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Springs
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 636

Posted 5/19/2003 5:26 AM (GMT -6)

Hey Mephi,
It's good to have you back. Although you did have me worried on the Denying the power of love thread.

"Dreams are illustrations...from the book your soul is writing about you." -Marsha Norman

Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 5/19/2003 7:35 AM (GMT -6)

MephEternal

If someone wishes to be a CONSISTENT open view theist (complete with the "love requires freedom" presupposition), then they MUST, I repeat, MUST concede that, given God's essential existence:

1) God was NOT FREE to not create

Iconoclast

Why? I maintain that there is such a thing as "value state indeterminacy" due to the inherent probabilistic nature of any reality with free-will creatures. Thus the inherent probabilistic value of creating an Open world or not creating at all is in essence exactly the same. Therefore God is not compelled to choose one over the other.

In terms of this idea of God finding it "worth the risk" I see no problem when we understand this as God freely choosing to take the risk of terrible evil happening in order gain free-will creatures that love one another. Notice that the inherent meaning of this is self-referential and does not refer to the null state. Thus there is no sense of being compelled to take any action.

Also, you still haven't dealt with the issue of, if God was compelled to create an Open world based on this idea of it being a high value then isn't there a built in implication of timing? If God could "wait" an eternity to do it was He really compelled? Could God keep waiting and keep putting it off and still have it be compelled? Do you see the problem? The concept of being compelled to take some particular action only really has meaning within some time-based framework. If we imagine eternity as time-based then we run into problems and if we say eternity was not time-based then the whole concept crumbles.

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Starkman
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Total Posts : 1747

Posted 5/19/2003 11:45 AM (GMT -6)

Reasonable,

I think what's being said in regard to God not having taken a risk in creating an open view world--after all the talk that it was a risk for God to do so--is that if God was compelled to create, it's no longer a risk BECAUSE God's creating was unavoidable: where one cannot void something, there is no issue of risk. One just has to do what one has to do, period.

Is this, in fact, what God had to do: create? The real crux is this: can there not be found any other reason for creation than God having been compelled? Icon has posited "value state indeterminacy." Is a God NOT acting in the nature of His essential nature if He does not create. Is this less loving, or less of a display of love, then to create? (If there's no one to love or display love to, then there's no one to say it's less than God's maximized aesthetic to not create.) I'm thinking that God could have created the open view world so that WE might have opportunity to share in the same type of freedom and love God has. I cannot see clearly here that God must have created.

Starkman

Am I right? I say, am I right?
Charlie Brown

Iconoclast
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Total Posts : 1227

Posted 5/19/2003 12:03 PM (GMT -6)

MephEternal

So then you would agree that, for an omnibenevolent God, there was NO REAL choice between creating an EDF world or an open world...right?

Iconoclast

Let’s look at the probability functions of each choice:

1. Create an EDF world = 0% chance of any humans choosing to love.

2. Create an Open world = X% chance of Y% humans choosing to love at a potential cost of having to wipe it all out (came VERY close to this) and a potential cost of enormous human suffering and a potential cost of God Himself having to suffer terribly on a cross.

3. Do not create any world = perfectly loving eternal bliss in the fullness of the unity of the trinitarian Godhead.

It seems to me that there is absolutely zero cost or risk for God to do #1. It doesn’t “spoil” or really affect #3 at all. It is no different in my mind than myself building a model rocket – nothing but an interesting pastime. One might suspect that God has done a lot of this? Why not?

Now #2 one would have to look at very carefully. Sure, it would be great to create creatures that themselves could participate in the perfectly loving eternal bliss of the fullness of the unity of the trinitarian Godhead, but look at the cost. Why, one might end up creating many creatures who ended up suffering horribly at each other’s hands only to have to let them sink back into the consciousness of a rock. And, assuming God calculated the probabilities of what actually has happened perfectly (one must assume this) and further assuming that our actual state today is in the higher percentile of what would probably happen – that the current world is not a fluke – then one would have to assume that God knew that He would probably have to personally come down and suffer and die at our hands to get whatever percentage of humans to choose love.

So, do I think that this suggests that God has NO REAL choice in the matter? No. It doesn’t suggest that at all to me. Does a couple that truly loves each other and have a great marriage have NO REAL choice about having children? And exactly how many children SHOULD they have? As many as they can afford? Or as many as they WANT? As many as they WANT to invest in?

The problem in my mind with this whole argument is this notion of “worth”. It seems to me that there is a presupposition that “worth” is being defined in an absolute or deterministic way. But even in our economy there is no such thing as something having an absolute “worth”. Worth is defined by how much someone WANTS to invest in something.

