 |
| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Openness and Minimizing Suffering | Forum Quick Jump
|
 | 
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/7/2004 1:25 AM (GMT -6) |   | Jeff: How can we be sure that God would not have to know what will ACTUALLY take place in the future to know how to minimize evil? Might future choices actually affect the extent to which previous providential acts are effective?
Tom: Let me say that if it's true that some event WILL happen, then I think God knows it will happen. I understand you to deny this in some instances, Jeff, by having denied divine omniscience. So if something WILL happen, my question to you is why believe God would know it at all?
But assming God knows the entire future only as what WILL take place, then my answer is--there IS NO acting now on the basis of such knowledge to prevent what WILL happen, or to guarantee outcomes. Not even God can do that. Such knowledge would not allow it. It would provide God no providential advantage in governing the universe for the simple reason that God cannot intervene into the story line of history on the basis of such knowledge or access such knowledge in an attempt to determine what his own actions are to be. This includes attempting to prevent undesired events or to bring about what he does desire, warning and guiding people, and prophesying future events. Think about it. What is foreknown, according to this view, is what actually happens and by definition is already the result of whatever has or has not been done to influence it. Such knowledge cannot then also be the basis of such interaction for the simple reason that this knowledge comes to God too late (logically speaking) for God to use in influencing outcomes.
For example, let us say God knows that Susan will be in a fatal car accident on her 21st birthday. Can God use his knowledge of Susan’s death to warn Susan not to go driving? Can God act in a miraculous way to prevent this accident? In fact, can God do anything on the basis of his knowledge that Susan will die to prevent her from dying? The answer to these questions is, of course, that God cannot intervene on the basis of such foreknowledge in order to prevent this event from happening. Since God’s foreknowledge is infallible, what he foreknows will happen will indeed happen. Not even God can act in order to change what he infallibly knows will come to pass. Such simple-foreknowledge, if it existed, would be useless to God in preventing foreknown evil and other undesired events. There is nothing a God who possess such knowledge can do that a God who does not possess such knowledge cannot also do.
If you’re not talking about simple-foreknowledge, Jeff, forgive me for misunderstanding ya. What is it you’re talking about then?
As for your second question, yes, I think future choices can sometimes affect the extent to which previous providential actions turn out to be effective. But what’s the problem with that? All it means is that God’s attempts to prevent and minimize evil are sometimes unsuccessful (given our kind of world). Do you doubt this?
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/7/2004 4:11 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
If you’re not talking about simple-foreknowledge, Jeff, forgive me for misunderstanding ya. What is it you’re talking about then?
Future choices.
quote:
As for your second question, yes, I think future choices can sometimes affect the extent to which previous providential actions turn out to be effective. But what’s the problem with that? All it means is that God’s attempts to prevent and minimize evil are sometimes unsuccessful (given our kind of world). Do you doubt this?
I don't know that there IS a problem. But I'm wondering IF there is. If, indeed, unknown future choices can undermine God's success in minimizing evil/suffering, then it would be nice for the sake of that hypothesis to be able to prove that God can at least know that, probabilistically, such cases will be inconsequential. I agree with you that if we could know that God is minimizing evil/suffering, that would be a nice "icing on the cake" for an OV theodicy (although I think it is unnecessary for a sufficient theodicy). I just can't see how to demonstrate it, though. Here's some issues that I have with it:
1) How can we know that God knows that the future, unknown choices won't significantly undermine or controvert His success at minimizing evil/suffering? In which case, why would God bother, since He doesn't have enough information to know how to minimize suffering?
2) How can we know that a purely mathematical minimizing of evil/suffering in this life won't end up being completely utilitarian, where Hugh Hefner and partial-birth abortionists end up suffering less while decent folks suffer more? Would such a result really be valuable to a theodicy?
3) If minimizing suffering reckons the punishment/suffering after ressurection, how can we know that minimizing evil/suffering wouldn't be best served by just letting people live and, then, punishing them justly in the judgement.
4) I just don't see any verses that compel such a view. To me, it's like universal reconciliation - there may be equivocal verses, but I don't know of any that are clear. But the nature of induction is to explain facts/phenomena as parsimoniously as possible.
5) There are verses which indicate that man is without excuse independent of any minimizing of evil/suffering which God may or may not do. Thus, such an hypothesis doesn't seem to be necessary for a theodicy.
6) I see no empirical evidence of such an hypothesis.
