Open Theism Discussion Board

Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > The raging debate continues here... > Basic questions on OT

Forum Quick Jump

66 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 3

[ << Previous Thread | Next Thread >> | Show Newest Post First ]

Leila
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 93

Posted 5/19/2003 3:17 PM (GMT -6)

I understand the Open View a lot better now; thanks everyone. But what I'm missing are some good arguments against the OV. From what I've read on this site, it seems that those who argue against it are really arguing against their own mischaracterization of the Open View. Think I'll check out some other sites to hear some more critique.

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/19/2003 6:08 PM (GMT -6)

Leila: But what I'm missing are some good arguments against the OV.

Tom: Get used to the feeling!

Tom

ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655

Posted 5/19/2003 6:18 PM (GMT -6)

Uh, try reading some theology outside the late 20th -early 21st century. Statements like that are just ignorant. Sure, you don't have to agree with Arminianism or Calvinism, but you can't seriously be sitting here saying that there are no good arguments other than the OV? There is real importance in studying history- history in and of itself, history of theology, and history of philosophy, to see beyond one's own myopic modern viewpoints.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
--Søren Kierkegaard

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/19/2003 6:41 PM (GMT -6)

Come on RD, LAUGH for cying out loud! Crack a bit of a smile there. Come on!

Uh, yeah, Leila, you could try reading Lorenzo McCabe, the 19th century Methodist OPEN THEIST (over whose views nobody felt compelled wage war), or if you wanna go back more, to Calcidius, the 5th Century Christian theologian and open theist. By all means, don't be MYOPIC!

Tom

Christian
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 78

Posted 5/19/2003 7:05 PM (GMT -6)

Tom, do you believe that there are NO good or valid arguments against the OV?

How do you explain the hundreds of years of classic theistic belief prior to OV? Did God mislead all these people? Or, as the OV would say, did all these people make the free choice to mislead themselves?

John Earp
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715

Posted 5/19/2003 7:21 PM (GMT -6)

The Starkster said:

quote:

...open theism...does not include an exhaustively known future as does omniscience in the Classical concept.

I thought I recalled GB saying or writing somewhere that what is different about the Open View is not that the future is not exhaustively known (as all possibilities as well as all certainties are in fact exhaustively known by God); but that the future is not exhaustively definitely known by God. Am I right?

"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.

revivaltheology.net

Edited by - John Earp on 05/20/2003 12:22:20 AM

Starkman
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747

Posted 5/20/2003 1:49 AM (GMT -6)

Hey John,

quote:
I thought I recalled GB saying or writing somewhere that what is different about the Open View is not that the future is not exhaustively known (as all possibilities as well as all certainties are in fact exhaustively known by God); but that the future is not exhaustively definitely known by God. Am I right?

God knows all truth values. He knows what's true, false and (the great OV flag) might or might not be. But yes, I think you're correct when you say that the future is not exhaustively definitely known.

I myself am still dubious about God knowing every cause and effect--the affect upon a person in view of one's emotions, mind and heart: can it really be said that God knows the literal choice and movement I may do in X situation, AND THEN knows what He would do, and then what I would do, and then what He would do . . . though it's still not definite to happen?

See, I can't yet grasp--if it can be grasped at all--that just because God knows the truth value of every proposition, He can then know the future exhaustively but not definitely. It is the intangible, the amorphous element of being human that causes me to question whether there is a sure, clear-cut "If A then B," or "if A might . . . then B" of every situation I will encounter; affording God the ability to know (not definitely, but possibly) all my actions. I'm not, as of yet, sold on it being true that this is part of God's knowledge of the future. (I'm rushed, so I'm probably not writing this real clearly. Sorry!)

Starkman

Am I right? I say, am I right?
Charlie Brown

Edited by - Starkman on 05/20/2003 06:52:01 AM

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 5/20/2003 4:52 AM (GMT -6)

Tom wrote:

quote:
*
Open theism argues that self-determining free choices cannot be eternally foreknown as certain, though God, being infinitely intelligent, eternally knows all possibilities and thus all possible choices we may ever make. As such, God is able to attend to an infinite number of possible story lines, perfectly anticipating each possibility as if it were the only thing that could have happened. God is not so insecure and unintelligent a Sovereign that the accomplishing of his ultimate purposes requires that he be limited to having to attend to only one certain route to the fulfillment of these purposes as opposed to several possible routes to their fulfillment.

