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Thread: Did God Predestine Judas to Betray Christ?

  1. #21
    Senior Member Colonel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JeffDoles View Post
    You are right -- the authors, writing by divine revelation about God's foreknowledge does require any understanding of how that actually works. But to understand what they have to say about God's foreknowledge is a matter of interpretation (any time we attempt to think about and say what a passage means, we are engaging in interpretation). So it is always appropriate to consider both the understanding of the author and of his audience. What did they understand it to mean, and what did they understand it to include. Did they think that everything about the future was knowable? It's fine to have a philosophical theology about God and the cosmos and time. And it's fine to gather a bunch of passages and wook them all together into a systematic theology. But that does not take the place of exegesis, or of considering what the biblical authors meant by what they said as they said it. Sometimes we have to go back and question our philosophical and systematic theology and take a closer look at the Scriptures, what they say -- and what don't say.

    @@@I'd like to see where the Bible defines God's foreknowledge as limited rather than exhaustive. The burden of proof is on you.

    Yes, God is a God of all ability. But he can't make a rock so big he can't lift it. He can't make a four-sided triangle.

    @@@You don't know that he cannot do those things. If he did then that would defy logic which is the fabric that us human beings operate within and that would not relate well to our world, his creation. Which may be the reason why he does not do such things. Your ability to fit those things into your mind is completely besides the question.

    It may be that a thing that does not actually exist, a choice that has not actually been made, an act that has not actually been committed, is not actually knowable. I gladly affirm that God knows everything that is actually knowable.

    @@@You don't know that the future doesn't exist. Again, the burden of proof that the Bible declares God's foreknowledge to be limited, is on you.
    .

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  3. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Colonel View Post
    You're basically saying that Peter merely applied some or other out-of-context verse to Judas.
    I'm saying that Peter, like Matthew, saw a pattern that seemed to fit the situation occasioned by Judas. It does not mean that Psalm 69:25 and Psalm 109:8 were specific prophecies. Ancient Jews had a way of interpretation that is not he same as our modern-day methods. They would put together different passages on the basis of a word or phrase or some likeness and then make an application to a similar situation.

    After the resurrection, Jesus taught the disciples that the all the OT Scriptures were about him (Luke 24). I don't think he meant simply those bits that were specifically prophetic about Messiah, but I think he meant that the whole thing throughout was about him. So the disciples began to view the Scriptures in light of Jesus the Messiah and began to see many parallels to the life of Christ in the OT -- this obscure OT reference to that point in Jesus' life. I think this is what is behind Matthew's frequent reference to the Scripture being "fulfilled."

    Matthew and Peter and Paul and the other disciples were not beholden to our modern Bible Study methods. They were, after all, ancient Jews, reading the Scriptures in an ancient Jewish context and in ancient Jewish ways. What changed for them was that Jesus the Messiah now became the prism through which the light of the Scriptures was refracted for them in new ways.

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  5. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Colonel View Post
    .
    I don't know that foreknowledge is limited. I don't know that it is exhaustive. It seems to me that, if a thing does not exist, then that thing cannot actually be known. I affirm that God knows everything that can be known, and that everything that actually exists is actually knowable. But it seems logically incoherent to me to think that things that don't actually exist are actually knowable as well.

    If God could make a rock so big he could not lift it, then there would be at least one thing he could not do. But that conundrum is based on a misunderstanding about what it means that God is almighty. Likewise, the inability to make a triangle with four sides. If it has four sides, then it is not a triangle, because a triangle is defined as three-sided.

    No, I don't know that the future actually doesn't exist yet. Nor do I know that it does. But you have not demonstrated why the burden of proof should be on the one who doesn't think it exists yet rather than on the one who does think it already exists. It is a meaningless bit of burden-shifting, as well as question-begging.

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  7. #24
    Somebody needs to read up on General Relativity, and the fact that time is relative to the observer.

    A black hole can bend or warp the very fabric of space/time.

    God is bigger than any measly Super-Massive Black Hole.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravit..._time_dilation

    Hebrews 1:10-12
    (10) And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:
    (11) They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
    (12) And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

    Hebrews 1:10-12 (Amplified)
    (10) And [further], You, Lord, did lay the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the works of Your hands.
    (11) They will perish, but You remain and continue permanently; they will all grow old and wear out like a garment.
    (12) Like a mantle [thrown about one's self] You will roll them up, and they will be changed and replaced by others. But You remain the same, and Your years will never end nor come to failure. [Ps. 102:25-27.]