7) God already HAS intervened in history in ways that have trumped the volition of freewill agents - such as casting out demons, etc. Thus, I see no absolute reason to assume that He wouldn't do the same to minimize suffering/evil if that was His goal. But if He was trumping us, thus, there would be more empirical evidence wouldn't there? - just as there was/is when demons are cast out.
These kind of questions that I have with the hypothesis lead me to believe that, though it may be true, it doesn't have much apologetic value for a theodicy.
wjs | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/7/2004 7:11 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: If, indeed, unknown future choices can undermine God's success in minimizing evil/suffering, then it would be nice for the sake of that hypothesis to be able to prove that God can at least know that, probabilistically, such cases will be inconsequential.
Tom: That’s what I argued for weeks regarding God’s foreknowledge of the probabilities. I affirmed providence makes best sense if one assumes what is logically possible, namely, that God knows all possibilities when they’re possible (whenever that is) so that such probabilties can be taken into consideration providentially speaking. You denied God this knowledge, and now you’re questioning whether or not such a denial makes best sense of providence.
I told you so!
If you have no problems in understanding providence and sovereignty to include God's SOMETIMES not getting all he wants but you WANT to believe that God does all he can to achieve what he wants, then you dump the "God doesn't know future possibilities because it would jeopadize his holiness" talk and affirm God's omniscience and healthy stable emotional life. 
Jeff: 6) I see no empirical evidence of such an hypothesis.
Tom: I don’t see any “empirical” evidence for 99% of what we discuss on this site. What’s new?
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/7/2004 8:10 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
Tom: That’s what I argued for weeks regarding God’s foreknowledge of the probabilities. I affirmed providence makes best sense if one assumes what is logically possible, namely, that God knows all possibilities when they’re possible (whenever that is) so that such probabilties can be taken into consideration providentially speaking. You denied God this knowledge, and now you’re questioning whether or not such a denial makes best sense of providence.
I told you so!
If you have no problems in understanding providence and sovereignty to include God's SOMETIMES not getting all he wants but you WANT to believe that God does all he can to achieve what he wants, then you dump the "God doesn't know future possibilities because it would jeopadize his holiness" talk and affirm God's omniscience and healthy stable emotional life.
You've got the order backward. I never once even thought from my experience or scripture that God is providentially minimizing evil. I heard of that hypothesis HERE on this forum. So my views were already formed about foreknowledge and providence. So when I read of this view, I think it has a kind of appeal, but still see no compelling reason for it (per the other 6 reasons in my list) - hence, no need to change my previous views YET. For as far as I can see, it is ONLY that evil-minimizing view of providence that would require the complete knowledge of all conceivable contingencies.
But here is another biblical idea that I don't know how to reconcile with it. Maybe you or someone can help me resolve it:
Before the Flood, the earth had become filled with violence. Thereafter, God sanctioned capital punishment, which had theretofore been forbidden. Now, it seems that this divinely sanctioned capital punishment was instituted at this time to suggest that it would lessen/deter the amount of evil/violence/suffering in the world that had previously occurred under the "NO VENGEANCE" policy He had implemented before the Flood. If this is true, then God was not lessening the amount of evil prior to the Flood even though He knew how to.
How, then, do we explain the entry of capital punishment after the Flood if it is not to lessen/deter evil?
wjs | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/7/2004 1:11 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: You've got the order backward. I never once even thought from my experience or scripture that God is providentially minimizing evil. I heard of that hypothesis HERE on this forum.
Tom: Really? No concept whatsoever that God is interested in preventing evil? That God is against evil? That God works against evil? That the spread of God’s kingdom involves the defeat of evil? That the defeat of evil pleases God? That God is behind it? That love rejoices NOT in iniquitey but rejoices in the truth? No hints there, eh? Not the slighest notion that God will some day eradicate evil? You never had the slightest idea that God works against evil? You don’t see this anywhere in the Bible? Gee. I think the idea that God is anti-evil, that God works against evil—to prevent it, and where he can’t prevent it, to minimize its effects—is the one thing about God that struck me when I first read the Bible. And for all your previous concern about God’s holiness being compromised simply by foreknowing possible evils, I’m surprised that it never dawned on you before visiting this site that who and what God is is opposed to evil and that God works against evil. How did you conclude God's holiness is compromised by merely foreknowing all possible future evils if your understanding of that holiness was consistent with God's sometimes being cool with evil (i.e., not wanting to prevent or minimize it)?
Jeff: So my views were already formed about foreknowledge and providence.
Tom: And those views excluded any notion of God’s being interested in preventing and/or minimizing evil?
Jeff: So when I read of this view, I think it has a kind of appeal, but still see no compelling reason for it…
Tom: No compelling reason to believing God is against evil and works to prevent and/or minimize it? I don’t know what to say Bro.
