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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > The raging debate continues here... > An Open Future and the Principle of Bivalence | Forum Quick Jump
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Starkman
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| Posted 12/19/2002 5:39 PM (GMT -6) |   | After re-reading this thread tonight, I sense that the issue has both come full circle and has never left it's origin: Libertarian freedom excludes EDF. You just can't have it both ways: God cannot both allow us to "choose" and yet know every choice we will make. It's not a matter of psychologizing God, it's a matter of simple reality.
I go back to the example I've given on this site before, and I'd like to know what others think, so that I can see where it may be flawed (almost wrote thawed!)
If God were to visit me right now and tell me, "You know, Keith, I know exactly what you're going to do in 20 seconds [20 minutes, 20 years, etc.]; you're going to scratch your head."
Well, I scratch my neck and not my head.
God says, "Oh, I knew you were going to do that."
I say, "Well, why didn't you tell me then?"
See, when is there that point in time when it's known exhaustively what I'm going to do in EVERY situation, not just some or most situations? I don't think that "point in time" exists. And if it doesn't, it is because of the freedom given me. The freedom itself prevents EDF.
Oh, and Tom, yeah, I get it (going back to my post on page one about hating these conversations because I don't get them), but I get it after I read sloooowly! Oh, I'm better now, after having been on this board for over a year now, but logic is so hard for me to "hold" in my head for very long. It starts to dissipate, and then I start to dissipate, and, well, I fall apart, have to see the psyche, and there's another bill I owe!
But . . . I am still the Starkman!
For being the Starkman and not having to comb my hair (because I ain't got much),
Starkman
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/19/2002 5:48 PM (GMT -6) | | Starky, I've ehard that rhetoric (of course), but I reject it. Its really just equting God with fate. I think its that simple.
But what we know of God is way different. And of us, his creatures. But it is "cool" to plug us and God into this (above) equation.
But it does not fit. And God is not fate.
Fred | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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| Posted 12/19/2002 5:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Fred Starky, I've ehard that rhetoric (of course), but I reject it. Its really just equting God with fate. I think its that simple.
Starkman I'm a little confused, Fred. You reject my example, but you state that I'm equating God (in the example) with fate. That's the whole point, if by my equating God and fate you mean I am showing that with libertarian freedom there is only determinism. The example serves to show clearly (as I see it so far) that there can't be exhaustive fate where freedom exists. Can you elaborate a little, because I'm not sure I understood you clearly.
Thanks much,
Starkman
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 12/20/2002 6:37 AM (GMT -6) | | Here's what Starkey is getting at.
If God possesses EDF from all eternity, he possesses EDF at every point of time leading up to the present.
I can change nothing about the past
If I can change nothing about the past, I can change nothing in EDF, since EDF was settled at every moment in the past.
If I can't change anything about the past, I can change nothing about the future, since the entire future is contained in EDF.
Hence, if God possesses EDF, I can be no more FREE with regard to the future than I am with regard to the past.
To illustrate, suppose in 1000AD God gave us a book containing all the settled facts contained in his EDF.
Suppose I now find this book and look up everything I SHALL do tomorrow. I can change nothing about this, anymore than I can change any fact that occured in 1000AD. Hence I am no more FREE with regard to what I shall do tomorrow than I am with regard to any settled fact in 1000AD.
Hence EDF undermines free will.
IF I am free with regard to tomorrow concerning acts x or y, God's "book" of facts revealed in 1000AD might contain "on Sat. Dec 21, 2002, Greg Boyd MAY do x or y. But it could not state "on Sat. Dec 21, 2002, Greg Boyd SHALL do x and not y.
The statement "Greg Boyd does x and not y on Dec 21, 2002" must either be
a) neither true or false (bivalence denied) or (as I've argued in the past)
b) false, for it presupposes that Greg Boyd SHALL DO x and not y, when in fact it is true that Greg Boyd MAY do x OR y.
I'm comfortable with either "a" or "b," thanks largely to this thread (I used to just argue "b").
Doc
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/20/2002 3:46 PM (GMT -6) | | | Everything above that Doc said applies to a 'temporal' God. | | Back to Top | | |
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Chucks3371
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| Posted 12/22/2002 3:21 AM (GMT -6) | | Blacksheep:
quote:
I recall reading a discussion on the limits of logic in a book one time. Didn't Kurt Godel demonstrate that even in a system of logic as formal as mathematics that there are "undefinable propositions" for which the truth value is unknowable. His proof related to the self-referential paradoxes. It showed that in any system complex enough to engage in self reference, logic had clearly definable limits, and could not be assumed as universal axioms.
