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Okay, no, this is not a misconstrued view of the open view. Think about it. Do you not gain more awe and awareness of God as you learn more of Him? Do you not stand before Him feeling like "Wow, I know nothing compared to Him?". Don't you come to an even more humble awareness of your self compared to our Almighty Lord?

Well, that is what I mean about being less free. The more free I've come to see that I am before God, the bigger He has become and, hence, the smaller I have become (something like John the Baptist's "He must increase and I must decrease").

Look at that concept of freedom given to Adam and Eve: "Of the fruit of the tree...you shall not eat or you will die". Does that not bring limitation?

So, I come more and more daily (clock's ticking...rats) to an awareness that, yes, I am free, more free than ever; but I am also more aware of my limitations...more than ever. For I see Him more as He is. HE is free. I am only free because of Him.

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What say y'all on "synergy?"

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I'm for it! And so is God and Paul.

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Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to [His] purpose.

1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, [you are] God's building.

2 Corinthians 6:1 We then, [as] workers together [with Him] also plead with [you] not to receive the grace of God in vain.

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Ryan asked

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In light of God's knowing or not knowing the pre-existence of every human being, what do we do with verses like Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations" (ESV). It seems like God knows about Jeremiah. Should this be understood like every other prophecy? It doesn't seem to be a prophecy. What do you guys and gals think?

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Jer 1:5 says that God knew Jer before he was born NOT before he was conceived (or before he existed). This is similar to God's knowledge of Paul. God chose him to be an important spokesperson while he was in the womb (Gal 1:15).

And just because God picked or separated someone before they were born (but after they were conceived) did not guarantee that that person would work with God (synergism! ) and be a good prophet. Israel did have its share of bad prophets.

Hope that answers your question.

chance

A God who has fixed every detail beforehand may retire or die --Markus Barth

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A. Schmemann, "For the Life of the World" - from pages 128-130

The uniqueness of secularism, its difference from the great heresies of the patristic age, is that the latter were provoked by the encounter of Christianity with Hellenism, whereas the former is the result of a "breakdown" within Christianity itself, of its own deep metamorphosis. The lack of time prevents me from dealing with this point in detail. I shall limit myself therefore to one "symbolic" example directly related to our theme. At the end of the second century a Latin theologian, Berengarius of Tours, was condemned for his teaching on the Eucharist. He maintained that because the presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements is "mystical" or "symbolic," it is not real. The Lateran Council which condemned him--and there is for me the crux of the matter-simply reversed the formula. It proclaimed that since Christ's presence in the Eucharist is real, it is not "mystical." What is truly decisive her is precisely the disconnection and the opposition of the two terms verum and mystice, the acceptance, on both sides that they are mutually exclusive. Western theology this declared that that which is "real" is not symbolic. This was, in fact, the collapse of the fundamental Christian understanding of creation in terms of its ontological sacramentality. And since then, Christian thought, in Scholasticism and beyond it, never ceased to oppose these terms, to reject, implicitly or explicitly, the "symbolic realism" and the "realistic symbolism" and the symbolism of reality. It was the collapse of the fundamental Christian mysterion, the antinomincal "holding together" of the reality of the symbol, and of the symbolism of reality. It was a collaps3e of the fundamental Christian understanding of creation in terms of its ontological sacramentality. And since then, Christian thought, in Scholosticism and beyond it, never ceased to oppose these terms, to reject, implicitly or explicitly, the symbolic realism and the "realistic symbolism" of the Christian world view. "As if God did not exist"-this formula originated not with Bonhoeffer or any modern apostle of "religionless Christianity." It is indeed implied already in Thomism, with its basic epistemological distinction between causa prima and cause secundae. Here is the real cause of secularism, which is ultimately nothing else but the affirmation of the world's autonomy, of its self-sufficiency in terms of reason, knowledge, and action. The downfall of Christian thought and experience. And whether the "natural" and the "supernatural" are somehow related to one another by analogia entis, in the Latin theology, or whether this analogy is totally rejected, as in Barthianism, ultimately makes not difference. In both views the world ceases to be the "natural" sacrament of God, and the supernatural sacrament to have any continuity with the world.

Let us not be mistaken, however,. This Western theological framework was in fact accepted by the Orthodox East also, and since the end of the patristic age our theology ad been indeed much more "Western" than "Eastern." If secularism can be properly termed a Western heresy, the very fruit of the basic Western "deviation," our own scholastic theology has also been permeated with it for centuries, and this in spite of the violent denunciations of Rome and papism. And it is indeed ironic, by not at all accidental, that psychologically the most "Western" among the Orthodox today are precisely the ultra-conservative "Super Orthodox," whose whole frame of mind is legalistic and syllogistic on the one had, and is made up, on the other hand, of those there "dichotomies' whose introduction into Christian thought is the "original sin" of the West. Once these dichotomies are accepted, it does not matter, theologically speaking, whether one "accepts" the world, as in the case of the Western enthusiasts of "secular Christianity," or "rejects" it, as in the case of the "Super-Orthodox" prophet of apocalyptic doom. The optimistic positivism of the one, and the pessimistic negativism of the other are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. Both, by denying the world its natural "sacramentality" and radically opposing the "natural" to the "supernatural," make the world grace proof, and ultimately lead to secularism. And it is here, within this spiritual and psychological context, that the problem of worship in relation to modern secularism acquires its real significance.

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Jer 1:5 says that God knew Jer before he was born NOT before he was conceived (or before he existed). This is similar to God's knowledge of Paul. God chose him to be an important spokesperson while he was in the womb (Gal 1:15).

