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Tom
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| Posted 6/29/2003 9:35 AM (GMT -6) |   | PoW: Its about Lasagna. Its all about "layers."...I'M NOT BACKING DOWN *THAT* EASILY, TOM!
Tom: If reality is layered like lasagna, then one layer is as real as the next. One layer is actuality, one layer eventuality, and one layer possibility. Sounds yummy to me!
Mephi-
Nice illustration. Good stuff. Hope you're enjoying the nice MN weather. It won't last long!
Tom
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/29/2003 10:41 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom: If reality is layered like lasagna, then one layer is as real as the next. One layer is actuality, one layer eventuality, and one layer possibility. Sounds yummy to me!
PoW: So, how are they layered, and how do the layers interact?
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/29/2003 5:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Albert: (to Greg) I think that the view of omniscience espoused by Greg and that of classical theism, results in an impersonal God. Greg has accused classical theism of having too much Plato. I am saying that Greg's form of theism, while an improvement on classical theism, still has too much Plato. The problem is, that Greg retains the idea of God eternally contemplating endless right-angled triangles, making God into a kind of vast repository for irrelevant impersonal information, just so that the information can be somewhere.
pOw: I think that the basic criticism here, that the view is a change from the "classic" but fails to replace part of the classic foundation, building on it further instead, is CORRECT.)
Albert: (to Tom) According to your view, Greg, although God would grow in knowledge, that growth would be purely a by-product of change in the world. It would be "passive".
pOw: That would be God reacting instead of acting. The doctrine of creation exnihilo is counter to this direction too. Importantly, God ACTS freely out of love. God creates freely. (No 'Originist' cr**. Creation was not a maneuvre to counter a previous failure.)
Albert: All of eternity is already laid out in full and exhaustive detail in his mind as a vast series of "if-then" conditionals.
pOw: Predestination traps God within time. It makes God limited to siting in time and looking ahead at another time. Determinism traps God in time too--planning earlier and executing later. Openness places God ONLY in time, figuring out, "learning" and making wise plans. God is not limited by time; nor kept from time by his deity. God is not trapped in time, nor from it. Both "classical" and "Open" are too limiting.
Albert: Greg, I think your view of God is too static and immutable. According to you the only change in God occurs when the creation changes.
pOw: Your pitches are wide on both sides -- "ball two." God is both impassive and active, according to his personal freedom.) Creation does not change God in His essence. But yet God is very truly "OPEN" Personally, and involved!
Albert: But if each of the three persons of the trinity already knew everything else, what more would there be to say? How could love be expressed if each of the three persons of the trinity already had a complete and perfect understanding of the love of the others? What more could be added to a complete and perfect understanding?
pOw: tending towards tritheism. social theory of trinity... YOU ARE HAVING MORE WILLS THAN NATURES. The "complete and perfect understanding" is the fruit of the one source, the Father. When you say "How could love be expressed"...and presume the Trinity NOT having "a complete and perfect understanding of the love of the others" I see two problems. (1) "Love OF the others" speaks to them not sharing nature! (2) You are introducing a human psychology into the Godhead. (Smells of idolatry--creating God after our own image.) You are saying that the Trinity has to overcome something. That clearly sounds like TRITHEISM.
Albert: My question is, isn't my view of God closer to the "feel", the "vibe" of the way scripture portrays God? Jer. 32:35 is just one example. Does not God appear to be surprised, to experience novelty, to think dynamically rather than being a static being with everything pre-thought?
pOw: That's just insofar as God reveals himself to us. That does NOT exhaust God. Nor is it a complete picture--its only his "energies" not his essence..
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Tom
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| Posted 6/30/2003 1:03 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Doc: ...the ACTUAL ACT defines the "thisness" of the event. pOw: Not always; not entirely, and not in every way. Some things about reality are MUSSEL LOADED. For some things it is what comes LAST that defines the meaning of everything else before it, from "catastophy" to "preparation." (Thief on the cross.)
After I die my children have children, making me a grandfather. Then those children have children, making me a great-grandfather. This sort of thing doesn’t “add” to the “thisness” of ME, of my life. It doesn’t define ME, it defines the relationship between the unchanging historical (and dead) me and the present. What you’re talking about is a matter of relating the present to the past. That’s cool. But it doesn’t change what the past is, that is, it doesn’t change or even define what happened.
quote:
Tom: If reality is layered like lasagna, then one layer is as real as the next. One layer is actuality, one layer eventuality, and one layer possibility. Sounds yummy to me!
