He could know that not by some gift of the Spirit of foreknowledge, or looking into a crystal ball, but by His determination to arrange events so that it occurs, e.g. keep seeking to save the last lost sheep till he finally chooses God of his own LFW, even if that takes a trillion years. It’s mathematically impossible to keep rejecting an infinite number of offers of salvation for eternity.
That sounds an awful lot like subjecting things…
See not only are the verses I provided seem to contradict the idea of being free of will apart from Gods subjection but the very idea of things the subject is subjected to denies the very idea that they can have a will apart from God.
Can this person avoid these “arranged events” of their own free will?
If not they are being subjected and their will holds no power over the will of God to subject them and therefor could not be said to be TRULY free.
Perhaps whoever wrote that doesn’t concur with the theory i presented to you earlier in this thread, that God is Sovereign over LFW, as follows:
If LFW is a creation of God that He has Sovereignty over, then God can overrule it at His pleasure, just like a man turning off a light switch. Just because the light is turned off that doesn’t mean the light bulb & electricity don’t exist. If God doesn’t provide light to a man, then his LFW can never make the choice of choosing light over darkness. All God has to do to put freewill on mute is turn out the lights. In so doing the man is blinded & walks in darkness, & even though he still has a LFW he must be a slave of sin.
Perhaps. But I still see holes in the logic personally. Im not saying you are wrong and I am right. It just doesnt seem logically sound to me and brings up more questions than it answers.
Personally, the only question that is ever asked on behalf of my belief seems to boil down to “so you are saying God purposes evil”. In which I can go to scripture and say “well yes”. I dont have to like it, but doesnt make it any less true, imo, just because it sucks to go through this present age of suffering and evil. And I trust God knows what Hes doing.
Just out of curiosity, in your own words, how would open theism or any LFW advocate deal with the delimma of evil proposed by Epicurus?
I’m not familiar with that dilemna.
You may have missed my previous post it goes as follows;
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
This can apply to moral or natural evil
The ONLY way, as I see it, to solve the dilemma of evil is if God Himself has purposed it for a greater good.
Id personally rather believe in a God who is in control of evil, using it to bring about a larger good, than a God who idly stands by and watches it either unable or unwilling to prevent it.
I see little difference between a being who causes evil & one who could easily stop it but allows it to happen. Both are responsible.
Its only if He is able and willing to use evil for a greater purpose that this dilemma seems to hold no ground.
I dont disagree here. As weird as it may sound Id trust the one who is in control of it, knowing that ultimately He is good and can use it for a greater purpose of producing more good out of it. (The cross for example).
More good out of it than the evil afflicts that is.
That is reasoning that can be given by both the advocate of determinism & the advocate of LFW. Additionally, the advocate of LFW can cite LFW as another reason for the existence of evil.
To me it comes down to two choices.
Believe in the god epicurus’ proposes. One that is either not willing, not able, or both to stop or prevent evil.
Or believe in a God that has purposed evil temporarily for His purposes to bring about a larger good whatever that may be. Whether we witness that greater good in this life, after, or never know.
Lfw still would only further epicurus’ point that God is not willing to stop it due to “respecting” the lfw of the evil doer. Which imo is the worst out of all epicurus’ propositions for it makes God complicit and malevolent. More over lfw doesnt answer the question when speaking of natural evil (hurricane,tsunamis,etc)
The determinist can bypass the questions completely by stating that God is using evil for a greater purpose of good. Whatever that may be.
Maybe its a means in which He humbles someone before giving them faith, maybe He can display through His creation love when a community comes together out of a natural disaster, maybe a victim of evil helps console someone else when their family member dies of a drunk driving accident like theirs, Maybe He even uses a Crucifixion to overcome sin and death 
etc etc etc.
LFW could cite 2 reasons, those you’ve given above plus LFW.
What is the “question when speaking of natural evil (hurricane,tsunamis,etc)”?
not necessarily because lfw is trying to separate evil from the purpose of God by putting the responsibility on the human lfw. Lfw advocates are using lfw as a reason as to why God is not responsible for evil. And if you say lfw can use my same reasoning that He does purpose some evils then why is it so hard to believe He purposes all evil,even those committed by man, for a greater good instead of trying to attribute most of them to lfw? Or I guess in a simpler way of putting it if lfw can likewise cite my reasoning of evil being for a greater good, then why are they adamantly against it when I say evil is purposed by God and that will to commit evil is given to men by God? Seems like if you are agreeing God can purpose evil for a better outcome of good then whats really contradictory in my belief that God Himself subjects man to that?