And just because God picked or separated someone before they were born (but after they were conceived) did not guarantee that that person would work with God (synergism! ) and be a good prophet. Israel did have its share of bad prophets.

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Also, I am rather surprised at those of you in here who say they adhere to the open view of God denying man's freedom, via "synergy." If God works with us, again, I must say, that in the open view, it denies the human's freedom! What if the human does not want God working with him after salvation? Why is this different than salvation? Why is OK for God to work with someone in synergy toward sanctification, but not OK for God to work with a reprobate before salvation toward justification?

A simple definition of Compatibilism, in the classic view of God, is that both God's sovereign knowledge and human responsibility are coexisting at the same time. For those of you who say you are a free will theist, to not have studied this out in the historic Christian documents, so far as to have an ignorance of compatibilism, is really quite beyond my belief! For a good summary of compatibilism, see "Does God Know the Future?" Modern Reformation, (Sept/Oct 1995): 20-25.

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Well, POW, where have all our open view friends gone? I hope at least one of them responds to my questions!

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I am new to this thread and I am a card carryin'Open Theist. See? (imagine me pulling my card out at this point )

Please be patient with me if I have overlooked some the previous discussion, I didn't read all of this but saw the challenge and couldn't pass it up. I didn't read the article in Modern Reformation but I attended the conference of the ACE a couple of years ago when Dr. Boyd was their whoopin' boy. Just kidding, it was fun. Anyway, I can say that I have dialogued with some of the people who are in leadership there a bit and had the opportunity to hear them respond to Dr. Boyd. Ware was among them and was one of the least persuasive. Still is. Helm and Horton were much more interesting and engaging.

Your question. Does God know each creature from eternity in the Open View? I can honestly say, "I don't know." Let me elaborate. Scripture reveals many examples of people that God clearly foreknew and some God flat out prophecied and predestined. The question is whether this reveals the exceptions or the rule. Not much is really at stake in this though. My inclination is to say that, no, God does not know every particular creature by name ahead of time. Though clearly God did orchestrate some things at times to be certain that particular logistics worked out the way God intended. That is well within God's prerogative. Right? Take me for example, I am clearly not significant to the trajectory of world history, why should I assume that God foreknew ME from the foundations of the world? Ryan is clearly right that my parents had a bunch to do with my being here. God ordained that it be this way. So far no problems. I am sure Ryan will point out some further questions that he has though so I will await that before I go on....

About synergy, all good. I assume synergy most of the time. But then there are those occasional times where God is perhaps testing us (rare, perhaps) or we are in a position where we can genuinely resist God (frequent, it seems)....then we do need a more rubust concept of freedom that compatibilism can provide. Sin is only sin if it is genuinely against God. God cannot be pulling the strings (ultimately) and pretend that its offensive. Again, if this is all redundant, then I apologize....

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

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Yes, back to Ryan's question...

Hmmm! Modes, I'm thinking that if God (a self contained, necessary and uncaused being) knows of Jeremiah before he's even conceived (oh, that darned 'i' before 'e' thing), it may have been nothing more than God having known the parents, the DNA, the this, that and the what have you that would make Jeremiah be who he was. But perhaps, it may have been that God knew further back then this in that He knows the "souls" of all those He will create; apparently we are not manufactured beings that come out of the blue sky, as it were - For God told Moses "Who do you think made you the way you are?" I mean, he doesn't have to "think us up" before He creates us the way we are.

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. . . but in this case God merely knowing what He's going to create - "Before you were born, I knew you" -that's all.

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How could God foreknow someone like Jeremiah before he was born, (Jer. 1.5) if in fact that birth was the moral decision of two agents of free-will (a.k.a. free agents ) Now, I appreciate both your and MOT's honest confrontation with the truth that God does seem to foreknow important person's birth, but what does this do to the open view? Are you really understanding God "as you read the Scriptures?" To be quite frank, you sound like us "classic" view folk who have to "explain" things to "compatibilism."

And, let me make again the point regarding synergy and compatibilism when it is alligned with the open view that I made earlier. In the open view, there can be no synergy, for it is merely a shaded gild for compatibilism! (Remember the popular movie, "I know how you felt about compatibilism last summer"?). Allow me to quote myself:

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Are you sure that free will theists should pose this as a possibility? It sounds quite a bit like COmpatabilism. If it is true, is the agent still ABSOLUTELY FREE?

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In other words, what is the big difference between God working with someone toward salvation, and God working with someone after salvation? I believe for MOT to allow for "synergy" is for him to deny one of the key elements of the open-view. I must admit that I take great comfort that this whole "synergy" thing falls right nicely into the classic "compatiblist" position.

Thanks for responding,

Ryan

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First of all I would like to thank StMn and MOT of your mercy to me in spite of small touch of sarcasm a couple entries up. I don't know what all you've read, but I have revealed myself to be a non-open view theist.

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Take me for example, I am clearly not significant to the trajectory of world history, why should I assume that God foreknew ME from the foundations of the world?

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I'll muster a response is what I meant to say. (I really need to start proofing my entries).

Ry

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We must rethink what we mean by God’s omniscience. A very high percentage of Christians hold that God knows everything, even the future, in exhaustive detail. This means that everything you and I will ever decide to do has already been spelled out in the register of what will most certainly happen. Thus the belief that we are actually choosing between alternative courses of action is a mistake and an illusion. If God now knows that tomorrow you will select A and not B, then your belief that you will be making a genuine choice is mistaken. . . . If God knows eternally that A will be the selection and not B, then it is still an illusion that nay genuine alternative will exist at the time fo the decision. It would appear to me that actions which are infallibly foreknown or timelessly known cannot be free in the required biblical sense

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