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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 5/30/2002 4:04 AM (GMT -6) |   | Ware on God’s use of ‘conditional language’
Ware says--quote:
A number of passages present God as saying, often through his prophets, that some future possible situation may occur, thus indicating for open theists that God does not know whether it will or will not occur. In Exodus 4, for example, when Moses worries that the people will not believe that the Lord has sent him, God gives him several attesting miracles to perform so that if they don't believe after one miracle, they may believe after another. Also, passages such as Exodus 13:17, Jeremiah 26:3, and Ezekiel 12:3 use words such as “perhaps” and “may” to indicate that whether the people will obey or not is evidently not known, even to God. Do these texts, then, indicate God's ignorance of the future actions of his people?
Ware offers three arguments for concluding against an open understanding of conditional passages:
Ware: First, one should be extremely hesitant to draw this conclusion in light of many other texts in which God declares just what his people will do.
Tom: This can only be argued if one already concludes ahead of time what God must be like. Certain passages are universalized while others are not. But on what basis does Ware universalize passages which describe the future as determined regarding some event while refusing to do so with passages which describe the future as unresolved regarding some event?
Ware: Second, there is another reason why God may use such language as “perhaps,”“may,”and “if.” Although he knows what will occur, he may be purposely withholding this information from others. Now, granted, God sometimes tells people precisely what will occur (as stated above). But in other cases God may think it best that they do not know. Take the situation with Moses, for example. God might have said to Moses, "When you tell the people that I have sent you, and when you perform one miracle, at that point they will believe" (in a way comparable to Jesus telling Peter that before the cock crows he will deny him three times). But, had God said this to Moses, Moses would not have had to trust God through the whole experience in the same way he did, not knowing how the people might respond. So, the "perhapses" and "maybes" may be for our sake; they do not necessarily indicate that God does not know.
Tom: Comments? I have a few points. First, many times God is the one bringing up the condition (unlike with Moses). Often times we would never even know the condition existed had God not made mention of it. Such passages cannot be made sense of on the supposition that God is purposefully withholding information from us for some ‘purpose’. Quite the contrary, God is the one supplying the information in the first place.
Secondly, in the case of Ex. 13.17, the condition itself and its role in history was never even mentioned until after the fact. God tells Israel that why he led the people on path A as opposed to path B. None of it concerned human interaction or response in the flow of history. It entirely regards God’s own inner thought life. We wouldn’t know anything about it had God not told us. No sense can be made of this passage on the supposition that as revealed in Scripture it is withholding information. To what purposes? The event is history.
Ware: Third, from our human standpoint, the conditionality is real. If you obey me, I will bless you; if you disobey me, I will judge you. From our standpoint it is absolutely true that perhaps we may obey or perhaps we may not, and depending on what we do, God will respond in an appropriate measure.
Tom: “From our standpoint…." Hmmm. What practical effect are the passages to have in our lives if we know (theologically) that the conditions are not real? In order to affect us or influence our behavior, WE must believe the condition to be ontologically real. But Ware has spilled the beans. He’s told us conditions are only epistemological. We only think the condition describes something that’s real. But once we know that every time God describes a condition the condition is NOT real, how are we to meaningfully interact with the options God presents us? It’s an epistemological nightmare.
Tom
"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde
Edited by - TGB on 05/30/2002 09:08:20 AM
Edited by - TGB on 05/30/2002 09:09:10 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Mephi2K
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713
| Posted 5/30/2002 6:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom said:
quote:
"From our standpoint..." Hmmm. What practical effect are the passages to have in our lives if we know (theologically) that the conditions are not real? In order to affect us or influence our behavior, WE must believe the condition to be ontologically real. But Ware has spilled the beans. He’s told us conditions are only epistemological. We only think the condition describes something that’s real. But once we know that every time God describes a condition the condition is NOT real, how are we to meaningfully interact with the options God presents us? It’s an epistemological nightmare.
This brings up a thought that I really want to deal with in another thread on something I've been contemplating for a while: BELIEF: it's relation to "reality" and it's power of tranformation. It goes along what Doc has told us for some time...if you want to see what someone REALLY believes, many times their behavior, rather than their articulated worldwiew, is the key.