Dr. Boyd
quote:
To Blacksheep: Good point. I have forgotten about Godel, but his reflections may apply here. In his own domain, he showed that there is an intrinisic "gap" of sorts between logic and reality that can only be crossed by making some intuitively based assumptions. Logic can in and of itself never enclose reality. I am saying the same of all thought, propositions and (perhaps now) the principle of bivalence. Both the concreteness of present reality and the vagueness of future reality outrun what we can think and say about them.
It seems that Godel, as well as quantum mechanics, are as little understood as widely quoted. His famous theorem, though not as ambitious as described, was quite earth-shattering in his own domain.
In a nutshell, this is what Godel demonstrated:
In a logical system powerful enough to include arithmetic, there will be propositions known to be true from outside the system, but unprovable from within the system.
This is not to say that valid points have not been made, just that Godel cannot be used as the source.
One I agree emphatically with is the doubt that "reality" can be described in a finite set of propositions. It disturbs me that the Evangelical mind is obsessed with propositions. The Bible is a collection of history, stories, poems, proverbs, prophecies, allegories and parables. Jesus did not teach like Euclid, that is, he did not provide axioms, definitions, theorems, etc. to make his teachings understood. Jesus taught in parables, and back in the day they wondered why. Nowadays, it seems that no one wonders why anymore, but prefers to extract logical propositions out of that entire collection regardless of context, and create a theology, maintain a lifestyle, and even risk their salvation on these propositions, rather than on the entire Scriptures.
Modern logic is a desicated thing, since it tries to be mechanical, focusing solely on syntax while ignoring semantics. As for a gap between logic and reality. Hegel seems to believe that there was no such gap and that reality is logical, provided logic be understood in its deeper sense. Since John claims that "in the beginning was the Logos" -- translated by Gordon Clark as "in the beginning was Logic" -- we perhaps ought to at least consider Hegel's claim. However, not, as Clark seems to think, that logic is restricted to propositional truths. It is difficult to see how the focus on propositions does not entail all the problems of the correspondence theory of truth or the philosophy of logical atomism. I can recommend Blanshard's Reason and Analysis to anyone interested in these topics.
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Tom
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| Posted 12/22/2002 10:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Fred: Everything above that Doc said applies to a 'temporal' God.
Tom: Actually, Doc's argument applies to a timeless God as well. Besides, there are other reasons why timeless EDF renders our decisions less than libertarianly free. Perhaps Doc will want to comment.
Tom
"When you mix things up they get messy" Fred | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 12/22/2002 7:36 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom: Perhaps Doc will want to comment.
Doc: If I had any reason to further entertain the prospect of a timeless God, I would. But I don't.
What IS worth commenting on is Chuck's interpretation of Godel. He says, "In a logical system powerful enough to include arithmetic, there will be propositions known to be true from outside the system, but unprovable from within the system."
I agree. But this is precisely what I was getting at by pointing to the "gap" between theories and reality. Theories, and propositions, can never fully encompass reality. The way we know this is that there are things we know to be TRUE but... which can't be encompassed (proven) from within a theory, or fully expressed by a propositions.
'
E.g. What I KNOW to be true about tasting THIS particular sip of coffee cannot be fully expressed in propositional form.
And THIS "extra" is precisely the concreteness of the now that distinguishes it from the past and from the future. It is a concreteness that even GOD "learns" if God knows what time it IS (as opposed to "was" and "will be"). Even if God had perfect propositional foreknowledge of all that would come to pass, his knowledge of the "now" would ADD to it... otherwise there could be no distinction between the foreknowledge and the experience.
Blessings
Greg
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blacksheep
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| Posted 12/23/2002 3:05 AM (GMT -6) | | Chucks3371:
I'm certainly not qualified to discuss Godel's theorem, especially with a mathematician, but that wasn't my intent. You're correct that I maybe attributed to much to Godel, Bertrand Russel would be a better source. The point I wished to make was that no axiomatic logical system can describe the truth value of all logical propositions, hence describe reality fully. Whether this is relevant to this discussion I'm not entirely certain, but I have an inclination that there are some points of congruence.
