Refuting Arminianism?

[Cindy_Skillman]

Johnny, you were first, so I’m answering you first without reading the others yet. Hopefully I won’t have to contradict myself as my thought on this is still evolving. I’m so VERY consistent!

Here are your scriptures with my comments:

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)

“Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2)

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8)

Did I say that Father was within and subject to OUR time? I certainly might have implied it though I didn’t intend to. I see Him (that is, the Trinity with the exception of Jesus during the incarnation) as being in their own time. Maybe that’s incoherent, but if it is, someone will need to point out why – to me, I mean – so that I can see it. I AM is the name God gave to Abraham. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong, but for Jesus to say I AM (from which the priests and Pharisees apparently deduced He was blasphemously declaring Himself to be God – at least they thought it was worth stoning Him) I think Jesus was saying He was God. More than that, a being who stands outside our own time and watches it unfolding could easily say I AM of the entire past and really, the entire future as He knows He’ll still BE all in all to us.

For the thousand years/day analogy, I guess I’ve always seen that as God saying He’s infinite and time isn’t a biggie to Him. It’s all one. I know that to me now time moves much faster, yet a moment may expand out to fill a quite large slot. Does time really speed up for us as we age, or is it only our perception of time? Or maybe the two aren’t as separate as we suppose. Is time relative? Einstein thought so. I love this kind of stuff, but alas I’m probably not smart enough to quite GET it.

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.” (Isaiah 57:15, KJV)

The thing is, I don’t have a problem with this, but I don’t think the Jews had a concept of “eternity” as philosophers do today. To them it meant forever, and forever is fine. Forever into the past, continuing forever into the future. God is there; we’re not. I think maybe the only catching point on this between you and me, Johnny, is that while God is in a separate . . . I don’t know – all-encompassing dimension? . . . in that encircling dimension, our story is not yet completed in a physical sense (IMO) and you see our story as finished (physically) from God’s pov – hanging there like a gem or a Christmas ornament, all perfected. I would say our story is “finished” in the sense that God knows what He’s done, is doing, and will do, and how it all turns out. You would say, “No – but it really IS finished in actual fact.” I would probably respond, "Yes, in actual fact God has assured us that it is done. In the sense that you might say to me, “Will you pray for me?” and I answer, “Yes! Consider it done.” From God, those words are a lot more reliable, even though my words are reliable to the best of my ability. God’s ability is infinite. It is finished. And nevertheless, it has yet to play out.

I saw a movie about eternity once, in which this guy kept flitting back to past times (because eternity exists all at once) and forward to future times. All the times were cement – unchangeable and complete. It made no sense to me. Are you saying that the little girl who is being raped as we correspond, somewhere in this world of cruelty, will always be there in that experience, simultaneous with her entire future and her entire past, and is also at this moment sitting down to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and beyond that, tens of thousands of years old, now wise beyond any mortal of OUR time, perhaps watching us in our little jeweled ornament of time as she gazes at December 29, 2013? This makes no sense to me at all. Not saying it couldn’t be true, but I can neither conceive of it nor desire it. I like the idea of the pain one day being behind us – all of us.

I read a book about eternity (SF) in which a certain class of people had found a way to access eternity, and from their offices there, they interfered with time by, say, planning the moving of a salt shaker, thus slowing down a man from leaving for his drive to wherever, thus preventing or causing a traffic accident, and etc. until it ended up in some major world event going in a different, more favorable direction. The author couldn’t depict the pure eternity of Greek philosophy though (as I understand it) in that time (sequence) still functioned in the “eternal” realm as the people there planned their missions. It wasn’t this synchronous eternal monochromatic chord. I don’t see that in scripture, but I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about anyway. I just wanted to point out that this sort of thing is what I think of when I hear the term “eternity.”

God inhabits eternity (depending on how you define it). That’s fine and I confess that I don’t know what “eternity” is, but that I hope it’s not what CS Lewis describes because that sounds to me, frankly horrible. Never mind – I’m sure I’ll feel differently later – or in a sense I already feel differently in some dimension – thingee – what-zit kind of a realm. I’m not trying to be facetious here. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong – and Father will correct me, probably fairly quickly. For the present though, I really don’t think that creation of Father’s – that jeweled planet ornament thing – is completed. He will complete it, and it is as good as done, but I think that what’s past is past and He hasn’t done what is future. What He is doing now will bear its fruit in its season, and I don’t think that (the future) has happened yet.