Hope it helps. The open view may never be THE view among evangelicals (or any other group), but it is at least a permissible explanation of how God may be believed to possess exhaustive foreknowledge of all things and to exercise sovereignty over creation, a sovereignty that is loving, creative, just, all-encompassing, infinitely intelligent, resourceful beyond measure, and more than adequate to guarantee the ultimate fulfillment of his purposes and the final victory of his kingdom.

It STILL looks to me, Tom, that the "OpenView" is just another subset of the classical view, many of who's many foudations it shares dispite sometimes decrying several of them at the same time.

The "RUB" for me comes in the word--which you still have to use--"fore." THAT, as Evodimov points out, traps God within time. Unless I'm not paying attention at all, the one of the wellknown "ticks" OpenView promoters have against the "Classic"/Pagan-Greek tradition is this very thing. You might immediately object, saying: the Diety-Open view traps God WITHIN time while the Deity-Classic view traps God OUTSIDE of time. But the commonality is that both use an either or: God is trapped.

Within the Byzantine Liturgy the confessed "attributes" (not really that, especially in the sense the Western "attributes" fit that category) are not really statements about God specifically--not about God in His essence. They are statements all couched with relation to us: ...for thou art God ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever existing and eternally the same...Al lof these, "ineffable," "inconceivable," "invisible," "incomprehensible," and even "ever existing and eternally the same" are statements made with respect to us. Obviously (and Tom, finally give me a break here!!!), "incomprehensible" is NOT a statement of God's self-knowledge, as in the Father knowing the Son, etc.

Personally, I don't have any word for God's knowledge of the future, except perhaps: "HE KNOWS." I know that "foreknowledge" is wrong. I can handle the unhandle-able somewhat when I say merely "God's eternal Wisdom." Of course, Wisdom speaks of the Son. But it is also healthy for me to constantly realize that the Same Jesus in the cave and the same Christ of the Cross and Grave and Sky is the Eternal Word spoken by the Father that divided darkness from light.

So, not having or expecting a word which describes God's eternal wisdom from God's perspective I don't seek a story-line to expain it.

Thanks for youe time, Tom.

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 05/20/2003 09:54:41 AM

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 5/20/2003 5:24 AM (GMT -6)

pOw

quote:

the Diety-Open view traps God WITHIN time while the Deity-Classic view traps God OUTSIDE of time. But the commonality is that both use an either or: God is trapped.

To say God can't be in some make-believe silly state called "outside time" is not to trap God.

Is God brillig? He isn't? Aren't we limiting God?

Can God myre and gimble in the wabe? He can't? Aren't we trapping Him?

quote:

Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, 'My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure';

See the temporal language in that text? Any reason listed NOT to believe the temporal quality of that language?

Even though the skies are blue, don't they let the sunshine through?

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 5/20/2003 6:05 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Laika

To say God can't be in some make-believe silly state called "outside time" is not to trap God.

quote: Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, 'My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure';

See the temporal language in that text? Any reason listed NOT to believe the temporal quality of that language?

Laika, you seem to promote "outside time" and yet to also call it silly. Please understand my confusion at this!

The BEST language I've found for God re:time is "preeternal." That's the liturgical phrase in the Byzantine Liturgies. Maybe I could say that God is both in and out, but NOT defined by either. Would you understand that?

Your quote does not do what you appear to hope that it will do.

"Declaring the end from the beginning" certainly fits with BOTH "preeternal" and temporal. That's because the beginning denotes only that which begins and follows the Creation. The "beginning" is as far as we can go in our imagination. There is not even a "before" to correspond to the beginning. "Beyond" (which itself is an inappropriate voicing) is only the uncreated. And that denotes only God.

As to, "from ancient times things which have not been done, it seems to me the "ancient times" might be a literary way to refer to the preCreation and the uncreated. (It is UTTER foolishness to say that God changed with respect to his being uncreated upon the advent of Creation! Yet I see that occassionally on this board. Heresy!!! Danger!!!) The have not been done simply is set within time, and refers to OUR time (God "has" no time; what's more Time has no being outside of God.) and points WITH THE LISTENER to the fulfillment. We have unitedness to time, and descend with Time until when the salvation of Time from death will be fulfilled. (Rev.)

It says: 'My purpose will be established. God's PURPOSE need not (gramatically) be timebound. Nor need it be independent of time: "Let them multiply..." And again, within time, and before OUR eyes -- but not outside of God's sight!!! -- they are fulfilled.

