quote:

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Originally posted by Weslian:

The mode of thought in the synoptic gospels is contrete, short sayings, stories and poetry. Often talking of things allusively, rather than directly. In the Creeds it is abstract, phiolosophical doctrinal statement. John's gospel is more philosophical than the synoptics, but even that seems to represent a different way of thinking than the creeds.

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I suppose this takes us pretty far from Calvinism, but...

I agree that the creeds are quite different from the Gospel, but I don't think that this is because they are "hellenistic" and the Gospels are not. They simply are different genres: a gospel is a story and a creed is like a grammar book to help those who are having trouble figuring out the story. I would say that the grammar is not much use without the story, but that doesn't mean that it isn't useful (and even necessary) to help most of us understand the story. Also, a creed is a profession of faith in a way that a story is not. Creeds originated not to tell the story of Jesus, but to indicate one's acceptance of that story.

Let’s take the depravity and perserverence petals together. They are a bit like two sides of the same coin. We can do nothing to earn eternal life and once we have it (since it is eternal) we can do nothing either to keep it or lose it. As SteveTom points out “total depravity” is not a statement about the moral condition of individuals. It is a description of the spiritual condition of the human race. “Let the dead bury their dead” said The Lord. “ You were dead in your tresspasses and sins.” said his apostle. This does of course have a huge implication for every individual. The christian message is NOT that we need to do better or that we should be good. The christian message is that we are dead and need to receive life. Regeneration is the issue not reform.

The election and the grace petals also go together. Both hinge on the fact of God’s sovereignty and both squeak on the fact of human free-will. Are there really christians out there who seriously believe either, that God is not sovereign or, that we are not responsible for the decisions we take? If there are those who find that these two truths put together disorientate tidy but oh so fallible and limited human reasoning, tough! Neither can be broken.
Mousethief your assertion that election and grace petals of the tulip of necessity imply that God’s decisions on who is saved are arbitrary and that the choice an individual may make is not in fact a choice at all, is well below your usual standard of debate. Why arbitrary? God is always sovereign never arbitrary. He may well pressure us even hound us but in the end the individual exercises choice without in anyway nullifying the inevitability of that choice.

Ok lastly “limited atonement”. This is a bit of a puzzle to me. Until someone, some years ago, explained this to me I had always assumed that the potency of Christ’s sacrifice was such that nothing (except refusal) and no-one was beyond its scope. I haven’t up to now changed that view. But the puzzle is, I can’t see what real difference it would make if I did. The point seems completely academic without (unlike the other four points) any application or outcome for the here and now. Am I missing something? Some how it would be more satisfying to wave a complete tulip rather than an incomplete one.

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Originally posted by afish:
Are there really christians out there who seriously believe either, that God is not sovereign or, that we are not responsible for the decisions we take? If there are those who find that these two truths put together disorientate tidy but oh so fallible and limited human reasoning, tough! Neither can be broken.

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now, see... there is my problem.

i can handle God being three beings as well as one. i can handle the resurrection and miracles. i can even handle the foolishness of the supreme being wanting to hang out with me, and wanting me to hang out with him.

i cannot handle two mutually exclusive statements. (taking these two statements about God's absolute, unwaiving sovereignty and our responibility to their (IMO justified) extremes)

either one or both of these statements are wrong, or our entire system of understanding is wrong.

it makes no sense for me to throw out my system of understanding, as it will get me nowhere. without it, i could not function. i have to conclude that these mutually exclusive statements must be in err.

or have i just got the wrong end of the stick? is God just a-little-bit-sovereign? are we only responsible for our actions in name?

i can only see it as God, being sovereign, suspending his sovereignty. he is not in control; stuff doesn't happen as he wants it to, because he feels something is more important: IMO, our free-will.

The nature of God is that he often has seemingly conflicting natures!

Not that I am defending Calvinism, I just dont see that as a problem myself.

The Biblical God is portrayed as being omnipotent and omnipresent, but also as being involved in his creation and as carrying on genuine conversations with people that influenced his decisions (Moses, Abraham). He is portrayed as having emotions and of being a God whose anger is only for a moment but whose love is for a lifetime.

In contrast the God conceived of by the greeks and notably Plato is not realy a person at all. Their God was conceived by imagining infinity and perfection in all directions. God was conceived as being omnipotent and omnipresent. He also learned nothing, because he had to know everything, remembered nothing because he did not forget, thought nothing serially because that would mean he had not thought of something yet and therefore holds all of his knowledge in a conscious "now".

God is also portrayed as passionless, of living in continuous peace.

Early Christian theologians sought to prove that the God of the Bible was the true God, by using these concepts. They dismissed Bible stories where God changes his mind or emotions as anthropomorphisms. Instead they found scriptures that speak of God not changing his mind and built a theology of the ineffable God not found in scripture.

One of the implications is that if God is static, then so is his creation. However linear we find the universe, to God the past, present and future are held simultaneously. All decisions are known and are ordained.

This is my imperfect summary of the argument found in "The Openness of God" by Clark Pinnock and others.

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Originally posted by PaulTH:
While I much prefer the Jewish to the Hellenistic influences on Christianity, I think its fair to say that the OT Jewish concept of God is too anthrpomorphic.

If God is to be the creator of all, He must be above all emotions such as rage and revenge, and He must be omnipotent and onmiscient. I think the Jewish concept of God evolved between the Sinai revelation and the time of Jesus from a wrathful potentate to a loving father.

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And I agree in part. Is the jewish conception of God too anthropomorphic? It was Jesus who encouraged us to see God as a personal father.

For God to be the creator of all he does not have to be omniscient or omnipotent, he merely has to have sufficient wisdom and power to do the task. However, he does declare himself as all-powerful. The open view of God does not deny God's omniscience, but it does limit what that can mean. God knows everything that can be known at a particular time. He usually knows what will happen, but he is sometimes surprised. In the same way his power is limited by logical impossibilities. He cannot make a triangular square, for instance.

Someone up the thread asked, Did God create evil? If He is sovereign then nothing is, or happens, without his permission and foreknowledge. In Isaiah 45:7 it is put even more strongly, “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I The Lord do all these things.”
Now there are many who won’t accept this believing that it compromises a God whose very nature is love. Not at all! That God has permitted evil to exist and operate in his creation does not mean that He Himself is in anyway, also evil. If He has decided that it should be that way He has made it that way for good reason and for ultimate good. Is it difficult for us to understand? Sure, maybe even impossible, but these thoughts help me;

First, how could the love, mercy, grace, holiness, etc, etc of God be really known except by contrast?
Secondly, concerning free-will, love that is forced is not love and love that never has to choose whether to love or not is not love. Maybe then the exercise of free-will when confronted by evil is like a sieve separating love from not love? Remember God can not deny Himself or compromise his own nature therefore no-one can be united to Him who is not in agreement with Him however much He (God) does not want any to perish.

Stooberry (and Mousethief) I think your “system of understanding” IS wrong. Why exactly are the sovereignty of God and human free-will mutually exclusive?
Look:
1. If God wasn’t sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, etc He wouldn’t be God would He?
2. If we could not exercise free-will and were not responsible for decisions we take we wouldn’t be human beings made in the image of God would we?

The fact that God knows what choice I will make before I do does not in any way take away from the freedom I have in making that choice. Neither does the fact that my destiny is predestined in any way take away my responsibility for what I do with my life.

I think how God and Pharaoh interacted is a useful study. The three roots translated as Harden are Qalah, Kabed, and Chazaq.

Qalah refers to stubbornness, and is used to speak of the whole process.

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EX 7:3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt,

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Kabed refers to heaviness, immovable. The Plagues sent by God were Kabed, as was Pharaoh's heart.

Chazaq refers to strength, but can mean encourage or repair.

What is important (and one could go into a longer word study over what was used when) is that the hardening was not a "making evil", but a strengthening in a chosen course, to fulfil God purposes.

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Originally posted by afish:
1. If God wasn’t sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, etc He wouldn’t be God would He?

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I'm with Stoo; Christ being fully man and fully God isn't a contradiction. A paradox, perhaps, but not a contradiction. Saying God does everything and yet man has free will is like saying 1 is not equal to 1. And why believe the impossible if it's not necessary?

Lastly, the dichotomy between irresistable grace and works salvation is a false dichotomy. Grace can be resistable, and yet grace. Just because it's resistable doesn't mean that grace becomes works. Saying that only irresistible grace is grace is rather stacking the deck -- or arguing in a circle, if you prefer that figure of speech. I believe in salvation by (resistible) grace, not salvation by works. (Although I believe grace is appropriated and made manifest in the believer's life by the things the believer does -- but that's an argument for another thread, surely.)

