How much of Scripture is inspired?

[Guest]

Jesus was definately liberal in all of his theology.

Simply not true. Liberal theology dosn't even believe the Bible can be trusted. You can't put that nonsense on Jesus.

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

Jesus was definately liberal in all of his theology.

Simply not true. Liberal theology dosn't even believe the Bible can be trusted. You can't put that nonsense on Jesus.

It's conservative theology that doesn't believe in the teachings of scripture.

[Guest]

That would be funny if it were not such a serious matter.

[Woody]

That's what I thought when you said "Liberal theology dosn't even believe the Bible can be trusted." That belongs in the conservative camp for sure.

[Guest]

That's not my opinion, it is a documented fact.

[Woody]

Same here.

[Guest]

Don't believe me, read the document.

[Guest]

An Open View of God.

The above questions are partly answered in another example, a

more technical book based on essentially the same idea of "progressive revelation." In this controversial book, The Openness of God: The Relationship of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will, a professor of theology proposes an "open view of God" on the basis of the evolutionary philosophy called "process theology." He sees God as evolving in His knowledge of things: though God knows everything that has happened in the past,

He does not know absolutely what will take place in the future. He only knows "possible" things that may happen in the future, but not necessarily exactly how they will be. The author says: "The central claim of this alternative view is that God's experience of the world is open rather than closed. God's experience does not consist of one timeless intuition.

He does not have one eternal perception of all reality, past and future. . . . Another way to make the point is to say that time is real for God. His experience is the infallible register of

temporal reality. It reflects every event and development in the temporal world. All that happens enters His memory, is retained forever. Nothing escapes His notice." In other words, God knows perfectly what has happened in the past.

But now notice what follows: "But God's experience is also the progressive register of reality. Events enter His experience as they happen, not before [meaning God does not know perfectly what will happen in the future]. This means that God experiences the past and the future differently. They are not the same for Him. He remembers the past exhaustively, in all its detail. Every aspect is vividly present to His mind. But His experience of the future is different. He anticipates the future, to be sure, and in a way unique to Him, as we shall see.

But the future retains its essential indefiniteness from God's perspective as well as from ours." When one accepts the logic of an "open view of God," the prophecies of Daniel,

Revelation, and The Great Controversy become essentially untenable! If God does not know the future perfectly, either these "prophecies" were written after the events took place, or at best, they are accurate "guesses" by God.

For this theology professor, "the future is not absolutely foreknowable" even to God. Rather, God "faces the future with complete foresight" or an "anticipation" which involves His "knowing what might happen" and how He should respond. God merely knows "a great deal about the future" as determined by past and present human causes. God "knows exactly what some of His own future actions will be" when they are not dependent on human actions.

But "God does not know the future absolutely. He nevertheless anticipates it perfectly. But it [God's perfect anticipation] does not consist in knowing everything that actually will happen."

Many questions still remain:

If God does not know the future in all its details, can we really speak about Bible prophecies at all? How was God able to guarantee to

Nebuchadnezzar through Daniel, "The dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure" (Dan 2:45)? Can God give accurate prophecies about end-time events, such as the final conflict between God's last-day remnant church and the apostate powers of the enemy?

Are such "progressive" reinterpretations of God an underlying reason why some of our scholars are repudiating traditional Adventism's doctrine of last-day events (eschatology)?

One historical-critical author asserts: "It is a sobering and scary thought to conclude that our eschatology has been built on an unsound foundation, and that it has ultimately done us more harm than good. In a word, it has made us an 'ethnocentric' people."

[oldsailor29]

An Open View of God.

The above questions are partly answered in another example, a

more technical book based on essentially the same idea of "progressive revelation." In this controversial book, The Openness of God: The Relationship of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will, a professor of theology proposes an "open view of God" on the basis of the evolutionary philosophy called "process theology." He sees God as evolving in His knowledge of things: though God knows everything that has happened in the past,

Yes, I read that book many years ago. It is yet another example of someone speaking about something of which they know little, much like Job and his friends. The same rebuke applies to Rice as in the book of Job. We know very little about the infinite. Some information about the infinite is uniquely contained in the Parables of God, which He uttered in human language during His ministry here on earth. I say uniquely, because those parables are the only source of information about the infinite which exists on this earth. Most people who read the parables do not realize how much information they contain. I think Ellen White saw these revelations, and wrote "Christ's Object Lessons," in order to bring people closer to an understanding.

A book title and subtitle by Joseph Heller sums it up perfectly, "God Knows," "Everybody Else Go Figure."

[Guest]

The same rebuke applies to Rice as in the book of Job.

Who is Rice oldsailor?

