Lon
Well-known member
New to us, not to God, in my own words.
Does God know all things that are, have been, and will be?
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Yes, but gravity isn't His reality. We are discussing time in the same light, that it cannot apply to Him. Keep up sir
Gravity is not the same as time. Gravity affects physical things which excludes God. Time is more fundamental than space/gravity/physical world. It is a concept of duration/sequence/succession. Every page of Scripture shows that this is God's reality with no evidence of later philosophical eternal now timelessness.
Gravity may affect clocks (measures of time), but this is not time itself.
I AM can be claimed by both views. Minimally, it shows God's self-existence and eternality (no beginning/no end/uncreated). It does not prove or disprove endless time vs timelessness (other verses and arguments decide this). Rev. 1:4 shows tensed expressions about God. Like us, the future does not exist for God yet.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
The verses which I quoted do prove my contention and you said absolutely NOTHING that demonstrates what I said is in error:
Explain how God can know in advance who will believe since you say that that is impossible:
"But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess.2:13-14).
The salvation spoken of in the verse is not in regard to a "corporate" one at all but instead an "individual" one
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Ro.1:16).
Not only that, but the believer is chosen by God by salvation and that choosing is based on His FOREKNOWLEDGE:
"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet.1:2).
One of the meanings of the Greek word translated "according" at 1 Peter 1:2 is "in consequence of" (Thayer's Greek English Lexicon).
So the saved are described as "elect" and their election is "in consequence of" God's foreknowledge.
That completly destroys the teaching of the Open View!
You find it difficult because you have no one to tell you how to answer the verses which I quoted. You are helpless if you cannot find an answer supplied by others.
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Lon
Well-known member
As I said, a nonbeginning eternality has no past or a past that is still going (both amount to the same thing logically). Yes, we have a past, God does not. We have a point to measure from, we are in time. God is not subject to His creation, but His creation subject to Him. What God does can be measured. Who God is cannot.
Ask Mr. Religion
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Per Shedd:
If we define God’s eternal causation as an endless succession of creative volitions, then God’s consciousness of his future creative volitions is in the future, like that of a man and an angel. This is fatal to omniscience, when the consciousness relates to cognition; and fatal to immutability, when the consciousness relates to action.
If the divine will, like the human, energized successively through the six days of creation, so that in divine consciousness the divine willing on the first day preceded the divine willing on the second, and the divine willing upon the third followed that upon the second, then God, like man and angel, is conscious that two days are longer than one, and three days longer than two; which is contrary to the statement that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8) and to the affirmation that “a thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night” (Ps. 90:4). The volition by which God created “the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1) is eternal, but the heaven and the earth are not eternal.
…
The all-comprehending and unchanging consciousness of God excludes memory. This can belong only to the finite mind. As there is nothing past in the consciousness of God, there can be no such act in him as that of recalling the past to mind. He neither remembers nor forgets in the literal sense because the whole of his knowledge is simultaneously and perpetually present. And this whole or sum total of omniscience includes all that which for the creature is included in past, present, and future time.
It is certain that God is omniscient and immutable; but he can be neither if his mind is subject to the same categories of time and space with the created mind, for both are associated. A creature of time is also a creature of space. A finite spirit cannot be omnipresent. It is embodied and therefore must exist in a locality.
If the divine will, like the human, energized successively through the six days of creation, so that in divine consciousness the divine willing on the first day preceded the divine willing on the second, and the divine willing upon the third followed that upon the second, then God, like man and angel, is conscious that two days are longer than one, and three days longer than two; which is contrary to the statement that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8) and to the affirmation that “a thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night” (Ps. 90:4). The volition by which God created “the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1) is eternal, but the heaven and the earth are not eternal.
…
The all-comprehending and unchanging consciousness of God excludes memory. This can belong only to the finite mind. As there is nothing past in the consciousness of God, there can be no such act in him as that of recalling the past to mind. He neither remembers nor forgets in the literal sense because the whole of his knowledge is simultaneously and perpetually present. And this whole or sum total of omniscience includes all that which for the creature is included in past, present, and future time.
It is certain that God is omniscient and immutable; but he can be neither if his mind is subject to the same categories of time and space with the created mind, for both are associated. A creature of time is also a creature of space. A finite spirit cannot be omnipresent. It is embodied and therefore must exist in a locality.
Infinity is a positive, not a negative concept. Infinity does not mean God has no distinct being all his own, instead, it means he is not limited by anything finite and creaturely. If we mean to say that God cannot be confined by time, his infinity coincides with his eternity, or if we mean to say that God cannot be confined by space, his infinity coincides with his omnipresence, this is exactly how God's infinity is often defined.
