The Omniscience of God and the Betrayal by Judas as a Test Case

WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING: theology






In the DL thread on 'Where have all the DMins gone?' interest
was indicated in Open Theism. I have no ambition to spend a lot of time on this or to discuss broad and wide ranging issues. But I would not mind interacting in a small way on narrow topics.

It is my understanding that Greg Boyd believes that God created a universe of free creatures and that as an action is not real until it is done that such future free events cannot be part of God's knowledge. (Boyd, "The Open Theism View" in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, pp. 42,43).

In harmony with this, Boyd requires that Jesus did not have prescience of Judas' betrayal in John 6:64 and that in fact another, besides Judas, could have fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy (pp. 21,22).

I feel Boyd's position is an incorrect interpretation on this text and I offer that verse as a test case to any who wish to discuss it exegetically and theologically. *If* this verse means that Jesus had a certain prescience of Judas' betrayal and/or if Judas was 'foreordained' to this, then perhaps John 6:64 might be taken to contradict some tenets of Open Theism.

If no one wishes to talk on this, well, that's fine with me too. I have other fish to fry, Buleeve me, I do

 

Brotha Bill (note my hip accent!)

First, my good man, none of us open theists claim that there aren't challenging verses to the OT view. Heavens knows no matter what perspective you take, there's challenges; and your noting Judas as one of them for the OT to answer is surely one of them.

Further, I think you and I know well that if Calvinism and Arminianism haven't been able answer solve the issue of predestination, we are hardly going to be able to solve the issue of God's foreknowledge using Judas as the catalyst! I mean, I'm not going to be able to argue OV any better than Boyd, Sanders, Pinnock or any of the other guys have. BUT just remember, please, that just because Boyd says that God could have chosen someone else if Judas didn't work out doesn't mean that the rest of the OV group is necessarily going to believe that. Just keep that in mind, please, Bill. We all don't agree on everything in regard to HOW God works in the future; we just agree that the future is not exhaustively known. That's all.

My main concern in my last post in the "Where have all the Mdivs gone?" thread, however, was that the OV itself does not constitute one as holding anything less in Christology, the inerrancy of Scripture, etc. Those things just aren't issues in regard to one's view of God's foreknowledge, even at the attempt to deduce as being so.

I would, however...be willing to share in the eating of some of them other fish you're frying up! In the meantime, the wife's got lasagna on the table...home-made lasagna! Oh boy!

Thanks,

Keith

 

What I've always wondered about Judas is: Why does the New Testament provide two different (and, from my perspective, mutually contradictory) accounts of his death (and what happened to his thirty pieces of silver)? We have him discarding the silver and remorsefully committing suicide in Matthew 27:5, but have him buying a field with it and accidentally falling and eviscerating himself in Acts 1:18. I don't see how he could have possibly done both. Could someone explain (from the vantage point of biblical inerrancy)?


Cheers,

 

Keith

That's fine,

Thanks

 

Tom,

I am not a biblical inerrantist, but in a Cal State course on Christian history in the early 80s, I recall mention of an old tradition that Judas, subsequent to his betrayal, was stricken with elephantiasis, which caused his limbs to become grossly enlarged. While walking, he was hit by a chariot, which, reportedly, caused his bowels to gush out (as in Acts 1:18). I have heard a few unsatisfactory attempts to reconcile the two verses (e.g. he hung himself, the rope broke and his bowels gushed out), but that does not address the issue of who did what with the 30 pieces of silver.

Nonetheless, I still believe in the Bible.

Tony

 

Great response Bill.

The Gospels are replete with these kinds of issues. Especially dealing with the narrative portions, we have to remember that these were constructed with an intentional and an ideologically selective strategy. Often times, I think, details are left out and others are emphasized for very specific storytelling options.

Matthew has two demoniacs, one of the others (get this, an OT dude trying to answer a NT question) only has one. Matthew has quite a few "doublets" for a special reason, often debated by scholars.

I like to think the reason the temple is "cleansed" by Christ in John 2, while in all the other accounts it happens in the end of his life is specifically because of Johns' compositional strategy. Jesus was the temple, "the temple of his body" (Jn. 2) who cleansed the temple just by "making his dwelling among us" (Jn. 1). I dont think John is making a mistake, but he knows we don't expect him to "tell it like the events go" but to "tell it like it is" with respect to Christ as the Logos. Jesus cleanses the temple and shows up as a human being synonymously.

I think harmonizations are appropriate and especially good when they promote further insight into the perceptual lens the different authors used when filtering the life of Christ. An appeal to legitimate difference of point of view among gospel writers has to have a perceptual reason, I think. Those perceptual reasons can be strengthened by tying them into the broader story-pattern of each individual gospel writer. So with the case of Judas, I would hope that the difference of story can clue us into the broader perspective on the meaning of the betrayal, and Christ's rejection by, perhaps, the Jews and the disciples. When the different accounts are understood ideologically, the event-harmonization is much more comfortable for me.

Chris

 

Great answers, folks--thank you.

Tony, I'd never heard of the elephantiasis theory until you mentioned it--fascinating stuff. I'll do some followup reading (looks like it was proposed by Papias).


Cheers,

 

No wonder!

No wonder the main stream churches are losing people/congregations by the hundreds each year (perhaps not trhe Baptists and some other finadamentalist groups) if this is what it is all about! I'd nebver come across some of the words mentioned here in this thread!.. Someone said to me when I was writing my doctorate; KEEP IT SIMPLY STUPID.

At the end of Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream' Puck the elf comes in and states:

FOR NOTHING CAN ME AMISS WHEN SIMPLENESS AND DUTY TENDER IT.

Church people (and others,includingmanagement theorists!) need to learn how to reduce the complex to more the more simple and be prepared go move beyond concepts and ideas that are, truly, old fashioned!

'terlfax'

 

Telfax:

Sorry. Seems like many disciplines as psychology or business have their own terminology. Theology does too. But we'll try to make it less technical and thereby more useful.

Thanks,

 

Hey Telfax...

I'm sorry if this discussion seemed too complex.

I'm wondering what it was that Bill said or I said or anyone else "said" that indicates "this is what it is all about."

Personally, I was just answering the question. I wouldn't recommend someone preach on the "compositional strategy" of John. I don't think I've ever heard it either.

Chris