PoW: So, how are they layered, and how do the layers interact?
On the plate, in my mouth, or in my stomach?
------------------
Albert-
I enjoy reading your thoughts! Just a couple of questions and comments. Forgive me for jumping in here Doc!
[I wanna interact a bit with your “(b) God does not know all true propositions” later.]
Your arguments seem to be driven by the concern to make God maximally “personal” and there’s certainly nothing wrong in that. I hammer on that myself a LOT. So I can appreciate what’s motivating you.
But your reason for believing God doesn’t know all “truths” (or all true propositions) doesn’t seem to hold. On what basis are you assuming that knowing all such truths renders God less than personal? There’s certainly nothing in our own experience that provides an analogy. Quite the opposite, for we often do know the possibilities facing us in a particular relationship without this rendering us less than personal. We live personally and freely in relation to others while knowing and contemplating future possibilities about those relationships. So the idea that knowledge of all possibilities would leave God less than personal seems self-evidently false to me. Why assume such a thing?
Albert: Why would God want to devote most of his intellectual space (even granted that space is infinite) to endlessly contemplating utterly useless knowledge about right-angled triangles?
Tom: If God’s intellect is infinite, then there is no “most of it” to speak of. It’s no expense of energy or attention for God to know all “truths” in addition to all “things” (as you describe them) while still handing his relationships. But…
Why would God WANT to possess utterly useless knowledge?
This question assumes that the one asking it knows as much as God or at least is in a position to make a judgment about the “usefulness” truths may or may not have for God. But neither you nor I are in a place to do this. And why should we not apply your argument to knowledge of “things” as well? Why insist that God knows all “things” if WE can’t demonstrate their usefulness? I can think of some “things” the knowledge of which certainly appears to me to be useless for God. Should I conclude that God does not know them?
Let me suggest this. Let’s remove ourselves from the center, and thus from assuming we are in a position to judge the usefulness of knowledge by relating it to ourselves (which is what you’re doing, viz, “I would have no use for contemplating all possible right-angel triangles, therefore God must have no use for such knowledge, therefore God doesn’t know such truths.”
Instead, let’s place God at the center and use our imaginations a bit. Maybe, just maybe, a great deal of knowledge regarding the universe is “useful” to God because God enjoys it! It’s usefulness is its ability to reflect back to God God’s own creativity and infinite glory. Maybe God finds pleasure in contemplating “truths” and this constitutes a “use” of such knowledge. Maybe the “usefulness” of some truths is found in the fact that God finds satisfaction in them because they reflect his abilities and awesome intelligence. Isn’t this what art is all about? Is art really “useful” outside of providing a source of enjoyment for those who create it and those who view it? What can you DO with most art besides look at it and enjoy it, a beauty which reflects the artist? Hmmm. Perhaps in contemplating the “truths” that seem useless to YOU (or useless to God in your view), God enjoys his own creativity and intellectual prowess. Unless you want to argue this is incoherent or beneath God, I suggest we affirm God’s ability and right to do just this.
Albert: Greg, I think your view of God is too static and immutable.
Tom: Doc can answer for himself, but I just want to ask: Are WE also immutable if we know that in a particular situation there exist three possibilities facing us and we predetermine what our response to each one will be? Is life only meaningful and personal the more ignorant we are of the possibilities we face? Nothing in life suggests this. Is a birthday party I throw for my youngest not PERSONAL to me because I know what time he’ll walk in the door and I have a predetermined “Yahoo!” planned along with streamers and lights? Or because I accurately anticipate all the possible fun we’ll have? Similarly, God’s knowledge of his and our possible actions/reactions and emotions doesn’t lessen the personal nature of our relationship (especially when you consider that though I know what’s coming when my youngest walks in the door, and can even approximate the possibilities that’ll follow, I still experience something WHEN IT HAPPENS that isn’t available to me before it happens).
You need to argue (as opposed to just assume) that knowledge of future possibilities actually undermines the personal nature of relationships. As far as I can see there’s nothing in human experience or reason to confirm such a belief.