Rdr Alexis

[left out a preposition that rather changed the meaning of what i was saying]

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RO 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

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With

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RO 11:2 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah--how he appealed to God against Israel:

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The action is corporate referring to an undefined group of people, rather than specific individuals.

The greek word, foreknowledge, carries the sense of prognosis rather than an exhasutive awareness of all future events. God's foreknowledge is based on his huge resources and wisdom in the present. The bible constantly speaks of God acting in time, not outside it. I see no reason to make God timeless: it only introduces philosophical tensions.

If God is not, as Scripture and Reason suggest, timeless that leaves us some options, either:

a:/ God is within time as it stands as part of the natural universe, and is therefore far more part of the universe than we often think.

b/: Time, an experience of a succession of moments, is part of Gods being that God has shared with us.

c:/ God created a Universe that was bound in time and therefore bound himself by the same limitation when working in that universe.

Wesley's problem with Calvinism was that he thought it could be seen to limit God's salvation to the few, whereas it was fundamental to Wesley that the offer was for all.

As I have read this thread, I have come to realise that one of my favourite Charles Wesley hymns is in fact a polemic in favour of Arminianism. I don't think it negates the good points of Calvinism, and includes a reference to the sovereignty of grace. But look how many times there are words like all, or general, or the world:

Father of everlasting love
Thy only Son for sinners gave
Whose grace to all did freely ove,
And sent him down the world to save.

Help us thy mercy to extol
Immense, unfathomed, unconfined,
To praise the Lamb who died for all,
The general Saviour of mankind.

Thy undistinguishing regard
Was cast on Adam's fallen race
For all thou hast in Christ preprared
Sufficient, sovereign, saving grace.

The world he suffered to redeem
For all he has the atonement made
For those that will not come to him
The ransom of his life was paid.

Arise, O God, maintain thy cause!
The fullness of the nations call;
Lift up the standard of thy cross,
And all shall own thou diedst for all.

I wonder if a key couplet is:
For those that will not come to him
The ransom of his life was paid.

Christ died not for the elect, but for the ungodly; he reached out for those who wouldn't come to him.

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Originally posted by PaulTH:
While I much prefer the Jewish to the Hellenistic influences on Christianity, I think its fair to say that the OT Jewish concept of God is too anthrpomorphic.

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I would agree with this if the word "too" were eliminated. I'd prefer to say that the OT -- and the NT as well -- offers anthropomorphic images of God, period. I'm not sure something can be "too" anthropomorphic: it either is or it isn't. But the Bible (both OT and NT) also contain anti-anthropomorphic statements (e.g. Hosea 11:9 -- "I am God and no mortal"; Isa 55:9 -- "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts"; the entire conclusion of the book of Job). So even within scripture there is a dialectic between anthropomorphism and anti-anthropomorphism. For early christians, some Greek notions about God helped them articulate an essentially biblical anthropomorphism. I can't really see the problem.

To get back to Calvinism: perhaps part of the difficultly with the notion of unconditional election is that we tend to have too anthropomorphic an idea of what it means for God to "choose." Certainly if you think that God does not exist within the contraints of time and space you need to radically revise what you think "choosing" means in the case of God.

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Originally posted by Wood:
What, you mean like Christianity?

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If push comes to shove... Certainly that Calvinist congregation first brought it home to me that I was the Wrong Gender. (Odd, really, to be so keen on election and predestination, and so discontented with the fact that God's Chosen tended to be women of mature years). And I don't think that is just Calvinists. If I can't make Pope, I'm not playing.

Another contra-indication has already been very well expressed by Nunc - that it posits a world without imagination or creativity (or rather the ambiguity, uncertainty and continual possibility which are their basis).

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Originally posted by FCB:
To get back to Calvinism: perhaps part of the difficulty with the notion of unconditional election is that we tend to have too anthropomorphic an idea of what it means for God to "choose." Certainly if you think that God does not exist within the contraints of time and space you need to radically revise what you think "choosing" means in the case of God.

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The great irony of "Calvinism" is that, in seeking to remove limitations on the sovreignty of God, it ends up removing all choice from God and making him and us a closed system drifting immovable in spacetime.

As I stated before, the implications of greek thought as applied to God, meant that God was ineffable (i.e. he could not change in any way) for the purely spurious "reason" that if God changed, he would no longer be perfect. This piece of nonsense is actually the main foundation of a lot of theology!

