ApologeticJedi said:
Wrong. It was the whole thing "free will" that we were debating. You defined free will as doing anything you desired so long as you weren't coerced. I then posed the example of someone having a gun held to their head and you said that would be coercion only if the victim was persauded by the threat, but if they were not persuaded then it was free will.
Ultimately defining free will as doing what you want instead of defining it as choosing among neutral choices. :thumb:
AJ said:
Now how silly is that. The same situation, according to you, is "free will" if you choose one way, but is not free will if you choose another. My point was that free will can exist even when coercion is present.
So did Calvin. It's central to Calvinism that 'free will' accountability exists even though your actions were foreordained. This obviously isn't my position. I reject that a coerced will is free to do as it pleases. :chuckle:
Rob said:
This choice would be the outcome I keep speaking of and no O.V.er seems to be able to differentiate outcome from ability. Hence the never ending argument "If God knows the outcome then I had no choices!". And my response "Knowledge doesn't take your abilities away!".
AJ said:
Thats another strawman. The open view doesn't insist that the knowledge itself takes it away, but only if the choice is an ultimately illusion. Then it becomes the pagan Fatalism (Manichaeism) that Augustine brought into Christianity and was a disciple in prior to becoming a Christian.
Then by what means is it taken away? I would say that it's your own will which takes it away and makes the outcome certain. God's foreknowledge doesn't as you say. The choice isn't an illusion, it's real. All we have to figure out is 'how does God know it!.' If we do as Calvin and say that the will remains free even when coerced this becomes easier, but to my thinking would also make God responsible for evil instead of evil being attributable to God's design.
BTW - now you are shifting the debate back to man ... but you haven't figured out how God can even make free choices in your system.
You're assuming that I believe God knows His own future exhaustively. If this is true then Aquinas was right and God exists in all times simultaneously. My argument here would say that God does not know His own future since He is able to do anything He wills throughout eternity. That doesn't preclude Him from having a set agenda for creation, though.
AJ said:
Ah .. so whatever probability allows you to have your cake and eat it too?
There is no such thing as a probability of infinity-to-one, and since the Bible records such times that God does not know the outcome, I would say that the odds are no so unlikely as that they never occur. Even you had previously admitted that Hezekiah having 15 years added was an example that it happens.
As I admitted either God changed Hezekiah's future or God planned to change Hezekiah's future from the beginning. Either way, Hezekiah was headed for death until God intervened. It's on the O.V.'s head to prove that God changed it when it came up with no prior plan to do so.
AJ said:
The “root” of the future not being open has not been argued for centuries, Pelagius knew nothing of it, and Calvin absolutely would have denied it. It is a relatively new concept. (That you would confuse Calvinism with the Open View shows some desperation in your position.)
The Thomists and Molinists, Calvin, Luther, and almost every other theologian in Christian history might disagree. Free will, grace, and God's foreknowledge have been in debate since Pelagian as far as I know. As far as I can acertain Pelagians were the first to say that God could not know the future because of free will. Current allies in this debate are open theists, process theology, and its parent process philosophy. For you to claim that Pelagius hallmark that man's free will is paramount is unrelated to your position would be dishonest towards open theism's core belief.
Of course every group in history has claimed that the group they disagree with is following Pelagian teachings. The Roman Catholics accused the Protestants of it, and the Protestants accused the Roman Catholics. Historically, if your debated opponent is failing to make his case, then likely you will shortly be accused of following Pelagius in some way.
If the plan itself is considered “foreknowledge”, then that alone would be what is needed. There is no requirement that the foreknowledge be exhaustive. You’ve failed to prove that. It’s a circular argument when you assume the conclusion you are trying to prove.
If I'm reading you right then 'yes, foreknowledge was used to develop the plan!.' And as I admitted......
Rob said:
Exaustive foreknowledge wouldn't be neccesary for the operation within creation,.....
And wouldn't be required for some 'random' outcome. It would however be required for a 'specific' outcome.
Rob said:
..... but would be neccessary for the development and implimentation of a plan to produce a desired outcome(s).
_____________________
AJ said:
I said: “I think you have built a strawman argument for the Open view because you are unfamiliar with what is being discussed. We do not deny, for instance, that God had a plan to have Jesus save mankind should Adam sin … the disagreement is not that God had a plan for every contingency, but that God did not know which contingency He would need to use.”
