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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > The raging debate continues here... > Is there a flaw in this? How can it best be presented? Professional open theists to the rescue! | Forum Quick Jump
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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 9/10/2008 10:52 PM (GMT -6) |   | A friend and I had what I consider a major breakthrough in how to present some aspects of open theism to proponents of foreknowledge.
Another friend of ours (an Arminian proponent of foreknowledge) has had several discussions with us about open theism, but he never saw what we were driving at. What was the sticking point? Why couldn't he see that foreknowledge and free will were incompatible?
In our latest discussion, he finally got it! He's pondering it, but he understood what we were saying.
We didn't start the discussion with the new idea, we stumbled across a way of explaining that addressed what his issues were; so this may not be of help to every proponent of foreknowledge, but evidently it is to some.
His sticking point was that he thought we were somehow positing that the way in which foreknowledge and free will were incompatible was that foreknowledge in some way became the causal factor in whatever choice was actualized by a person. A person has a number of choices (or at least that is what appears to him) and foreknowledge somehow replaced the individual as the causal factor in actualizing the choice (the only actualizable choice if foreknowledge is true) that was made.
He understood us to be saying that foreknowledge replaced the individual as the causal agent in some mysterious fashion. Here is what we did to untangle this.
First, by stating that foreknowledge was not a causal agent. Secondly, by stating that what foreknowledge did (if it was true) was that it acted as verification at any given nexus of choice that there was only one possibility that could ever be actualized. With that being the case, the illusion of compatibilistic choice and possibilities melts away. There is one and only one of those possible choices that could ever be actualized. Even as a current proponent of combatibilism, our friend no longer felt that he had free will, given that there was only one REAL choice. This all really threw him for a loop, and he has not had time to digest yet, so I will keep you posted on his responses.
Keeping free will and foreknowledge compartmentalized kept him from seeing what we were saying. Our solution forced free will and foreknowledge into the same time and space, thus showing the incompatibility.
What think ye? Have we made some logical fallacy? If not, could it be done better?
Rob | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/11/2008 9:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Right. I've argued this with traditional Arminians for several years now too. So far they all just plow ahead as if I've said nothing. It's like they can't see that what I'm arguing isn't what they've been arguing against. Yada yada yada. Greg even argued this very point in print with Bill Craig. He still came back with the same mantra "Foreknowledge isn't causal!" Of course knowledge isn't causal, Greg agreed. But that doesn't show that foreknowledge and LFW are compatible.
As Alan said, it's not foreknowledge that's the problem. Its' foretruth that's the problem.
T | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 9/11/2008 2:48 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi guys. Your strategy is an interesting and plausible one, Asher.
Jonathan Edwards pointed out a long time ago that exhaustive, infallible foreknowledge is possible ONLY IF our choices are causally determined, regardless of what does the determining.
There are essentially only three routes for a traditional Arminian to take: (1) Boethianism (timeless knowledge), (2) Ockhamism (simple foreknowledge), and (3) Molinism.
(1) Boethianism tacitly concedes that infallible foreknowledge is incompatible with future contingency by giving up "fore"-knowledge. Instead, God timelessly knows what we think of as "future" because he "sees" it from his timeless vantage point. One major problem with this view is that timeless knowledge, like simple foreknowledge, is providentially useless.
(2) Ockhamism is a strategy for reconciling "foretruth" with future contingency, but even if it works in that context, there are serious reasons for doubting that it can reconcile infallible foreknowledge with future contingency, for God's past beliefs seem to be "hard facts", not "soft facts" as Ockhamism requires. Further, as with (1), any foreknowledge God could have in this way would be providentially useless.
(3) Initially, Molinism seems to solve the immediate problem of reconciling infallible foreknowledge and future contingency, and to do so in a way that is not providentially inert, like (1) and (2). But appearances are deceiving. Molinism doesn't solve the problem at all. Rather, it tacitly assumes that infallible foreknowledge and future contingency are compatible in supposing that the requisite "counterfactuals of creaturely freedom" are prevolitionally available to God.
Summing up, traditional Arminians have no good solutions. Even IF they work, (1) and (2) offer no more providential control to God than open theism does. And (3) is just a complicated smoke-and-mirrors scheme that doesn't address the problem at all. | | Back to Top | | |
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