An example of this static view of God can be found in "The knowledge of the Holy" by AW Tozer where he speaks about what actually happens when the sinner repents. I haven't read this book for 20 years so I cannot be too accurate, but the analogy Tozer uses is of God as a mountain. On one side of the mountain is God's angry face, on the other side God is happy. When the sinner repents God does not move at all, but the sinner walks round the mountain to bask in God's pleasure...

which has nothing to do with him at all!

Once God was turned into stone it was only a matter of time before the same thing happened to his creation, and all relationships became illusions.

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Originally posted by Stowaway:
When the sinner repents God does not move at all, but the sinner walks round the mountain to bask in God's pleasure...

which has nothing to do with him at all!

Once God was turned into stone it was only a matter of time before the same thing happened to his creation, and all relationships became illusions.

Yuck!

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Interesting. You would no doubt be horrified to know that I take it as axiomatic that salvation only involves a change on our part, not a change on God's part (since I don't think that God can change, no more than I think that God can sin or have a toothache).

But I don't think God is "static." If you imagine a point that moves through space at an infinite velocity (I know, Einstein says that infinite velocity is impossible, but this is just a thought experiment; besides, since God is not physical there is no particular reason why we should conceive of God's being as having to obey the laws of physics), then it is simultanously everywhere along the path of its movement, so the point's position never undergoes any change, not because it is static, but because it is infinitely fast.

This is more or less what Aquinas means when he speaks of God as "pure act."

I accept that we must inevitable speak of God in anthropomorphic terms that involve such things as change and location and emotion. But I also think that we have to recognize the limitations of those anthropomorphisms.

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Originally posted by Dyfrig:
To be fair to the Greeks, Stowaway, have you considered that the problem may not be translation in Greek but rather into Latin, which had yet another semantic field for the words it use? McGrath (Iustitia Dei) suggests that the development of "Justification" theory via Augustine is affected quite deeply because of using a Latin Bible that used a word that imperfectly translated the Greek Septuagint's slightly better translation of the Hebrew. Could the same not be true of predestination, given that it's more a western concern than an eastern one?

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I don't have anywhere near enough scholarship to be able to track how this happened. The greek thought on God was developed completely outside the judeo-christian tradition and then grafted together.

Part of the process seems to have happened amongst the jews and the major part with christian scholars who engaged with the culture around them in communicating the gospel, as we all do, and picked up these concepts along the way.

I don't really think that this particular concept of God is found in the Bible, though, like everything, it can be read into it through proof texts even when the overall emphasis of the Bible is different.

However, a translation is always an interpretation, and it may be that the latin translator put this view into the Vulgate, which would certainly cement the problem.

Someone much cleverer than I would have to analyse why this theology became strong where it did. I would suspect that the reformation came at the point where rationalism was being exalted and therefore a theological "Theory of Everything" appealed.

Of course, there were good political reaons to have a theology that eliminated the legitamacy of the authority claimed by the RC church, but the theology continued after the political goals were completed, so it appealed at the time.

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Originally posted by FCB:
But I don't think God is "static." If you imagine a point that moves through space at an infinite velocity (I know, Einstein says that infinite velocity is impossible, but this is just a thought experiment; besides, since God is not physical there is no particular reason why we should conceive of God's being as having to obey the laws of physics), then it is simultanously everywhere along the path of its movement, so the point's position never undergoes any change, not because it is static, but because it is infinitely fast

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To some extent it helps me the think that God is much greater than we can imagine. So He can be totally sovereign and at the same time create autonimus free thinking creatures. That is beyond our finite selves, but possible to an infinate triune God.

I am surprised earlier in this thread to be defending Calvinism I am usually arguing the other way. Spending time in Baptist churches which in the UK at least are are merger between the arminium General Baptist (where I am) amd the Calvinistic Particular Baptists we have learnt to get on, and I can ususlly see where the other side are coming from.

The one point I do accept is Perseverence of the Saints and I had firgured that one out for myself reading the Bible before I had ever heard of the 5 points of Calvinism and thought that pre-destination was a bad joke.

I have heard that the god of Islam is also considered sovereign and thus pre-destines those who are going to paradise. However I don't how wide spread this belief is, but it shows that this sovereignty versus Free Will is not just a Christian problem.

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Originally posted by sacredthree:

If God is not, as Scripture and Reason suggest, timeless that leaves us some options, either:

a:/ God is within time as it stands as part of the natural universe, and is therefore far more part of the universe than we often think.

b/: Time, an experience of a succession of moments, is part of Gods being that God has shared with us.

c:/ God created a Universe that was bound in time and therefore bound himself by the same limitation when working in that universe.

All three allow room for the growth of God, if only with Gods dealings with man. c:/ also helps us understand free will. If one is playing a game of chess and one changed the rules it would no longer be a game of Chess. God created a universe where time and freewill were important. It is not that this limits God, rather that this is the Game that God is playing. The other (determinist) option is that God created a universe where it looks like Time and Freewill are important but actually both are irrelevant as God has planned it all out already.

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Originally posted by afish:
1. If God wasn’t sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, etc He wouldn’t be God would He?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
why not?

He Himself claims to be all these things so if He isn’t that makes Him a liar which would further disqualify Him from the job.
God without sovereignty equals headless chicken.
Also if God did not have all these atributes then people really would have reason to go stomping on tulips.
What do you think God needs to be to be God? Any minimum requirements?

Mousethief
You say,
“I believe God chooses to limit his omnipotence in such a way that man is free to act -- and to act freely. In deciding to create free agents, God voluntarily limits his power. Why is this so hard to accept?”

Because it’s not true. Giving us humans free will doesn’t make God any less omnipotent than He was before our creation. God in His sovereign free will decides whether when and how He exercises his power. But the power is always there constant and unchanging.

You also say,
“God does everything and yet man has free will is like saying 1 is not equal to 1. And why believe the impossible if it's not necessary?”

Sorry mate you’ve lost me there. Who says God does everything? What everything? Why is it like saying 1is not equal to 1? But I do agree one shouldn’t believe the impossible, even if it is necessary.”

Stowaway
You say,
“The great irony of "Calvinism" is that, in seeking to remove limitations on the sovreignty of God, it ends up removing all choice from God and making him and us a closed system drifting immovable in spacetime.”

Er how does it do that?

quote:

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Originally posted by afish:
Stooberry
Originally posted by afish:
1. If God wasn’t sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, etc He wouldn’t be God would He?
---------------------------------------------
why not?

He Himself claims to be all these things so if He isn’t that makes Him a liar which would further disqualify Him from the job.
God without sovereignty equals headless chicken.
Also if God did not have all these atributes then people really would have reason to go stomping on tulips.
What do you think God needs to be to be God? Any minimum requirements?

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i don't know that he does claim omnipotence, omnipresence or omniscience though. (but that's a different thread)

my minimum requirements for God? a being with more capabilities than humans, more powerful, more knowing and more wise. involved somehow (at some point) with this world and its workings. possessing the ability to do what we call miracles.

quote:

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afish said:
Mousethief your assertion that election and grace petals of the tulip of necessity imply that God’s decisions on who is saved are arbitrary and that the choice an individual may make is not in fact a choice at all, is well below your usual standard of debate.

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Thank you for the back-handed compliment!

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Why arbitrary? God is always sovereign never arbitrary.

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Exactly my point. Hence the falseness of "U" (Unconditional Election).

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He may well pressure us even hound us but in the end the individual exercises choice without in anyway nullifying the inevitability of that choice.

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If a choice is inevitable, it isn't a choice. That's what "choice" means. Freedom from inevitability. If you tell your kid, "Do you want mashed potatoes or mashed potatoes?" (because no matter what they say, you're going to give them mashed potatoes), you haven't given them a choice. Complaining that you have, in fact, given them a choice (after you scoop the mashed potatoes onto their plate) doesn't cut it with the kids, and it doesn't cut it with adults to say that "you have a choice" but "what you chose was inevitable." It's the same sleight-of-hand both times; and in neither time does it change the fact that there was, in fact, no real CHOICE. If the outcome of my "choice" is inevitable, then I do not have free will.

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Weslian said:
Wesley's problem with Calvinism was that he thought it could be seen to limit God's salvation to the few, whereas it was fundamental to Wesley that the offer was for all.

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Hear, hear! This is also the view of Orthodoxy: God's gracious offer of salvation is open to all. To claim otherwise requires the entire New Testament to be stood on its head. You have to go through with a red pencil and make emendations to passages, so that "the world" means "the elect" and "all mankind" means "the elect" -- and you have to do this over and over.