I hope this isn’t all too much drunken rambling (though I’ve had nothing to drink but fresh tomato juice!) I’m doing my best, but I’m afraid I’m out of my depth.

Love you, Bro!
Cindy

[Stefcui]

I share the view of Johnny and Pilgrim, too.

To throw a small spanner in the mix; I think the Father is outside of time - whereas the Son is inside of time. After the resurrection, Jesus took on an eternal form suited to the physical world. The world was made for Him, through Him and by Him. The coming of Jesus was literally like a baptism into this life; literally being born again. This was always intended; as the world was designed for and by the Son. This was a means of God (the Father) being outside of time and inside of time simultaneously (through the Son).

If what I am suggesting is true, this places a burden on many dogmas and ideas on the nature of the Triune God. That’s a different subject though…

[anon12438761]

Thought I’d repost this link: firstthings.com/article/2007 … d-suffer-6

It paints quite a different picture of God than the process theology/open theism folks do. I happen to agree with it, but it is also true that I may not understand the open theism project, even having read the links above.

[Paidion]

What do you make of these scriptures (my emphases):

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)

Hi Johnny. It takes a lot of time to deal with a whole lot of scriptures which are interpreted from a particular point of view. Many verses have been offered to with the intention to confirm virtually any position devised by man. The method is known as proof-texting. However, the multitude of them don’t necessarily confirm any position. Now I am not accusing you of proof-texting, Johnny. All you have done is to ask Cindy what she makes of the set of verses you displayed. I would like to offer my thoughts on the the first two, and then the others later when time permits.

“I am” = “egō eimi”. You ask why Jesus said in John 8:58 “Before Abraham came to be, I AM”, if Jesus simply meant that He existed prior to Abraham. Why wouldn’t He have said, “Before Abraham came to be, I WAS (egō āmān),” if that’s all he meant. So, you presume Jesus must have meant something more. He must have meant that He existed outside of time. Is that your thinking?

My reply, is that there is no such implication. Using the present tense here is simply the genius of the Greek language. Here is a similar use of “egō eimi” in the Greek Septuagint translation of the OT. The following are Jacob’s words to Laban:

These twenty years I am (egō eimi) with you… (Gen 31:38 translation of the Septuagint)

And similarly in verse 43:

These twenty years I am (egō eimi) in your house…

So why didn’t Jacob say, "These twenty years I WAS in your house? Or "HAVE BEEN in your house? Was he saying that he was outside of time for the 20 years he was with Laban?

“Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2)

In the Hebrew masoretic text, the word translated as “everlasting” is “olam”. I haven’t studied Hebrew, but from my reading I understand this corresponds to “aiōn”(age) in Greek. Indeed, the Septuagint has “aiōnios” for this word (which is the genitive case of “aiōn”. It is genitive because of the prepositions of which it is the object.)

So the verse OUGHT to read:

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from age to age you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

[Cindy_Skillman]

Paidion, the word used in Is 57:15 is* “ad”* The Strongs number is H5703, I’d be interested to learn what you and [tag]JasonPratt[/tag] or anyone else might know about that one. Thanks!

[Username1]

Wow! What a treasure trove of interesting thoughts and comments. Thanks everyone. I’m particularly grateful to Paidion for showing me the reality of the Greek in the “I am” text I quoted. (Boy, am I jealous of you, Paidion. I so wish I knew Greek. I studied German in school, when I could have studied Greek. What a colossal blunder, donner und blitzen .)

Before I make any further comment, I thought it might be useful if I quoted in full CS Lewis on this subject. I have now managed to track down the relevant text, which is the chapter ‘Time and Beyond Time’ from Mere Christianity. I have bolded a few of the most relevant / controversial passages - including one which touches on Steve’s comment about Christ being ‘in time’. It’s long, and I know some of you will disagree with much of it. But it really helps to put the issues into a clear light.

In the last chapter I had to touch on the subject of prayer, and while that is still fresh in your mind and my own, I should like to deal with a difficulty that some people find about the whole idea of prayer. A man put it to me by saying “I can believe in God all right, but what I cannot swallow is the idea of Him attending to several hundred million human beings who are all addressing Him at the same moment.” And I have found that quite a lot of people feel this.

