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John Earp
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 7/24/2003 5:45 PM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Would you accept ". . . Open Theism, which denies God's unlimited absolute foreknowledge" as correct?
As Dr. Olson and Dr. Boyd are, as far as I know, quite well acquainted, I hesitate to contradict Olson on this point.
However, to my mind I think that Olson's definition of the OV, as quoted above, would be both inadequate and inaccurate. What the Open view expressly denies is that the future is 100% definite in the mind of God; that is, the OV denies that God possesses exhaustive definite knowledge of the future, but affirms that God possess exhaustive knowledge of the future, as the future is "partly definite, partly indefinite."
Further, the OV plainly teaches that God knows each and every one of the possibilities that make up the part of the future which is indefinite. Therefore, on the OV, God's foreknowledge is not "limited" as some have accused us of saying, but on the OV God's foreknowledge is in fact augmented, in that God also knows ALL possibilities as in fact real possibilities.
"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 07/24/2003 10:55:07 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 7/24/2003 6:09 PM (GMT -6) | | | I think the vast majority of us, including Roger Olson (who, by the way, is NOT me, and I have not had the pleasure of meeting him either), know what the basic gist of Open Theology is. Splitting hairs and semantics isnt' that helpful. Let's face it, if there really IS a difference between Open Theology and Classical Theology, then that difference is between the definition of the metaphysical reality of the future, and whether or not it is knowable as an actual reality. Saying "knowing all possibilities" - does that boil down to, God knows each and every path that is available to mankind, but does not know the actual outcome until it occurs? if so, then that equates "not knowing the future" in common parlance. if you are instead saying that God does know all the possibilities AND the outcome, then indeed he "knows" the future in the same sense as classical theology teaches. So which is it, just to clear it up? | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 7/24/2003 6:31 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey DLW - I'm not sure what you meant in your "psychic balm" post exactly....but my thoughts are that everyone tries to "reconcile" their Idea of an omnibenevolent, perfect, all powerful, all knowing God with reality. And that reality is, the world pretty much sucks. There's so much indescribable suffering and injustice....injustice that rarely is righted in our lifetimes. When you say you're with Mother Teresa, in that God doesn't give us more than we can handle, I'd have to respectfully disagree, although I completely supported Mother Teresa and wish I could be a tenth of as good a person as she was. That's for the simple reason that frequently people ARE given more than they can handle, and hence, death ensues. Are you going to tell the parent of a murder victim that her child wasn't given more than she could handle? No, bc she was killed. I hate to keep bringing up the HOlocaust, but if there's ever an example of hell on earth, that's it. And these people for the most part served and loved God - at any rate, were no worse than anyone else. Did they deserve their torture and murder? No, but God did not intervene, even though it would have been perfectly simple for him to do so. The Old Testament abounds with examples of God intervening on the part of Israel, GOd explicitly telling them that he was going to win the battle for them- God apparently "stopping the sun" for Joshua so he could win...so if we are to believe the truth of these OT stories, it is entirely within God's capacity to intervene on behalf of his people in blatant ways. At least according to the OT, God did not think his own intervention was enough of an impingement on humanity's free will to stop him from intervening.
We all have to grapple with this reality, that evil and suffering do exist. Neither Calvinism, Open Theology, or anything else can completely explain the reason for it. So that's why I've been saying if we are to believe in the God of the Bible at all, we have to throw up our hands and say, we dont' know why evil is there. Why is it part of the plan? We can't know.
Many people do not believein God for this very reason, b/c the reconciliation is so very difficult. | | Back to Top | | |
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John Earp
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 7/24/2003 7:20 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
I think the vast majority of us, including Roger Olson (who, by the way, is NOT me, and I have not had the pleasure of meeting him either), know what the basic gist of Open Theology is. Splitting hairs and semantics isnt' that helpful.