I will accomplish all My good pleasure.' Once again as with above, the "pleasure" and the "purpose" are God's, whether preeternal or actions within, on, toward, etc, (whatever is appropriate) to time... But the "will" indicates a simple "now/then" relationship of Time. (As in "It will happen." Rather than speak of God's will.)

Nothing difficult about those.

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 5/20/2003 6:36 AM (GMT -6)

quote:

Maybe I could say that God is both in and out, but NOT defined by either. Would you understand that?

Where does scripture present that? All we see in scripture is God talking like He's with us. Everywhere in scripture He uses the same temporal language we use, "before", "after", "during", "if then, else then", "will do", etc. We are created in His image, He speaks a common language we all can understand. NO WHERE does it show something other than this. So why try and invent some other science fiction state He can be in? There's no need. When He says "I will do", why believe that it's already done "in the future"??? Just take Him at His word that He will do it someday. It's not done now.

If God lives in some "eternal now" state where every fact is active to Him at the same instant, He holds "Elvis is alive" AND "Elvis is dead" as both currently true. He's holding contradictory information. "Is Elvis dead, God?" Heck, He could answer either way, BOTH are true to Him at that instance.

Even though the skies are blue, don't they let the sunshine through?

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/20/2003 7:28 AM (GMT -6)

Christian: Tom, do you believe that there are NO good or valid arguments against the OV?

Tom: I think there are some arguments against the open view. Can’t recall them off-hand

, but I believe there are a few. The point, guys, was that my comment to Leila was a JOKE. Is there no humor around here anymore folks?

Christian: How do you explain the hundreds of years of classic theistic belief prior to OV? Did God mislead all these people?

Tom: That would be YOUR answer as a determinist, no?

Christian: Or, as the OV would say, did all these people make the free choice to mislead themselves?

Tom: Nobody consciously chooses to mislead themselves. So I’m sure they believed what they taught, just like you and I do? You and I aren’t both right on the issue of determinism, right? So one of us is wrong? Why suppose that the one that’s wrong is wrong either because God mislead him or because he mislead himself? Perhaps we’re both sincerely honest and both want to know the truth. Hmmm? That’s far better than supposing God is responsible for determining peoples’ beliefs.

-----------

PoW-

PoW: The "RUB" for me comes in the word--which you still have to use--"fore." …I know that "foreknowledge" is wrong.

Tom: It’s a biblical word: “PROgnosko.” The biblical writers didn’t have to use the prefix. There were alternatives. How do you account for the use of the word?

Tom

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 5/20/2003 7:32 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Laika

If God lives in some "eternal now" state

You are stuck in a rut, Laika. Even "eternal now" is completely relative to the Creation. The salient question is whether the Creator is IN or OUT of creation. Aristotle and Plato said IN. The Bible says OUT. That settles it for me.

You actually asked, "Where does scripture present that" ("in" and "out")? OK. THAT was not my first and prefered wording. I'll address your followup questions:

Laika: He uses the same temporal language we use...
PoW: Of course he does. He is addressing us. And it is recorded by men so moved...

Laika: We are created in His image
PoW: But we are not created to be Creators (as per my post above); just co-creators

Laika: He speaks a common language we all can understand
PoW: Which is by His Word. The SAME word that brings time into being through the creation. That the Word speaks within the same time that He creates is to be expected. It does not, though, say that God is part of His creation.

Laika: NO WHERE does it [Scripture] show something other than this.
PoW: As 'mystery,' I'm not sure that I can remember even a question being asked by God in that form. But of Job He asked, "Where were you when I laid the foundations... Perhaps passages like "...when the Morning Sons sang together... But such things are spoken 'soflty' in scripture.

Laika: ...some other science fiction state He can be in?
PoW: Do you see the blasphamy in suggesting that ANYTHING can circumscribe (encircle/be-bigger-than) God? A "state" bigger than God that He can "be in." The Open View appears to do this. I do not.

Laika: When He says "I will do", why believe that it's already done "in the future"???
PoW: I AGREE WITH YOU!!! God is not limited by his creation (except in the case of love, where he is sorrowed by our sin). But God will "DO" things in the future, things not done now. However, they can be "purposed" by God in a "format" that is beyond our expression. That format is God's WILL, not time.

Laika: Just take Him at His word that He will do it someday. It's not done now.
PoW: YES. However we do have the expression "as good as done."