You said:
"In a nutshell, this is what Godel demonstrated:
In a logical system powerful enough to include arithmetic, there will be propositions known to be true from outside the system, but unprovable from within the system."
True enough, but what is applicable to an axiomatic system such as mathematics is applicable to any axiomatic logical system capable of being mapped onto itself. I can easily construct a pardoxical loop who's truth value is undecidable. Here's a famous one:
Socrates: "Plato is about to lie"
Plato: "Socrates has spoken truely"
Simply extending the system to encompass the truth vale of an undecidable propositon as a new axiom doesn't solve the problem. You simply create new undecidable propositions in an infinte regress.
I agree fully with Doc's statement:
"Logic can in and of itself never enclose reality."
I find it intesting that new systems of "multi-valued" logic are being developed in which logical propositons aren't assigned black or white truth value but in fact are given values on a scale somewhere between true and false.
By the way, in what way do you feel Quantum mechanics is misunderstood? Do you feel it has been mirepresented on this site?
I don't see that it has, but then there's alot here I haven't read.
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 12/23/2002 8:35 PM (GMT -6) | | Blacksheep: I find it intesting that new systems of "multi-valued" logic are being developed in which logical propositons aren't assigned black or white truth value but in fact are given values on a scale somewhere between true and false.
Doc: Blacksheep, I'm unware of this development, but am, for obviously reasons, very interested in it. Can you point me in the direction where I could read up on this?
Doc
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blacksheep
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| Posted 12/25/2002 5:08 AM (GMT -6) | | Merry Christmas Doc,
I admittedly haven't read alot about logic, but a good overview of many-valued logic is here:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-manyvalued/
There is a bibliography with some titles that look promising, I may check out some myself.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/25/2002 8:18 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
quote:
Fred: Everything above that Doc said applies to a 'temporal' God.
Tom: Actually, Doc's argument applies to a timeless God as well. Besides, there are other reasons why timeless EDF renders our decisions less than libertarianly free. Perhaps Doc will want to comment.
This is days later, Tom; so this may not string along with what we were talking about. BUT, it does impress on my how easy it is in an internet discussion to whittle down to merely the two terms "temporal" and "timeless. AS IF that were the limit of options to consider.
The infamous "timeless" version is the sinister pagan Greek model. But the OT does not present God that way, and neither has the Church.
To say that God is "timeless" is laughable. He would have to NOT be Creator. But neither is he "temporal" in his essence. God is NOT limited to choosing between one of these BOXES or the other. And it is only those who might presume that God has to fit concepts that they construct who can try to force God to conform.
The Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church (Nicene Creed) has not done so.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/25/2002 2:04 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 12/25/2002 7:47 PM (GMT -6) | | FRED: To say that God is "timeless" is laughable. He would have to NOT be Creator. But neither is he "temporal" in his essence. God is NOT limited to choosing between one of these BOXES or the other. And it is only those who might presume that God has to fit concepts that they construct who can try to force God to conform.
Doc: I certainly don’t want to presume to fit God into a box of my own construction. But we do need to speak meaningfully about God. So, Fred, if you have a way of saying "God is timelessly temporal" that has more cognitive content than "God lovingly hates all and no married bachelors," I think we’d all be interested in hearing it.
Blessings
Doc
ps. And please talk to us in your own words. If you've read an orthodox theologian who has ironed this out well, could you review it for us in your own words. I'm interested in what YOU think and have to say on this. 
"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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| Posted 12/25/2002 8:53 PM (GMT -6) | | Yes, yes, Fred. Let's have it...in your own words!
Tom
"When you mix things up they get messy" Fred | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/26/2002 1:04 AM (GMT -6) | | I'm trying to find the following article online but have had no luck:
"Jesus: the one-natured God-man," by Ron Leigh (Christian Scholar's Review, 1982, vol. 11, no. 2, pages 124-137).
I had it and lost it. Excellent and thought-provoking. Does not get boiled down to Monophysitism. Morris interacts with Leigh a lot in his book. Gosh I wish I could find the article.
Tom
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/29/2002 1:22 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom, there are ALSO some good quotes from Morris in the article I'd linked a few posts up!
In it Thomas Morris' views are contrasted with John Hick's.
. . . .