[John317]

He was one of my professors at Loma Linda University. He wrote a book called The Openness of God, which explores theological issues related to the nature of God's knowledge. He suggests that God does not actually know everything. Dr. Richard Rice was influenced by "the process theology" of German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg. Pannenberg himself was influenced by the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead's ideas were influenced by evolutionary theory. They teach that God evolves along with His creation. While I was studying at Loma Linda University, Pannenburg held a seminar which I took part in, and I read his books. Fritz Guy also was influenced by Pannenburg and wrote a thesis on his work.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfhart_Pannenberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead

[Guest]

I'm glad you were not influenced by Richard Rice.

[John317]

What a lot of people don't know is that Richard Rice wrote the book in order to explore various ideas. He didn't believe everything he wrote. He was trying to stimulate debate on the topic.

[Guest]

A lot of people have adopted the ideas in that book.

[John317]

That's foolish. To consider ideas is one thing but to base your theology of God on a man's book like that is ridiculous in my view. He was just exploring possibilities and theories. He really meant it originally as a suggestion. At least that is what he told the class. He knew it would stir up a lot of controversy and it sure did.

He wrote another book, The Reign of God(1985), which is a systematic theology of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs. Most of it is standard SDA beliefs. The Openness of God was published in 1980.

I think Richard Rice asked a lot of good questions but from my perspective he came up with the wrong conclusion.

He began by asking, "What is the difference between God's knowledge of the future and God's experience of the future when it becomes the present?"

From Richard's viewpoint, he's trying to get at the essential differences between the future, the present and the past. If God takes delight in the present, there must be something in it that was not a part of His knowledge of the future. Otherwise there would be no difference between the two. It would be like our perfect knowledge of the past. We are never surprised unless we learn something that we did not know about it before.

Then there is the whole question of how free we are if God knows every detail before it occurs. What is the relationship between God's knowledge of the future and what takes place within human history?

Richard Rice asked, "Is God's knowledge of the future somewhat like our knowledge of what is going to happen as we watch the film of Kennedy's assassination?"

[Twilight]

There ain't going to be many in Heaven since all the past generations failed then. He may have to wait a long time for the perfection that you guys want. I for one ain't there.

This experience every one who is saved must have. In the day of judgment the course of the man who has retained the frailty and imperfection of humanity will not be vindicated. For him there will be no place in heaven; he could not enjoy the perfection of the saints in light. He who has not sufficient faith in Christ to believe that he can keep him from sinning, has not the faith that will give him an entrance into the kingdom of God. {RH, March 10, 1904 par. 26}

We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Mark :-)

[Lutz13]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

There ain't going to be many in Heaven since all the past generations failed then. He may have to wait a long time for the perfection that you guys want. I for one ain't there.

This experience every one who is saved must have. In the day of judgment the course of the man who has retained the frailty and imperfection of humanity will not be vindicated. For him there will be no place in heaven; he could not enjoy the perfection of the saints in light. He who has not sufficient faith in Christ to believe that he can keep him from sinning, has not the faith that will give him an entrance into the kingdom of God. {RH, March 10, 1904 par. 26}

We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Mark :-)

God peels off one sin at a time. If He took it all at once...OUCH!

God says He will cause us to keep His statutes and judgements. It is not wise to make judgements on another person because they may be tackling something else at that moment.

Eventually we will all(those who ask Him to help) make it to that state. Though we will always have our sinful nature here on this Earth. Jesus will cause us to have a non sinning nature.

It is not something we do...but what He does.

[Woody]

Quote:

"Our earthly life, however long, honored, or useful it may be, is but childhood, frail, imperfect, and undeveloped. Manhood, with its full, perfect, glorious development, will come, when, freed from the taint of sin, we stand among the redeemed throng. Then we shall enjoy a life which measures with the life of God, and through everlasting ages we shall go on increasing in wisdom and knowledge." Ellen White in The Signs of the Times, June-09-1881

Quote:

1 John 1:8 " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

And the deception is always in the form of self-righteousness. The Devil is alive and well ... trying to tell us that we can achieve. The works that Christ does in our lives is as filthy rags towards our salvation. It is a drop in the bucket and does not amount to a hill of beans in value towards answering the curse of the law.

There is NO way around it ... we need a Saviour. And those that would seek to belittle our desperate need for a Saviour are being used.

[Guest]

You're calling Christ's work a filthy rag? That's not what the Bible says. It says your works are as filthy rags, not his.

Wow.

[Woody]

There you go again Richard ... picking out snippets out of context. Why not just quote exactly what I said instead of providing a twist? HA HA.

[Woody]

Here I thought with your meat eating that it would have helped you improve.

Look. Our salvation was secured at the cross. No matter how many good works you allow Christ to do in your life ... it will not add one thing to your saved status. Salvation comes from the cross period.

Anything else is filthy rags when placed in place of or attempting to earn salvation.

[Twilight]

Originally Posted By: Twilight

This experience every one who is saved must have. In the day of judgment the course of the man who has retained the frailty and imperfection of humanity will not be vindicated. For him there will be no place in heaven; he could not enjoy the perfection of the saints in light. He who has not sufficient faith in Christ to believe that he can keep him from sinning' date=' has not the faith that will give him an entrance into the kingdom of God. {RH, March 10, 1904 par. 26}

We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Mark :-) [/quote']

God peels off one sin at a time. If He took it all at once...OUCH!

God says He will cause us to keep His statutes and judgements. It is not wise to make judgements on another person because they may be tackling something else at that moment.

Eventually we will all(those who ask Him to help) make it to that state. Though we will always have our sinful nature here on this Earth. Jesus will cause us to have a non sinning nature.

It is not something we do...but what He does.

I have started a new discussion that addresses some of the points you make here Lutz.

It is the discussion on the "Self - the hidden enemy."

Please have a read and leave your thoughts?

Mark

[Woody]

Quote:

God peels off one sin at a time. If He took it all at once...OUCH!

God says He will cause us to keep His statutes and judgements. It is not wise to make judgements on another person because they may be tackling something else at that moment.

Excellent. Well stated. If only some of those judgmental "Christians" realized this.

[Guest]

A "Friendly" God Who Doesn't Destroy.

Offended by the apparent biblical teaching that

God sometimes expresses His divine "wrath" upon sinners by acts of divine retribution, some Adventist authors see such acts of God as merely disciplinary, or at best as simply figures of

speech.

In an influential book, Servants or Friends? Another Look at God, an Adventist scholar rejects the Bible's assertions that God actually punishes sinners in retributive judgment, even at the end of the world. In his opinion, the references in the Bible that speak of God's displaying His wrath in retribution on sinners are examples of His communicating to us "in our ignorance and immaturity"--using "dark speech" that God's "friends" know how to explain.

Based on his "matured" view of God as our "friend," this scholar explains that the "many references in the Bible to God's destruction of the wicked" must be understood as God's "just using a figure of speech."

Commendably, this progressive reinterpretation of the Bible seeks to move beyond the "more ferocious" and "cruel" picture of God that many see in Scripture to a more "friendly" one. But in using as its measure such human standards as how a mother would treat her misbehaving children, it casts God in man's image and seeks to explain away Bible evidence contrary to its attractive conclusions.

This view necessarily affects one's understanding of our Savior's work. If God chooses not to punish sinners retributively, and if the biblical references to God's doing so are mere metaphors, then for this scholar, Jesus could not have experienced God's retributive punishment for our sin. In short, this teacher's view of God has led him and others to reinterpret the biblical doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Christ (found in, for example, Isa 53:4-12, 2 Cor 5:21; cf. The Desire of Ages, p. 25 ["Christ was treated as wdeserve . . ."].

[Guest]

New Teaching on Hell.

"Progressives" who hold to the "friendly" view of God tend to reinterpret the biblical doctrine of hell. One such scholar understands hell as merely a "vision of reality" that "fills the wicked with intense mental anguish and remorse. Their mental suffering, like the suffering of Jesus--who died on Calvary from a broken heart--surpasses any kind of physical suffering and is the direct result of sin. This is the agony of Hell. God does

not add any kind of punishment to the consequences of sin to make Hell worse than it already is, any more that [sic] a loving parent would spank the scalded body of a disobedient child who pulled a boiling kettle off the stove. Hell is full realization of sin."

A 1986 Seventh-day Adventist devotional book, translated into several languages and read by thousands of Adventists around the world, also rejects the Bible's teaching that sinners will ultimately be destroyed in hell-fire. His Healing Love explains that hell is merely a separation

or disconnection from God. In answer to his own question, "How hot is hell?" the author employs the analogy of a light bul and its power source:

"The day will come when those who refuse His [God's] gracious invitation for friendship will be given what they have chosen: separation from Him. When you unplug your lamp, it doesn't explode. The light just goes out. Nor do you need to beat on the bulb in anger for its ceasing to give light. That's simply what happens when it is disconnected. By the same token, when one breaks union with God, life ceases. God does not, in anger, need to crush it out. . . . To be separated from the Life-giver is to be dead eternally."

In his opinion the biblical references to hell-fire are metaphors or imageries God employed to communicate to an immature people: "The people God was addressing in Biblical times did not always understand this cause-effect principle [of the power-source/lamp analogy]. It was difficult for them to appreciate the destructiveness of being out of harmony with God. And so the Bible writers employed the imagery of consuming flames to describe the sureness and completeness of the destruction of life apart from God. But being apart from God is in itself the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. God doesn't need to torch hellish fires to

enhance what is already so terrible."

In summary, the liberal reinterpretation of progressive revelation is the hermeneutical foundation undergirding attempts by some Adventists to view God as One who is ever changing, does not know the future absolutely, would not visit retribution on sinners, and consequently, could not have given His Son to die as the sinners' substitutionary atonement.

In this "mature" view of God, hell-fire is often reinterpreted as merely an intense mental anguish and remorse experienced by sinners when they are ultimately disconnected from God. But liberalism's theory of progressive revelation also underlies recent reinterpretations of the Adventist view of "present truth" and "new light."