Nevertheless, infinity can also be construed that God is unlimited in his virtues, that in God, every virtue is present in an absolute degree. Thus, God's infinity amounts to perfection. Yet even here, divine infinity is not one of an infinity of magnitude—as we sometimes use the word to define infinite or boundless dimensions of a spatial universe. For God is incorporeal and has no extension. Here I mean instead an infinity of essence. God is infinite in his characteristic essence, absolutely perfect, infinite in an intensive, qualitative, and positive sense. Understood this way God's infinity is synonymous with perfection and neither term needs to be treated as something separate.
Intrinsically, time is the mode of existence by virtue of which things have a past, present, and future as so many parts which, whatever the standard employed, can be measured and counted. Now whatever can be measured and counted is subject to measure and number and thus limited, for there always remains a measure and a number greater than that which was measured and numbered.
The person who says “time” says motion, change, measurability, computability, limitation, finiteness, creature. Time is the duration of creaturely existence. Hence, there can be no time in God. From eternity to eternity he is who he is. There is in him “no variation or shadow due to change” [James 1:17]. God is not a process of "becoming" but an eternal being. He is without beginning and end, but also knows no earlier and later. He can neither be subjected to measuring or counting in his duration. A thousand years are to him as a day. He is the eternal I AM (John 8:58). God’s eternity, accordingly, should be thought rather as an eternal present without past or future.
To God all things are present. Your today is eternity. Eternity itself is the substance of God, which has in it nothing that is changeable. God comprehends and at the same time possesses a complete fullness of endless life. This eternity is as a complete and at the same time a full possession of endless life.
But we carefully note that God’s eternity should not for that reason be conceived as an eternally static, immobile moment of time. Indeed, God's eternity is identical with God’s being and hence with his fullness of being. God is not only eternal, but he is also his own eternity.
Improper reasoning analogizes that this means God's existence is one of a existence without content of the person for whom, as a result of idleness or boredom, grief or fear, the minutes seem like hours and the days do not go but creep along. Sigh.
Instead, the more truer analogy lies in the abundant and exuberant life of the cheerful laborer, for whom time barely exists and days fly by. From this analogy there is an element of truth in the saying that in hell there is no eternity but only time, and that the more a creature resembles God and is his image, the more he or she will rise above the imperfections of time and approach eternity.
Bavinck writes:
Eternal time, a time without beginning, is not conceivable. God, the eternal One, is the only absolute cause of time. In and by itself time cannot exist or endure: it is a continuous becoming and must rest in immutable being.
It is God who by his eternal power sustains time, both in its entirety and in each separate moment of it. God pervades time and every moment of time with his eternity. In every second throbs the heartbeat of eternity. Hence, God maintains a definite relation to time, entering into it with his eternity.
Also, for him time is objective. In his eternal consciousness he knows time as a whole as well as the succession of all its moments. But this fact does not make him temporal, that is, subject to time, measure, or number. He remains eternal and inhabits eternity, but uses time with a view to manifesting his eternal thoughts and perfections. He makes time subservient to eternity and thus proves himself to be the King of the ages (1 Tim. 1:17).
It is God who by his eternal power sustains time, both in its entirety and in each separate moment of it. God pervades time and every moment of time with his eternity. In every second throbs the heartbeat of eternity. Hence, God maintains a definite relation to time, entering into it with his eternity.
Also, for him time is objective. In his eternal consciousness he knows time as a whole as well as the succession of all its moments. But this fact does not make him temporal, that is, subject to time, measure, or number. He remains eternal and inhabits eternity, but uses time with a view to manifesting his eternal thoughts and perfections. He makes time subservient to eternity and thus proves himself to be the King of the ages (1 Tim. 1:17).
AMR
God has a past unless you think Jesus is still on the cross (Ps. 90:2 there is a before and after creation for God; God's dealings with Moses is in the past; if you say it is Moses' reality, but not God's, you really don't have a clue).
AMR: Check out the conservative International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1982) article on 'eternity' (Schoonhoven from Fuller actually gets it right, to my pleasant surprise, as does moderate Calvinist, Bruce Ware who accepts endless time, not timelessness).
zippy2006
New member
Morality proceeds from God's nature, not God's will. God does not arbitrarily decree that which is good, at which point the creatures seek that good.
With you so far.
What my argument assumes is that God is just. No more and no less.
You believe that this could be a just scenario:
Being X tells Joe to turn into a dragonfly or else burn for all eternity. Needless to say, Joe has absolutely no capacity to turn himself into a dragonfly. After a few moments of confusion on his part, he is sent off to everlasting torture for failing to turn himself into a dragonfly, for being unable to do what he "ought" to have done.
Fascinatingly enough, you believe that it could be a just scenario if being X is God. When you say a man is just and God is just you mean completely different things, for you believe that God gets to define justice differently for Himself than for others. You think that God arbitrarily defines what is morally licit and therefore is able to do things that, if done by a human being, would be horrendously evil and unjust.
Sure there is, and it's called justice.
