The Epistomological Impact of an Omnitemporal Eternity on Theological Paradigms.

biblicalthology.com ^ | 2000 | J.W. Carter

[P-Marlowe]

Here's something for all you DEEP thinkers. Comments anyone?

[P-Marlowe]

Could you guys bump the usual suspects?

[xzins]

Here's something for all you DEEP thinkers. Comments anyone?

Yeah. If I read through this and you been pulling my leg, then you better duck. LOL

[Frumanchu]

Comments anyone?

Yeah, it took me three tries to say that title correctly out loud! :)

[CCWoody]

Comments???

I can't believe I wasted time to even read it. BTW, if you take this argument to its logical conclusion, then you must become an Absolute Predestinarian.

And I speak as one who slept my way through all my college physics classes.

P.S. There do appear to be some glaring problems such as it appears as if the author is treating time as a dimension.

[narses]

Uh-huh. Yeah. I get it. Can I have another beer here?

[the_doc]

When taken to the extreme, Calvin’s position has been used to argue against the responsibility of Christians to share the gospel. Their belief is that if God has preordained a soul’s salvation, there is no need for a missionary effort. This also implies that if a person is ordained to be lost, no amount of evangelism can make a difference. It is interesting that people could place their doctrine under such a veil when the documented New Testament experience is almost entirely missionary-based. Such a position is inspired by a misunderstanding of God’s eternity, and is damaging to the propagation of the gospel by discouraging evangelism, the very essence and commission of God’s purpose for the temporal Christian experience.

This is a perverse caricature of Calvinism.

If this doctoral student were academically honest, he would never have written this paragraph. The world missions movement was founded by Calvinists. The people who opposed them were not Calvinists.

When taken to a greater extreme, a fatalistic viewpoint arises that absolves mankind of all responsibility for their actions.

This idea of "taking to extremes" is just another dishonest way of trashing Calvinism. The denial of human responsibility in a predestinarian system is an Arminian idea, not a Calvinistic idea.

[the_doc]

The relative differences in the rate of the passing of time by those who experience acceleration at different rates can be derived from the now famous equation:

E = MC2

Actually, this is incorrect. The time dilation phenomenon is derived from the Lorentz transformation equation. The energy relation is further downstream in the development of special relativity.

Besides, time dilation has nothing to do with acceleration at different rates. It has only to do with velocity.

It would appear that Mr. Carter is neither a great theologian nor a great physicist.

[the_doc]

For the record, the title of the article is also misspelled on Carter's web page.

[CCWoody]

It would appear that Mr. Carter is neither a great theologian nor a great physicist.

Well, Marlowe, two engineers have read this and both of us think that this article is a waste of time. steve???? I believe you have some kind of engineering background.

Besides, time dilation has nothing to do with acceleration at different rates. It has only to do with velocity.

Well, if you don't know what you are talking about, just throw up some fancy equations or some Bible quotes....

[Jerry_M]

LOL!

"Epistomological" (For some reason, I am thinkig of "Pepto Bismol".)

(At least he spelled the first word in his title, "The", correctly!)

[the_doc]

BTW, I wasn't just taking a cheap shot when I pointed out that Carter can't spell a fancy but extraordinarily important word for a doctoral student.

We all make mistakes, including spelling mistakes. But my main concern was that his title is much more impressive than his shallow article. (His article's title winds up having a blustering quality which belies his numerous serious errors.)

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

If we limit God to our time experience, God’s knowledge of the future can only be seen as omniscient prediction or total sovereign control.

Well... duh.

And what is more, Jack -- if God is Omnitemporally cognizant of all possible Timestreams (including every foreordained/foreknown interaction of Providence and Will therein) and the ultimate Results thereof, and God chooses which One of an infinite number of omnitemporally foreknown Timestreams will actually be the One which He will Create... then God's knowledge of the future can only be seen as Total Sovereign Control from all eternity past.

A point which I have illustrated time and again:

---

Matthew 11: 20 - 27 -- Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you." At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

So, before all Creation...

