God's Forgiveness

posted 9/18/14

One of the old German devotional philosophers took the position that God loves to forgive big sins more than He does little sins because the bigger the sin, the more glory accrues to Him for His forgiveness. I remember the writer went on to say that not only does God forgive great sins and enjoy doing it, but as soon as He has forgiven them, He forgets them and trusts the person just as if he or she had never sinned. I share his view that God not only forgives great sins as readily as little ones, but once He has forgiven them He starts anew right there and never brings up the old sins again.

We have to be aware of the fact that human forgiveness is not always like God's. When a person makes a mistake and has to be forgiven, the shadow may hang over him or her because it is hard for other people to forget. But when God forgives, He begins the new page right there, and then the devil runs up and says, "What about this person's past?" God replies: "What past? There is no past. We started out fresh when he came to Me and I forgave him!"

This kind of forgiveness and acceptance with God depends on a person's willingness to keep the top side of his or her soul open to God and the light from heaven. You may wonder about my expression, "the top side of the soul," but I do think it is in line with Bible teaching and certainly in line with all Christian experience. The top side of the soul is open to God in some people's lives and not in others.- A.W. Tozer, Faith Beyond Reason, p. 112

Regarding Jewish Professor Dr. Sommer's Comments About the Trinity

Christian (and Jewish Messianic Believer in Jesus) Dr. Michael L. Brown, wrote

Interestingly, Dr. Benjamin Sommer, a professor in Bible and ancient Near Eastern languages at the Jewish Theological Seminary (that’s right, the Jewish Theological Seminary), came to similar conclusions in his recent book, The Bodies of God. He wrote: “Some Jews regard Christianity’s claim to be a monotheistic religion with grave suspicion, both because of the doctrine of the trinity (how can three equal one?) and because of Christianity’s core belief that God took bodily form. . . . No Jew sensitive to Judaism’s own classical sources, however, can fault the theological model Christianity employs when it avows belief in a God who has an earthly body as well as a Holy Spirit and a heavenly manifestation, for that model, we have seen, is a perfectly Jewish one. A religion whose scripture contains the fluidity traditions [referring to God appearing in bodily form in the Tanakh], whose teachings emphasize the multiplicity of the shekhinah, and whose thinkers speak of the sephirot does not differ in its theological essentials from a religion that adores the triune God.”

So, it appears that there are Jewish scholars who do not believe in Yeshua who can see what my dear friend Rabbi Blumenthal cannot. Let’s continue to pray for Rabbi Blumenthal!

In a book review of Dr. Sommer's book The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel 
someone named J. Todd Hibbard, (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga) acknowledges that Dr. Sommer believes the Christian conception of the Trinity is not incompatible with various traditions within Judaism. It doesn't matter if Hibbard is a Christian or not. I quote him only to further corroborate Dr. Brown's interpretation of Dr. Sommer.

The final chapter finds Sommer donning his theologian hat in order to answer the question, “What do the Hebrew Bible's fluidity traditions teach a modern religious Jew?” (p. 126). After noting that the antifluidity traditions in P and D dominate the final form of the Hebrew Bible, he notes that fluidity traditions found elsewhere (notably in JE) are still present. He briefly explores the development of these traditions in the postbiblical rabbinic literature, the kabbalah and early Christianity. With respect to the latter, Sommer insists that core Christian assertions—the trinity and incarnation—are not theologically impermissible within the world of Judaism, but rather are faithful to the fluidity model of divinity found in ancient Israel. For modern Jews, Sommer demonstrates how biblical notions of fluidity and antifluidity pose challenges for both liberal and conservative Jews, though not in the same way. He concludes by insisting that, contrary to customary positions, it is the fluidity model that offers the strongest statement of monotheism consistent with the personhood of God.

In another book review, Esther J Hamori says the following:

