getting close, they heard, and they hid, where are you,
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Adam, where are you, now there's a lot to that theological question, where are you spiritually, where are you physically, you know, but we see the initial pattern, now this idea is called the law of first mention, now in James, excuse me, in Genesis 2 17, he says to Adam, God says to Adam, this is the first mention of the word death, or die, when you eat of the fruit, you will die, that's the first mention of it, so what does
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God mean by it, the day that you eat of the fruit, you will die, they ate of the fruit that day, did they die, yes, of course they died, because God said so, what's with you guys, boy, just, you know, take your hand and put it in front of your face, look to your left, and slap yourself upside the head, because the answer is, yeah, they died, why, because God said so, don't think in the term that you think dying means, what does
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God mean by it, now the physical manifestation of that spiritual death occurred hundreds of years later for them, they physically died, but they died, because they were separated from God, your sins have caused the separation between you and your
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God, Isaiah 59 verse 2, so when sin occurs, there's a separation, so we know that the death that God is speaking of, initially a separation from him, with a biological manifestation, that's the death that God is speaking about, and we know the wages of sin is death,
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Romans 6 .23, the soul that sins will die, Ezekiel 18 .4, there's various things like this, so we can see that the way
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God uses the word death is different than how we do, a lot of times, what does he mean, first mention, so the first occurrence of God in the
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Bible, in a condescending manner, is when he said to Adam, where are you, but also actually the first one is, speaking to Adam, you know, you can name the animals kind of a thing, okay, it's all an anthropomorphism, but we have this issue of God's knowledge in question here,
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God knew, but he asked a question, even though he already knew, this kind of a thing is how we can look at this, and everything like this,
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God changes his mind, he has regrets, surprised, because on the human level, this is exactly what's going on, now think about it,
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God has regrets, well, okay, he has regrets, in what sense does he have regrets, the sense of he knows that people are going to rebel against him, now people might say, well, if you know what's going to happen, why would you feel that emotional pain about it when it occurs, if you know, and I'm like, are you serious, it's not a good question, if they'll say, they'll say, look, if God knows from eternity, in his eternal decrees, that so -and -so is going to do something here, and he feels pain, or sorrow, or, you know, emotional regret, or whatever it is, because they'll often say that, they'll say, well, how then, how then is that possible, well, let me ask any mom and dad in here, do you know that your child's going to mess up, yes, does your knowing it mean you don't feel remorse about something, or upsetness about them, or anger, or whatever it is, when it really happens, even though you knew it was going to happen ahead of time, what,
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God suddenly, his omniscience means that he can't know all things, and when sin really occurs, he's not bothered by it, of course, why not, remain his image,
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Genesis 126 or 28, so, you know, there's ways of answering this, and basically, the generic answer is,
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God anthropomorphically works with us, and so, we would see him, as he communicates, changing his mind, regrets, surprise, and some other things, now,
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I can go into stuff, I haven't, I purposely have not got into prepping this for tonight, I just whipped up some notes, and here we are, but there are places where, when you say
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God was surprised, where there's other scriptures that imply, no, he knew exactly what was going to happen, and where he had a different plan, it was already worked out ahead of time,
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I don't have those memorized, because I just don't talk about opentheism very often, but those are there, and I'll probably, some other time, maybe we can do a follow -up, and I can do some stuff like that, explain some things, all right, so, let's see,
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I get a lot of notes here, so I've got anthropomorphic expression,
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God expresses such things as anger, regret, sorrow, and pity, God displays proper emotions at the proper time, even though he knew from eternity what people would do,
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God relents or repents from doing something he said he would do, based on the actions or inactions of people, sometimes
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God listens to the intercessory prayers of someone, and then relents from bringing judgment, other times, due to their unfaithfulness,
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God brings judgment, but this does not mean that God acts on whims, he is acting appropriately in relationship to our time frame, if he acted according to the final outcome, the steps needed to get to that outcome,
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God's judgment, for example, would be avoided, and the outcome wouldn't occur, or, what if God said,
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I'm going to judge you, if you do such and such, and then they do such and such, and he judges them, that's because he's saying certain things are going to happen, what about Jonah, for example, he says,
