ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1

[RobE]

Discernment is good exegesis. Forcing our idea into Scripture is isogesis. We must be very careful how we deal with scripture.

Bob Hill

Agreed.

 

[ApologeticJedi]

I agree that it is a premise of OT that the future is not there yet to know and much of it is known as possible until it becomes actual/certain through the present. The potential future becomes the fixed past through present choices.

As a chess game is being played, the parameters of possible are dynamic and fluctuate depending on each move and counter-moves.

Good points.

Where I think the real difference enter is whether or not our choices are predetermined based on a series of cause-and-effect events such that even what seems like freedom is actually just a logical conclusion of the different factors. This way of thinking was common in the ancient culture as well as the concepts of determinism and fatalism were in their prime. "Destiny", "Karma", and "Fate" are old concepts that still shape many forms of theology today.

Are our choices bound by various causes that are predictable at some level by God? Is even the coin flip before a game calculatable via wind patterns, flaws in the coin's surface, and the cut on the index finger of the flipper. It seems a bit far reaching to believe this, yet still today it is debated.

 

[godrulz]

I think the will is different than cause-effect categories. Contingent choices may or may not happen. They can be unpredictable, out of character, or somewhat predictable. They are still potential/possible/probable until they are made and become certain/actual, so there is an element (even if small) of unsettledness or uncertainty.

 

[RobE]

I think the will is different than cause-effect categories. Contingent choices may or may not happen. They can be unpredictable, out of character, or somewhat predictable. They are still potential/possible/probable until they are made and become certain/actual, so there is an element (even if small) of unsettledness or uncertainty.

Don't you have to make an effort to be unpredictable?

aalsdkfja;sriewhq [q5=0ur [dkja'df. I had to make an effort to be unpredictable when I typed the preceding. However, wasn't it predictable that I would make that effort before I made it when you consider your own post and what my response might be. It was probable/potential/possible or I couldn't have made it certain/actual.

The question that we have is if it is known what the certain/actual will be....
What limits the probable/potential/possible that precedes it?

Knowledge does not limit it so foreknowledge does not restrict free will.
What limits it or in other words "what causes your free will act"?

The argument Clete puts foreward is that if the certain/actual is known then the probable/potential/possible doesn't exist prior to the certain/actual. If we think linearly then that isn't true. The probable/potential/possible always precedes the certain/actual even if the knowledge of the certain/actual exists beforehand.

What limits the probable/potential/possible?
Rob

 

[godrulz]

What limits the possible? I cannot fly to the moon by flapping my arms (physical limitation). I cannot draw square cirlces (logical contradiction). I cannot be President of the U.S. (Canadian). I cannot be born black in Africa since I am a white adult. Other's choices also limit my possible freedoms. In the end, God or others or my choices limit the parameters.

(I am not sure what you are getting at).

What I do know is that your or my typing itghw45-9hy=q94uy9- 24wuny=9het-94h cannot be foreknown from eternity past, even by an omniscient God who knows all that is possible to know.

 

[RobE]

What limits the possible? I cannot fly to the moon by flapping my arms (physical limitation). I cannot draw square cirlces (logical contradiction). I cannot be President of the U.S. (Canadian). I cannot be born black in Africa since I am a white adult. Other's choices also limit my possible freedoms. In the end, God or others or my choices limit the parameters.

(I am not sure what you are getting at).

What I do know is that your or my typing itghw45-9hy=q94uy9- 24wuny=9het-94h cannot be foreknown from eternity past, even by an omniscient God who knows all that is possible to know.

If God knows your final choice and He didn't limit it, and others didn't limit it, and no other outside force limited it then who did?

Let me try to disarm you and say that If I know what any of your final choices will be then why doesn't God know any of your choices that aren't limited by any external force? My reasoning would say that if I could know with a certainty that you will never torture and eat a baby squirrel without being coerced(i.e. starvation, facing certain death) then God would be able to discern far more about your future actions than I'm able to do.

Do you see where these connect with our earlier discussion?
Rob

 

[godrulz]

If God knows your final choice and He didn't limit it, and others didn't limit it, and no other outside force limited it then who did?

Let me try to disarm you and say that If I know what any of your final choices will be then why doesn't God know any of your choices that aren't limited by any external force? My reasoning would say that if I could know with a certainty that you will never torture and eat a baby squirrel without being coerced(i.e. starvation, facing certain death) then God would be able to discern far more about your future actions than I'm able to do.

Do you see where these connect with our earlier discussion?
Rob

This reasoning may work to a point, but it would not account for exhaustive foreknowledge of all moral and mundane choices by every creature from trillions of years ago. You are still talking about proximal vs remote knowledge, limited parameters vs unlimited parameters. You cannot extrapolate from a few specific examples to a general rule that is defensible and exhaustive.