Jeff: For as far as I can see, it is ONLY that evil-minimizing view of providence that would require the complete knowledge of all conceivable contingencies.
Tom: As I argued at length some time ago, foreknowledge of contingent evils is required BEFORE, and is the basis OF, any determination God makes about the relevance or not of contingent evils to providence. Providence doesn't determine which contingent evils God knows. That's not possible. It's foreknowledge of contingent evils that informs God's providential choices. So, complete knowledge of contingent evils is not required only by the view that God works to minimize all evil. It’s also required to make sense of the belief that God works to prevent and/or minimize some evil. For God presumably sizes up a particular contingent evil in order to determine whether it’s to be prevented or minimized or welcomed.
Peace,
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/7/2004 2:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
Jeff: You've got the order backward. I never once even thought from my experience or scripture that God is providentially minimizing evil. I heard of that hypothesis HERE on this forum.
Tom: Really? No concept whatsoever that God is interested in preventing evil? That God is against evil? That God works against evil? That the spread of God’s kingdom involves the defeat of evil? That the defeat of evil pleases God? That God is behind it? That love rejoices NOT in iniquitey but rejoices in the truth? No hints there, eh? Not the slighest notion that God will some day eradicate evil? You never had the slightest idea that God works against evil? You don’t see this anywhere in the Bible? Gee.
Hey Tom, instead of being pompous, why not provide me a list of famous theologians who clearly taught YOUR view. THAT would be impressive. The fact that God hates evil and will ultimatley defeat it does not imply that He is doing everything possible to minimize it. For obviously, the best way to minimize evil is to stop the world now. But alas, He doesn't. This seems like simple logic to me, bro. Am I missing something?
If you reply that God is holding out for the few that will become elect, then you have conceded that God having more elect trumps His interest in minimizing evil in this world. Which simply proves my contention - that there are other concerns which are paramount to God. Absolutely minimizing evil in this world is seemingly NOT paramount to God.
quote:
I think the idea that God is anti-evil, that God works against evil—to prevent it, and where he can’t prevent it, to minimize its effects—is the one thing about God that struck me when I first read the Bible.
If it's so clear, then quote all the theologians for me? Why not address the other 6 objections I provided in my list? Why not explain the passage in Genesis I brought up?
quote:
And for all your previous concern about God’s holiness being compromised simply by foreknowing possible evils, I’m surprised that it never dawned on you before visiting this site that who and what God is is opposed to evil and that God works against evil.
You assume that judging the world for it's evil is not sufficient to prove that God is "opposed to evil." And that if God does not absolutely mathematically minimize evil, then God is not working against evil. That is simply not logical. Or if God does not mathematically minimize evil in your view, what DO you mean? I specifically said that I think God's instituting capital punishment was a means whereby He was working to lessen evil. It is the ABSOLUTENESS of your view that I don't see in scripture - though it would be nice if it were true, as I've said before.
quote:
How did you conclude God's holiness is compromised by merely foreknowing all possible future evils if your understanding of that holiness was consistent with God's sometimes being cool with evil (i.e., not wanting to prevent or minimize it)?
All or nothing, again. Then explain the Genesis passage about capital punishment and the list I provided.
quote:
Jeff: So my views were already formed about foreknowledge and providence.
Tom: And those views excluded any notion of God’s being interested in preventing and/or minimizing evil?
I'm interested in preventing evil, but do not minimize it. What's the contradiction? Does the fact that YOU do not minimize evil prove you have no interest in preventing evil? I've said before many times that I think God may have other purposes that preclude the possibility of Him mathematically minimizing evil.
quote:
Jeff: So when I read of this view, I think it has a kind of appeal, but still see no compelling reason for it…
Tom: No compelling reason to believing God is against evil and works to prevent and/or minimize it? I don’t know what to say Bro.
Me either, because your abuse of logic is beyond me. Being against evil does not EQUATE to minimizing it. For by that view, YOU, yourself, are not against evil, for you do not minimize it.
quote:
Tom: So, complete knowledge of contingent evils is not required only by the view that God works to minimize all evil. It’s also required to make sense of the belief that God works to prevent and/or minimize some evil.
Then WE cannot work "to prevent and/or minimize SOME evil" - for by your view we would have to have "COMPLETE knowledge of contingent evils" to do so. This is just too extreme, Tom. Surely you mis-worded that.
wjs | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/7/2004 4:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Spen,
quote:
Spen: "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." It says what it says. If God wanted to minimize evil as a top prioriy, then Adam and Eve would have been dust again before the birth of Cain and Able. Minimizing evil wasn't the goal of the gospel, offering eternal life to the world was. The eschaton will bring to right all things that are now corrupt and defective. God wills for all that will, to be saved and enter into His promise of eternal life that He purchased with His own blood and offers freely to all.
