At 11:47 PM 1/17/2006, Pim van Meurs wrote to David:
"...claims which fail to make a logical positive
argument other than by denigrating those who adhere to liberal theology ..."
### I think it can be soundly demonstrated that
leftists are the ones who fail to make logical,
positive arguments, as Ron Nash points out so succinctly, here:
Open Theism: An Interview with Dr. Ronald Nash
http://www.fpcjackson.org/resources/apologetics/Open%20Theism/ronnash.htm
[excerpt]
MC: Thank you Dr. Nash. Some open theists accuse
historic Christianity of borrowing its view of
God from the Greeks. And in your book The Gospel
and the Greeks you address the connection between
Greek culture and the Christian religion. Are
they right? Did Christianity borrow its view of God from the Greeks?
RN: What really troubles me about this
allegation, that orthodox theology has been
strongly influenced by Greek thought, is that in
this particular case it is open theism that
manifests the influence of Greek thinking. The
idea of a finite God; that is the territory of Plato and Aristotle.
If you're looking at least at the idea that a
supreme being cannot know the future, that comes
directly from Aristotle. So far as I know that
particular idea was originated by Aristotle in
his book on interpretation. Aristotle asked the
question "Will there be a sea-fight tomorrow?"
One navy is going to attack another navy and
which fleet will win?) And Aristotle says there
is no way for any being to know that because no
proposition about the future can be true.
Therefore if the proposition "The Greek navy will
win the battle tomorrow" is offered by someone
and it's a proposition about the future, that
proposition cannot be true, that proposition
cannot be false until tomorrow. Therefore no one
can know it. And that constitutes one of the
major reasons why open theists like Clark Pinnock
and John Sanders and a lot of these other fellows
say that poor God can't know the future.
Well, I'm sorry; if God can't know the future,
then God cannot predict the future. Now I'm
confident that a large number of your listeners
are immediately thinking of all kinds of
prophecies in the Old Testament and New Testament
in which God Almighty predicts precisely what
will happen in the future, and that's something
that can't be possible in a universe in which God
cannot know future, free human actions. So if we
ask the question "will the real Greek please
stand up?" I think it would be the Open Theists
that have to rise to their feet on this issues.
MC: Now stepping from philosophy to the way that
we handle Scripture, open theists claim their God
is very much the God of the Bible and they sight
passages from Scripture that teach that God can
change His mind. Passages like 1 Samuel 15:35,
"And the LORD regretted (literally repented) that
He had made Saul king over Israel". It seems this
passage and others, like Genesis 5 and 6 teach
that God can make choices that He regrets; that
He can be surprised. Now, how can historic
Christian orthodoxy deal with passages like this?
RN: There's no need for a new answer. The church,
ever since the Reformation and probably some of
the predecessors of the Reformation, clearly
recognized that when human beings use language
about God there will be times when they cannot
use language in a literal way. For example, when
Jesus said "This is My body", He did not mean
that text to be interpreted in a straightforward
or literal way. Likewise when He said "This is My
blood" or "I am the door". What we call
non-literal or anthropomorphic (human-like)
language attributed to God appears throughout the
Bible. And it creates far fewer problems with
respect to passages like those you sighted when
we recognized that they are not to be taken in a straightforward way.
In fact, what's interesting is that many of the
passages cited by open theists as support for
their position turn out to be passages where the
straightforward interpretation of the passage
leads to a disaster. Let me give you a couple of
examples, and these examples appear in their writings.
In Genesis 22:12, as we know, God told Abraham to
take his son Isaac up to the top of the mount and
there offer him as a sacrifice. And God says "Do
not lay a hand on the boy. Do not do anything to
him, for now I know that you fear God, since you
have not withheld from me your son, your only. . ." Surprise!
Here is a classic case where open theists say
"God learned something new. God is surprised."
But notice the implications here. This is what
open theists can't trace out. Remember, open
theists say God can't know the future, but they
insist, as they had better, that God can know both the past and the present.
But the open theists' straightforward reading of
Genesis 22:12 actually implies that poor God
couldn't know the present. He did not know at
that moment that Abraham really trusted Him.
