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Tom
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Posted 11/11/2010 7:14 AM (GMT -6)

Ah, that one. OK. Fire away.

T

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Tom
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Posted 11/11/2010 7:30 AM (GMT -6)

It's a good post. Covers stuff we've talked about before, and a lot. I'd word a few things slightly differently for clarity's sake. And I think toward the end of the post he misstates a couple of things. Right at the end:

"In any event, in light of all that’s been said, it seems to me reasonable to grant that God’s knowledge of his own future actions can be, at least theoretically, exhaustively described by propositions asserting what “will” and “will not” come to pass (though often conditioned on what created agents choose), while also holding that God’s eternal knowledge of the future actions of created agents necessarily includes propositions asserting what “might and might not”come to pass."

This can be misunderstood to go against what he argues about will/will not. God can know what he would/would not do IF I, say, did X, but it's unhelpful to say this amounts to God knowing what he WILL or WILL NOT do. If God's response is conditional upon my freely doing X, then his response is as conditional as X. Greg knows this too. I just don't like seeing "will" and "will not" being used to describe it even though he "conditions" it upon free human actions.

T

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One Love
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Posted 11/11/2010 7:48 AM (GMT -6)

Whole thread

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 11/11/2010 8:04 AM (GMT -6)

I think Greg's point is that God knows what he would/would not do in response to us (i.e., God has compatibilistic freedom with respect to good/evil) because he knows what the most loving response would be to this or that conceivable situation. But we are NOT so free (yet) with respect to love. So when Greg says God COULD not decide ahead of time what even he would do, that would only apply in cases where there is no ONE most loving thing to do. Otherwise, Love knows what love does.

T

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Tom
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Posted 11/11/2010 8:07 AM (GMT -6)

God always seeks to fulfill the logos of an entity. The logoi of created things are divine. They ARE God's intentions for that thing. To say God leaves open the question of what he'll do with respect to X is to say God has no intentions with respect to X or X has no logos. But where multiple paths lead EQUALLY as well to the fulfillment of X's logos, then sure, no decision need by known or made ahead of time.

T

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Similitude
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Posted 11/11/2010 9:37 PM (GMT -6)

"In any event, in light of all that’s been said, it seems to me reasonable to grant that God’s knowledge of his own future actions can be, at least theoretically, exhaustively described by propositions asserting what “will” and “will not” come to pass (though often conditioned on what created agents choose), while also holding that God’s eternal knowledge of the future actions of created agents necessarily includes propositions asserting what “might and might not”come to pass."

That's what I was interested in. It seems to me that God could no more know that He would eventually FREELY choose to create than He could know what I will choose in the future. To me, this is just what open theism means--that God could only know that He MIGHT freely create in the future.

Tom
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Posted 11/12/2010 7:13 AM (GMT -6)

Jeff: It seems to me that God could no more know that He would eventually FREELY choose to create than He could know what I will choose in the future.

Tom: Right. Greg wouldn't (COULDN'T) disagree.

I think Greg's wording is confused here. His "it is reasonable to grant that God's knowledge of his own future actions can be exhaustively described by props asserting what 'will' and 'will not' come to pass" isn't right, especially when these actions are only SOMETIMES conditioned upon what agents choose. This seems UNREASONABLE to me.

Tom

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Tom
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Posted 11/12/2010 11:02 AM (GMT -6)

Richard Creel (Divine Impassibility [1986], excellent book!) argues that God's will is immutable because existing necessarily as love, and knowing all future possible worlds, God knows what perfect love would do in every conceivable circumstance. Hence, God doesn't "make up his mind" about what to do on the spot, when things occur. But, he argues, this doesn't do away with the mutuality of God-world relations since what God does in this or that situation is still a "response to" what occurs freely in the world.

I have no problem with this view. In fact, it pretty much is my view. But I'd tweak it just a bit. I think it's true that God's will is immutable in the sense that God knows the "content" of what he would do (or will to do) in all conceivable situations. But it's still the case that "when the time comes" and God "acts" that these acts are "acts of will." God has to "will" to split the sea, or raise the dead, or speak to Paul, etc. The actual DOING of the deed cannot be accomplished by the same act of knowing eternally what perfect love WOULD do in all these circumstances. So while WHAT God would will (i.e., in terms of content) is eternally known to God and thus immutable, the "acts of will" are not eternally accomplished. I know a LOT of classical theists (Acquinas, etc.) argue that this isn't the case; that it can be the case that all God's contingent acts in time and history are the effects of a single, primordial, eternal, and non-contingent act of will (which is the Eastern view I suspect). I don't think that works and I think that what folks attempt to protect by supposing such a thing in fact doesn't require this move at all.