Who said anything about resentment? I will do whatever my God tells me to do with assurance that He is not commanding me to act unjustly, but I would never claim that my Lord demands the impossible, which is essentially the definition of injustice.
Humans have freedom and God deals with men fairly, yes. And God does lower the bar for Fallen men. God sent Jesus to Fallen men, not to Adam. But God has always only desired union with us, and He desired repentance from both Adam and us after the Fall. See Ezekiel 33:12-16
Responsibility implies ability. A police officer on vacation in China is not held responsible for a murder in California, precisely because he had no ability to stop the murder. You are here injecting flawed ideas about human freedom and will based on your presupposition of fatalism, which is also incompatible with human responsibility.
I understand the difference between ought and is. You've yet to make a relevant point with the distinction.
We note from Scripture that no man is neutral towards Christ, who said, He who is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30, and the logical converse, “He that is not against us is for us”, Mark 9:40). In turn, this means ”No man can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24). A person cannot serve two and he cannot serve none. At any given moment, the will of man is serving God or serving sin. Therefore, moral neutrality is impossible. Like Dylan sang, You gotta serve somebody. It might be the Devil and it might be the Lord. But you gotta serve somebody.
I've no problem with that.
Eh? Being for or against moral laws is very different from transgressing them. There is a significant difference between a pro-choice person undertaking abortions and one who has no abortions.
Well no, not all men know that God exists according to any colloquial definition of "know," but this whole "moral neutrality" business is nothing but a strawman you keep setting up.
Your fatalism is not Scriptural. The whole of Scripture beckons man to turn, to repent, etc. In fact your position here is much more of a flawed philosophy of mind than anything theological. It not only commits a category error by placing the human will on the same level as mechanistic phenomena, but it is also self-defeating at the same time insofar as it is fatalism arguing a truth.
Rather, as you just stated, you do not believe that there is any self-determination in the will. So humans are robots. But Lon and AA don't hold this same misnomer, so I've yet to know whether it is per se Calvinistic.
I don't know about Arminians, but that's not what Catholics hold.
"Free" as in capable, which is precisely the ground for responsibility, not it's nemesis. It's nemesis is the Calvinistic doctrine that John had no power to choose B and will be punished for "choosing" A.
Sure they do. Go ask Lon. Or AA.
That's precisely what everyone else says before you constantly introduce the strawman term of "libertarian free will" with your signature "all-or-nothing" Calvinistic bent.
How come you get to ignore the "all-or-nothing" attitude when you're the one talking? Explain to me the thing you've completely ignored, namely how Adam was able to sin or not sin without running into libertarian free will.
As the Catholic Church has taught for millenia, the idea that a human has freedom--true freedom which is neither determinism nor libertarian free will--is no more impossible than the notion of that true freedom for Him Who they are made in the image of.
Your ought implies can…
I will grant that in some contexts, this principle does apply. At work I would operate under the assumption that the responsibilities of every worker should be a fair measure of their abilities, and their abilities should be related to their responsibilities. But this principle simply does not apply all the time. For example, only the baseball player at bat has the ability to drive home runs or to strike out. If the player at bat strikes out, losing the game, the whole team loses. Which situation here fits that of Adam when he fell into sin?
The baseball analogy is not sufficient precisely because the grouping of people is an intentional unit, a team. I challenge you to find an actual exception to the rule here on earth.
I see no deviation from ought implying can in the Fall of Adam. Be more specific if you'd like. (Original Sin is not in itself personal sin)
There are a few problems with that, but I'll point out the most obvious. Adam's state was a consequence of his own free action. You might as well say that Bill opened a main artery, and then after he did that, he died due to blood loss without being able to do what he ought to live. The temporal separation is artificial and erroneous with respect to responsibility.
Neither did Bill's body suddenly fail to need blood after he opened the artery.
To some extent, it did. God desires repentance of Fallen man, not perfection. The verse I gave earlier is relevant.
They can turn, in repentance, to the One who can blot out their spots.
I hope that by axiom you meant "Core truth of justice apparent to every sane man."
:think: Curious you'd say that, since it is your own arbitrariness that applies the truth everywhere except to God.
Indeed. "Be perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." "Go and sin no more." "You may say, how is this possible? With man it is not possible, but with God, all things are possible."
That's yet another error on your part. If we are commanded to climb over a 30 foot wall that is made of flawless, vertical marble, and we do not do it, even though there is a ladder of infinite height sitting next to us, it does not therefore follow that the command was an impossibility.
Zippy, I think if you read Augustine more thoroughly, you may come to different, that is, more well-thought out, conclusions than your simplistic observation. But this is a topic for other threads. For your further review, here is a good starter:
http://unapologetica.blogspot.com/2009/11/augustine-on-monergism-summary.html
Thankful as I am for the recommendations of a man drawing on a long tradition of pride which began by knowing better than a 1500 year old tradition rooted in Christ, I'll stick to the Church to which Augustine belonged and helped shape.
