Is God Open?

Use this forum to discuss the June 2020 Book of the month, "Killing Abel" by Michael Tieman.
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tieman55
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Is God Open?

Post by tieman55 »

Killing Abel has an Open view of God. Maybe you should as well, just think about it . . .

Can God decide to limit Himself?

If your answer is no, then you and you alone are limiting God.

Does God have the creative abilities and or powers to create beings who are, to some degree, unpredictable?

If your answer is yes, then you must consider whether or not God did just that.

When God decided to become a loving parent of a free will being, He and He alone limited Himself to their free will. WOW, that was one big decision! Becoming a parent always is.

Many readers of Killing Abel object to my open portrayal of God. God’s nature in Killing Abel is, admittedly, much different than much of Christian thought. Most Christians, whether they know it or not, have a Calvinist/ classic Greek view of God. I do not. Greek classical theism believes that God is immutable. I do not. Becoming a parent is a change, and the Son humbling Himself to become a man . . . WOW that is one giant change!
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Post by Nicole_Boyd »

I think God does limit himself. I believe He is all-powerful but he chose to limit himself when he came to earth. Who could stand before Him in all his power and glory, he had to cover Moses’ eyes when he passed before him or else he would have died. It’s a beautiful tension isn’t it? An all-powerful God choosing to meet us where we are as humans in the form of Jesus Christ and yet still display what is possible when we partner with Him?
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Post by Nelson Chocha »

I suppose God is never limited by us, but He allows our intuitions to meet our fate.

And to answer the main question here "Is God Open?" , I speculate He is; that's why he gave us the power to appoint what to embrace. We fail Him when we satisfy our Devious desires.
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Post by linamadi »

Hello brother, i think the first thing everyone should think, it's if he believes there is a god, once he do that, there is another question, what is this god, what are the criterias that makes him the God.
I will clarify that, if you beleive in god, you should have in your mind and for sure that he is not like us he is unique, so you can't say that he can limit him self just assuming that he is powerful and can do all, if he is already the creator of all, he is one, he dont have partners or helpers. you can't compare the creator of universe and all, with the human beings, this is my point, you can't say god can limit him self just becoz from a perspective of humans, this is achievable, the main thing is that god is unique and no one like him.
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Post by Sanju Lali »

God is almighty powerful, he can do what he like. However, he gives freedom to man so see how his creation works.
life is only knowing the unknown, we can do this by reading books easily- Online book club is a great place for this. This is what I believe.
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Post by charlenecraig »

The only limits to God are what we, as humans, place on him. God has no limits. You can't put him in a box. Think about the universe, the complexity of nature and how it all seems to work together, about our bodies and how everything functions together. God can create anything. He gave us free will so we can choose to love Him, not blindly follow.
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Post by ohlendorfbe »

God doesn't make mistakes. Even when the Son became a man, He made no mistakes because He was sinless. So God didn't make a mistake when He created man. Your idea of an open God is very interesting, but I don't think "open" is the right word. God is immutable, unchangeable - but He is also all-loving and forgives us for any wrongdoing. Sometimes that's hard to understand, but God is God and therefore we can't limit him to what our finite minds can understand.
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Post by LiLj »

I think that god chooses to limit himself, he knew when he created Adam and Eve that they would betray him, even with that knowledge he didn’t stop them from eating the fruit.
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Post by Sally_Heart »

I believe that God is so complex we can not really define all aspects of Him. It's true that He has given us free will but it's also true that He is omniscient and despite everything, He also knows all the decisions you have taken and will take. No human is unpredictable cause He already knows every inflexion in your heart. He already knows the change even before you notice that you have changed. So is God open? I can't really tell. Can He limit Himself? He doesn't need to do it cause everything is already within His viewpoint.
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Post by danielrolle »

Yes, I think God does limit himself. He has the power to do whatever he wants, but he himself chooses how he uses his power. He is omnipotent/all-knowing, and that makes him know the outcome of all situations. Furthermore, this was an amazing story to read. :D
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Post by MichaelCarsonReads »

I think that God chooses to limit himself and does so very successfully. We see this not only in the Bible but in this book as well.
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Post by gayscott »

God is not limited in His power. He is the creator of heaven and earth. He does allow us free will to chose whether we will follow Him or not. He does not need us to do anything for Him but He wants us to because of our love for Him and what He has done for us. He sent His son to die on a cross for our sins so that we may spend eternity with Him in heaven. He controls His anger and judgement upon the world and Satan for a time but only for a time. The world will be judged and Satan will be overthrown when God says it is time.
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Post by tieman55 »

gayscott wrote: 26 Jun 2020, 08:23 He does not need us to do anything for Him but He wants us to because of our love for Him and what He has done for us.
God asked Noah to build Him a boat to save His creation and Noah's family. You can say that God didn't need Noah and I would agree but God might disagree, God "might" say something like . . . yes, I need Noah, using Noah will give My creation the best chance going forward, so YES, I need Noah to build Me a boat.
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Post by gayscott »

God only asked Noah to build the boat to show Noahs faith. Also hoping that more would believe but they only ridiculed Noah til they were proved wrong. God still didn't "need" Noah; He wanted Noah to demonstrate his faith by building it. God could have created the ark just as easily as the world He created.
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Post by Nelson Reviews »

I believe God's power is unlimited. He only let us do what we desire to meet our fate.

"Is God Open?" Yes He Is! hence the awarding of the free will to us. We do everything we chose and He let us; but, the consequences dine with us at the end of every decision.
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