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knowledge of the future? Well, that is the question that will be debated tonight.
And before we start tonight's debate, I'd like to thank some folks that have really helped out putting on this debate.
And first of all, in an inclusive or wide fashion, I'd like to thank the staff, faculty, and as well as the students of Reformed Theological Seminary for helping us put on this debate.
As well in an exclusive nature, I'd like to thank Dr. Mawinney, Dr. Frame, and especially
George Finley, who helped me coordinate all the events here. And the next thing
I'd like to talk about is exactly the structure of the debate. So if you did want to take notes, let me explain to you how this is going to occur.
We're going to start with a 20 -minute affirmative opening, followed by a 20 -minute negative opening, then a 15 -minute rebuttal statement, and another 15 -minute statement.
We will then take a five -minute break, after which 10 -minutes affirmative cross -examination, followed by negative cross -examination for 10 minutes, 10 -minutes affirmative, 10 -minutes negative, and then our two 10 -minute closing statements, after which we will be taking questions.
Now, as far as the questions go, we're going to be trying something tonight. We had a debate last night. It went a little bit long, so this is what we're going to be doing tonight.
You will see cards put on the end of your pews. If you could please, this is what
I would like for you to do. Please state on the top of the card which one of these gentlemen you would like the question to be given to, either
Dr. Sanders or Dr. White. Please keep your question as brief as possible.
That will help us out. Thirdly, also state your name on the bottom of the card.
When you're done with your question, please place that in the basket when we make a love offering, just during the beginning part of the cross -examination.
It would help us out a lot. We're going to get started, but first I want to introduce a couple of gentlemen.
Firstly, here to my right and your left, Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Huntington Christian College, author of What About Those Who Have Never Heard, No Other Name, and The God Who Risks.
He's a contributing author to Christianity Today. Would you please welcome Dr. John Sanders.
On my left is the Professor of Apologetics at Columbia Evangelical Seminary, and Adjunct Professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.
He is the author of several books, including The Forgotten Trinity, The Roman Catholic Controversy, Is the Mormon My Brother?,
The King James Only Controversy, The Same -Sex Controversy, The God Who Justifies, and The Potter's Freedom.
Would you please welcome Dr. James White. Dr. White is taking the affirmative position of does
God have perfect knowledge of the future, and he will begin with a 20 -minute affirmative omen. Thank you. Good evening.
Thank you for joining with us this evening. It is a momentous thing to gather in a place dedicated to the glory of God and the truth of the
Christian faith to engage in debate on the subject of God's nature, His power, His sovereignty, and His knowledge.
It is a weighty thing to take into our hands His divine revelation and to consider the object of our worship and our praise, but it is also very much in line with apostolic practice to give an answer for the hope that lies within us, yet with gentleness and reverence.
May God be glorified in what takes place here this evening, in our obedience and honor of His word, and in our thinking.
I come to this debate with a strong commitment to the truth of God's omniscience, His sovereignty, and His freedom.
This commitment is not the result merely of the study of these issues in an academic setting.
Instead, I come to it as one who has taken the great truths of the sovereign and triune God of Scripture, together with the awesome message of His powerful saving grace, into the forefront of battle.
As an apologist, I have borne testimony of the truth of God's solitary existence over against Mormon scholars from BYU.
I have defended the Trinity against Muslim apologists and followers of the Watchtower Society, and I have stood many times to defend
God's sovereign grace against all forms of synergism, whether they are expressed in the classical semi -Pelagianism of Rome, the anti -liturgical and barren dress of the old -style
Church of Christ, or in the traditional garb of standard evangelical Arminianism. And so I am honored to have the opportunity to stand here this evening in defense of the proposition that God possesses full, exhaustive, unquestioned, and infallible knowledge of all things, which to us creatures may be styled past, present, or future.
I firmly accept the thesis that God, from all eternity, did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass, yet so as thereby neither is
God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
I believe that not only does God's kingly and eternal decree ordain whatsoever comes to pass, but I believe this truth to be vital to the
Christian faith. Without it, we are left with the horrific specter of a God who creates, knowing full well the possibilities that may come from His action, but due seemingly to an overwhelming desire to create creatures with libertarian free will,
He risks the project, resulting in a torrent of unforeseen, indeed unexpected and worse, meaningless evil.
The problem of evil this evening, I do not believe, is a stumbling block for the sovereign king who, as inspired scripture tells us, works all things after the counsel of His will.
The problem of evil lays squarely in the lap of he who would seek to establish that God is responsible for risking the existence of meaningless evil, pain and suffering that has no purpose.
The pilgrim church has always clung tenaciously to the truth of scripture, God works all things for the good, but a
God who learns, who experiences failure and frustration, who has no certain knowledge of the actions of His own free creatures, cannot live up to the promise of that wonderful passage in Romans chapter 8.
Open theism is indeed the logical continuation of Arminianism. I happen to agree with the criticisms leveled by open theists against their
Arminian brothers with reference to the inconsistencies that exist in historical Arminian theology.
But of course as one standing firmly in the Reformed tradition, one who humbly and thankfully bears the name used by Clark Pinnock of Paleo -Calvinist,
I do not believe the answer to the inconsistencies of Arminianism is to take from God the very attribute
He Himself identifies as the chief by which we are able to distinguish
Him from false gods. The only way to make Arminianism biblically consistent is to abandon the traditions and philosophical underpinnings upon which it rests in favor of the biblical truths of God's sovereign freedom, man's depravity, and compatibilist freedom, and the perfection of the work of Christ in behalf of His people.
Open theism does indeed make Arminianism more consistently wrong.
Much ink has been spilled over the past decade on this topic and it is doubtful anything new is going to be propounded this evening.
A debate like this offers us the opportunity for interaction, for cross -examination, which often shines a much brighter light upon the issues than written forms can afford.
But in the few moments I have to establish my case, allow me to ask that we turn our attention to the only sure guide we have been given in matters of faith and morals, the
Theanostos Scriptures, the Holy Bible. My primary focus in presenting a biblical defense of the truth of God's exhaustive and infallible knowledge of future events will come from the trial of the false gods in Isaiah 40 -48.
In this passage we find God exposing the false gods for what they are, the mere creations of men. But in proving them false,
God gives us a number of standards, tests, indicators of true deity. One of these indicators is that God will not only accomplish
His holy purpose in opposition to the purposes of men, a divine truth enunciated in many other places in Scripture, such as in Psalm 33, 10 -11, but that He is able to reveal the contents of the future, for He is the creator of all things.
The connection between God being the creator of all things and His knowledge of past, present, and future, though patented in the text of Isaiah, is passed over with barely a notice in the leading presentations of open theism currently published.
Take, for example, this challenge to the false gods found in Isaiah 41 -26. "'Present your case,' the
Lord says. "'Bring forward your strong arguments,' the King of Jacob says. "'Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place.
"'As for the former events, declare what they were, "'that we may consider them and know their outcome.
"'Or announce to us what is coming, "'declare the things that are going to come afterward, "'that we may know that you are gods.
"'Indeed, do good or evil, "'that we may anxiously look about us and fear together. "'Behold, you are of no account, "'and your work amounts to nothing.
"'He who chooses you is an abomination.'" Now, we cannot dismiss such passages by merely stating that God will accomplish those things in the future that He can accomplish without interference from the autonomous decisions of free men.
Just the opposite, in fact, is true. Consider well what is said here. God places the idols in the dock, so to speak, and sarcastically begins to expose the foolishness of anyone who would make them their god.
Now listen to the challenge that God presents. "'Let them bring forth and declare to us "'what is going to take place.
"'As for the former events, declare what they were, "'that we may consider them and know their outcome.'" We dare not miss that this challenge is two -pronged.
First, God challenges the idols to reveal the future. He does not challenge them to simply affirm that they will accomplish their purpose in the future, but instead to tell us, quote, "'what is going to take place,' end quote.
God is not going to challenge idols to do what He Himself cannot do. And the second prong is to challenge the idols to tell us not only what has happened in the past, but why it has happened.
We simply cannot understand this challenge outside of the truth of the divine, sovereign, eternal decree of God.
This, I submit, is the source of the Christian belief in God's perfection and timeless sovereignty, not the ruminations of Plato or Aristotle.
But God continues, "'Declare the things that are going to come afterward "'that we may know that you are gods.'"
God presses His case, demanding from the idols the very knowledge that brings us together in this debate this evening.
Can idols know what is going to come afterward? No, they cannot. This shows that they are not gods.
I must emphasize that these words were written approximately 2700 years ago. I did not make them up.
God provided us with a test for any pretended god. A god who cannot declare the things, not hopefully predict or optimistically hope, but declare the things to come afterwards is not a god at all.
Indeed, so basic is this truth that God can sarcastically taunt these idols, for they are not only incapable of declaring the future, they are incapable of doing anything at all.
The sarcasm comes to full fruition in what comes next. Indeed, do good or evil, that we may anxiously look about us and fear together.
Behold, you are of no account, and your work amounts to nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination.
What we believe about God and His relationship to His creation is not a matter of mere scholarly interest.
The one who chooses an idol is Toeva, an abomination. I believe
I have firm biblical support for asserting that belief in falsehoods concerning God's very nature is taken by God as an affront, and the one who chooses such an idol himself is reprehensible in God's sight.
Such are grave words, but again, Christians have confessed them to be inspired words,
God's words, and hence we must listen to them and reverence them in humble obedience.
This theme involving the interconnection of the Creator, bringing all things into existence and God's knowledge of all things, including the future, continues throughout this section in Isaiah, and yet the major works on open theism that are in print today dismiss this section with barely a word.
While one will find complaints from open theists in their writings that their favorite texts have not been satisfactorily dealt with by those who oppose their proposition, my reading brings me to the opposite conclusion.
It is the literature of open theism that has thus far avoided serious exegetical interaction with the key passages that demonstrate its unbiblical nature, which leads us to an important consideration.
There are many troubling statements in the literature proposing open theism that will lead us to believe that the position has a lower view of the consistency, perspicuity, and sufficiency of Scripture than those professing the name of evangelical should hold.
What do I mean? Well, consider the words of Clark Pinnock. In his work, The Most Moved Mover, he speaks of the diversity among the biblical witnesses.
He seeks to find its overall drift. He says, quote, The Bible does not speak with a single voice.
It is dialogue between the different voices, end quote. The Bible presents to us the search for the mind of God, and in this search, quote, various points of view compete and interact, end quote.
Its many authors have views which may vary so that in his opinion, quote, the text is open to various plausible interpretations, end quote.
Dr. Sanders, in responding very briefly to the declaration of Isaiah 46 .9 that God declares the end from the beginning, says that such a passage, quote, can be interpreted harmoniously with either divine foreknowledge or the present knowledge model defended here.
It all depends on the content the interpreter gives to the expression, end quote.
Are we truly limited merely to the whim of the interpreter? Or does Scripture give us a sufficiently full revelation of truth in and of itself?
The reality of God's certain knowledge of future events underlies a tremendous amount of biblical revelation. Consider Jesus' statement to Peter in which not only are
Peter's sinful actions of denying Christ foreknown, but even the time frame in which they are to take place is a part of the divine revelation.
I invite the audience to consider well the explanations offered by various open theists regarding such a clear definitive prophecy on the lips of the
Lord Jesus. I will allow Dr. Sanders to express his own, for I must confess that having read it on pages 135 through 136 of his book,
I confess I am not certain how to understand it outside of the fact that seemingly he believes that it supports the idea that Peter anyway did not believe in exhaustive divine foreknowledge.
I would say if Peter didn't at the time of Jesus' words, he did by the time of the cockroach. In any case, it seems to be the position of Gregory Boyd, Clark Pinnock, and John Sanders that since God's ultimate purpose is to create a universe in which free creatures with libertarian freedom interact with him, and that God will never violate that freedom, that it follows that Jesus might well have been proven wrong in what he said to Peter that evening.
Indeed, given that open theism denies to God the ability to know what free creatures are going to do, how could it be otherwise?
Think about just this one example of divine prophecy. How many free will choices unknown to God went into the fulfillment of Jesus' words to Peter?
Peter had to choose to follow Jesus after the arrest. He could have run like most of the others. He had to choose to warm himself by the fire.
Others, including the servants who identified him as one of Jesus' followers, likewise had to choose to be there that evening.
They had to choose to stand by the particular fire Peter was at. They had to choose to look at him. They had to choose to comment.