The reason the OV says that God creating an OV world that is capable of love means that love is “worth” it comes about because the OV worldview puts into context how much God is willing to invest on account of US becoming loving creatures. Since we see God invest His own personal being going to the cross and being tortured that PROVES that TO GOD our becoming loving beings is worth the cost TO HIM. But this is nothing more than saying that God chose to do #2. There is no meaning to say that there is an absolute “worth” to #2 outside of God actually choosing it. To then say that God chose it BECAUSE of its worth – or that He was compelled to choose it BECAUSE it has the “highest worth” is to deny the very nature of how things get “worth”.

So,

1. Love must be chosen or it is not love. Love cannot be compelled.
2. Worth is defined solely by what is actually chosen. It can only be determined after the fact.

God created the Open world because He WANTED to. He WANTED to give to others at a cost to Himself. THIS is the definition of love – it is the very source of the meaning of love.

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Edited by - Iconoclast on 05/19/2003 5:09:33 PM

ReasonableDoubt
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Total Posts : 655

Posted 5/19/2003 12:36 PM (GMT -6)

Meth said:

"So then you would agree that, for an omnibenevolent God, there was NO REAL choice between creating an EDF world or an open world...right?"

You're saying this b/c love requires freedom. I don't see how this follows. Say God decided to create a universe much like the one we live in, only with no people, just animals. (probably would be a much better world :) ) He could love his creation. He could have love existing without freedom existing. I don't see how in order to have love, you must have freedom. Granted, this would be a one-sided love- God' love for his creatures who could not reciprocate in His manner - but nonetheless, God's love is there.

I have a problem thinking that God's love requires anything. Once we start saying that God's love requires human freedom - then again, here we have God needing something. Thus, he can't be perfect. And also, as Meth points out, we have creation of radically free creatures being absolutely necessary- you can't have God without it - and if so the universe is necessary. This just seems to be a deterministic argument. Of course, as a determinist I should be agreeing with the logic :) But I'm not, b/c I don't believe God requires ANYTHING and that includes creation or human freedom.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
--Søren Kierkegaard

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 5/19/2003 7:47 PM (GMT -6)

Well, you can’t judge a book by its cover, and you can’t judge a thread by its title. I’ve totally ignored this thread thinking "oh, the free will issue again…I’ll let TGB respond to this." But then Meph kicked my (how did you put it?) kiester over on the Matrix thread to get me over here… and you folks are rock’n. My loss.

I think the logic leading to the conclusion that a) God had to create a world and. b) it had to be open is flawed on several points.

1) As Icon brilliantly (of course) pointed out, you can’t take the worth God ascribes to creation and retroactively make it a cause of creation. It’s a bit like the logic used to argue that we’re less special if we weren’t individually planned by God and thus don’t HAVE to exist. (Recall the thread TGB started a few weeks back). The unsurpassable worth we have is being confused with a cause for our existence, to the point where if the worth didn’t cause God to create us, we loose worth.

2) IN a brilliant book the title of which I can’t now recall, Father Solokowski argued that the distinctive aspect of the Christian view of God is that God is AS GREAT without the world as he is WITH the world. The world – and any world God might create – doesn’t INCREASE the worth of God. The world is not created to ACQUIRE new value, but to EXPRESS the unsurpassable value God eternally has. This doesn’t mean that we don’t matter to God. Rather, we matter to God infinitely, precisely because it is the infinitude of God’s love that creation is designed to express.

In Trinity and Process I express it this way. I argued against the process view that aesthetic value increases with the multiplicity of relations involved. The relationship between the intensity of "aesthetic satisfaction" and the complexity of what is aesthetically experienced is neither necessary nor unambiguous. There is, at best, a GENERAL and CONTINGENT correlation between the complexity of what is experienced and the intensity of the experience. I then argue that the triune God can be understood to be an unsurpassably intense aesthetic experience – the experience of pure love and pure beauty – which, being unsurpassable, can’t be improved upon. Still, it CAN be EXPRESSED in different ways. One way is through creation. The creation, ultimately, is the Father expressing love to the Son in the power of the Spirit, and the Son expressing love to the Father in the power of the Spirit. It’s part of the unsurpassably beautiful eternal dance of the triune God. But it didn’t NEED to happen.

One might express this relationship as Icon has done: the not-yet-created world stands to God in a "value state indeterminancy."

3) I DO agree with Hartshorne that there’s a subtle contradiction involved in the supposition that God could create an EXHAUSTIVELY determined world and yet have this world distinct from himself. If A completely determines B, B is A all over again. To be in any sense autonomous, Hartshorne argues, is to have SOME degree of power "over against." Strict Calvinism is thus inherently pantheistic.

Yet, it seems God clearly COULD have created a world without significant morally responsible freedom. Such a world would lack the value of love, but would have had the advantage of not disturbing divine bliss. It would have expressed some aspects of the triune God, but not the aspect of interpersonal love. It wouldn’t DETRACT from God to create such a loveless world, for no world is created to ADD to God. That is not the issue. It just wouldn’t have expressed the aspect of love.