If you know what the basic gist of Open Theology is, why are you asking questions about its basic gist, I wonder? Also, in your own revised definition of OVT you tacitly admit that your initial definition of OVT in this thread was not precise. Splitting hairs and semantics are not the same thing as precision.
quote:
Let's face it, if there really IS a difference between Open Theology and Classical Theology, then that difference is between the definition of the metaphysical reality of the future, and whether or not it is knowable as an actual reality.
What I bolded above is what seems to me to be the real crux of this whole discussion; i.e., the distinction that must be made between that which is actual and that which is possible. This the Open view endeavors to do. By definition that which is possible (potential) cannot in fact be actual as yet, and that which is actual by the very definition of the word, "ACTual," cannot in any way be possible (in the sense of potential). The two terms are utterly contradictory in meaning. Therefore, the future is not yet an actual reality by definition, not even on the classical scheme of omniscience. It hasn't happened yet, and so it simply is not yet actual.
quote:
Saying "knowing all possibilities" - does that boil down to, God knows each and every path that is available to mankind, but does not know the actual outcome until it occurs? if so, then that equates "not knowing the future" in common parlance. if you are instead saying that God does know all the possibilities AND the outcome, then indeed he "knows" the future in the same sense as classical theology teaches. So which is it, just to clear it up?
There is a third alternative to your above two. In saying that God knows each and every path that is available (I would say possible), and that the actual outcome is in fact undetermined by God antecedent to the actuation thereof, one does not have to submit to the mistaken notion that this therefore requires one to say that on this theory "God does not know the future," as you and most determinists tend to say wrt the Open View.
As has been pointed out innumerable times here on this board as well as in Dr. Boyd's books, on the Open view of the future God does not know less than in classical theology, He knows infinitely MORE, as He has exhaustive knowledge of all possibilities (as well as certainties), otherwise known of as might counterfactuals.
Again, on the Open view, God knows a very significant portion of the future; on this alone, it should be obvious that the OV denies the assertion you make, to wit, "the Open view says God doesn't know the future." The Open view merely affirms the biblical passages that demonstrate the indeterminancy of SOME of the future. Based on the theme of openness (i.e., divine repentance) revealed in Scripture, which has usually been denied and referred to as anthropomorphism by classical theologians, the Open view sees no compelling reason to rule out one class of scriptures (Passages which suggest the openness of the future), because another class of scriptures (deterministic-sounding passages, which in my experience speak more to the issue of God's omnipotence much more than to His omniscience) seems to contradict the other class.
In other words, the Open view affirms both kinds of passages in Scripture, both "open" and "settled," and from this point of departure seeks to develop a coherent systematic theology. I realize you don't agree the Open view makes logical sense, but I submit that this is more than likely a result of presuppositions with regard to what omniscience entails and what Scripture teaches.
"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 07/25/2003 12:24:58 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Chris Grant
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/25/2003 5:03 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
A Mormon on this website. AHHHHH the rumors will abound...
That sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. 
William Lane Craig, some of the authors of _Beyond the Bounds_, and I think some of the authors of _Bound Only Once_ compare Open Theists to Mormons in the process of criticizing the former. Some of these comparisons are fair to Mormons--we do, after all, believe that God is embodied--but I've worried that it might give people the mistaken idea that Mormons tend to deny God's ability to know the future actions of free individuals, and that's simply not the case. People like Ostler (who also has advocated an understanding of scripture that is way outside Mormon norms) and Paulsen (who also has stated that "t is just not clear that an innocent person can justly pay for the sins of the guilty", a questioning of the substitutionary effect of the Atonement that has been explicitly criticized by Church leaders) are not representative of mainstream Mormon thought on this issue.
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/25/2003 6:40 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Hey DLW - I'm not sure what you meant in your "psychic balm" post exactly
It is because the world sucks that we need psychic balms. A balm is a soothing restorative agency. Psychic is of or relating to the psyche:psychogenic, originating in the mind or in mental or emotional conflict.
There is a song that Allison Krause sings titled, "There is a reason." It goes like...
I've seen hard times and I've been told
There isn't any wonder that I fall
Why do we suffer, crossing off the years
There must be a reason for it all.