I don't want to divert this thread, so AGAIN, I will deal with this on another thread later. But I will ask YOU this here, Tom.
Does the ONTOLOGICAL REALITY of the God's conditionality matter as much as our CONSCIOUS UNDERSTANDING OF AND BELIEF IN the conditionality when it comes to our behavior? Hmmm... Think about it.
Holla,
Edited by - Mephi2K on 05/30/2002 11:15:19 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 5/30/2002 6:45 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Does the ONTOLOGICAL REALITY of the God's conditionality matter as much as our CONSCIOUS UNDERSTANDING OF AND BELIEF IN the conditionality when it comes to our behavior?
Mephi-
To quickly answer, I'd say the ontological reality of conditions are important especially IF GOD IS THE ONE PRESENTING THE OPTIONS. For example, I may present what I think is a conditional option to somebody but discover later that I was wrong. What I thought was possible was in fact impossible. But if I present what I know is impossible to somebody and call it a possibility, the I'm disengenuous. Would you agree? Moving on from here then, I'd say I have no category for understanding conditions presented to me by God as other than disengenuous if GOD knows that A is impossible.
Still, however, the problem remains regarding how we live if Ware is right. Let's concede Ware's point (perhaps your point also) that it's only important for US to believe the conditional nature of free choices for the condition to affect our behavior. Fine. However, wouldn't a theology that admits up front that the conditions AREN'T real undermine the desired affect which believing them to be real is supposed to have? Ware's view is self-defeating.
Looking forward to the thred on 'belief'! Have missed ya!
Tom
"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde
Edited by - TGB on 05/30/2002 11:48:48 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Mephi2K
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713
| Posted 5/30/2002 7:09 AM (GMT -6) | | Hmmm...
This is what I'm hearing.
"If God speaks to us MERELY PHENOMENOLOGICALLY and not COMPLETELY coresponding to ACTUALITY, then He is being disingenuous"
If this is what you are saying, then this seems about as problematic as saying that it was genuinely possible that Jesus, being the sustainer of the universe and all, KNEW that the Creation actually DID take millions of years and that Creation account WASN'T a seven day period...but didn't share this with the other Jews of his time. Should we say that Jesus was being disingenuous with some of his interpretations of Scripture? The logic seems the same to me.
Basically, this is my point. If we are just dealing with OUR REALITY (or more importantly, our PERCEPTION of reality), isn't that what really matters? If God deals with us on THAT level, and that's the way He set up reality, I don't see how that is in any way disingenous.
On your take of Ware's theology being self-defeating. Here's the thing. Remember my analogy before about a war game using LIVE AMMO with people actually being shot and killed around him? So you tell the soldier that the "war" is "not real" and just an exercise. No real objective is being served. Will the soldier treat the war game with ANY LESS SERIOUSNESS if bullets and bombs are truly going off around him? I don't think so. Place our thinking here in that perspective. If we agree with Ware in saying that the conditionality is more apparent than "real", does that in any way change the existential fact that when it comes to God's speaking commands to us (conditional or otherwise), all we can do is choose to OBEY or NOT obey. It's a "forced decision" qua William James.. To remain up in the air about the decision has the functional equivalent of choosing NOT to obey. I think that if we think in THESE terms, Ware's idea CAN work.
Dang. I'm late now!
Edited by - Mephi2K on 05/30/2002 12:10:26 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 5/30/2002 8:50 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi-
I see that you've posted a second time. I'm on the fly here and want to quickly post a thought, but I haven't read your second post. I'll get back to ya!...
If “behavior” in and of itself is all God is after, then we could grant that the ontological status of conditions God presents us is not important. However, it’s still seems to me to be impossible for the conditional nature of options to have their so-called God-intended effect if we hold to a theology which denies that conditions are ever real for God. How do we meaningfully deliberate between two or more options God presents us if WE believe no real options exist?
But what if God is after something more than just particular behavior--i.e., what if God is after a relationship of integrity from which particular behavior flows? T. Fretheim brings up this issue and I think he has a point. Does our relationship to God have integrity if it is predicated on the notion that God withholds from us the truth about conditional language? What sort of relationship is that? And how does one act with integrity if she claims simultaneously that possibilities are not real for God and are believed to be real by her? How does one do that? It would seem to me that for the “conditions are only epistemological” claim to work at all we could not know that this is the case, for once we know it the cover is blown and the gig is up.