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afish again:
Giving us humans free will doesn’t make God any less omnipotent than He was before our creation. God in His sovereign free will decides whether when and how He exercises his power. But the power is always there constant and unchanging.

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I'll bet we're meaning different things by "omnipotent." But anyway, I wasn't the one who claimed giving humans free will made God less than omnipotent; it was SteveTom. I just agreed for the sake of argument.

SteveTom claimed that if the offer of salvation is indeed open to all, then God must be unable to save all.

My counterclaim is that although God COULD save all (if he overrode our free will), he chooses NOT to override our free will. Thus any who reject Him are allowed to, and are thereby not saved. For some reason this to SteveTom makes God seem feeble. I don't see it, so maybe you should ask him how exactly he reaches that conclusion.

Anyway, it really boils down to either (a) God could save all but chooses not to; based on some (unknown to us) criterion of His own, and those He chooses to save He saves willy-nilly, and those He chooses to damn He damns willy-nilly; OR (b) God could save all but chooses not to force the unwilling to be saved; God does not damn anyone, but if they choose to be damned He does not stop them. (A) is the Calvinist position; (B) the Orthodox.

My claim, as always, is that the "god" of (a) is not the God of Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, and Jesus Christ. For a "god" that would damn people for no fault of their own, and against their will, is -- hold onto your hats -- an ogre.

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God does everything and yet man has free will is like saying 1 is not equal to 1. And why believe the impossible if it's not necessary?

Sorry mate you’ve lost me there. Who says God does everything? What everything? Why is it like saying 1 is not equal to 1? But I do agree one shouldn’t believe the impossible, even if it is necessary.

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Okay, I think I may have overstated my claim. I apologize.

Let's get back to the real issue on the omnipotence thing, which is irresistable grace. I was assuming that irresistable grace meant that God's grace cannot be resisted by us. But it is believed by the Orthodox that God's grace can, in fact, be resisted, because man has truly free will. Further I want to claim that "free will" (for men) and "irresistable grace" are incompatible. If we truly have free will, then that must mean that our will is free and not forced. But if anything is "irresistable" then we have no choice, and hence (in that area, anyway) no freedom. You need to either re-define "irresistable" or "free" in such a way that they no longer mean what they have always meant, in order to overcome this contradiction. Because claiming both -- that God's grace is irresistable and man's will is free -- is like claiming 1<>1. It's not just a paradox. It's impossible. It's meaningless. It's gibberish. And as (I think) St. Clive points out, nonsense is still nonsense, even if predicated of God.

Lastly: what are my requirements for God? The only self-existing (uncreated) being; capable of doing anything (anything not self-contradictory, I mean) he chooses, if he chooses; personal (i.e. not just a "force"); one in essence and three in person (as per the Nicene Creed); the creator of all things which exist but are not Himself. (That'll do for a start; I'm sure I left something out.)

Note: If I've failed to respond to anybody who expected a response, I'm sorry; PM me and point out the post you want me to respond to (to avoid cluttering the thread), and I'll do so (in the thread).

Reader Alexis

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Originally posted by Stowaway:
So you are saying that from our point of view God is static, but from his point of view he is dynamic. This is the wrong way round isn't it?

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I suppose what I'm trying to say is that our language speaks about God as either static or changing, when in fact God transcends this distinction. In a similar way, we must speak about God either as a particular being ("God") or an abstract concept ("divinity"), even though what God is is not distinct from the fact that God is.

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Originally posted by Stooberry:
my minimum requirements for God? a being with more capabilities than humans, more powerful, more knowing and more wise. involved somehow (at some point) with this world and its workings. possessing the ability to do what we call miracles.

that's not what i would like to reduce God to, but that'd be what a being needs to qualify for the position, i think.

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Then Santa Claus qualifies, or a slightly more advanced space alien.

I agree that all biblical language and all theological language is anthropomorphic, as is the philosophical language of Plato and Aristotle. Ultimately many (Calvinists and Arminains) accept a philosophical definition, that God is an "Unmoved Mover" and reject the language of the bible. That "Unmoved Mover" was the highest theological ideal amongst many in the first centuries of the church, and If the Christian God was God then that is how he had to be.

