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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > The raging debate continues here... > Temporal mechanics the classical view | Forum Quick Jump
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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 6/4/2011 7:07 AM (GMT -6) |   | Thumbnail:
God resides in an eternal timeless state.
Creation is a bubble of time.
In which, God has access to all points along the spectrum. In other words, what for me from my limited perspective is a sliced up time continuum that includes points I refer to as THE PAST, the point I call THE PRESENT, and points that I refer to as THE FUTURE...for God it's all one picture. Part of that picture is knowing that from my perspective there is this PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE.
And I can be said to have free will...even though God knows exactly what I'm going to do down to exacting detail.
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It has been pointed out in so many ways the problems inherent in this picture...like 1) how does a timeless state interact with a time state? 2) How is there even any action in a timeless state? 3) Is the creation/time bubble as a whole itself eternal? If not there is definite before and after (i.e. time) in the eternal timeless state. 4) Elaborate discussions of causal mechanics have been hoisted against the classic view without piercing the understanding of classicists. So on...and so on...
....well, here's another argument I think might be of help. It's simple to understand once the key is turned...
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Time T1 is the beginning. Time T2 is (for us) 1000 years ago. Time T3 is (for us) 500 years ago. Time T4 is our present. Time T5 is 500 years into our future. Time T6 is 1000 years into our future.
Everyone agrees that the PAST does not NOW have any causal efficacy on the PRESENT. Any causal efficacy from the PAST is already structurally inherent within the PRESENT, but no event in the PAST can NOW change the PRESENT from being what it is already.
Once you agree with that, you have given up the classic view...because...part of the problem the classic view has, and part of the problem open theists have had in discussing these things with classicists...is that we have privileged our own perspective.
We all talk about the PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE as if they are what they are FROM OUR PERSPECTIVE. Now, let's widen the perspective.
My perspective: T1, T2, T3 are all the PAST...T4 is the PRESENT...T5,T6 are both the FUTURE.
If all points in the time spectrum are existent to God (they are all happening right now for God), there is someone at my Time T3, let's call him Reginald...for Reginald, my T3 is his T4 and my T4 is his T5. Also, there is someone at my Time T5, let's call him Renaldo...for Renaldo my T4 is his T3 and my T5 is his T4.
If the PAST no longer has any causal efficacy NOW in the PRESENT. My PRESENT, which is Renaldo's PAST cannot change anything about Renaldo's PRESENT. The PRESENT (anybody's PRESENT) is secure from PRESENT influence from the PAST (anybody's PAST). That means that I cannot do anything to influence the FUTURE, because I am ALREADY the FUTURE's PAST.
The classic view is incoherent. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 6/4/2011 7:46 AM (GMT -6) | | | Asher: and part of the problem open theists have had in discussing these things with classicists...is that we have privileged our own perspective.
Jeff: But our perspective is the only one we have. We can't think in terms of anything but our own categories. And since one of our categories is the law of identity which implies we can distinguish--which in turn grounds the LNC--we can't make intelligible sense of counter-categorical perspectives even if they exist somewhere in correspondence with the true reality. We can posit the possibility of supra-categorical truths, but we still can't know them to think in terms of them. So we either infer that our own perspective truly is privileged and embrace the categorically-intelligible corollary thereof (that we are designed by a competent, benevolent Designer to apprehend in some sense) or we have nothing meaningful to say.
IOW, open theists are seemingly right if indeed we can say anthing meaningful in the human sense we are all concerned with here. People who embrace skepticism about the capacity for HUMAN knowledge that grounds the intelligibility and plausibility of human normativity and norms can't play a role in a HUMANLY meaningful discusssion.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 6/4/2011 7:54:37 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 6/4/2011 8:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff, dude, maybe we operate in very different ways, and I use some techniques that you seemingly don't understand...cause sometimes when I say something, you either understand it in an exactly opposite way, or you relate to it at a radical tangent that misses the point of what I have ACTUALLY said. Look at your current post:
Jeff: But our perspective is the only one we have.
Yes, LNC, etc is the only perspective all humans have...in that we are totally agreed, I don't know why you don't get that.
