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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 516
| Posted 6/28/2001 5:31 PM (GMT -6) |   |
Wislawa
06/12/01 9:09 AM
Q's about omniscience????????????????
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Question about omniscience:
If we define omniscience as knowing all that is logically able to be known…
Does this mean knowing all that IS?
Could something exist which is logically unable to be known?
Restated: could something that is logically possible to exist be logically impossible to be known?
Restated again: is there complete correlation between what is ontologically possible and what is epistemologically necessarily known by an omniscient being?
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
unworthy
06/12/01 10:44 AM
RE: Q's about omniscience? + for MEMPHI
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Wislawa,
I will add to this in a different way, mostly for Memphi as a follow-up to the discussion on Logic and the Open Future. Others answer are welcome, too.
1.) Do you as a theological determinist believe in truths (facts) regarding the future?
2.) How do you define omniscience?
a.) What doesn't it include?
b.) Does it include facts (events, actions, etc.) in "eternity" (using the term loosely since God doesn't really exist outside of time)?
3.) How do you define divine sovereignty?
a.) To what extent does God's sovereignty extend? What does God actually exhibit control over?
b.) In what way does God maintain this control?
b.) What does God not exhibit control over?
One other request: Please try to be succinct, instead of long winded. These 2+ page explanations make it hard to have a discussion. They seem most often to simply be an excessive and unnecessary test of the reader's endurance....perhaps in the hopes that many words will confound readers into agreement, or they will agree just out of sheer mental and physical exhaustion from the length of one's argument? Thanks.
Sincerely,
Unworthy
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
unworthy
06/12/01 7:11 PM
RE: RE: Q's about omniscience? + for MEMPHI
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Memph, et al, please forgive the tongue-in-cheak part at the end. I forgot about the eyes that are easily offended. Apologies.
-Unworthy
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Mephi2K
06/12/01 9:03 PM
Response To Unworthy
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Dear Unworthy,
Hey, there. I'm not thin-skinned, my friend. So, believe me, there's no problem with being tongue-in-cheek. Actually, I appreciate what you've said. Actually, I often forget the very small attention span and lack of reading comprehension of a sizable portion of the contemporary readers in our decadent, rushed society. For many, the capacity for deep contemplation and tolerance for comprehensive depth seems to have died with the dodo, while the number of "thinkers" with something to say has skyrocketed. I often mourn the situation, honestly. Ah, well. C'est la vie. This is not to say that you fit in this category, but I'm sure that there are some readers other than yourself who do. Thanks for reminding me of a significant portion of my audience...and their ever-important needs. So, there's no offense taken. Likewise, I'm sure.
Moving on...
1.) Do you as a theological determinist believe in truths (facts) regarding the future? Yes.
2.) How do you define omniscience? The state of knowing all things that can be known, and doing so exhaustively.
a.) What doesn't it include? Nothing that, by its nature, cannot be known exhaustively as a reality. Like the logically absurd.
b.) Does it include facts (events, actions, etc.) in "eternity" (using the term loosely since God doesn't really exist outside of time)?
If you mean "eternal" conceptions by God, then yes.
3.) How do you define divine sovereignty? I suppose having the ability to influence all things.
a.) To what extent does God's sovereignty extend? What does God actually exhibit control over? It extends over all things. Both questions.
b.) In what way does God maintain this control? By his will and very nature.
b.) What does God not exhibit control over? Nothing.
Hmmm...I think that I ought to take your advice, Unworthy. Succinct answers ARE a LOT easier on my hands. Pretty tight.
Always Open To Change,
Meph
PS: For anyone who continues to mispronounce my name. It's not "Memphi" as in "Memphis, Tennessee" It is "Mephi" (mef'-ee) as in "Mephistopheles" Just figured I'd do that while I was responding. Thanks.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Mephi2K
06/12/01 10:30 PM
Completely Extraneous
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Extraneous stuff. Newsweek Article.
"Time to Do Everything Except Think" by David Brooks
Check it out. It's mainly talknig about business people, but the intent approaches a much wider audience. I thought he was right on.
Meph
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
ghost-dog-girl
06/13/01 3:14 PM
Thinker’s Anonymous
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It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to another, and soon i was more than just a social thinker.
I began to think alone—“to relax,” I told myself—but I knew it wasn’t true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, “What is it exactly we are doing here?”