4) Finally, related to #1, its one thing to say that God always does the best thing response to creaturely free actions, and another thing to say God always does the best thing to initiate new situations. That is, GIVEN God’s choice to create this kind of world, God is faced with a multitude of possible responses to non-ideal situations. He always does the best one (or, within the CLASS of the best actions, for there’s no need to assume that there’s always ONE "best" action). But if God eternally has unsurpassable value, there’s no competing ‘best" or "non-best" decision PRIOR to creation.

The difference is sort of like this: a parent who neglects a child they’ve brought into the world is blameworthy. But a person who chooses not to become a parent is not. So too, the choice of God not to create doesn’t make him less perfect. Now that he’s created the world however, his acting towards it in less than perfect ways would.

Love the discussion.

Greg

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/19/2003 11:36 PM (GMT -6)

Mephi-

What d’ya think?

Hmmmm.

One of the things I hear Doc (and Icon) saying (correct me if I’m wrong) is that “possibilities don’t have value.” This seems impossible to me. I think Doc realizes this too when he says, “God clearly could have created a world without significant morally responsible freedom. Such a world would lack the value of love.” But how does Doc know this? Such a world is only a “possible” world. Its value cannot be measured even by God since it is only a possibility. Again, this seems impossible to me. I face possibilities every day and decide between them on the basis of their value. I don’t have any reason for thinking God cannot make value judgments about possible worlds.

How would Doc (or God) know that a world without morally responsible freedom (and so love) would be of less value than this world? If possibilities don’t have value, in fact, how does God know what the value of a world without love would have been? It might have been of more value than this one.

I can believe that God was free not to create at all. The parent analogy helps a bit, don’t you think Mephi? You’re not neglecting the value of your unborn children, nor are you less loving, by choosing not to have them. OK, I can see that. Let me think on it some more.

A loving husband and wife are equally free to have kids or not to have kids and are no less loving as persons for choosing not to have kids.

Likewise…

The triune God is equally free to have a world or not to have a world, and is no less loving a God for choosing not to have a world.

It might work.

Should God have created a world without morally significant freedom, then this would be analogous to what, the couple choosing not to have kids and getting a dog instead?

Tom

Tom
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Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/19/2003 11:43 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
RD: You're saying this b/c love requires freedom. I don't see how this follows. Say God decided to create a universe much like the one we live in, only with no people, just animals. (probably would be a much better world :) ) He could love his creation. He could have love existing without freedom existing. I don't see how in order to have love, you must have freedom. Granted, this would be a one-sided love- God' love for his creatures who could not reciprocate in His manner - but nonetheless, God's love is there.

RD-

Oh this is important! You’re standing on the edge. You’re there! You’ve just admitted that in order for there to be a world of mutual, reciprocal love, God must grant us freedom. Sure, a world with only dogs in it is a world loved by God, but it’s not a world that can love God back. Since you love God, Gina, what’s that tell you about the sort of world you must be living in and the sort of free will God must have given you?

Tom

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/20/2003 1:44 AM (GMT -6)

This is my thinking...

Step 1)
God's always seeks to satisfy God's disposition towards self-expression and maximization of love. At the "time" in the absence of Creation, God is doing so "unsurpassably" through God's triune relationship with Godself.

Step 2)
God, using infinite intelligence, knows of a possible state of reality where divine love can be expressed in a way NOT PREVIOUSLY experienced by God before: God can express and share his unsurpassable love to NON-GOD BEINGS and possibly have it reciprocated by said beings, culminating in a God/NON-God love relationship. A genuine novelty that will add to God's expereriences! [Note: Because love requires freedom, this necessarily excludes an EDF world! Love cannot be genuinely maximized if love is not possible.]

Step 3)
God sees the creation of this reality as a a NEW EXPERIENCE and MODE of satifying God's disposition and attributes worth to this option on that basis!

Step 4)
Again, using infinite intelligence, God contemplates the possible world, where it is generally possible that at least ONE BEING, but possibly many more, may suffer from an endstate of separation from God...the worst thing imaginable. But conversely, God, knowing God's own capabilities is assured within Godself (including possibly dying on a Cross for us) that God WILL secure a Groom/Bride type relationship with AT LEAST one non-God being, even if many others are lost. In other words, God KNOWS that God will be able to bring into existence AT LEAST ONE God/world love relationship...which is what God seeks.

Step 5)
God, being true to God's own essential existence, acts towards satisfying God's disposition by creating an open Creation.

*******************************************

Revised analogy:

A loving husband and wife who

1) ALWAYS seek new ways of expressing and/or spreading love in order to do them

2) are genuinely convinced that the experience of having kids is a valid manner of expressing and/or spreading love that they have not yet experienced

3) attribute worth to having kids on the bases of #1 and #2

4) realize that they are able to have and support children in the reasonable future

will probably eventually decide, AT SOME TIME, to have kids rather than NEVER having them.