Peter could have chosen to run after the first identification or the second. Peter could have chosen to acknowledge
Christ. In any one of these scenarios, the prophecy of the incarnate Son of God would have been rendered false.
If the free actions of free creatures is unknown to God, how could Jesus have said these words?
Was he risking becoming a false prophet, and for what reason? No, the fact is Jesus well knew the future.
There simply is no other consistent way of understanding the combined testimony of these passages. The fundamental concern of open theism is the assertion of libertarian free will.
Even though the Bible plainly and clearly presents compatibilism in such signal passages as Genesis 50, Isaiah 10, and Acts 4, it is the constant refrain of opponents of God's sovereign decree that such a viewpoint leaves no basis for true relationship between God and man.
Here again we see the need to allow God's revelation to have its place of primacy in our thinking rather than the philosophical systems of men.
Upon what biblical basis are we to say that God's timelessness precludes true interaction with His creatures when we, as time -bound creatures, are supposed to begin our thinking with the recognition that God's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than our own?
How can we intrude ourselves into His eternal existence and say that unless He exists and acts as we do, that we will not believe what
He says in His word? His giving of specific predictive prophecies that encompass myriads and myriads of human decisions shows us clearly that He does indeed have exhaustive divine foreknowledge.
His word tells us that He works all things after the counsel of His will. He tells us that He makes the blind and the lame and the deaf even illustrating
His purposes in the blind man in John 9. He tells us in Amos that if disaster befalls a city, has not the
Lord done it? The biblical testimony is vast and wide, and should we not recognize that we are bound to accept
God's revelation of these truths, always understanding that it is our bent to limit
God and to conform Him to our image? Should not this recognition cause us to examine very carefully any attempt to make
God ever more like the creature, impressing upon our views of Him very creaturely limitations so as to make
Him, we think, more approachable or attractive? Surely Dr. Sanders can point to the testing of Abraham in Genesis 22 and, if the rest of the canonical testimony to this event is not allowed to have its say, construct a system in which
God learns something about Abraham that, despite His allegedly exhaustive divine knowledge of Abraham's character over His entire life,
He had not known about Abraham up until that time. Dr. Sanders even raises the idea that possibly
God would have had to quote, find someone else, end quote, through whom to achieve His purposes should
Abraham fail. Indeed, I can only note in passing that this remained true ten minutes after the test as well.
Abraham continued to have libertarian free will and, on open theistic grounds, could have proven unfaithful despite the test anyway.
Various prophecies can be examined that seem, from the human point of view, to propose support for the idea that God was surprised by certain events or caught unawares, forcing a reversal of course.
I am certain these passages will come up for closer examination in the course of our discussion this evening. But I wish to point out initially, in reference to this area of study, that it is surely improper for the creature man, who is as a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes, as the blade of grass that flourishes and then passes away, to insist that the
God who reveals Himself as eternal, the Creator who is before time itself, who brings forth all things, the
Ancient of Days, the Alpha and Omega, should be thought of in creaturely terms of existence just because He has chosen to interact with man in time.
That is, we must recognize our problem of time -bound perspective. We must recognize that if God works
His will within time, that this is going to create for us, as the creature, the perspective of time -bound action.
Hence we must, as Calvin put it, allow God to lisp as He speaks to us. We cannot insist upon a particular philosophical framework that forces us to deny one element of God's revelation that is beyond our finitude to grasp experientially, namely
His eternity and timelessness, so as to make more real the personal interaction of God in time with His creatures.
A God who cannot exist eternally and yet by the power and wisdom of His decree interact meaningfully with His creatures in time is not worthy of being described as the
God of the Bible. And yet open theists like Clark Pinnock make the existence of such a God impossible by definition.
Indeed, it is instructive to note his assertion that such a view of God is, quote, a person -destroying conception of God's knowledge, end quote.
That is, if God is timeless, His decree inviolable, then by definition, without offering the first bit of meaningful exegesis of such key passages as Isaiah 10 or Acts 4, true human persons cannot exist.
We see in such words the true foundation of open theism, at least in Pinnock's view. Man's freedom and autonomy is the primary focus, the bedrock to which the revelation of God must be made amenable.
Finally, I wish to make note of a further testimony to the truth of God's infallible exhaustive knowledge of all events in time derived from the cross of Christ.
All to the doctrine of God and given the holistic fabric of Christian truth, you will rend the beautiful tapestry of sound doctrine.
Only the God of Scripture is sufficient to sustain the gospel of grace. A God who learns new things each day experiences surprise, disappointment, and failure not merely as we see
His eternal plan unfold in time, but in reality as He experiences the progression of time and encounters an unknown future, cannot present a sufficient basis for the high truths that make the
Christian faith glorious. Consider the work of Jesus Christ. Dr. Sanders has identified the very fall of Madame as an implausible event that God knew the possibility but truly believed man would more likely remain faithful to Him.
Hence, we cannot view Christ as a lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. Indeed, Dr. Sanders has written that while the incarnation was planned from the creation of the world, the cross was not.
And up until the Garden of Gethsemane, quote, other roots were perhaps open, end quote.
Consider the implications to Christian theology of such a view. Given a denial of God's exhaustive knowledge of future events, including the free actions of human beings,
God could not know that any one of us here would ever exist, let alone could He know our sins. Hence, the cross at creation could barely be a possibility, let alone the centerpiece of God's self -glorification, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
All basis for true substitutionary atonement is erased by a denial of God's exhaustive knowledge of the future.
I truly pray that God will, by His Spirit, make us obedient to His word this evening as we consider this vital topic.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. White. Well, thank you,
Dr. White. You've laid out some of the focused questions and issues presented to an open theist from a strong Calvinist perspective.
The question is, does God have perfect knowledge of future events? And though I'm supposed to take the negative position on that, to be honest,
I have to answer that question in the affirmative. Yes, God does have perfect knowledge of future events.
But we have to get the question much more refined, and that is, what's the nature of the future and what are events?
Because I don't believe the future exists, and so I don't believe those events are there.
So God has perfect knowledge of all reality, and God's knowledge of reality is as reality is.
If the future doesn't exist, then God knows it doesn't exist, and God doesn't have illusions about a reality that does not exist.
So I will later on, I think, try and get into some more specifics about how the question has to be defined.
But let me start with, why in the world would I come to such an asinine view?
Well, it isn't fun to take a minority position that everybody ridicules. I mean,
I don't go out of my way just to look stupid. My wife would tell you if I do it just by accident.
When I was a young Christian, I was taught that my prayers of petition could influence
God. Not that anyone could get God's arm up behind his back and say, all right, all right,
I'll give you that. But we had the divine invitation to pray and ask
God for things, and that God might do something because we asked that God would not have done had we not asked.
And that's the way I was taught to pray in this Baptist church. Now, when
I got to Bible college, we had to read some standard works of evangelical systematic theology.
And when we got to the chapters on the nature of God, and I'm reading through them, and they're talking about God being immutable, and there's different definitions of immutable, but they were saying that nothing about God changes,
God's knowledge doesn't change, God's will doesn't change, God doesn't have emotions, because that would be a change.
And God is impassable, that God cannot be affected by creatures. And in particular,
I remember reading J .A. Packer's book, Knowing God, which has lots and lots and lots of good things there.
But in his chapter on prayer, the next to last paragraph says, I know there are passages in Scripture which seem to indicate that God is affected by our prayers.
But that's not true. That, as a young Bible college student, thoroughly unnerved me, and I had to start rethinking things.
Had I been taught to pray incorrectly? Now, that's a genuine possibility that our views of piety are incorrect.
Or was what I was reading in my theology books incorrect? Or perhaps some of both?
But anyway, I began a long process of evaluating these ideas.
And after a number of decades of examining Scripture and thinking particularly about prayer,
I have concluded that God genuinely responds to us. And in terms of researching theology and philosophy and reflecting on our spiritual lives,
I've concluded that we can actually affect God. So then, if that's true, and I take that, then
I work my way to that conclusion, then what else has to be true to follow that?
So what most evangelicals live out in piety, I believe, is correct. And we need to make some corrections in this case, my
Arminian theology, in order to develop a more biblically faithful, logically consistent, and spiritually helpful view of God.
Now, certainly Dr. White thinks it's none of those, but I beg to differ.
A summary of the openness of God. According to openness theology, the triune
God of love has, in almighty power, created all that is, and is sovereign over everything.
In freedom, God decided to create beings capable of experiencing the divine love. God loves us and desires for us to enter into reciprocal relations of love.
Now, here we may disagree. I believe that there's genuine give and take with God. God not only gives, God has self -chosen to receive as well.
It's God's sovereign decision to do it that way. So in creating us, the divine intention was that we would come to experience the triune love and respond to it with love of our own, and come to freely collaborate with God towards the achievement of his goals.
And God has, in sovereign freedom, in my view, decided to make some of his actions contingent upon our requests.
Not that God had to do it that way, but God decided to do it that way. So God elicits our free collaboration in his plans.
Hence, God can be influenced by what we do, and God truly responds to what we do.
There's a genuine interaction of give and take relationship with God. Third, the only wise
God has chosen to exercise a general rather than a meticulous providence.
Now briefly, meticulous providence is an understanding of providence that God is in control of every single detail.
So one illustration of this is Professor R .C. Sproul, who says that if one molecule is running around loose in the universe, then
God isn't God. So that's meticulous providence. I believe in general providence. God sets up the rules by which the creation is going to function, and within those rules, much like rules of a basketball game or rules of performing an opera, there's plenty of freedom within the rules, but there are certain structures that are set up solely by God.
And I believe that one of these, then, is implicit, that God has given us libertarian freedom.
Libertarian freedom means the ability to do otherwise than I did. Even though I was brought up a certain way, even though my church has taught me a certain way,
I still could, even having formed a character, I could act out of character and do otherwise.
So I reject compatibilistic freedom, which Dr. White believes is the biblical view. I think libertarian freedom is the biblical view.
Now, I believe that God usually elicits human cooperation in bringing about what
God wants to see accomplished, but God can intervene directly and unilaterally without us.
He doesn't have to rely upon us, but I believe most of the time God does. So if God wants the hungry fed, he does depend upon us to do it.
Could God just create bread for everybody? Yes, he could do that, but he has chosen not to. In the case of Moses, when
God is seeking to persuade Moses to return to Egypt and serve him, I believe that God is flexible in his plans and that God originally wanted
Moses to speak directly to Pharaoh. Moses says, I'm not a good speaker. God says, how about this?
Your brother Aaron is a good speaker. He got an A in speech class. Tell you what, I'll talk to you. You talk to him.
He'll talk to Pharaoh. So I think that God was flexible in going to Plan B. Fourth, God has granted us the necessary freedom for a truly personal relationship of love to develop.
Despite the fact that humans have abused that freedom by turning away from divine love, God remains faithful to his intentions for creation.
Finally, the omniscient God knows all that is logically possible to know. God knows the past and present with exhaustive, definite knowledge and knows the future as partially definite or closed, settled, and partially indefinite or open and unsettled.
It's not all figured out. The future does not exist. But certain things
God has said, I will bring this about regardless of what humans do. And those things are settled.
There are also other things that are settled unless God intervenes. For instance, a certain earthquake is going to, the big one is going to hit, you know,
Southern California one of these days. And God knows precisely when that will happen unless God intervenes to prevent it.
So I don't believe that God is caught off guard. And this denial of what we would have to be more specifically called exhaustive, definite foreknowledge of future contingent events, that's the most controversial aspect of the openness position.
Now, as Dr. White mentioned, openness is coming out of an
Arminian perspective. However, there are Reformed who are proponents of open theism.
There are particularly Dutch Reformed, Vincent Brummer, University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, my
Dr. Vater in South Africa, University of South Africa, Adjo Kunig is an open theist, and Andrikus Burckhoff, another theologian in the
Netherlands, is also. I'll skip now.
Does the Bible portray God as having full knowledge of the future? Well, let's take a look at some of these.
I believe that there are two kinds of biblical text on this question. One, those where God declares that something will happen, the future is settled or definite, because God says this is going to happen,
I guarantee it, and those where the future is not definite or settled. For instance,
God declares a future event, but whether it comes about or not is conditional upon human action.
So, I believe there are two kinds of text, not just one kind of text in Scripture, but these two kinds.