Now, the first thing to notice is that the whole sting of it comes in the words at the same moment. Most of us can imagine God attending to any number of applicants if only they came one by one and He had an endless time to do it in. So what is really at the back of this difficulty is the idea of God having to fit too many things into one moment of time.

Well that is of course what happens to us. Our life comes to us moment by moment. One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is room for very little in each. That is what Time is like. And of course you and I tend to take it for granted that this Time series—this arrangement of past, present and future—is not simply the way life comes to us but the way all things really exist. We tend to assume that the whole universe and God Himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do. But many learned men do not agree with that. It was the Theologians who first started the idea that some things are not in Time at all: later the Philosophers took it over: and now some of the scientists are doing the same.

Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty—and every other moment from the beginning of the world—is always the Present for Him. If you like to put it that way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.

That is difficult, I know. Let me try to give something, not the same, but a bit like it. Suppose I am writing a novel. I write “Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door!” For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is no interval between putting down the work and hearing the knock. But I, who am Mary’s maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as long as I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary’s time (the time inside the story) at all.

This is not a perfect illustration, of course. But it may give just a glimpse of what I believe to be the truth. God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his own novel. He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.

The way in which my illustration breaks down is this. In it the author gets out of one Time-series (that of the novel) only by going into another Time-series (the real one). But God, I believe, does not live in a Time-series at all. His life is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is, so to speak, still 1920 and already 1960. For His life is Himself.

If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all.

The idea is worth trying to grasp because it removes some apparent difficulties in Christianity. Before I became a Christian one of my objections was as follows. The Christians said that the eternal God who is everywhere and keeps the whole universe going, once became a human being. Well then, said I, how did the whole universe keep going while He was a baby, or while He was asleep? How could He at the same time be God who knows everything and also a man asking his disciples “Who touched me?”

You will notice that the sting lay in the time words: “While He was a baby”—“How could He at the same time?” In other words I was assuming that Christ’s life as God was in time, and that His life as the man Jesus in Palestine was a shorter period taken out of that time—just as my service in the army was a shorter period taken out of my total life. And that is how most of us perhaps tend to think about it. We picture God living through a period when His human life was still in the future: then coming to a period when it was present: then going on to a period when He could look back on it as something in the past. But probably these ideas correspond to nothing in the actual facts.

You cannot fit Christ’s earthly life in Palestine into any time-relations with His life as God beyond all space and time. It is really, I suggest, a timeless truth about God that human nature, and the human experience of weakness and sleep and ignorance, are somehow included in His whole divine life. This human life in God is from our point of view a particular period in the history of our world (from the year A.D. one till the Crucifixion). We therefore imagine it is also a period in the history of God’s own existence. But God has no history.

He is too completely and utterly real to have one. For, of course, to have a history means losing part of your reality (because it had already slipped away into the past) and not yet having another part (because it is still in the future): in fact having nothing but the tiny little present, which has gone before you can speak about it. God forbid we should think God was like that. Even we may hope not to be always rationed in that way.

Another difficulty we get if we believe God to be in time is this. Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot.

Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them.** But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call “tomorrow” is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call “today.” All the days are “Now” for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday. He has not.

He does not “foresee” you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow’s actions in just the same way, because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already “Now” for Him.**

This idea has helped me a good deal. If it does not help you, leave it alone. It is a “Christian idea” in the sense that great and wise Christians have held it and there is nothing in it contrary to Christianity. But it is not in the Bible or any of the creeds. You can be a perfectly good Christian without accepting it, or indeed without thinking of the matter at all.

Cheers

J

[Cindy_Skillman]

It’s very well written (of course!) and though I read Mere Christianity twice, I couldn’t remember where it was, Johnny, so thanks for posting this. The first time I read it, I found it very disturbing, and the second. But now it doesn’t bother me because if Lewis is wrong about soteriology, he could be wrong about this too. This is precisely the view of eternity that I disagree with. As I say, I may very well be wrong. Still I don’t see where (scripturally) Lewis gets all this.

Love you, Bro!
Cindy

[Username1]

Hi Cindy

There was a time, quite a few years back, that I got decidedly arsey if anyone suggested that Lewis, who was and remains one of my theological heroes, could possibly have got anything wrong . But now I’m with you in thinking that he actually got quite a lot of things wrong - including things that his own teacher, GMac, got right (IMHO ).