God's knowledge was lacking not only with respect
to the future, it was lacking with respect to the
present. And moreover, it was also lacking with
respect to the past. Now clearly, when our God
can't know the past and the present, He really is
a finite deity, and that is an implication of their position.
Let me give you one more text here. Consider
Genesis 3:9 where God is seeking Adam in the
garden and the verse reads "Then the LORD called
to the man and said to him, 'Where art thou?'."
Now, even when I was a 12 year old kid in Sunday
school, I knew that was not literal language. But
open theists have to interpret that as literal
language because they want to attack the full compliment of God's knowledge.
But the problem again here is that if you take
that passage literally, God didn't know where
Adam was at that particular moment in God's
present. In fact, God didn't even know His
geography, where Adam was in the garden. So these
people are really playing games, I suggest.
They condemn us for not interpreting passages
straightforwardly, when they themselves can't do the same thing.
Now listen; it is wrong to interpret any of these
anthropomorphic texts to say that God learns
something new from changed situations.
It is wrong to interpret them to say that God changed His mind.
Instead of understanding them in that way, we
should recognize that what may seem to be changes
of mind may actually be just new stages in the working out of God's plan.
An example of this would be the offering of salvation to the Gentiles.
Well, as part of God's original plan it
represented a rather sharp break with what had
preceded. Some other apparent changes of mind in
the Bible are changes of orientation resulting
from man's move into a different relationship
with God. God didn't change when Adam sinned.
Rather, man had moved into God's disfavor.
This works the other way as well. Take the case
of Ninevah. God said "Forty days and Ninevah will
be destroyed unless they repent". Okay, Ninevah
repented and it was spared. But it was man that
had changed and not God that had changed.
Now philosophers have a technical term for this;
they call it a "Cambridge change." That is, it's
a situation where we use the language of change
but no real serious or essential change has taken place.
Now, if I have the time, let me address the
passage in 1 Samuel. Actually, let me address two
passage because they're both relevant to this.
And if your people hear nothing else from me
today other than the books they ought to read
they ought to pay attention to the next three or four minutes.
Let me quote Numbers 23:19; "God is not a man,
that He should lie, nor a son of man that He
should change His mind. Does He speak and then
not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?"
Now this is what people should notice; two
serious errors are combined in that verse -
changing one's mind, and lying. And here is the
implication. If God can change His mind, then He
should also be able lie. You can't separate those.
Jump from Numbers 23:19 to 1 Samuel 15:29. It's
the same kind of parallel that's set up, "He who
is the glory if Israel does not lie or change His
mind. For He is not a man that He should change His mind".
What's interesting is that's the same text from
which the earlier passage you quoted comes from.
Now here is the interpretive principle that needs to be applied here.
If God can really change, then God can also lie.
You can't separate those. But if there is a
literal, straightforward text in Scripture that
tells us that God can't do one of those things,
then it follows that He cannot do the other thing either.
And Hebrews 6 makes it very clear in
straightforward, literal, non-anthropomorphic
language that God cannot lie. So if it is
impossible for God to lie, as Scripture tell us
it is, then it must also be impossible for God to change His mind.
And therefore, these texts that appear to tell us
that God can change His mind, are anthropomorphic
texts which should not be taken in a straightforward way.
MC: Thank you Dr. Nash. I have a few final
questions for you. Now Greg Boyd, in his book God
of the Possible writes, "Next to the central
doctrines of the Christian faith, the issue of
whether the future is exhaustibly settled or
partially open, is relatively unimportant. It is
certainly not a doctrine that Christians should
ever divide over." Now, Dr. Nash, is open theism
merely an intra-church debate about the future,
and thus, in the words of Dr. Boyd, relatively
unimportant, or is more at stake?
RN: With all due respect to Dr. Boyd, this is a
move that has been made by every heretic in the
history of the church. When the Jehovah's
witnesses or other Unitarians have said the deity
of Christ is not something that we should fight
about. Or the substitutionary atonement. This is a classic move.