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Jonah go into Nineveh, I'm going to destroy him in 40 days, do you think God knew that when Jonah went and spoke to the
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Ninevites, that they were going to repent, I believe he did, and Jonah didn't want them to repent, he didn't want to save him, he went the other direction, he didn't like him,
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God does, deals with him, gets him back, now in Jeremiah 18, 8, God says that the nation that repents, he will then relent of his calamity, which he said he's going to do to them, that's exactly what we would say,
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I'm going to do this to you, and then they repent, then he doesn't do it, but wait a minute, he said he's going to do it, yeah, and by saying it, it brings him to the place of repentance, which is exactly what
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God decreed, this is how it works, this is how we have answers for stuff like this, not a big deal, all right, interrogative expressions, interrogative is a question,
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God says, Adam, where are you, things like that, so let's see,
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I'm going to go through my notes here, I haven't read this in a long time, if God chooses to not know the future free will choices of human creatures, then this means that the future is knowable, if the future is knowable, then all the future is knowable, if for example, tomorrow at noon,
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Bob was going to choose to wear either a blue or red shirt, and the choice that Bob will make tomorrow is knowable by God today, this means that God would not know, just like 15 steps long,
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I won't go into all, I'll kill you guys with logic, other people like when
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I say I'm going to kill them with logic, sometimes not, I said to my wife, don't ever say it to your wife,
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I'm going to kill you with logic, and then you're going to end up going, I'm sorry, it happens, just makes a bad sandwich or something, puts too much spice on it, you know, so we have
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God relating to us in human terms, human actions, he changes his mind, relented, remembered, rusted, human emotions, sorrow, jealousy, pity, regret, human physique, he has hands, face, mouth, eyes, arm, and think about that too, if you're going to take it literally that God doesn't know something because he says, you know,
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I'm surprised by this or that, well then we take it literally also that he has hands, face, mouth, eyes, arms, things like that, which the
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Bible clearly says, it's another form of anthropomorphism, we could take the whole of what's going on, the
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Bible says he has wings in Psalm 57 and 1, we're taking it literally, obviously, all right, that's future, I mean that's a figurative, all right, now, so let's talk about this, if God knows our future free will choices, are we still free?
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This is one of the main arguments that they use, and there's a sense of freedom, there's different senses of freedom, and let's see, so am
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I am I free to lie? Yeah, I am, am
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I going to? No, why? Because I believe lying is a sin, so because I believe lying is a sin,
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I'm not going to lie, so am I free to lie? In that sense, no, because I'm not gonna lie, but I'm free as is capability,
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I'm capable of it, but I don't want to, so I'm not going to, so am I really free to do it?
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Well, no, not the best illustration, but you get the point, we have certain attributes and certain abilities, that is, freedom has to do with different senses, and one of the things
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I've noticed in open theism is a mangling of the senses in the sense that that freedom exists, but nevertheless,
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God knowing what we're going to do does not mean that we can't do something else, it means that God simply knows what we have chosen to do ahead of time, so who's the one restricting our freedom when we make a choice?
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We are, I'm the one who chose to wear this shirt, not a different shirt tonight, I had two shirts
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I was going to wear, not at the same time, that had these options, and so I chose to do this,
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I'm the one who restricted my choice, did God know that I was going to be the one to restrict my choice?
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Yes, so how is God restricting my choice by knowing what I chose to restrict it to? It doesn't make any sense for them to complain.
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Our freedom is not restricted by God's foreknowledge, our freedom is simply realized ahead of time by God, now
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I can get in more complicated theology of ordination and causation, but I won't, in this our natural ability to make another choice has not been removed any more than my choice of what to write inside the parentheses on this paper here, hello, was removed by God when
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I knew I would put the word hello in the parentheses before the universe was made, before typing the word hello
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I pondered which word to write, my pondering was my doing and the choice was mine, how then was
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I somehow restricted in freedom when choosing what to write if God knew what I was going to do?
