Announcements -- Open Theism Blog

Just wanted to announce that my open theism blog is active again with my first post in a while. Going to make it once a week so some discussion can get going. Enjoy.

The Book of Revelation -- Part 3 -- The Seven Churches -- Key to Interpretation?

In know most people who have studied the book of Revelation usually consider the seven churches as significant, but I have never heard them referred to s the key to understanding the book by anyone. Usually that distinction belongs to the book of Daniel. But I wonder how much we consider the fact that the Book of Revelation was addressed to them and its significance. In Verse 1:4 and chapters two and three as well as the symbolism found in John's vision of Christ the seven is always in reference to the seven churches of Asia. This is how the book starts, as a message from Christs own lips to them, the primary recipients of this letter.

There are many theories:
1. Each church represents a different age of the church before the end: 1) It was certainly was never looked at like this when the letter was first penned. 2) the fact is the order of the churches follows geography from the cost to the interior. 3) Why is it that those who support this theory always think we are in the Laodecea period. No one theorizes that we have time yet and may be in the Philadelphia period. Odd. 4) The text does not say this 5) I am really getting sick of Western time lines always being superimposed on the Bible, as an open theist I don't believe that God is mapping the future in a timeline with Revelation it may be something else altogether --- REJECTED.
2. The churches are not important to understanding the prophecies of the book, once the future stuff is started in chapter four they have no bearing. 1) Why them then why not just address the book to the church in general. 2) Seems odd to just mention them and then forget they are the ones who originally had to understand the book and it is specifically addressed to them -- REJECTED.
3. Other theories include a mix of the above but no one asks the question's about the seven churches from this light -- what did they understand the book of Revelation to be?

My theory is that if can try to piece together what these churches would have understood we would have more proper understanding of Revelation. The problem is some of these churches we have information on and others we do not. There are seven keys here that may unlock the book if only we had more information.

One thing is for sure, that one key aspect in Biblical interpretation is to ask how the original hearers would have understood it but modern interpreters seem to forget this principle them the moment they get to chapter 4 verse 1. I think this may be a terrible mistake and who these people where and what they understood needs to be considered at every turn to get a proper interpretation.

Next: The Powerful Vision of Christ

The Book of Revelation -- Is it really what we think it is?

My thoughts on the book of Revelation have always been cloudy and the only thing I think John Calvin did that was truly smart was he never wrote a commentary on it. Perhaps a lesson to the rest of us, but here I go making a series of posts on the subject of Revelation. I remember sitting in Sunday School as a teen when they taught about the end times (eschatology is the technical term) and asking the question of -- what if everyone is wrong? It is not an inconceivable option and as I went through my education I realized a few things:

1. The doctrine of the Rapture as most evangelicals have come to know it has only been around since the 19th century.

2. The doctrine of the Great Tribulation hinges on a single passage in Daniel that could be interpreted as fulfilled already in the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. See Daniel 9:24-27 for details.

3. The seven year tribulation timeline that is superimposed on the book of Revelation has its origins in both western thoughts of time and is only a recent phenom as it also has its origins in the 19th century.

4. "Seven" is put against many things in Revelation -- horns, trumpets, vials, seals, etc. One thing it is not put against is 'years'. Yep, for all the talk about a seven year tribulation, there is never a time in the Bible where the concept of a seven year time period and a great tribulation are linked.

5. Now, I also have different ideas on how the God of the Bible relates to time (aka as open theism) and I am wondering how that might affect my interpretation of the book of Revelation? I also wonder if all I had was the book of Revelation, how would I interpret it without referencing other books of the Bible?

So discarding the one wise thing John Calvin did (hey, I have already discarded everything else he did, so I might as well throw the last thing out), here I go into the wonderful world of Revelation and the great effort in this series, which may take a quite a while, is to let the book speak for itself. Onward and Upward.

Engaging God's Problem -- Agreements with Chapter Six

This is going to be short. Even though Bart Ehrman's God's Problem is going into an area of the Bible that is my favorite the ideas of Chapter 6 -- Does Suffering Make Sense? The Books of Job and Ecclesiastes, I have very little agreement with with Bart' conclusions or observations here.

1. I agree that even the Bible presents that sometimes suffering just is and we have to deal with it. Those of a more fatalistic/deterministic tradition might disagree, but i don't as an open theist.