Love,
Tom
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 6/3/2002 4:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Interestingly what Jesus says about Peter is that he, Peter, will deny Jesus. Obviously Jesus knew that Peter's heart was such that Peter, when confronted with the challenge to stay the course, would deny Jesus and thus show the gap between his love for Jesus--I mean, after all, there weren't any other disciples doing what Peter was doing in devotion to Christ--but a cracked and loosely held-together love.
Abraham, however, is not hinted as having such a gap in his faith or love; however, and it's a big however, God knows that the human heart is quite capable of being sidetracked quickly, particularly by satanic attack of various types. Something (or someone) just might have triggered Abe's mind into double-thinking his faith and . . . love for God in having to kill Isaac. Doesn't take much! Oh, he may have finally have gone through with having slain Isaac--too deep in it to stop now--but there may bave been tremendous remorse, or some bitterness, a battle of the mind to make it very hard to side with God after it was over. But that's not what Abraham did. We don't know if his faith or mind was challenged by the enemy. We know it could have been, and THAT, I feel, is the issue: would Abraham ultimately flinch, not just kill Isaac, but flinch big. He didn't. He didn't at all! That is the issue. And remember, these things were written for our admonition. More going on here than just god, Abraham and Isaac.
Also, I'd like to again address an issue I've posted on the board in the past (this being related to the ontological issue of God's relationship with us): if God were to appear before me and tell me that in 20 seconds, an hour or even a year, that I was going to scratch my left arm, do I have to do it? I mean, what if I scratch my head or just don't scratch at all? Can God then tell me that He knew, too, that I would do otherwise? Then why didn't He say so? Where's the time line drawn, then, to finally call something exhaustively known? (As in this example, but obviously not all things, such as God telling me I am going to die on such-and-such date)
I don't think there is a final time line drawn in every case; not all things are known yet. Whatever "data" or information God learns--and I've noted this before, too--it isn't like learning in the sense of learning something about math or science God never knew before. We're talking learning in the relationship, not areas of . . . well, I don't know offhand what word would make the distinction here, but I think the point is clear. Like a chess player, the player "learns" what his opponent will do, but that doesn't mean the player never knew (as in the example of math, science, etc.) that such move was even possible; he didn't "learn" a new move. It is the relationship dynamic that's learned.
I think this is ontologically the only way true relationship between God and us, us and ourselves, and us and others can really be explained in our existance. (You know, the nominative pronouns sure look appealing there!)
For the relationship,
Starkman
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GregBoyd
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Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 6/4/2002 5:03 PM (GMT -6) | | On of the things that intrigues me about the account of Moses talking to the Lord in the burning bush is that, at the very least, it reveals that Moses was an open theist. The Lord says "the elders WILL understand". Moses than asks, "what if they don't"? God then goes through his miracles saying "they may believe... if they don't believe that, they may believe this..." etc. (Ex. 3:17-4:6). We may argue about whether only a God who faces a partly open future could relate to Moses the way Yahweh does. <i>But there can be no doubt that only an open theists could relate to God the way Moses here relates to God.</i>
Open Theists, we is in goooood company!
I'd say the exact same thing about Jeremiah (Jer. 26).
As to Ex. 13:17, its interesting that the text isn't reporting God speaking to anyone (hence most translations say "the Lord THOUGHT). He certainly wasn't trying to evoke any particular behavior. He just THOUGHT, IF the Israelites face war, they MAY want to return to Egypt. This is given as the REASON God led the Israelites one way rather than another. It speaks to God's motivation. It explains GODS behavior.
And it says a great deal about how God relates to the future.
If... may.... perhaps....
Doc
"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6 | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 6/4/2002 7:42 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc: We may argue about whether only a God who faces a partly open future could relate to Moses the way Yahweh does. But there can be no doubt that only an open theists could relate to God the way Moses here relates to God.
Tom: Exxxxxxxxxxxxxxxcelent--or is it Excccccccccccccelent--point.
Tom
"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde | | Back to Top | | |
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