A Way to Think About Free Will and God: Open Theism

That's too Deistic for me.

Well, you're the one who said that God doesn't even try to justify His own existence. Isn't that Deistic?

As I ponder this question....these replies come to mind:

Why would God have a need to justify His existence to anyone?

I strongly disagree with jars portrayal of a God learning on the job. This would, however, only make sense should open theism be in any way true. God would hypothetically have to learn what we humans freely decided. I don't believe that, however. Now that I think about it, open theism has some flaws.

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A Deistic god is no different than a living universe, for all practical purposes.

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I will admit that my belief comforts me. An interactive God seems the right belief...for me. That is, unless, he was against me for my freewill decisions.

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Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith

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You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

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Subjectivism may very well undermine Christianity.
In the same way that "allowing people to choose what they want to be when they grow up" undermines communism.~Stile

You tell me. You're the one who keeps trying to justify His existence. And for all practical purposes, that's what we have.

Insistence on Evidence could be your eventual downfall. Then again, I may have a wrong view of God, myself. Some telemarketer just now called while i was typing this...said he was from Microsoft Service center and that my computer had a virus that needed removing...offered to "fix it" I hung up on him. My question is why you feel as if we must grow up and fix everything ourselves... but If God called and offered to fix me, I may just hang up on him...particularly if he had a telemarketer's voice.

That's what the evidence shows. God has not fixed everything in your life.

I don’t see it as a case of God learning on the job. It is God responding to what we do. For example if there is some atrocity in some part of the world leaving thousands of refugees driven from their home land, then God responds by touching the hearts of people to give of their time and resources to help them.Part of the Christian understanding of God is that we are made in His image. Jesus referred to God as His Father. We raise our kids with an open future. As parents we respond to the actions of our kids. Ultimately however they have the freedom to accept or reject our advice which is good. We raise them to be adults and make their own choices, but even when they go against our wishes they are still our kids and we love them. I realize that many parents don’t actually respond that way but I would think that we would all agree that that is the way it should be.As we are called to mirror or image God’s nature in our lives then I think it is very reasonable to assume that we can see that as the model for how God deals with us. He has given life to us; a life with endless choices and with the freedom to make those choices. He gives us the still small voice of His Spirit to guide us as a loving parent would but leaves us free to reject His guidance, without knowing beforehand what choice we will make.Again, it isn’t that He is learning on the job but responding in love.

Now that I think about jars position more, I remember that he asserts that all portrayals of how humans think about God are merely that---human portrayals. He believes in GOD, Creator of all seen and unseen through the Nicene Creed, but he emphasizes Jesus as human while on earth. Thus, Jesus could and did sin, according to jar. This removes any possibility of actually knowing God through belief...which would lead to proof. Of course, our secular crowd would agree...if they even believed that GOD did exist. Personally, based on my past experience, I believe that Jesus is Gods human character and is alive eternally and that at one time I met Him. That being said, I find myself at an impasse...stuck.I need to do a fast anyway, as it is 1 month before my eye operation and I need to reclaim my low carb health. Stay tuned as I develop my beliefs regarding these matters. The fast will last at least 24 hours.

I agree that humans form their own image of God but that we don't do it in a vacuum. We have human history to see what brings a positive result and what doesn't. We can be amazed and look for the understanding of why we perceive love even sacrificially, why we experience joy or sadness, why we experience beauty and even why we look for meaning, but above all I would say that we have the nudging in God's Spirit in His still small voice.Also he said that he believed in the Nicene Creed but he also rejected parts of it. I would say that He could but didn't. That I think is beautifully metaphorically written about in the temptations in the desert. That's true for me as well except I would say that I experienced Him as opposed to meeting Him. Me too. May God be with you through your fasting and your eye operation.

There is no way I could do that - blindly accept that a God I followed was acting justly, when on no rational basis could I see any justice.Let me put it this way. You believe that Satan deceives the hearts of men. How could you tell that you were or were not being deceived ?If you believe that something, that on any rational level must be seen as wrong and unjust, must be right and just, because it was written down in the Bible as the word of God, then you forego the right to justify your views and beliefs.If God told me to kill a baby, I’d tell him where to get off.

As I said, if God ordered it, it is just. You don't have to see the justice if you know God ordered it. If you had any clue to the reality of God you couldn't talk the way you are talking. The Bible is God's word, if it tells me God did something, then God did it, not Satan. That's because you don't believe in God and have no idea of what He is like. He defines what is just and He sees everything, past and future and all the ramifications of every act, so rightly your finite ability to understand has to yield. Not if you were a member of the ancient Jewish army and had even a smidgen of a clue to His reality. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Nope. You’re advocating following the orders of someone who tells you to kill babies, on the blind assumption that on some utterly unjustifiable level, those orders must be good and just because they come from him, and he’s said he’s good and just.I would spit in his eye before I would allow myself to act in such an evil manner. And if I went to my grave as a result, I would do so knowing that I did the good, honourable and just thing in refusing to follow such evil orders.

..even though Jesus as the "Word of God" said that we are to love our enemy and turn the other cheek. BTW, that isn't being a wimp, that takes guts. That is how you have decided the Bible is to be understood. The evidence that you give for that is that in one place in all of the 66 books it says the the Bible was inspired, and then you use your own interpretation of inspired to mean that it is inerrant. You ignore what Jesus teaches to preserve your inerrantist beliefs so that the Bible can be twisted to say whatever you need to have it say to support what you want it to say. Who are you to say whether or not Vimesay believes in God. I know atheists who are a lot more Christ like than a some Christians i know. Maybe Vimesey actually has Christ in his heart without actually giving intellectual ascent to Christianity. Maybe He is one of the righteous sheep in Matthew 25 who fed the hungry etc without knowing that he was doing it for Jesus. Who are you to judge? Well maybe that member of the ancient Jewish army knew God better than you think because the genocide didn't happen. The Canaanites were still around later in the Bible. To be frank I'd also add that just maybe Vimesey knows God better than you do based on the 2 quotes I used to lead off this paragraph

Armies and nations cannot "turn the other cheek," only individuals can. You can't turn the other cheek for someone else, only yourself. Unfortunately there are times in this world when war is necessary, sad but true.Yes, the Israelites did fail to completely drive out all the idolatrous nations as God had commanded them. As a result later on they succumbed to the idolatrous religions themselves, and in the case of the Canaanites learned to sacrifice their babies to the Canaanite god Molech. I guess according to you it's being Christ-like to be kind to child sacrificers and let them live, even if by doing so you are disobeying God and setting up your people to become child sacrificers too?I'm not asking you to believe in the inerrant Bible, I'm explaining the traditional view that if it is God's word we know God can only be good and just so that His ordering the annihilation of a whole people is good and just. It's very hard for us to understand of course, but if God ordered it then it is good and just.I certainly don't WANT the Bible to report such harsh things, GDR, I'm simply an orthodox Bible-believing Christian who believes in the inerrant Bible along with all the other traditionalists, so I take the position that I'm to learn from it something about the nature of God. If you criticize it you'll never learn anything, you'll just continue in your own preconceived judgments, in your case your very small idea of what Jesus is like. To me Jesus is the God of both Testaments. Now I know for sure you share the heresy of Robert Schuller, this idea that people can be Christians who never heard of Christ or even reject Him though they've heard of Him. However, "there is no other NAME under heaven by which we must be saved" than Jesus Christ, so nobody can be a Christian without knowing His name and believing in Him.Oh I'm sure all kinds of unbelievers are very nice people, but that doesn't make them Christians.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Then how do you explain the parable of the sheep and goats where people were separated based on what they did not what they believed, even though many of the sheep had no idea who they had done those works for? And what about Lazarus who was welcomed into heaven because he suffered during life whereas the rich man was tormented because he had it easy during life. I tend to believe this is true. Jesus said "I am the way...", "No one comes to the Father but through me.", "That he is the gate and the true sheep enter through the gate...", etc. But I also believe that God is just and fair and it seems to me to be unjust that billions and billions of people are condemned simply because of where or when they were born. So I don't know how it works, but I feel there must be a mechanism for those people to acknowledge or accept Jesus when they stand before him. But again, I don't know... I'm not the judge. To me, heaven and hell are mostly about rectifying injustice, putting things right that have been corrupted and destroying those things cause suffering.I just have hard time believing heaven is such an extremely exclusive place. I mean, of all the confessing Christians that post regularly here on EvC, you are the only one going to heaven because we all believe something a little off of what you say makes a true Christian (none of which involves the name of Jesus). For example, I don't qualify because I think the earth is old and I disagree with a TRUE Christian about several issues; GDR doesn't qualify because he thinks helping refugees is a charitable thing to do thus putting his neighbor at risk; Phat doesn't qualify because he questions his faith; etc.So obviously there are way more criteria to getting into heaven than just the name of Jesus.HBD