Albert: I can't see how there could be anything for God to talk about amongst the persons of the trinity in and of themselves. The only thing to say would be things like, "oh look, Joe just sinned, so possibility X has become actual. What do you know". But if each of the three persons of the trinity already knew everything else, what more would there be to say? How could love be expressed if each of the three persons of the trinity already had a complete and perfect understanding of the love of the others? What more could be added to a complete and perfect understanding?
Tom: So now God’s ignorance must extend to God’s own experience of himself? God can’t meaningfully experience love even as God, within God’s own inner-trinitarian life, unless God is ignorant of some things about God. Moreover, it is actually this ignorance which makes love possible and defines where love can and can’t be given and received (i.e., The father loves the son inasmuch as he is ignorant of the son). Similarly, the divine-human relationship is a personal and loving one inasmuch as both God and we are ignorant of one another. Tell me this is not what you’re saying, Al.
Albert: (b) God does not know all true propositions.
Tom: Does God know propositions describing “things”? Say, the propositions “Tom is a father of four children” or “Tom is 5’ 10” tall”? If he knows the “thing” does he know propositions describing that thing? I’ll assume you believe he does. So, you’ll need to reform (b). You believe God knows SOME true propositions. You want to affirm that God knows all propositions describing “things” or “entities” (which, by the way, are only present actualities? What about past events? Are they “things” that God knows?). And you’ve already agreed that future “eventualities” (like the return of Christ) are known to God. So you want also to affirm that God knows propositions describing such future “eventualities.” It seems then that you want to deny ONLY that God knows propositions describing future “possibilities” and this is because though the propositions describing these possibilities are true, if God were to know them he would be immutable and incapable of relating personally.
Before looking at the passages you referred to, am I understanding you correctly so far?
Blessings,
Tom
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 6/30/2003 3:05 AM (GMT -6) | | MEPH: Got an analogy. Think of a superposition….Analogically, God’s infinite intelligence that is composed of the entire set of eternal possibilities would be like the superposition….the measurement itself would be like unto either divine or non-divine resolution (I’ll just call it that) of possibilities that make up the concretization process.
Doc: The dude ROCKS. Now… what if… what IF this is not just an analogy? What if, as a matter of ontological fact, EVERYTHING has the quality of transitioning from a "superposition" to a resolved, definite, "thisness"? (Of course there are unique aspects to the way quantum particles transition – "concretize" – but this is true of everything). And what if this is in fact the distinctive quality that distinguishes the past from the present and present from the future? Indeed, if this is NOT the distinctive quality, what is?
POW: (quoting) Doc: ...the ACTUAL ACT defines the "thisness" of the event. POw responds: Not always; not entirely, and not in every way. Some things about reality are MUSSEL LOADED. For some things it is what comes LAST that defines the meaning of everything else before it, from "catastophy" to "preparation." (Thief on the cross.)
TGB: As Tom brilliantly (of course) pointed out, the actuality (thisness) is categorically distinct from its meaning. Pannenberg – following Hegel and Dilthey (can’t recall how to spell his name) have argued that the ultimate meaning of everything is eschatological… thus agreeing with you. But to say "x has this meaning" is to assume that "x" is a settled reality over and against (say) "y."
Tom: If reality is layered like lasagna, then one layer is as real as the next. One layer is actuality, one layer eventuality, and one layer possibility.
Doc: The mediating "layer," I submit, is not "eventuality" (which would make you – God forbid – a Calvinist) but "disposition."
Albert: ((d) The definition of omniscience which says that God knows all true propositions, is incoherent (as well as, I allege, un-Biblical).
Doc: While I totally share your concern to preserve a personalistic God, I don’t think this works. You are say that omniscience (omni = all; nience = knowledge) doesn’t know all truth. Looks like a contradiction to me.
Albert: I don't see how anything could really be novel for him, because he would already be perfectly contemplating the possibility of it anyway in its total fullness.
Doc: But possibility is distinct from actuality precisely because it is not "total fullness." The actual always introduces an element of novelty. Plus, possibilities and probablites don’t exclude improbable, hence surprising, behavior.
Albert: A person is concerned about personal relationships. That is his priority. Why would God want to devote most of his intellectual space (even granted that space is infinite) to endlessly contemplating utterly useless knowledge about right-angled triangles?
Doc: If God is infinitely intelligent, he doesn’t have to "devote" time and space to anything. He just knows.