In chapter 6, Sommer traces the fluidity model into later Judaism and Christianity. He points to the continuation of these concepts—the fluidity of the divine self and multiplicity of embodiment, the rejection of these notions, and various implications for sacred space—in rabbinic literature and kabbalah, addressing what this all might mean for those reading the Hebrew Bible as scripture today. He then frames the concept of incarnation in the New Testament in terms of the fluidity model and discusses the impact this has had on later Christianity. It is fascinating to see some of this unfold, for instance, as he traces the ways in which Protestantism and Catholicism prioritize different  voices among the fluidity and antifluidity traditions. One of his laudable goals here is to demonstrate ways in which much of Christian theology is not so foreign to Judaism. He concludes, “No Jew sensitive to Judaism’s own classical sources, however, can fault the theological model Christianity employs when it avows belief in a God who has an earthly body as well as a Holy Spirit and a heavenly manifestation, for that model, we have seen, is a perfectly Jewish one. A religion whose scriptures contains the fluidity traditions, whose teachings emphasize the multiplicity of the shekhinah, and whose thinkers speak of the sephirot does not differ in its theological essentials from a religion that adores a triune God” (135). The similarities of the Christian concept of the simultaneous presence of God in heaven and God on earth to the older fluidity model are striking, and it will be fruitful to consider Christian theology in light of this. At the same time, there are also important differences between these types of embodiment, and at a certain point the similarity may be a bit overdrawn. Sommer’s view does not take into account the difference between theophany and incarnation, between temporary manifestation and full human identity and life, as claimed in Christian theology. Perhaps more significantly, while the concept of the Trinity may be seen to reflect the multiplicity of embodiment as in the older fluidity traditions, it does not seem particularly fluid. Finally, Sommer concludes that this fluidity in Judaism and Christianity allows God both immanence and transcendence, and that it shows that the divine is not bound to any one place. (Or, as I have argued in regard to some biblical texts, even the embodiment of God demonstrates divine freedom, rather than limitation.)

---

An article HERE quotes Dr. Sommer:


“When the New Testament talks about Jesus as being some sort of small scale human manifestation of God, it sounds to Jews so utterly pagan, but what I’m suggesting is perhaps the radical idea for us Jews that in fact, it’s not so pagan. That in fact, there was a monotheistic version of this that existed already in the Tanakh. And that the Christian idea, that Jesus, or ‘The Logos’, The Word, as the Gospel of John describes it in it’s opening verses, that the presence of The Word or Jesus in fleshly form – in a human body on the planet earth – is actually God making God self accessible to humanity in a kind of avatar. This is what we were seeing in the ‘J’ and ‘E’ texts [differing Hebrew manuscripts]. This is much less radical than it sounds. Or when the Gospel of John describes God’s Self as coming down and overlapping with Jesus – which is a famous passage early in the Gospel of John – that is actually a fairly old ancient near eastern idea of the reality, or self, of one deity overlapping with some other being. So, this is not just Greek paganism sort of just smoothed on to a Jewish mold, which is a way that a lot of Jews tend to view Christianity. This is actually an old ancient near eastern idea, that is an old semitic idea, that is popping up again among those Jews who were the founders of Christianity. We Jews have always tended to sort of make fun of the trinity. ‘Oh how can there be three that is one? If they’ve got this three part God, even if they call it a triune God, a God that is three yet one, really, really, they are pagans. They are not really monotheists like we Jews are or like the Muslims are. Those Christians are really pagan.’ But I think what we are seeing in the idea of the trinity that there is this one God who manifests Itself in three different ways, that’s actually an old ancient near eastern idea that could function in a polytheistic context as it did for the Babylonians and Canaanites, but it can also function in a monotheistic context as it does I think in the ‘J’ and ‘E’ texts. In fact, to say that three is one, heck, Kabbala [Jewish mysticism] is going to go further than that. They say ten is one. The Zohar says ten is one. Actually certain parts of Kabbala say that within each of the ten spherote has ten spherote within them so that there is a hundred spherote, we are taking this much further than the Christians did. One of the conclusions that I came to, to my shock, when I finished this book [The Bodies of God and The World of Ancient Israel], is that we Jews have no theological objection to the trinity. We Jews for centuries have objected to the trinity, have labeled it pagan, have said: ‘Well, that’s clear. There you can see that the core of Christianity doesn’t come out of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, what they call the Old Testament. Really, they are being disloyal to the monotheism of the Old Testament.’ Actually, I think that’s not true. To my surprise, I came to the conclusion, somewhat to my dismay, I came to the conclusion that we Jews have no theological right to object to the trinity. Theologically, I think that the model of the trinity is an old ancient near eastern idea that shows up in the Tanakh and in a different way shows up in Jewish mysticism as well.”

The article also has a link to the mp3 audio lecture from which the quote is from. Here's the direct link (for as long as it lasts). If the link dies, I'm willing to send a copy of the audio to anyone who requests it from me.

