ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2

[patman]

"The future hasn't happened so it is unknowable, it doesn't exist for you to 'know' anything about it."

Clete has said this to me several times. Again, if I can get you to grasp my premise: "Predictability nor determinsm is a proper definition of actual foreknowledge."

As long as there is a correlation in your mind between what you are able to do (guess, predict, determine) and what God is able to do (foreknowledge), you will continue to miss my point. We never have actual foreknowledge. We guess, predict, determine. None of these are a proper definition of foreknowledge. We don't have it.

Lon, I think I agreed with you a few posts ago... this depends on how you see foreknowledge.

If you stick to simple foreknowledge, that God just knows, then yes, O.V. disagrees and does not make exception for this. If it does, I do not know of how.

But if you see foreknowledge as just "I don't actually seeeeee it, but I know/think/believe/will make it/hope/hate that it will happen" then you are starting to agree with scripture.

I think you are wanting Gods foreknowledge to be something more than scripture tells us that it is. It is hard to stop wanting scripture to tell us something it doesn't. I had to do this too.

But you should also understand my last post, that having some foreknowledge does not equal having total foreknowledge.

 

[patman]

Good question, but the important component is that I AM a changing being by necessity. Everything does not extrude from me. God actually is the creator of my children so I could not draw a meaningful correlation here for you.

I'm willing to bet that you were generally the same person before you had children as you were after. But your life changed, your agenda changed. Your focus changed.

I dunno. It is just a small way to look at God through your own experience. God does not need to change his holiness, or his loving ways. But he does change his judgement towards us when we change our lives for him. A change that is not possible under Settled theism.

 

[Lon]

See, you're moving the goalposts. OVT never says that God's being or nature changes. However, your assertion about "doctrinal statements" said that God doesn't change in any way. Now you're limiting yourself to God's "being". The fact is that God does experience change in His relationship to creation (non-existence to existence), and in the incarnation.

Thus, atemporality simply isn't viable as a Christian doctrine.

Muz

Thus, atemporality simply isn't viable as a Christian doctrine.

 

[themuzicman]

"The future hasn't happened so it is unknowable, it doesn't exist for you to 'know' anything about it."

Clete has said this to me several times. Again, if I can get you to grasp my premise: "Predictability nor determinsm is a proper definition of actual foreknowledge."

Correct. Determinism is necessary for exhaustive, definite foreknowledge. I've already presented a proof to this point.

As long as there is a correlation in your mind between what you are able to do (guess, predict, determine) and what God is able to do (foreknowledge), you will continue to miss my point. We never have actual foreknowledge. We guess, predict, determine. None of these are a proper definition of foreknowledge. We don't have it.

There isn't a correlation in my mind at all about this at all. I realize that God knows differently that we do. That's not even at issue, here. The issue is the compatibility between what God exhaustively and definitely foreknows, and the ability of His creation to come along afterwards and freely choose.

Muz

 

[themuzicman]

Thus, atemporality simply isn't viable as a Christian doctrine.

LOL... You've already admited that God changes in His relationships. This means that God cannot be atemporal. Thus, your exegesis doesn't like up with reality.

(BTW, none of those verses say that God is atemporal.)

Muz

 

[Lon]

Lon, I think I agreed with you a few posts ago... this depends on how you see foreknowledge.

If you stick to simple foreknowledge, that God just knows, then yes, O.V. disagrees and does not make exception for this. If it does, I do not know of how.

But if you see foreknowledge as just "I don't actually seeeeee it, but I know/think/believe/will make it/hope/hate that it will happen" then you are starting to agree with scripture.

I think you are wanting Gods foreknowledge to be something more than scripture tells us that it is. It is hard to stop wanting scripture to tell us something it doesn't. I had to do this too.

But you should also understand my last post, that having some foreknowledge does not equal having total foreknowledge.

Define Pro-gnosis from the Greek for me -you can use my work-or easier: Break down Fore-knowledge and define it for me.
If I am not understanding the actual word correctly. Help me out.

 

[Lon]

The OV, as I understand it at this point defines foreknowledge as both predictability and determinism.

Incorrect. OVT defines Exhaustive and Definite Foreknowledge as both predictability AND determinism. This is the first problem. God knows all the possible courses of the future, and knows what He will do, should a particular course of the future come to pass.

???

Correct. God foreknows what He will do at certain times because He choose to do them.

Muz

You are defining determinism, not foreknowledge.