Things weren’t going so great at home either. one evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother’s.
I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One say the boss called me in. He said, “Skippy, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don’t stop thinking on the job, you’ll have to find another job.” This gave me a lot to think about.
I came home early after my conversation with the boss. “Honey,” I confessed, “I’ve been thinking…”
“I know you’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I want a divorce!”
“But honey, surely it’s not that serious.” “It is serious,” she said, lower lip aquiver. “You think as much as college professors, and college professors don’t make any money, so ig you keep on thinking we won’t have any money!”
“That’s a faulty syllogism,” I said impatiently, and she began to cry.
I’d had enough. “I’m going to the library,” I snarled as I stomped out the door.
I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzche, with a PBS station on the radio. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors…they didn’t open. The library was closed.
To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.
As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. “Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?” it asked. You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker’s Anonymous poster.
Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was “Freddy Got Fingered.” Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.
I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed…easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
Enjoy, GDG
p.s. this was written by a guy named Tom Cherry
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
unworthy
06/13/01 7:16 PM
RE: Response To Unworthy
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Memphi,
Would you answer just a few more questions, so I can understand where you're coming from on these issues, I'd really appreciate it. A couple of these may require a bit more of explanation.
1.) Do you believe that truths about facts regarding future events, actions, etc. preceed those events / actions?
2.) Do you consider thoughts (mental actions) to be among these truths (facts)?
3.) Are you Reformed in your view of determinism or Armenean ("simple" foreknowledge v. theological determinism)?
4.) What distinctions (if any) do you hold exist between theological determinism and predestination?
5.) Do you hold to the tradition concept of impassability, and if not, in what ways do you differ?
Thanks again,
Unworthy
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
trosie
06/13/01 11:00 PM
RE: Thinker’s Anonymous
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GDG:
That was WAY TOO FUNNY! I loved it -- a good laugh is great medicine.
"One day at a time sweet Jesus"
trosie
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Mephi2K
06/17/01 8:35 AM
To Unworthy
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Sorry it's taken long to get back at ya. My bad.
1.) Do you believe that truths about facts regarding future events, actions, etc. preceed those events / actions?
Only in a certain respect. I would say that one's predictive ability can grow to be so on point, that it may as well be "fact", though it hasn't yet happened. Now, because of what we know about chaos theory and quantum theory, we know that this could NEVER be the case for human beings. There would always be an element of probability. However, for GOD, with his infinite intelligent and omniscience (as even open view theists define it) this complexity stuff would not really apply. (UNLESS he purposely set randomizing factors. See the Logic thread) God's knowledge would be such that he could predict every action with 100% accuracy, thus giving Him the ability to know with certainty what will happen. If you want to call this knowledge "truths" or "facts", so be it.
2.) Do you consider thoughts (mental actions) to be among these truths (facts)?
Indeed. As I've stated before, unless you want to posit some sort of autonomous will that acts as a locus of indeterminacy, the mind (which I believe encompasses the will) can lie within theological determinism.
3.) Are you Reformed in your view of determinism or Arminian [sic] ("simple" foreknowledge v. theological determinism)?
Actually, I would say that I'm pretty Reformed in some ways, and not in others. I would hold to a modified version of William Lane Craig's "middle knowledge" I think it works very well...when everything is worked out.
4.) What distinctions (if any) do you hold exist between theological determinism and predestination?
I think that theological determinism and predestination are not necessarily synonomous, but they are inextricably linked. I don't believe that you can have one LOGICALLY without the other.
5.) Do you hold to the tradition concept of impassability, and if not, in what ways do you differ?
Hmmm...now this is an interesting question. I would say that I believe that God is within time. This would be nothing more than another condescension implicit in the creative act. Plus, as open view theists would say, saying that God is temporal does not affect his ETERNALITY. Now does this mean that I think that God changes? Nope. See, whereas relational theologians would want to say that God gets something big from his "experience" of temporal events that had previously only been concepts in His mind, I wouldn't say so. If God's intelligence and knowledge (INCLUDING self-knowledge) is as grandiose as we say, then God would be able to perfectly predict his reactions to any and all potential stimuli. His level of "learning" from experience would be, if any, so infintessimal as to not be significant. Thus I would say that though the God-world relationship in REALITY may change, the God-world relationship that lay within the mind of God, pre-Creation is UNCHANGEABLE. Hopefully, this is clear.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
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