And what's the best theory, then, to explain both sets of text? For instance,
God uses the word perhaps. He says, perhaps you will do this. Why would
God say perhaps? God uses the word if. For instance, Exodus 4, 2 -9,
Moses says, well, what if the elders don't believe me? God says, okay, here's a sign. If they don't believe you, perform the sign.
And then God says, now here's a second sign. So if they don't believe the first sign, here's a second sign. And if they don't believe those two signs, here's a third sign.
Surely they'll believe those three signs. God uses the word maybe. Maybe this will happen.
Maybe the people will repent and come back. God expects things to happen, and they don't always happen.
For instance, Isaiah 5, 1 -4 speaks of the wild grapes. What God wanted for Israel was to be obedient and be a servant to God, and at that point in their history, they were not.
God says, I planted good grapes, and this is what
I get. God tests individuals and Israel.
Dr. White mentioned Genesis 22, where God tested Abraham. And it's interesting that the only one said to learn anything in that text is not
Abraham, though I'm sure he did learn something, but the text doesn't say Abraham learned anything. But God says, now
I know that you fear me. And I believe there's reasons why God was putting him to the test with Isaac there.
God tests Israel in Exodus 15 and Exodus 33, saying, what am I going to do with you? You're so obstinate.
Okay, put away your jewelry. Put away your celebrating. Let me see.
Are you serious at all? What should I do with you? And other examples like this.
And why would God test them? If God eternally knew with certainty what they would do. Or, even worse in my opinion, if God had eternally ordained what they would do.
Why is he testing them? God is said to grieve in Genesis chapter 6, four through nine.
Why would God grieve if God always knew, and even more forcefully, why would God grieve if what is happening is specifically what
God had ordained to happen? Other biblical texts portray God as changing his mind, or sometimes it's translated repenting.
Actually, a variety of words are used. Genesis 6, I've already mentioned. Exodus 32, God says to Moses, I'm going to start over again with you and make of you a great nation.
And Moses says, please don't do that. And God responds by changing his mind and not bringing about the threat.
1 Samuel 15 .11 and verses 15 .35 also say that God changed his mind about Saul being king.
He rejected Saul from being king. In the protocredal statement in the book of Jonah, when
God asked Jonah, why are you so bent out of shape? And Jonah said, because I knew what kind of God you were.
What kind of God am I? You are a God, and here he goes back to Exodus 34 and quotes it in part and adds to it.
You are a God who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, long in loving kindness, and one who changes his mind.
See, Jonah didn't want God to change his mind. He wants the Ninevites toasted, which is why he ran the other way.
But because the people repented, God changed his mind about the judgment. Now, sometimes
God changes his mind simply because nothing changes in the human situation, but God changes it.
Judges 10, Hosea 11. I believe that the Bible portrays God as authentically responding to his people's petitions.
I already brought up Exodus 4, where Aaron is brought in as a response to Moses' felt needs.
2 Kings 20 speaks of Hezekiah's prayer, where the prophet Isaiah announced,
Thus says Yahweh, thus says the Lord, you will not recover from this illness, you will die.
Hezekiah prays. Isaiah is sent back to the king and says, Thus says Yahweh, thus says the Lord, you will recover from this illness.
I think God is responding to Hezekiah's prayer and doing what he wouldn't have done.
God wouldn't, I believe, have healed him had Hezekiah not responded in a faithful prayer. And I believe these kinds of activities are also found with the
Canaanite woman in her request in Matthew 15 and in Mark 6, where Jesus wanted to perform certain healings, but the lack of faith in the people prevented him.
I also believe that God sometimes cancels what he had apparently unconditionally promised because of a change in human behavior.
Two examples. 1 Samuel 2, verse 30. He says to the prophet
Eli, I know that I promised that you and your sons afterwards would be priests continually in Israel.
He says, but far be it from me, your sons have turned out to be so incredibly wicked, I reject them and your line from the priesthood.
1 Samuel 13, 13 says that God, his original plan was that Saul would be king and there was to be no
David. He said if you had obeyed, then this would have been the kingdom. And we would be talking about a
Saulite kingdom. Instead of a Davidic kingdom. I don't believe that God was being deceitful here.
I think he was telling us the truth about who he is and how he's relating. I believe that God is portraying, the scriptures are portraying
God in give and take dynamic relationships with us. And we can talk about divine accommodation.
I'm sure we'll get into that. So I believe that there are passages where God declares what will happen, and it does.
And there are passages where God declares what will happen, and it does not, in fact, happen.
Jonah is, of course, the classic case of that. He declared unconditionally this is what's going to happen, and it didn't happen. Ezekiel 26, verses 7 and following predict that Nebuchadnezzar is going to conquer the cities of Tyre and Sidon.
But then we learn in chapter 29 that he does not. Even though God had said in Ezekiel 26 that he would, and he didn't.
So everybody has to explain these texts. They're there in the scripture, and the question is how do we best explain them?
Now, moving from scripture, I believe that there are also theological, philosophical arguments for this position.
And here we would have to go back to the formation of certain views that developed starting somewhat in the latter early church, particularly in the
Middle Ages through Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. And certain divine attributes came to be commonly accepted.
In fact, they would be shocked to find out that most evangelicals don't affirm all of these. For instance, the doctrine of simplicity, that God has no component parts.
God is a wholly unified being. However you talk about one aspect of God, if you're going to talk about different aspects of God, you have to talk about all of them the same way.
Impassibility, that God cannot be affected by us, and in particular,
God cannot suffer in any respect. Divine immutability. Here the question is precisely what is meant by immutability.
Strong immutability says God cannot change in any respect. That would include emotions.
God has no emotions. This is the way that the latter Augustine and Calvin and Aquinas certainly understand it.
A different way of defining immutability is to say that the divine nature doesn't change, the divine character doesn't change, but God can change in certain respects.
The issue of divine timelessness. Dr. White has brought that up, and it is a central issue here.
Is God timeless? Is that the best way to understand the biblical narrative? Or does the biblical narrative portray
God as having a history, and particularly a history with his people? And does God genuinely experience time?
Now, well then, wait a minute. Time was created, so God would be captured by the creation.
No. Time as part of eternal consciousness between the triune persons of the
Godhead is eternal. Time as a measurement that we use doesn't come into being until there's a creation.
So we have to understand different understandings of time. And then finally, the doctrine of exhaustive definite foreknowledge of all future contingent events.
And here there are different views. Dr. White has laid out the view that God knows the future because God has ordained all the future.
Most of the early Church Fathers prior to Augustine and then Arminius and Wesley... Hi. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Sanders. Dr. White would now like to...
We have gathered here this evening, I hope, to look especially to what the Word of God says concerning these issues, and so I want to especially focus upon biblical passages that have been presented.
And of course, in a debate, it is very difficult to get to everything that has been presented by the other speaker, and so I will try to exercise some level of brevity in providing these responses.
Dr. Sanders speaks of what most people live out in their piety, in their prayer lives, is what is being presented as open theism, this idea that our prayers impact
God. But of course, I would point out that as we are conformed to God's will, as we pray the prayer that asks that God would conform us to His will, we will of necessity see
God working that will in our lives and all around us. Hence, God does not change.
We are the ones who change, but our perspective being time -bound would lead us, if we ignore biblical revelation concerning God's timeless nature, that it is
God who has changed. But this is an issue, again, of perspective. And when we want to know about our
God, we need to ask what the entirety of the Word of God says, which is why we must engage in exegesis of these passages that have been presented already this evening.
And I trust that Dr. Sanders will do so during his rebuttal period. Dr. Sanders speaks of our having real interaction with God.
This is a common phrase in open theistic literature that we offer real interaction while the other perspective does not have real interaction.
I think that is something that I addressed in my open statement, that the idea of real interaction based upon a certain definition of God sort of unfairly stacks the deck, shall we say.
I believe that we have real interaction with God, but why does that require us to sacrifice the very attribute of God that He gives us by which we can differentiate
Him from false gods? Why is it that God's eternal decree, when it interacts with time, cannot be real to us and real to Him?
I think we're saying, well, God needs to experience things the way we experience things for that to be real.
And I do not believe that that is a proper way of approaching this. We heard something about libertarian freedom, and I would like to just remind everyone who is listening this evening, in Genesis 50, verse 20,
Joseph recognized that he had learned something in his life that I think we need to understand as well. For when his brothers fall in fear before him, their father having died, now they fearing that Joseph is going to take retribution upon them for having sold him into slavery, what does he say?
He recognizes a divine truth. He says, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.
The parallel in the Hebrew is very, very clear. In one action, the intention of the hearts of his brothers was evil, but the intention of God was just as much there, but it was holy and just and right.
He goes on to say, to save many people alive to this day. God had a purpose. God knew what was coming.
God knew the future, and He acted in such a way, even in the sinful actions of man. Now, that is not something that fits well with the libertarian concept.
God cannot be involved in an action that is certain from His perspective, and libertarianism continue to exist.
The same is true in Isaiah chapter 10. Here you have the Assyrians being brought against Israel as God's means of punishing
Israel. And yet, in Isaiah chapter 10, verse 7 we read, yet it does not so intend, nor does it plan so in its heart, but rather it is its purpose to destroy and to cut off many nations.
In this passage, we have a clear presentation of the fact that while God uses Assyria, He then judges the
Assyrian king based upon the evil intentions of his heart. He does not glorify God. And therefore, even though God says,
I'm bringing Assyria against you for my purpose and my intention, I am then going to punish the
Assyrians for the intentions of their hearts. How do we understand this in a libertarian concept, especially in an open theistic concept, where God, in Isaiah 10,
He says, I'm bringing Assyria. What if the Assyrian king had had a free will libertarian decision to not come against Israel?
This would not only render Isaiah a false prophet, but would leave God without an ability to punish His people.
All of these cause great problems for that perspective. And of course, Acts chapter 4, verses 27 -28, the early church gathering in prayer recognizes the utter sovereignty of God, recognizes that what
Pilate did, and what Herod did, and what the Jewish people did, and what the Gentiles did in the crucifixion of the very
Son of God was what God's purpose had predestined to take place. Now we know that these involved sinful actions on their part, and literally myriads of allegedly free will actions in the libertarian perspective which cannot be known to God.
How can these words be understood? That will be a question that we will be asking a lot this evening.
We heard that sometimes God goes to plan B. Again, from our perspective, that may very well be the case.
However, are we really to believe that when God sends Jonah to Nineveh, that God did not have the book of Jonah in mind?
God did not have the principle enunciated in Jeremiah chapter 18 in mind? Certainly Jonah did.
Jonah understood that God is a merciful God. Jonah understood that when God proclaims judgment, if there is repentance, isn't that the purpose for which
Jonah was sent in the first place? You see, again, it's just all this matter of, well, from our perspective, it looks like.
But you see, we must recognize the limitation of our perspective, and when we have clear revelation, as in the passages just offered to you in Genesis 50 or Isaiah 41 or wherever it might be, that speaks of God's decree and his timeless being and his knowledge of future events, we have to put them all together, and that's what
Christian theology has done down through the ages in affirming these particular issues. Now, we did hear that there are some reformed open theists.
Well, again, we had a little discussion about this last night when we debated inclusivism, and at that point
I expressed a little bit of surprise because if we are going to define the reformed faith in any type of historical way, then part and parcel of that faith is
God's specific electing of a people in Jesus Christ unto salvation, not just simply an amorphous mass, but reformed people tend to believe that God knew us, and in fact that's one of the glories of the truth of election, is that when we look at the golden chain of redemption in Romans 8, 29 -30, that foreknowledge that was his is not some bare knowledge of the existence of a group, it is intensely personal.
Those whom he foreknew, he foreloved, he chose to enter into relationship with, he predestined, called, justified, and glorified.
And so, on an open theistic ground, God could not know that any one of us would ever exist when he created.
God could not know that any one of you would ever exist since you are the result of numerous, allegedly unknowable free will actions of creatures down through the course of many generations.
The very fact that any of us are still here is due to many free will actions. If you're an older person, the reason you've reached your age is because you have engaged in certain decisions that have given you certain longevity.
If you had started eating potato chips when you were 14 and sat on the couch the whole time, you probably wouldn't be 70 today.
How can God have any specific knowledge of the existence of any future individuals if, in fact, the decisions made by libertarianly free creatures is unknown to God?
And so, to say that there can be a coalescence here is to say that, well, you're reformed in what you call yourself, but that sort of robs the term of its meaning, especially in light of the necessity of that call of election and that decree of election.