The Bible, which has to my mind is has quite a developed and valid theism of its own, is seemingly ignored in this area by many who espouse the strongest forms of biblical inerrancy and literalism. The Anthropomorphisms are ignored for the sake of some other big idea, isolated texts are used to discard reams of others. If the Bible says God is a changing relational being working within time 10 times, but then suggests a different picture once the only reason to take that once over the others is because of that some other big idea. I agree that Paul can be read in light of that Big Idea. Maybe he was a determinist, but somehow, if he was truly writing under inspiration, I would hope that he was writing in the light of open Hebraic theism. Although the church fathers certainly were greatly effected by Greek philosophical thought Human Free Will was early orthodoxy.

I for one feel that it is time that this other big idea was retired. Suggesting that the Christian God was compatible with Plato and Aristotle may have aided the spread of the Gospel, it may have helped maintain doctrinal stability after the Roman Empire collapsed, it may have even resonated with modernism, both liberal and conservative, but it does not resonate with scripture or with post-modern culture.

Plato, as the Orthodox have demonstrated, We do not need you. You are the weakest Link. Goodbye.

So what of the perfections of God? My God is Omni-changing, Omni-Growing, Omni-Learning, Omni-Creative, he is far greater than the "Unmoved Mover", he is, in the words of Pinnock, the "Most Moved Mover".

If God is spatiotemporal, then where is he located? I think we are back with Santa Claus: in other words, whatever the intentions of Clark Pinnock, et al., the god they propose is what I call an idol.

And I must disagree that philosophical language is "anthropomorphic." True, it is human language, but it does not speak of God as if God were a human being (which is, strictly speaking, the meaning of anthropomorphic).

I'm someone who hates being told that I should go read something, but the essay that really changed my mind on these questions was "The Involvement of God" by the late Herbert McCabe, in his book God Matters. I spent several years trying to figure out why McCabe (and Augustine and Aquinas and Anselm and Basil and Gregory of Nyssa and Athansius and Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Siena and -- dare I say it -- Paul) was wrong, but I finally gave in. So here I stand, I can do no other.

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Originally posted by FCB:
Gosh, hate to break up this love fest, but I would like to point out that if God is inside time, then God is inside space, since, as Einstein showed (though Aristotle and Aquinas claimed it long before),the two are inseparable.

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I am sorry I just can't accept that argument. You are mistaking time as a physical property of the universe with time as a experience of a succession of moments. The two are very different. I am neither a Quantum or Macro physicist but the models and theories used to describe what happens to the physical universe are not an acceptable source for the creation of theology.

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Originally posted by FCB:
If God is spatiotemporal, then where is he located? I think we are back with Santa Claus: in other words, whatever the intentions of Clark Pinnock, et al., the god they propose is what I call an idol.

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So I worship an Idol and you worship a Metaphysical Iceberg. Where is this getting us?

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Originally posted by FCB:
And I must disagree that philosophical language is "anthropomorphic." True, it is human language, but it does not speak of God as if God were a human being (which is, strictly speaking, the meaning of anthropomorphic).

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But the idea of "unchanging = perfection" is, ultimately, a projection of our own fear of change, onto God.

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Originally posted by FCB:
I spent several years trying to figure out why McCabe (and Augustine and Aquinas and Anselm and Basil and Gregory of Nyssa and Athansius and Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Siena and -- dare I say it -- Paul) was wrong, but I finally gave in. So here I stand, I can do no other.

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This is all rather exciting, we started with Calvinism and we end up with a Thomist and and a Process Theist arguing over an Evangelical Theologians work.

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Originally posted by afish:

Because it’s not true. Giving us humans free will doesn’t make God any less omnipotent than He was before our creation. God in His sovereign free will decides whether when and how He exercises his power. But the power is always there constant and unchanging.

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Oh my goodness - this thread. hope i haven't missed this particular point in someone else's post. i raised this on another thread a couple of months ago on, i think, free will. can't still find the thread, but this is the gist of it; and the answer i received was almost the same as the above quote i've snagged from afish.

if God is not always in control (or all powerful and always able to exercise His control and power) and if we have "free-will", then how can we depend on all the promises of God that He has revealed in His Word? Could not man, with evil intent, unravel the divine purposes of God?

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Originally posted by bessie rosebride:
if God is not always in control (or all powerful and always able to exercise His control and power) and if we have "free-will", then how can we depend on all the promises of God that He has revealed in His Word? Could not man, with evil intent, unravel the divine purposes of God?

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Originally posted by sacredthree:
It is possible that God can fail. Exciting isn't it! I have Faith that God is resourceful enough to overcome the opposistion, which is why I am a Christian.

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