But we each have a subjective perspective...that we are capable of transcending...enabling us to see things from the perspective (still grounded in logic and LNC) of other people...whether they are here present with us or whether they are 500 years in the past, or 500 years in the future (IF such temporal places exist...obviously I (as an open theist) don't believe they do exist...but classicists DO believe they exist...and I am speaking to their perspective...in other words, I am saying, IF A is true, then B is also true...you don't believe B is true, so you shouldn't believe A is true.
Jeff: We can't think in terms of anything but our own categories
Yep, never said otherwise.
Jeff: And since one of our categories is the law of identity which implies we can distinguish--which in turn grounds the LNC--we can't make intelligible sense of counter-categorical perspectives even if they exist somewhere in correspondence with the true reality.
If that is a fancy way of saying that it's impossible to understand the example I gave...then you are just wrong. If you have totally missed the point and are speaking against something you think I said, that I didn't say...then let me help you out...that's not what I said...I am not challenging the LNC, I am not trying to make sense from a counter-categorical perspective.
Jeff: We can posit the possibility of supra-categorical truths, but we still can't know them to think in terms of them. So we either infer that our own perspective truly is privileged and embrace the categorically-intelligible corollary thereof (that we are designed by a competent, benevolent Designer to apprehend in some sense) or we have nothing meaningful to say.
I don't disagree with anything you said there...maybe that's too complex...let me take out the double negative...I agree with everything you said here.
Jeff: IOW, open theists are seemingly right if indeed we can say anthing meaningful in the human sense we are all concerned with here. People who embrace skepticism about the capacity for HUMAN knowledge that grounds the intelligibility and plausibility of human normativity and norms can't play a role in a HUMANLY meaningful discusssion.
No embracing of skepticism is going on in this thread, maybe you should just re-read it. | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 6/4/2011 8:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: I'm saying that people who passionately resist open theism are not people who are trying to think soundly. They're people who are trying to justify a position they don't won't to let go of. Arguments are of no avail with THOSE people.
1) I'm saying that people who passionately resist open theism are not people who are trying to think soundly.
2) They're people who are trying to justify a position they don't won't to let go of.
3) Arguments are of no avail with THOSE people.
I agree with 2, but not with 1 and 3
Because 2 is true, both 1 and 3 become more difficult for THOSE people, but I do think they are TRYING TO THINK soundly and I do think that arguments can avail with them. Not easily, by no means do I think it an easy task.
Not one person alive is 100% logically consistent. Not me, not you. I strive to be. And I know that for some people being logically consistent is not even important to them, they don't have any problem holding mutually exclusive positions. I don't think most classical view holders are post-modernists who deny logic. I do think they are tangled. I was once tangled myself. I held their view. All the while I was TRYING to think soundly. And arguments finally won me over. Granted I was an easier case than most. I already had a splinter in the mind. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 6/4/2011 8:54 AM (GMT -6) | | When I see these kinds of debates or ones between others I know, I ask the parties what is at stake if you're wrong? If both positios are at least coherent and there is nothing else at stake, parsimony alone ought to apply. What else is there? I think Craig thinks there's something at stake. But I'm not sure what he thinks that is.
What little resistance I had to open theism was precisely because I feared something was at stake. I feared I might be depriving God of the awe that a particular attribute He had should rightly inspire in people. But I later realized that I can't make any sense of God acting off of absolute foreknowledge to any significant degree anyway. It seems perfectly clear that God allows a great deal to play out FREELY--even when it causes Him suffering. So what would it have gained Him or me for Him to have known it all ahead of time? If anything, it deprives Him of the pleasure of novelty. Later I realized the absolute omniscience view can't even be coherently understood when thought through.
But once there is nothing clearly at stake for a coherent view being wrong, parsimony is all that is left as an objective intellectual criteria by which to judge. So I usually want to know what people see is at stake more than what their supposed "reasons" for believing a thing is. Because something is motivating us for advocating a position. That needs to be understood so it can be addressed head on.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 6/4/2011 9:17:14 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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