In order to have a strawman to defeat, extreme Calvinist teachers have created a new term, "Finite Godism," which does not accurately describe the beliefs of those who believe in some or all of the Moral Government Theology teaching. I had on-line discussions with one such individual, who went so far as to write an article on his webpage on the topic. Now that I have created my own webpage, I want to address the false accusations he makes against Moral Government teaching, and show how weak his arguments are. I will not call this man by name, but merely call him Bro. X.
Bro. X begins his refutation page with these two questions:
Does the Bible ever use anthropomorphic language to describe God? When the Bible says that God "repented" does that mean that God actually changed His mind, and therefore does not know the actual future until it occurs?
Aside from Bro. X's prejudicial conclusion, these are valid questions. And given Bro X's propensity for error, it is surprisingly refreshing to find that he is correct in his answer to the first question, re: anthropomorphic language. Bro. X continued:
A key point in this debate is the use of anthropomorphic language. For instance, in Exodus 19:4 God said that "I bare you on eagles' wings". Does God have the wings of an eagle? After all, there are many verses that describe God as having wings, such as:
Ruth 2:12 The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.
Psa 36:7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.
Psa 17:8 Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,
Bro. X is, surprisingly, correct here, saying that the Bible does use anthropomorphic language in its descriptions of God. But having taken one step on the road that leads to heaven, Bro. X now proceeds, for the rest of the article, to follow the road that leads to hell.
Bro. X continues:
Does God have eyes and wings? If the adherents of Finite Godism are correct in their argument against the use of anthropomorphic then God has to have wings. However, God does not have wings. God is being described in anthropomorphic terms to help us understand in things we can relate to.
This is a good example of Bro. X's creation of a strawman. I do not know of any proponent of Moral Government Theology who does not accept that the Bible uses "anthropomorphic language" when it refers to things about God's Person that cannot be taken literally. I have written an article about this, myself: Does God Change His Mind? Yes, the Bible does use figurative language to illustrate God's abilities. Here are two such verses:
De 9:29 Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.
Ps 33:18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;
These quotes use figurative language to tell how God is able to see everything, to perform His will. These quotes do not address anything other than God's abilities. God is saying that nothing can prevent Him from protecting and saving those whom He loves.
Please notice that the quotes I give and the ones that Bro. X cites only deal with analogies to anatomy, and nothing else. Here we come to an important digression in the discussion, one that Bro. X is not capable of seeing. The verses that Bro. X and I cite do not address the mind of God, the thoughts that He thinks or the feelings He possesses. These verses only refer to "body parts," and in these verses anthropomorphic language is used to make clear God's abilities. But to try to say that the Bible uses "anthropomorphic language" to present God's mind, will or emotions is not supported by these verses. It is an unsupported leap of logic to take the Bible's use of figurative language about God's "body parts" (arm, eyes, hands, wings), which cannot exist because God is a spirit (after all, a spirit does not have flesh and bones [Lk 24:30]) and make them a prop for an argument that says a Spirit can't change His mind. And yet it is this exact leap in logic that Bro. X performs.
Bro. X continues:
Does God REALLY change His mind? Nope. The God of the Universe knows the end from the beginning.
Num 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
The first thing that occurs to me to ask, for the sake of being persnickity, is this: if "anthropomorphic language" explains the depiction of God's hands, arms, etc., then why can't the same logic be used to say that the idea that God has a mind is merely "anthropomorphic language," that God is merely using human concepts to help us understand divine truth with human words? After all, if we are going to make the theological punt to anthropomorphic language when it speaks about God's "body parts," why can't we do the same thing when the Bible refers to God having a mind and thoughts? On Bro. X's say-so? Sorry, that's not good enough.
Let me address the verse that Bro. X cites, Num. 23:19. It is the one most often used to say that God is immutable and cannot change His mind.
And, yes, it does say that God is not a son of man, that He should repent. But a close examination of the context of the verse will demonstrate that God is not contradicting Jeremiah 18, where God says that He DOES repent, nor is He making a broad, general statement, here in Num. 23, as He does in Jeremiah 18.
What is the historical context for this verse? Moses is leading Israel through Moab, and Balak tried to get Prophet-For-Hire Balaam to curse Israel for him. God pronounces this oracle through him:
And he took up his parable, and said, Rise up, Balak, and hear; hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor: God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the LORD his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought! Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain. Judges 23:18-24
Moses is leading Israel to Palestine, in fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, over 400 years before. He promised the patriarchs in His covenant with them that their descendants would take possession of the land. And now, Balak is trying to get an oracle from God to change this. But God, speaking through Balaam, tells Balak that no divination (v.23) is going to change this. God has made a covenant with the nation of Israel, and He is going to fulfill it, now. His mind is made up and He is not going to change.
What we have here is a reference to a specific promise, and it is a valid rule of scriptural interpretation that specific events do not take the place of God's general principles for dealing with mankind.
This verse does not say that God never changes His mind. It merely says that God is not going to change His mind IN THIS SITUATION, that His mind is made up.