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No matter what choice we freely make, it can be known by God, and His knowing doesn't mean we're not making free choices, so what they do is they say if God knows what you're going to choose ahead of time, you're not free to make a different choice at the time, but that's the wrong question, because to say if God knows it, then you're not free, as in He's restricting you, but He's not restricting you, that's it, that's the problem, that's the weakness in their position.
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I have not in all seriousness, I have not seen very critical,
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I mean there's some level of critical thinking, but they have mistakes, they make mistakes and in logic, and not that I'm great at it, but I'm telling you, this is,
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I should have read this earlier about God making mistakes, this is from The God Who Risks, who's it by,
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Sanders, darn it, I thought I carried all that with me, got the documentations, The God Who Risks, Sanders Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1998, pages 132 to 133, okay.
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A third of the way, he says this, a third way of explaining some predictions according to presentism is to see them as statements about what will happen based on God's exhaustive knowledge of the past and present, in other words, given the depth and breadth of God's knowledge of the present situation,
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God forecasts what He thinks will happen, that means He extrapolates, He sees what's going to happen and He figures out,
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He predicts what He thinks will happen. In this regard, God is the consummate social scientist predicting what will happen.
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God's ability to predict the future in this way is far more accurate than any human forecasters, however, since God has exhaustive access to all past and present knowledge, this would explain
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God's foretelling Moses that Pharaoh would refuse to grant his request. He will not give you what you want because I'm going to harden his heart, that's what he said.
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Nonetheless, this does not leave open the possibility that God might be mistaken about some points as the biblical record acknowledges.
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For instance, in Exodus, God thought that the elders of Israel would believe Moses, but God acknowledges that Moses is correct in suggesting the possibility that they may not believe
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Him. God also thought the people of Jeremiah's day would repent and return to Him, but they did not, to God's dismay, because God always said, why did they not repent?
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Does it mean He doesn't know? Or is He asking the questions? Why are you being so hard -hearted?
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Does He know the answer? Of course, He's speaking to them, getting them to think. They're not robots.
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Why are you being so stubborn? See, God doesn't know why they're being stubborn, you know.
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The notion that God could be dismayed or wrong about anything may not sit well with some people, so perhaps some qualifications may be helpful.
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First, what is meant by the word mistake? Strictly speaking, God would make a mistake if you declared infallibly that something would come to pass, and it did not.
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You know, think about that. Does that mean God can make a false prophecy? Anyway, God would infallibly come to pass.
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Wait, I skipped a line. God would never be mistaken so long as He never said that X, for example,
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Adam will not sin, would infallibly come to pass and did not. Anyway, using the term more or loosely, we might say that God would be mistaken if you believe that X would happen and, in fact,
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X did not come about. In this sense, the Bible does attribute some mistakes to God. Finally, even if we affirm that God is sometimes mistaken in the sense that God believed that something would happen when, in fact, it does not come about, there's a question as to how often this happens.
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The biblical record gives a few occasions, but we are in no position to judge just how many times this occurs with God.
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So, you see what's happening. Now, remember I wrote essence and attributes, right?
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So, God learns. God makes mistakes, right?
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So, what is this telling us about His essence? For one,
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He's limited, okay? How about His omniscience or omnipresence?
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Probably not, okay? So, omnipresence would be gone, okay?
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That's gone. How about omniscience? He's all -knowing. That's gone, okay?
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Reliability. What? Reliability. Reliability. Oh, I like that. So, He's not reliable because He can make mistakes.
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So, reliability of God is gone. Maybe He's not so loving then.
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Maybe His love isn't all that trustworthy either. So, now that puts, you know, the issue of love into question.
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If He learns, well, could we then say that something might happen in the future to such a degree that He might learn there's another
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God besides Him? A bigger one? I don't know. I mean, you know, we've got to ask questions. Does it mean that that's not possible?
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You know, lots of questions need to be asked, but now what we're seeing is that God is now limited, not omnipresent, not omniscient, not reliable, but the
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God of the Bible is unlimited, omnipresent, omniscient, etc.
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He's not dependable anymore either. What? He's not dependable anymore. Right, not reliable, not dependable.
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Right. That's not the God of Scripture because the attributes are different.
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Therefore, the essence is different. You see the problem?