For the couple to choose NOT to have kids, given 1-4, would be tantamount to self-contradiction.

*************************************

Thoughts?

"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

Edited by - MephEternal on 05/20/2003 06:52:09 AM

One Love
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Posted 5/20/2003 1:58 AM (GMT -6)

Doc said:

quote:
Yet, it seems God clearly COULD have created a world without significant morally responsible freedom. Such a world would lack the value of love, but would have had the advantage of not disturbing divine bliss. It would have expressed some aspects of the triune God, but not the aspect of interpersonal love. It wouldn’t DETRACT from God to create such a loveless world, for no world is created to ADD to God. That is not the issue. It just wouldn’t have expressed the aspect of love.

Wait a minute. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that an omnibenevolent being COULD create a loveless Creation. Do you mean to say that God could have created an absolutely LOVELESS, ROBOTIC Creation...and this wouldn't have disturbed "divine bliss" at all? How does this not imply some type of impassibility for God? You may as well say that God could have created a universal hell and it not disturb "divine bliss", right?

Starkman
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Posted 5/20/2003 8:43 AM (GMT -6)

Meph:
God's always seeks to satisfy God's disposition towards self-expression and maximization of love.

Starkman:
How has the argument been proved that God must seek to satisfy anything about God's Godself--God being God? Are we certain that this being cannot simply be without violating his Godself? Isn't what you said right after the above quote sufficient to be always seeking, or at least always in the mode of, satisfying God's disposition towards self expression and maximazation of love: At the "time" in the absence of Creation, God is doing so "unsurpassably" through God's triune relationship with Godself.? (I believe it's been satisfactorily shown that God could not have created an ED world with love reciprocated, but I'm not aware that it's been shown conclusively that God being God must have created this world in order to maintain the integrity of His Godself.)

Meph:
God, using infinite intelligence, knows of a possible state of reality where divine love can be expressed in a way NOT PREVIOUSLY experienced by God before . . . ."

Starkman:
Has it been shown that God has never created before a creation like ours?

Finally, in regard to couples and children, I don't not believe that it is ALWAYS the outcome of producing children by a couple that strikes the chord of harmony for expressing said couple's essential existence. It may be that the couple find it equally loving to take care of orphand children, or not be encumbered with children at all in order to be free to express love for those in need of a couple who have no time distractions.

It would seem then that the mark of the essential human existence is to love, but to love as love is both called for and necessary. Children are the continuation of the ability to love for humans (other than God): for where there are no people, there is no love expressed. But this is not so with God; He has Himself in the persons of the Trinity.

For trying to stretch my brain under Meph's thinking!

Starkman

Am I right? I say, am I right?
Charlie Brown

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 5/20/2003 11:49 AM (GMT -6)

TGB: One of the things I hear Doc (and Icon) saying (correct me if I’m wrong) is that "possibilities don’t have value."

Doc: Great questions TGB. I certainly believe possibilities have intrinsic value. Indeed, consider that the decision to NOT actualize a possible world is itself a decision to actualize a possibility – namely, the possibility of their NOT being such world. Either possibility has intrinsic value.

The question, of course, is how they could have EQUAL value if the actualization of the world – esp. a world in which love is possible – obviously has such great value to God. How could God being doing "the best" thing by NOT creating such a world if God is also doing "the best" thing in creating such a world? Or, we might ask, how is God not guilty of "the sin of omission" if he refrains from creating a world that has more value than no world or an alternative world?

The answer, I’m suggesting, is that God already (eternally) possesses within himself unsurpassable VALUE. If he remains the only being that exists – as the community of the Father, Son and Spirit – no value is lost, no one is cheated, no sin is committed… "the best" is all there is. If God decides to create a world, it is not to ADD to the value that exists, but to EXPRESS in a new way the value that eternally exists. Hence, "God + the world" has the same value as "God – the world", but in a different way.

A question I cannot answer is this: how would/did the triune fellowship EXPRESS love and beauty within themselves without a non-divine world? For unsurpassable love and beauty has to be expressed love and beauty. I can’t imagine how this would be done. But, on the other hand, it seems unreasonable to think we should be able to imagine how this would be done since we ourselves are the result of the expression of love and beauty that includes the non-divine world.

Meph: For the couple to choose NOT to have kids, given 1-4, would be tantamount to self-contradiction.

Doc: Good argument. But I think the analogical argument fails at the crucial point. God has within himself unsurpassable value, whereas the couple does not. One indication of this is that couples are limited in the ways they can express love (which in their case also INCREASES love), while God is not. God is like a unsurpassably loving couple that can eternally creatively express love in unsurpassable ways – only ONE of which is having children (viz. creating a non-divine world).

Meph: Do you mean to say that God could have created an absolutely LOVELESS, ROBOTIC Creation...and this wouldn't have disturbed "divine bliss" at all? How does this not imply some type of impassibility for God? You may as well say that God could have created a universal hell and it not disturb "divine bliss", right?

