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aquinas
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 36
| Posted 8/25/2003 2:53 PM (GMT -6) |   | Hey,
I just wanted to make a quick couple of comments. When I say that
God exhaustively knows the future and that man is truly free, I don't mean to imply that I think God has a different kind of logic. I don't believe that God can create square triangles and married bachelors. I would be saying that there is nothing that is inherently contradictory about God knowing the future and man being truly free.
Laika,
I think that your first two questions are problematic. I think your first question about creation and time is a very good question, but it is not unanswerable. To the best of my understanding, it would be meaningless to talk about time before time if God is timeless.
I am not even sure that I understand many of your questions. 'Is Jesus etenally now on the cross, eternally now seperated from his father'?? I think you are making a few category errors.
The fact that Scripture speaks of God in a way that relates something of who He is in more or less "tensed" terms, need not imply that God is in time. I think it to be quite reasonable to understand these verses anthropomorphically.
Man, I need to find some time to read and write more about this
topic. I enjoy talking with you guys. I just need to set aside more time to do it.
If we allow pious feelings to decree what nature should be, we are bound to wrong nature, for how could we find in piety a principle of self-restriction? In theology, as in any other science, the main question is not to be pious, but to be right. For there is nothing pious in being wrong about God! --Etienne Gilson | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/25/2003 6:16 PM (GMT -6) | | First, I have NO idea what this means: PoW, could I request ikebana? Thanx, dood.
Second:
quote:
Originally posted by Laika
Everything that ever happened or will happen occurs instantly to Eternal Now Impersonal God (ENIG). Therefore, all of creation has always existed co-eternal with ENIG. THAT is your problem, aquinas.
If you say there was a state where ENIG was alone, followed by the current state of ENIG with a creation, then you have just created a sequence and have put ENIG into time. That's a state change and it lasts a duration just enough to show the fallacy of ENIG.
Bingo. You are right on THAT one, Laika. The same as Predestination traps God in time.
.
Third, there is a REAL problem with what you said a few posts above, Laika. The center of the problem is what it means to "create ex nihilo." A less-than-biblical view like Aristotle (et al) viewed the cosmos as being created by a god but from pre-existing stuff. The Biblical view of "creation ex nihilo" is the assertion that God creates freely not only what was created but the whole essence of things also emerges BY God's word and will. The essence of things does not follow from the essence of God. (As in "time being the product of" supposed sequence in God's essence. If that were so then creation would merely be "a reshaping of preexistent reality," or the "bestowal of a quality." (Keselopoulos) Creation, for the Fathers, means: "...that all things emerge out of nothing by the creative energy of the word and will fo God."
You had another problem too. You assumed that if God and us were different that we could have nothing to do with each other. I think that denies the Incarnation, and simply puts God in a box. Don't you? Keselopoulos is unafraid: "God and the world are radically distinguished. . .At the same time, however, they are indissolubly connected. God is 'the only maker and Creator of these things.' ... the act of creation is not confined to the emergence of creation from nothingness, but is extended into a binding link which holds together and joins all esistent things and the whole of creation with God."
What is under appreciated in typical discussions of issues like this is God's role, a continuing role even, as CREATOR. When it is considered, it to is put in a box -- the maker "then"...and that is all. But the Creator who is utterly different from us ALSO created us in His image, and joined us to him self in Christ Jesus.
That IS a mystery; but it is not a contradiction.
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/25/2003 6:41 PM (GMT -6) | | RD: Well how do you explain prophecy if not for divine timelessness?
Tom: The question is, How does one explain prophecy on the basis of divine timelessness? Here, I think, is the point:- There is nothing a God who possesses simple-foreknowledge can do that a God who does not possess such foreknowledge cannot also do, including prophesying the future.
Whether or not any other view can satisfactorily explain how prophecy works all the time has nothing to do with the fact that divine timelessness cannot explain even a single instance of prophecy.
The simple-foreknowledge, or timeless knowledge, model affords no providential value whatsoever. If God timelessly knows all of history in the sense argued by advocates of simple-foreknowledge, then he knows his own as well as our choices, and he knows them in one single, timeless sweep. He does not acquire this knowledge in stages; he timelessly possesses it as an attribute. In this case, simple-foreknowledge provides 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.- 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 it to influence outcomes.
For example, let’s say God timelessly knows that Susan will be in a fatal car accident on her 21st birthday. Granted, this knowledge does not cause her death or determine her choice to go driving with her friends. We’re only talking here about whether or not timelessly definite foreknowledge provides God a basis upon which he is able to act providentially. 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 simple-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. Simple-foreknowledge, if it existed, would be useless to God in preventing foreknown evil and other undesired events.
The same thing applies to God’s acting to bring about some event he wishes should happen. Why? Because by the time (forgive the use of time here; I'm talking of course about logical moments, not temporal) God foreknows what will happen, it’s logically too late to make use of this knowledge in order to bring about this event. The foreknown event is already the result of whatever divine influence contributed to bringing it about. It cannot also be the basis of that influence. On the simple-foreknowledge view, everything that God knows he knows timelessly. He doesn’t gain his knowledge of the future in stages. Therefore, if God were to timelessly possess exhaustively definite knowledge of past, present, and future, such knowledge could not provide him a basis upon which to determine how to act in ways not also timelessly foreknown by him. Thus, there is nothing a God who possesses simple-foreknowledge can do that a God who does not possess such foreknowledge cannot also do, including prophesying the future.
