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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/26/2003 10:02 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
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.
Reformed thinking was prevalent in the US and influenced other forms of Christianity as is shown by Mark Noll. My point is that Mormonism was a product of its time and the distinctly American views on Theology. This is part of why OVTheism elicits antagonism because it denies the capital T-truth status of much of historical Theology in the US.
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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.
Well, Lewis is also known for his quotes where he says that never has he questioned a theological belief more than after he has successfully defended it apologetically. The man started off as a platonist and his platonism affected his Christianity from then on in. In the play shadow-lands, you hear him calling God a viviseccionist after his wife has died. I.e., God is not good or pain/evil is not really evil since it serves the higher purpose of shaking us out of our complacency. So Lewis did in fact grapple with the problem of evil in ways that OVTheists do. I don't know if he ever interacted with process thought, like many OVTheists did. I think it is safe to say that Lewis was averse to sowing further contention among Christians. He could have affirmed the view of the world, because it had been so commonly accepted among European Christians for so long.
Ultimately, he resolved the problem of evil though by denying the reality of evil. For him, the fleeting pleasures of this world were only shadows compared to the joys of the next.
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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.
Yes, but it is not the only way they understand the world. This metaphor underlies much of the differences between relativity and thermodynamics as I am sure Modes can attest to, since he did his masters on the subject.
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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.
I believe in his last book, Lewis does adopt an evolutionary view of Theology. In contrasting Medeival Theology with the theology of his day, he allowed for the possibility that it would continue to change so that the Christian Theology of the future would be different from what he professed. Let me get back to you on the references for that...
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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Fleetwood
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 110
| Posted 7/26/2003 11:00 AM (GMT -6) | | Chris, Greg Johnson has a ministry in the Salt Lake area in which he promotes dialogue and discussion/communication between Mormons and Protestants. However, the name of the ministry escapes me but I would be surprised if you haven't heard of it. I believe he has held some dialogues on the BYU campus. Nope, I found it. His ministry is called "Standing Together." It's two years old and currently based out of Nehi.
Just this past Th/Fri, he was involved in workshop held at Salt Lake Seminary called, "Models of Ministry Among Mormons Free Public Lecture, "Sources of Conflict: Mormons and Their Neighbors, 1831 - 1890"
He was involved awhile back in a big discussion with someone from BYU. I'll see if I can find the info.
BTW, he and his wife are personal friends.
Edited by - Fleetwood on 07/26/2003 4:13:11 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/26/2003 11:55 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
My point is that Mormonism was a product of its time and the distinctly American views on Theology.
But unless EDF is a distinctly American view, emphasizing the distinctly American nature of the environment in which Mormonism arose is a red herring as far as the question at hand is concerned. (Just as emphasizing the distinctly Reformed nature of that environment--which would have been news to prominent Arminians involved in the Second Great Awakening like Finney--is a red herring unless Catholics and Arminians and Eastern Orthodox of that time denied EDF.)
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The man started off as a platonist and his platonism affected his Christianity from then on in.
And this effect was so strong that it caused him to overlook a logical tautology as elementary as that there are no married bachelors and no square circles? You, on the other hand, are affected by no biases, because the progress of society has freed you up to engage in an unfettered search for truth? I think this argument is what Lewis called "chronological snobbery" (perhaps with a little "Bulverism" mixed in).
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In the play shadow-lands, you hear him calling God a viviseccionist after his wife has died. I.e., God is not good or pain/evil is not really evil since it serves the higher purpose of shaking us out of our complacency.
Oy. Where to begin.
- "Shadowlands" is fictionalized.
- A reliable account of Lewis's grief at his wife's death can be found in his A Grief Observed. (Its reliability has been confirmed to me personally by Lewis's stepson Douglas.)
- In A Grief Observed, when Lewis is contemplating God as a vivisectionist, he is not contemplating that the pain God causes us may do us good; he is contemplating God as the Cosmic Sadist. It sounds like you have vivisectionists confused with dentists.
- A Grief Observed shows Lewis expressing a lot of emotions that he rejects once he's calmed down. His question as to whether God always vivisects, is followed by the words: "I wrote that last night. It was a yell rather than a thought."
- When Lewis is persuaded that pain serves the purpose of shaking us out of our complacency, he has left the idea that "God is not good" far behind.
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Ultimately, he resolved the problem of evil though by denying the reality of evil.
I think that's much more of a misrepresentation of Lewis's view of evil than it is for opponents of Open Theism to say that it denies God's knowledge of the future.
Edited by - Chris Grant on 07/26/2003 4:57:55 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
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Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 7/26/2003 3:44 PM (GMT -6) | | Chris Grant
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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?
Actually, it's the future being so set that God knows it AND us having free will are as logical as square circles.