Doc: A robotic world would have not disturbed "divine bliss" because it would be incapable of sin. A non-robotic world CAN disturb "divine bliss" because it can sin and hence bring about pain, both for God and others. And herein lies the risk. Yet, the value of such a world in expressing the love and beauty of God is apparently worth the risk, since God created it.

Starkman: Children are the continuation of the ability to love for humans (other than God): for where there are no people, there is no love expressed. But this is not so with God; He has Himself in the persons of the Trinity.

Doc: This is basically the point I was making above. The triune community enjoys unsurpassable love and that can be expressed in new ways, but not added to. Now, does this mean that we don’t matter to God? Not at all, for God HAS decided to create this world to express the love he eternally is. Hence, we matter infinitely to God – precisely because the goal is to express toward us, in us and through us the unsurpassably, infinitely intense love that he eternally is.

Love it.

Greg

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

One Love
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Posted 5/22/2003 4:45 AM (GMT -6)

What I hear Doc saying:

The triune God can be understood as a unsurpassably intense aesthetic experience, and therefore cannot be improved upon. This means that God cannot get a more INTENSE feeling of love and beauty from any other source. Therefore any other love and beauty that God experiences doesn't improve on God's experience of love. I'm liking this to the idea of how infinity plus or minus any finite number equals infinity. The only thing that can be said is that this love may be EXPRESSED in different ways. Because of this, God gets no additional "worth" from Creation, as far as aesthetic appreciation goes.

Two things. First of all, I don't think this does anything against the claim that God, being omnibenevolent, was not free to create a purely deterministic world that would be devoid of love. Unless you want to claim that an omnibenevolent being can desire to create a Creation where love is impossible, there's nothing that can be done about that.

Second of all, we've run into problem. You said:

quote:
The triune community enjoys unsurpassable love and that can be expressed in new ways, but not added to. Now, does this mean that we don’t matter to God? Not at all, for God HAS decided to create this world to express the love he eternally is. Hence, we matter infinitely to God – precisely because the goal is to express toward us, in us and through us the unsurpassably, infinitely intense love that he eternally is.

I don't think that you are fully carrying the thought. With what you are saying about God's unsurpassable worth, you are really saying that Creation, if compared with God, is WITHOUT MEANING. Just like any finite number put up against infinity has no meaning. And the only "worth" that is given to creation is attributed to it by God. But you don't seem to answer the real question about WHY God did it. And this is the important question.

My thinking says that God did it because God, using his infinite intelligence, ascertained that Creation would be a means of fulfilling of God's disposition to express and promulgate life and love, which is what love does. The divine/world relationship was one that God had NOT EXPERIENCED in God's previous state of existence. For God to choose NOT to ever have make Creation, God would have had to DENY Godself on an essential level, cause basically God would have been choosing to NOT EXPERIENCE the divine/world relationship and NOT further fulfill his own disposition by doing so. But I think we both know that the disposition is the CORE of a being's essential existence. It CANNOT be denied!

So, it would be a matter of SELF-CONTRADICTION for an omnibenevolent, infinitely-intelligent God who's main disposition was to express and promulgate love to choose NOT to experience the divine/world relationship! (THIS is the main assertion of my revised analogy!)

If I were to stick to YOUR idea, Doc, basically all I can do is to say that, EVEN THOUGH Creation was truly a point of indifference to God (finity to infinity), God chose to create anyway...and then attributed worth to it AFTER THE FACT of its creation. But this implicitly denies the intentionality behind it. It's like me arbitrarily choosing chocolate ice cream over vanilla for no apparent reason...and THEN trying to justify my choice AFTER THE FACT.

So not only would I have absolutely NO reason to give for God's creating, even after admitting it being a point of indifference...but I would also have to say basically say that God, for some reason, granted PERSONAL WORTH to an initially arbitrary choice. It just don't add up, Doc.

I stick to my guns.

If someone wishes to be a CONSISTENT open view theist (complete with the "love requires freedom" presupposition), then they MUST, I repeat, MUST concede that, given God's essential existence:

1) God was NOT FREE to not create

and...

2) God was NOT FREE to create an fully deterministic world of any type.

Tom, what to YOU think? You agree with ME, right??

Your move, Doc

"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

Edited by - MephEternal on 05/22/2003 09:49:52 AM

Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747

Posted 5/22/2003 10:28 AM (GMT -6)

Meph:

quote:
Two things. First of all, I don't think this does anything against the claim that God, being omnibenevolent, was not free to create a purely deterministic world that would be devoid of love. Unless you want to claim that an omnibenevolent being can desire to create a Creation where love is impossible, there's nothing that can be done about that.