2. Ecclesiastes is both Bart and my favorite book of the Bible.

3. That part of the Meaning of life is to enjoy it. Eccl. 5:18-19; 8:15 Cherish life and enjoy it.

You can tell with that the Disagreement post tomorrow is going to be long.

Next: Disagreements with Chapter Six

Engaging God's Problem -- Disagreements with Chapter Two

As short as my last post was, this one is going to be a little longer.

The first thing I want to make abundantly clear is that think that Bart Ehrman's book God's Problem is not evil. In fact I am glad he wrote it. These issues need to be front and center because if Christians just stick their head in the sand about them it is cowardly -- people are asking these questions and we need to give reasoned responses.

1. The first disagreement I have with this chapter and one that I have throughout the book is that Ehrman seeks constantly to avoid human responsibility for evil. The one thing that Bart constantly harps on is God is responsible for evil according to the Bible. I disagree. Bart says that while many things can be attributed to freewill he says that things like natural disasters cannot be attributed to human responsibility. I believe that Bart's great weakness in his book is that he does not consider the stories of Genesis and their showing of the origins of evil seriously. His contention is that THE BIBLE does not answer the problem of suffering but then he dismisses some of the Bible's explanation because he does not want to believe it. If I say as a apparent to a child -- "don't do that or you will be punished" and then the child does it who is going to be responsible when the punishment is carried out? This kind of puts God in a position of 'damned if He does, damned if He doesn't" If God does -- he is too harsh. If he doesn't -- he does not keep His Word. No matter what God does he loses to Bart.

2. This leads to my second problem with Bart Ehrman -- His constant reliance that liberal views of the text of Scripture is absolutely true. He uses the JEPD theory in this chapter and I find it interesting that He on the one had dismisses the text of Scripture of the New Testament (See Misquoting Jesus) but then supports and uses as a guiding light for his interpretation a theory that has NO TEXTUAL SUPPORT AT ALL. It is inconsistencies like this in Bart's reasoning that bother me.

3. Bart has problems with God's treatment of Israel after their disobedience. God promised to protect them and make them great but then he destroys them. "What kind of God is this?" Bart contends. He is a God that keeps his word. You cannot read Deuteronomy and not get the impression that God's promises were conditional, very conditional and that IF they did not keep their end they were bring the punishments on themselves. Bart never brings this out or seems to even have considered it.

4. Bart contends that the prophets only spoke to their time. I am not sure other Biblical writers would agree. The Gospel writers in particular believed that Jesus fulfilled a lot of things said by OT prophets. I think this a poor understanding of prophecy by Bart as poor as the Evangelicals have at times. Egotism aside, that does not mean the prophets did not speak to the future of God's activities. As to some predictions being unfulfilled -- Prophecy is also conditional, if the conditions change, the results change. Being an open theist my understandings of prophecy are different -- God makes promises but he can choose the time and place of their fulfillment and if the other side of the relationship does not keep their end he is free to not keep His.

5. In punishment, God is not trying to improve morale as Bart contends (humorously but the point is wrong) the point of punishment is correction of behavior. The fact is that Israel could have avoided the evil it suffered by doing one thing -- OBEY, and it wouldn't be to hard. It was only hard because the Israelites thought it was more important to serve themselves than God.

Next: Agreement with Chapter Three

Engaging God's Problem -- A Two-Fold Task

I have been reading and digesting God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer by Bart D. Ehrman. My original task was to engage the book on my open theism blog but as I have engaged the book I have found that this is a twofold task. Open Theism will handle much of it but God's Problem has more issues than just a simple open theism fix. There are issues of higher criticism, views of atonement, western influence of philosophy, etc. etc. issues that will work here as well. Bart has so many assumptions that work in his book that it will take more than one blog to engage them.

The question is how --
1. If a blog entry here deals with open theism it will go on opentheism.blogspot.com as well. If it does not deal with open theism it will remain here.
2. On my open theism blog I will be engaging other issues involving open theism on Sunday and Bart Ehrman's book when it comes up.

I am almost finished analyzing the first three chapters so the first article will appear Saturday.

