Pages

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Is John 8:58 about predestination rather than preexistence?

In his debate with Michael Brown:


Around the 2:26 mark, Dale Tuggy takes Jn 8:58 to be an example of Jews characterizing predestined events as having always been. 

But a basic problem with his interpretation from Tuggy's own perspective is that Tuggy is an open theist. For instance:


According to open theism, the future is indeterminate. There are multiple potential futures in play, any one of which might become the actual future. There is no one future until the dust settles. So how does Dale's God predestine an indeterminate future? 

2 comments:

  1. Dale's contention is disconcerting even for someone who is not an open theist. We all exist in the foreknowledge of God and that does not give us the license to utter something similar to John 8:58. Seriously, since Abraham too existed in the forknowledge of God, so what is the point in John 8:58?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also, on Unitarianism why were the Jews ready to stone Christ to death? The Trinitarian interpretation makes sense because the Jews thought Christ was blaspheming by claiming (albeit via innuendo) to be God. In this instance it was such a strong innuendo that they actually picked up stones to stone Him to death.

    ReplyDelete