{"id":16409,"date":"2016-09-27T01:32:01","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T05:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=16409"},"modified":"2016-09-05T17:35:15","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T21:35:15","slug":"michael-heisers-the-unseen-realm-part-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2016\/09\/27\/michael-heisers-the-unseen-realm-part-seven\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Heiser’s– The Unseen Realm– Part Seven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Heiser\"<\/a><\/p>\n

BEN: Here\u2019s one of my favorite quotes from the book\u2014\u2013 \u2014\u201cIf God foreknows some event that happens then he may have predestined that event. But the fact that he foreknew an event does not require its predestination if it happens\u2026. Since foreknowledge doesn\u2019t require predestination, foreknown events that happen may or may not have been predestined.\u201d (p. 65). So which events do you think are predestined by God? Presumably not sin and evil. <\/p>\n

MIKE: Agreed. I don\u2019t think God causatively predestines wickedness. Evil is what it is because lesser beings abuse God\u2019s good gift of freedom. I\u2019d have to be omniscient to go beyond that. I think the New Testament makes clear that God does step into human affairs when he wants to for whatever reason he wants to (Paul\u2019s conversion). But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the norm (but have no specific basis for that idea \u2013 it\u2019s just an impression). Given that, it means that God is constantly engaged in our lives and human affairs in term of using circumstances, events and acts (good and evil), mistakes, words spoken or unspoken, divine agents, his Spirit, etc. to influence people toward redemption and the furtherance of his kingdom. I like to use the chess analogy for all this. What\u2019s more impressive\u2014the chess player (God) who looks at his opponent from across the board and says \u201cYou\u2019re going to lose because I\u2019ve predestined all your moves,\u201d or the one who says \u201cYou can move wherever you like, I\u2019m going to win no matter what\u201d? God doesn\u2019t need to predestine everything to have his way. Our God is that big.<\/p>\n

BEN: It\u2019s very clear you are a Trinitarian from various things you say, but you also frequently want to talk about Jesus being Yahweh in the flesh, something he\u2019s never called in the NT. I would much prefer just saying he\u2019s \u2018God in the flesh\u2019 or even the Word of God become flesh. I think your use of the term Yahweh as applied to Jesus creates more problems than it solves. For Jesus, his Father is Yahweh, whom he called Abba and he is God\u2019s divine Son. Yahweh in the OT is a particular and unique being, indeed the only God in a supernatural world where there are many lesser supernatural beings. Why press this sort of language when the NT doesn\u2019t use it? The fact that the same divine attributes and roles and titles are transferred from Yahweh to Jesus at various points in the NT is not to suggest an identity statement when it comes to who Jesus is as a \u2018person\u2019. It\u2019s meant to suggest that he is just as much a part of the divine identity as Yahweh is. I\u2019m wondering what you think about Richard Bauckham\u2019s argument in The Crucified God<\/em> and elsewhere about how we need to have a more robust sense of the divine identity, which includes Father, Son, and Spirit sharing a divine essence without fusing or confusing these three different persons. <\/p>\n

MIKE: I don\u2019t see the problem. God is Yahweh. That is his name. And I do mean the Father. I\u2019d also disagree that the NT never \u201cuses\u201d this. While there may be no clear statement of it, when OT passages that describe Yahweh doing or saying XYZ are applied to Jesus, I think Jesus is linked to Yahweh. I don\u2019t think the point is \u201cI\u2019m going to quote this OT passage and apply it to Jesus, but please don\u2019t think of Yahweh when I do \u2013 even though that name is there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEN: Here\u2019s one of my favorite quotes from the book\u2014\u2013 \u2014\u201cIf God foreknows some event that happens then he may have predestined that event. But the fact that he foreknew an event does not require its predestination if it happens\u2026. Since foreknowledge doesn\u2019t require predestination, foreknown events that happen may or may not have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMichael Heiser's-- The Unseen Realm-- Part Seven<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"BEN: Here\u2019s one of my favorite quotes from the book----- \u2014\u201cIf God foreknows some event that happens then he may have predestined that event. 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