I don’t mind that Lewis doesn’t ‘proof-text’ all the time. GMac hardly ever referenced specific scriptures in his Unspoken Sermons, other than as a starting point for analysis - rather, everything he said was infused with the spirit of Scripture, as he saw it.

But I do agree, it’s not always easy to see how Lewis derived his views. Mind you, I am about as far away from ‘Sola Scriptura’ as a Christian can get, so what do I know??!!

Love right back to you, dear Sis

J

[Sobornost]

He get’s it from Boethius’ ‘Consolation of Philosophy’.

[Sobornost]

recycled post

I take some courage that these debates have been around for a long time. Chaucer has a gentle dig at them - in terms of bathos, or the descent from the sublime to the ridiculous - in his Nun’s Priest’s tale where the cock Chanticleer has dreamed that he will be eaten by a fox if ventures out into the yard. However his scolding wife, Dame Pertelote the hen, mocks his cowardice and puts the nightmare down to indigestion and recommends a laxative. However, as Chanticleer ventures out into the yard Reynard the Fox is indeed waiting for him and the narrator muses that –

But what God foresees must come to pass, according to certain scholars. You may witness it from any perfect scholar that there is great difference of opinion in the schools and great disputation about this matter, and there always has been among a hundred thousand people. 3239

But I cannot sift the wheat from the chaff, as can the holy doctor Augustine or Boethius or Bishop Bradwardine; whether God’s glorious foreknowledge compels me by necessity to do a thing (by necessity I mean absolute necessity), or if I am granted free choice to do or not that same thing, though God foreknew it long before; or whether His knowing does not constrains at all except by a conditional necessity. With such matters I will not concern myself.

My tale is all about a cock, as you may hear

Which in the original is -

But what that God forwot mot nedes be,
After the opinioun of certeyn clerkis.
Witnesse on him, that any perfit clerk is,
That in scole is gret altercacioun
In this matere, and greet disputisoun,
And hath ben of an hundred thousand men.
But I ne can not bulte it to the bren,
As can the holy doctour Augustyn,
Or Boece, or the bishop Bradwardyn,
Whether that Goddes worthy forwiting
Streyneth me nedely for to doon a thing,
(Nedely clepe I simple necessitee);
Or elles, if free choys be graunted me
To do that same thing, or do it noght,
Though God forwoot it, er that it was wroght;
Or if his writing streyneth nevere a del
But by necessitee condicionel.
I wol not han to do of swich matere;
My tale is of a cok, as ye may here,

All the best

Dick

[anon12438761]

1. Do we really want to say that God, who created Time, is subject to Time? I think it is better to say that He is unbound by Time, and because of that, He is free to intervene in Time.

2. There is some good thinking along the lines of: God’s knowing Himself and God’s knowing of creation are so related that they stand or fall together. If He truly does not know what the future holds, then He truly does not know what resources He will need to meet those situations - if they are new to Him. Or better, this from an essay expounding a bit of Aquinas:

"Matthew Levering (Scripture and Metaphysics) argues that God’s self-knowledge and His knowledge of creation stand and fall together. If His knowledge of the latter is limited, so is His knowledge of Himself: “Could God perfectly comprehend himself if he did not comprehend to what his power extends? In other words, could sheer Act comprehend himself if he did not know all the finite modes in which he could, as cause, share his existence? Could a cause know himself exhaustively if he did not exhaustively know the effects that could proceed from himself. Clearly, the answer is no. In knowing himself, God must therefore know (in himself) all the effects that could proceed from him as cause” (citing the Summa 1, 14, 5 on this last point).

Open theism thus can’t stop with saying that there are blank spots in God’s knowledge of creation; there must be un-fathomable depths in God Himself."

So I’m questioning whether, if there are depths in God that He is not aware of, we are still talking about God as revealed in the scriptures?
If you had time to read the link up above to the article titled “Can God Suffer?”, I think you will see a bit of the intellectual strength of the ‘classical theistic’ development of God.