- In truth, whatever might be the reciprocal nature of the relationship between God’s actions and ours within the foreknowledge of God, the simple-foreknowledge model offers us no help whatsoever in understanding it.
Aquinas said this view “explains” more than any other view but he hasn't yet explained anything with it. So I'm asking, somebody explain something with this view. Give us an example of how timeless knowledge can be used by God to either a) change what is foreknown or b) bring about what is foreknown.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/25/2003 7:16 PM (GMT -6) | | RD: Sure, you can try to get around it by saying that God wasn't outside time, but simply told what HE alone intended to do. You'd be saying that God wills what he intends to do, and tells the prophets, b/c he knows what he himself will do, and he can bring that about. But then you've really crossed over to the determinist camp, in my opinion.
Tom: In a sense, yes, we’re agreeing with determinists that God is able to determine whatever God wants to determine and that in such cases predicting that what is determined will come to pass makes perfect sense. We only “cross over” into the determinist’s camp if we insist with the determinist that ALL things are unconditionally determined in this sense.
RD: Under the Arminian view, God prophesies through his prophets things that come about freely, not b/c of determinism. So I would think that requires God to be timeless.
Tom: If that’s the case, then, well, let’s toss the Arminian view of foreknowledge. No loss for open theists.
But it’s still the case that divine timelessness explains nothing, nada, zippo, zilch, nichte, la shay (Arabic), ching zow (Chinese), chutu sati (Japanese), wana tooboo (Swahili), narlin darling (Gailic), nuha puha (Navaho).
RD: So which is it for you?
Tom: Open theism. 
Tom 
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/26/2003 4:56 AM (GMT -6) | | So, here is a REAL problem with what Laika said a few posts above, Laika. The center of the problem is what it means to "create ex nihilo."
A less-than-biblical view like Aristotle (et al) viewed the cosmos as being created by a god but from pre-existing stuff. The Biblical view of "creation ex nihilo" is the assertion that God creates freely not only what was created but the whole essence of things also emerges BY God's word and will. The essence of things does not follow from the essence of God. (As in "time being the product of" supposed sequence in God's essence. If that were so then creation would merely be "a reshaping of preexistent reality," or the "bestowal of a quality." (Keselopoulos) Creation, for the Fathers, means: "...that all things emerge out of nothing by the creative energy of the word and will fo God."
Laika had another problem too. He assumed that if God and us were different from us that we could have nothing to do with each other. (He was quite dramatic on that point.) I think that underappreciates the Incarnation, and simply puts God in a box. Keselopoulos is unafraid: "God and the world are radically distinguished. . .At the same time, however, they are indissolubly connected. God is 'the only maker and Creator of these things.' ... the act of creation is not confined to the emergence of creation from nothingness, but is extended into a binding link which holds together and joins all esistent things and the whole of creation with God."
What is under appreciated in typical discussions of issues like this is God's role, a continuing role even, as CREATOR. When it is considered, it to is put in a box -- the maker "then"...and that is all. But the Creator who is utterly different from us ALSO created us in His image, and joined us to him self in Christ Jesus.
That IS a mystery; but it is not a contradiction.
"Time is the freedom to love."
(from Ware's "The Inner Kingdom")
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/26/2003 9:58 AM (GMT -6) | | | Laika, you lost me with whatever "ENIG" is. | | Back to Top | | |
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aquinas
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 36
| Posted 8/27/2003 5:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Laika you said,
If you say there was a state where ENIG was alone, followed by the current state of ENIG with a creation, then you have just created a sequence and have put ENIG into time. That's a state change and it lasts a duration just enough to show the fallacy of ENIG.
There may be a change in relation, perhaps God enters into an new relation, but this does not necessarily imply a change in God's
Being. Do you think that God changes after creation? If so why?
I am not sure how this is a valid critique of the timeless view. I would be more than willing to listen to more argumentation or if you could refer me to some reading that outlines your argument.
TGB
I may have to take something back that I said earlier. Or at least amend it. I said that the timeless view has more explainatory power than the OV. I don't know that the timeless view can explain how it is that God knows the future. To the best of my knowledge, (and I am still a student), the timeless view is a negation. It we may come up with ways of making useful analogies of how God knows the future, but exactly HOW He knows is unknown.
I think that you make some interesting points about what a timeless God must be like, (i.e. His knowledge and acting would have to be identical), but I don't know that this shows a problem with the timeless view.
Do you think that the timeless view is contradictory in nature? If so,
could you please state the contradiction more formally? (i.e. "The classical view holds that God is X and no X at the same time and same sense.)
I look forward to hearing from you.
God Bless!!
If we allow pious feelings to decree what nature should be, we are bound to wrong nature, for how could we find in piety a principle of self-restriction? In theology, as in any other science, the main question is not to be pious, but to be right. For there is nothing pious in being wrong about God! --Etienne Gilson | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/27/2003 9:14 AM (GMT -6) | | aquinas: I don't know that the timeless view can explain how it is that God knows the future.
