2 Peter 3:8 has a context. He’s talking specifically about the second coming. The people to whom Peter wrote were probably getting antsy as to why Jesus wasn’t coming back. I see no reason to go beyond that.
Yet it is a fact that God told some of His people, at one point in time, that they really needed to do some things. And He later told other of His people that what He had said earlier did not apply any more. I do believe that it is an immutable principle of logic that one counter-example disproves a claim of absoluteness. So I believe it is not true that we today can take anything written in a scripture thousands of years ago to a different audience that in itself says there are changes over time and insist that “Well, everything else that it says, that it doesn’t change by itself, is still true for all time.”
My strong reaction to this subject of absolute biblical authority is based on the fact that this is what I was taught as a child, and which I believed through my college years into my post-graduate time. The way I was taught was almost to the point of establishing the bible as a false idol.
Now I have seen many Christians who act much more like Christians than I ever saw any of the leaders of that particular denomination act.
And, bringing the subject back to BioLogos, the fact that modern science demonstrates beyond shadow of doubt that the space and time dimensions we experience are physical dimensions of the universe in which we live, this means that, if I am going to claim that God created this universe, and I do, then I must recognize that God exists (present tense) outside of this created universe. That is what I am sure Dale means by “omnitemporal”:
And this does not mean that God does not allow us free will, even though He knows what we have chosen. He knows what was done from an historical perspective, just as we know that Neville Chamberlain made a mistake when he tried to appease Hitler. Just because we know this doesn’t mean we caused it. God knows what we did after we did it, and even though He knew what we would do when setting up the world, I believe that it is only those rare cases where He chooses to insert Himself into our lives that He directlhy influences our free will choices. Too much objective evidence indicates that we really do make choices, good/bad/indifferent, that have real consequences, both intended and unintended.
This doesn’t require giving up the notion of free will. It does require thinking about the primary four dimensions of the created universe in a way that is rather difficult to imagine, but certainly makes more sense to me than believing in a God who is too stupid to understand what He has created, and how it will work.
And another hook back into the chain, I absolutely agree with St. Roymond:
[quote=“St.Roymond, post:85, topic:51238”]
Jesus was Plan A (or Plan א, to use the Hebrew letter).
I also keep coming back to what was discussed in some other places in this forum, the story Jesus tells about the Last Judgement, where He doesn’t send the homosexuals to hell, or those who don’t believe the bible is the only true source of information about God. And He doesn’t tell those accepted into Heaven that they are getting there because they believed in Him, or because they understood the truth of scrfipture. And another minor point: It does seem that neither group expected the judgement they got.
I take this to mean that I am to leave the judging to Jesus, and just do what I can to help anyone I see who needs help. Questions about absolute truth may seem important, but the real truth about absolute truth is that it’s not available to us in this world, on a level of detail that we can use to tell ourselves or others what to do.
Yes.
One example of many that indicate God does not know the future definitively:
Jer 36:3,
It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
Either God didn’t really know what they would do or He did but acted as though He didn’t. The later would be disingenuous.
I think God was sincere in musing that maybe they would listen. The only way He’d know for sure was to wait and see what they did. This respects free will on all levels. If He knew I’d choose Buddhism or Hinduism over the Bible, then I really had no real choice in the matter. As it was, I did have a real choice. I was not constrained by God’s supposed foreknowledge of every little detail about my life before it unraveled in real time.
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None that mattered? He didn’t know about the speed of light, either.
Why would he? Why should I? No one is suggesting that it would matter to them.
You continue to infer things that have not been implied, I don’t know why.
I guess not. 
Why did you not address Psalm 90 (speaking of Moses ; - ) ?
Have you ever heard of saying something for rhetorical effect (or for that matter hyperbole and poetic license all over the place in the Old Testament)?
If we’re still talking about God not definitely knowing the future, I don’t see where Psalm 90 says He does. Was there something else you wanted to know about it?
What you need to know about it is that God is independent of time and not straightjacketed by it, even though you appear to want him to be.