• God foreknew Tyre, Sidon and Sodom's free choice NOT TO REPENT in the case of His non-performance of such Miracles; AND
• God foreknew Tyre, Sidon and Sodom's free choice TO REPENT in the case of His performance of such Miracles; AND
• God CHOSE NOT TO PERFORM these Miracles in Tyre, Sidon and Sodom, a choice which had as its perfectly foreknown result the NON-Repentance unto Damnation of Tyre, Sidon and Sodom -- just exactly as He foreknew would be the certain and determinate result of Creating this particular scenario.

---

"The Epistomological Impact" of an Omnitemporal Foreknowledge enjoyed by God prior to Creation has the unavoidable effect of rendering any sort of synergistic metaphysical construct absolutely impossible, and of rendering Absolute Monergistic Predestination the only possible Rational and Sane Theology.

Arminianism/Synergism could survive in an environment where God's foreknowledge was limited to our Timestream; at least they could claim that God simply foreknew our free choices and that His Plan is therefore conditioned on those foreknown Choices. But in an Omnitemporal Foreknowledge environment, Man's Choices are the purely-dependent consequent results of God's precedent Decisions -- If God decides that He will ordain to perform miracles in Sodom, then Sodom will choose to Repent when the Time comes; and if He decides that He will NOT ordain to perform miracles, then they will choose to NOT repent. Their decisions have, therefore, already been predestined for them before they are ever born, by God's determinative Election of just which Omnitemporally Foreknown time-stream He is going to Create.

Ergo, Omnitemporal Foreknowledge enjoyed prior to Creation has the unavoidable effect of rendering Absolute Monergistic Predestination the only possible Rational and Sane Theology. As I said before... duh.

Sheesh -- Jack Carter did not realize this logically-obvious impact of Omnitemporal Foreknowledge against any possible synergistic construct?

And he's a doctoral student??
(Do you think that any of his Professors know??)

[scottiewottie]

How about eternity being self-existent, uncreated, and time simply being a created measurement of it? God seems to move through time, because he has created everything in the self-existent eternity. You can measure eternity anyway you want, but in every measurement God or His creation is there.

[Hank Kerchief]

The world missions movement was founded by Calvinists.

I didn't know Jesus was a Calvinist.

Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

This Calvinist presumption is another example of their arrogant defiance of Jesus authority as head of His church, which consists entirely of those who have become innocent through faith in His blood, the innocence of children, which Calvinists deny.

Hank

[the_doc]

Of course, I was referring to the modern WMM, founded at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century (for example, William Carey et al).

You don't clearly even know the Lord, friend.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I didn't know Jesus was a Calvinist.

Well, see, Hank, there you go -- you learn something new every day.

You're Welcome.

Although I would reserve, it would probably be more chronologically-accurate (and deferential) to say instead that, on the subject of Absolute Predestination (and many other subjects), "John Calvin was a Jesus-ist". That is to say, John Calvin's beliefs on Absolute Predestination were (of course) the same as Jesus Christ's beliefs on Absolute Predestination.

[RnMomof7]

Sorry I was at the doctors then baby sat so I have missed lots of posts today

Bumped better late than never..to all regular posters

[Thinkin' Gal]

Re being bumped to:

The Epistomological Impact of an Omnitemporal Eternity on Theological Paradigms

Good Lord, what an excellent example of why I don't reside in this infernal religion forum!!! Oy vey!

1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

Heh.

[Hank Kerchief]

You don't clearly even know the Lord, friend.

I do not know who your Lord is. You keep mentioning Calvin. If He is your Lord, you are right I do not know him.

The only Lord I know is He, whom to know aright, is life eternal.

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

I do not know whom you serve, but, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." (2 Tim. 1:12)

I am not at all concerned what you think about me, but I am greatly concerned what you think (and believe) about God. He never used such expressions as, "Absolute Predestination."

Here are all the verses in Scripture with any form of the word predestine:

Rom. 8:29-30 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Eph. 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

Eph. 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will

I know your are sincere, I know your love the Lord and truly seek to please and honor Him, but, there is something not quite right about the emphasis that Calvinists place on their pet doctrines. Jesus came into the world to save sinners, not to convert them to Calvinism.

Hank