Tom: I wasn’t asking the timeless view to explain how it is God knows the future. I was asking for an example of how timeless knowledge could enable God to DO something which God could not do without possessing such knowledge. Granting that there is nothing contradictory in timeless existence and timeless knowledge, what can God DO (to prevent evil, to bring about good, to guide, to predict the future, to warn, anything at all) with such knowledge? What DOES the timeless view explain?
aquinas: …we may come up with ways of making useful analogies of how God knows the future, but exactly HOW He knows is unknown.
Tom: “How” God knows what he knows isn’t my interest either. I was asking you how you thought a God possessing timeless knowledge could make use of this knowledge in providential ways.
aquinas: I think that you make some interesting points about what a timeless God must be like, (i.e. His knowledge and acting would have to be identical)…
Tom: I said that?
aquinas: Do you think that the timeless view is contradictory in nature?
Tom: There doesn’t seem to be anything contradictory about God's being timeless or possessing timeless knowledge in and of themselves. But neither does there seem to be any theological gain to be had in believing God is timeless. It doesn’t explain anything.
It’s libertarian free choice and exhaustively definite foreknowledge which I think are incompatible. Since the timeless view contributes nothing to explaining the relationship here, I see no point in holding to it.
Peace,
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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aquinas
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 36
| Posted 8/28/2003 8:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Laika, I am not clear on your reasoning. Perhaps I am too dense, but it seems to me that you are begging the question. You appear to be assuming that time is required.
"To a "timeless" God, everything would have to happen instantly, "eternal now". So creation would have to have always existed."
Without more explination, I don't see how your conclusion follows from what you have said. Why would creation always have had to exist? Do you mean that the universe would have to be eternal because God is eternal? Do you mean that an infinite eternal God could only create an infinite eternal effect? I would enjoy reading some more detailed explinations of what you are talking about.
TGB,
"I was asking for an example of how timeless knowledge could enable God to DO something which God could not do without possessing such knowledge."
Honestly (and correct me if I am wrong) I think that the OV conveys a god that predicts the future or causes the future. A God that knows everything intuitively from eternity is not predicting the future, He knows it. This being the case, I think that the timeless view offers a God that is infallible.
"what can God DO (to prevent evil, to bring about good, to guide, to predict the future, to warn, anything at all) with such knowledge?"
He can do whatever He wants to do. I don't see any reason why God could not act in time without actually being in time. I don't see any reason why God can't know the future and chose the course of the future from eternity. (His effects being seen in time, but His Being being without time) Perhaps you have some reasons why this is implausible or impossible.
"It’s libertarian free choice and exhaustively definite foreknowledge which I think are incompatible."
Perhaps this is the crux of the problem. Or at least a large part of the problem. Why do you think that libertarian free choice and exhastive knowledge of the future are incompatible? Do you believe that free choice and exhaustive knowledge are implausible or impossible?
Thanks. God Bless!
If we allow pious feelings to decree what nature should be, we are bound to wrong nature, for how could we find in piety a principle of self-restriction? In theology, as in any other science, the main question is not to be pious, but to be right. For there is nothing pious in being wrong about God! --Etienne Gilson | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 9/1/2003 5:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi, guys.
There is no way that I can join in to this discussion. You are sorting out quite a lot. Keep at it.
I probably have some particular disagreements that would be interesting to discuss. But that will have to wait. ]
Keep at it.
(Down the road, I think, a key is that God creates by his WILL and not by his ESSENCE.) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 9/1/2003 5:40 AM (GMT -6) | | Perhaps there is another possibility?
quote:
Originally posted by Laika
You said God is not chronologically prior to creation.
Laika is correct, I think: Causes ALWAYS exist prior to their effects, chronologically.
cause-->effect
God-->creation, that's a sequence
But what if you (anyone) simply says that God is PRIOR to creation (leaving out the word "chronologically")?
And what if Laika were to say "God-->creation, that's a sequence" WITH RESPECT TO CREATION, ONLY.
Then what would be said is that creation has sequence. But it also provides room for the position to say that God does not have sequence.
Here's my own two-bits.
1. God does not have "sequence" according to his essence (He does not "change." Creation was not for God the same as what the forming of Eve was to Adam--a "ribbing." )
2. From our point of view, considering God's character (Love) it also seems good to say that God's "mercy faileth not." I don't think that there is "sequence" in a matter where God's love increases or decreases.
3. BUT, some kind of statement seems necessary with respect to God's will. Willing is free. But what seems to matter EVEN MORE is that we recognize that his will is not his essence. Nothing causes God to will. His will is the reason for his character (not the other way around). God freely wills.
4. The paradoxical thing is that: God's will (Love) <a> does not change, <b> is not determined by something else. (As would be the case with a "habit of character." Instead, "God means it" every time--time being from 'our' point of view.) <c> So, God's eternal will acts within creation.
5. Despite the vast differences between God and creation, God closes the gap. What creation does not resemble God in by nature, it is made to by grace.
That's what I think. | | Back to Top | | |
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