I've trusted in You, Jesus, to save me from my sin
Heaven is the place I call my home
But I keep on getting caught up in this wold I'm living in
And Your voice it sometimes fades before I know
Hurtin' brings my heart to You, crying with my need
Depending on Your love to carry me
The love that shed His blood for all the world to see
This must be the reason for it all
Hurtin' brings my heart to You, a fortress in the storm
When what I wrap my heart around is gone
I give my heart so easily to the ruler or this world
When the one who gives me most will give me all
In all the things that cause me pain You give me eyes to see
I do believe but help my unbelief
I've seen hard times and I've been told
There is a reason for it all
That song is from the cd, "so long so wrong".
Now from a systematic theologian perspective, one could have a hissy-fit over such a verse. After all how could there be a reason for it all if the problem is in fact that the ruler of the world is usurping God's place and the problem is she gets too caught up in this world that God's voice fades from us?
But the song is not s'posed to be a systematic theological treatise and the main points is to voice our suffering, acknowledge our sin and need for God and need to trust that there is a reason to continue on despite the suffering endemic in it all.
This serves as a psychic balm since all our doubts over God and suffering, "the problem of evil", are put to rest, ultimately, in an act of faith.
My point was that, in the past, we have tended to rely on a view that God knows/determines the future, even though we don't, and as such we can rest assure that its uncertainties will fit into Gods plan, even if they bring suffering for us personally. The OVTheism denies aspects of what gave us a psychic balm in the past. There is gratuitous evil. As with a chess game, the end may be secure without exhaustive definite knowledge of the steps along the way, but, along the way, there is uncertainty as to what we trust in God for. I have a nine-year-old sister with whom I am close. It would hurt me a lot for her to be hurt alot or to turn away from God and yet I acknowledge that these possibilities are real; though, no good comes from me dwelling on them.
quote:
When you say you're with Mother Teresa, in that God doesn't give us more than we can handle, I'd have to respectfully disagree, although I completely supported Mother Teresa and wish I could be a tenth of as good a person as she was. That's for the simple reason that frequently people ARE given more than they can handle, and hence, death ensues. Are you going to tell the parent of a murder victim that her child wasn't given more than she could handle? No, bc she was killed. I hate to keep bringing up the HOlocaust, but if there's ever an example of hell on earth, that's it. And these people for the most part served and loved God - at any rate, were no worse than anyone else. Did they deserve their torture and murder?
No, but God did not intervene, even though it would have been perfectly simple for him to do so.
I agree that my Mother Teresa-style leap of faith is in fact a leap of faith, since there is bountiful evidence that would seem to suggest otherwise. Ultimately, we don't see the world with God's eyes. I've given some heuristic accounts of history in other links and would suggest that the decisions that led to the Nazi Holocaust were many and could have been avoided. The problem is that we are interconnected and when others sin, we suffer as well. For example, there is a movie titled Amen, which suggests the pope knew about the holocaust in advance of others and kept silent because of pressure. Imagine what would have been the consequences if the pope had become a martyr, the Vatican been burned, all for to prevent much of the Nazi Holocaust? So I don't blame God. I blame us and especially our ecclesiastical leadership. That is why I like to consider ecclesiology and what alternatives there may be to our existing structures.
quote:
The Old Testament abounds with examples of God intervening on the part of Israel, GOd explicitly telling them that he was going to win the battle for them- God apparently "stopping the sun" for Joshua so he could win...so if we are to believe the truth of these OT stories, it is entirely within God's capacity to intervene on behalf of his people in blatant ways. At least according to the OT, God did not think his own intervention was enough of an impingement on humanity's free will to stop him from intervening.
There are examples of events with WWII where things could have gone a lot worse. D-Day could have failed. The Germans could have had someone not as deluded as Hitler in charge. I'm sure the list could go on. So I am reluctant to say God was standing on the side-lines throughout the war.
quote:
We all have to grapple with this reality, that evil and suffering do exist. Neither Calvinism, Open Theology, or anything else can completely explain the reason for it. So that's why I've been saying if we are to believe in the God of the Bible at all, we have to throw up our hands and say, we dont' know why evil is there. Why is it part of the plan? We can't know.