I think God can create a deterministic world: one that would be solely for entertainment; for, say, another kind of creation to enjoy. Nothing whatsoever to do with love, just a creation of some sorts. Just because there's no love either to or from the creation doesn't stop God from creating in a determined format.

As far as people being determined, why would God want to create people exhaustively determined (other than for, say . . . entertainment reasons) outside our knowledge or understanding?

quote:
The divine/world relationship was one that God had NOT EXPERIENCED in God's previous state of existence. For God to choose NOT to ever have make Creation, God would have had to DENY Godself on an essential level, cause basically God would have been choosing to NOT EXPERIENCE the divine/world relationship and NOT further fulfill his own disposition [Starkman's bold] by doing so.

I can't see that God is left unfullfilled or incomplete by not creating. He's fully self-contained; the Trinity provides adequate explanation of God's enjoying love expressed. Experience doesn't make God complete; He's complete by being without cause.

quote:
If someone wishes to be a CONSISTENT open view theist (complete with the "love requires freedom" presupposition), then they MUST, I repeat, MUST concede that, given God's essential existence:

1) God was NOT FREE to not create

"... love requires freedom ..." just doesn't force one who can love to have to create. Would not then we be forced--have no choice--but to create?

For whatever my imput's worth,

Starkman

Am I right? I say, am I right?
Charlie Brown

CalvinnHobbes
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 88

Posted 5/23/2003 3:54 AM (GMT -6)

Do you ever wonder how often a determinist is essentially attempting to persuade a libertarian to believe that this libertarian cannot be persuaded?

"The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know." ~President John Adams

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/23/2003 4:08 AM (GMT -6)

Starkman:

quote:
I think God can create a deterministic world: one that would be solely for entertainment; for, say, another kind of creation to enjoy. Nothing whatsoever to do with love, just a creation of some sorts. Just because there's no love either to or from the creation doesn't stop God from creating in a determined format.

So what I'm hearing you say is that an omnibenevolent being would possibly create a deterministic world just for someone's amusement, whether Godself or another creations? Hmmm... Iconoclast, what do you think about this suggestion?

****************************

Starkman:

quote:
I can't see that God is left unfullfilled or incomplete by not creating. He's fully self-contained; the Trinity provides adequate explanation of God's enjoying love expressed. Experience doesn't make God complete; He's complete by being without cause.

I'm not saying that creation COMPLETES God. What I'm saying is that if God's disposition is one that constantly works towards the maximization of love...AND if God feels like Creation can work towards that...that God's disposition would not be followed if God were to choose not to create.

****************************

Starkman:

quote:
"... love requires freedom ..." just doesn't force one who can love to have to create. Would not then we be forced--have no choice--but to create?

The problem is that we ae dealing with a God with some interesting attributes that entail certain things. NO, love does not constrain just ANY being to create. But when we are dealing with the essential existence of an omnibenevelent, infinitely intelligent, omniscient Creator God, there are differences that come about.

YO, TOM!!! Where you at? What do YOU think?

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/23/2003 4:20 AM (GMT -6)

Question for Doc:

Does God GET SOMETHING for experiencing things? We know that, by way of infinite intelligence, God can conceptualize ALL TYPES of possible states of reality. However, I think I remember YOU saying that God actually gets something from experiencing some of those potential realities come to pass as it happens. That God experiencing something occur is DISTINCT from God conceptualizing it via infinite intelligence. If this is true, what is this "something" that God gets? Value? Worth? What?

"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

Edited by - MephEternal on 05/23/2003 6:07:33 PM

Tom
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Posted 5/23/2003 6:59 AM (GMT -6)

Meph: God cannot get a more INTENSE feeling of love and beauty from any other source [outside himself]. Therefore any other love and beauty that God experiences doesn't improve on God's experience of love.

Tom: Still sounds right to me.

Meph: …God, being omnibenevolent, was not free to create a purely deterministic world that would be devoid of love. Unless you want to claim that an omnibenevolent being can desire to create a Creation where love is impossible, there's nothing that can be done about that.

Tom: Just to clarify…

Assuming there is no experience outside himself that improves on God’s own experience of himself as love, I think God can be thought to have been free to create a purely deterministic world devoid of love provided it was devoid of all morality. In fact, isn’t this exactly what our universe is except for the tiny sphere we humans inhabit? Outside of our world, the universe is presumably uninhabited by moral agents and, though not robotic (the whole quantum mechanics thing, you know), serves no other purpose than to bring pleasure to God (not the pleasure of a personal relationship of love, just the pleasure a creator of a work of art gets from her creation). A source of entertainment you might say. God saw what he created (stars, light, worlds, rivers, plant and animal life, and said “That’s a good job! I like it!” I don’t see why we should have to think God was not free to enjoy creating like this. (My problem is with the belief that an omnibenevolent God is free to exhaustively determine a world of moral responsibility.)

