Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible

Lesson 4Doctrinal Discrepancies

Rationale: The student will be familiarized with a few of many alleged doctrinal discrepancies in the Bible and will understand that there are answers for such, and that the Bible maintains logical coherency in all of its doctrines.

1. God and Omnipotence: Omnipotence means that God is infinite and unlimited in power; hence, He has an unlimited reservoir of power by which He can do anything that He ever wanted to do, even if He does not do it.

God can do all things:Jeremiah 32:27 (NASB)"Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?"Job 42:2 (NASB) "I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

God can do all things:Matthew 19:26 (NASB) And looking at them Jesus said to them, "With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."Luke 1:35 (NASB) The angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.

God cannot do all things:Habakkuk 1:13 (NASB) Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they?

God cannot do all things:Mark 6:5 (NASB) And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.Titus 1:2 (NASB) in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,

God cannot do all things:Hebrews 6:18 (NASB) so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.James 1:13 (NASB) Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.

•Omnipotence does not mean that God has the power to do every conceivable thing, but to do everything within the sphere of logic. For an example, omnipotence does not mean that God can cause something to exists and not exist at the same time and in the same sense. The very idea is self-contradictory and logically absurd.

God is tired and rests:Exodus 31:17 (NASB) "It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed."

God is never weary:Isaiah 40:28 (NASB) Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.

•Ceased from labor and refreshed in Ex 31:17 is merely a vivid Oriental way of saying that God concluded His work of creation and took delight in surveying that work.

•God and Omniscience” to say that God is omniscient is to say that God is infinite in His knowledge. God possesses total and perfect knowledge about every detail concerning everything that He has created.

•Also connected to omniscience is God’s exhaustive divine foreknowledge, or EDF. This EDF is God’s perfect and complete knowledge about every detail in the future.

•Opponents of EDF are of a theological persuasion known as Open Theism. This view teaches that man is a free will moral agent, and because of this, the future is therefore “open” and thus God cannot have Exhaustive Divine Foreknowledge (EDF) of our free will actions. Proponents of this view believe that God is infinite, omnipotent, and even works miracles; however, He is not capable of knowing what our free will choices will be.

God knows all things: Psalm 139:1-4 (NASB) 1 O LORD, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. 3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.  

God knows all things:Hebrews 4:13 (NASB) And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.  

God knows all things:Acts 1:24-25 (NASB) 24 And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two You have chosen 25 to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.”

 

God seeks to find out (allegedly):Genesis 22:12 (NASB) He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

The language of Genesis 22:12 is designed to accommodate human understanding, it was spoken from mankind’s perspective. By the testing process applied to Abraham, the exhaustive divine foreknowledge confined to the mind of God was revealed and verified to Abraham.

God seeks to find out (allegedly):Deuteronomy 8:2 (NASB) “You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

•Here in Deuteronomy the same can be said of Israel that was said of Abraham, the exhaustive divine foreknowledge confined to the mind of God was revealed and verified to Israel.

God does not forget Isaiah 49:15 (NASB) "Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.

God temporarily forgot Noah (allegedly)

 Genesis 8:1 (NASB) But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.

•The language of Genesis 8:1 is written to accommodate the human perspective. From Noah’s vantage point, it very well seemed as though God did forget him for a time.

God does not change His mind  1 Samuel 15:29 (NASB) "Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind."

God does not change His mind Psalm 110:4 (NASB) The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind, "You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek."

God changes His mind Exodus 32:14 (NASB) So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.  Jeremiah 26:13 (NASB) "Now therefore amend your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will change His mind about the misfortune which He has pronounced against you.

God changes His mindJeremiah 26:19 (NASB) "Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him to death? Did he not fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD, and the LORD changed His mind about the misfortune which He had pronounced against them? But we are committing a great evil against ourselves."

God changes His mindAmos 7:3 (NASB) The LORD changed His mind about this. "It shall not be," said the LORD. Amos 7:6 (NASB) The LORD changed His mind about this. "This too shall not be," said the Lord GOD.

•To first address the alleged discrepancies of God’s foreknowledge as it relates to changing His mind (allegedly) we must first understand some prominent theological positions:

1. Libertarian Free will: Man is a free will moral agent, and is free to make independent choices as those choices relate to God and His decrees.

2. Determinism (Universal divine causal determinism): Every event that happens within the realm of God’s creation (universal) is by divine cause (God) who determines by His eternal divine decree that every event universally will commence exactly as He wills.

3. Compatibilism: Mankind is free to make choices as those choices relate to God and His decrees, however, God still determines every event that is going to happen and thus God is not responsible for determining that free will man sins, thus free will and determinism are compatible. Both those of the free will and determinism positions reject this view because it is logically inconsistent. Thus compatibilism will be ejected from the rest of this lesson.

