A Way to Think About Free Will and God: Open Theism

Or, the Name of Jesus has depths to it way beyond a mere name. His entire character is in His name.I don't mean to short shrift this conversation, I hope to come back to it later, but I can't finish it right now. I just saw that last sentence and wanted to answer it.

That's what I've been trying to tell Phat for years. "Believing" in Jesus is far more than just believing that He existed.

Absolutely but I think that it goes beyond that. The Gospels as in the sheep and goats of Matthew 25 are very clear. It is about hearts that genuinely love and are prepared to love sacrificially whether we are Christian or not.The following is a direct quote from CS Lewis’ book The Last Battle from the Narnia series. In it Aslan, (the lion), is the Jesus figure and Tash represents the personification of evil. This passage is told by Emeth who has always served Tash with a loving heart believing that Tash and Aslan were of the same nature and that they both represented righteousness. He has gone from Narnia into what is metaphorically the world that represents the renewal of all things.

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So I went over much grass and many flowers and among all kinds of wholesome and delectable tree till lo! In a narrow place between two rocks there came to meet me a great Lion. The speed of him was like an ostrich, and his size was an elephant’s; his hair was like pure gold that is liquid in the furnace. He was more terrible than the Flaming Mountain of Langour, and in beauty he surpassed all that is in the world even as the rose in bloom surpasses the dust of the desert.

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Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him.

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But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.

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Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.

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Dost thou understand , Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.

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My point is that you can serve God through Jesus without having given intellectual ascent to their divinity. It also points out that you can serve evil in the name of Jesus.In Matthew 12 Jesus says the following.

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31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

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The Holy Spirit is that still small voice of God that speaks through our conscience. We blaspheme the spirit when we claim that which is evil to be good or claiming that which is good to be evil.I suggest that by understanding the Bible in such a way that has God ordering genocide and calling it good, or when we talk about the rejection of our neighbours of other faiths etc, that we just might be on the wrong side of the point that Jesus makes in Matthew 12.

Two fictional books don't make a non-fictional book.

And yet Matthew 12 sounds very much like the God who orders genocide, who decides arbitrarily what is good and what is evil.

I did not say that unbelievers can be Christians. If you do not believe in God, and in Jesus as the embodiment of God, then you aren't a Christian.My point was that non-Christians can lead lives that are pleasing to God, and Christians can lead lives that are displeasing to God.You continuously seem to focus on who is saved and who isn't. That is not the point of Jesus message. The message is that we are called to be members of "God's Kingdom" by serving Him, which of course means serving Him by using the gift of love, and living our lives reflecting that love into all of His creation. The Bible calls us as Christians to prayerfully engage with God. As Psalm 37:4 tells us, we are to pray that our hearts will desire what His heart desires.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

You sound like Pilate. What is truth. I believe that there actually is an objective truth in answer to your question; however as humans we can only come up with subjective conclusions.With our free will God has given us an open future as individuals to answer that question and the freedom to lead our lives in accordance with our answer.I seems to me that at one end we have the Golden Rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The other end might be looking out for number one or maybe if it feels good do it.

You and I have a different idea of what "objective" means. What you call objective, I would call absolute - and I agree that IF there is absolute truth, we can not discover it. What I call objective is more like a consensus based on evidence. With no evidence, no objectivity is possible. Yes, I agree that we all have an internal conflict between two evolutionary "goals" - individual survival and group survival. But that has nothing to do with what you quoted.I said that Matthew 12 seems to agree more with the Old Testament God than with your sanitized God who can do no wrong.

I hate when you're right. Absolute is the correct term and objective is not. I don't see it that way. Firstly I'd like to say that there is also considerable evidence in the OT of a loving god, although there are accounts of a vengeful god as well. As I have said before I believe that through the Bible we have a progressive revelation of God climaxing in Jesus where we can see Him fully.I'll quote C S Lewis again from "The Great Divorce" this time.

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There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.

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As I said before we blaspheme the Holy Spirit by calling good evil and/or evil good. When we make that choice we are essentially rejecting life with God and making our own choice of hell.Matthew 12 is saying that there won't be forgiveness. How can there be forgiveness if we have chosen evil as good and see no need for forgiveness. We have been given free will where we can choose between good and evil leading ultimately to choosing between life with God, and life away from God

Yes, so the overall picture is of a flighty God. What you call "progressive revelation" I would call progressive sanitization. I think that is one of the stupidest statements ever made in the English language. Nobody would make that choice. It's more like disagreeing with God about what's good and what's evil. The God of the Bible can't make up His own mind about what's good and what's evil. Any human being can see that allowing a place like Hell to even exist is evil. Which is why I say that Matthew 12 reflects the Old Testament. A loving God would forgive. A loving parent forgives whether the child wants forgiveness or not.

True, you didn't say unbelievers can be Christians. What you said was I would of course suoppose that if someone "has Christ in his heart" he has to be a Christian, but apparently you are making a distinction. Perhaps not much of a distinction though. Sounds like you might put vimesey above a lot of Christians anyway, even as more favored by God?

Well, actually they can't, according to scripture: "Without faith you cannot please God" says the scripture. Salvation is the foundation of the Christian life. Without it there is no Christian life at all. Without salvation there is no Holy Spirit, without the Holy Spirit there is no Christian love and no real knowledge of Christ Himself.It was Jesus himself who said we must be born again, and what is that but the transformation by a new birth that comes from heaven and changes us, which is what salvation is. He also said "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which is lost." and "I came to save sinners, not the righteous," and quoted Isaiah 61 to the effect that He came "to set the captives free, to give the oil of gladness for mourning," etc etc etc. Was it Christ or Paul who said He came to be a "ransom for many?" Lots there from Jesus Himself about our need to be saved and His mission to save us.But you keep sounding like we aren't to expect to receive anything from Christ except the ability to love others, it would be selfish of us to focus on our own salvation. Yet without salvation from sin we are unable to communicate with God and unable to have any of that love you keep talking about. Absolutely. Though we also must have other gifts, such as the gift of wisdom and the gift of prophecy which means knowing God's heart, and the gift of being salt which stems the natural corruptions of the fallen world and the gift of giving light which shines in the darkness of fallenness. But if we aren't saved, meaning if our sins are not forgiven, if we are still fallen creatures, then we are still selfish and blind to the things of God and can't offer any of that.We have to be regenerated by Him to be fit for His kingdom. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit" the Kingdom of God. Absolutely. You seem to think that's possible without the radical transformation which is salvation. It's not.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This seems a strange notion to hold.What if absolute proof came about tomorrow - showing that God did not exist and the Bible is just wrong and the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ and all if it was simply made up.Would you no longer treat others the way you want to be treated?What if GDR would still treat others the way GDR wants to be treated anyway?
What if an atheist would still treat others the way that atheist wants to be treated anyway?Does that make GDR and/or the atheist stronger in their faith to follow Jesus' message than you are?

Are any of us more favored than any others? I do know that many of us behave better than others...whether they are "saved" or not. Stile certainly behaves better than many Christians here at this forum.

What if it were true? Would you do anything different than you do now? Would you accept that you were a sinner and ask God into your heart? Or would you simply say "thats cool too!" Just being hypothetical. You are one of my favorites here. Your arguments make a lot of sense. I have a question, though. If you found absolute proof that the way you were living now would send you to a lake of fire sometime in the future, would you do what you needed to do to change course or would you challenge the authority of the law that sent you there? As an added hypothetical...how would one change course? Simply by believing? By doing more good things? By joining a cult? What would you do?