ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
- Start date
- Status
lee_merrill
New member
This is just a manner of speaking, here I am actually asking how you understand these.
Boyd considers his view neo-Molinism.
I find Molinism difficult to understand because it is incoherent. It still compromises genuine contingencies that may or may not happen, even at the last millisecond.
It reminds me of the strained arguments of compatibilism in Calvinism.
It would be good for me to read more of Craig (I have in his interactions with Open Theists in IVP books, etc.). I found Craig's Molinism adequately challenged by classic Open Theists, so see no reason to adopt something that is not coherent.
Discussions relating to this issue get very technical (counterfactuals of freedom, middle knowledge, etc.) and are beyond most of our expertise.
Lon
Well-known member
It is a biblical term. It means without limit. My worldview assumes that it would necessarily fall outside of my logical parameters to qualify that. God is infinite, I am not.
Lon
Well-known member
Oh, I think it is more than closed as far as God's determinations. If my family and I decide on a vacation, once it is paid for we enjoy it, but it is closed due to our determinations. We get on the plan and enjoy what we've planned.
I'm not as hung up on the 'closed' ideas where God is determining what He desires. I have no doubts it is the best. I'd much rather trust God than myself for my future. I trust God way more than I trust myself.
RobE
New member
Who is Boyd and why should we listen to him?
What exactly is incoherent about Molinism?
Of course. Free will. Two motifs. How do you see that it 'compromises' genuine contingencies? I'm sure you aren't basing that idea on pagan Greek philosophy which Christian compatibalists have soundly refuted and rejected. That includes Augustine and Thomas just to drop a couple insignificant names.
It is exactly the same argument. Christianity seems to be approaching a consenses on the subject.
We should examine what comprises our will:
1. spontaneous acts, those proceeding from an internal principle (e.g. the growth of plants and impulsive movements of animals);
2. voluntary acts in a wide sense, those proceeding from an internal principle with apprehension of an end (e.g. all conscious desires); and, finally
3. those voluntary in the strict sense, that is, deliberate or free acts.
What makes you state it's incoherent?
Of course. That's why it's probably true. What you need to do is simplify what they're saying. Often the terms become the hang up.
Molinism from Rob's perspective:
Motif 1: There are future events which God intends to bring about through His own power which are certain to occur.
Motif 2: There are future events which God allows to come about because God gave mankind free will(agency).
Motif 2: There are future events which God allows to come about because God gave mankind free will(agency).
See both are ordained. #1 will be carried out by Him and #2 will be carried out by the natures of His self-determined creations; as well as, the natures of those creations which actions are not self-determined. To understand this we must distinguish between these:
1. spontaneous acts, those proceeding from an internal principle (e.g. the growth of plants and impulsive movements of animals);
2. voluntary acts in a wide sense, those proceeding from an internal principle with apprehension of an end (e.g. all conscious desires); and, finally
3. those voluntary in the strict sense, that is, deliberate or free acts.
2. voluntary acts in a wide sense, those proceeding from an internal principle with apprehension of an end (e.g. all conscious desires); and, finally
3. those voluntary in the strict sense, that is, deliberate or free acts.
All creation has a will as defined by #1 and #2. Even a dog wills to drink when he thirsts knowing that water will quench the thirst(#2). Natural laws govern living creatures will(instinct) and the intrinsic properties of nature(#1). That leaves us with #3 which is the only difference between being 'self-determined' and being 'enslaved' or coerced by our created natures(#1 and #2). In other words, in order to be free we must act independently of our own natures(supernaturally).
How is this accomplished:
Galatians 2:21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
Romans 3:24
Romans 8:2
1 Corinthians 7:22 For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave.
1 Corinthians 9:21
Galatians 2:4
Galatians 5:1 [ Freedom in Christ ] It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Colossians 1:22
Colossians 2:6
Hebrews 9:15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
Romans 3:24
Romans 8:2
1 Corinthians 7:22 For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave.
1 Corinthians 9:21
Galatians 2:4
Galatians 5:1 [ Freedom in Christ ] It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Colossians 1:22
Colossians 2:6
Hebrews 9:15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
Through Our Lord and His gift to us!
Romans 7:25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
We are able to become free and escape our slavery to sin.
Galatians 5:17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
And become self-determined or if you prefer co-determined with Christ. Flesh begets flesh, Spirit begets spirit.
_________________________
Now we need only determine 'how' does God know the future acts of free agents.