If God knows the future choices of free moral agents, then they really aren't free to make those decisions. The effect(decision) existed before the cause(agent making the decision). This is illogical. Square cirlces are illogical. ENIG is illogical, contradictory. (Eternal Now Impersonal God)
Do you know of any examples where effects precede their cause?
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Fleetwood
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Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 110
| Posted 7/26/2003 4:36 PM (GMT -6) | | Laika, God is not bound by either logic or by time. God can know the future choices of free moral agents because He is not bound by the future. He transcends time.
If this is not true, then God is on the journey of life with us. He is an active participant with us, experiencing as we experience. If this is true, then there is no one in control of this world. No one who knows the outcome. We are all on a journey together not knowing what might be around the corner. If this is true, then God can stop and prevent no evil from happening. A meteor could destroy the earth tomorrow and God would not be able to prevent it if it is true that He does not know of its coming. If He knows of its coming, then He knows the future, does He not? If he does not know of its coming, then no one is in control of the future and our destinies are not in the hands of God but in the hands of fate and circumstances.
We have Scriptural evidence, however, that indeed, the outcome and future is known by God.
God knows that "every knee will bow, every tongue confess" Is this just a logical guess? He knows that Satan will bow and confess and that he will be thrown into the pit of hell? Unless He has a cosmic crystal ball, I see no way of Him being able to know this unless He knows the future. This is a future event He speaks of.
What does this verse mean: "I am the Alpha and Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty" in light of open theism? Omega means "end." How can God be the "end" if the end has not happened and is not known? The God of open theism should is the Alpha but not the Omega. God says, "I AM the Omega," not "I WILL BE the Omega."
Is it difficult for you to accept that God has already been to the "end"? (Poor word choice but how do you describe God knowing or being to the end?) He has seen all, beginning to end. Open theists are bounding God by the boundaries of time as we know it on earth, but God is not bound by man's boundaries, certainly not that of time (or of space or logic).
2 Peter 3:8 With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
Now, if one of our days is equivalent to a thousand years in God-time, wouldn't we be safe to assume that some of those years are future years? I'm curious as to how an open theist would interpret this passage of Scripture. The context is that people were wondering when Christ's return would be and why he was delaying. Peter explains to them God's timelessness, how he does not view time as humans do.
You often use the word "illogical" in your arguments, but God is not bound by logic. Our logical explanations do not suffice.
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/27/2003 5:58 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
quote:
My point is that Mormonism was a product of its time and the distinctly American views on Theology.
But unless EDF is a distinctly American view, emphasizing the distinctly American nature of the environment in which Mormonism arose is a red herring as far as the question at hand is concerned. (Just as emphasizing the distinctly Reformed nature of that environment--which would have been news to prominent Arminians involved in the Second Great Awakening like Finney--is a red herring unless Catholics and Arminians and Eastern Orthodox of that time denied EDF.)
As I understand it Arminians do affirm EDF. Yes other places besides the US also affirmed it, but the point is that it was predominant in USAmerican Theology. I doubt the founders of Mormonism, prior to their conversion, were exposed to that much European Theology, inasmuch the country as a hole was quite isolated from developments abroad.
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The man started off as a platonist and his platonism affected his Christianity from then on in.
And this effect was so strong that it caused him to overlook a logical tautology as elementary as that there are no married bachelors and no square circles? You, on the other hand, are affected by no biases, because the progress of society has freed you up to engage in an unfettered search for truth? I think this argument is what Lewis called "chronological snobbery" (perhaps with a little "Bulverism" mixed in).
We only see further because we stand on the shoulders of Giants. One need not view the problem as married bachelors or square circles. There are other ways of resolving it. OVTheism affirms the reality of evil and the goodness of God by taking the view that there is a finite amount of governance/decision-making in the world and viewing God's creation process as transferring portions of the power to make decisions to others. Power is the ability to render the unknown known. As such, God, in giving us free-will, cannot know what we will choose, just an exhaustive list of what options we have and God is in control due to his superior knowledge and ability to come up with a contingency plan for each possible choice we might make.
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"Shadowlands" is fictionalized.
based on extensive research...
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In A Grief Observed, when Lewis is contemplating God as a vivisectionist, he is not contemplating that the pain God causes us may do us good; he is contemplating God as the Cosmic Sadist. It sounds like you have vivisectionists confused with dentists.
Well, the Cosmic Sadist interpretation makes my point even better. God is evil for permitting reality to develop the way it has.
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A Grief Observed shows Lewis expressing a lot of emotions that he rejects once he's calmed down. His question as to whether God always vivisects, is followed by the words: "I wrote that last night. It was a yell rather than a thought."
rationalize, rationalize. It seems like a pretty consistent thought to me, but maybe that's because my hearing ain't so good and so I TEND TO TALK RATHER LOUDLY ALL THE TIME [;0].