Now, we heard there's two kinds of texts that address these issues. I actually think there's more than that.
In fact, Dr. Bruce Ware has addressed this issue in his book, God's Lesser Glory, and he points out that one of the kinds of predictive prophecies, for example, in Scripture, are those predictive prophecies that specifically deal with things that God is going to do in the future that involve myriads of free will choices on the part of His creatures.
God makes predictions, not just going, well, I'm going to try to do this, but He says,
I am going to do this, and it involves many free will decisions, which open theists tell us, if God is going to actually really fall into this pattern, libertarian free will decisions cannot be known to Him.
That's the whole criticism that open theism offers of its Arminian brothers is, hey, if you believe
God knows where you're going to go to dinner tonight after the debate, then you don't have any freedom. You don't have any choice.
That's where you're going to go, where God's exhaustive divine foreknowledge becomes invalidated. Well, there are numerous examples.
One that has been batted about a good bit is the existence of the name of Cyrus in Isaiah 45 .1.
Now, some people just dismiss that as, that's Deutero -Isaiah, has nothing to do with it, but if you take all of Isaiah as Scripture and allow it to stand within its one context, how could
God know that Cyrus would be the one that would deliver His people? I mean, think of all the free will decisions that go into the existence of Cyrus, let alone the naming of Cyrus.
I mean, couldn't Cyrus' parents have made the free will decision to move someplace else?
Maybe they'd make the free will decision to attend the chariot races, and there's a terrible accident, and they get killed, and there's no
Cyrus. I mean, all of these things are possible, and what if they woke up the morning they were supposed to name
Cyrus, and they stepped upon a little toy from one of his brothers or sisters that had been made by someone named
Cyrus, and so they're mad about it, and so they don't name him Cyrus. I mean, all of these are possibilities in an open future, and every single one of them would invalidate the existence of divine prophecy.
God can't know these things from the open theistic perspective. So, in essence, we would have to say,
God can't give that kind of information. It seems that what was suggested is, for example,
Ezekiel 26 -29, if you take them as a body of text, the texts do say that Nebuchadnezzar and his vassal kings are going to do certain things.
That's how that passage has been understood down through history, but it almost sounds like what's being said is, yeah,
God has messed up in the past. He has told his people he was going to do something, and, well, he just couldn't get it done.
He tried. It was the best information he could offer at that time, and, in fact, that raises,
I think, probably, I don't think that Dr. Boyd intended this, but Gregory Boyd's example of Susanne, a woman that married a man after much counseling and fasting and prayer, and this man turned out to be unfaithful, and he left her and abandoned her, and there was a divorce, and there was great heartache.
And the counsel that's given to Susanne is, she says, if I didn't hear from God, then
I can't hear from God. And the response from the open theistic perspective, and I'll be interested to see if Dr.
Sanders would take this perspective in counseling this woman himself, was, you did hear from God.
God did tell you to marry this man. God didn't know what he was going to do. It was God's best understanding that he was the best man for you.
And so God did tell you to marry, and now God will try to help you to put your life back together again if you'll but trust him.
But you did hear from God. What kind of assurance does that give us?
What kind of impact does that have upon the Christian faith and upon the promises of God?
Not only in regards to eschatology itself and the completion of all things, but what about our own lives?
What kind of assurance can be given to someone who says, I heard from God, and God told me to do this, and it brought tremendous, meaningless, unforeseen, purposeless pain to me, and yet God then says, continue to trust me, but I might do it again?
That is not the kind of assurance that is given to us in the pages of Scripture. Now, someone might say, well, what would you say?
I don't believe there is any such thing as purposeless or meaningless evil or pain in this universe.
Now, you may ask me, that means you know the purpose of everything? No, I do not. But I can guarantee you one thing.
When God created, if it was a simple possibility that evil and all the things that would flow from it would exist, and yet he did so in a risk model, then
I would say that he is considerably more accountable for having done that than for saying that God has a purpose in all things that will result in his own glorification, the creation of a people in Christ Jesus.
I think it is a tremendous thing to affirm what the Scriptures themselves say,
God works all things after the counsel of his will. That becomes the very basis upon which we can offer hope to anyone.
And so these issues are extremely important. Yes, it is important for Abraham to be tested upon the mount, but are we really to believe that God, who we are told had exhaustive knowledge of what
Abraham's character was, somehow needed to learn something about Abraham? Isn't there something more going on here in the interaction between God and Abraham than God trying to find out if Abraham is going to be faithful to a program, especially in light of the assertion that Abraham simply could have chosen to be unfaithful to time in the future, making the entire test null and void?
I certainly think that that is the case. And so we need to go back to the word of God, and we need to listen to all that it says.
And we need to remember that we are creatures, and when the word reveals to us, sort of draws aside the veil of eternity, so we can see
God acting in eternity, we dare not pull that veil back and say, that makes me uncomfortable.
I want you to have the same limitations that I have. We dare not do that in speaking of our
God. Thank you. Well, first of all, let me suggest to you that there are things that a timeless deity cannot do.
And I'm not really going off of my own view on this. I'm actually referring to the classic argument on eternity by Norman Kretzmann and Eleanor Stump, two well -known classical theists.
And they say that a timeless mind cannot deliberate, anticipate, remember, or plan ahead.
Those things are just logically inconsistent with divine timelessness. And so also questions arise whether it can be coherently said of a timeless being that he has changing emotions, responds to prayers, or acts at one time to create and at another time to become incarnate.
It makes no sense to attribute any kind of change to a timeless being. And in fact, the great classical theists, such as Calvin, understood that.
Now, another thing I want to address is why open theists are moving from the traditional
Arminian view of simple foreknowledge. Dr. White mentioned one of these, and I want to mention some others.
First, simple foreknowledge is the view that God does not know the future because God determines or ordains the future.
God knows the future by simply provisioning the future. He timelessly sees it.
The typical image is God stands, a person on a mountain, seeing the flow of history and sees it all at once.
That's the traditional Arminian view. Hence, God knows it, but he doesn't cause it to happen. Now, I believe that simple foreknowledge has problems accounting for the kinds of biblical texts that I mentioned earlier and that I refer to in my book.
Now, many open theists use this argument, which Dr. White mentioned, and that was that if God knows the future, then it's determined.
Many open theists agree with our Calvinist colleagues on that, that, yeah, the only way
God could know that is because he had ordained everything that happened. I myself have never used that argument.
I'm sort of an odd duck open theist in that respect. I've never used it. Instead, I've used the third argument, and that is that the traditional
Arminian view of foreknowledge is useless. Yep, useless for providence.
It doesn't do God any good to have it. Just knowing what's going to happen doesn't do you any good in terms of helping you to change anything.
One Arminian, classic Arminian proponent put it this way. Well, yes, simple foreknowledge is important because if God sees that an earthquake is going to happen in Italy at a certain time and certain people are going to be killed or certain people are going to be gunned down by a sniper in Washington, D .C.,
well, then God can use his foreknowledge to change those things and make them not happen.
Well, a moment's reflection will tell you that that's simply incoherent because if God only has true knowledge, whatever
God has knowledge of can't be false, can't ever be changed.
Then what God knows is that those people die in the earthquake or die from the sniper. That's what he has eternally provisioned.
He can't change that from happening. And so this view of foreknowledge, which is perhaps the most popular view of omniscience in terms of applying it to foreknowledge throughout church history, the simple foreknowledge view started with the early church fathers, has been held by the
Eastern Orthodox Church through to today. It's popular by many Roman Catholics and, of course, in the
Arminian -Wesleyan tradition. But I believe it's useless. Now, some specifics about comments that Dr.
White made. Let me say that I believe
I do understand why my view is scandalous to him. He says that he is committed to a particular view of sovereignty and a particular view of omnipotence and a particular understanding of omniscience.
And I believe in this he brings out the central issue that divides he and I. I don't think the central issue, even though the question of the night is the exhaustive definite foreknowledge of all future contingent events,
I think the central issue, the watershed issue, is whether God exercises meticulous providence or whether God exercises general providence, whether humans have compatibilistic freedom, whether humans have libertarian freedom.
I believe that's the watershed. Or to put it differently, does God ever respond to us?
Is God ever affected by what we do? Those kinds of questions. Now, he believes that biblical truths are simply compatibilistic freedom, meticulous providence, total depravity, etc.
Well, I'm not going to change his mind unless God sovereignly wills to change his mind,
I suppose. That my broadly
Arminian perspective on these biblical truths is correct. On Isaiah, he kind of dissed my explanation of it, so it's not going to do me any good to repeat it, but I'll repeat it for you.
In Isaiah 46, 9 through 11, the point that God brings up is he tells the idols of Baal and that, do something.
Come on. Say you're going to do something and do it. Let's say if you have the power to pull it off, and they don't have the power to pull it off.
Only Yahweh has the power to pull it off. And so in Isaiah, verse 46, 11,
God says, I'm going to say I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do it. And so I believe the question really is divine omnipotence, not foreknowledge.
Let me also admit that open theists, including myself, don't have everything figured out.
We are working with some new ideas. We're trying them out in terms of a research program.
And it takes time and many good questions. Dr. White is asking me many good questions. I'm going, yeah,
OK, good question. I need to work on that. Those things are fine and dandy. But I would just remind you that Calvinism was not built in a day either.
Regarding Peter, well, I believe that Jesus' prediction about Peter's denial was conditional.
That is, even though it's not stated as a conditional, it's much like he said with Jonah. He said, well, of course
Jonah's conditional. It's unstated conditional. And I believe the same is about Jesus.
Now, we're so used to saying that any prediction that came to pass wasn't conditional. Well, if it came to pass, then it had to be an unconditional prediction.
And I'm saying, why couldn't it have been a conditional prediction? I believe those in Ezekiel were conditional predictions.
So I don't have a problem. See, I'm not saying God messed up, which he suggested I'm saying. I'm not saying that.
Those were conditional. And they were unstated conditionals and the conditional element didn't materialize because Nebuchadnezzar couldn't take the cities.
So do I believe that Jesus was risking being a false prophet? No, I don't think
Jesus was risking being a false prophet, unless you want to push the test of a prophet from Deuteronomy 18 to,
I think, an absurd position. And that is, if a prophet ever said anything that didn't come to pass, the person is a false prophet.
Well, then Jonah was a false prophet and many others. And I just don't believe that's the true test of a prophet, that they can state things conditionally.
Then, moving on to, our ways are not his ways,
Isaiah 55. And I certainly affirm the passage of Isaiah 55.
God's ways are not our ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways than our ways.
OK, fine. But if you read to the end of the passage of his ways are not our ways,
God's ways are different from ours because he's a forgiving God. Whereas if it was up to me in that situation,
I would have torched him. So it's a good thing I'm not God. God is the one who forgives sinners.
Who then says to them, to the people of Isaiah's day, come back to me, though your sins are as scarlet,
I'll make them white as snow. I will forgive you. That's why your ways and my ways are not
God's ways. Because God is a God who forgives. I don't think this is a general, even though we use it all the time, is a general platitude about divine ineffability.
Well, God's just beyond us. You have to be careful about how far you want to push ineffability. Just how far beyond human language do we want to go?
Do we want to go to Theravada Buddhism? Nirvana is completely beyond human language.
We can't talk about it, can't think about it. Advaita Hinduism. Is that what Dr. White is saying?
Well, certainly he's not. He believes we do know things about God. So I believe that God comes to us, puts things in our lingo, and we must remember,
I don't think I'm bringing God down to my level. I think that God made us in the image of God, and God relates to us on our level because God is the ultimate or consummate missionary.
He speaks our language. Well, it's suggested that we shouldn't put our limitations on God.
Well, I don't think I'm putting limitations on God. Here we just beg to differ.
I believe that this is the way God actually is. I don't think I'm putting limitations on who
God can be. God can be whoever God is. Well, that's, I believe, who God is, the
God of Scripture. Now, if you want to say, well, you can't have any limitations with God.
No limitations? Hmm. Would God being a personal being and not being an impersonal being be a limitation?
Isn't God limited if we say God's personal? God is not a force. God isn't like gravity. God has consciousness.
So there is no logically unqualified concept of God. Now, he brings up Calvin's statement that God lists to us.
And I can say, yeah, God accommodates to us, okay. He says, so be careful not to make
God time -bound. Well, first of all, I want to mention to you a nice book called
God and Time, Four Views, published by InterVarsity Press. You might want to look at those different understandings of time sometime.