Molinists claim that God knows them through proximal knowledge of events. That God knows from calculation of present events precisely what a free agent would do in any given situation. Call it supernatural psychology or sociology(for groups), but what man is able to do in a limited fashion, God is able to do infinitely better. Of course God knew what the effects of His own action of creation would have. He knew what Adam would do in any situation, He knew what Cain would do, He knew what ???, etc., etc., etc....
'How' did God know this? Look at #1 and #2 above which shows that Adam, being created, was enslaved by his own natural behaviors. God knew Adam's natural responses to outside stimuli; and therefore, could predict with perfect accuracy what Adam would do. What differentiates man from dumb animals other than the knowledge of good and evil? Morality and conscience have their basis in this knowledge.
In other words, God is omnicapable of understanding without seeing. In other words, God has faith in Himself and in His own actions because of His full knowledge of what His actions will produce. In other words, God is able to know contingent actions without bringing them about personally because God fully understands the psychology of the agent who will bring them about(and further, God has given that specific agent permission to do so for the greater good). In other words God is omnicapable.
Molinism does not require that God exist 'outside of time' and physically see all certain events. They believe God is smart enough to figure it out precisely. As far as I know, Molinism and SupraLapsarianism are the only two views where foreseeing is entirely superfluous.
Molinism rejects OSAS and embraces the idea that salvation is a cooperative act.
Molinism rejects the idea that man is 'Totally Depraved' by its original definition and agrees with its modern definition --- that man is unable to escape his own nature without help from God.
Molinism rejects limited atonement and believes that Christ offers sufficient grace to all mankind.
You get the idea. The main difference between Molina other Christian views is the idea of sufficient vs. effecacious grace.
Last edited:
patman
Active member
Lee, have you miraculously raised anyone from the dead lately? What was that? No?
Lee, have you ever raised anyone from the dead with only a word "come forth?" Did you say no again?
Really? You have never raised anyone from the dead? Oh ok.
How about spit in dirt, making clay, putting it on the eyes of a blind man and make him see? Did you ever do that?
Can you walk on water? Do tell that AT LEAST you can walk on water, please!
What? NO?!? You mean to tell me you cannot walk on water?
Lee!!! You mean to tell you cannot heal the sick, restore life to the dead, defy physics, or preform any kind of great and wonderful miracle????
You must not be a christian then.
John 14:12
12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
Lee, you must not be a christian! Because by the same standards you give a prophet you yourself cannot live up to as a christian! If what you say is true, that a prophet cannot possibly utter an unfulfilled prophecy then by that same measure you cannot be a christian because you have never walked on water.
OR is it possible that there is more going on? Could the prophet God refers to actually have been Christ?
John 5:45-46
45"But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me
Hmmm.....
patman
Active member
I like your example! Very cool. So now using it we can see how God knows the future and hopefully you will see.
The future is a complicated equation. Yet God knows every condition in existence except for those that do not exist yet.
If intergerty + testing = sin -OR- righteousness, God can use it to tell if someone will sin or not if he understands how much integrity a person has, and how much testing will be applied he can predict if he will sin or not.
Like Peter. God knew exactly where he stood. He knew his integrity, and he knew how much Satan would test Peter.
Luke 22
And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
God knew because he knew Peter, and he knew that he would fall.
Lon, why would Jesus need to pray that Peter's faith not fail? Did not Jesus know that his faith would be sustained even in the face of temptation? Didn't he see it in the future as though it had already happened? Why did Jesus pray for something that to him already happened?
What Open Theism says is there ARE things God knows about the future. He knew the values of integrity in Peter, and he knew the amount of temptation by Satan. Peter simply would sin, that is just the facts. God knew it.
But there are times he does not know the exact integrity of a person. The most famous is Abraham. He did not know how dedicated he was, and he did not know if he would truly give all he has to God until he tested him.
Genesis 22:12
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.”
In this example, I = ? T=100 and S=?
Knowing only that the test was issued, and not knowing the debts of Abraham's Integrity to this length, God also did not know the outcome. But at the last moment, God knew both I and S.
So there are times that God knows, because he understands us, and there are times that he does not know where we stand because we have never made a stand on the issue. There are also times that God has made it so
God uses conditions all the time. "IF" is a condition. Programers use it all the time. We only use IF when we know a given value could go different ways, and good programers can account for all conditions and know the outcome for each one. Yet we cannot know which outcome will be seen until we know what condition.