In fact Augustine is a prime example of someone who opposed Pelagianism and the idea that humans have no free will. Maybe it is you who would benefit. :idunno:-zip :e4e:
Lon
Well-known member
You are jumping from one set of proofs to the other, confusing the 2:
<------------------------------------------------->
no beginning, no end
<--------------------Christ----------------------->
His work on the cross, in our creation, has a beginning and end.
Lon
Well-known member
No towel to throw in, especially when the swings are missing altogether.
Yes, we weren't there at the creation. That doesn't mean there is no time until we got watches, but God's existence is without the possibility of any durative measurement, period. Read AMR above as well.
No, to come up with that means you are missing something crucial to the proof. His duration is at the minimum two-way with a past that is going forever (no singular direction).
Again, read AMR above.
Lon
Well-known member
Both the heavens and the earth shall pass away but His Word will stand (no motion) forever. I would speculate that you are correct but haven't thought a great deal about it. I simply know that having no beginning means it is not possible for God to be involved in time as we are.
AMR does a nice job of addressing the ramifications as well.
Lon
Well-known member
Wow, this took a long time!
I said previously that Adam was truly free, but free in the sense that he was free to be what he was made to be and lost that ability at the fall.
I'm not sure I'm addressing the right point, but trying to go back to where this began for reference.
I stated this:
The question addressed then, is whether Adam had libertarian freewill.
I said previously that Adam was truly free, but free in the sense that he was free to be what he was made to be and lost that ability at the fall.
I'm not sure I'm addressing the right point, but trying to go back to where this began for reference.
I stated this:
And when asked, explained more:
I believe I wrapped it up with this:
zippy2006
New member
Lon:
What I am saying is that many of us believe that human beings are free, or able, to either sin or not sin in a given situation. You affirm that fact before the Fall, whereas many of us affirm it in general. AMR takes that idea and turns it into something he calls "libertarian free will," or the liberty of indifference, despite the fact that neither you nor anyone else describing human responsibility and freedom is talking about such a thing. AMR's "libertarian free will" is a strawman built on a false presupposition that the human will is a mechanistic entity.
But what AMR doesn't seem to ever address is the fact that some Calvinists themselves affirm a true freedom of man with respect to sin prior to the Fall. This freedom that you believe in is not any different than the freedom that non-Calvinists believe in, yet AMR is unwilling to apply the same arguments he uses against non-Calvinists to Calvinists who uphold Adam's freedom. Note that I am using freedom in the sense of "freedom to sin or not sin," my usage here is morally neutral.
AMR's insistence on the logical inability of humans to be free is not a theological position, it is a philosophical position. AA's belief in man's depravity is, on the other hand, purely theological, for he does not care about the logical possibility of man being a free agent. If AMR wishes to delve into philosophy of mind, then he must accept logical rebuttals to his philosophical arguments, and if he wishes to delve into theology, then he must accept theological and scriptural rejoinders. What he does is conflate the two in a way that becomes frustrating to try to answer.
Your own explanations seem to me to conflate the morally neutral definition of freedom, which is colloquial, with the moral definition of freedom. When I am critiquing Calvinism I am rarely if ever speaking of the moral notion of freedom.
-zip :e4e:
What I am saying is that many of us believe that human beings are free, or able, to either sin or not sin in a given situation. You affirm that fact before the Fall, whereas many of us affirm it in general. AMR takes that idea and turns it into something he calls "libertarian free will," or the liberty of indifference, despite the fact that neither you nor anyone else describing human responsibility and freedom is talking about such a thing. AMR's "libertarian free will" is a strawman built on a false presupposition that the human will is a mechanistic entity.
But what AMR doesn't seem to ever address is the fact that some Calvinists themselves affirm a true freedom of man with respect to sin prior to the Fall. This freedom that you believe in is not any different than the freedom that non-Calvinists believe in, yet AMR is unwilling to apply the same arguments he uses against non-Calvinists to Calvinists who uphold Adam's freedom. Note that I am using freedom in the sense of "freedom to sin or not sin," my usage here is morally neutral.
AMR's insistence on the logical inability of humans to be free is not a theological position, it is a philosophical position. AA's belief in man's depravity is, on the other hand, purely theological, for he does not care about the logical possibility of man being a free agent. If AMR wishes to delve into philosophy of mind, then he must accept logical rebuttals to his philosophical arguments, and if he wishes to delve into theology, then he must accept theological and scriptural rejoinders. What he does is conflate the two in a way that becomes frustrating to try to answer.
Your own explanations seem to me to conflate the morally neutral definition of freedom, which is colloquial, with the moral definition of freedom. When I am critiquing Calvinism I am rarely if ever speaking of the moral notion of freedom.
-zip :e4e: