A vase does not have a will.
We are discussing wills and therefore your analogy isn't a great one.
ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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We are discussing wills and therefore your analogy isn't a great one.
So.... you are saying.... that you do not know if what you just said is true? :chz4brnz:
AMR, with all due respect your theology has made a fool of you.
OK Knight, I think you're reaching here, but...
Based on your statement:
If the future was settled that a particular little boy would have learned how to tie his shoes today by 3 PM. At 3:01 would he know how to tie his shoes or would it just appear he does?
If that isn't one of the dumbest statements I have ever read...
It's contingent upon the circumstances.
Of course he would know how to tie his shoes. But he never actually learned how to, for it was preordained before he even existed that he would know how to tie his shoes by 3p today.
Poly
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If he's pre-programmed to do something where does the actual learning come in?
If somebody programs an alarm clock so that the future was settled that it would sound off at 6 am, at 6:01 did the alarm clock know how to go off or would it just appear that it does?
Imagine I gave a puppet show for some neighborhood children and in the show the puppets were in school "learning" how to read. Did the puppets actually learn how to read?
Of course not! That would be silly!
Instead, the puppets simply acted out the manipulations of the puppet-master (me). The puppets themselves learned nothing, they simply appeared to be learning to the entertained, cotton candy eating, little kids watching the show.
There is a difference in perspective in a simple foreknowledge view (that claims to uphold freedom) and a deterministic foreknowledge view that makes it compatibilistic freedom (illusory in my mind). Puppet pictures work for determinism, but not so clearly for simple foreknowledge.
Huh? Oh course he did. One week prior, he couldn't do it. After his mother started working with him showing him the mechanics, he eventually learned how. How is it you say he didn't learn it?
If the future is settled in advance (regardless of how it is settled) everything is (pre)determined.
I agree that simple foreknowledge is incoherent, but I do not think the issues are identical to raw determinism.
I know Clete has also elaborated on this issue.
Regardless, I am with you in that a settled future is not compatible with genuine freedom.
Lon
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Analogy can always be broken down to the absurd. We use analogy simply to try to explain a point or truth. You are focusing on the analogy and missed the point.
There was a bit more connection with the puppet analogy. It shows your conception or preconception and thus allows one to address your concerns, but even that puppet analogy can be twisted.
The point here, is that the truth conveyed is the point of discussion, not the analogies.
I don't think I'd use the phrase "he's pre-programmed" like some inanimate object. The situation may be programmed (so to speak) but the boy is a living being capable of learning.
The learning came in from paying attention to what his mother was saying and his ability to understand it.
For those who don't understand the workings of an alarm clock, it very well may appear to know how to go off. But, we know that alarm clocks are only inanimate objects. People are animated. Capable of learning.
Puppets are not animated beings capable of learning, people are.
People are different from puppets assuming they have their own will.
If the future is settled in advance people have no will of their own (only God's will exists).
True.
God has the right to settle an unsettled event in the same manner that a father can settle an argument between two siblings. Yet if God has settled ALL of time in advance God doesn't have the ability to intervene, for that would unsettle that which has already been settled.
The only logical solution is that God is sovereign, and He sovereignly chose to create us without entirely settling our future, i.e., He gave us freedom, freedom of the will.
With this freedom we often do stupid things and occasionally (especially when there was little history to draw upon) God intervenes and occasionally He settles events.
God will eventually settle some unfinished business on a macro level but He isn't into micro-managing our lives.
Knight, that was a very good statement of the Open view that closed view guys would do well to grasp and adopt. I would give your right arm (I need mine at the moment) for them to understand the clarity of what you said in order to know and represent God and His ways in a biblically faithful way.
Do you also write poetry?
Do you also write poetry?
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