If I say "Pick a number between 1-10" I do not know what you will say. But I could convert your number into text.
If you say 1 return one
If you say 2, return two
If you say 3, return three,
...and so forth, all the way to ten.
The only reason I can say "IF" is because there are conditions. Had your answer been "3" and I foresaw your answer to be "3" I would have just programed:
return three.
No need for conditions. Therefore, there is no such thing as a condition when the future is known. It would be a waste of time to prepare for conditions when the future value is known. It would also be a lie to say "My program returns 'five'" knowing it really returns 'three.'
Remember the Matrix?
| Bake your Noodle... | |
The only reason Neo broke the vase was because the Oracle told him not to worry about it.
Hang on to that thought.
Remember, in this example, I am writing a program knowing ahead of time your answer to be 3 and having it return "three". Yet I told you "My program returns 5." I told you that, as a lie. I knew already it would return "three." But the only reason I said "My program returns 'five'" was so you wouldn't say 5, but 3 instead.
When you saw it return 'three,' even thought I said it returned 'five,' I both lie and know the future.
But God cannot lie. Instead, he uses conditions!
If I said "my program returns 'five'" and my program uses conditions, what I said was true, because IF you said 5, it would return 'five.' This would make both honest AND able to account for the future, while not fully knowing it.
Ask Mr. Religion
☞☞☞☞Presbyterian (PCA) 	
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Molinism sees God's knowledge as comprising logical moments, placing God’s decision to create after the moment of God’s hypothetical knowledge.
In the Molinism schematic below, worlds that could be created are shown as ‘O’
Moment 1: .... OzOzOzzzzzzzzzO zOzzzzOzzzzzzOzzzzzOzzzzzzO...
Natural Knowledge: God knows the range of possible worlds (what could be). The content of this knowledge is essential to God.
Moment 2: ...zzzzzzzzzzzOzOzzzzzzzzzOzOzzzzzzzzzzzO...
Middle Knowledge: God knows the range of feasible worlds (what would be). God’s [hypothetical] knowledge of what every possible free creature would do under any possible set of circumstances and, thus, knowledge of those possible worlds which God can make actual. The content of this knowledge is not essential to God.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Divine Creative Decree – God’s Free Decision to Create a World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Moment 3:…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzO
Free Knowledge: God knows the actual world (what will be). The content of this knowledge is not essential to God.
[Source: Adapted from Craig’s, The Only Wise God and What Does God Know?]
How do you respond to the “grounding objection” to Molinism?
Craig and others refer to the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (CFs): Knowing what any possible agent would do in any possible circumstances, God can have complete providential control over the events that occur by knowing how the history of the world would go given any creative decision He might make about which circumstances to cause to be actual, and by then making that initial creative decision.
But, foreknowledge is grounded in something that actually happens, and it is the occurrence of that future event that sanctions the foreknowledge of it. On the other hand, whatever grounds the truth of counterfactuals of freedom is something other than an actually occurring event. The indeterminateness of counterfactual states of affairs in virtue of which counterfactuals of freedom are true is therefore of a wholly different order from the indeterminateness of future states of affairs in virtue of which future factuals of freedom are true. Though the latter are not yet determinate, they nevertheless will be.
Even granting that there are some CF’s with actual (true) antecedents whose truth might in principle be determined by actual agents it seems to be such that God could not know them prevolitionally, if He must directly perceive their grounds. For until God decides which agents and which circumstances to cause to be actual, there aren’t any actual decisions that God could in principle know as the grounds of these CF’s. Since middle knowledge is meant to be the aid by which God determines the actual world, and yet it seems as if He could not have this knowledge logically prior to determining the actuality of a particular possible world, “middle knowledge” seems both incorrectly described and unhelpful for providential creation decisions.
I believe that the Molinist view of providence should be rejected because there are good reasons to think that there are not any (and certainly not enough) true counterfactuals of freedom. According to Molinism, foreknowledge is nothing more than the causally impotent byproduct of God’s creative act of will.
Lon
Well-known member
He is talking to His disciples, and yeah, they did do those things.
Lon
Well-known member
I appreciate your tenacity.
This all to say that "if OV isn't true, God lies."
God does not lie, but neither is OV true in my estimation.
Your scenario purposefully equates a lie. It is set up on the premise of a lie and math doesn't work unless you use algebra.
4X+5=Y The value I give Y will determine X. You have a variable with all known contingencies.