Now I'm not imputing heresy to my friends who are
open theists in any kind of straightforward way,
but once we know where the church has always
stood on these issues, when someone comes along
with what amounts to a new way of understanding
these things and says "now this is nothing to
really get excited about, don't split churches
over this, don't leave my church" , then I'm
sorry, this is a matter where we have to take a
stand. The last group of people who's advice we
follow on this matter are the people who are
deviating and departing from the church's long-held position on this.
MC: What exactly is at stake in this issue?
RN: Good question. What is at stake is, number
one, our understanding of God and the kind of God
upon whom our faith is based.
What's also at stake here is our firm belief, or
what is the belief of people who are not open
theists, that God is sovereign, and that God is
in control of all of human history, and God will bring His will to pass.
One of the points that I argue in my book Life's
Ultimate Questions is that a God who cannot know
the future cannot control the future.
And thus, if we follow the open theist very far
down his road, we end up with a God who cannot
give us the confidence that we need to believe
that His will will prevail in human history.
We're dealing, frankly, as I sometimes say to
audiences; when I understand with the God of open
theism, I want to pray for that God because He
needs help. Right now the world series starts this week.
The God of open theism has no idea which team is
going to win the world series. The God of open
theism [doesn't know] who's going to win the battle against terrorism.
That is not my God. That is a different God. And
it is not the God of the Christian worldview.
The very integrity, the heart of our faith is at
stake with this issue, and this is not a minor,
trivial matter that says "well, you can continue
to go to this church and worship this alternate God and so on".
MC: You said before that you didn't want to call
this heresy. But is sounds like you're being very
kind to your friends who would hold this position as well.
RN: There are two kinds of heresy. One kind of
heresy is illustrated by a serious error called
"Socinianism". And many of the beliefs of
Socinianism are actually taught by these open
theists. Their position is not new. The Socinians
lived during the years of the Reformation and
they denied God's knowledge of future contingent
events, but they also then followed that belief
down the road to other beliefs that were specifically heretical.
So one kind of heresy is where you really are out
to change the nature of the Christian faith in to
a totally different religion. I'm not accusing open theists of that.
But there is a second kind of heresy where,
without knowing it, without thinking it, maybe
because they're afraid to think through thing to
their end, good people, honorable people, say
things that entail conclusions that are utterly
inconsistent with the historic Christian faith.
And that's where I think the open theists are.
MC: What should we as a church do then?
RN: Well, in about a month [ 11/19/2003 - See
below] the Evangelical Theological Society is
going to meet in Colorado Springs and the members
of the ETS are going to debate the question of
whether people who believe this way are holding
beliefs that are inconsistent with the doctrinal
stance of the Evangelical Theological Society.
And if their beliefs are inconsistent with the
doctrinal stance of the Evangelical Theological
Society, then they should leave.
If the ETS does not reach the proper conclusion
here, I think it's time for a whole lot of people
to leave the ETS because it clearly will no
longer stand for the theological foundation upon
which it was based. If that means there is a
battle within the church, well, that's hardly
new. The reason the church got to this point is
that when errors crept into the church over the
centuries, brave and honorable people stood up
and said "God help me, I can do no other", to quote Martin Luther there.
Every time the church - Christians, leaders,
thinkers - have failed to take a stand against
error, one error multiplies into another.
During the 18th century, people who claimed to
believe in the inerrancy of the Bible in New
England began to deny the Deity of Christ and
they did so on the basis of a spurious of false interpretations of Scripture.
That heresy was not rooted out, and before you
knew it all of those congregational churches in
New England that had failed to take a stand
decades earlier were committed to a full blown
Unitarian and Universalist position. You nip it
in the bud and if you don't, then the errors that
are implied in this position will eventually
creep in and take over, and then we've lost a serious battle.
MC: Well Dr. Nash, thank you very much for joining us.
Copyright ©2002 Christ Church
<http://www.christkirk.org/stannespub/nash.shtml>http://www.christkirk.org/stannespub/nash.shtml
Received on Wed Jan 18 01:29:03 2006
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