Many people do not believein God for this very reason, b/c the reconciliation is so very difficult.
Agreed.
although, I would venture to say that an open view of the world and how the Church relates to it does pin the responsibility for much of the suffering on our inability to live up to our Christian ideals and how we Christians, particularly in our leadership, have made exaggerated claims to Truth so as to justify our own authority and preserve an order that has fallen short of the glory of God in many ways.
so that's where I'm coming from...
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
ahehmAmericanzituhsen! This,varrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry! Varrrrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry!
Roberto Benigni in
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/25/2003 10:29 AM (GMT -6) | | http://www.gregboyd.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1991&whichpage=5
quote:
[QUOTE]DLW: Now, I was born with a hole in my heart. It likely may have been part of God's greater plan for me to be born with such a defect. However, given the current prevalence of abortions in our world, it seems that one could say that such abortions apparently are also part of God's will.
This belongs on the other threads. Someone's going to respond to this one!!!
PoW: "So, you are saying that God is the cause of sin. (YOU SUPER-CALVINIST YOU!!!) You are saying that since people kill millions of human persons it must be OK with God now. That makes war good. Infantacide in Baal worship God-ordained... [quote] | | Back to Top | | |
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Fleetwood
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 110
| Posted 7/25/2003 10:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey, Chris, I appreciate your response. What you shared was very interesting. It was quite opposite of what I assumed or expected.
Let me sum up what I believe you have said: The Mormon books affirm God's exhaustive knowledge. The current church leaders also teach it. Mormons do believe in God's exhaustive knowledge (based on both the Bible and other books), other than some of the philosophers/theologians. (This, BTW, does not surprise me since open theism heavily relies on philosophy.)
I am not familiar with Daniel Peterson or Louis Midgley. Do you have weblinks where I could access info. re: the two men? Your commentary on them is interesting. I am mulling over your comment re: their open theistic bent based on "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." In other words, open theism is the enemy of "Chrisitan anti-Mormons," thus, they have befriended open theism? is this what you are saying? That is quite interesting because this says that these men have befriended themselves to open theism recognizing that open theism is an "enemy" to mainstream Christianity.
You said, "Perhaps they think that the Open Theists provide them with a weapon to use against classical theism and don't care if that weapon happens to be toxic to Mormonism, too." This is a profound statement that I want to ponder further. Thus, we can say that even outside the circle of Protestant Christianity, open theism is recognized as being an antithesis (to the extent of being an "enemy") to mainline Christianity. Am I correct in saying this?
Chris, you said, "I was a teenager then and have since repented." Good to hear it! 
I'm curious here. How did you become interested in the debate on open theism to the point you found this particular topic board?
BTW, are you familiar at all with a man named Greg Johnson? The name of his ministry/organization currently escapes me but he lives in the Salt Lake area and has a ministry of dialogue between evangelical Chrisitanity and Mormonism. He has dialogued with one of the BYU profs (I believe in a debate held on the BYU campus) but again, it escapes me now. I wouldn't be surprised if you know of him. He is not Mormon but his ministry is one of bridging communication between Mormons and Protestant Christians.
Interesting comments re: Beyond the Bounds. I will need to read them again and mull them over.
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/25/2003 10:59 AM (GMT -6) | | You know maybe the reason Mormonism emphasizes the EDF so much is because it reflects the predominant reformed views of the USAmerican Christianity from when it came into being.
If you read America's God by Mark Noll, he describes how Christian Theology developed in the US from 1730s to 1860s.
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
ahehmAmericanzituhsen! This,varrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry! Varrrrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry!
Roberto Benigni in
Johnny Stecchenino.
Edited by - DLW on 07/25/2003 9:12:23 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/25/2003 12:07 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
I am not familiar with Daniel Peterson or Louis Midgley. Do you have weblinks where I could access info. re: the two men?