As far as natural evil goes the idea from lfw is trying to state “evil exists, and God is complicit with it happening, because He wants to respect the human lfw” However this would not apply to a case in which there is no moral agent. He would not be restricting any lfw by preventing a hurricane or a tsunami. So keep the same line of questioning proposed by epicurus but apply it to a situation in which there is no moral agent. Either his criticism of God would stand ORRR God, like the evil commited by man,has purposed it to happen for a good reason.
tl:dr If lfw can agree with me that God uses evil to produce something far more good then the whole argument of why lfw must exist to vindicate God seems to just be irrelevant. If God purposes evil to produce something more good than the evil inflicted, then the same can be said to God creating a vessel of dishonor to do evil and subjecting them with a will to do evil.
Also, going back to holes I see in open theism, how did God have Christ “slain before the foundation of the world” rev 13:8 if He didnt know it was yet necessary because He was unsure of whether adam and eve would eat from the tree or not?
Christ WOULDNT have been “slain from the foundation of the world” if God “did not know the future” and didnt know that it was going to be necessary. Man fell to sin AFTER the foundation of the world so it would not have been yet known to God that Christ needed to be slain until after God had “learned” about the fall. The verse in question makes Christ plan A, necessitating the fall, instead of a plan B, a response to the fall as open theism would suggest under logical deduction of its core ideology.
Or in other words God only made and slain Christ before the foundation of the world BECAUSE it was always the plan because He knew the world would fall to sin and He purposed it to fall to carry out that plan of Christ being a savior. It wouldnt make sense if God didnt know until AFTER the foundation of the world that Christ was necessary to deal with a problem He had no foreknowledge of.
That one was a little hard to explain my reasoning. I hope you get the jist of what im trying to say of why this text would be problematic in the idea of open theism.
Also speaking about the foundation of the world and its fall, on a side note of no real importance, I think its funny that I see many theologians try to explain it with rhetoric and sophistry. Trying to explain why God even made the tree, Why He made it law not to eat from the tree, why He made the serpent, why He didnt prevent it, why didnt He this, why did He do that, etc etc etc. When the simplest answer, by occams razor, would suggest it was supposed to happen EXACTLY the way it went down.
That is so true Dave. The bigger problem IMO is this… Calvinists invariably assume THEY know what ‘God’s Sovereignty’ looks and how it operates, i.e., they assume they have a mortgage on this truth — ah the arrogance.
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Some Calvinists are TOO intellectual and academic…and they might hold opinions, that shake the very foundation of Calvinism. Like take this chap, I shared on another forum thread here.
Well, I came across this interesting article on Calvinism:
Let me first quote a joke he shared:
If you have been around many seminarians you have probably heard some version of this joke: “Did you hear about the Calvinist who fell down three flights of stairs? He picked himself up and said ‘man, I am glad that is over!’”
But I’m REALLY concerned about this guy! Especially when he says things like this:
In the interest of full disclosure I am not a Calvinist of either the 4- or 5-point variety (the contested point being “limited atonement,” did Jesus die on the cross only for the elect or potentially for everyone?). I have always felt that the difference between a 4-pointer and a 5-pointer is a distinction without a difference, because you are still left with a humanity divided between those who must believe in Jesus (the elect) and those can’t believe in Jesus (the non-elect).
Again, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a 3 ¼ point Calvinist if you evaluate my theology utilizing the template of 5 point Calvinism. I believe in about ¾ of T (Total Depravity), ¾ of U (Unconditional Election), and ¾ of I (Irresistible Grace), none of L (Limited Atonement) and all of P (Perseverance of the Saints). See my “Another View of the Biblical Doctrine of Election,” Christian Post , Jan. 14, 2014 for a brief summary of my 3 ¼ point model.
This guy should know better. Here is his background.
Dr. Richard Land is president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and executive editor of The Christian Post.
I don’t see why one couldn’t believe in LFW & also in God foreknowing the fall of man into sin. God is Sovereign, including Sovereignty over both man’s will & man’s LFW, so why couldn’t He foreknow the fall because He knew that He could arrange it so that it must occur & intended to make it so? That is the position i am presently holding, at least tentatively while i continue to look into Open Theism.