tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5596708332568087278.post2930815671122803748..comments2024-01-24T10:39:27.668-05:00Comments on Coming Untrue: That Day and HourDr. S. L. Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06303707167715370504noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5596708332568087278.post-30155145527205360922015-03-11T20:48:23.105-04:002015-03-11T20:48:23.105-04:00Prayer's purpose often is to be able to change...Prayer's purpose often is to be able to change a future trajectory like prevent war or forestall or cure some other evil (fall of communism). On a personal level, we often pray for specific benefits, which might be granted based on God's discretion. This implies that the future is dependent on our prayerful exhortations to God to change his mind about our future (compared to if we hadn't prayed). It thus does not seem to be deterministic, or what would be the purpose of prayer (if not based on free will, if it is just a predetermined script)?<br /><br />At the same time, an omniscient creator God would still have to know the time line(s), since he designed them or we would have to downgrade his powers. However, practical information available confirms his power to know the future (see my previous comment concerning Dr. Neal who died, met <br />Christ and was sent back). She was foretold the day her teenage son would die, which happened exactly, but said (in her book) that some additional other foretellings did not come true while others did. <br /><br />We'll simply have to be resigned to the fact that God and his creation and capabilities (spiritual and material) will never be completely within our grasp or scope of reason. All this speculation is therefore clearly faulty and therefore irrelevant and futile and what counts is our relationship to God and our willingness to grow and remain in his friendship. (Of course, speculating often is an interesting past time for certain types of people, myself included, and makes life less humdrum).Qmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5596708332568087278.post-53641174757468841052015-03-09T07:20:43.184-04:002015-03-09T07:20:43.184-04:00Thanks, Tom. Just two small thoughts to offer for...Thanks, Tom. Just two small thoughts to offer for additional reflection, if I may.<br /><br />1) That last verse puts things very definitely: whatever the Son “does not know” about that day and hour, he very much affirms that the Father definitely, definitely does. So Open Theism has no help from that verse, but rather a major problem. It would seem that if Open Theism is true, God the Father should not know any such thing.<br /><br />2) Divine Foreknowledge would only be challenged if we are thinking of the Trinity as three separate entities: almost, if you will, three distinct candidates for the title “God.” If that were the case, then any perceived “deficiency” in one member of the Trinity would be a blow against His candidacy as God. But is not the attribution of “omniscience” a claim about the Triune God? If a “deficiency” (if I can use that ill-advised word: perhaps I would be best to say a “voluntary limitation by way of role” or something like that) on the side of one member of the Trinity is completely covered by the capability of another member of the Trinity anyway, is it not still true to say the Trinity as a whole is “omniscient”?<br /><br />Do you get me there? Why are we fretting if one member of the Trinity is said to have an attribute another does not — like the Son has a body, and the Father has not — or one member seems to not to exhibit some trait that others have, as when the Spirit does not speak of Himself but of Christ. Is not the Triune still complete, having all those attributes within Him?<br /><br />The Son said, “I and the Father are one,” and “How do you say ‘Show us the Father’? He who has seen me has seen the Father.” And of the Spirit, the Son promised, “I will come to you and dwell with you.” Not just “the Spirit,” but “I.” So He makes no meaningful distinction between one who has the Spirit and one who has Him, and one who has the Father also.<br /><br />If the Triune One Himself is complete and omniscient, why are we worrying about what each “segment” of that Trinity does or knows?<br />Immanuel Canhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11580529966007662214noreply@blogger.com