God knows way more things than we would know, but it is still not a limitation on omniscience to not know a nothing (cf. omnipotence is not limited by not doing everything possible or not doing the absurd/impossible).

 

[ApologeticJedi]

Knowledge does not limit it so foreknowledge does not restrict free will.
What limits it or in other words "what causes your free will act"?

I disagree that foreknowledge doesn't limit free will. If free will means the ability to change the foreknown future, then those ideas are incompatiable.

If God foreknows the rate that a disease will overtake a person tomorrow that he shall die, and he knows that the disease will kill this person, then God is not free to make changes. His knowledge limits his ability to act against the future that He knows to be true.

(And if God is not free - then it is moot to consider whether or not man is!)

If God knows the score of next year's Superbowl, then men are unable to make effectual changes that would alter that future from coming forth that God preknows.

In this sense, foreknowledge make the power of men and God to change the future ineffectual.

The argument Clete puts foreward is that if the certain/actual is known then the probable/potential/possible doesn't exist prior to the certain/actual. If we think linearly then that isn't true.

I think I just proved Clete's point.

If the pagan concepts of "fate" and "destiny" are true, then men do not have the real ability to change them. In that case, the probable/potential/possible doesn't truely exist - certainly not for God, who knows the true course.

If God knows that Oklahoma will will next years NCAA championship game, then there exists no possibility that Miami will win it. Any possibility we feel is there is merely an illusion. The certain otherwise elliminates "possibilities".

In a good detective book, the possibilities may be elliminated one at a time. However, when there is a confession, no other "possibilities" need be considered.

 

[Bob Hill]

I think Greg Boyd’s excellent response to God’s foreknowledge is very helpful. I copied this from appendix 2 of his book, Satan and the Problem of Evil. The whole book is great, and this section is, in my mind, outstanding.

The Meaning of Self-Determination
Premises
P1: Self-determination means that the self gives determinateness to its actions. In other words, regarding any genuinely free act, free agents themselves ultimately transition a range of possible acts into one actual act. By definition, they define (render determinate) what was previously undefined (that is, indeterminate possibilities). They are the ultimate cause and explanation for the move from “possibly this or possibly that” to “certainly this and certainly that.”
P2: Retroactive causality does not occur. We cannot change the past.
P3: Each created free agent begins in time. It is not eternal.
Conclusion: From P1-3, it follows that the determinateness given to an action by a self-determining agent cannot eternally precede that agent’s self-determination. Moreover, if the determinateness does not exist an eternity before the agent creates it, there is no determinateness for God to know an eternity before the agent creates it. Thus, if agents possess self-determination, God does not possess Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge.
Comment: Either the determinateness of my actions comes from me, in which case I am self-determining, or it does not, in which case I am not self-determining. If the determinateness eternally precedes me in the mind of God, it cannot come from me, for I am not eternal (P3) and retroactive causation does not occur (P2). But on the view that God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, all future actions are from eternity within this category. Thus, if God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, creatures cannot possess self-determining freedom.

The Distinction Between Possibility and Actuality
Premises
P1: The most fundamental feature of the distinction between possibility and actuality is the distinction between indefiniteness and definiteness.
P2: Self-determination is the power to change possibility into actuality, indefiniteness into definiteness, what might be into what is.
P3: If God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, then all events are exhaustively definite before they occur. In God’s mind there is no indefiniteness to the future.
Conclusion: From P1-3, it follows that if God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, it does not lie within any created agent’s power to change possibilities into actuality, indefiniteness into definiteness, what might be into what is. If God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, in other words, creatures cannot possess self-determination.
Comment: Regarding P1, if the distinction between actuality and possibility is not located in definiteness, in what is it to be located? No cogent, more fundamental definition has been given. Regarding P2, if self-determination is not to be defined as an ability to render possibilities actual, how are we to define it? No one has suggested a cogent alternative.

If both are granted, however, the possibility of affirming that the content of God’s foreknowledge is exhaustively definite while at the same time affirming self-determination is logically ruled out. . . . Agents cannot turn possibilities into actualities if there are no genuine possibilities. By its very definition, however, Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge does not allow for future possibilities. Hence, if God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge agents cannot possess self-determining freedom.

In Christ,
Bob Hill

 

[Bob Hill]

A lady asked me this question: “If God knows every move we make before we make it, then how do we have the choice?” That was one of the best questions I’ve ever been asked.

To begin, we have to agree that God knows everything. It tells us that in 1 John 3:20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

But, if man has any free choice, that is, make any choices not totally predestined by God, then, those future free acts would be unknowable. The Bible doesn’t say anywhere, “God knows the future, or God doesn’t know the future.” But it does make statements which show that our almighty God does not know some of the future events of the somewhat free agent, man.