My point is, the universe God created isn't one or the other of choices a) a world void of moral agents (and so void of love and evil) and b) a world of moral responsibility were love and evil are possible. God create BOTH! Our universe in totality IS that world.

Meph: My thinking says that God did it because God, using his infinite intelligence, ascertained that Creation would be a means of fulfilling of God's disposition to express and promulgate life and love, which is what love does. The divine/world relationship was one that God had NOT EXPERIENCED in God's previous state of existence.

Tom: OK, try this. It is true that the divine/human relationship was one that God had not experienced before, but (and here’s the point I think Doc is making) the LOVE involved in that divine/human relationship IS something God HAD experienced before (for all eternity in fact). Love IS love, whether it’s limited to God’s own triune experience (whatever that is) or whether it flows out from that to create us. When we love God, God is experiencing the SAME THING in kind, that is, in terms of love, that God has eternally experienced. So in an important sense relating lovingly to a finite world is NOT new. At that point where it matters, namely, being and expressing love, the same thing is going on. So yes, God by nature IS and EXPRESSES love, but God does not begin doing something NEW in kind in terms of being and expressing love when he creates us for loving relationship. In terms of being and expressing love, creating us is just more of the SAME thing. Creating us “adds” something to God's experience to be sure, but that something is not something an omnibenevolent God would be by nature incapable of avoiding by choosing not to create in the first place. And this may be why God was free to NOT create us, for in terms of being and expressing love, God’s not creating us doesn’t leave his experience of love any less full or complete, nor does it add to his experience a dimension of loving which he did not already know. This would dovetail with our being created in God’s image. When we love him, we are being godlike, we’re doing what God has always been doing. He’s totally familiar with it.

I understand you have a special weekend planned Mephi. Hope your trip HOME is a nice one!

Tom

Edited by - TGB on 05/23/2003 12:43:15 PM

One Love
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Posted 5/23/2003 8:33 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:

quote:
It is true that the divine/human relationship was one that God had not experienced before, but (and here’s the point I think Doc is making) the LOVE involved in that divine/human relationship IS something God HAD experienced before (for all eternity in fact). Love IS love, whether it’s limited to God’s own triune experience (whatever that is) or whether it flows out from that to create us. When we love God, God is experiencing the SAME THING in kind, that is, in terms of love, that God has eternally experienced. So in an important sense relating lovingly to a finite world is NOT new. At that point where it matters, namely, being and expressing love, the same thing is going on. So yes, God by nature IS and EXPRESSES love, but God does not begin doing something NEW in kind in terms of being and expressing love when he creates us for loving relationship. In terms of being and expressing love, creating us is just more of the SAME thing. And this may be why God was free to NOT create us, for in terms of being and expressing love, God’s not creating us doesn’t leave his experience of love any less full or complete, nor does it add to his experience a dimension of loving which he did not already know. This would dovetail with our being created in God’s image. When we love him, we are being godlike, we’re doing what God has always been doing. He’s totally familiar with it.

I hear what Doc is saying. Doc is speaking in terms of experiencing love ITSELF. That basically the LOVE in the God/world relationship is the EXPRESSION of the same type of love that always existed in the God/God relationship. I got all that. But here's what I'm getting at...that ties in with moral responsibility AND love...

The God/world relationship DOES give God a dimension of loving he didn't already know: The dimension of SELF-SACRIFICING love in the midst of UNLOVING attitudes. Let me steal this from someone I know...

Love is ascribing infinite worth to another at cost to oneself.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that this may be one of the reasons why Doc has a hard time conceptualizing the EXPRESSION of love going on ad intra. His quote:

quote:
A question I cannot answer is this: how would/did the triune fellowship EXPRESS love and beauty within themselves without a non-divine world? For unsurpassable love and beauty has to be expressed love and beauty. I can’t imagine how this would be done. But, on the other hand, it seems unreasonable to think we should be able to imagine how this would be done since we ourselves are the result of the expression of love and beauty that includes the non-divine world.

I love my man to death, but I think he cops out on this one. Doc has time and again associated love DIRECTLY with the willingness to sacrifice and NON-COERCIVELY bringing other beings into love relationships. THIS is why love required freedom! There had to be the possibility of the love being REFUSED and REJECTED (which interestingly enough, creates the environment to demonstrate UNCONDITIONAL love.) Now, there's no way that you can tell me that God EXPERIENCED what SACRIFICIAL LOVE was like, in all its dimensions, in the state of reality where Creation was absent. Nope. God was NOT familiar with experiencing this aspect of love at all. And if it were in God's disposition to ALWAYS seek the maximization of love for reality, it stands to reason that God would WANT to experience this!

[Digression: Wouldn't this be a good explanation for WHY God wanted to create...even at the potential sacrifice of Godself????]

Bottom line: There ARE elements of the God/world relationship that would ADD a NEW DIMENSION to God's PERSONAL EXPERIENCE of love that God had not had in the absence of Creation...and if God's disposition included constantly expanding his RANGE of experiencing and expressing love, then it would contradict God's disposition NOT to create.