Finally, I do not agree, we cannot see how God knows anything. He doesn't explain Himself to His creation nor is it expected that He should do so.
The Christian theologians-philosophers who reject Molinism make sound arguments. Thx AMR for some insights (that I can't grasp on a quick reading).
If I recall, there is a flaw in Molinism relating to would vs might counterfactuals...the buzz word 'obtains' is found in these technical discussions. I do not think it solves the issues as well as simple Open Theism in light of a face value reading of Scripture.
I have to laugh at Calvin's term that 'God lisps' so we ignorant creatures can understand Him. This is in a context of accommodation to our level as dopes. Rather than change his theology to fit Scripture, he had to water down the 'openness' verses as saying something opposite to what they do say. God is not revealing truth in those verses that contradict classical views on God and His ways, but is 'lisping'. Give me a break.
If I recall, there is a flaw in Molinism relating to would vs might counterfactuals...the buzz word 'obtains' is found in these technical discussions. I do not think it solves the issues as well as simple Open Theism in light of a face value reading of Scripture.
I have to laugh at Calvin's term that 'God lisps' so we ignorant creatures can understand Him. This is in a context of accommodation to our level as dopes. Rather than change his theology to fit Scripture, he had to water down the 'openness' verses as saying something opposite to what they do say. God is not revealing truth in those verses that contradict classical views on God and His ways, but is 'lisping'. Give me a break.
Ask Mr. Religion
☞☞☞☞Presbyterian (PCA) 	
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
As I told you here, Overstreet and his mentor Finney have nothing to offer on the topic. And before you start denying Overstreet sat at the feet of Finney I remind you again of the heavy lifting previously done for you:
Would Overstreet's own words suffice?
http://evangelbooksonline.com/author.html
Ask Mr. Religion
☞☞☞☞Presbyterian (PCA) 	
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Your strident tone demonstrates your ignorance of the point Calvin was making. But, I expect nothing less from the likes of you, gr. Rather than cogently deal with the observation of Calvin and others who made the similar observations, you resort to polemics. Get your tuition fees back. You have learned nothing.
The point was that a transcendent God cannot be fully apprehended by finite minds, hence the analogical nature of God's special revelation, the Scriptures. And yes, we are dopes when compared to God. Go ask Job. The fact that you make light of the distance between God and man smacks of the humanism underlying your construction of God.
BTW, if you don't like baby talk why do you engage in it so often?
How does a passing observational comment by Overstreet dismiss the pages of interaction with Scripture and Church history?
You would dismiss any non-Calvinistic author with the same prejudice and disdain.
Asserting Calvinism does not negate the cogent thoughts of those who do not find it biblical.
The problem is an overuse of accomm. and anthrop. assumptions when they are not warranted. He built some of his ideas on bad exegesis/hermeneutics. He had a deductive view and then conformed Scripture to fit it. Based on Platonic ideas, God can't change His mind without changing for the worse, so the plain verses that say He can and does change in some ways must be dismissed as lisps, etc. I object to this flawed mentality. A wrong view of immutability jaded his interpretations and proof texts. Why bully me for returning to a better biblical view?
There is some truth in your post, but the misapplication of it leads to heresy.
How else would God say things if not the way He did? If He wanted to say the opposite of what you assume, you have left Him with no way to say it because of preconceived misconceptions.
God is able to communicate with language. There is no reason to assume He does not mean what He says because it does not fit one theological mold.
In all your learning, you miss some simple points.
Ask Mr. Religion
☞☞☞☞Presbyterian (PCA) 	
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
You frequently use the deductive canard, yet fail to grasp that only deductive inference is valid and the principal weapon of proper hermeneutics—the making of valid deductions from the propositional statements of the Scriptures. If there is an overuse of athrop. it is in OT's exegesis, which takes literally virtually any example of God's accommodation to our language as a OT proof text. So we have narratives describing God wondering where Adam is in the garden, God repenting, or God coming down to see what is going on as somehow proof that God does not know everything, despite numerous didactic texts that explicitly teach the contrary.
No where have I stated that what God says analogically always implies the opposite. What I have said is that what one thinks is being said is not as simple as you and others would like to make it out so it fits their humanisitic view of what God should be like.
Sure He means what He says, but it is the manner of the saying that is in dispute and is misappropriated by those that would ignore clear teachings, all the while latching on to God's accommodations of our finitude.
- Status