They're affiliated with an apologetic organization called FARMS whose website is www.farmsresearch.com.
quote:
In other words, open theism is the enemy of "Chrisitan anti-Mormons," thus, they have befriended open theism? is this what you are saying?
That's more-or-less the way I see it. In addition to their defense of the Church against "liberalizing" influences from within--a defense which I appreciate--Peterson and Midgley also defend the Church against attacks from without. I sometimes appreciate this latter type of defense as well, but at other times it seems to turn into less of a defense and more of an attack on Evangelical Christianity, and this I don't appreciate. (If you do a google search for them, you might come across archives of some pretty embarrassing flame wars they've had with their opponents.) I do think they perceive of Open Theism as providing useful ammunition to use in these latter battles.
quote:
I'm curious here. How did you become interested in the debate on open theism to the point you found this particular topic board?
I'll try to be as brief as I can. Perhaps a year or two after making the Sunday School comment I referred to, I had a change of heart on the subject of God's foreknowledge, due in large part to a study of the writings of the LDS apostle Neal Maxwell. A decade or so ago I was involved in defending the position of Maxwell and other like-minded Church leaders (in a forum not unlike this one) against criticism from some Mormon intellectuals who objected to their emphasis on "the omnis".
Maxwell also persuaded me (and probably hundreds of thousands of other Mormons) to study the writings of C.S. Lewis and to learn to appreciate Christian thought from some others outside our Church. When I traveled to various large cities on business trips, I would often take the opportunity to visit their better bookstores and browse through the religion sections. (This was before Amazon took all the fun out of that.) On one of these trips (to Toronto? Pittsburgh?) I came across a copy of Sanders' _The God Who Risks_ and discovered that there were Evanglicals whose arguments sounded a lot like those of the Mormon intellectuals I mentioned in the last paragraph.
Since that time, I've followed the Open Theism controversy fairly closely. The reason I recently signed up on this bulletin board was to check some claims that David Paulsen made in an email that was forwarded to me after I critiqued some comments made by Midgley in the latest issue of _FARMS Review_.
Sorry that that explanation took so long.
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Fleetwood
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Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 110
| Posted 7/25/2003 4:15 PM (GMT -6) | | DLW, I don't follow your comment re: Mormonism emphasising the EDF because "it reflects the predominant reformed views of the USAmerican Christianity from when it came into being". The section quoted is what I don't quite follow. Could you explain more? Maybe I'm too tired to take it in and it's right before my eyes! Haven't read America's God.
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Fleetwood
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Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 110
| Posted 7/25/2003 4:21 PM (GMT -6) | | Chris, no apologies necessary. Everything you is very intriguing to me. Thanks for the site. I don't have the time now but will look it up and get myself caught up on all of it.
Did you recognize the name of Greg Johnson?
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/25/2003 4:23 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
DLW, I don't follow your comment re: Mormonism emphasising the EDF because "it reflects the predominant reformed views of the USAmerican Christianity from when it came into being". The section quoted is what I don't quite follow. Could you explain more? Maybe I'm too tired to take it in and it's right before my eyes! Haven't read America's God.
Oh Fleety-one,
Mormonism came into being in the US during the 19th century. As described in Noll's book, Reformed Theology was the predominant form of Christianity at that time. Since, as with Islam, they "borrowed" much from the ideas of their time and place, it is not surprising they would emphasize the EDF that was predominant in the systematic theology of their day.
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
ahehmAmericanzituhsen! This,varrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry! Varrrrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry!
Roberto Benigni in
Johnny Stecchenino. | | Back to Top | | |
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Fleetwood
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 110
| Posted 7/25/2003 4:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Gotcha DL! It was right in front of me. Wouldn't you agree though that all religions basically view a God of EDF?
