ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2

[RobE]

Originally Posted by godrulz
We differ on what are possible objects of certain knowledge, not whether God is ignorant of knowable things (He is not).

Originally Posted by Godrulz
It is possible to know free acts.

Originally Posted by Godrulz
The question is if exhaustive definite foreknowledge is compatible with libertarian free will. I believe it is not, logically and biblically.

Hypothesis(above): Free will is incompatible with foreknowledge.

Given 1(from above): God is able to foreknow all things knowable.
Given 2(from above): It is possible to foreknow free acts.
"Law of the Exluded Middle" --- second law of logic.

What might we conclude from your statements?​

Wait...don't put words in my mouth.

I didn't put words in your mouth. I listened to your words.

Jesus is God and Man. Using your logic, you could make a list to deny these truths.

No, an apple is red and a fruit. You have to use the same variables.

Foreknowledge is incompatible with free will
or(the law of the excluded middle)
Foreknowledge is compatible with free will.

Given 1(from above): God is able to foreknow all things knowable.
Given 2(from above): It is possible to foreknow free acts.​

 

[godrulz]

You are missing exhaustive and definite, not just foreknowledge like a weather forecaster for one day.

 

[Yorzhik]

How does knowing the future change the future?

Because the knowledge of the future can influence another will to oppose that future, changing it.

So, God might influence the future based upon His knowledge. I agree that God has done this through His decrees. There is no better way to carry out a plan. A great example is the incarnation of the Christ. All of us would be doomed without God's interference in our natural course.

This wouldn't presuppose that God need influence the future in every instance. I would ask you to state how knowing the future makes the knower act upon His knowledge in each instance?

I'll pretend you actually answered the question.

You see, God cannot influence the exhaustively known future to change without doing the logically contradictory.

I cannot imagine you could have understood that last sentence despite how straightforward and simple it is. Let me see if I can say it again in an even simpler form:
God knows the future exhaustively (God's decrees). However, knowing decrees that take place in the future can change those same decrees if other wills exist. But a decree cannot change without being a logical contradiction.

Let's show this by example: God has decreed your palms will be up, but your will has determined that your palms will be the opposite of whatever God has decreed. God tells you his decree, and you change the decree because it is known... but changing a decree is a contradiction.

 

[RobE]

Because the knowledge of the future can influence another will to oppose that future, changing it.

I'll pretend you actually answered the question.

For future reference questions end with this symbol ------> ?(<Notice )
Questions are hard to answer when they aren't there.
Why do you say this?(<Notice:angel: )

I'll pretend you actually answered the question.

You see, God cannot influence the exhaustively known future to change without doing the logically contradictory.

I cannot imagine you could have understood that last sentence despite how straightforward and simple it is. Let me see if I can say it again in an even simpler form:

I'll try to speak slowly from now on..... Part of God's decree might be that He will, in the future, influence mankind's outcome. Just as He decreed to become the incarnate Christ(see previous post).

God knows the future exhaustively (God's decrees). However, knowing decrees that take place in the future can change those same decrees if other wills exist.

What other wills.....know.....and are able.....to change God's decrees?(<Notice:angel: )

But a decree cannot change without being a logical contradiction.

O...K. I should note: if God 'decreed' Hezekiah would not recover, if Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days, etc.... then your own logic proves this is a contradiction. I should also state that my thinking is that God 'decreed' Nineveh and Hezekiah would repent because of God influencing the situation. Anyway......

Let's show this by example: God has decreed your palms will be up, but your will has determined that your palms will be the opposite of whatever God has decreed. God tells you his decree, and you change the decree because it is known... but changing a decree is a contradiction.

Doesn't this assume that God was lacking the knowledge of your free acts before He made His decree?(<Notice:angel: )

I cannot imagine you could have understood the last sentence despite how straightforward and simple it is. Let me see if I can say it again in a more simpler form.

God has decreed your palms will be up because He foreknew your will would determine to turn them up.

Or, God has decreed to intervene and takes the steps necessary for you to freely choose to turn them up when the time comes.

Both the inaction and the action require foreknowledge to yield the specific result.

We might ask why a decree was necessary at all. The simple fact is God had to decree your existence, that you would have hands, palms, and a will. Furthermore God had to decree the other factors which would allow you to excercise your free will uncoerced.

Does this clear it up?(<Notice:angel: )

You see, God cannot influence the exhaustively known future to change without doing the logically contradictory.

This might also presume that God might not foreknow His own action of bringing His decrees about.

 

[RobE]

You are missing exhaustive and definite, not just foreknowledge like a weather forecaster for one day.

I know you aren't claiming the weatherman's educated guesses are on par with God's completely knowledgeable guesses. This returns us to AJ's problem.

Is it fair to say that forecasts are based on knowledge and that they are flawed because complete knowledge isn't obtained. The more knowledge the 'better' the forecast(guess), right?

No. Your statement was that free acts are able to be foreknown in response to my qestion, "Is it possible to foreknow free acts?". A contradiction with the incompatibility of free will and knowledge according to your thinking.

The most significant issue is:

Is it possible to foreknow free acts?
If so, then.....

1. God has an infinite capacity to do so --- omnicapable.
2. Free will is indeed compatible with foreknowledge.

It is possible to know free acts. We all have limited knowledge of this every day.

I ask you: Do you see how your position demonstrates and requires compatability of knowledge and free will to be true?

 

[RobE]

Then you can perhaps address for me, this problem:

Deuteronomy 18:22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously.

Blessings,
Lee, who may it be said, is not a determinist

Indeed.

 

[godrulz]

Exhaustive, definite foreknowledge is logically incompatible with libertarian free will.

Whatever watered down version of foreknowledge or free will you are talking about is not the same as my premise. Neither compatibilism nor 'middle knowledge' extricates one from the problem.

Greater minds have debated these things at technical levels. I intuitively grasp it and am reinforced by the technical discussions, but I will not convince you in a few posts, especially when we seem to have a semantical, logical barrier.

 

[lee_merrill]

I should note: if God 'decreed' Hezekiah would not recover, if Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days, etc.... then your own logic proves this is a contradiction.

Ayup!

:jump:

Blessings,
Lee

 

[rehcjam]

I don't get your question then, but believe I have answered it.

Is your question like did Adam have a belly button, how many angels on a pin, who did Cain marry, etc.?

It is not like that at all.

 

[rehcjam]

Your error, here, is that God has to learn everything. This is incorrect, and a failure on your part to understand what OVT says.

When we say that God "learns", it's akin to the way that we "learn" of Heath Ledger's demise. It's not as though we don't know what death is, or that he was alive, or that we can't find the cause of death, but that this fact, which did not exist before, has come to our attention.

In the same way, God "learns" of our decisions as we make them, since He is omniscient. However, before we make a decision, it is logically unknowable, if we assume that we have free will, which OVT does.

So, don't confuse "learning" in the academic sense with "learning" in the new facts become known sense.

Muz

But the universe is a fact that "did not exist", at least at some point, so it would be "logically unknowable" as you would say.
It only seems to me, from logic, that if God had to learn anything then He would have to learn everything. It is only logical to assume that. You hit the nail on the head when you make that assessment of my argument.

 

[godrulz]

But the universe is a fact that "did not exist", at least at some point, so it would be "logically unknowable" as you would say.
It only seems to me, from logic, that if God had to learn anything then He would have to learn everything. It is only logical to assume that. You hit the nail on the head when you make that assessment of my argument.

Just because I had to learn paramedicine in school does not mean I had to learn to be a doctor or how to put on a bandage (knew as a child).

God is infinite intelligence. Man starts as a zygote and has to grow and learn. God is uncreated Creator and knows all that is knowable. This that are not yet knowable (e.g. future choices and contingencies) are known by God the second they are knowable (or He knows them as possible until they become certain).

It is simply wrong to ascribe limitations to God like man has. We learn to read, but this does not mean we have to relearn every time we read a book nor does it mean we have to have read every word in existence in order to prove we can read. God does not have to learn to read. He also knows all literature of all time, unlike us. As new words come into existence, He knows them at that point, not trillions of years before the creative process.

It is a non sequitur to think that when God's knowledge moves from possible to certain that He has to learn everything because He learns one thing. God knows everything and can think with infinite intelligence. Even I do not have to know all about house building to make a table (even if I never made one before).

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

God is infinite intelligence...

It is simply wrong to ascribe limitations to God like man has...

As new words come into existence, He knows them at that point, not trillions of years before the creative process...

It is a non sequitur...

1. God infinitely knows
2. To limit God is wrong
3. New words are a limitation upon God's knowledge
4. It is a non-sequitur
Q.E.D. :readthis:

 

[godrulz]

1. God infinitely knows
2. To limit God is wrong
3. New words are a limitation upon God's knowledge
4. It is a non-sequitur
Q.E.D. :readthis:

I did not take courses in logic and fallacies like I assume you did.

Can you help me 'get it'? QED= something about the last statement being proof.

Are you agreeing with me, just explaining why it is correct?