But Creel agrees that God DOES experience changing states of MIND (since he knows temporal truths).

Tom

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Similitude
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Posted 11/13/2010 8:27 AM (GMT -6)

The thing that is important to me in this regard is this: The only thing I can conceive of wherein God is free in the SAME sense we are is in the act of creation. Thus, God could not foreknow THAT He would create even in terms of some hypothetical SOFA. In that sense, His freedom in creation is JUST like ours.

Otherwise, we couldn't conceive of a final cause for creation, could we? For that would mean, as Paul Davies once wondered, that God wasn't FREE to create.

IOW, we seem, as humans, to think the creation is the product of an intelligent final cause or causes. But many of us also think that God is not free in other ways that we ARE free. If creation isn't even a free act in the same sense that we're free, how did we ever even intuitively come to believe the world is the creation of a person with attributes of a god-ish degree? Wouldn't that imply that we had in mind two KINDS of persons in that respect--one volitional and one not?

Tom
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Posted 11/13/2010 8:56 AM (GMT -6)

Jeff: Thus, God could not foreknow THAT He would create even in terms of some hypothetical SOFA.

Tom: I might be misunderstanding you here. God couldn't foreknown his own free choice to create. Agreed. But he couldn't foreknow that creating was possible? And he couldn't foreknow any specific possibilities? But we foreknow possible choices and storylines without concluding we're not free in making them, i.e., a game of chess. A master can foreknow possible moves and countermoves without it undermining anybody's freedom. Am I misunderstanding ya?

Tom

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Similitude
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Posted 11/13/2010 9:21 AM (GMT -6)

Here's the thing: We say that God knows what He would do providentially with creation FOR a given hypothetical SOFA. What we mean by that is this, I thought: To the extent that God's action or inaction has implications about loving relationality, God knows EXACTLY what He will or will not do in that case. But that's because God is not libertarianly free in the sense that we are with respect to loving perfectly or not.

But I'm thinking He IS libertarianly free just as we are with respect to CREATING. Why? Because creating or not may not involve a choice of loving perfectly or not. I mean, isn't this the big debate you once had with D about the post-mortem state? That we can partake of the divine nature and STILL have bona-fide libertarian choices that don't involve a possible failure to love?

If this is not the case, then in what sense can we say that God is free in the sense we are AT ALL? And if He's not, how did we ever conceive of the world as a free act?

One Love
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Posted 11/13/2010 9:45 AM (GMT -6)

My thoughts.

Tom and I talked about this before with the "relative meaninglessness" of Creation. That is to say, in comparison to God's total fulfillment in divine self-relationality, the choice to create a non-divine reality was EQUALLY LOVING as NOT creating at all. Remember, the only time that a perfectly loving being has diversity of choice is when there are equally appropriate, good, and loving options on the table in a given situation to choose from. This is explicitly what Tom says. Once we say that it was "more loving" of God to create than to NOT create, then we've just removed the idea of Creation being a liberatarianly free choice for God. Actually, that's the line that Jonathon Edwards seemed to take...not that Creation was necessary for God, but given who God is, it was pretty much certain that God would (NOT "might and might not") create.

So...and this has always been the kicker for Tom, I think...in order to solidly affirm that Creation was an truly free choice for God (in the libertarian sense), we ABSOLUTELY MUST affirm that Creation is "relatively meaningless" to God such that God would have been no more or less loving in REFRAINING from Creation as he was ACTUALIZING Creation. Otherwise, it ends up in an Edwardian situation where it was eternally true that God WOULD create, given God's loving ecstatic nature.

See that?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Post Edited (One Love) : 11/13/2010 8:56:20 AM (GMT-6)

Similitude
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Posted 11/13/2010 10:08 AM (GMT -6)

D: See that?

J: Yep. In fact you're fleshing out in a particular way what I was trying to say. So hopefully now Tom will see that I'm saying that the act of creation is UNIQUELY knowable as a truly libertarianly-free act. And in that sense, it is LIKE our volition. I.e., it was not necessary in any conceivable sense. And therefore, God couldn't have foreknown that He would have done it even HYPOTHETICALLY in terms of HYPOTHETICAL antecedent SOFA's. That's the difference I'm getting at.