Blessings

God's Problem -- Initial Thoughts

I recently picked up a copy of a book by Bart D. Ehrman called God's Problem -- How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer. Bart is an agnostic who 'converted' from Christianity and I must say Bart is very good as far laying out the problem and dealing with the 'biblical' issue of suffering and the reasons he does not believe in the God of the Bible.

On a personal note, I have kindred spirit in Bart. I see somewhat similar paths and thoughts we have had as we have 'suffered' through the problem of Evil. We have similar backgrounds as far as education and upbringing although he has gotten farther in his education than I have. His story is compelling and his arguments tough but I think there are some problems:

1. His problem with suffering follows classical lines addressing two classical Christian positions -- theodicy and penal atonement. There are other views of theodicy and the issues of the nature of God and atonement that he does not seem to consider. He does not address one of my favorite viewpoints -- open theism -- at all in the discussion.

2. He heavily relies on Higher criticism as true. In truth the Bible he is talking about is a Bible which is a combination of these views which makes the Bible into something that is unhistorical. In fact, he makes note in a couple places that he is not saying he believes in the history of an event he is talking about but that he is dealing with it in its message. Part of the problem is that the problem of suffering he has then is based not on the Bible I and most Christians have come to know and accept but one that is a combination of JEPD theory, Two Isaiah theory, etc. Not the Bible as it presents itself, but one he and liberal critics have created.

3. By the end of the book, you really get the feeling that no matter what answer you might provide to his questions he will not change his mind.

One thing I liked very much though was his treatment of Ecclesiastes in the problem -- I have seen very few works of late that do and it is refreshing to see someone bring that book into the discussion in any way and both of us like the book of Ecclesiastes very much.

I hope to write a more in depth review and engaged the issues of this book both here and on opentheism.blogspot.com. But have to read it again a couple more times to make sure I am getting him right about the issues involved.

Why I Am Still an Open Theist.

I already wrote on this one many years ago on my Open Theism blog and not much has changed other than I have more of a resolve that Open Theism is true. I reprint it only because what I have to say is the same:

"For Years, I had an ever growing frustration with the main two options presented to Protestants -- Calvinism and Arminianism. The main frustration came with the fact on the one hand there were Scriptures that talk about the predeterminism of God in certain situations and on the other there were passages that spoke of God being well -- open to what happened and not determining anything. Of the two I quickly dismissed Calvinism as being completely Unscriptural in regard to God's Nature as a just God and there are many passages indicating the free choice of salvation by human beings. Arminianism became a better camp for myself, but it often frustrated me with the sometimes Scriptural twisting to get past the deterministic passages.

The problem I began to wrestle with was foreknowledge. What exactly does God know about the future? This question seems on the surface to deny traditional views of God's knowledge based on simple foreknowledge where God knows all of the course of time from beginning to end. But the question is actually aimed not at God but his creation. Better stated I began to ask: What is the nature of the future that God has created? Has God chosen to create a future where contingencies or choices are real to him as well as to us?

I want to stress the fact that Open Theists do not deny the omniscience of God -- what we deny is that God has created a world in which He can know exactly the future . He rather has created a world where possibilities are real to Him as well. Only in this way can God have a genuine relationship with his creation.

As I searched the Scriptures, I began to see the fact that in some case God does not seem to know what people will do. He knows all the possible things they could do but what they actually will do seemed out of His knowledge. There are other times that God actually expresses emotion over choices that were made in a negative way. 'Why?' became my question. If he already knew what was going to happen -- why get upset about it -- your God; you have a plan to deal with this -- why get upset?

Since that time I have been on a search to see if there is a way to reconcile this dilemma. Open Theism seems to offer the best answer. Contingencies are genuine to God as well as us are the open theists claim. The also did something refreshing -- the engaged the Scriptures. Contrary to popular Christian blogs out there -- Open theism is very much grounded in Scripture and that is why the only counter seems to be -- 'Open Theists are heretics". When you ask why they think so -- 'they deny God's foreknowledge." These things indicate to me that the anti-open theists have not looked deeply at the arguments presented for open theism and engaged them honestly. They are engaged in a knee jerk analysis of this subject and I find this irresponsible."

I originally posted that on March 10, 2006. Nothing much has changed other than I am even more convinced of two things:
1. Open Theism is Biblically True
2. The Opposition even more than before is engaged in knee jerk reactions and bases their criticism on false information on what Open Theists believe.

The battle continues