Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

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Homer
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Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by Homer » Tue Jan 05, 2016 10:28 pm

Excellent article by John Mark Hicks:

http://johnmarkhicks.com/2016/01/05/jon ... istries%29

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mattrose
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Re: Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by mattrose » Wed Jan 06, 2016 12:22 am

A nice succinct approach to the text/subject... I agree.

While I am an open theist, I take no issue with classical arminians who believe divine foreknowledge can exist without determinism so long as they emphasize (as he does) that priority of divine relationality. People can disagree about the philosophical issue of God's relationship to time, but Christians need not argue about the centrality of (relational) love to our theology.

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Paidion
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Re: Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by Paidion » Wed Jan 06, 2016 1:18 pm

To me, the main problem with the article is encapsulated in the following phrase, "Though God knew how the Ninevites would respond..."

If God knew how the Ninevites would respond, before they did so, the troubling verse becomes a real problem!
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. (Jonah 3:10)
God SAID He would bring this disaster upon them. Here was God's message to them through Jonah, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
This wasn't a conditional statement. If God knew all along that they would repent and turn from their evil way, then He LIED in saying that Ninevah would be overthrown in 40 days. Jonah certainly believed that God meant what HE said. He sat outside the city to watch the forthcoming destruction.
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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crgfstr1
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Re: Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by crgfstr1 » Wed Jan 06, 2016 4:03 pm

I believe that omnipresence applies to not only space but time. Most scientists believe that space and time are a continuum just like mater and energy. I remember reading Genius and one of the passages struck me as it might support this view but didn't out right say it. I don't remember what passage though.

I also believe the omniscient goes so far that he knows what each person would do in each situation. I think he designed the world so that all of those that could be saved would be saved by placing them in the best possible situation to achieve that outcome. This is part of the justice of His righteousness and I think will allow us to accept that some were lost. This is because their hearts would never have been truly changed by any circumstance. I could be wrong on this but it is the only way I can currently reconcile a just and loving God failing to save some and not others when our circumstances are so different.

I don't think that knowing the outcome changes whether this statement “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” is true or not. It is clearly not true so there has to be some implied condition in either case. The following sentence implies that they knew this "So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. " If they didn't understand that unless they changed there ways then the more logical option would be to do the best you could to enjoy the remaining 40 days.

dizerner

Re: Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by dizerner » Wed Jan 06, 2016 4:45 pm

the more logical option would be to do the best you could to enjoy the remaining 40 days.
Good point, lol. Plus I think because Jonah hated them he left off part of what God told him to say.

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Re: Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by Paidion » Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:01 pm

...I think because Jonah hated them he left off part of what God told him to say.
That's an interesting thought that I have never heard expressed before.

However, for me, it's simpler to take it as it is written, and believe that God, knowing their hearts, thought that they would not repent, and so he declared disaster. But having free will, they were able to choose repentance in spite of their mind set. The choice that people make cannot be known prior to their decision, for if it were known before, then they would not have the free will to choose otherwise. And why would they be rewarded for good choices or punished for bad, if they could not do otherwise?
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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Re: Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by crgfstr1 » Wed Jan 06, 2016 8:43 pm

You can know what someone will do can if you are omnipresent or omniscient. Either would be sufficient. I don't see anywhere that it was said that God the Father didn't know something. Ephesians 1:4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love

Jesus didn't know the future except through what the Holy Spirit communicated to him. He probably does now that he has ascended but I haven't looked into it.

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Paidion
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Re: Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by Paidion » Thu Jan 07, 2016 10:46 pm

Hi crgfstr1 wrote:I don't see anywhere that it was said that God the Father didn't know something
.

How about this one?
The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. (Jeremiah 3:6,7 ESV)
If the Lord thought that Israel would return to Him and she didn't, then He must not have known that she was not going to return to Him. You may say that this has been incorrectly translated by the ESV translators. But consider that it is essentially the same in the Jewish Study Bible, prepared by the Jewish Publication Society and translated by Jewish experts in Hebrew:
The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what Rebel Israel did, going to every high mountain and under every leafy tree, and whoring there? I thought: After she has done all these things, she will come back to Me. But she did not come back; and her sister, Faithless Judah, saw it.
Conclusion: God could not have thought or said one thing, while He KNEW the opposite.

Even though the word may be "said" as the JSB has it rather than "thought" as the ESV and NASB have it, doesn't make much difference. For if God said it, He must have thought it. And what He thought or said didn't happen, so He must not have known that they would not return.

The King James and related translations have it that the LORD said, "Return to me" as if it were a command. I think that is a mistake. As far as I know all other translations render it as a prediction. That is, God thought or said, "After she has done all these things, she will come back (or return) to Me."

God could not have thought or said one thing, while He KNEW the opposite.

The same with the Jonah passage. God said that He would overthrow Ninevah in 40 days. If He had known the Ninevites would repent, He would not have said He would destroy them in 40 days.
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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crgfstr1
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Re: Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by crgfstr1 » Fri Jan 08, 2016 2:34 pm

Good food for thought Paidion. Thanks. I am not sure those have to be interpreted as He literally didn't know that they wouldn't have returned but more to say "One would think after all of this they would have returned but they didn't". I also don't know how much is lost in translation but it is certainly something to consider.

I believe still that the weight of the evidence in very specific statements of God being all knowing (stated many different ways) out weighs some thing that may merely be a figure of speech or lost in translation. Are there direct statements that may not be taken as hyperbole? Are there other examples?

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steve
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Re: Jonah 3:7-10 – God Repents!

Post by steve » Fri Jan 08, 2016 7:25 pm

Paidion,

Just a procedural question here, aside from the main discussion:

I can appreciate your taking Jeremiah seriously when he has God saying that He expected a different outcome than what actually transpired. There are those who believe that this is anthropomorphic language. Why would they think that? Only because their prior theological commitments tell them that God could not have failed to know the future accurately.

But what about the times when Jeremiah (and other prophets) quote God as saying He is bringing disaster and punishing Israel, or some other nation? You don't credit those words as being reliable. They represent the prophet misunderstanding what they think God is saying. Why do you say such a thing? Because you hold to prior theological commitments that say that God would never do such things.

My question is: If you believe that the majority of the things God is said to have declared in the prophets are subject to such radical error, why do you not assume the same when you read Jeremiah 3:6-7? By what exegetical rule do you trust some things the prophets say while distrusting the majority of their statements?

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