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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 10/23/2010 7:08 PM (GMT -6) |   | A Calvinist acquaintance recently presented this argument by Alexander Pruss of Baylor University.
1. (Premise) If p is overwhelmingly probable on the balance of God's evidence, then God believes p.
2. (Premise) If open theism is true, then some of the propositions that are overwhelmingly probable on the balance
of God's evidence are false.
3. Therefore, if open theism is true, God believes some falsehoods.
4. (Premise) God believes no falsehoods.
5. Therefore, open theism is false.
alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2010/10/open-theism-and-divine-error.html | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/23/2010 10:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Well, there's been a good bit of discussion on this issue (Alan in on most of it too) over at prosblogion. Alex has published (or it's soon to be published) an article covering it, and Alan's already submitted a response (to be published). Alan can clear up the dates and publication info. I think it's all Faith & Philosophy.
But anyhow, Alex I don't think gets what some open theists argue along these lines. I say "some" because not all of us make the same 'semantic' argument on behalf of open theism. But Alex is familiar with our F&P article a few years ago, so I don't know if he's forgotten it, didn't get it then, or just pretends the arguments aren't there. But by way of response, I'd say:
It's not propositions that are probable or improbable. It's states of affairs (or the future occurring of some state of affairs) that may be said to be probable. So when he says p is overwhelminingly probable, he's already framing the argument in terms that ignore basic claims we make. A proposition is, for example, some truth claim, and given bivalence is either true or false. But given bivalence (which we hold to), what can be 'overwhelmingly probable' (objectively speaking) about a truth claim? Nothing that I can see. It's truth value isn't probable, for given bivalence, a prop's truth value is at any point in time determinately either true or false.
This point sends Alex off arguing against something that isn't necessary to open theism. Again, it's future states of affairs (their occuring or not occuring) which are probable or improbable (in terms of liklihood), not the truth value of propositions.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 10/23/2010 10:50:26 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/24/2010 9:38 AM (GMT -6) | | I think this is what some people feel...
If God can believe X to likely occur...if God TRULY BELIEVES with all his omnipresence, omniscience and all that that X will likely occur...and it doesn't...then God is as helpless before the future "twists of fate" as human beings are. Sure, he has the ability to make the most informed decision possible about a situation, but Omniscience itself doesn't preserve God against truly believing something that TURNS OUT not to come to pass. God can fall prey to the heavily improbable possibility...at least in SOME cases.
Supposedly, that makes the open theistic God "hand-wringing" with anxiety.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/24/2010 10:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Similtude:
Are there verses they're alluding to in this regard?
I'll get the one I know well...
The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? And I (the Lord)thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.”
Jeremiah 3:6-10
Just taken at face value, this seems to indicate that God ACTUALLY BELIEVED that Israel would do one thing (return to faithfulness), but Israel ended up doing ANOTHER thing (staying in idolatry)...something God DIDN'T think that would have happened "after she [Israel] has done all this." So, supposedly God assigned a probability of Israel's turning back to him as "more likely to occur"...and REALLY, REALLY BELIEVED THAT...but it didn't turn out to happen.
Personally, it's really hard for me to see God as literally sustaining all things that exist by his DIRECT WORKING (Grace)...and be relatively ignorant of the predictability of fallen human psychology and sociology when it comes to these things.
yeah...
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/24/2010 10:41:19 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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