Well, if Tom is fair in his condescensions, you're about to get it, bro!
wjs | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/7/2004 5:01 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: Hey Tom, instead of being pompous...
Tom: Not trying to be pompous, bro. Really. I was honestly surprised by your view. Sorry.
Jeff: ...why not provide me a list of famous theologians who clearly taught YOUR view. THAT would be impressive.
Tom: Do you know my view?
Jeff: The fact that God hates evil and will ultimatley defeat it does not imply that He is doing everything possible to minimize it. For obviously, the best way to minimize evil is to stop the world now. But alas, He doesn't. This seems like simple logic to me, bro. Am I missing something?
Tom: Yes. You don't at all grasp my view. And this after all we've discussed! Let me try again. When I say God does all God can to prevent evil and where he cannot prevent it, he does all he can to minimize it, I do not mean that God flexes all his metaphysical muscle. Obviously God has the muscle to speak the universe out of existence and with it all evil. God has the power, pure and simple power, unqualified exercise of power, to do this. In saying God does all God can to prevent evil, I do not mean God exercices power without respect to his purposes and endowements to creation. If that were the case, evil would be prevented. But were THAT the case, so would love be prevented. In a world purposed for personal, morally responsible, loving relationships, God cannot (so far as I can see) exercise unqualified and unrestricted power. His purposes limit the exercise of his power.
So in saying God does all God can do to prevent or minimize evil, I mean that God does all God can do given the limitations God sovereignly put in place for himself and us in light of his overall purposes for creating us in the first place. That includes, among other things, God's NOT wipping evil people off the face of the earth when they exercise their free will in ways God does not wish. For that would amount to God's not in fact granting free will in the first place. But it does include God's doing all God can to influence and convince and otherwise steer people away from making evil choices (given the limitations God sovereignly put in place for himself and us in light of his overall purposes for creating us in the first place). The exercise of God's power is constrained by HIS purposes and whatever other creational factors HE sovereigly put in place and which HE honors (because he's faithful to his purposes and plans for creation). So, Jeff, that God does not exercise all the power he can exercise irrespective of his commitments and purposes doesn't at all mean God doesn't do all God can to prevent and minimize evil.
Hope that's clearer.
Jeff: If you reply that God is holding out for the few that will become elect, then you have conceded that God having more elect trumps His interest in minimizing evil in this world. Which simply proves my contention - that there are other concerns which are paramount to God. Absolutely minimizing evil in this world is seemingly NOT paramount to God.
Tom: I never said it was paramount to God. I just said I thought it was true. God can be thought of as consistently doing something without that something being absolutely paramount to God. I'm sure only God is absolutely paramoun to God. I'm sure God's glory is paramount as well. But all of this begs the question, Jeff: What glorifies God? Does evil glorify God? Do you need a list of theologians to answer that for you? Does doing LESS than God can do given the limitations God sovereignly put in place for himself and us in light of his overall purposes for creating us in the first place glorify God?
quote:
Tom: I think the idea that God is anti-evil, that God works against evil—to prevent it, and where he can’t prevent it, to minimize its effects—is the one thing about God that struck me when I first read the Bible.
Jeff: If it's so clear, then quote all the theologians for me? Why not address the other 6 objections I provided in my list? Why not explain the passage in Genesis I brought up?
Gee, I thought I'd just start with what I imagined was fundamental and then move on. I'll try to look at the other points you made, Jeff. Didn't know I had to get to 'em all in one post. The capital punishment thing is interesting. I don't mind getting around to it. I guess I take a different approach. I try to establish in broad terms what the gist of Scripture is regarding God's goodness, holiness, and love with respect to evil and sin. From THERE I try to account for seeming oddities like capital punishment after the Flood. That seems more likely to be a successful approach than biting one's teeth into a particular (and admittedly obscure, for the moment) passage about capital punishment and the Flood and recalibrating the broader picture to fit what I think the passage means. About theologicans, well, I'm honestly surprised you want quotes from theologians to establish God's feelings about evil, his intractable and constitutional opposition to it. Again, are you in doubt about this?
Jeff: You assume that judging the world for it's evil is not sufficient to prove that God is "opposed to evil."