AND, Laika, some things are beyond even what you have spoken of. Some things from THEN are present mysteriously NOW. The "new life" in Christ, salvation, while a thing that will be fully ours at the Last Judgement, IS NOW ours by the power of the Holy Spirit. The pangs of death are trampled down by the Resurrection. Christ's bodily ascension and glorification make available THROUGH HIS BODY the resurrection life.

THIS DEFIES TIME. But that is OK, since time was wonded with the fall, and needed healing by the "Ancient of Days."

This is just plain good Lutheran, Anglican, Wesleyan, Calvinist, Orthodox, etc.

It is Christianity at its heart.

Laika: If God lives in some "eternal now" state where every fact is active to Him at the same instant...
PoW: THIS IS JIBBERISH!

As I said at the top, "eternal now" is completely relative to the Creation. It is worthy of Plato or Aristotle, but not the Bible. it is the sum of all nows: 1+1+1+1+... But it is a "box"--and God does not belong in boxes.

Laika: He holds "Elvis is alive" AND "Elvis is dead" as both currently true.
PoW: NO, He "holds Elvis." Period. Heis Elvis' Savior. The other part of that is up to Elvis.

I hope that you don't dwell on giggerish.

Elvis, and all creation, are not "information." They are the Creation. They are "spoken" by God. They do not have a life of their own -- they do not subsist in themselves. They are not known "outside" God but in God. They do not sit around for God to suddenly stumble on them. Without God they cease to exist.

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 05/20/2003 12:36:34 PM

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 5/20/2003 7:49 AM (GMT -6)

quote:

[*]Laika: If God lives in some "eternal now" state where every fact is active to Him at the same instant...
PoW: THIS IS JIBBERISH!

Hey, we agree on something.

For that instance anyway.

Even though the skies are blue, don't they let the sunshine through?

Christian
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 78

Posted 5/20/2003 2:18 PM (GMT -6)

Tom, thank you for addressing the questions I posed. My apologies, but it does not appear to me as if you directly answered them.

You believe there are some arguments against the open view. Do you believe there are NO good or valid arguments against the OV? I have no doubt that you are aware of various arguments against the OV, but do you find that each of them are poor and invalid? If so, why?

In actuality, I was seeking a straightforward answer to the following question wondering how an OV'er explains hundreds of years of classic theistic belief prior to the OV? Whether or not I am a determinist has no bearing on your belief. Thank you.

Do you believe that classic theists, for the past hundreds of years, have believed something that is misleading and a wrong belief? Perhaps my question is better stated this way.

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/20/2003 5:16 PM (GMT -6)

Thanks Christian, for clearing it up for me. I'm not sure my answer will satisfy even most open theists, but here it goes...

Christian: Do you believe that classic theists, for the past hundreds of years, have believed something that is misleading and a wrong belief?

Tom: Yes. But more importantly, why should hundreds of years of mistaken beliefs bother anybody? How about thousands of years of mistaken atheism, Buddhism, Islam, or hundreds of years of mistaken idolatry right in ancient Israel? I guess I'd like to ask, What would my answering you with a "yes" prove?

God doesn't determine peoples' beliefs. They are responsible for them.

But this is important too: Christians who grew up with, believed in, and lived their lives in the classical view ARE CHRISTIANS! They trusted Christ, loved God, and served God at great cost to themselves. THAT'S what matters, isn't it?

How about the doctrine of justification by faith. It was by and large misplaced for hundreds of years until the Reformation. Doesn't it bother you that people believed something that was misleading (i.e., in works righteousness) for hundreds of years? Paul said ancient Israel blew it because (my paraphrase, don't have a Bible next to me...) "though they are zealous, they pursued a right relationship with God as though it depended upon works?" Why would God let Israel, his own people, believe THAT for so so long?

Christian: I have no doubt that you are aware of various arguments against the OV, but do you find that each of them are poor and invalid? If so, why?

Tom: That would take too long, but we have this whole discussion site to work it out. You'd agree, I think, that if it were true that I found an argument against the open view to be a successful argument that this would mean the open view is wrong. If I believed theological determinism produced a successful argument for it's case...I'd be a determinist! Doesn't that follow?

Why aren't you an open theist? Obviously, because you find none of the arguments for it convincing (while you find at least one, probably more, of the arguments for what you believe convincing). There ya are.

Did I answer anything this time?

Blessings,
Tom

Edited by - TGB on 05/20/2003 10:17:28 PM

66 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 3

Forum Information

Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 6:10 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads

Need Support? | Forum Help Manual