God shows that man has free will, because He doesn’t know for sure what the future actions of a man will be in all cases. That’s what it shows us in Genesis 22. Gen 22:12,15-17 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” 15 Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son; 17 “blessing I will bless you,” etc.

When God said, “now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”, it shows that God did not know with certainty, that Abraham would be willing to sacrifice his son to God. When Abraham proved to be faithful, God interrupted Abraham and rescued the son from death.

There is a passage in Exodus where God said, perhaps. Exo 13:17 Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest perhaps the people change their minds [The Hebrew word is: na gham’] when they see war, and return to Egypt.”

There’s another one in Jer 26:1-3: In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the LORD, saying, 2 “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord’s house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Do not diminish a word. 3 Perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way, that I may repent concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring on them because of the evil of their doings.’”

Jer 36:1-3 Now it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2 “Take a scroll of a book and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day. 3 “It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the adversities which I purpose to bring upon them, that everyone may turn from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.”

Eze 12:1-3 Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 2 “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, which has eyes to see but does not see, and ears to hear but does not hear; for they are a rebellious house. 3 Therefore, son of man, prepare your belongings for captivity, and go into captivity by day in their sight. You shall go from your place into captivity to another place in their sight. It may be that they will consider, though they are a rebellious house.”

In Christ,
Bob Hill

 

[RobE]

I disagree that foreknowledge doesn't limit free will. If free will means the ability to change the foreknown future, then those ideas are incompatiable.

Free will doesn't mean the ability to change the foreknown future. Free will means that you do what you want to do and nothing else.

If God foreknows the rate that a disease will overtake a person tomorrow that he shall die, and he knows that the disease will kill this person, then God is not free to make changes. His knowledge limits his ability to act against the future that He knows to be true.

Untrue. If God "knows that the disease will kill this person" then the person will die. However, God may know that God will heal him; or, God may just decide to Heal the person in which case God would be changing the man's future. Man's free will would be unable to change the future in any way. The man's free will would still exist, but would be incapable of doing as it pleased. In effect, it would be coerced by the limitations which existed in the man.

If God knows the score of next year's Superbowl, then men are unable to make effectual changes that would alter that future from coming forth that God preknows.

Correct. Remember, that the men's free will would still exist whether the future was known or not based on the fact that the men's free will isn't capable of changing what God foresees. This doesn't mean that the men weren't capable of choosing/wanting a different outcome, but the reality would actualize as God had foreseen it.

The argument Clete puts foreward is that if the certain/actual is known then the probable/potential/possible doesn't exist prior to the certain/actual. If we think linearly then that isn't true. The probable/potential/possible always precedes the certain/actual even if the knowledge of the certain/actual exists beforehand.

The problem is in the difference between ability(what you can do) and actuality(what you will do). Free will specifically resides in the province of ability; whereas, foreknowledge resides in the province of actuality.

Now using linear thinking we know by reason that no actuality happens until it's caused by an ability. "I decided foreknowledge was untrue....."(the actuality in your case) .vs "....after thinking it through"(the ability in your case). God foreknowing the actuality couldn't possibly cause your thinking to be coerced. Clete's admitted as much. So what brought that actuality about other than your own thinking?

To say that knowledge of an outcome eliminates an ability doesn't make sense. Your free will doesn't change the future---it makes it an actuality.

Rob

 

[RobE]

This reasoning may work to a point, but it would not account for exhaustive foreknowledge of all moral and mundane choices by every creature from trillions of years ago. You are still talking about proximal vs remote knowledge, limited parameters vs unlimited parameters. You cannot extrapolate from a few specific examples to a general rule that is defensible and exhaustive.

God knows way more things than we would know, but it is still not a limitation on omniscience to not know a nothing (cf. omnipotence is not limited by not doing everything possible or not doing the absurd/impossible).

I can say that God who created things which we are still trying to figure out is much smarter than we are able to comprehend. The leviathan, the universe, the atom, and much more boggles our minds. Yet our Lord Jesus Christ spoke and it became. Your term 'creature' above says it best. He designed us and understands us completely. He's watched us since He created us.....

Job 31:15 Did not he who made me in the womb make them?
Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?

Job 33:4 The Spirit of God has made me;
the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Job 34:16 he may speak in their ears
and terrify them with warnings,

17 to turn man from wrongdoing
and keep him from pride,

18 to preserve his soul from the pit,
his life from perishing by the sword. [c]

Job 42:2 "I know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.

Every bird and season, every rain, the oceans, our parents all the way back to Adam. I think He knows and I'm glad for it because what kind of uncertain future would a God who is not omni-capable lead me into.

Rob

 

[drbrumley]

Every bird and season, every rain, the oceans, our parents all the way back to Adam. I think He knows and I'm glad for it because what kind of uncertain future would a God who is not omni-capable lead me into.

Rob

It would be easy to say you have a very weak faith then? Agree?


