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Thanks, Nick, for your response to my take on God's omniscience, immutability, and the "unforgiveness" issue in the Gospels. I'm getting my son to school, but hope to write more later.<br><br>As always, I'm honored that you seek dialogue with me, and do so with the respect you show. I hope I've earned it.<br><br>Keely<br>http://keely-prevailingwinds.blogspot.com/<br><br><br><br><br>> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:41:33 -0500<br>> From: nickgier@roadrunner.com<br>> To: vision2020@moscow.com<br>> Subject: [Vision2020] Response to Keely on Forgiveness<br>> <br>> Dear Keely, <br>> <br>> I'm been so busy studying the Israeli-Palestinian problem, saying good-bye to <br>> Bush, and welcoming President Obama, that I've neglected to answer your response to my forgiveness column. <br>> <br>> I'm afraid that you have conflated divine omniscience and immutability. The <br>> practical joke point that Anne Minas made focused on omniscience not <br>> immutability. The forgiveness of a presidential pardon involves not knowing <br>> future mitigating facts that may justifying a pardon. Saying that God's <br>> response here is a joke may be unkind and misleading, so let's just say that it <br>> is a divine impossibility. This type of forgiveness is not possible for a being <br>> who already knows the future, in this case, the new facts that makes the pardon intelligible and justifiable. <br>> <br>> Orthodox Catholicism and Protestantism have always held a "hard" view of <br>> immutability. It is not merely something like "God's promises never change"; <br>> rather, it means that God never changes in his being. If divine forgiveness <br>> means giving up resentment, then this requires a change of which the orthodox God is incapable. <br>> <br>> I'm sorry to hear that you abhor "process theology," because the scriptural support for a dynamic Jehovah who tempts, regrets, repents, shows his wrath and then his love, and then, presumably, undergoes the most radical change in cosmic history (namely, the Incarnation) is overwhelming. This is a process God par excellence. <br>> <br>> You must also be aware of the fact that there is a school of evangelical <br>> theologians who support the idea of an open (rather than closed) future. These theologians reject your claim that "God knew it all along," a claim that makes most devotional talk about God unintelligible. <br>> <br>> In the end we must choose between two ideas of time: the neo-Platonic, orthodox Christian idea that it is past, present, and future all fused together in an Eternal Now, or a temporal process from the past, through the present, and into a future that has not yet happened. (This is sometimes called the Arrow of Time.) These two views contradict each other, and for the sake of <br>> intelligibility I choose the latter along with the process theologians with whom <br>> I studied at Claremont. God didn't give us reason and then want us to throw it out the window at every theological turn. Now, that would be a nasty practical joke! <br>> <br>> I appreciate your careful, although perhaps convoluted, explanation of Jesus' <br>> apparent exception to forgiveness in Mark 3:26, but I guess I prefer Krishna's <br>> radical, unconditional forgiveness. The demons are saved whether they want to do or not. No one is left behind in Krishna's total, unconditional grace. <br>> <br>> Instead of your water in the desert example, Doug Wilson once explained in a theology class we team taught that Jesus' grace as equivalent to a bank that promises to give $1 million dollars to the anyone who comes to claim it. His point, I believe, is the same as yours: the sinner has to make the effort and decide to accept the gift. As I understand it, Krishna does it all for us regardless. <br>> <br>> But doesn't that undermine freedom of the will? For me that is a moot point <br>> because Krishna and Christ as God cause, without exception, everything to <br>> happen, so we don't have free will to begin with. <br>> <br>> All of the orthodox divine attributes cause intractable problems, and that is <br>> why process theology throws them all out and starts fresh. Besides, most of them were derived from Greek ideas of God rather than the Bible itself. <br>> <br>> Your friend in constructive theological debate, <br>> <br>> Nick <br>> ---- keely emerinemix <kjajmix1@msn.com> wrote: <br>> > <br>> > Lasr week, my friend Nick Gier posted an essay on the divine or human origin <br>> of forgiveness. The post was prompted by President Bush's list of presidential <br>> pardons. While Nick and I disagree on the origin of forgiveness, I think we're <br>> both convinced