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ReasonableDoubt
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 7/25/2003 5:08 PM (GMT -6) | | Fleetwood - along those lines, I'm willing to venture a bet that if you stood on a street corner, and randomly asked people if they thought that God knew what would happen to them tomorrow - the vast majority would say yes- REGARDLESS of their religious persuasion (unless, of course they were atheist). Of course this is not scientific, but i do think you're right - that most religions' official position is that God does know what will happen tomorrow...
"Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow." - C. S. Lewis | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 7/26/2003 5:24 AM (GMT -6) | | ReasonableDoubt
I'm willing to venture a bet that if you stood on a street corner, and randomly asked people if they thought that God knew what would happen to them tomorrow - the vast majority would say yes- REGARDLESS of their religious persuasion.
Iconoclast
Yes. I would say the same thing.
But if you then asked those very same people if they believed that they actually had free will or were really robots they would all say that they really had free will.
Then, if you asked them if they wanted more government services they would say yes. And then if you asked them if they wanted lower taxes they would also say yes.
Now, if you asked them what a married bachelor was or a square circle they might look at you a little funny. But less obvious and equally contradictory beliefs are easily held by most of the people who don't really sit down and examine the full ramifications.
Case in point - the popularity of the movie "Signs" which was inherently non-sensical due to the contradictions of its underlying thesis.
Determinism and free-will are as contradictory as married bachelors and square circles.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 7/26/2003 5:37 AM (GMT -6) | | ReasonableDoubt
The fact that God is omnipotent and can intervene, yet chooses not to most of the time, has the same practical effect of specifically ordaining an event.
Iconoclast
The practical effect that is different is how we FEEL about what God is doing to us. If someone murders your child in cold blood you will feel differently about that person than if that person accidentally killed your child when your child ran out into the street. And THIS makes a world of difference in terms of our relationship with God. Who would want to love a God who goes around murdering little children in cold blood? Determinism directly leads to this logical conclusion. The Open View allows us to see that the evil is NOT a result of God's will but is a result of wills that are opposed to God. I can't think of a more important practical difference.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/26/2003 6:09 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Mormonism came into being in the US during the 19th century. As described in Noll's book, Reformed Theology was the predominant form of Christianity at that time.
Interesting. The founder of Mormonism said that, before the events that led to the founding of the LDS Church, "he was partial to the Methodist sect".
quote:
Since, as with Islam, they "borrowed" much from the ideas of their time and place, it is not surprising they would emphasize the EDF that was predominant in the systematic theology of their day.
Setting aside the issue of whether Mormonism borrowed any more ideas from its environment than Judaism or mainstream Christianity did, the question of the degree to which the milieu of early Mormonism was Reformed as opposed to Arminian Protestantism or Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy is moot, is it not, since, as Fleetwood points out, all those faiths agreed with EDF at that time, did they not?
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Chris Grant
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Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/26/2003 6:16 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Determinism and free-will are as contradictory as married bachelors and square circles.
You seem to be using the word "determinism" to stand for the belief that God knows our future actions. By this definition, I guess, people like C.S. Lewis and William Lane Craig are determinists. Should they be viewed the same way we would view people that believe in married bachelors and square circles, or that, to borrow a phrase from Lewis, believe that they are poached eggs?
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Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/26/2003 6:22 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Did you recognize the name of Greg Johnson?
The name sounds familiar, but I'm not sure from where.
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Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/26/2003 6:30 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
The fundamental issue is that the end never justifies the means.
This is, of course, a common statement, but one I'm not sure I understand. What justifies us in poking needles into our small children if not the end that we can protect them from certain illnesses by doing so?
I am also reminded of William F. Buckley, Jr.,'s statement that: "There is a difference between pushing an old lady into the way of an oncoming bus, and pushing an old lady out of the way of an oncoming bus. It simply will not do to say in both cases that you are pushing an old lady around."
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/26/2003 7:00 AM (GMT -6) | | RD & Fleety-one & Chris,
In America's God, it is described how in the US reformed thought took on the predominant view of Theology and came to influence nearly all branches of Christianity, affecting even Roman Catholicism and apparently LDS faith.