Is he omnipresent? If you believe he is, then you really should watch this (it’s not boring):
Start at about timestamp 19:15 to save time.
For those outside the licensed streaming viewing geography, below are some screenshots (spacetime slices? 
) from the video to help you visualize what he is talking about. The transcript does not contain timestamps, but a “Find on page” text search (or whatever your browser calls it) on the text “In our day-to-day lives, we experience time as a continuous flow” corresponds to the video timestamp 19:15 just noted.
Why then did He lead Jeremiah to think that He wasn’t sure if Israel would repent of not? (Jer 36:3,)
Why would would God plant a vineyard expecting it to grow good grapes but they turned out sour? (Is 5:2)
Why would God tell Israel to return to Him if He knew they wouldn’t? (Jer 3:7)
Yes, God does know the beginning and the end. He obviously knows of the beginning of Gen 1:1 and He knows the end of Rev 2:6. but He is not sure how it will all happen. That depends on the free will actions of people. He’s so smart and resourceful that He will bring to pass a new earth by bobbing and weaving with the actions of people. He doesn’t force. He adapts.
Are you getting the idea that God is not constrained by time from the scriptures, NOVA, or both? Or maybe neither?
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your position. Do you think the Bible talks about QM, the big bang, or the speed of light?
God adapts. Sure he does. I don’t think you have the big picture. Talk to me about Judas’ free will.
No maybe about it – you are again (or still) inferring incorrectly, even after I explicitly said those were irrelevant:
Interestingly enough, as soon as I started to watch the video I recalled that I had indeed watched it some time ago. While I found it somewhat interesting, I didn’t equate it with the scriptures at all.
As I’ve tried to explain before, God would have had no reason whatsoever to explain time to the original audience. The scriptures are a religious book, not a science book. I’ve also said that all true science is because of God, but that was not the subject of His speakings to Israel.
Equate? Good grief. Nor do I. Do I ‘equate’ the speed of light with it? That does not mean that what science tells us about it is false.
You have nothing to explain – I am not disagreeing with that. But is it science to say that God is omnipresent? It is not. Neither is it science to say that he is omnipresent in time.
There is a good reason for why I’m not sure about your position, namely, you seem hesitant to answer a simple question with a direct answer. Does your saying the answers to my question is irrelevant mean that the Bible does or does not talk about QM, the big band, or the speed of light?
??
I said so explicitly. You seem hesitant to understand. The Bible does not talk about QM, the big band [sic wrong era – that was the middle of last century] or the speed of light.
Well, thanks to much effort on your part, I finally understand. Thanks! I’m usually a big quicker on the uptake.
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Your error of logic is equating foreknowledge with active interference, with actual control. I am certain that God had His prophet tell His people the truth, that they had a choice that would have real consequences, and told them also what He wanted as a sincere attempt to influence their choice, without controlling the choice. Doesn’t God influence us by whatever we read in the bible? That doesn’t mean God is controlling us. We still have choices to make.
I believe that God also knew what choice you would make, but did not control you to force you to make that choice. The difference is knowing something because you have seen it happen, or causing something to happen. I am not guilty of shooting someone if I see another person shoot someone, but I still know that it happened if I saw it, even if I didn’t cause the action.
I believe that God’s knowledge of what we will do is only there because God exists outside of time, so God’s knowledge is based on His observing what we did choose to do in the future. I do believe God does work in this world today, and I am sure that some of what He does is intended to influence people to make the right choice, when that particular choice is very important in His overall plan. But here, too, observation of how God created the universe, and how His universe operates, gives us some insight into how God can make “all things work together for good…” The entire material world is made up of myriads of particles so small that we cannot ever measure the exact location and state of motion of any one of them. Yet, they bond together in huge numbers, with the activity of the aggregate being highly predictable. We can build complex machines, like cars, or even bigger things, like a power grid, and know that they will work as designed without knowing exactly where any single electron is. This tells me that God can very accurately know the large scale behavior of a society without impinging on the free will of any of the society’s individual members. And I trust God to be even better at accomplishing His purposes in this world than what I can imagine.