YOU'VE HEARD THE PHRASE "IN VINO ES VERITAS", WE OFTEN SAY/BELIEVE THINGS NOT BECAUSE THEY MAKE SENSE BUT BECAUSE WE WERE TAUGHT THEM AND TO SAY/BELIEVE OTHERWISE DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE TO US OR SEEMS TO IMPLY REJECTING SO MUCH ELSE THAT WE BELIEVE. (note caps are joke)
So no, I'm not smarter or better at logic necessarily than Lewis, but I come from a different milieu and accepting the fallible nature with which we do Theology does not unravel the immense value found in the Christian tradition for me. My traction is quite good.
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When Lewis is persuaded that pain serves the purpose of shaking us out of our complacency, he has left the idea that "God is not good" far behind.
So pain, intense pain, is not evil. It serves a higher purpose. Never mind how England is now a mostly-non-believing nation as well as most of Europe despite their exposure to much pain.
If that's what Lewis believed then I have to disagree. I know he suffered when people wrote him saying that after hearing his apologetic defense of Christianity they no longer believed.
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Ultimately, he resolved the problem of evil though by denying the reality of evil.
I think that's much more of a misrepresentation of Lewis's view of evil than it is for opponents of Open Theism to say that it denies God's knowledge of the future.
It likely is a misrepresentation of his view. I'm sure he had much more nuance. But, as is being discussed in the Article on OpenView link, much of the differences come down to different onto-theological statements regarding the nature of time and the future.
Lewis' theology was affected by his Platonism. I am not trying to reconcile Christianity with Neo-Platonism like Lewis was. I am trying to reconcile it with a more American Pragmatist(C.S. Peirce)philosophy, as such I do Theology differently from Lewis.
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
C.S. Lewis
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Fleetwood
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 110
| Posted 7/27/2003 12:01 PM (GMT -6) | | | Got a quick quest. What's with the square circle argument that's getting really old? Is it from Boyd's book or something? I'm missing it but see that "logical" argument used time and time again by different open theists (that and the married bachelor one seems to be popping up too). So who's behind it? Who made up that square circle open theist mantra? | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/27/2003 12:10 PM (GMT -6) | | These are examples of things God can't do. He can't create self-contradictions and, yes, I remember having stuff like that brought in my apologetics class with Boyd.
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
C.S. Lewis
Roberto Bernigni in
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Fleetwood
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Total Posts : 110
| Posted 7/27/2003 12:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Seems like it's the open theism mantra around here
(square circles, married bachelors, yada, yada). Everyone in the open theism word seems to be using it. | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/27/2003 12:23 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Fleetwood
Seems like it's the open theism mantra around here
(square circles, married bachelors, yada, yada). Everyone in the open theism word seems to be using it.
Well, you go on taking your leap of faith in the existence of square circles and God Bless!
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
C.S. Lewis
Roberto Bernigni in
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/27/2003 12:26 PM (GMT -6) | | I think we must attack wherever we meet it the nonsensical idea that mutually exclusive propositions about God can both be true!
C.S. Lewis,
God in the Dock,
"Christian Apologetics"
(1945), para. 23, p. 102 | | Back to Top | | |
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 7/27/2003 6:02 PM (GMT -6) | | DLW: Thank you very much for your wonderful responses to Fleetwood. If God is beyond logic, then to us he is illogical and we, as Christians, would be incapable of providing any evidence or argument to anyone concerning his existance or any thing of substance.
Once we make such a statement, anything goes. I can take any passage in scripture and use it to prove that God is a pink elephant. And I could answer any rebuttal with "you know, God is beyond our logic." We may not be able to comprehend God because he is God but to attribute to God things that are logically contradictory, well, you can live in that land if you want to Fleetwood. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/27/2003 6:13 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by DLW
quote:
Originally posted by Fleetwood
Seems like it's the open theism mantra around here
(square circles, married bachelors, yada, yada). Everyone in the open theism word seems to be using it.
Well, you go on taking your leap of faith in the existence of square circles and God Bless!
dlw
For Laika, posted on a thread in response to DLW -- but for general consumption.......
I've noticed that in a way DIFFERENT from some other statments of contradition, statements that involve MANKIND can seem very contradictory and unsolvably so, until....
I told Laika how to make a "three legged tripod." But that is different that making a "square circle." Laika and I can define what legs and tripods are, as they are definable by culture and by artists-turned-programers. God's creations are simply different in KIND than ours are; as we can only be co-creators, and do not create ex nihilo. "Square circles," likewise, are possible if we take them outside of the realm of dependance on what God created a circle to be and a square to be. (I rattled Tom's brain with some examples. Visual designers have played with them throughout the centuries.) But, again, one has to venture into cultural possibilities, as God's creation does not change nature at our wim. So long as one of "circle" and "square" is a noun and the other an adjective a "square circle" is not more startling than a "yellow-orange" Crayola Crayon!