So one could say that viewing time as if an omniscient God would naturally have EDF is a part of our cultural heritage in the US. Icon is just pointing out the arguments that such a view of time/knowledge logically leads to determinism and its absence of free-will, but, of course, most US people are not that logical.
If you asked a physicist on the street the same question, I have no doubt her/his answer would be more complicated and there may be more than one answer.
dlw
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Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/26/2003 7:23 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
So one could say that viewing time as if an omniscient God would naturally have EDF is a part of our cultural heritage in the US.
Was EDF not a standard belief in the Christian world outside the US?
quote:
Icon is just pointing out the arguments that such a view of time/knowledge logically leads to determinism and its absence of free-will, but, of course, most US people are not that logical.
C.S. Lewis never set foot in the US, yet he appears to be among those whom you and Iconoclast view as lacking your grasp of simple logic.
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
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| Posted 7/26/2003 7:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Reformed thinking was not prevalent everywhere. Certainly not among the Eastern Orthodox as Pow can attest to.
As for Lewis, it is not a question of him not understanding logic, but rather the weight of tradition. Traditionally, Christians have interpreted Jesus prayer for his followers to be one as I and the father are one to mean that ontotheolgical agreement on what constitutes "Orthodox" Christianity is a basis, if not the basis, for Christian Unity. The application of spatial metaphors to time, borrowing heavily from Aristotle, played an important role in the Medieval Consensus between Immanence and Transcendentalism(as is well explained in Olson and Grenz's book on 20th Century Theology.). As such, since the break up of the Medieval Consensus, much theology has been geared at trying to set out a new Consensus and more conservative, traditionally-oriented theologians like Calvin and Lewis have held onto this notion of time as inevitably playing part of Theology.
So I would say that OVTheists aren't so much better logicians, but that our cultural environment has changed to the point where maintaining continuity with Christian tradition doesn't require affirming this view of time and God's knowledge. I mean we have now culturally digested the notion of paradigm shifts, as were exemplified in Physics, so why might not the same be possible for Christian Theology?
So I would say it isn't that Boyd or Sanders are better theologians than Calvin or Lewis, but rather that they come from a milieu that is more willing to question/reconsider some aspects of their received theologies.
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
ahehmAmericanzituhsen! This,varrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry! Varrrrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry!
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Chris Grant
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/26/2003 9:36 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Reformed thinking was not prevalent everywhere. Certainly not among the Eastern Orthodox as Pow can attest to.
Okay, so Reformed thinking wasn't prevalent everywhere, in particular not in Orthodoxy. Now, what about EDF? Was belief in it in the early 1800s only prevalent where Reformed thinking was prevalent? If not, then I don't see the relevance of the alleged effect of Reformed (as opposed to Merely Christian) thinking on Mormonism.
quote:
As for Lewis, it is not a question of him not understanding logic, but rather the weight of tradition.
I see, so tradition weighed so heavily on Lewis that it caused him not only to swallow but to propagate a belief that was as trivially logically contradictory as believing in married bachelors and square circles. That's heavy! Lewis was an atheist until he was 4 years older than you are now, and it was 2 years after that that he took the motorcycle ride that began with him not believing that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and ended with him believing it. I hope you'll forgive those of us who are skeptical that you've given these issues more deep thought, unfettered by cultural biases, than Lewis did.
quote:
The application of spatial metaphors to time, borrowing heavily from Aristotle, played an important role in the Medieval Consensus between Immanence and Transcendentalism(as is well explained in Olson and Grenz's book on 20th Century Theology.).
The application of spatial metaphors to time also plays an important role in modern mathematics and in relativity theory. Many professionals in these fields have found it to be a pretty darn good metaphor.
quote:
I mean we have now culturally digested the notion of paradigm shifts, as were exemplified in Physics, so why might not the same be possible for Christian Theology?
Have you read the epilogue of _The Discarded Image_? I don't see how anyone could read that and deny that Lewis had digested the notion of paradigm shifts.
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