The Evangelical Universalist Forum

God won't violate human 'free will'

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#61

Your claims about omniscience and free will expressed here are, at best, arguable, and at worst, untrue, as was discussed with you earlier in a long series of posts based on a logical analysis of this issue.

Here is a Biblical example of God thinking His people would do a certain thing but they didn’t do it!

The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: "Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?
And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return…(Jeremiah 3:6,7)

If God had known in advance that Israel would not return to Him, He would not have thought that she would return.

To use that example to support one’s stance on omniscience is suspect. That alternative of the verses, though common, is not consistently found in different Bible versions. For example, another common alternative of Jeremiah 3:7 shows God to be commanding Israel to return to Him. And as we know, commandments can be and are disobeyed, without any reflection on God’s omniscience being compromised. Following are some examples of this alternative of Jeremiah 3:7, found in at least 10 Bible versions.

“And I said after she had committed all these acts of fornication, Turn again to me. Yet she returned not. And faithless Juda saw her faithlessness.” (Septuagint)

“And I said, after she had done all these things, ‘Return to Me.’ But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.” (New King James Version)

“And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto Me. But she returned not. And her treacherous achot Yehudah saw it [i.e., saw Israel’s refusal to renounce fertility cult idolatry].” (Orthodox Jewish Bible)

#62

I like to watch Perry Mason and i may have seen every episode so i know what is going to happen but that doesn’t mean Perry didn’t have free will at that point in time in history. If God is outside of time , since time is within the created universe and therefore a creation of God, then God can look down at us and know the future yet for us within our knowledge base we do have free will.

#63

To watch a video or movie of a past event of what someone has done, is quite different from knowing what someone will do in the future.

I can make no logical sense out of the concept of “being outside of time.”
“Time” is not an entity. “Time” is the measure of the temporal “distance” between events.

#64

Again, the way most translations render it, does NOT “compromise” God’s omniscience. As I stated, God is omniscient, knowing everything that is possible to know. Do you think God’s omnipotence is compromised, if one states that God CANNOT create a stone so large that He can’t lift it?

If the translations you provided are so clearly correct, why do you suppose the vast majority of translations render the verse as I quoted it?

I have many translations in my Online Bible Program.
The versions in which it is translated as I quote it are: ESV, ASV, BBE, CevAus, Darby, HCSV, LEB, NAS, NASB, NHEB, NIV, RSV, and NRSV.

The versions in which it is translated as a command (Return to me) are: AV, Douay, JB2013, NKJV, YLT, TR Classic.

#65

Well, that’s right, if you believe God’s omniscience does not include knowing what a free-willed choice would be. But that’s a big IF and not something I’m willing to accept.

Yes, and knowing everything that is possible to know includes knowing what a person freely chooses. That is logically possible for an omniscient being, as was laboriously discussed some months ago.

But it’s not the vast majority.

And I did not say the translations I provided are so clearly correct. I simply said their existence raises questions about your using these Jeremiah verses to support your view of God’s omniscience.

I have many translations in my Online Bible Program.
The versions in which it is translated as I quote it are: ESV, ASV, BBE, CevAus, Darby, HCSV, LEB, NAS, NASB, NHEB, NIV, RSV, and NRSV.

The versions in which it is translated as a command (Return to me) are: AV, Douay, JB2013, NKJV, YLT, TR Classic.

Well, my source shows the versions in which it is translated as a command to be these ten Bible versions: Septuagint, New King James, Third Millennium, Webster, Orthodox Jewish, Douay-Rheims Catholic, Jubilee Bible 2000, King James, Wycliffe, and Young’s Literal Translation.

That puts the numbers close enough to raise doubts about deciding this issue on the basis of numbers.

#66

This is indeed the case. The I said in the Heb & Gk is both imperative and vocative which is more forceful than the more passive I thought. In fact both Heb & Gk use the same word in God’s declarative command in creation, i.e., “And God said…” etc.

#67

Interesting. One wonders why some translators of this verse ended up with the wimpy “And I thought, ‘after she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return. . . .”

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#68

And you know that how? From experience or from guessing? We don’t know , we only have opinions which you have every right to express but it is an opinion.

#69

Well ,time is a statistical measurement of the amount of units between two or more events so in other words it is a mathematical calculation and so time is part of certain laws established by God. Therefore “time” is part of the created universe and God being the Creator is apart or “outside” of his creation and therefore God is outside of time.