I wouldn't even be surprised if the reason why Paul Davies is basically an agnostic is just because of this issue. He sees that if creation is not KNOWABLY a free act, we have no compelling reason to conceive of it as a PERSONAL act.

One Love
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Posted 11/13/2010 10:16 AM (GMT -6)

Similtude:
So hopefully now Tom will see that I'm saying that the act of creation is UNIQUELY knowable as a truly libertarianly-free act. And in that sense, it is LIKE our volition. I.e., it was not necessary in any conceivable sense. And therefore, God couldn't have foreknown that He would have done it even HYPOTHETICALLY in terms of HYPOTHETICAL antecedent SOFA's. That's the difference I'm getting at.

Gotta agree with ya there, homie.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 11/13/2010 10:18 AM (GMT -6)

Similtude:
I wouldn't even be surprised if the reason why Paul Davies is basically an agnostic is just because of this issue. He sees that if creation is not KNOWABLY a free act, we have no compelling reason to conceive of it as a PERSONAL act.

I feel ya. Not to be crass, but otherwise, Creation could have just been a some impersonal, unchosent excretion of loving intention bound to his ecstatic nature.

We don't want THAT, now do we?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Similitude
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Posted 11/13/2010 10:34 AM (GMT -6)

Yeah, I can see how Davies would think that if creation is not a free (and, therefore, by analogy, personal) act, why posit a different KIND of person (in that sense) to account for creation? Why not just posit unintelligent, ultimate causality instead of intelligent, ultimate causality for creation.

IOW, once you start having to posit stuff instead of just "seeing it" intuitively, the options start to grow without an intuitive criteria by which we can adjudicate which is more plausible. Then it gets VERY subjective.

Tom
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Posted 11/13/2010 12:31 PM (GMT -6)

Jeff: What we mean by that is this, I thought: To the extent that God's action or inaction has implications about loving relationality, God knows EXACTLY what He will or will not do in that case. But that's because God is not libertarianly free in the sense that we are with respect to loving perfectly or not.

Tom: Exactly.

Jeff: But I'm thinking He IS libertarianly free just as we are with respect to CREATING.

Tom: Yep. And he's libertarianly free after creating in any situation where there is no ONE most loving thing to do.

Jeff: Why? Because creating or not may not involve a choice of loving perfectly or not. I mean, isn't this the big debate you once had with D about the post-mortem state? That we can partake of the divine nature and STILL have bona-fide libertarian choices that don't involve a possible failure to love?

Tom: Yep!

T

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Tom
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Posted 11/13/2010 12:39 PM (GMT -6)

Jeff: So hopefully now Tom will see that I'm saying that the act of creation is UNIQUELY knowable as a truly libertarianly-free act. And in that sense, it is LIKE our volition. I.e., it was not necessary in any conceivable sense.

Tom: I'm with ya. Yep.

Jeff: And therefore, God couldn't have foreknown that He would have done it even HYPOTHETICALLY in terms of HYPOTHETICAL antecedent SOFA's. That's the difference I'm getting at.

Tom: Exactly what are you thinking is 'hypothetical' here. Maybe I'm not following ya. I agree God cannot foreknow that he will certainly create. Nothing about God's triune fulness entails the choice to create. But I DO think God foreknows the possibility of creating, and even foreknows all the different kinds of world's (mutually exclusive of each other) he can create should he choose to create at all. If "foreknowing possibe worlds" is what you mean by "foreknowing hypothetical worlds," then we disagree on this part. I don't think God's foreknowing hypothetical/possible worlds undermines the libertarian freedom by which God creates (anymore than foreknowing possible winning moves/scenarios in chess precludes the freedom of my choosing a particular move when the time comes...should I decide to play at all).

Clearer?

Tom

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Similitude
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Posted 11/13/2010 1:45 PM (GMT -6)

Tom, we're in agreement. I'm merely saying that even if God contemplated the SOFA that preceded God's choice to create, as a mere HYPOTHETICAL SOFA, He could still not foreknow that He would create at that time. He would only know that He MIGHT create, given that SOFA. But with respect to loving or not, He would know beforehand what He would do in HYPOTHETICAL/POSSIBLE situations.

I suspect Greg agrees and just worded it poorly as you say.

Tom
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Posted 11/13/2010 1:59 PM (GMT -6)

Ah, I follow ya. Yes!

T

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One Love
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Posted 11/13/2010 6:46 PM (GMT -6)

Blessed consensus.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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