And my second question about Calvin is this. How does Calvin know that God is accommodating here and not telling us the truth?
How does God know, or how does Calvin know that God is lisping? He says, God is talking like a nursemaid talks to a child.
Well, fine. When you see a parent talking baby talk, you know, you get your toddler, oh, come on, baby, could you do that?
You know the parent is not talking adult English. Why? Because you know what adult
English is. And you know that person is not speaking adult English. So in order to know that one of the biblical writers is speaking baby talk and lisping, you have to know the adult
God language. Where did you get that knowledge of adult God language from?
So I don't think I'm bending scripture to fit my views of libertarian freedom. I believe that the scriptures teach libertarian freedom.
Now, do I have a reputation of compatibilistic freedom? No, I don't think one exists. I just say,
Arminians, we say the Bible teaches libertarian freedom, and that's it. So I don't think
I'm conforming God to my image. I believe that God has made us in the divine image in the sense that we can know certain things about God.
And God comes to us, and this is who God is, and the way God is.
I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Dr. Seuss. Would you please join me in thanking these two gentlemen for preparing for this debate?
A couple of things. First thing is I believe I've lost about five pounds since I've been up here, and Dr.
Sanders, I believe, as well, and he's withering away to nothing. If someone could check on the air conditioning for us, because we're gleaning right now up here.
Second thing is we're going to take a five -minute break right now, so if you need to use facilities or get some water or something else, please do so.
And we'll be coming back then, and we will start what is most everybody's favorite part, the cross -examination.
So we'll give you five minutes from now. I'll start really with one of the last statements that you made,
Dr. Sanders, when I presented some passages in regards to compatibilism, and you said, well,
I don't have a reputation of that. I start from the Arminian perspective.
Is it your position that the scriptures are insufficient to tell us which model is true, and if so, upon what basis then do we decide or determine what the truth is in this matter?
Thank you. What I meant by reputation was really a philosophical reputation.
There are books on libertarian freedom.
There are books on compatibilistic freedom. And one I'd highly recommend is Peter von
Inwagen at the University of Notre Dame, an essay on free will, where he goes through the arguments for both sides.
So I just don't think there's a clear -cut philosophical there. I can settle it, and so compatibilism is false.
In terms of the scripture, well, we're both reading scripture. Wesley and Calvin are both reading scripture on John 3 .16.
They both accept it as truth. They both accept it as authority. But they come to very different understandings of John 3 .16.
So is it your position then that, for example, in Genesis 50, verse 20, when the scriptures record for us
Joseph's words, you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good, how do you understand that?
Yeah. Well, here you're going to stretch my memory and try to remember what I did right about it. Let me get out the scripture index and find out.
It's page 55. What I suggested was that here, if I remember correctly at all, that there are certain indicators or clues in the
Genesis text as to what is going on. And so I don't see
Joseph as issuing a deterministic kind of statement there. Okay. Do you mind if I quote you?
Go ahead. Okay. Since I had the freedom to look it up. It is the glory of God to be able to bring good out of evil human actions, but nothing in the text demands the interpretation that God actually desired the sinful acts.
The text does not say that God caused or necessitated the events. But isn't it the case that Joseph specifically says that God intended this for good, to save many people alive today?
What did God intend? And here, let me just first of all admit that this passage is one of the premier texts that are used for the meticulous providence view.
It doesn't happen to be a favorite text of the general sovereignty view. Well, that's just the way it is.
And so the explanation that I give to that in my book is likely going to sound to you very stretched, and I would understand that.
Well, I guess really the fundamental question that I'm getting to is you've raised a number of philosophical issues.
You were talking about things a timeless being cannot do, so on and so forth. But in my opening statement,
I made the assertion that we have to go to the text of Scripture as our primary focus. And my concern is that Genesis 50 .20
says, As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive.
I would assume that an exegesis of Genesis 50 .20
could be offered that is compatible with a libertarian perspective if a person who is a libertarian claims their position is biblical.
Are you claiming that yours is biblical, or at least that it can be made to fit biblical data, but it doesn't actually derive from biblical data?
No, I think it does derive from biblical data, but it's going to come out of other kinds of passages that Arminians, I mean this is nothing new, that Arminians traditionally appeal to, you know, whosoever will, the invitations, that kind of stuff, are read in a certain way.
And Calvinists read them a very different way. You want to, in my opinion, what you're suggesting is,
I'm not accepting the authority of Scripture, that somehow I don't take the
Bible seriously. And on so many different theological issues throughout the history of the
Church, where there are various positions, one may say, well, the clear teaching of Scripture is this.
I wouldn't even say that my own position, that I can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt from Scripture.
But I don't believe yours can be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt from Scripture either. I guess
I'm advocating a degree of epistemic humility in terms of what I claim to know.
Do I believe my position is right and I believe it's biblical? Yes. Would you claim this epistemic humility for the assertion that Jesus Christ is very
God of very God? Very God and very man. Very God of very God, the deity of Jesus Christ, a biblical teaching.
Is it epistemically humble to say maybe, maybe not? I mean, there's
Arius and there's, you know, the modalists and Sabellianism.
There's all sorts of different takes on that. If we take that perspective, how far do we take this epistemic humility?
Well, if we go back to, I believe, the reformer's doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture, it is not that every passage or every doctrine of Scripture is clear, but rather the main teachings of Scripture are clear.
And those, I would say, are that God is the creator. Humans are sinners.
God has come to redeem us specifically in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the second, you know, the
Son of God incarnate. I think those teachings are clear. Okay. Could I ask how you understand, then, one of the chief passages that I presented in my opening statement?
That is specifically Isaiah chapter 41. You indicated that I had dissed your explanation of Isaiah 46.
Actually, I didn't. I just cited it as an indication of something else. But I didn't see any discussion in at least the
God Who Risks of Isaiah chapter 41, especially verses 22 and 23, which specifically say, let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place, as for the former events what they were, that we may consider them and know their outcome, or announce to us what is coming, declare the things that are going to come afterwards, that we may know that you are gods.
What do you feel is wrong about the assertion that I and many others make that this ability to declare what is going to take place is one of the key indications of deity itself?
Well, I believe that, again, the issue in these chapters of Isaiah is one of can you do it, can you pull it off, can your gods say something is going to happen and bring it about?
And the answer is no. So, again, I think that the issue is really one of divine power, not one of God simply knowing, oh, that's going to happen, so let me tell you it's going to happen, and that will prove
I'm God. Okay, but so it is your understanding then that it says declare to us what is going to take place, and is it your perspective that God can declare to us what is going to take place if that includes the activities of libertarian free will?
Okay, if it involves libertarian freedom and God does not remove the libertarian freedom, because I believe
God can do that and has done that, but if it involves God leaving the human with libertarian freedom, then
God, in my opinion, would not make such a prediction unconditionally, even though it might be stated unconditionally, there would still be a conditional element there.
However, God can remove human freedom, or if God wants to bring it about unilaterally, think I can declare it, and then the issue is, if I want to make it back to Tampa tonight safe,
I can wish that, but assume I could crash into the car and I could be killed.
But if God wants to make it to Tampa tonight, there's nobody to prevent God from doing that.
Okay, in regards to, for example, Cyrus, how do you understand that in light of what you just said?
Isn't the naming of a child a part of that libertarian free will? And if God removed the libertarian free will, then are you saying you disagree with Pinnock and Boyd and others that that then dehumanizes us, makes us less than persons?
Okay, a couple of things. One, open theists don't necessarily agree on how to interpret every passage, just like all
Calvinists don't agree on how to interpret every passage. So with Cyrus, Boyd, for instance, tends to say that God removed the free will.
That God removed his free will in order to bring that about.
Go ahead and finish. Okay, but now I forgot my second point. You were then going to,
I think, mention Pinnock's view maybe. You said Boyd said that he did remove libertarian free will.
Oh, and then Pinnock's statement about doesn't this degrade, how would he put it?
It was a person -destroying type of knowledge. A person -destroying. I would think that if God did it habitually, that would do it.
But Clark has a way with flair that I would prefer to be more censorious.
Okay. Your turn. Well, thank you very much, because I do think you're raising good questions and issues.
Let me ask you this. Do you believe that God can receive anything? Receive anything, like glory?
Yes. Another way of putting it, is God affected by anything that creatures do?
Well, if you mean affected in the sense of receiving glory from us, that he interacts with us in time,
I firmly believe that, yes. Okay. So then would you disagree that God is impassable?
No, I would not. I don't believe that there's a contradiction between the two. I mean, I certainly am aware that those who have held to divine impassability have discussed the fact that we're, first of all, you have to differentiate between change and the being of God.
And then all through my opening statement, I was trying to very clearly make the assertion that I firmly believe that God, even though he has a sovereign and eternal decree, which creates the very fabric and warp and woof of time.
As a part of his decree is his interaction with us in time.
And that the issue is one of perspective. We don't have the perspective to be able to step out of time and to see the mechanics of the interaction of God's decree with time.
We can only see it from one perspective. My point that I've tried to communicate, and if I've failed,
I apologize, but my point has been that it's the scriptures only, which is why we have to keep going back to it, that can give us the information that keeps us from making the mistake of making conclusions based solely upon our time -bound perspective.
Okay, this takes me to, I guess, a question I wasn't going to ask, but do you believe then that it's okay to affirm contradictory doctrines?
Not at all. Okay, so you don't think it's contradictory, it just looks contradictory to us? Oh no, I do not believe it's contradictory at all.
I think there's no more contradiction between God's impassibility and the fact that he's glorified by us in time as to say that there are three divine persons and one divine being.
Because obviously I'm differentiating between various terms in that statement that does not render them contradictory at all, no sir.
Okay, well then I have to admit that I'm lost. I can understand how the
Holy Trinity is not a logical contradiction, but if one affirms that God is affected by us and also affirms impassibility that God is not affected by us, that seems to be a contradiction.
Possibly because you're assuming that when I say affected by us that we somehow create, by some autonomous external force, a change in the being character of God.
I'm not saying that. My assertion has been from the beginning that when God interacts with me, when
God, for example, prompted me, as you mentioned a bit of your personal testimony, when
God prompted me as a young man in high school to abandon my desire to enter into the
Air Force Academy and instead to pursue ministerial work,
I don't believe that that was an impersonal thing. I believe that God was very real to me in that experience of studying
His Word and prayer and all those things. I just don't believe that that makes me somehow an autonomous creature that's changing
God. Again, it's perspective. We cannot step outside of time to see how this eternal decree, which involves
God's interaction with me in calling me into the ministry, we can't see the mechanics of how that works, but the
Bible reveals to us in the very passages I've tried to present that it's real. Therefore, I go with sola scriptura and tota scriptura.
Scripture is the sole rule of faith and all of Scripture. I think I've tried to make my assertion fairly clear that I believe that open theism is basically saying those passages that violate our fundamental assertion on this issue don't say what
I think any exegesis of the text reveals that they say. Would you affirm or deny that God is ever grieved and experiences a change in emotion?
Again, the Scripture says that the Holy Spirit is grieved and God is grieved at Israel and all of those things.
That is our experience of God's interaction with us. Not our experience. It's God's.
Again, I have to allow for the biblical revelation to determine my answers here because I know what's being asked.
In the biblical context, God says that He was grieved over many things, including Saul and the sins of Israel and all those things.
So in that biblical context, He certainly is. So God actually is grieved?
What do you mean by actually? Not just from our point of view, but in reality. Again, if you are then saying that you are going to transfer your understanding of being grieved onto God in the sense that He repents as man repents or that He is disappointed in the way that a man is disappointed, that's where I would point you to the reality of God's own statements in Isaiah 55.
I don't think it's just about salvation that He was talking about there. I think the principles that He enunciates there are relevant to salvation and forgiveness, even though we're to be forgiving just as God is.
But I think it goes far beyond that because Isaiah 55 comes after Isaiah 41 through 48.
And so I would, again, the reason I'm saying it the way I'm saying it is I want to allow those texts to speak without throwing out
Hosea, without throwing out the statement that God is not man, etc., etc. How much time do we have?
Three minutes. Three minutes. Well, you spoke of divine accommodation and certainly…
I'm sorry, divine what? Divine accommodation, you know, God accommodates to us. And that's not a new concept.
I mean, it's been used very early on. To my knowledge,
Philo of Alexandria is the first one to really make use of that. You mean my statement from Calvin that God lisps?
Yes. Okay. So do you have a criteria by which to differentiate in Scripture which passages of Scripture are not the way
God actually is but only appear to be to us and which passages of Scripture God actually, you know, that's,
God is this way? Yeah, and that's why I keep coming back to this particular point because when you made that I even noted here how does
Calvin know? Dash, tota, scriptura. I believe that Calvin knew by the fact that there is in the
Scriptures teaching concerning God in regards to his divine knowledge and his will and his purpose and the passages that we've talked about in Isaiah 41 or Genesis 50 where the exegesis of the text tells us
X. And therefore when we encounter passages that say X subprime one then we allow all of Scripture to speak with authority to us.
I do not go out of sight of Scripture and try to create a criteria that I then import into Scripture based upon whatever philosophical presuppositions
I find out there and say, well, this is where God's speaking literally and this is where God's speaking non -literally.
And I think that's what has happened in regards to some of these passages that we have attempted to bring up is that this is an external criterion that's been brought in, not an internal criterion.
I really believe in the perspicuity of Scripture but I believe that that requires us to look at all of what
Scripture has to say. But how do you determine in Scripture which passages?
I mean, is there a principle in Scripture that tells you this is how you should read it? In the same way that if I'm reading
The God Who Risks by John Sanders I think that your writing has sufficient clarity to tell me when you're telling me exactly what you believe and when you don't believe and what you don't believe.
I think God's Word has that same level of clarity. There may be many people who have written from non -biblical perspectives and have muddied the waters but I don't think that muddies the text of Scripture at all.
Okay, but I'm still confused in my density here. Calvin, for instance, says in his commentary on Genesis, well, of course
God doesn't grieve. In his commentary on Jeremiah he brings up the same point because he says that would be improper for God.
It would be impious for us to assert such things of God. And yet the
Scriptures are asserting those. So my question is, well, what in Scripture do you use to say, well,
I know that passage is anthropomorphic and that this one is not anthropomorphic? Well, for example, to use a passage that we have been looking at, when
God gives to his people the criterion by which to recognize a false god so that they may worship him in truth,
I believe that that criterion then should be taken very literally. And hence when he says those who choose you are an abomination because you don't know the future, then that obviously tells us that this is something that we are to be able to take and apply to the gods that are being presented to the people of God that they allegedly are to be able to worship.
Thank you. Dr. Sanders, you wrote on page 100 of your book,
The God Who Risks, with reference to Jesus' prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wrestles with God's will because he does not believe that everything must happen according to a predetermined plan.
Even the Son of God must search and seek for the Father's will, for the Son is not following a script, but is living in dynamic relationship with the
Father. Could you explain your words in light of Mark 10, verses 33 -34, which states the words of Jesus, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the
Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the
Gentiles. They will mock him and spit on him and scourge him and kill him, and three days later he will rise again.
How do your words fit with Mark 10? Well, I do believe that Jesus has an idea of what's coming in terms of the closer you get to the passion.
But what I'm wrestling with here, and I may be not understanding the prayers in Gethsemane, but I'm trying to wrestle with them to see what is going on here.
What is Jesus asking? What is he praying? I think he does know the cross. I think the question that he's now asking is, okay, is that unconditionally the way it has to be?
Is that conditionally the way it has to be? And it seems to me the Father's answer is, it's unconditionally the way it has to be.
Okay, but then in Mark 10, when
Jesus himself says to the disciples, this is what's going to happen, would you consider this to be a situation where God removes libertarian free will from all those that are involved?
Or is this conditional prophecy? Again, not all open theists are going to agree with me here, but my tendency would be to read it as a conditional statement.
Where are the conditions in Mark 10, verses 33 through 34? Well, where are the conditions in Jonah? It's not stated.
It's not stated. So when Jesus says, the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, they will condemn him to death, will hand him over to the
Gentiles, they'll mock him, spit on him, discourage him, and kill him. Three days later, he will rise again. Are all those conditional statements?
They would be conditional at this point, unless, and it has happened in Jonah's case,
God could intervene. God could step in and do something different, but we know in retrospect that the
Father isn't going to do that. He doesn't do that. Okay. You said also in your book, you noted the words of Luke in reference to the crucifixion of Christ, such as Acts 2, 23, 24, 27, 28, in which it is said that Herod and Pontius Pilate and the
Gentiles and the peoples of Israel did whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.
You indicate on page 103 that the rejection of the Jews, quote, did not catch God off guard, however, for he anticipated their response and so walked onto the scene with an excellent prognosis of what would happen.
You then state, quote, the crucifixion could not have occurred to Jesus unless somehow it fit into the boundaries of what
God will, end quote. Is it your position that the words to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur refers merely to God having an excellent prognosis of what men would do?
Well, I think that God has a plan and He's working towards it, but as much as possible,
I try to interpret the text such that God is working through the freedom of these human beings and what they are, you know, their reaction to Jesus claiming to be who
He is and what they, you know, their plans, their desires are in terms of that.
So I believe that God is, in a sense, dependent here upon these guys following through on their course of action, which is a pretty good bet because of who they are.
When God created, did He know at the time of creation that someone named
Pontius Pilate would exist as a fact of knowledge or was it only a possibility? Yeah, I would say
God knew that as a possibility, not as an actuality. Okay, all right. Psalm 139 .4
says, Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. In your book on page 130, you say that God may be predicting what the psalmist will say.
Is it your position that it is a consistent exegetical reading of the purpose and meaning of the psalmist to understand him to be saying, as I understand what you're saying,
God can predict what I will say to a high degree of probability? Is that how you understand the concept of prediction, especially with something as utterly unpredictable as the speech of man?
Well, given God's knowledge of our characters, our vocabularies that David doesn't suddenly break into Chinese, I think
God is going to know that. In terms of God knowing what we are going to say,
I find it interesting that, again, there are various texts that people such as Bruce Ware tend to ignore in the
Old Testament where God is portrayed as not knowing what someone was going to say.
So, again, I think there are... Such as? Could you give me an example? Here, I've got to remember.
With the testing of people. Let's see.
I'm trying to remember the name of the paper. Michael Karasik has a paper on this in the
Journal of Biblical Literature. Okay. All right.
Psalm 139 .16 says, Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me.
When as yet there was not one of them. Since it seems to me anyways a self -evident fact that the length of our lives, our days, is determined at least from our standpoint by a myriad of libertarian free will choices.
For example, a lot of my friends are unhappy about the fact that I have recently obtained a
Virago 1100 Yamaha motorcycle and hence they figure my free will choice is probably going to limit the number of my days.
But since the length of our days would seem to be the result of a myriad, from the open theistic perspective, libertarian free will choices which are, as I understand it, unknowable to God upon those grounds.
How could the psalmist say what he said in Psalm 139 .16? Yeah. I don't have
Greg Boyd's book, God of the Possible, here, but he addresses that. Yes, he does.
And it seems to me, if I recall correctly what he says, that much depends upon how one translates the
Hebrew text here and exactly what is it that is ordained. Have you looked at Dr.
Ware's rather, I think, devastating demonstration that the Hebrew is very, very clear and that the
King James translation that Dr. Boyd depends upon is clearly in error? Have you looked at what he says about that in his book?
I have, and I'm sure I have comments written in the margins, but I don't know what they are. Okay. All right, so you would say that your response to verse 16 then would be to adopt the
King James rendering of the text, of the Hebrew, and that God, therefore, does not know the length of my days or your days?
Right, unless God has determined them. Unless God has, how could
God determine, based upon the idea that libertarian choices are unknown to God, given that the length of my life is the result of innumerable such choices, how could
God determine the length of my life without violating my... Well, that's what I said, unless God determined it.
That's what it would amount to, right. Can you give me an example where God has determined that and hence violated people's free will?
Are you familiar with any? None of the specifics come to mind. I'm saying that God could do that, but I don't think
God typically does that. So would this be a rare situation? In my opinion, yes.
Okay, so then from the open theistic perspective, for the vast majority of Christian believers, the day of our death is unknown to God?
Yes. Okay. He knows the possibilities. He doesn't know the actualities. Okay.
Thank you. Okay. Just wondering, how would you define omniscience?
What would you give as a definition of that? Well, I think a biblical definition of omniscience is certainly commensurate with what
Westminster Confession of Faith talked about, both in regards to God's decree and having knowledge of all possibilities, but specifically full, exhaustive knowledge of not only all things, past, present, and future, in regards to human actions, but to the entirety of His creation as well.
Okay. So God knows then everything that can be known, and then you're stating that what's future for us is knowable to God.
What is future to us is knowable to God. Well, yes, most definitely, because I believe what is future to us is determined by the decree of God.
As I mentioned, I quoted from the Westminster Confession when I presented my opening thesis.
So, yes, it is most definitely known to Him. Okay. So if God knows—
Not just passively. I just want to make sure you understand what I'm— Say it again. I'm not talking about just SF here. I'm not talking about just simple foreknowledge.
Right. Yes, no, and yes, I understand that. So would
God, in your view, know, for instance, what it's like to be— You were recently—I can't remember if it was you or Simon—was recently caught in a traffic jam in Tampa.
Anyone who lives in Tampa has that. Does God know what it's like to be frustrated?
Does God know what it's like to be frustrated? Well, I would say since God became man in the person of Jesus Christ, most definitely
He would know the whole realm of human emotions that do not involve sin experientially.
And since He is the one who created all things, including mankind, then
He knows our hearts and our minds fully, and therefore He would know it from that perspective.
But since there would be elements of frustration that God would not experientially know, in the sense of those that are sinful.
If I am—example, I have been trying desperately to get hold of a
Hewer Chess Champion chess clock. For 28 years I've wanted one, and I placed a bid on one on eBay today, and the bid expired while we were driving here, and I don't know whether I got it or not.
And I could very well end up being frustrated, and I will confess, possibly sinfully frustrated, when
I get home tonight and look at my email and discover that someone has yet once again stolen one of these clocks out from underneath me.
So, I would not say that God experientially would know anything that would flow from a sinful, either an attitude or a sinful limitation of ignorance or something along those lines.
Okay, so then Jesus was frustrated, not sinfully in any sense, but you say
Jesus was frustrated. I'm certain that living with sinful parents and sinful siblings, that that would result in a fair amount of that, yeah.
Okay. Would God know what it's like to be me?
What it's like to be what? Me. To be you? Yeah. In the sense of the fact that He has absolute, absolutely perfect knowledge of your past, your personality, your character.
He would certainly know it in that sense, but since to be you involves also the experience of your creaturely sinfulness, if you're trying to make that an experiential type of knowledge, then
I would not say He would have… No, I wouldn't bring sinfulness in at all. Well, I would say that I don't know how to define being me, because sadly being me involves sin.
Well, okay, but what I'm referring to is personal identity. He knows your personal identity better than you do, but He's not lived your personal identity.
Okay, so God doesn't have consciousness of my personal identity, that is, the identity that I have.
He knows about it, but He doesn't know. Since your personal consciousness would include the experience of sin, if we're talking experientially, no.
Since He knows your sin perfectly, however, I would say that He certainly knows the entirety of your experience, yes.
Okay, well, I wasn't trying to bring sin into it at all. I wasn't trying to deflect the question,
I was just simply saying as far as I can see, your question requires a recognition that we as fallen human creatures have experienced that, and that that is part and parcel of who we are.
Yeah, now I'm just talking about personal identity. But since you brought up sin, would
God know what it's like to be tempted to sin over again? That is, having sinned once, would
God know what it was like to be tempted again? Experientially, or the fact that He knows every single person who's ever been tempted twice perfectly?
Yeah, experientially. Well, again, since God cannot lie, then no, God has not experienced what it means to be tempted over again, especially if that involves having fallen the first time.
Okay. Does God know what time it is now? Far better than my little visor here does, yes.
Okay, so God… He's the creator of time. God has a now. You asked me if God knows what time it is.
Now, obviously, the very question assumes a spatial location, a temporal location, and a geographical location.
God knows exactly what time it is where we are, and He knows exactly what time it is anyplace else that you would like to ask
Him. That does not limit His being temporally, so that He is experiencing a progression of events so that the future is unknown to Him.
Do you affirm a particular theory of time? You know, the so -called
A theory or tense theory, the B theory, the stasis theory? I believe
I've made very clear that, especially as I see, again, I try to drive this primarily from the exegesis text of Scripture, God says over and over again in Isaiah 40 through 48 that He is with the…
He's the one who brings forth the generations. He's with the beginning and the end, and that the connection that I see made exegetically over and over again in this passage, this section of Isaiah, is between God being the creator and God being the creator of time.
And so I believe that time exists because God has created. I believe it's dependent upon Him for its form, its function, and its reality, and the events that take place within it, the warp and woof of that time, flows from His sovereign decree over it.
However you want to identify that particular perspective, I hope you understand that I'm not seeking to avoid a label.
It's just that my coming at this comes at it from my dealing especially with those who deny monotheism in the
Mormon faith. This is really what first brought me to these passages was their belief that God had become a
God over time, and that's really what has brought my attention to those passages and really has informed where I'm going with that.
Well, the reason I was wondering is because if one affirms the B theory or stasis theory of time, then time is real in both directions.
The past still exists and the future exists. Now we haven't experienced the future, we haven't experienced it, but the future exists contemporaneously for God.
And one can say that God knows which event will follow another, but what are called tensed facts.
Most Christian philosophers concede that a timeless being does not know tensed facts.
He knows the chronological order, but he doesn't know what time it is now, because he has no now.
Well, if you're asking, do I believe that God understands what now is because He knows us, then
I would say yes. If you're saying, do I believe that God has a now to where He is experiencing progression of time, that's a completely different question, and I wouldn't go there.
So a lot of these questions have to do with, again, what came up in the original statements, and that has to do with perspective, whether you're talking about when you ask, does
God know what time it is? There's obviously all sorts of elements to that question that have to be fleshed out and identified to be able to give a coherent, consistent...
Let's put it this way. God certainly interacts with me in the now, not just in the past.
And so I'm very glad that He does that, but I do not believe for a moment that that then robs from Him His perfect knowledge of the future due to the fact that it's the result of His divine decree.
Yeah. Go ahead. Good. I would like to begin my closing statements this evening by, first of all, thanking
Dr. Sanders for being here. It undoubtedly has been an unusual experience for Dr.
Sanders, both to experience last evening's debate at The Grind, and then to go from The Grind to RTS.
Certainly even the permutations of my own clothing styles between those two would be enough to cause anyone some level of difficulty while traveling.
And his graciousness in how we have engaged in this particular debate, and I want to thank you all for being here this evening as well.
I hope that you have been prompted to think about these things, but most importantly I hope that you have been prompted to turn to God's Word as the foundation for answering the issues that have been raised this evening.
And I think that, for me anyways, as I consider the statements that have been made, both by myself and by Dr.
Sanders, I think that for me is the most important thing to first begin to emphasize.
I believe that the exegesis of the text of Scripture reveals to us the mind and purpose and truth of God.
I believe that in Matthew chapter 22, when Jesus said to the Sadducees, not knowing the
Scriptures or the power of God. And then he quotes from the Scriptures and says, That is exactly what
Paul said when he writes to Timothy and says, It is God -breathed.
It is what you need, Timothy, as the man of God, to engage in the tasks of the man of God.
In rebuking, in reproving, in correcting, in training in righteousness. All these things, Timothy, you have one source you can go to, and that is the
God -breathed Scriptures. As Peter said, holy men spoke from God as they were literally being carried along by the
Holy Spirit. And what concerns me most in the interaction this evening, has been the fact that it seems that when we get down to the level of what the text specifically says, what
I'm hearing is, well, you have your verses, I have mine. And given my tradition and my presuppositions,
I read them one way and you read them another way, as if there is no way of determining that there is a true and proper way of reading any of these texts of Scripture.
Now, an example was given, well, I look at John 3 .16, so do I. I see the whosoever wills, so do
I. I look at John 3 .16 and notice that it actually is saying, all the ones believing, everyone who believes will have eternal life.
And I don't read into it some external idea that somehow that involves some capacity or ability that John 6 .44
says no man has. You see, I believe that we have a responsibility to look at the passages in Scripture and when someone presents to us passages they say contradict our foundational presuppositions, then we need to do in -depth exegesis of those passages of Scripture and I have tried to do so.
There's a book sitting on the back shelf, back table back there. That's exactly what it's all about.
I wrote it in response to a book written by Dr. Norman Geisler called Chosen but Free. I wrote a response called
The Potter's Freedom and I took his passages and I went to the text and I examined them. My response to Dr.
Geisler wasn't, well, hey, you've got your, what he calls, moderate Calvinist perspective, which is actually four -point
Arminianism. You have your perspective, I have my perspective, I read my verses my way, you read your verses your way.
That's not what I did. I said, no, you're reading these verses improperly. I don't think, given what we have encountered this evening, for example, that we could identify a false prophet.
It sounded to me like Deuteronomy 18 and its identification of, Deuteronomy 13 and 18, its identification of false prophets.
It sounded to me like what I was saying was, well, if you take Deuteronomy 18, Jonah was a false prophet. No, he wasn't.
He himself knew what Jeremiah himself had said is that when God predicts destruction of a people based upon their sin, he's calling for their repentance.
That's not the same thing as Jesus saying to Peter, this evening you will deny me, here's the time frame, here's how you're going to do it.
That's not the same thing as Jesus saying to disciples, we're going to go to Jerusalem, this, this, this, this, and this is going to happen.
The one is clearly conditional, the other one is not. To simply say, well, you know, we're at loggerheads here.
You've got your presuppositions, I've got mine, is to, in essence, say that Sola Scriptura is insufficient to tell us what
God's truth is. And I do not believe that for a moment. I do not believe that when we exegete
Genesis 50, when we exegete Isaiah 10, when we exegete Genesis 22, and allow what is said in Hebrews or in Romans to enter into our understanding of what's going on here, that we will ever come to conclusions that somehow
God didn't know, that he somehow was experiencing new knowledge that he then gains in a particular situation.
I do believe the word of God is sufficient, and I believe that we have to test any type of philosophical presupposition that we want to enforce upon a system of theology in light of what the
Scriptures themselves state. But that seems to be the fundamental difference that we have here.
Dr. Sanders has said, look, what we've got going on here is meticulous providence versus a general providence, compatibilism versus libertarianism.
Yes, in many ways that's true. And I'm sad that we live in a day and time when many people have decided that those particular issues either are no longer important, we should sweep them under the rug because they are divisive, you know, or that we simply can't decide, that it's a matter of just simply, well,
I like this better because of my life experiences. Is this how
Christian truth is to be determined? What kind of a foundation, I have to ask with honesty, what kind of a foundation does that give us to proclaim that God truly has spoken?
We're just really not sure what he's had to say. How do we draw the line between the main and plain things that Dr.
Sanders referred to? I ask, well, if we can't know whether God knows the future or does not know the future, has foreknowledge or not foreknowledge, if we can't know what are and are not truly predictive prophecies, if we can't determine the difference between libertarianism and compatibilism, then can we really know in light of the strenuous objections of many groups that Jesus truly is
God? Can we really know justification by faith? Can we really know that the death of Christ provides a means of peace with God?
These are very, very important issues. And I will submit to you that I do not believe that the passages that were presented in Psalm 139, which speak of God's knowledge of what we're going to say.
Psalm 139 .16, I would invite all of you who are bravely making it through Hebrew to go look at your text yourself.
Feel free to bother your Hebrew professors if you have any problems with the words there. And you will find that the translation provided by the
New American Standard, the NIV, is perfectly fine. And the King James is very difficult to figure out how in the world it came up with what it came up with.
It's not a matter of a translational issue that when we exegete those passages, when we exegete
Isaiah 41, when we exegete John 6 or John 10 or all these passages, we are not going to be left in some situation where, well, it could go this way, it could go that way.
In any one given passage, you might be able to say, well, you know, there's a possibility.
But you see, it's sort of like a mountain climber. And when you're going up the side of a mountain and a rock slide begins, theoretically, theoretically, if you had the time, you might be able to avoid every single rock in a rock slide.
But what's the problem with that theory? Rock slides don't come one rock at a time. And the truth of the
Scriptures is not something that's derived from simply, well, in this one you might be able to do this, in that one you might be able to do that.
It is a whole. And you can't avoid the entire landslide.
It speaks with force. And there is a reason why
Christians have affirmed this belief that their God knows the future.
It's because without that belief, we are left without a basis for meaning and purpose in the evil things that happen in this world.
We're left without a basis for God's decree of election. We're left without a basis for believing that when
Jesus Christ died upon Calvary's tree, there was a specific people united to Him.
The atonement becomes a vague and general thing. Just one of many examples that show us that the
Bible does answer this question. It does so by its overall teaching and by its specific teaching.
And I truly hope and pray that you will, this evening, take the time to look at the
Scriptures and be reaffirmed in your trustworthiness of them in light of what has happened this evening.
Thank you very much. Well, I'd also like to thank
Dr. White for both last night and this evening and the generosity that he has exhibited and the format of the debate.
The debate format is rather new to me, but I appreciate that he didn't lapse into ad hominem.
And I think we've had some good questions raised. First of all, let me say that I do believe that open theism is seeking to read what the
Bible has to say about God and time and God's relationship to time. It's also trying to understand what the
Bible says about God's repentance or God's changing of his mind in Exodus 32, 14, 1
Samuel 15, 11 and 35, and the over three dozen times in which
God is said to change his mind in the Old Testament. We're also trying to understand what it means that God is affected by human wickedness and sin and that God grieves over it, that it doesn't seem to be part of God's plan.
God doesn't want sin. Here we have a basic disagreement. I believe that open theism is trying to understand the
Bible on God's being affected by us, that indeed God not only gives, but God even receives from us.
And again, that's sovereignly God's choice to be open to humans, but it has been his choice and he is affected.
And we're trying to understand the Bible on God testing people and understanding why God would test them.
And we're trying to understand the Bible on these different kinds of texts. And, you know, we say, well, the
Bible is just clear. Just clear as the nose of my face that the Calvinist view is right.
Well, clearly, a lot of very Bible -believing Christians who beg to differ on that.
So the scripture certainly teaches us, is the scripture so clear on this that I'm either sinful or just plain stupid that I don't see the truth.
And I would actually probably say it's a mix of both. And that is because I do believe that there are the noetic effects of sin.
That is, sin does affect our reasoning processes and that we are finite beings. And we simply don't know everything.
And that's part of the reason why I believe that we need dialogue back and forth between various Christian communities in order to ask ourselves what the text is saying.
And to see things that perhaps I'm hesitant to see. Secondly, I don't believe that openness is rejecting scripture.
Now, certainly, do we deal with all the passages that Dr. White would like us to deal with?
Do we deal with them in the way that he would like for us to deal with them? I will concede that we haven't.
We are focusing on various kinds of scriptural texts that many people have ignored or have simply explained them as anthropomorphisms, that God changed his mind, that God was grieved.
This is not the way God actually is. This is only the way God appears to us. And we are arguing that they are reality depicting.
They do depict the way God is. Another possible misunderstanding is that open theism rejects or denies divine omniscience.
We do affirm that God is omniscient. God knows all that is possible to know.
The debate is over the content of that omniscience. That is, what sorts of knowledge are included in divine omniscience?
And here, there are simply different views that Christians have had and do have.
This book, Divine Foreknowledge, four views, goes through them. Greg Boyd presents the open theist view, which is typically called presentism.
David Hunt presents the traditional Arminian view, known as simple foreknowledge. William Lane Craig presents the position known as middle knowledge or Molinism, where God knows what you would do in any situation and all possible worlds that God could create.
And Paul Helm defends the Calvinist view. God knows because he has ordained all things.
So there are different understandings of the content. Does God know what we would do or not?
Does God know, to be technical, would counterfactuals or does God only know might counterfactuals?
Well, open theists say God knows what might happen for beings with libertarian freedom. We reject middle knowledge, that God knows what we would, guaranteed, do in such situations.
So, we do have different views of omniscience. To say that open theists say that God does not know the future, well, since we don't believe the future is real, we don't believe
God knows an illusion. We believe God knows reality as it is.
If the future is not a reality, then God knows it as not a reality.
So, one of the questions is, what is the status of the future now? The conventional view says that the future is fully definite and God knows it as such, whereas we say the future is partly definite and partly indefinite and God knows it as partly definite and partly indefinite.
Some have suggested that openness limits God. We believe that God restrains, just like Arminians, the full exercise of God's power in order to give us the degree of freedom that we call libertarian freedom.
But this is not a limitation on God. This is God's sovereign decision to create us this way.
If one says, and indeed, as Calvin did say, that God cannot feel pain, well, then that's something
God can't do. He would say, but that's not a real limitation. That's a limitation of creatureliness.
But it is something God can't do. There are things that God of classical theism can't do. Dr. White raised a question about what assurance does open theism give us for the
Christian life? Well, this question is just as problematic for Arminians in the view known as simple foreknowledge as it is for open theists.
And I have argued at length in my writings that the
Arminian has tended to believe that just by God seeing what's going to happen, that that gives
God a providential advantage. But here I agree with the Calvinist criticism that that doesn't give
God an advantage. Because just seeing something is going to happen and knowing it's going to happen, if you know it's going to happen, you can't change it from happening.
Because that would render God's beliefs false. So hence, Dr. White's main criticism of open theism habitually has returned to the view of divine sovereignty that he has, or what
I call meticulous providence. And that's indeed a key watershed divide.
And that's the same watershed divide that is shared between openists and Arminians.
So the issue of divine sovereignty is going to be the same with Arminians and openists.
That is, the criticism is going to be the same that Dr. White presents against both openists and Arminians.
So some of you might be thinking, well, then God isn't sovereign. Well, no, we believe the issue is the kind of sovereignty that God has decided to practice.
And we believe that God has granted humans libertarian free will. And this allows us to love one another, but it also entails the possibility of great evils.
Proponents of openness reject the belief that it is God's will for little girls to be sexually abused.
We simply don't accept that. We do reject the theory of the blueprint that God has ordained everything that is to come about.
We do believe that we work together with God. As Paul said in 1
Corinthians, that we come to collaborate with God and we work together with God. So some questions to ask are these.
Do you believe our prayers of petition ever affect God? Do you believe that some of what
God does is ever dependent upon what you do or don't do?
Does God specifically desire the evil that we do? Now, I understand the
Calvinist framework where it's still wrong for us to do it because we're the ones doing it. But does
God specifically desire that we do the evil we do? And you might even be more poignant and say, well, does
God desire that I be an open theist? And has God eternally ordained that I would be an open theist?
Or quoting or modifying Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof when he said, Lord, who made the lion and the lamb, you decreed
I should be what I am. Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if I were
Arminian? Thank you. Well, thank you first, but also please thank these two gentlemen for being here tonight.
OK, before we get started with the questions, first of all, I'll explain how this is going to happen.
I'm going to have George come up, and he's going to be reading these questions from the podium, because we both want to get this through the house and also through the video as well and both of the microphones.
First, before we start that, I do want to thank some of our volunteers we've had here tonight, especially to Suping Kang and to Kathy, who have provided us with great service in the past couple of days, as well as Suping for feeding all of us and letting us take over her house this afternoon.
Also to Theo Benitez for helping us with transportation and moving things around.
But a special thanks also to you for staying with us tonight and for helping us to make this a great debate.
OK, let's start the question periods, and let me explain how this is going to happen.
The person who the question is addressed to will have one minute to respond to the question.
Then our other speaker will have 30 seconds to respond to his answer to the question. We will be asking five questions to each of the two gentlemen up here.
Unfortunately, not enough questions came in for Dr. White, so there will only be four that we'll be asking him tonight. The first question is for Dr.
Sanders. Dr. Sanders, what is your evaluation of the doctrine of primary and secondary causes?
Well, it seems to me that, first of all, and I understand how one can say that God is the primary cause and how this can really make sense and is perfectly sensible and logically coherent, how
God would be in total control of everything that happens and yet humans would be free in the sense that they were able to act on their desires.
Well, I'm very thankful that Dr. Sanders does not take the same position that is taken by, for example,
Dr. Pinnock who views that perspective as a person -destroying kind of knowledge.
I think that the passages we looked at in Genesis 50, Isaiah 10, and Acts 4 present the biblical foundations and I believe that exegetically that is the teaching of those passages in regards to compatibilism.
Our next question is for Dr. White. Dr. White, God commands us to be holy as he is holy.
If we do not have free will and still sin, then did God predestine us to do something his word tells us not to do?
Well, of course, when we look at the passage, be holy as I am holy, we have the prescriptive will of God in the fact that his law gives us his holy will.
When the question is then asked, well, did God will us, I'm not sure exactly the phraseology was used, will us to do something that was contrary to his...
The exact phrase was will us to do something his word tells us not to do. Okay, alright. Well, again, that's sort of a follow -up to the previous question because when we look in Acts chapter 4, when we look at Genesis chapter 50, the action of Joseph's brothers was clearly against God's revealed will and yet God used their evil intentions for his good.
And so that is a fundamental, again, I wish I could say, and the exegesis offered on this passage or that passage fails at this point, but I've not heard a counter exegesis on those particular passages at all.
Well, to say that God has a secret will and that we will sin, and God wanted
Adam to sin, all for a good purpose, the greater good that redemption would bring about, that's a rather standard approach.
Here I just find that deplorable because then ultimately what
God really wants is evil. And I think that the scriptures portray God as implacably opposed to evil.
Our next question is for Dr. Sanders. Dr. Sanders, Dr. White attributes the character of God primarily by what scripture says.
You seem to base your view both here and in your book primarily on your experiences and imminent perspective of life.
Do you think that an imminent perspective which stems from the experiences of life is a sound basis for biblical interpretation?
Yeah, is that the basis? No. I bring up a story at the beginning of my book to try to hook the audience and try to show you existentially where my questioning comes from.
Now, what some people, in fact one critic has said this, that I'm simply psychologically imbalanced and that's why
I came to the views I did. Well, I'd say we're all screwed up in that sense.
I'll say mea culpa. But what I write in my book is in terms of the criteria for determining the truth that scripture is the normative norm and then we have reason and our experience or our cultural thought forms that we bring into account here.
And I think we all do that. I would just simply say
I think this is what I raised in my closing statement and that is when we have encountered exegetical issues, whether it be
John 6 or whether it be the passages in Genesis 50 or whatever, we've heard as well, you read it from your perspective,
I read it from mine. That is the concern that I think the question is raising in regards to is there an external experiential authority that is being applied here.
I think that was the primary thing that the question was trying to get to and that's a real concern. Dr. White, the next question is for you.
Do you believe that according to open theism, the statement Jesus made in John 6,
I will raise him up on the last day, is useless? Well, again, first of all it's difficult to define open theism for as Dr.
Sanders has pointed out, he holds a number of different viewpoints from other open theists.
But it certainly would seem to me that if God's knowledge of the future and Dr.
Sanders in his own book has said that God did not expect Adam and Eve to fall, it was an implausible event.
He knew his possibility but it was implausible. And that there were other routes open even at the Garden of Gethsemane.
That kind of an assertion leaves me wondering what the basis would be for being able to say that Jesus could save his people perfectly as that passage indicates that he can.
Because from any perspective, those individuals that are drawn unto Jesus could, well, as Dr.
Sanders says in his book, humans do improbable things. They might mess this all up and Christ would not actually fulfill that statement.
Yeah, I will raise him up on the last day. I think that any Arminian would have the same concern with you.
And that is, can God guarantee that human beings with libertarian freedom will persevere to the end?
And again, we're going to have a basic Calvinist Arminian difference there. I don't think it's a question of knowledge.
I think it's a question of what kind of free will God has given humans. Dr. Sanders, as an open theist, do you believe the redemptive project can ultimately fail?
Okay, here I have to read between the lines of perhaps what's meant there. That God could not achieve his purposes in the sense that God would want certain people, want all people in my opinion, to come to a faith and salvation in Jesus Christ and that those people might refuse him.
Yes, I believe that that is possible, that people can refuse what God wants to give them.
Well, I think that again gets back to a very foundational issue and that is that in John chapter 6, it is the
Father's will for the Son that of all that he has been given, he lose none. This does take us back to a foundational difference between whether we're talking about the freedom of God or the freedom of man.
And it speaks directly to the fact that Jesus is a powerful Savior and a perfect Savior and he must be able to fulfill the will of the
Father for him or you have dissonance within the very Godhead itself. Dr.
White, compatilist freedom seems to be illusionary. How would you define freedom, liberty, to escape the charge of being merely self -delusion?
If God ordains it, then how can it be otherwise? How are we still free? Well, again, it is not illusory in any way, shape or form, especially when you consider the fact that in each of the passages that I have presented illustrating this particular instance,
I think we would all confess the righteousness of God in punishing those individuals who, while they did actions that God used for his eternal good, did so out of the rebellion of their heart.
They followed the desires of their heart. There was no one standing behind them. God was not standing behind them with a gun saying, you are going to be evil.
In fact, I would submit that in, for example, Genesis chapter 50, we have good reason for believing that God had restrained further evil on the part of Joseph's brothers and had kept them from doing evil in that particular situation because I think they wanted to kill him.
In each one of these situations, to say that makes quote -unquote freedom illusory is to identify freedom as solely being libertarian freedom rather than the type of freedom that the scriptures themselves describe to us.
Suppose that I hook a little pain implanter in George's head and every time
I want him to experience something or kick somebody, I just press the button and he does it.
And you would say, well, then I remove this freedom. But suppose instead I implant the device such that every time
I push the button, he simply desires to kick somebody in the shins. And so he's doing it of his own free will.
Dr. Sanders, in view of modern physics, the time is relative.
Which temporal frame of reference is your time -bound God in? Time -bound, that's a nice pejorative term.
Frame of reference in relativity physics, here I would encourage you to read
Alan Padgett's chapter in here, but he's not an open theist, on that.
Does relativity physics overturn this? No. So what frame of reference does
God have? Well, the everlasting God is experiencing temporal duration, that is, the flow of consciousness.
So that's the frame of reference. So God knows what time it is now. Well, that was a very specific question that asked him for, all
I can comment on that is simply to remind folks of what the psalmist says in Psalm 102, that the creation, and I believe that would include time itself, passes away and he changes like an old garment, but he himself remains unchanged through all of them.
Dr. White, if God is meticulously in control over all things, including the will of man, how is man held responsible for sin?
Well, that is the question that many people would like to ask, and again I would point out, and without counter -exegesis,
I can just simply state that we have examined a number of passages already that indicate that God holds man accountable because he acts upon the intentions of his heart.
I didn't have time to develop this. You all know debates don't allow this because of our time constraints, but I would really invite people, because it's not the most popular passage, to take the time to read, starting
Isaiah 10, beginning at verse 5, read all the way through the rest of the chapter and pay close attention to the discussion of this very issue that is found there because it really speaks to this particular issue, especially when the pride and arrogance of the heart of the king of Assyria is addressed, and yet it is in the very context of his being used by God.
That's how God accomplishes his judgment. Well, I do think, then, that moral responsibility isn't adequately answered by a compatibilistic view of freedom.
I don't believe Karl Marx's compatibilistic views, Sigmund Freud's, B .F.
Skinner's. When someone comes before the judge and says, Don't blame me. I mean, I'm only acting on my desire, but my desire was created by my environment.
You've got to shove a whole bunch more money into changing my environment, and then I'll do the right thing.
And I don't think that is the way we think about moral responsibility in our legal system. Dr. Sanders, do you affirm the doctrine of inerrancy as understood by the
Chicago Statement? If yes, wouldn't God have had to violate the biblical author's libertarian freedom in order to inspire a perfect text?
If no, then why do you appeal to, in your opinion, a possibly misleading and untrue text to argue for a theologically true position?
A perfect text? Well, the Chicago Statement allows for, well, the question is, what's an error?
And they have several pages delineating what is not an error. Figures of speech, rounding numbers, approximations, etc.
And all those are there. That's the text that we have.
That's the text we're working with. That text is without error, given those definitions.
I believe the exegesis of the inspired and errant text of Scripture, the consistent application of a consistent hermeneutic to that text, reveals to us that indeed
God is the one who is with the beginning and the end. He is, as Psalm 90 verse 2 says, before the mountains were brought forth, wherever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art
God. Thank you. Well, thank you once again, folks.
Appreciate you coming. We appreciate you supporting these debates. And once again, thank these gentlemen for staying through this.
Just want to close in a quick word of prayer. Father God, we pray, Father, that your will always be done in what we do,
Father. And we thank you for your perfect word, Lord. And we also just pray for the safety of everybody going home tonight, Lord. In your most holy and precious name, amen.