#70

Maybe the key word is “temporal” which is part of the order in which our universe works, but God being eternal is beyond or outside of the temporal even if we can’t make sense of this.

#71

I think that it’d be more accurate to say that you argued it was logically possible to know things as yet undecided, but that others like Paidion and I found your persuasion unconvincing.

#72

I don’t see that the term laboriously discussed implies that all participants found the discussion convincing. In fact, it may well imply there was some disagreement, for disagreement could be the cause of the laboriousness! So why would I think that modifying or adding to the term laboriously discussed was necessary?

It is quite clear from the above posts in this thread that Paidion did not find the discussion in the other thread persuasive. Again, why, then, would I have pointed that out in a casual reference to the other thread?

#73

I haven’t studied Hebrew, but it seems to me that the vast majority of translators have rendered the Hebrew of Jeremiah 3:7 as:
And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return…(Jeremiah 3:6,7)

I agree that the Septuagint has “I said” rather than “I thought” and I think that it renders the verb as the imperative “Return to me.”

The Septuagint translation was begun in the third century B.C. and was completed in132 B.C. I think much of it is a good translation of the Hebrew, better than the Masoretic text of the Hebrew which was not completed until the 9th century A.D. However, I think the translators of it were mistaken in translating Jeremiah 3:7 which rendered in English reads: And I said after she had committed all these acts of fornication, Turn again to me. Yet she returned not.

So I suspect that the translators of the Septuagint incorrectly translated the Hebrew in this verse. Those whose translation of the Hebrew is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls probably translated the verse correctly, but unfortunately that translation does not exist in any of the extant dead sea scrolls

#74

Only you can answer that. I interpreted your emphasis that a case for your view’s “logic” was discussed in a ‘laborious’ way to indicate that great effort was put into securing that conclusion, not an acknowledgement that others found it unconvincing. So I appreciate your recognition that Paidion was not impressed with that “laborious discussion” :slight_smile:

#75

It was not difficult to recognize he was not impressed since he repeated his view in this very thread.

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#76

Well, you listed 13 Bible versions with your rendering, and I listed 10 with mine. So, considering our combined sample, you’re saying (13/23) X 100 = 56.5% is a vast majority??? Is this a political election in which hyperbole is the norm?

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#77

I found this relevant note about this translation of Jeremiah 3:7–“Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me, but she did not”–on the NET Bible online site.

“Open theists suggest that passages such as this indicate God has limited foreknowledge; however, more traditional theologians view this passage as an extended metaphor in which God presents himself as a deserted husband, hoping against hope that his adulterous wife might return to him. The point of the metaphor is not to make an assertion about God’s foreknowledge, but to develop the theme of God’s heartbreak due to Israel’s unrepentance.”

If its thrust is metaphorical, Jeremiah 3:7 would not seem to offer unambiguous support for the thesis that God cannot know beforehand free choices of humans.

#78

Yes, my impression is that whenever texts conflict with assumed theologies (from God’s endorsement of brutality to God’s ignorance of future choices) theologians are quite able to argue that those texts are not what they literally state, but a metaphor for something else. This ability to make texts a wax nose helps explain the huge ‘Four Views’ series, and why so many conflicting traditions can all insist the Bible always agrees with their own interpretation. My own perception is that the Bible is not that uniform.

#79

Yes, that’s a reasonable view, one I agree with, for the most part.

But this verse is different in that there is an alternate version (of Jeremiah 3:7) that does not imply God’s omniscience is limited by not knowing free-willed choices. Thus, appealing to metaphor is not needed to explain the verse in that case. And despite what Paidion said, there is no vast majority here to help us decide the issue.

The question, then, is why does this traditional theological view of metaphorical writing in this verse not influence all translators, such that we would not have the confusion of two different views of the same verse? Is there that much latitude in how ancient Hebrew is translated? Or are we simply looking at the failures of inept translators whose work continues to provide fodder for forums (or fora) like this one?

#80

[quote=“Bob_Wilson, post:78, topic:5287”]

Lancia: But why does this traditional theological view of metaphorical writing in this verse not influence all translators, such that we would not have the confusion of two different views of the same verse?

Bob: I’m unfamiliar with the linguistic debate on translating the first verb. But given that a number of texts suggest God is sometimes surprised at future events, I’d guess we have two translations here because this text directly challenged the traditional theology, and thus some modified it to fit texts that appear to assume omniscience, while others left the more problematic but appropriate translation.