As an aside - I think many of us consider ‘conservatives’ to be people steeped in a tradition who are set in their ways and will broach no questioning. BUT - it is also true that many BECOME ‘conservative’ by diligent studying of the questions themselves. I use “” around the word ‘conservative’ because it surely does not have a fixed meaning. The label is pretty much useless. But still, I have been finding for some years now that the ‘classical’ theism as developed in the bible and ECF is worth defending - and it is something I have arrived at more or less against my will. Now as to inerrancy and all that stuff - no, I’m not there - I’m talking about trinitarian Theism, not side issues.

[Cindy_Skillman]

Hey, Johnny

I wasn’t really talking about proof texts. I reference scripture all the time without saying so. Now that I’ve realized that Paul does the same, though (and WAY out of context quite a lot of the time ) I don’t worry so much about it. But what I meant was that I don’t see those principles in scripture – these that Lewis is talking about in his section about eternity. I KNOW there aren’t any of what I’d call “proof texts” (which honestly don’t usually prove anything) for this. I don’t know whether he got his ideas from scripture or from the philosophers of whom I believe he was also quite fond. The Greek philosophers were pretty amazing and a lot smarter than me for sure – but they’re a secondary source to me, and I believe them if they agree with scripture. If Lewis got this from scripture, I think it must have been some of the parts of other canons than the Protestant version. I haven’t read any of those, so it’s possible it could have come from them. If it’s in the Protestant scriptures in any form at all, I’ve definitely missed a very big thing (again though, it’s not as if THAT’s never happened!)

Love, Cindy

[anon12438761]

This pdf gets to the heart of the matter - it takes a little while to read, but it is clear in its reasoning - we might agree or disagree, but at least we will know exactly how we differ in our views. Recommended, but there will not be a test.

tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj12i.pdf

[Cindy_Skillman]

I just saw your posts, Dick. Thanks! Leave it to the Prof to know a bit of esoteric knowledge like that!

Dave, thanks for the link. I’ll try to at least get a start on it sometime today.

[Paidion]

Do we really want to say that God, who created Time, is subject to Time?

Created time? Is time some substance that needed to be created?

I propose that time is simply a measurement of the “temporal distance” between the occurrence of two events. If I am right, then after the first two events occurred, time simply existed.

It’s a bit like drawing an equilateral triangle. When you construct an equilateral triangle, you find you have automatically constructed an equiangular triangle. This is the logical consequence of having constructed an equilateral triangle. So time is the logical consequence of the occurence of two events.

[Paidion]

I am familiar with C.S. Lewis’s thoughts about time. It comes out clearly in the Narnian Chronicles. He has the children in Narnia living for decades and growing up, but when they return to this world through the wardrobe, only a few seconds had passed. I believe Lewis to be mistaken. Call me naïve, but I think time is much simpler than this—as I expressed in the above post.

[Stefcui]

There is different understanding and categories of “time”. Newton and Einstein’s views were contrary to each others. Newton believed in two different “times” - absolute and relative; whereas Einstein believed that time was only relative to space: space-time. In Newton’s model, absolute time was not dependent on space. I agree with Newton on this. I think absolute time is distinct from space or matter. God operates on this absolute time (and relative time). I also believe, as Paidion had said; ‘time’ is “simply a measurement of the “temporal distance” between the occurrence of two events”. In Einstein’s view this is impossible; for the event of the ‘big bang’ is dependent on ‘space’; and as there was no ‘space’ prior to the big bang, neither was there ‘time’. This shows how much Einstein’s theory is way off track.

[anon12438761]

Well, time is not a ‘substance’, but before there was ‘substance’ did time exist?
We are creatures of time and space, but there was a ‘time’ before time and space existed.
So, perhaps, time had to be created, just as space did.

[Stefcui]

We are creatures of time and space, but there was a ‘time’ before time and space existed.
So, perhaps, time had to be created, just as space did.

Hi Dave,

It depends who’s version of time/space you hold to…

Einstein believed that the matter-time-space were all related to each other - **E = mc2 **(Energy equals Mass times the Speed of Light squared). For Einstein they all existed at the same “time”. For Newton, however, space existed separately to matter, and time existed separately to space and matter. The question of ‘time’ depends on the version of Einstein or Newton, or whether something else all together is true?

[anon12438761]

One of the toughest-minded philosophers around, the fearless Peter Van Iwagen, was asked why he never addressed the topic of Time. “Too hard!!!” was his answer.