Here's another article that has links to lectures by Dr. Sommer:
http://benstanhope.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-bodies-of-god-and-jewish-trinity.html?m=1

https://youtu.be/FRxvTxcupBg

See also:

My blog Trinity Notes

Which include blogposts like

The Jewish Trinity: How the Old Testament Reveals the Christian Godhead by Dr. Michael Heiser

Old Testament Passages Implying Plurality in God

Proving That There Is A Plurality In The Godhead

Quotes from "Of A Plurality In The Godhead" by John Gill

The Aaronic Blessing Is Highly Suggestive of the Doctrine of the Trinity

 Quotations from the Jewish New Testament Commentary by David H. Stern

The Great Mystery; or, How Can Three Be One? [The Trinity in Early Judaism]

 

 

 

 

John Piper on God's Eternal Blessedness and Happiness

John Piper wrote:

It is not surprising, then, that Jonathan Edwards struggled earnestly and deeply with the problem that stands before us now. How can we affirm the happiness of God on the basis of His sovereignty when much of what God permits in the world is contrary to His own commands in Scripture? How can we say God is happy when there is so much sin and misery in the world?

Edwards did not claim to exhaust the mystery here. But he does help us find a possible  way of avoiding outright contradiction while being faithful to the Scriptures. To put it in my own words, he said that the infinite complexity of the divine mind is such that God  has the capacity to look at the world through two lenses. He can look through a narrow lens or through a wideangle lens.

When God looks at a painful or wicked event through His narrow lens, He sees the tragedy of the sin for what it is in itself, and He is angered and grieved: “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 18:32).

But when God looks at a painful or wicked event through His wide-angle lens, He sees the tragedy of the sin in relation to everything leading up to it and everything flowing out from it. He sees it in relation to all the connections and effects that form a pattern, or mosaic, stretching into eternity. This mosaic in all its parts—good and evil—brings Him delight.5

- Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist page 39


John Piper also wrote:

God's Happiness Is A Great Part Of His Glory

In 1 Timothy 1:11 Paul focuses on the gospel as "the glory of the blessed God." The word translated "blessed" in this phrase (makarivou) is the same one used in the beatitudes of Jesus in Matthew 5:3-11. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." And so on. The word means "happy" or "fortunate." Paul himself uses it in other places to refer to the happiness of the person whose sins are forgiven (Rom. 4:7) or the person whose conscience is clear (Rom. 14:22). It is astonishing that only here and in 1 Timothy 6:15 in the entire Old Testament and New Testament does the word refer to God. Paul has clearly done something unusual, calling God makarios, happy.

We may learn from the phrase "the glory of the happy God" that a great part of God's glory is his happiness. It was inconceivable to the apostle Paul that God could be denied infinite joy and still be all-glorious. To be infinitely glorious was to be infinitely happy. He used the phrase, "the glory of the happy God," because it is a glorious thing for God to be as happy as he is. God's glory consists much in the fact that he is happy beyond all our imagination.

- God is the Gospel page 100

John Piper wrote an entire book on the Blessedness or Happiness of God titled, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God.

I believe (rightly or wrongly) that the first chapter has been posted online HERE.

In Piper's various books he argues that God's happiness and God-centeredness isn't selfish but the very foundation for our own happiness. There's no space or time to elaborate in Piper's argument, but here's a distillation of it from a quote by Sam Storms.

God created us so that the joy he has in himself might be ours. God doesn't simply think about himself or talk to himself. He enjoys himself! He celebrates with infinite and eternal intensity the beauty of who he is as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we've been created to join the party!

Here's a link to book 1 chapter 19 of John Gill's A Body of Doctrinal Divinity:
Of The Joy Of God

Three Kinds of Providence

In the combox of a Triablogue post I wrote :

- I don't know if it's an idiosyncratic categorization on William Lane Craig's part, but I think/believe I've heard him refer to 3 kinds of providence. Maybe these are standard categories in the theological and philosophic literature.

1. Ordinary Providence
2. Special Providence
3. Extraordinary/Extra-ordinary Providence

#2 would seem to be a special kind of ordinary providence that's miraculous because coincidental. For example, it so happens that, all things continuing as they are, it won't rain on Joey's outdoor birthday party next Saturday just as he prayed to God that it wouldn't. In this kind of providence, it didn't require God to do anything extra because He rigged ordinary providence to answer Joey's prayer long before Joey prayed. It was coincidental, yet purposed by God rather than unintentional and merely fortuitous.

#3 would be where God would need to intervene without, or apart, or above, or against His ordinary providence (i.e. God's normal way of upholding, directing and sustaining creation). Turning water into wine or restoring a missing limb instantaneously would be an example of extraordinary providence.