Tom: Well, I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but now that you mention it, yeah. That's not too far off my understanding. But we're talking about contingent evil, or at best, evil that's in the making, not actual evil that's already manifested itself (in spite of whatever God may or may not have done to prevent it). Sure, God will judge the actual evil. But he doesn't judge contingent evil, and it's contingent evil we're talking about because it's only contingent evil, including evil that's on its way to being manifested, that God can do anything to prevent.
But yeah, I'd say a God whose ONLY response to foreknown evil is to watch it happen, or do LESS than all he can given the rules of engagement he established to prevent it, and then judge it, cannot be conceived of as maximally and supremely opposed to evil (which I take God to be) as a God who does ALL he can given the rules of engagement he established to prevent it. A God who does less than he could wouldn't be completely complacent either, though you think that's what I'm saying. Not at all. After all, God ends up judging evil, right? So he does SOMETHING about it.
Now, Jeff, do YOU think God's being able to do x, y, and z to prevent evil E, but choosing only to do z to prevent E, and then to judge the evildoers when it's all done is AS sufficent to establish the sort of holy opposition to evil you imagined made it impossible for God to even contemplate posssible evils as that which is reflected by a God who unfailingly does x, y, and z to prevent E, where his purposes and all the factors that define his relationship to the world permit it? I don't. And you've given me no reason to exchange the latter for the former.
Jeff: And that if God does not absolutely mathematically minimize evil, then God is not working against evil. That is simply not logical.
Tom: How is it not logical? Well, sure, a person who CAN (given all the factors involved) do x, y, and z to prevent evil but who does only z IS opposing evil. Such a person is doing SOMETHING to prevent evil, just not all she can do (given all the relevant factors). So I wouldn't say that if (given all the relevant creational factors and God's purposes for creating us) God could do x, y, and z to prevent evil E but chose only to do z that God "is not working against evil." I just wouldn't imagine such a God is AS opposed to evil as a God who does x, y, AND z to prevent evil E. Wouldn't you say so? Why would you want to think of God as less opposed to evil than you admit he's capable of being in light of his purposes? That's all I'm claiming.
quote:
Tom: How did you conclude God's holiness is compromised by merely foreknowing all possible future evils if your understanding of that holiness was consistent with God's sometimes being cool with evil (i.e., not wanting to prevent or minimize it)?
Jeff: All or nothing, again. Then explain the Genesis passage about capital punishment and the list I provided.
All or nothing? All I did was ask a question. You did feel God's holiness would be compromised if he foreknow all contingent evils. That's an extreeeeemly high view of divine holiness. God is TOO holy, too opposed to evil, dislikes it TOO much for us to imagine him foreknowing all contingent evils so long as they're contingent (however long that is). Now, I think I know where you're heading with capital punishment, and I'm happy to get there eventually, but more important to me is why you'd consider an interpretation of Genesis 6 that so blantantly flies in the face of your earlier commitment to a sort of holiness that could not tolerate the mere foreknowledge of contingent sins. It's your view, Jeff. I'm not saying there's no issue to discuss in Genesis 6. I'm just arguing that from a broad reading of Scripture, based on what's not as obscure as Gen. 6, I prefer to take certain commitments about God's goodness and opposition to evil with me as I consider what Gen. 6 might mean.
Jeff: I'm interested in preventing evil, but do not minimize it. What's the contradiction?
Tom: No 'contradiction', but there is a greater opposition to evil conceivable. Why would you want to conceive of God's opposition and stance towards evil to be on a par with ours in that God, like us, often does less than he can to oppose evil? Please, keep in mind all along that for me this claim is in the context of sovereignly chosen purposes that limit the exercise of God's power to doing what he can to oppose evil in light of his purposes for creating.
Jeff: Does the fact that YOU do not minimize evil prove you have no interest in preventing evil?
Tom: Not the fact that I "don't minimize evil," but the fact that I "don't do what I can to minimize evil." And no, when I do less than I can to minimize evil, it doesn't mean I don't oppose evil at all. But surely it means I oppose it LESS than were I to have done all I can to minimize it.
Jeff: I've said before many times that I think God may have other purposes that preclude the possibility of Him mathematically minimizing evil.
Tom: Hmmm. Can you offer an example? Now, if you read the "Carlie" thread, I argued that God actually switches the tracks to direct it over one girl scout tied on the tracks instead of letting it run over nine other scouts tied on another track if that's the last chain in a link of events taken by people and God in an effort to prevent the train altogether. But I also argue that when God does this, it IS minimizing evil. This IS God doing all God can given the factors involved to prevent and/or minimize evil. My hunch is that whatever sort of example you might give, God's doing what God does in that situation IS God doing all God can to minimize evil given all the factors involved in a fallen conflicted world and God's commitment to his purposes for creating us in the first place.