Albert: Saying "oh yes, God can pay all his attention to you, but he's equally interested in endless contemplation of triangles", seems to make this world seem a bit less important.
Doc: Isn’t this like the person who feels God doesn’t love them perfectly because he has to spread his love thin to cover billions of people?
Albert: How could love be expressed if each of the three persons of the trinity already had a complete and perfect understanding of the love of the others? What more could be added to a complete and perfect understanding?
Doc: Tom nailed this, I think. Do you really want to propose that the three persons of the Trinity have to "find out" about each other?
Gotta run – literally. Have a jog to do.
Love it.
Greg
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/30/2003 3:16 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
pOw: Some things about reality are MUSSEL LOADED. (***front end loaded***) For some things it is what comes LAST that defines the meaning of everything else before it, from "catastophy" to "preparation." (Thief on the cross.)
TGB: After I die my children have children, making me a grandfather. Then those children have children, making me a great-grandfather. This sort of thing doesn’t “add” to the “thisness” of ME, of my life. It doesn’t define ME, it defines the relationship between the unchanging historical (and dead) me and the present. What you’re talking about is a matter of relating the present to the past. That’s cool. But it doesn’t change what the past is, that is, it doesn’t change or even define what happened.
PoW: I can think of examples that don't illustrate what I'm saying too. But the "Theif on the cross DOES." The MEANING of everything before was transformed by that end event.
quote:
Tom: If reality is layered like lasagna, then one layer is as real as the next. One layer is actuality, one layer eventuality, and one layer possibility. Sounds yummy to me!
PoW: So, how are they layered, and how do the layers interact?
TGB: On the plate, in my mouth, or in my stomach?
PoW: The question is still 'on the table'; and no diner until you do your homework. I'll wait for this, Tom.
What are the LAYERS of the "CONJOINED Might-Counterfactuals", and HOW do they interact?
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/30/2003 09:21:36 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 6/30/2003 4:26 AM (GMT -6) | | PoW: What are the LAYERS of the "CONJOINED Might-Counterfactuals", and HOW do they interact?
Tom: I'm going to keep postponing an answer to see how large you'll make your fonts--from CAPS, to 3 pt, to 4 pt, to 5 pt, to...?
Actualy there are no layerS (plural) of conjoined might-counterfactuals. There are layers past events, present events, and future eventualities and possibilities. "Mights" are one layer (not layers) that make up the whole friggin lasagna cosmos. How do they interact? How do past and present and future interact? Hell if I know! But I know it happens.
Stop examining it PoW and just take a bite!
Tom
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/30/2003 5:02 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Doc to TGB: As Tom brilliantly (of course) pointed out, the actuality (thisness) is categorically distinct from its meaning. Pannenberg – following Hegel and Dilthey (can’t recall how to spell his name) have argued that the ultimate meaning of everything is eschatological… thus agreeing with you. But to say "x has this meaning" is to assume that "x" is a settled reality over and against (say) "y."
I'll intend to agree with you, Doc, that "actuality (thisness) is categorically distinct from its meaning."
Let me see if I'm reading correctly though. OK? (1) Saying that "x has meaning" pre-assume that "x" is a settled reality. And (2) "the ultimate meaning of everything is eschatological" Where does that have to go?
I brought up the image of lasagna because, once cut, it lets us view both the whole and the layers. I guess in the above you end up saying that the eschatological meaning is settled? I guess that's Biblical.
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One Love
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| Posted 6/30/2003 5:08 AM (GMT -6) | | Y'all friggin' hear me on that other thread!! All y'all BETTA stop frontin' and respond to the Eternal!!
Especially YOU, Pow. You respond to about erybody!
Muhahahahaha!  | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/30/2003 5:08 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Actualy there are no layerS (plural) of conjoined might-counterfactuals. There are layers past events, present events, and future eventualities and possibilities. "Mights" are one layer (not layers) that make up the whole friggin lasagna cosmos. How do they interact? How do past and present and future interact? Hell if I know! But I know it happens.
"Layers" is a good analogy if one thing "conditions" another, and not the other way around; and if one "layer conditions another in a way different from the way a third does the second. (Its the "let the dough rest" part of the cooking recipee.) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/30/2003 5:10 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Y'all friggin' hear me on that other thread!! All y'all BETTA stop frontin' and respond to the Eternal!!