- I've added a link to Poythress' book on my blog:

Definitions of Chance [ 7 so far listed ]
http://misclane.blogspot.com/2014/06/definitions-of-chance.html


In which case #2 and #3 can be considered miraculous even though #2 shares with #1 a kind of ordinary providence. Just as #2 shares with #3 a special intention and/or sign on God's part in the event. Also, given classical theism (especially but not limited to Calvinism), #1 would also be under God's sovereign control as are #2 and #3.

I like and have used the 3 categories. So far I haven't found an example that would not fall into one of these 3 categories.

I found a quote of William Lane Craig that confirms my memory.

What all this implies is that in between events brought about by God’s extraordinary providence (miraculous interventions) and events brought about by His ordinary providence (events which regularly occur as products of purely natural causes) there is a third category, which we may call God’s special providence, namely, events which are the result of purely natural causes but which are unusual in terms of their special timing and context. For example, if just as George Muller is giving thanks for God’s provision of daily bread for his orphanage, knowing all the while they have no food, and at that moment a bakery truck breaks down outside in the street and gives all its provisions to the orphanage, then we may regard this as an answer to prayer, even if there are wholly natural causes of the truck’s breakdown at just that place and time. It’s a special providence of God, prearranged in answer to Muller’s prayer.

Quote taken from Craig's Questions and Answers article titled: Must We Pray for a Miracle?

I don't agree with Craig's Molinism or use of Middle Knowledge. Also, if I'm not mistaken, it appears that Craig doesn't consider Special Providence as being miraculous like I did. There are three possibilities regarding the miraculous nature of special providence. Either 1. it's always miraculous, 2. it's never miraculous or 3. it's sometimes miraculous and other times it's not.

At present, it seems to me that in this instance Craig is wrong. For example, let's say hypothetically that the parting of the Red Sea (or Reed Sea) was a case of special providence where a volcano erupted and caused a chain of events (including an earthquake) that combined with strong east winds which together resulted in the sea parting just at the time when Moses stretched out his hand over the water (Exo. 14:21). The text states that the wind blew all night long. Can we really say that this wasn't an instance of a timing miracle even though it was all natural and God didn't have to do anything extra to bring it about? I find it difficult to not call it a miracle since the Biblical understanding of a miracle doesn't seem to discriminate or distinguish between miraculous answers to prayer 1. which go beyond the power of natural causes and 2. those which don't.

So, contrary to Craig and my own previous opinion, I'm now inclined to think special providence is sometimes miraculous (e.g. the parting of the Red Sea in answer to prayer) and sometimes non-miraculous (e.g. having food on the table in answer to prayer). The difference would seem to be in the degree to which the special providential coincidence was likely or probable given ordinary providence. The parting of the Red Sea at just that time is highly unlikely. While it not raining on Joey's 10th birthday party in answer to prayer might also be an instance of a timed providential occurrence but it would hardly be called miraculous.

Also, previously I considered special providence a special form of ordinary providence. Thinking about it, I have to ask "What similarities the two have and what makes the difference or distinguishes between the two?" What makes them similar is that they both are the result of purely natural causes. What makes them different and distinct is the special and extraordinary intention and purpose on God's part in special providences. So, in one sense one could call special providence a unique category of ordinary providence. Yet, in another sense, by so doing, one would be blurring the line and disregarding the very difference and distinction between ordinary providence and special providence. Namely, the special or non-special, extraordinary or non-extraordinary intent and purpose God has or doesn't have in the event. Though, I've chanced my mind back and forth repeatedly, I'm now inclined to call special providence a unique form [or special type] of ordinary providence. But I make sure to point out their similarities (i.e. purely natural causes) and dissimilarities (presence or absence of special intention on God's part). In one sense, all of God's various providential activities have a special intention since every instance has a special role to play in the grand design of history. However, in some instances there's an especially special intention. Such cases would fall under either God's special providence or extra-ordinary providence.


Re-wording something William Lane Craig wrote in his Q&A (because I reject Molinism), I can agree that a belief in special providence "...is a tremendous encouragement to prayer...because it doesn’t require the faith for a miracle. You can pray that God will provide you with a job, for example, without thinking that during your job interview God must cause miraculous neural firings in the boss’s brain causing him to hire you."