 

[Lon]

Actually, it's:

A. The future has already been caused (by some unknown)
B. God coerces the future.
C. The future is unknowable

Muz

I think your rendering greatly obfuscates.

Don't you see that B and C are virtually the same? That is, if one is true so it the other by prophetic necessity?

 

[Clete]

"The future hasn't happened so it is unknowable, it doesn't exist for you to 'know' anything about it."

Clete has said this to me several times. Again, if I can get you to grasp my premise: "Predictability nor determinsm is a proper definition of actual foreknowledge."

As long as there is a correlation in your mind between what you are able to do (guess, predict, determine) and what God is able to do (foreknowledge), you will continue to miss my point. We never have actual foreknowledge. We guess, predict, determine. None of these are a proper definition of foreknowledge. We don't have it.

This may actually be true but if so it is only because we do not know factually that we are able to bring our plans to pass as God does.

I also never said that God cannot know ANYTHING about the future. The future itself does not exist, that is true, but neither do any of Chevrolet's 2010 Corvets. I'd bet you my house and everything in it that they will come standard with four wheel and a gas peddle though.

The error you are making is one of simply reading things into what I say that I don't actually say. I do not, nor have I ever denied that God has foreknowledge of particular events that will happen in the future; events that He has purposed within Himself to bring to pass under His own power. It is the exhaustive sort of divine foreknowledge that I denounce as false. I however, have little doubt that you will not be able to let go of this favorite straw-man argument of yours and will continue to make this same error in spite of having been repeatedly corrected. Heaven forbid you actually debate what we Open Theists actually believe!

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Lon]

This may actually be true but if so it is only because we do not know factually that we are able to bring our plans to pass as God does.

I also never said that God cannot know ANYTHING about the future. The future itself does not exist, that is true, but neither do any of Chevrolet's 2010 Corvets. I'd bet you my house and everything in it that they will come standard with four wheel and a gas peddle though.

The error you are making is one of simply reading things into what I say that I don't actually say. I do not, nor have I ever denied that God has foreknowledge of particular events that will happen in the future; events that He has purposed within Himself to bring to pass under His own power. It is the exhaustive sort of divine foreknowledge that I denounce as false. I however, have little doubt that you will not be able to let go of this favorite straw-man argument of yours and will continue to make this same error in spite of having been repeatedly corrected. Heaven forbid you actually debate what we Open Theists actually believe!

Resting in Him,
Clete

I understand this, but it is a redefining of the word. I'll extend the same to you if you like. Help me out.

 

[godrulz]

Alright, fair enough. "What other option "C" is there?

A. God knows the future
B. God coerces the future
C. ?

C. God knows some aspects of the future. He can and does intervene sometimes, but not all the time. He can predestine some things and make them come to pass by His ability (nothing to do with EDF)...see Is. 46 and 48 for this principle (but do not extrapolate it without warrant from a specific thing to an exhaustive generalization). He settles some things, but leaves other aspects of the future open and unsettled.

This two motif principle explains all of the proof texts. Determinism or foreknowledge only deals with one set of texts, while making the other theme figurative.

 

[godrulz]

Good question, but the important component is that I AM a changing being by necessity. Everything does not extrude from me. God actually is the creator of my children so I could not draw a meaningful correlation here for you.

Actually, he has given man, plants, and animals the ability to procreate. We make cars and children. God does not make computers and kids. We would not have kids if we did not have sex. The virgin conception of Jesus is the exception.

God may make the spirit, but the body will not happen apart from things he built into creation (genes, intercourse, sperm, egg, etc.). He is not omnicausal and does not micromanage our love life. We can also abort a child, contrary to God's will.

 

[godrulz]

Thus, atemporality simply isn't viable as a Christian doctrine.

Our view of time vs eternity does affect our conclusions on this topic. I agree that atemporality is not defensible logically or biblically. God experiences endless time, not incoherent timelessness. "Eternal now" simultaneity is Platonic and is used to explain simple foreknowledge. If the assumption is flawed, so will be the conclusion.

Time is not a created thing. It is unidirectional. The future is simply not there yet to know like the fixed past, by God's sovereign choice. By creating a non-deterministic, free creation in order to have reciprocal love relationships, God voluntarily, sovereingly chose to limit the extent and nature of His future knowledge. This is not a problem for an omnicompentent God.

If you must cling to EDF, then give up genuine free will in favor of determinism. Give up love, freedom, relationship, but at what price? In our view, God is still omniscient because He knows all that is possible to know. It is not possible to know where Yoda and Darth Vader are in the universe because they do not exist. This is not a limitation on omniscience. God actualized a creation that is partially open, so there is a difference between possible and certain/actual, between past/present/future.