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This is why it's a serious error, serious problem to deal with. I've got a lot more
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I could talk about, but we don't have time. I don't have it all arranged.
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I've got to go through some stuff. There's a lot. I need to teach on this for like three, four, five weeks.
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It gets better and better as I start articulating things and knowing how to put things together better.
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I didn't have any time to do that today. Sorry. But this is what open theism says, and to some degree, it's increasing.
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Along with Mullinism, which says God knows the future exhaustively, but because of man's free will choices,
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God will react to what he sees free will man doing. I can't hear you.
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What? There you go. We've become the center of everything. That's called humanism.
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I believe Mullinism, open theism are humanistically based. Today, my radio show,
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I'll close with this. Today, my radio show, a caller called in, and I try to keep my reformed theology to myself.
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I'm not going to shy away from it, but this guy called up and said, what about God's election and predestination?
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Can you tell me about those? Okay. So I went right here and I, you know, Ephesians one, four, and five,
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God chose us. That's election. It predestined us. That's what it says. And he then asked about God choosing people for salvation or not choosing them or choosing them not to be saved.
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That's Romans nine, 22 and 23. So I went through Romans nine, 19, 23 quickly and showed him, this is what it says.
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And, um, the majesty of God, the quality of God, the nature of God, what we tend to do is not like what the scriptures actually say about God.
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Now, open theists will say the plain reading of scripture is this, but the plain reading of scripture says other things as well.
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The plain reading of scriptures, open theists like to say is subjective. What's plain to you is not plain to me.
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And what they'll do is elevate their own subjective preferences of what it is that they want to be the plain reading and lift it up above other areas.
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And so in my opinion, open theism is nothing more than, um, man -centered theology at the expense of God's nature, essence, man, majesty.
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And, um, one heresy always leads to another.
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So if I had a strong open theist here, I don't know what would happen, but I started asking questions and finding stuff.
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I bet you, I bet you, we would find out that other things are affected as well.
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For example, for example, here's something really quick before we close out.
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I'm going to erase this. It looks more dramatic. Like I'm going to write something. Um, sin is a legal debt.
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Okay. Right. Colossians 2, 14, uh, Matthew 6, 12, 11,
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Luke 11, four, uh, go to the verses about that and sin's a legal debt that can be transferred.
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Legal debts can be transferred. First Peter 2, 24, he bore our sin and his body in the cross. If God does not know what sins you're going to commit, how is he going to know what sins to impute to Christ?
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So therefore the legal substitutionary atonement of Christ must be sacrificed in order to hold this position about God.
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And now we have an attack on the very nature of the atonement. Now, some people will say, well, man, there are other views of the atonement.
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You're right. There are other views and they're wrong because the Bible tells us sin is breaking the law of God.
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1 John 4, 3, 4, Jesus said, our father in heaven, hallowed be the name. Forgive us our debts.
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Matthew 6, 12, forgive us our sins. Luke 11, four, he equates legal debt with sin on the cross.
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John 19, 30, uh, to tell us I, it is finished to tell us ties of legal, uh, statement of legal debt being paid.
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Colossians 2, 14, he canceled the certificate of debt on the cross. So we see the legality.
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He bore our sin in his body on the cross. How does that occur? How does he bear our sin? It has to be imputed to him.
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Well, legal debt that we have, it is of our offense to God by our sin was reckoned to the account of Christ, which is why it says in 2
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Corinthians 5, 21, he became sin became sin.
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It was imputed, which is why we have a righteousness by faith. Romans 5, 1, Romans 3, 28. We have a righteousness that's not our own.
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A righteousness that's derived through Christ from comes from God flipping three, nine, this is all by imputation.
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So this, I can make a very, very, very strong case that the penal substitute called penal is what it means is legal penal colony, right?
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The penal substitutionary atonement of Christ is the biblical position. And that needs to be sacrificed and gotten rid of in this view.
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As you can see, that's a problem. Anyway, there's a quick overview of some stuff of open theism.
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It's bad. Stay away from it. Not good. Run, hide. Okay. Okay.
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We're done. So what we'll do is we'll take a break for five or 10, and then we'll come back on Q and a time and you guys can fire your questions at me.