My Understanding of Providence

Ordinary	Special	Extraordinary
purely natural causes involved	purely natural causes involved	supernatural cause(s) involved
no special intent or purpose	special intent or purpose	special intent or purpose
non-miraculous	sometimes miraculous	always miraculous

Things get a bit more complicated (or messy) if we were to factor in angelic and demonic activity and intervention in the physical world. Say for example that an angel prevents a car accident because he was sent by God to be the person's guardian angel. Or say for example, an occultist who apparently is able to levitate objects when in actuality it is a demon that is manipulating the physical object to "levitate." In both instances what happened went beyond the natural causes of the physical world via God's ordinary providence in the natural world. However, angels and demons have their own properties and abilities which are "natural" to them according to their own nature or being. What is "natural" to them would be beyond nature to us (i.e. our natural/physical world). In instances like that, we can say that at the angelic dimension and from the angelic perspective they too have God's ordinary providence working in their lives. We can consider some angelic interventions in the physical universe as instances of God's extra-ordinary providence because angels perform their work (say of protection) in the name and stead of God. For us it would be an instance of God's extra-ordinary providence, but for them (the good angels) it would be an instance of ordinary providence since they are merely exercising their powers which they have from God in order to protect us. However, demons can affect the physical world in a way that goes beyond what the physical world's natural processes can produce. Yet, it would not be appropriate to call it God's extra-ordinary providence since demons do not act in the name and stead of God. Since demons are evil angels. In which case, what demons are able to do in the physical world could be considered ordinary providence from their angelic perspective (since they are only exercising powers which they normally have by God's endowment) yet at the same time it is a supernatural event from the perspective of human beings and the physical world (since the event would not and could not happen according to the natural properties of matter).

Related  Blogs:

 Distinctions in God's Will from a Calvinist Perspective [ My Five Distinctions]

Definitions of Chance [ 7 so far listed ]

Ralph Martin on Catholic Leaving the Catholic Church

As hard as it may be to face, many Catholics who have left the Catholic Church to become part of a vital Protestant congregation may have gone to hell if they stayed, unconverted and with virtually no Christian support, in the Catholic Church. In actual practice many millions of Catholics are being led away from Christ by the corruption of faith and morality encountered in many Catholic institutions today, or by the emptiness, lack of power, and lack of God's presence that leave Catholics sitting ducks to be swept away by contemporary pagan culture. The phenomenon of large numbers of Catholics leaving the Catholic Church because they haven't found Christ there or support for their Christian lives or families should humble us and cause us to turn to the Lord in repentance and in seeking God, asking him to have mercy on us and to pour out his Spirit on us so that men, women, and children may encounter him in our midst.

-Ralph Martin (well known Roman Catholic speaker and author)
http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/59903-was-i-better-off-back-then/page-3

Explanatory Power and Scope

Abductive arguments are popularly known as Inference to the Best Explanation type of argument. That is, reasoning or inferring to that theory or hypothesis that provides the best explanation.

Among the criteria for best explanation includes:

1. the greatest explanatory power and

2. the greatest explanatory scope


Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on Explanatory Power

Part of the above article states, "...a good explanation also provides specific details which fit together so tightly that it is difficult to change one detail without affecting the whole theory."

Michael Licona simply summarized the difference between explanatory power and scope by saying (paraphase)

Explanatory Scope: deals with a theory's (or hypothesis') ability to account for all the relevant facts.

Explanatory Power: deals with a theory's (or hypothesis') ability to account for facts without forcing the data to fit or without excessive vagueness or ambiguity.

William Lane Craig applied explanatory power and scope to the case for Jesus Christ's resurrection. He said/wrote (paraphrase):

The Best explanation of these facts is that Jesus rose from the dead.

1. It has great explanatory scope. That is, it will explain more of the evidence.

2. It has great explanatory power. That is it will make the evidence more probable.

3. It is plausible. It will fit better with true background beliefs.

4. It is not ad hoc or contrived. That is, it won't require adopting new beliefs which have no independent evidence.

5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs. It will be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than other explanations. That is, it won't conflict with as many accepted beliefs.

6. It far outstrips any rival theories in meeting conditions (1) - (5). It will meet conditions 1-5 so much better than the other theories that there's little chance that one of the other explanations, after further investigation, will do better in meeting these conditions.

Doing Searches on a Specific Website

I've found that one can do an effective website search using www.google.com/advanced_search.

However, it's important how one enters the website url. Otherwise, the search doesn't work.

Let's say you want to search www.triablogue.blogspot.com.

For a more thorough search go to http://www.google.com/advanced_search and type "triablogue.blogspot.com" in the "site or domain:" field.

Make sure to leave out "http://www." and only type "triablogue.blogspot.com". 

Only using "www." doesn't work. Using "http://www." sometimes works. So, it's best to leave out "http://www." entirely.

Then just type in keywords on the subject you're interested in.Whether in the "all these words" field, or the "this exact word or phrase" field, or "any of these words" field.

For example: