Yes or No:
Do you believe God did not know what Adam named the animals?
Do you believe God did not know where Adam and Eve were hiding?
Do you believe God repents?
Do you believe God gets angry?
Do you believe all of God's prophecies are true?
Do you believe God has exhaustive definitive foreknowledge?
Do you believe God knows all that is knowable? If yes, explain what is "knowable"
Like I have said before, your definition of omniscience and my definition of omniscience are not the same. So, when you say God is omniscient, it is not the same as when I say God is omniscient. Therefore you cannot state that you (and open theists) agree with me (and settled theists) that God is omniscient.
This goes the same for many other attributes of God. You guys (open theists) change the definition of the attributes, and then go around saying you are in agreement with settled theists re:God's attributes.
You guys can scream "strawman" all you want, but you can't go around saying you believe God is omniscient, when you completely make up the definition of omniscience.
Which brings me back to "knowable". You guys have determined what is knowable to God and what is not knowable to God. Same as what is logical to God, and what is not logical to God.
Other than that, Happy New Year Godrulz :wave:
Is maybe, maybe not an answer?
God knew what Adam named the animals as he was naming them. He did not know what Adam would choose trillions of years ago. He knew the possible names Adam could pick from since He knows possibilities/probabilities. God did not name the animals. Adams act introduced new objects of knowledge for God's dynamic omniscience. God did not make Adam pick those names to fulfill His prescience (determinism) no did He simply foreknow the future (what is the mechanism? eternal now does not count if it is specious). If He saw the future as settled, you would have Adam naming before He was even created?!
God did know where Adam/Eve were hiding because this is an object of present knowledge and doable because of His omniscience (where can I hide, O Lord?). It was a rhetorical question, a figure of speech. Just because OVT denies anthropomorphism/popathism in some contexts does not mean we deny them in all contexts. Some TOL OVTs think God was ignorant of some aspects of the present. They do not represent academic OVT, but are giving their own opinion and twist.
God does not repent of sin, but He does relent or repent in the sense of changing His mind to remain righteous in response to changing contingencies that were not settled. He responds in real time, not by decree or prescience before the reality unfolds.
God is not a stone idol. He is personal, so He can express righteous anger. We see this in the life of Jesus, God with a face. It is not humanizing God to deny impassibility. Jesus was God yet had will, intellect, emotions.
God's predictive, declarative prophecies are true if they are what God intends to do unconditionally. There are also conditional prophecies that may or may not come to pass depending on the peoples' response to His declarations and warnings. Other prophecies are illustrative (a historical situation that parallels a future event is used by way of illustration/'fulfillment', not prediction. God also can say things that seem unconditional, but may be conditional (Hezekiah).
If I was a determinist, God would have EDF. If the future was settled in advance, He would have EDF. Since free will, relational theism is the biblical model (contingencies, etc.), EDF is logically impossible. Timelessness does not solve the problem either because a settled future before it actually exists would lead us back to determinism. God has exhaustive past and present foreknowledge, but the future is fundamentally different and cannot be known as actual while it merely still possible.
In both views, God knows all that is knowable. He knows reality as it is. If there was an ontological reality known as the future, God would know it. If He was ignorant of this actual future, Open Theism would fall. Since not knowing a nothing is not a limitation of omniscience, He knows all that can logically be known. Since there is no ontological reality called the future (presentism vs eternalism), God not knowing it is not ignorance nor a limitation. The future is our anticipation of what will occur after the present moment. What you are doing is failing to realize you have a different metaphysical position (you say the future is an ontological reality and resort to sci fi vs Scripture to support this assumption) and then accusing us of not operating according to this position. If your assumption is wrong (can be demonstrated), then you are merely begging the question (thx to Sanders for these insights). What is knowable is the past and present. God also knows things that He intends to unilaterally bring about in the future (though they are still not actual to be seen or known like the present and past). He can also predict based on probability, etc., but there still may exist a slight uncertainty. In all this, God is able to respond to whatever actualizes, so it is not limitation (don't forget about His power, wisdom, intelligence, omnipresence, etc.).
We can demonstrate what is logical and knowable with godly philosophy. You fail to appreciate how many of your views are assumption (timelessness/eternal now) rather than explicit Scripture. Even atheists can demonstrate that if there is a God, He could not do the logically impossible or self-contradictory. If you deny this, you can know nothing about God because you are not thinking within His parameters.
God is not ignorant of anything. This is why I say we both affirm omniscience. Does God know where Alice in Wonderland is? Since she is fictional, is it a limitation of omniscience to not know this? I am suggesting the contingent future is like Alice in Wonderland and a non-entity, so ignorance of it is a deficiency in omniscience. You would have a point if Alice actually existed or if the future existed and was settled (how can it be if we make the choices to settle it and we do not even exist yet?).
You don't like the fact we reject your definitions of these attributes, but tradition is not always truth nor is it always free from philosophical trappings contrary to Scripture. It is like gays wanting to take our definition of marriage. They can accuse us of being unfair or wrong because we do not affirm same sex marriage, but they are the ones that are wrong about the biblical definition. You assume you are right, but you have to decide if you are a determinist or free will theist. If determinist, have your cake and eat it too with EDF. If you claim to be free will theist, I would suggest that Open Theism is more coherent and biblical than timelessness, EDF, SFK, etc. (Arminian).
If you want to have the best of all views, good luck. Mutually exclusive, diametrically opposing views cannot be reconciled.
Enough substance, AMR?