that there is much Bush needs forgiveness for. <br>> > <br>> > That said, Nick asked my take on what he wrote, and so here it is: <br>> > <br>> > I believe that every deity in every faith calls on its followers to practice <br>> forgiveness; in this sense, I believe the ability to pronounce blessing from <br>> offense is divine. As a Christian, I believe that the LORD God offers the <br>> forgiveness of the Creator to His creatures who offend the Law that He has set <br>> forth; His primacy as LORD both qualifies and enables God to do that, and my <br>> sinfulness both confirms and necessitates my seeking it. But Nick thinks that <br>> the doctrine of God's immutability -- the unchanging nature of God -- strikes at <br>> the heart of the process theology he defends, a theology that teaches that God <br>> cannot know that which is unknowable, or the future. Because God appears to <br>> "repent," "relent," or "change his mind" some 33 times in the Scriptures, the <br>> Christian doctrine of immutability is not only untenable, but makes His <br>> forgiveness a practical joke -- He assigns punishment to sins that he knows he's <br>> going to remit, Nick says, quoting philosopher Ane Minas. I'm summarizing, of <br>> course, and I trust that I've done so respectfully and accurately. <br>> > <br>> > I abhor process theology, though, because it strikes at the very heart of the <br>> "trinity" of attributes God possesses as God. He is omnipresent, omniscient, <br>> and omnipotent; He is everywhere and never "not there," He is all-knowing and <br>> never surprised; He is all-powerful and never stymied. Because I believe that <br>> the language of Scripture that attempts to describe God is by necessity <br>> limiting, and perhaps unfortunately so, describing His mercy, mercy that comes <br>> in response to a change in human behavior, as "repenting," "relenting" or <br>> "changing His mind" is bound to be unclear, appearing to mean what it cannot <br>> (that, surprised, touched, or chagrined, He changed His mind) while struggling <br>> to convey what it wants to. The intent of words like "relented" is to express <br>> His mercy in response to humankind's change of behavior -- but the change is on <br>> our part,not His. He knew it all along. <br>> > <br>> > I would also take issue with His suggestion that Mark 3:29 is an exception to <br>> Jesus' unconditional offer of forgiveness in Him. The verse refers to the <br>> impossibility of forgiveness for those who "blaspheme against the Holy Spirit," <br>> and Jesus' words are unequivocal -- that can't be forgiven. But it's a <br>> tautology; the only way the human being can receive forgiveness is to respond to <br>> the promptings and conviction of the Holy Spirit in faith, and if one refuses to <br>> do so -- if one rejects the Spirit, or "blasphemes" Him -- she or he has refused <br>> the only means of forgiveness available. If, in the driest, hottest part of the <br>> Sonoran desert, someone is dying of thirst, and I have sufficient water for him <br>> and for all like him, offered freely and endlessly, that person can have his <br>> thirst "forgiven" -- done away with. But if that person, under all of the same <br>> circumstances, chooses anything and everything but the water that could and <br>> would save him, he would die. And I could rightly say that "blaspheming" (if I <br>> may, simply for analogy's sake) my offer of water could not be forgiven -- not <br>> because I didn't feel like forgiving him, but because he didn't take the water <br>> that I offered and that was the only thing that could save his life. <br>> > <br>> > A note on "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit" -- if you're worried that you've ever <br>> committed it, don't be. Your concern shows that you've not blasphemed the <br>> Spirit by hardening your heart completely. <br>> > <br>> > I appreciate Nick's request for my response and also his thoughts on <br>> forgiveness. I'll end this with my belief that only the Perfect One can <br>> forgive, and all of us Desperately Imperfect Ones need His forgiveness. <br>> > <br>> > Keely <br>> <br>> =======================================================<br>> List services made available by First Step Internet, <br>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <br>> http://www.fsr.net <br>> mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<br>> =======================================================<br><br /><hr />Windows Live™ Hotmail®…more than just e-mail. <a href='http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_hm_justgotbetter_howitworks_012009' target='_new'>See how it works.</a></body>
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