Jeff: ...because your abuse of logic is beyond me. Being against evil does not EQUATE to minimizing it.
Tom: I haven't claimed this. It dosen't equate with some levels of opposition to evil. Certainly the level of opposition WE evidence towards evil most of the time is less than it ought and can be. But I wouldn't on this account say we aren't against evil at all. I haven't claimed that. But I imagine God's attitude and opposition toward evil to be light years above our own. I wouldn't dream of imagining that since WE tolerate doing less than we can to oppose evil that it's a good idea to suppose God does less than he can to oppose it. There are levels of oppostion, Jeff.
Jeff: For by that view, YOU, yourself, are not against evil, for you do not minimize it.
Tom: Again it's not whether or not it's minimized in actuality. It's whether I do all I can to oppose evil. Whether or not evil is in fact prevented and/or minimized depends on wills other than God's and my own. The question is, do I do all I can do. Now, if I do SOME of ALL I'm able to do to oppose evil, then I'm against evil. I'm just not AS against it as I COULD be. So I hope you'll not accuse me of abusing logic. It's not good reasoning either to suppose that where I'm able (given all the factors involved) to do x, y, and z to prevent evil E but choose only to do z that I oppose evil as much as were I to have done all I could (x, y, and z) to oppose evil.
quote:
Tom: So, complete knowledge of contingent evils is not required only by the view that God works to minimize all evil. It’s also required to make sense of the belief that God works to prevent and/or minimize some evil.
Jeff: Then WE cannot work "to prevent and/or minimize SOME evil" - for by your view we would have to have "COMPLETE knowledge of contingent evils" to do so. This is just too extreme, Tom. Surely you mis-worded that.
Ooops. Yeah, I misworded that puppy. Let's try again! What I meant to say was IF God chooses, among all the contingent evils, which he is to prevent and which not to prevent in some providential manner with respect to his purposes for the world, THEN he'd have to foreknow them all, wouldn't he? Yes he would. You've got to know x to relate x to your purposes in a providential manner. But if God is content to just deal providentially with those contingent evils he happens to foreknow and not worry about whether or not the contingent evils he's ignorant off might play a crucial role in his purposes, then sure, God would NOT have to foreknow all contingent evils. It goes back to that looooong discussion we had about your claim that God chooses which contingent evils to know and which not to know and when to know and not to know them.
Lastly, you repeatedly referred to "mathematically" minimizing evil. I wouldn't choose that word to express my view. Not sure what it even means. It doesn't boil down to numbers, though, if that's what you're suggesting, though many accused me of this back on the "Carlie" thread. This is where I'm satisfied to conclude a general rule and trust the details to God. That's not illogical. The general principle is: God hates evil. God is constitutionally (for lack of a better word) opposed to evil. Nobody opposed it like God does, as much as God does, as faithfully as God does. God wants it out of his world and destroyed. Yes, he created a world that entails his having to acheive that eschatologically, and we do live in a fallen and conflicted world where the good of the one and the good of the whole are not always equally maximizable. I trust that in such situations God's going to do all he can, given his purposes for the world and every individual together, given the rules of engagement for a world purposed for love and endowed with libertarian free will, what moves the world closer to him, leaves it more full of him, and less impacted and infected by evil. I can't imagine God doing LESS than all he can do to secure the fulfillment of his purposes. Yes, in a fallen and conflicted world, that sometimes means making compatibilistic use of sinful situations the best he can--when he can. My claim is, this doesn't mean God has NOT done all God can do given these factors to prevent and minimize evil in the world. On the contrary, it means he IS doing all he can.
Nite nite.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/7/2004 5:15 PM (GMT -6) | | Spen: If God wanted to minimize evil as a top prioriy, then Adam and Eve would have been dust again before the birth of Cain and Able.
Jeff: Well, if Tom is fair in his condescensions, you're about to get it, bro!
Tom: I don't claim that preventing and minimizing evil is an unqualified, absolute top priority with God. And I've made this clear many times. Thanks for so consistently ignoring what I so consistently hammer on. If the exercise of God's power was unrestricted by creational factors and purposes sovereignly set in place by God, then I suppose Adam and Eve would have been dust. But God's purposes for them (and us) precluded THAT exercise of divine power. So obviously----------and the line of dashes encircles the earth----------the "all" that God is able and committed to do is always and in every instance determined by his own purposes for creation.
Hope I was fair in my condescending.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 12/8/2004 1:32 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by TGB
Spen: If God wanted to minimize evil as a top prioriy, then Adam and Eve would have been dust again before the birth of Cain and Able.
Jeff: Well, if Tom is fair in his condescensions, you're about to get it, bro!
Tom: I don't claim that preventing and minimizing evil is an unqualified, absolute top priority with God. And I've made this clear many times. Thanks for so consistently ignoring what I so consistently hammer on. If the exercise of God's power was unrestricted by creational factors and purposes sovereignly set in place by God, then I suppose Adam and Eve would have been dust. But God's purposes for them (and us) precluded THAT exercise of divine power. So obviously----------and the line of dashes encircles the earth----------the "all" that God is able and committed to do is always and in every instance determined by his own purposes for creation.
Hope I was fair in my condescending.
Tom
Tom,
I think that you were quite fair in stating your position. We both believe that God's desire to minimize (and ultimately completely eliminate) evil is qualified. We simply disagree on the mechansim/WHY of the qualification. I don't feel condescended to, I just feel that your argument is weaker. I think that you are proposing a concept that "has the possibility " of existing but one that isn't described in scriptures. Since God "can" do anything, He could create a system like you are descibing. I simply think that scriptures indicate that He hasn't. You sincerely believe that scriptures indicate that He has and you see the world and live according to this perspective. In as much as we believe in the centrality of the gospel and our redemption ONLY through the work of Christ, it seems secondary.
I know it is a priority for you and I wish I could help more, but the issues you are chasing are too complicated and costly to be up on enough to be cogent. I read your post regarding the like minded site and feel your frustration. I pray that God will lead you to His truth through His scriptures and grant you a love for the truth stronger than any other lusts to keep you from fatal error. God bless you, sorry I am not more help.
Spen Lake
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/8/2004 1:54 AM (GMT -6) | | Spen: We both believe that God's desire to minimize (and ultimately completely eliminate) evil is qualified. We simply disagree on the mechansim/WHY of the qualification.
Tom: Yes, I suppose that's the case.
Spen: I don't feel condescended to, I just feel that your argument is weaker. I think that you are proposing a concept that "has the possibility " of existing but one that isn't described in scriptures. Since God "can" do anything, He could create a system like you are descibing.
Tom: Thanks Spen. That's the most I've heard conceded from a non-determinist--Calvinist or otherwise. I wish others could take at least that step.
Spen: I simply think that scriptures indicate that He hasn't. You sincerely believe that scriptures indicate that He has and you see the world and live according to this perspective. In as much as we believe in the centrality of the gospel and our redemption ONLY through the work of Christ, it seems secondary.
Tom: The feeling is mutual Spen. I appreciate your maturity.
Blessings Spen,
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 12/8/2004 8:28 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by lock
Tom and Spen-
If you believe that God is doing all He can do or that He desires to minimize evil in the world, do you feel that the world is becoming less or more evil as the years pass? And how does this affect your interpretation of the end times described by Jesus to His disciples in Matthew 24 and what was revealed to John in Revelations and the deception Paul spoke of that already was present nearly 2000 years ago when he wrote his epistles?
I think that the world was always evil since the fall. it used to be "good" and then it fell to its evil corrupted state. The manifestation of evil through evil actions varies in time with the amount of restraint that exists. To a large extent, the sword of God weilded by the civil authorities has minimized what would have otherwise been more evil. There is a time coming that the restraint of God will be entirely lifted and we will have unparalleled evil that we have yet to experience. This is spoken of in 2 Thess 2,
Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.
I see a time when evil will be manifest in an unprecidented way. I don not know what form it will take exactly, but I think that it will be supported with supernatural signs and will lead away from the gospel to one claiming to be anointed of God and coming in the name of Jesus. Anyways, this is what I think that scriptures tell us.
Spen Lake
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/8/2004 3:07 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
So in saying God does all God can do to prevent or minimize evil, I mean that God does all God can do given the limitations God sovereignly put in place for himself and us in light of his overall purposes for creating us in the first place. That includes, among other things, God's NOT wipping evil people off the face of the earth when they exercise their free will in ways God does not wish. For that would amount to God's not in fact granting free will in the first place. But it does include God's doing all God can to influence and convince and otherwise steer people away from making evil choices (given the limitations God sovereignly put in place for himself and us in light of his overall purposes for creating us in the first place). The exercise of God's power is constrained by HIS purposes and whatever other creational factors HE sovereigly put in place and which HE honors (because he's faithful to his purposes and plans for creation). So, Jeff, that God does not exercise all the power he can exercise irrespective of his commitments and purposes doesn't at all mean God doesn't do all God can to prevent and minimize evil.