Especially YOU, Pow. You respond to about erybody!
Muhahahahaha!
I DID!
So what happened to it. That's spooky! | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 7/1/2003 3:20 AM (GMT -6) | | POW: I guess in the above you end up saying that the eschatological meaning is settled? I guess that's Biblical.
Doc: I see no reason to think that the full meaning of each particular event in history is eschatologically settled.
Albert: I can't here and now elaborate in full all the reasons for why I don't think propositional knowledge can ever be complete. They do depend in the main on the truth of nominalism… Suppose I came over to the US and gave you a one month intensive course, going through absolutely everything I could think of, about what it is like to live in Australia. At the end of it, would you know what it was like to live here? In one sense, yes, you would know. But in another equally important sense, you would not (assuming you've never lived here).
Doc: I am in total agreement that propositional knowledge is always "one step removed" (abstracted from) concrete reality. In knowing the truth of propositions, we do not thereby know (experientially, directly) the ACTUALITY of what propositions are ABOUT. But that is all the more reason to assume that God DOES know all propositional truth. In knowing propositional truth God knows LESS than actuality, not more. I would really like to hear your arguments for why you think that it’s logically impossible for God to know the truth of all propositions.
Greg said: possibility is distinct from actuality precisely because it is not "total fullness." The actual always introduces an element of novelty.
Albert responds: if that is so Greg, then I do not think that you can uphold omniscience either. I think you are formally contradicting yourself at this point.
Doc: How so? God knows the possible as possible, the actual as actual. He knows propositions as propositions, and actualities as actualities. There’s no contradiction.
Albert: Also, I'd be interested to know how you deal with mutually exclusive possibilities (i.e. possibilities where one is logically incompatible with the other). Do the laws of logic not apply to "indefinite" things?
Doc: God knows "possibly x and possibly –x." God knows, "if x -> --x." What’s the problem?
Rejoice.
Greg
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 7/1/2003 4:23 AM (GMT -6) | | Albert, your ENTIRE post (07/01/2003:02:22:22 AM beginning "Alright, guys, here are my thoughts") wuould become my new signature at the end of every post, except... (And don't think I'm not tempted!)
You NAILED it!
St. Maximus the Confessor writes about two kinds of knowledge. He observes that the first kind (the Greek) becomes obsolete when the relational is known. Knowledge about "passes away" (1 Cor 13) when knowlege of arives!
Thanks for that post, Albert!!!
Signed, "Phred" (for Fred, PotOnWheel and Al2Si2H4O9)
Edited by - fred on 07/01/2003 10:13:25 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 7/1/2003 4:26 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
POW: I guess in the above you end up saying that the eschatological meaning is settled? I guess that's Biblical.
Doc: I see no reason to think that the full meaning of each particular event in history is eschatologically settled.
Sorry, Doc. (But thanks.) You responded too briefly to a comment of mine where I was putting the words down before trying to make sense of what I was not following very well. (I'll have to go look at what you wrote before that I was trying to make sense of.)
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 7/11/2003 2:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Albert, I agree with you that propositional knowledge never fully encompasses reality. This has generally been acknowledged through the philosophical distinction between knowledge de re and knowledge de dicto. In any case, this doesn't entail that God doesn't have perfect propositional knowledge. It just entails that this knowledge can't be identical to God's knowledge of actuality. So, as interesting as I find your six arguments, I stand by the claim that omniscience entails perfect knowledge of all propositions.
Doc
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JET
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| Posted 7/11/2003 5:30 AM (GMT -6) | | From the original post:
quote:
The problem with classical Molinism is that it assumed that ALL "might counterfactuals" are logically reducible to "would-counterfactuals."
Doesn’t classical Molinism assume that there may a “possible world” that is only “logically possible”, but not “metaphysically possible” given the truth of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom?
If so, is it really true that classical Molinism assumes that all “might counterfactuals” (where “might” = “logically possible”) are logically reducible to “would-counterfactuals”?
Thanks,
JET
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One Love
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| Posted 7/11/2003 5:38 AM (GMT -6) | | JET:
quote:
Doesn’t classical Molinism assume that there may a “possible world” that is only “logically possible”, but not “metaphysically possible” given the truth of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom?
If so, is it really true that classical Molinism assumes that all “might counterfactuals” (where “might” = “logically possible”) are logically reducible to “would-counterfactuals”?