 

[themuzicman]

I think your rendering greatly obfuscates.

Don't you see that B and C are virtually the same? That is, if one is true so it the other by prophetic necessity?

No. You see, you assume that God has to override free will in order to prophesy, that's simply not the case. You probably assume that all prophecies can only be fulfilled in one possible course of the future, which is untrue, as well.

Muz

 

[themuzicman]

Incorrect. OVT defines Exhaustive and Definite Foreknowledge as both predictability AND determinism.

If I'm not mistaken, I'm the OVT, here, not you. YOU are incorrect. You state this because you WANT it to be true, not because it is.

Exhaustive, definite Foreknowledge simply means that one knows certainly what will happen before it happens (another issue with atemporality, as it cannot stand "before"). Determinism means that all things are determined by one pre-existent being (usually God). Predictability is just a fancy word for "we're all robots."

I have said (with a proof) that EDF requires determinism, but not that they are the same thing.

This is the first problem. God knows all the possible courses of the future, and knows what He will do, should a particular course of the future come to pass.

???

You are defining determinism, not foreknowledge.

You're playing word games. Determinism is the philosophical position that something determines everything that happens, and that there is no free will for any other beings.

What I've described is God using His free will to decide what He will do beforehand, thus foreknowing through His own free will what He will do. That is NOT determinism.

When you're ready to deal with terms as properly defined, you'll get it.

Muz

 

[lee_merrill]

... you assume that God has to override free will in order to prophesy, that's simply not the case.

Unless the prophecy is about a free choice, and how it will be made, or involves a group of free choices, such as only a remnant being saved, and then all Israel being saved, when God turns away unrighteousness from Jacob, and takes away their sin.

Or when some in Revelation do not repent, when some refuse to give God glory, and yet others do.

 

[themuzicman]

Unless the prophecy is about a free choice, and how it will be made, or involves a group of free choices, such as only a remnant being saved, and then all Israel being saved, when God turns away unrighteousness from Jacob, and takes away their sin.

Or when some in Revelation do not repent, when some refuse to give God glory, and yet others do.

Neither is about individual free will. These are about group dynamics.

Muz

 

[RobE]

In respone to #3) The future is unknowable

Does John 17:12 define Judas' future or not? Should the scripture read:

John 17:12 'While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except (maybe) the one doomed to destruction' so that Scripture (might)would be fulfilled.​

Actually, it;s:

A. The future has already been caused (by some unknown)

This is true except the word 'already'. God foreknows because He foreknows the causes; or He sees the causes in action if atemporal.

B. God coerces the future.

This is bringing something about through His own power. Need I get the posts from yourself and Godrulz which proves you believe this.

C. The future is unknowable

If so then God would have to coerce creation to yield a result. Welcome to Calvin's dilemna.

John 17:12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.​

Open theists must say either:

1) God foreknew Judas would be doomed
2) God coerced Judas to be doomed

Muz's #3) God didn't foreknow anything because the future is unknowable

Christ, who is God, foretells of Judas' reprobation.

Muz's addendum #3a) The scripture is wrongly interpreted.

By who?

Muz's addendum #3b) Christ foreknew because God had no intention of giving Judas grace

This sounds like coercion towards reprobation to me.

Muz's addendum #3c) Christ said this after Judas had determined His own reprobation.

Then how about this:

John 6:70 Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" 71(He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)​

This happened before this time and Christ's prayer. Judas hadn't decided or acted yet. So any outcome was still possible. Also, 'so that Scripture would be fulfilled', points to a specific culmination of foreknown events.

Muz's addendum #3d) The scripture was merely illustrative. Christ used it to accentuate His point.

His point to who? The Father to whom He was speaking? Come on.

 

[lee_merrill]

Neither is about individual free will. These are about group dynamics.

Yet in reply, it must be repeated that these are not estimates, these are prophecies. Yes, group decisions can be estimated, this is not in dispute, and insurance companies estimate, they do not however, prophesy.

Blessings,
Lee

 

[lee_merrill]

Muz's #3) God didn't foreknow anything because the future is unknowable

Muz's addendum #3a) The scripture is wrongly interpreted.

Muz's addendum #3b) Christ foreknew because God had no intention of giving Judas grace

Muz's addendum #3c) Christ said this after Judas had determined His own reprobation.

Muz's addendum #3d) ...

These addenda do indicate a difficulty here with the dilemma.