I absolutely agree with what you're saying (I think!). But I can't help but wonder how we are to look at scripture. Are we to take a generalized view of God's providence and then compel scripture to fit that view? Or are we to allow the possibility that God may have plans which may be inconsistent with our more generalized view of providence, and that scripture can give us information in that regard? Take the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah for example. Christ said that they would have repented had they seen His signs. And yet God destroyed them without offering those signs. We are told elsewhere, however, that their destruction is an example. So, we could say that maybe God preferred to destroy them when He could have led them to repentance, because God deemed the example of their destruction as more important towards lessening evil OR His glory OR both. In any case, it makes it so hard to know why God does what He does, that it's hard to get a handle on second guessing what God would do to minimize evil.
That's why I think it is safer to let the Genesis passage have it's most intuitive meaning and work out it's implications for minimizing evil - not the other way around. You argued for another forum category for debating the implications of OV, and that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to see where other OV'ers stand hermeneutically, and what implications that has for their views.
But I also want to know where they stand philosophically. For such will influence their exegesis and all else. In my original post, I said,
How can we be sure that God would not have to know what will ACTUALLY take place in the future to know how to minimize evil? Might future choices actually affect the extent to which previous providential acts are effective?
In my list, I put the following to the same effect:
1) How can we know that God knows that the future, unknown choices won't significantly undermine or controvert His success at minimizing evil/suffering? In which case, why would God bother, since He doesn't have enough information to know how to minimize suffering?
This is a philosophical rather than biblical consideration. And to me, it is a legitimate question. So given that, I would say if 1) is not a show stopper for God's ability to providentially minimize evil, AND His purposes are not constrainingly preventive of such providence, then God minimizes evil to the extent that He can. So I'm asking other OV'ers to provide me evidence that 1) is false, and what their take is on the Genesis passage about capital punishment, and so forth. In other words, I'm hoping someone out there can help me think through this stuff.
In the end, though, our belief that God minimizes evil to the extent that He can is simply implied in God being benevolent (as you have argued, yourself). I'm just trying to get a better thought-out idea of what "to the extent that He can" means. If 1) is a show-stopper for the role of providential fore-knowledge, it becomes a moot point.
wjs | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/8/2004 3:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: I absolutely agree with what you're saying (I think!).
Tom: Euphoria! Wow.
Gotta run for now. More later. Just two comments though:
(1) Jeff: ...it's hard to get a handle on second guessing what God would do to minimize evil.
Tom: We don't have to second guess what God would do to minimize evil in any given situation. There's no way we could. There are too many variables interfacing. It's enough (for me at least) to knoe THAT God does this, that he is the kind of God who opposes evil whenever he gets a chance (again, given his purposes and self-limiting commitments). On the specifics of what this involves precisly for God on any given situation, we just have to trust. Why worry about what that looks like for God? But if we know what it looks like for US, and DO what we can to oppose evil, promote good, and love as he loves, then as Keith Green sang, "He'll take care of the rest!"
(2) Jeff: You argued for another forum category for debating the implications of OV, and that's what I'm doing.
Tom: I'm more inclined now to argue for another discussion board altogether, either transforming this one into something very different from what it is, or just starting over new somewhere else. I think that's easier than trying to accommodate two different things on one site. That's just my feeling, but it's where I am.
Gotto go pick up my girl from work!
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/8/2004 4:29 PM (GMT -6) | | [quote]Originally posted by TGB
I think that's easier than trying to accommodate two different things on one site. That's just my feeling, but it's where I am.[/quote]
Quicky: Name or sketch the "two different things," and if generous, compare and contrast.
Thanks.
POW | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/8/2004 5:05 PM (GMT -6) | | One would be to provide a site open to whomever for debate of whatever, in which case open theists and determinists will continue to go round and round ad nauseum. The other would be to provide a site where open theists can explore the implications and debate issues specifically related to hammering that worldview out without having to defend themselves right and left. I know we think it ought to be easy to have both on one site. I'm not so sure anymore. It's just too easy, and it has happened too often, for conversations to get sidetracked into defending what the topic assumes (with respect to the open view I mean).
I think it would be wrong if any one group of people who shared a view did not regularly engage people of another view. That's not what I'm advocating. I don't believe in isolationism. Still, it's good for people who do share a fundamental view to get together and discuss it. Open theists DON'T have such a forum at all, period. That's what I'm interested in.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 11:03 AM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|