Good catch, homie. Classical Molinism assumes that all “might counterfactuals” (according to DOC’S idea of might) are logically reducible to “would-countefactuals”. This seems tacitly because Molina didn’t conceive of any instances where there could be MORE than one possible emergent state of reality given an exhaustively known previous state.
If “might” does mean “logically possible”, then no, “might counterfacturals” would not be reducible to “would counterfactuals”. A
"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend. | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 7/16/2003 4:05 AM (GMT -6) | | JET:Doesn’t classical Molinism assume that there may a “possible world” that is only “logically possible”, but not “metaphysically possible” given the truth of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom?
Doc: Yes. Not all possible worlds are "feasible."
JET: If so, is it really true that classical Molinism assumes that all “might counterfactuals” (where “might” = “logically possible”) are logically reducible to “would-counterfactuals”?
Doc: No, for even in these non-feasible possible worlds, they thought it true that "x would do y in [unfeasible] situation z."
Meph: If “might” does mean “logically possible”, then no, “might counterfacturals” would not be reducible to “would counterfactuals”.
Doc: I think you meant to say the opposite. If "might" means only "logically possible," then "might counterfactuals" ARE reducible to "would counterfactuals." My argument is that "might" does not mean merely "logically possible." For it can actually be the case that "Meph might and might not respond to this post if he reads it" in which case it is false that "Meph would respond if he read it"
and false that "Meph would not respond if he read it."
Consider: There is no contradiction in saying ""Meph might and might not respond." But there is a contradiction in saying, "Its logically possible for Meph to respond AND not respond."
Consider also: Its logically possible for Meph to turn into a twinky tomorrow. But when we say, "Meph might and might not respond to this post" we obviously mean something MORE than when we assert the logical possibility of his turning into a twinky. Yet, if "might" only means "is logically possible that," we CAN'T mean anything more in asserting the possibility that he'll respond than we mean when asserting the possibility of his turning into a twinky.
later
Greg
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.
Edited by - GregBoyd on 07/16/2003 09:08:11 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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geebob
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| Posted 7/16/2003 5:02 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Doc: I think you meant to say the opposite. If "might" means only "logically possible," then "might counterfactuals" ARE reducible to "would counterfactuals." My argument is that "might" does not mean merely "logically possible." For it can actually be the case that "Meph might and might not respond to this post if he reads it" in which case it is false that "Meph would respond if he read it"
and false that "Meph would not respond if he read it."
Consider: There is no contradiction in saying ""Meph might and might not respond." But there is a contradiction in saying, "Its logically possible for Meph to respond AND not respond."
Actually, your comparison doesn't quite exclude the notione that "might" is equal to "logically possible."
You wouldn't say that "Its logically possible for Meph to respond AND not respond." to reflet "meph might and might not respond" but rather
"Its logically possible for Meph to respond AND It's logically possible for Meph to not respond."
I like to say that Might statements are equivalent to statements of logical consistency. That reflects that there is a world with which the event in question may be attached. So to say that a conjoined might statment is true for a world is to say that the unsettled detail in question may be settled in more than one way that is logically consistent with everything else about that world.
I will gladly pay you teusday for a hamburger today.
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Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 8/6/2003 8:09 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
Geebob, thanks for the reference. It certainly is difficult to interprete Wolterstorf as non-openness.
I just finished reading God & Time this morning and would agree that the quoted passage sure sounds like Open Theism. It seems, however, that William Lane Craig may still have hope that that's not what it means, because in his response to Wolterstorff, Craig says: "I wish also merely to register my considered view that, whether or not there are facts having future events as constituents, there is no good reason to deny and good reason to affirm that future-tense propositions are bivalent, that is, are either true or false, and must therefore come within the purview of divine omniscience." (Emphasis added.) I don't see the distinction that Craig is hinting at. In Wolterstorff's response to Craig's response to Wolterstorff's original essay, he chooses not to comment on Craig's assertion.
"I believe that, in the present divided state of Christendom, those who are at the heart of each division are all closer to one another than those who are at the fringes. I would even carry this beyond the borders of Christianity: how much more one has in common with a real Jew or Muslim than with a wretched liberalising, occidentalised specimen of the same categories."
(C.S. Lewis to Mary Willis Shelburne, November 10, 1952.) | | Back to Top | | |
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