***************************************

Tom:

quote:
My point is, the universe God creatged isn't one or the other of choices a) a world void of moral agents (and so void of love and evil) and b) a world of moral responsibility were love and evil are possible. God create BOTH! Our universe in totality IS that world.

I want everyone to understand something. When I am doing all this, I am taking ALL of the presuppositions that I have gained from OVT (particularly Doc's version...which I feel to be the most consistent). This includes all the ideas about love, freedom, and whatnot that we have discussed over these years here. In other words, I am dealing with the consistency of the view with all of its OWN presupps in mind. Like so...

The expression of love in Creation is not POSSIBLE without the POSSIBILITY of evil.

or better yet...

The expression of love in Creation REQUIRE the existence of morally free agents.

They go hand in hand. Think about Doc's 6 theses...

1. Love Requires Freedom
2. Freedom Implies Risk
3. Risk Entails Moral Responsibility
4. Moral Responsibility is Proportionate to the Potential to Influence
5. Power to Influence is Irrevocable
6. Power to Influence is Finite

Notice how each of these tie to one another. Love REQUIRES freedom which IMPLIES risk which ENTAILS moral responsibility. Translation? No moral responsibility, no love! When it comes to Creation, moral responsibility and love are INEXTRICABLY linked! No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

NOW...

If I'm right about God's essential existence...AND God's disposition...then certain things follow. One of those things being, I believe, that God would not DESIRE to just create a reality for the sake of mere amusement. God wanted to joyously EXPRESS God's love, not just have a piece of art to look at and say "Ooooooh! Preeeeety!" (Doing my best impression of Dexter's sister, DeeDee, from "Dexter's Laboratory"

)

**********************************

Let's keep this WHOLE THING in perspective, people. Tie everything together. I'm dealing with MEGA-consistency here. Which is why I will keep saying, until otherwise shown...

If someone wishes to be a CONSISTENT open view theist, then they MUST, I repeat, MUST concede that, given God's essential existence:

1) God was NOT FREE to not create

and...

2) God was NOT FREE to create an fully deterministic world of any type.

Response, anyone?

PS: I'm counting down the hours for the move, man! YAHHOOOOO!

"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

Edited by - MephEternal on 05/23/2003 1:40:56 PM

One Love
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Posted 5/23/2003 8:58 AM (GMT -6)

Thought:

If God's disposition is to EXPRESS and maximize love in as many dimensions possible, how could God follow this disposition WITHOUT creating an open world with morally responsible agents AT SOME TIME? We've already seen that God's essential existence LIMITS God's personal experience of love to dimensions only ALLOWED by said essential existence. For example, God ad intra would NOT experience:

Actual sacrificial love
Being freely CHOSEN by morally free beings
Active demonstration of unconditional love, implied in sacrificial love.

Rom 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I John 4:10
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

What would God do if God wanted to experience these things? The next step was a logical one: CREATE CONTINGENT, MORALLY FREE BEINGS!

Cmon, y'all. This makes sense, right???\

"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

Edited by - MephEternal on 05/23/2003 2:22:41 PM

One Love
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Posted 5/23/2003 9:03 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:

quote:
This would dovetail with our being created in God’s image. When we love him, we are being godlike, we’re doing what God has always been doing. He’s totally familiar with it.

God is familiar with what WE are doing to God when we love. God is NOT FAMILIAR experientially with what GOD does when we DON'T love God back.

"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/23/2003 9:10 AM (GMT -6)

SAY, Brett, Brandon, Alan, Icon, etc...

What do Y'ALL think? What parts still not making sense?

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/23/2003 9:17 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:

quote:
. Creating us “adds” something to God's experience to be sure, but that something is not something an omnibenevolent God would be by nature incapable of avoiding by choosing not to create in the first place. And this may be why God was free to NOT create us, for in terms of being and expressing love, God’s not creating us doesn’t leave his experience of love any less full or complete, nor does it add to his experience a dimension of loving which he did not already know.

I hope that I've made you question this, Tom.

BJS
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Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 587

Posted 5/23/2003 9:34 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
SAY, Brett, Brandon, Alan, Icon, etc...

What do Y'ALL think? What parts still not making sense?

Have only skimmed your discussion so far. I'm going to dig in now, and see if I have anything to offer (it might be way over my head, though!). Be back in a few.

Brett

"Siste viator et memento mori."

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/23/2003 9:44 AM (GMT -6)

Let me clear this up...before it comes up. I'm not saying that God WANTED people not to choose God just so that God could employ sacrificial love. I'm saying that God would have known that, given the odds, sacrificial love would more than likely been the price for morally free beings...and given God's disposition, God wouldn't mind that at all.

And thanks, Brett. Can't wait for your response.

"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

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