I mean, sheesh, God is not God unless He knows everything and has preprogrammed your every step?

 

[ApologeticJedi]

Free will doesn't mean the ability to change the foreknown future. Free will means that you do what you want to do and nothing else.

What someone wants is too flimsy for a definition. Desires can be changed. Someone could be hyponotised to believe they love someone else and we would hardly call that free will.

Conversely, someone could have the oppertunity to do what they don't really want to do, but rationalize, or flippantly decided to do, and that could be free will. So I think there is something missing from your definition of free will.

Untrue. If God "knows that the disease will kill this person" then the person will die. However, God may know that God will heal him; or, God may just decide to Heal the person in which case God would be changing the man's future.

If God knew he was going to heal him, then it wouldn't be changing the future to do so. The only way we can say God has control over his own destiny is to say that God is powerful enough to affect real change on the future such that He knew the man will die tomorrow, but changed what he knew as certainty by healing him and changing the future.

I believe God can do this. You deny God this ability.

 

[godrulz]

Omnicompetence trumps omnicausality or exhaustive foreknowledge. Do not underestimate God's resourcefulness, creativity, power, wisdom, knowledge, ability, etc. as He responds to every possible contingency as it unfolds. A lesser god would have to know and control every detail far in advance in order to run the universe.

 

[ApologeticJedi]

I can say that God who created things which we are still trying to figure out is much smarter than we are able to comprehend.

Obviously ... both sides would agree with that.

The question for me is less about knowledge and more about how much power do I think God has. Does God possess free will or is He bound? That's key. Is God is locked into the events of the Future (call it "Fate" or "Destiny"), or is God powerful enough to change the future?

I said this before but it is key and bears repeating ... If God does not have free will, it is moot to argue about whether man has it or not.

If the future is not locked into place, then God has the power to make decisions about how things will turn out. We almost all believe that God has planned out the future ... ah, but the rub is that if God ever made a "choice" about the future, then that would be changing something contrary from either how He knew it would have previously played out , or from some unplanned state into a planned one. That idea would immediately debunk the concept of absolute foreknowledge which requires that the future never changes. Where we arrive at is that even the actions of God are pre-scripted for him, because it was not Him that planned them out.

So there will be two camps for certain (more obviously are available);

1. One group will take the side of God's power, against a pre-scripted Future. They will say that God makes the decisions and that God has free will. This will require that the future is not completely decided (at least in the sense that God has the power to change them, or decide them if they are currently in an unplanned state, should he wish).

2. Another group will say that God is powerful still, but that ultimately he will follow a prescripted plan. They unwittingly indicate that God cannot make choices that go against that plan. They sometimes will say "Why would He go against the plan, since it is His plan," but that would be technically in error. "His plan" would indicate that God planned it ... and if God planned it, then at one point it was not known (it would require the moving from an "unplanned" state to a "planned" one), which would require us to suspend the very principle of exhaustive foreknowledge that we attempted to establish. Thus God acts, and may even agree with the plan, but it cannot be rightly called "His plan".

Obviously I hold to the first camp and question the validity of the second because of where it leads to.

If in order for God to have free will (and to have more power than a cosmic "Fate"-like force), there cannot exist exhaustive foreknowlegde. Then, in the same admission, the key roadblock established to theologically deny the concept of free will in men is also removed.

 

[spaz]

How do open theists deal with Acts 17:28. Where paul says in God we have all our movement and being and he uses Greek philosophy to back the point up?

 

[Vaquero45]

I'm an open theist and I dont have any need to "deal" with that verse, unless you can explain my problem?

 

[ApologeticJedi]

How do open theists deal with Acts 17:28. Where paul says in God we have all our movement and being and he uses Greek philosophy to back the point up?

Are you suggesting that Acts 17:28 means that God directy controls our movements or something? Even most non-OVers don't take this passage to mean that.

It means that God was a personal thing, not like a golden idol or a rock statue god, but a fluid God that is more similar to us. (Obviously Paul doesn't mean God is exactly like us, but he's playing on the idea that God is more like us than he is like a stone idol in that we move and exist in the way God moves and is a living creature, but a stone idol doesn't move or live). Paul stresses that we are made in God's image by using a quote that they would be familiar with.

Paul often pulled out of Greek philosophy what he could to relate the people to the gospel message. This is no different that St. Patrick who used the three leaf clover to explain the Triune God. Good evangelists can take nuggets from what people are familiar with and extrapolate them somehow into the gopel message.

 

[RobE]

It would be easy to say you have a very weak faith then? Agree?


I mean, sheesh, God is not God unless He knows everything and has preprogrammed your every step?

That would be foreordination, not simple foresight. God certainly foreordained things such as free will and creation itself. Simple foresight would mean that God knew what kind of outcomes would be produced from the actions of free will and creation.

Rob