The "God-Man" turns out not to be so hard; but it is not a contradiction. Mankind was created to be in fellowship with God. That makes the incarnation a completion of an intended design. Not a contradiction.
Thanks for your interest.
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John Earp
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Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 7/27/2003 7:35 PM (GMT -6) | | PoW,
Your "four-legged tripod" was not a TRIpod (an object with THREE feet, not four), it was a tripod with something sticking out of the side of it. It was definitely not a tripod, any more than your crooked-straight line was really straight, either.
"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
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 7/28/2003 1:52 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by John Earp
PoW,
Your "four-legged tripod" was not a TRIpod (an object with THREE feet, not four), it was a tripod with something sticking out of the side of it. It was definitely not a tripod, any more than your crooked-straight line was really straight, either.
LOL, thanks John. I didn't have the heart to point that out.
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Chris Grant
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Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/28/2003 4:46 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Reformed thinking was prevalent in the US and influenced other forms of Christianity as is shown by Mark Noll. My point is that Mormonism was a product of its time and the distinctly American views on Theology.
"Protestants living in the area where the Smith family resided were divided into two major spectrums of thought, some being Calvinists and other Arminians. . . . The tone of this controversy was aptly unfolded in one of the tracts published in western New York in the early nineteenth century that described a debate which originated in Palmyra between a Presbyterian minister, Benjamin Bell, and a Methodist preacher. . . . The doctrine of unconditional election cannot be reconciled with the concept of man's free will, [the Methodist] reiterated. Although God knows the fate of mankind, the Methodist concluded, God has not determined the final fate of his children. God proffers grace to all mankind, and men have the God-given gift of accepting or rejecting this precious pearl." (Milton V. Backman, in Joseph Smith's First Vision, paraphrasing Strictures, upon the Doctrine and Discipline, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Utica, 1812.)
quote:
The man started off as a platonist and his platonism affected his Christianity from then on in.
"Last night . . . I got a little light from my tutor who repeated the following conversation he had had with one of the examiners. 'One of your young men seems to think that Plato is always wrong'--'Oh! Is it Simpson?' 'No.' 'Blunt? Hastings?' 'No, man called Lewis: seems an able fellow anyway.'" (C.S. Lewis to Albert Lewis, June 21, 1922)
". . . if more knowledge is to come, it must be the wordless & thoughtless knowledge of the mystic: not the celestial statistics of Swedenborg, the Lemurian history of Steiner, or the demonology of the Platonists." (C.S. Lewis to Cecil Harwood, October 28, 1926)
quote:
I believe in his last book, Lewis does adopt an evolutionary view of Theology.
"[Alec Vidler] wants--I think he wants very earnestly--to retain some Christian doctrines. But he is prepared to scrap a good deal. 'Traditional doctrines' are to be tested. Many things will have to be 'out-grown' or 'survive chiefly as venerable archaisms or as fairy-stories'. He feels quite happy about this undefined programme of jettison because he trusts in the continued guidance of the Holy Spirit. A noble faith; provided, of course, there is any such being as the Holy Spirit. But I suppose His existence is itself one of the 'traditional doctrines' which, on Vidler's premises, we might any day find we had outgrown."
(C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm [his last book])
"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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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/28/2003 5:36 AM (GMT -6) | | Nice quotes.
I don't think most OVTheists are that terribly liberal. They seem quite conservative on the whole.
I on the other hand have found that the number of things I believe in have fallen, but that the intensity and importance of what I believe for me has grown tremendously.
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.
I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
C.S. Lewis | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 7/28/2003 7:13 PM (GMT -6) | | Chris Grant
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?
Iconoclast
No. We should view them the same way as we view people who want lower taxes and more services.
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 7/29/2003 4:29 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Iconoclast
Chris Grant
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?
Iconoclast
No.
Why not?
"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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Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151
| Posted 7/29/2003 4:57 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
If God knows the future choices of free moral agents, then they really aren't free to make those decisions. The effect(decision) existed before the cause(agent making the decision). This is illogical. Square cirlces are illogical. ENIG is illogical, contradictory. (Eternal Now Impersonal God)
Do you know of any examples where effects precede their cause?
You mean besides the example you just gave above? Actually, I'm not sure I buy that example. Who says the decision existed before the agent? If you're assuming that the decision had to exist before God could know it, that seems to be begging the question.
Maybe it's God's knowledge of the decision that you want to count as the effect that precedes the cause. That's fine, I guess, although, I'm not quite sure how we measure the time at which an omnipresent being learns something in a relativistic universe.
BTW, for a nice discussion of backward causation at a popular level (with references to the professional literature of philosophy and physics), see pp. 191-198 of Paul Nahin's Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction (Springer Verlag, 2nd edition)
"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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