RobE responded: “This I vehemently disagree with. I believe Jesus was the Plan for creation, not a fail-safe if man couldn't pull it off himself. This is more like Pelagianism where man is able to save himself. Because after all, if man can fall he can get back up without a saviour.”
AJ said:
That’s just a wild accusation on your part. That God created a backup plan to have Christ dies on a cross in the case that salvation would be needed, does not suggest that man is able to do so without a savior.
I don't think so. If Christ was a 'backup' plan then you are saying that man could do so without a 'savior'. What other interpretation is there?
And this leads me to believe that your central belief is shifting uncomfortably toward Pelagianism..... :think:
The New Advent says ---
Pelagius denied the primitive state in paradise and original sin (cf. P. L., XXX, 678, "Insaniunt, qui de Adam per traducem asserunt ad nos venire peccatum"), insisted on the naturalness of concupiscence and the death of the body, and ascribed the actual existence and universality of sin to the bad example which Adam set by his first sin. As all his ideas were chiefly rooted in the old, pagan philosophy, especially in the popular system of the Stoics, rather than in Christianity, he regarded the moral strength of man's will (liberum arbitrium), when steeled by asceticism, as sufficient in itself to desire and to attain the loftiest ideal of virtue. The value of Christ's redemption was, in his opinion, limited mainly to instruction (doctrina) and example (exemplum), which the Saviour threw into the balance as a counterweight against Adam's wicked example, so that nature retains the ability to conquer sin and to gain eternal life even without the aid of grace. By justification we are indeed cleansed of our personal sins through faith alone (loc. cit., 663, "per solam fidem justificat Deus impium convertendum"), but this pardon (gratia remissionis) implies no interior renovation of sanctification of the soul. How far the sola-fides doctrine "had no stouter champion before Luther than Pelagius" and whether, in particular, the Protestant conception of fiducial faith dawned upon him many centuries before Luther, as Loofs ("Realencyklopädies fur protest. Theologie", XV, 753, Leipzig, 1904) assumes, probably needs more careful investigation. For the rest, Pelagius would have announced nothing new by this doctrine, since the Antinomists of the early Apostolic Church were already familiar with "justification by faith alone" (cf. JUSTIFICATION); on the other hand, Luther's boast of having been the first to proclaim the doctrine of abiding faith, might well arouse opposition. However, Pelagius insists expressly (loc. cit. 812), "Ceterum sine operibus fidei, non legis, mortua est fides". But the commentary on St. Paul is silent on one chief point of doctrine, i.e. the significance of infant baptism, which supposed that the faithful were even then clearly conscious of the existence of original sin in children.
...six theses of Caelestius -- perhaps literal extracts from his lost work "Contra traducem peccati" -- were branded as heretical. These theses ran as follows:
1. Even if Adam had not sinned, he would have died.
2. Adam's sin harmed only himself, not the human race.
3. Children just born are in the same state as Adam before his fall.
4. The whole human race neither dies through Adam's sin or death, nor rises again through the resurrection of Christ.
5. The (Mosaic Law) is as good a guide to heaven as the Gospel.
6. Even before the advent of Christ there were men who were without sin.
AJ said:
Not exactly. Molina did not believe that the known true result could change, but you confirmed that it could. Also, Molina believed that God knew all of the possibilities of a situation, which is critical to middle knowledge, yet you have not argued from that position.
I have. If you look at my discussion with God_is_Truth then you'll see my arguments about possibilities and knowledge. I would also state that if you look into Molina's writings you'll see that He believed God is capable of changing anything, but that God has no need to change anything. A subtle yet important distinction.
That scripture would be fulfilled that the Messiah would be cut off. There is no scripture that said that one would be lost to destruction. And that Judas was doomed to destructions was a temporal state that he was in. If he repented that moment, he likely could have escaped that destruction.
Then why did Jesus say this.... :angel:
Jesus said:
"None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled."
And do you believe that God was incapable of providing enough Grace for Judas to attain salvation?
My position is that Judas had sufficient Grace, but didn't avail himself of it through faith which God foresaw and Jesus foreknew. Your position is that Jesus didn't know Judas would fall and even after Jesus told Judas "you said it!"; Judas might repent. I would point out that 'might repent' is the same as 'could repent'; but isn't at all 'will repent' which was the foreknown outcome. It was a possible choice for Judas, but it was simultaneously foreknown that Judas wouldn't. Unless the knowledge coerced Judas then the choice was made freely.
Sorry it's so long.
Friends,
Rob