God knows all things (we differ as to what are possible objects of certain/definite knowledge; I believe some things are indefinite because they are contingent).

God is not limited like we are (in my view, time or knowing things as possible vs actual is reality, not limitation).

New creative choices or words are not a limitation on God since they did not exist and were thus unknowable as certain....they may never have come into existence (Heath Ledger's potential output is now ended; some classical composers like Mozart died young; it is possible they would have composed more works that would be part of God's omniscience, but are not now so because they were never actualized).

Point 3 seems wrong.

Who are you agreeing with?

 

[themuzicman]

But the universe is a fact that "did not exist", at least at some point, so it would be "logically unknowable" as you would say.

Thus, God has creative ability to use what He knows and can do to create things He has not known before. Big deal.

It only seems to me, from logic, that if God had to learn anything then He would have to learn everything.

That's just silly. Even human infants do things that they never learned to do. If God can create us with innate knowledge, why can't He have any?

It is only logical to assume that. You hit the nail on the head when you make that assessment of my argument.

:wave2:

Muz

 

[lee_merrill]

Why do people speak with such supreme confidence whilst ignoring various difficulties?

Deuteronomy 18:22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously.

> I don't care how systematic your theology is, until you show me how biblical it is.

Right, so verses should be addressed which are difficult.

Blessings,
Lee

 

[rehcjam]

Thus, God has creative ability to use what He knows and can do to create things He has not known before. Big deal.

How does God know anything because all things were created by Him and before they were created nothing existed.

That's just silly. Even human infants do things that they never learned to do. If God can create us with innate knowledge, why can't He have any?

I am surprised at this response because there is a huge hole in this argument.
God was not created therefore He did not inherit nor was He born with any knowledge. You cannot attribute these characteristics to God. Furthermore, you are actually saying the same thing that I am saying in that the knowledge that God learns(or innately knows) would have had to have come from somewhere else.

 

[rehcjam]

Just because I had to learn paramedicine in school does not mean I had to learn to be a doctor or how to put on a bandage (knew as a child).

God is infinite intelligence. Man starts as a zygote and has to grow and learn. God is uncreated Creator and knows all that is knowable. This that are not yet knowable (e.g. future choices and contingencies) are known by God the second they are knowable (or He knows them as possible until they become certain).

It is simply wrong to ascribe limitations to God like man has. We learn to read, but this does not mean we have to relearn every time we read a book nor does it mean we have to have read every word in existence in order to prove we can read. God does not have to learn to read. He also knows all literature of all time, unlike us. As new words come into existence, He knows them at that point, not trillions of years before the creative process.

It is a non sequitur to think that when God's knowledge moves from possible to certain that He has to learn everything because He learns one thing. God knows everything and can think with infinite intelligence. Even I do not have to know all about house building to make a table (even if I never made one before).

That is just my point. He could only know the creation once it exists.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Are you agreeing with me, just explaining why it is correct?

I am showing you how your own words demonstrate the fallacious nature of your underlying assumptions. In one breath you argue how infinitely knowing God is, and that it is wrong to limit Him, yet in the next breath you do that which you just claimed is never to be done by claiming God cannot know new words until they exist. Wiffenpoofle, fella!

You continue to assert that God cannot know what does not yet exist. You never prove it. You ignore that God's mere spoken words created what we know as temporal existence, yet, again by your own, er, 'logic', nothing should exist. How does God know anything in your estimation? Your view has Him eternally posed in ignorance.

 

[Ktoyou]

I am showing you how your own words demonstrate the fallacious nature of your underlying assumptions. In one breath you argue how infinitely knowing God is, and that it is wrong to limit Him, yet in the next breath you do that which you just claimed is never to be done by claiming God cannot know new words until they exist. Wiffenpoofle, fella!

You continue to assert that God cannot know what does not yet exist. You never prove it. You ignore that God's mere spoken words created what we know as temporal existence, yet, again by your own, er, 'logic', nothing should exist. How does God know anything in your estimation? Your view has Him eternally posed in ignorance.

I agree, it is humans who are ignorant. This is the main problem we tend to have, we what to know what God knows. Does this sound familiar?

The idea, "God cannot be if I don’t get it", seems to be a major problem.

 

[themuzicman]

Why do people speak with such supreme confidence whilst ignoring various difficulties?

Deuteronomy 18:22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously.

> I don't care how systematic your theology is, until you show me how biblical it is.

Right, so verses should be addressed which are difficult.

Blessings,
Lee

Already addressed. God brings about His prophecies through omnipotence and much as omniscience

Muz