The libertarian free will positions is divided into two sects:1. Those who purport in EDF (God’s

exhaustive divine foreknowledge)2. Those who assert “open theism”,

God limits himself by not allowing himself to know what free will choices that mankind will make. (Such as the testing of Abraham in Genesis 22:12)

•Open theism stands in direct opposition the Bible’s teaching on EDF and the Churches view on EDF and therefore must be rejected. Therefore the traditional view of libertarian free will, will serve as the position in which these alleged discrepancies will be addressed.

God does not change His mind  1 Samuel 15:29 (NASB) "Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind."Psalm 110:4 (NASB) The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind, "You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek."

•1 Samuel 15:29 and Psalm 110:4 are indicative of the many things that comprise God’s “prescriptive” will. That which God has dictated and absolutely will not change His mind, such as the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God changes His mind Exodus 32:14 (NASB) So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.  Jeremiah 26:13 (NASB) "Now therefore amend your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will change His mind about the misfortune which He has pronounced against you.

God changes His mind

Jeremiah 26:19 (NASB) "Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him to death? Did he not fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD, and the LORD changed His mind about the misfortune which He had pronounced against them? But we are committing a great evil against ourselves."  Amos 7:3 (NASB) The LORD changed His mind about this. "It shall not be," said the LORD. Amos 7:6 (NASB) The LORD changed His mind about this. "This too shall not be," said the Lord GOD.

•The passages from Exodus, Jeremiah, Amos and other such passages that suggest that God changed his mind are written to accommodate man’s limited understanding of God and are indicative of God’s “permissive” will. God’s permissive will relates to those things in which God allows man to freely choose, as man’s free choice relates to God’s decrees. 

•In such passages that relate to God’s permissive will, such as Exodus 32:14, Jeremiah 26:13; 19 ad Amos 7:3; 6, the change is in man not God. For example God has promised blessings to the righteous and punishment to the wicked. Suppose a righteous man should turn and become wicked. He is no longer the man whom God promised to bless. The promise was made to an entirely different person, and the change was in the man not God, however, from a man-ward perspective God changed his mind.

•Suppose a wicked man repents and becomes good, he is no longer the individual that is the recipient of God’s promised punishment. Based off of his free will actions, he attains a different relationship to God. He has passed out of the sphere of the divine punishment into the sphere of divine forgiveness, yet all the while there is no change in God.

3. God and human free will (libertarian free will vs open theism and determinism)

God hardens men’s hearts: Exodus 9:12 (NASB) And the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not listen to them, just as the LORD had spoken to Moses.  Exodus 10:1 (NASB) Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them,

God hardens men’s hearts:Exodus 11:10 (NASB) Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; yet the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land. Deuteronomy 2:30 (NASB) "But Sihon king of Heshbon was not willing for us to pass through his land; for the LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, in order to deliver him into your hand, as he is today.

God hardens men’s hearts:Joshua 11:20 (NASB) For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, to meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them, that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

Man hardens his own heart: Exodus 8:15 (NASB) But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not listen to them, as the LORD had said.Exodus 8:32 (NASB) But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go.

Man hardens his own heart:Exodus 9:34 (NASB) But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. Hebrews 3:7-8 (NASB) Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS,

•From the free will perspective, God hardening Pharaoh’s heart is simple: The sun by its very nature, by the force of its heat, melts wax or hardens clay. It softens one while at the same time hardens another, this produces opposite effects by the very same power. So it is with God, by His very nature and by the force of His nature some hearts are softened and convicted and at the same time others are hardened.

•As to Sihon in Deuteronomy 2:30, God providentially arranged circumstances in order that the wickedness of his heart would fully develop in “hardness” and “wrong-headedness” bring upon him merited destruction.

•Regarding Joshua 11:20, the king of Hazor, the king of Madon the king of Shirmon and the king of Achshap, and the accompanying kings led what would now be considered “mechanized” armies, for they possessed horses and chariots. By contrast, Israel was an army of foot soldiers; God gave these opposing kings up to vain confidence, pride and stubbornness, thus hardening their hearts and bringing upon themselves His righteous vengeance, and allowing them to be utterly destroyed.

•In terms of man hardening his own heart, man has a personal responsibility to respond volitionally to what man has received cognitively. When one has been confronted with the objective revelation of God and His word, the responsibility to respond positively or negatively is upon the recipient of such revelation. When one freely responds negatively to God, one has hardened one’s own heart.

 

•Conclusion: When one considers the alleged doctrinal discrepancies contextually and in light of the libertarian free will position, one must conclude that there are no doctrinal discrepancies. The Bible’s theological consistency and coherency is intact.