A more complete and thorough refutation of the improper use of Numbers 23:19 and other verses can be found in my article Does God Change His Mind?
Bro. X continues:
Unlike a finite god, the God of the Universe does not change. He stays constant.
Mal 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
This is another strawman. No advocate of Moral Government Theology believes God is finite, despite Bro. X's, and his ilk's, attempts to depict their beliefs in that manner. The God of Moral Government Theology is an Immutable God, unchanging in His Person, His Character and in His purpose.
It is at this point we need to deal with the word, "finite."
There are two main definitions that relate to this discussion. The first definition says that "finite" means "having a limited nature of existence" (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1977.) As I said above, no Moral Government Theology advocate believes has a limited nature of existence, that God is, in some way, less than eternal and unchanging in his person and essence. This is a preposterous idea.
The second definition, and the one that Bro. X and other extreme Calvinists believe apply to Moral Government Theology, says, "having definite or definable limits." Bro. X and the so-called scholars that he parrots have conniption fits about Moral Government Theology proponents supposedly putting limits on God, thus making God finite. I would challenge Bro. X and his instructors to prove that they do not believe in a finite God, then. Do they believe that God can lie? I do not. Does my belief that God cannot lie diminish God? Does Bro. X's insistence that God is infinite require a belief in God's ability to lie? It would appear so, for to say that God cannot lie is to set limitations on God. Can we then logically infer that Bro. X believes in an immoral God? After all, to limit God from immorality is placing a limit on God, thus making Him less than infinite.
Does God have the ability to perform the illogical? Can God make a square circle, or to make blue yellow? Can He tell us the taste of red? Does the limiting of God to logic somehow diminish His infinitude? I do not believe this to be so. And yet, if Bro. X agrees with me in saying that God cannot lie or cannot perform the logically fallacious, is he not putting definable limits on God, thus making Him finite?
Moral Government Theology proponents do believe, as we would hope Bro. X believes, that God cannot lie. We do not believe that God can change. We believe that God is eternal and immutable. God is eternal spirit, never changing in substance.
It is at this point that Bro. X now makes a bootless point. He says:
What [Pelajus] and his ilk fail to see is that God has already revealed something about His character that they don't understand:
Jer 18:8-10 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
I do NOT fail to see that God has revealed this about His character. In fact, this passage is, to me, the definitive proof that God DOES change His mind. And yet Bro. X tries to argue that when God says that He changes His mind, He doesn't really mean it, thus denying the Word of God. Anyway, I have dealt with this elsewhere; for my treatment of this verse, and others that Bro. X mentions, see my article Does God Change His Mind?
Bro. X continues:
This is a principle that those who know God have taken advantage of.
Jer 26:3 If so be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings.
Jer 26:13 Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you.
Jonah did not want to go preach in Ninevah because he understood this about God.
Jonah 3:9-10 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
Even the evil Ninevites understood this. God tells people that He is going to destroy them due to their evil. If they repent, then God will not destroy them. That's the unspoken condition behind every threat from the prophets of God.
Isa 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
All of this is addressed in my article Does God Change His Mind?
Bro. X merely supports my contention that God changes him mind. After all, if God has determined to bring a judgment on a nation, that determination is made in His mind. In the case of Jonah, God made that determination in His mind, that He would destroy Ninevah, and had Jonah announce what He had purposed. And yet, when Nineveh repented, God's intentions changed. What He had determined to do, in His mind, previously, He now determines not to do. This is changing one's mind. My thanks to Bro. X for proving my point.
Bro. X continues:
This principle is repeated in the New Testament as well:
Acts 8:22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
Rev 2:16 Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
Amen. But notice this
in Rev. 2:16 - Repent; OR ELSE.... The OR ELSE denotes contingency.
God is telling the church at Pergamos to do one thing or something
will happen. If they repent, then the punishment will not come.
God has determined the following:
a - blessing if they repent, or
b - punishment if they don't.
Both cannot happen, so what will happen is contingent upon the
choice of the church. And God waits to know what that will be.
Again, my thanks to Bro. X for proving my point.
Bro. X continues:
If a people repents, then God is described as "changing his mind', but this is merely anthropomorphic language.
Bro. X has not proven this to be the case, yet. Just because Bro. X says this is "anthropomorphic language" doesn't make it so. He has not demonstrated that God's saying that He changes His mind means that He doesn't change His mind. He is merely engaging in an attempt to support a cherished, but flawed, doctrine. However, mere love for a doctrine, without Biblical support, is not sufficient to establish that doctrine as truth, and unfortunately for him, Bro. X has not any proof in the Bible to back up his contentions. Instead, every verse Bro. X cites is perfect for supporting my case, and I thank him for helping me.
Bro. X continues:
Just like God does not have feathers, wings or eyes, he is not like a man in changing his mind.
Apples and oranges.
Two questions should be sufficient to show the fallaciousness of Bro. X's logic:
Question #1 - Does God,
a Spirit, have hands, arms, legs, and eyes?
Question #2 - Does God, a Spirit, have a mind?
The answer to the first question has to be "No," since Jesus Himself said that a spirit does not have flesh and bone.
But the answer to the second question has to be "Yes, God does have a mind," as He has said that He has thoughts of good for us.
Feathers, wings, eyes, etc., are analogies that cannot have direct spiritual counterparts. God is a spirit and does not have a physical arm or eye. But just because God is a spirit does not mean that God cannot have a mind. To claim that the Bible is using "anthropomorphic language" when God speaks of changing His mind is to do so without support. I believe I have more solid Biblical support for my position than Bro. X does for his claim. A desperate desire to prop up a weak argument is not a solid enough reason to accept the "anthropomorphic language" punt as valid.
Bro. X continues:
He knows if a person or group of people will repent, but they still need to repent.
And now we get to the crux of the matter, in Bro. X's last sentence: omniscience. Bro. X believes that God knows if someone will repent in the future. But does God know that five years after they repent, they will backslide and forever turn their back on Christ? If so, does God, during that five years, determine good for that person or evil? L D. McCabe, the 19th century Methodist scholar, put it so succinctly:
God's feelings and perceptions, like our own, follow according to the law of cause and effect. And however much I may merit his love on account of my present obedience, he can not really love me if he foresees that I am to be numbered with the incorrigibles, with those who disobey and hate him, in outer darkness forever. How could one love another today, however worthy he now is of his love, if he were certain that that person on the morrow would murder his mother? I know that I have the divine favor now, but if God sees that I will eventually apostatize from the faith, deny the blood that bought me, count it an unholy thing, and crucify the Son of God afresh, he must shudder at and abhor the deep depravity, the fiendish wickedness, of my future character.
Are, then, all his present manifestations of love to my soul, all these hallowed communions, and all this sweet witness of the Holy Spirit bearing testimony to my spirit that I am a child of God, mere hollow pretenses? Manifestly, then, in guarding with such jealous care the perfection of divine foreknowledge, theologians overlook the equal necessity for perfection, appropriateness, and successiveness in the feelings and moral judgments of God respecting his intelligent subjects.
If God be such a being as the Christian really contemplates and adores, then universal prescience can not be true; for, as we have seen, that theory would compel us to confess to vast imperfections in his sensitive states and judgments. It would render it impossible for us to discover, to conceive as existing in him, the appropriate feelings and purposes toward the ever varying character of his free accountable subjects. But this constant appropriateness of feeling and conduct toward the struggling, self-determining subject, is one of the indispensable perfections of a righteous Ruler, which we must never surrender if we would escape distressing contradictions. Surely, then, this is another strong presumption, if not a proof, that God does not foreknow all the actions of accountable creatures.
(Read McCabe's refutation of Augustine's Eternal Now at: http://www.geocities.com/~revival/appendh.htm)
Bro. X gives a final scripture, again taken out of context, in hopes that it will bolster his view of omniscience.
Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,
Bro. X has again displayed his remarkable talent for cut-and-paste theology. Let's see what God is saying in this verse, in its context:
Isa 46:8 Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors.
Isa 46:9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
Isa 46:11 Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.
God is giving a prophecy concerning Judah and Babylon, and reminds Judah that He has determined things in the past, proclaimed them in advance of their occurence, and then performed His will. After this reminder, He then tells Judah that what He has said, He will do, just as He has done in the past. It has always been my contention that God is eternal in Person and in purpose, and God, in this section, says that He will accomplish His purpose. He is saying that He knows what His will is, and that He will bring about His purpose. He is not saying, in this verse, that He knows the entire future, the free choices of free moral agents. He is merely saying that He knows His mind, His purpose, and that He has announced what He will do, and that He will bring it about. Nothing else. The verse does not bear the weight of the extra theological baggage that Bro. X tries to load it down with, in order to support his cherised doctrine.
It is interesting to note, by the way, that in citing Isa. 46:10, Bro. X did not give the entire verse, but omitted the exact portion of that verse that supports my contention: "saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:"
This verse, Isa. 46:10, is not a claim by God that He never changes His mind, or that He knows all that will ever happen. Instead, it is a message from God to Judah telling them that what He has done in the past (i.e., fulfill His plans and purposes), He will do in this instance. In fact, the NIV Study Bible (Zondervan, 1985), supports this view of the situation in its footnote to Isa. 46:10:
My purpose-Especially God's purpose and plans regarding Babylon and Israel.
Isaiah 46:10 is not a support for unlimited omniscience. It is a statement by God that He has the power to carry out His purpose, and that He plans to do so.
In conclusion, Bro. X
has failed to demonstrate conclusively that the Bible speaks in
"anthropomorphic language" when it says God changes
His mind, or that the bible supports His views on God's omniscience.
His refutation of what is falsely named "Finite Godism"
is not successful. I would advise anyone who wants to know the
truth to put aside the teachers that Bro. X has said that he loves
(Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas) and read the Bible, instead. Leave
all pre-conceptions behind, and let the Word of God in its purity,
without the filtering of man's dogma, clease your heart and mind
of man's false teachings. Let the pure Word of God be your only
definition of doctrine. Only then can you know the truth.
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