    .
    This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity (futility) of their mind, having the understanding darkened...
    (Ephesians 4:17-18)

    Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly...
    (Psalm 1)

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  9. #25
    As far as God creating a four sided triangle, that would be tantamount to God telling a lie.

    Titus 1:1-2
    (1) Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;
    (2) In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;


    Hebrews 6:17-18
    (17) Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:
    (18) That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
    This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity (futility) of their mind, having the understanding darkened...
    (Ephesians 4:17-18)

    Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly...
    (Psalm 1)

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  11. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by GodismyJudge View Post
    Somebody needs to read up on General Relativity, and the fact that time is relative to the observer.
    I'm not sure that time dilation and the relativity of time and space means that all future choices and acts already exist somewhere in the universe.

    But I'm pretty sure that the biblical authors did not have the theory of relativity in mind when they wrote about God, so that such a theory would have informed how they and their audience understood their writing.

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  13. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by JeffDoles View Post
    I'm not sure that time dilation and the relativity of time and space means that all future choices and acts already exist somewhere in the universe.
    Um.. Ok

    But I'm pretty sure that the biblical authors did not have the theory of relativity in mind when they wrote about God, so that such a theory would have informed how they and their audience understood their writing.
    I'm pretty sure that God was telling them things they didn't know, while also "hiding" greater truths to be unveiled as time goes on.

    Explaining physics to them was not necessary.
    This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity (futility) of their mind, having the understanding darkened...
    (Ephesians 4:17-18)

    Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly...
    (Psalm 1)

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  15. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by GodismyJudge View Post
    Um.. Ok
    I'm pretty sure that God was telling them things they didn't know, while also "hiding" greater truths to be unveiled as time goes on.

    Explaining physics to them was not necessary.
    No, explaining physics to them was not necessary. And perhaps that was because it was not at all involved, or even hidden, in what God was saying to and through them. So, to appeal to modern physics as some sort of explanation is not exegeting the Scriptures but reading later ideas back into the Scriptures.

    When I consider what the biblical authors meant in the Scriptures when they speak of God's knowledge or foreknowledge, I consider, first, what was in evidence in the Scriptures, then what was in evidence in the historical, cultural and linguistic context at the time. The theory of Time-Space relativity, however true it might be, does not inform us about the meaning of the biblical authors and what they wrote, because it comes from a much later period and a much different context.

    Appealing to the "hidden things," whatever that might refer to (the Scriptures do not necessarily say), is not a sufficient reason for reading whatever later things we wish back into the biblical texts. It has no accountability, and so does not make for a sound hermeneutic.

    So I am looking for what the Bible authors, and their readers, would have understood their what they were saying. And also how the NT authors would have understood the OT texts.

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  17. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by JeffDoles View Post
    No, explaining physics to them was not necessary. And perhaps that was because it was not at all involved, or even hidden, in what God was saying to and through them. So, to appeal to modern physics as some sort of explanation is not exegeting the Scriptures but reading later ideas back into the Scriptures.

    When I consider what the biblical authors meant in the Scriptures when they speak of God's knowledge or foreknowledge, I consider, first, what was in evidence in the Scriptures, then what was in evidence in the historical, cultural and linguistic context at the time. The theory of Time-Space relativity, however true it might be, does not inform us about the meaning of the biblical authors and what they wrote, because it comes from a much later period and a much different context.

    Appealing to the "hidden things," whatever that might refer to (the Scriptures do not necessarily say), is not a sufficient reason for reading whatever later things we wish back into the biblical texts. It has no accountability, and so does not make for a sound hermeneutic.

    So I am looking for what the Bible authors, and their readers, would have understood their what they were saying. And also how the NT authors would have understood the OT texts.
    Ok I understand that.

    However that does not have anything to do with what we now "understand" about space/time.

    If a Super-massive physical object can warp space/time, I'm quite sure that the God Who created the Universe in which these objects reside is not susceptible to the constraints of Space/Time.

    I think that is what the basic problem boils down to.
    This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity (futility) of their mind, having the understanding darkened...
    (Ephesians 4:17-18)

    Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly...
    (Psalm 1)

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  19. #30
    Such a heavy duty subject, I'm content to just read and chew on things but I did want to give a big welcome back to two of our older members who just returned...welcome back GodismyJudge and JeffDoles! You're both so good on doing exegeses of scripture, its great to see you guys again. :)

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