As to the Ron Leigh article (Jesus: the One-natured God-man), try:
Edited by - Al2Si2H4O9 on 12/29/2002 6:40:36 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/29/2002 2:36 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc said, and I agree: "But we do need to speak meaningfully about God." But then He challenged: "Fred, if you have a way of saying 'God is timelessly temporal'..."
Boy, Doc... by attending this discussion board I've learned of married bachelors and square circles. What an education!
But I can't wait to see what Tom has in mind from that Ron Leigh article and its charts.
Some OTHER discussion about things that have non-simple membership in multiple catagories is in the article linked above (by a Paul Adams). I'll save that until TOMORROW, And maybe AFTER Tom has a chance.
Doc, you ask for my own words. That's fine. And the "orthodox theologian who has ironed this out well" pertains to God and time -- right. Well, since I didn't say that 'God is timelessly temporal' there won't be any quotes to THAT effect. But there are classic statements, going back to the Capadocians that God is unknowable in his essence, and knowable in his energies. THAT, I hope, doesn't need explaination. And it is THAT from which it seems simple to me that God acts in and through time, and yet is not part of creation in his essence. In my own words: That means that God is not part of the time and space and matter that He created and sustains, and yet He is and always has--so far as creation (and His thoughts about it...which is a concept way over my own head) is concerned--involved directly through his divine uncreated energies. (Divine means that they are God's actions directy--not through intermediaries as Thomas Aquinas suggested. Uncreated again designates that these egergies are God's personally. Energies designates that they are not his essence: Creation does not become part of the Trinity.)
I think this was clear. What'cha think?
But as to "no married bachelors" and "square circles"... I DON'T think that Tom is done with them. And this Paul Adams guy has some comments on "square circles" too. (He's an M.A. from Denver Sem., so he is Western.) And what he has to say is within a Western framework. (By which I mean that he begins with God's diety instead of God's person. Remember the Theodore de Regnon quote: "Latin philosophy considers the nature in itself first and proceeds to the agent; Greek philosophy considers the agent first and passes through it to find the nature. The Latins think of personality as a mode of nature; the Greeks think of nature as the content of the person.") What this Paul Adams guy does with respect to John Hick and Thomas Morris is intersting. And he positions himself a little bit closer to Caldedon than Morris. And he makes some interesting comments. But I'd still say, after considering Lossky, that Paul Adams is definitely speaking from what de Regnon would consider "Western." But, I must say, that having begun with (to use de Regnon's words) "nature as the content of the person" he makes some interesting observations and presents some interesting thoughts.
Thanks, Doc, for saying "I'm interested in what YOU think and have to say on this." I'll try to give some of my thoughts on Paul Adam's article too. And then I hope to say a few things about how (again, using de Regnon's words) "consider[ing] the agent first and passes through it to find the nature" affects the discussion of the Natures of Christ.
Thanks for the response.
Al | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 12/30/2002 1:36 AM (GMT -6) | | [Thanks Al for sharing your thoughts. Here’s my response.
AL: there are classic statements, going back to the Capadocians that God is unknowable in his essence, and knowable in his energies. THAT, I hope, doesn't need explaination.
Doc: I’m afraid it does. Seems to bifurcate "essence" and "energies." Now, I’m not sure what "energies" means here, but it seems to me that if God’s "energies" (activities?) REVEAL God, they reveal his essence. This doesn’t mean that we know EVERYTHING about God’s essence. But it does mean we KNOW God’s essence. And, as I read it, what God’s activities reveal is (among other things) that God is in real relationship with us. Why postulate an unknowable essence BEHIND this revelation that is utterly different from (as different as sequence is from sequencelessness) these revelatory activities?
Al: And it is THAT from which it seems simple to me that God acts in and through time, and yet is not part of creation in his essence.
Doc: Why think this? Why assume sequence is created? Why assume God’s timeless essence (even if we postulate such) includes God’s EXPERIENCE and knowledge of the temporal world?
AL: That means that God is not part of the time and space and matter that He created and sustains, and yet He is and always has--so far as creation (and His thoughts about it...which is a concept way over my own head) is concerned--involved directly through his divine uncreated energies.
Doc: From where I sit, Al, it sounds like you have attempted to resolved the contradiction of "timeless temporality" by simply relabeling the "timeless" as "essence" and "temporal" as "uncreated energies." I see no reason to accept the timeless-temporal contradiction to start with, and see no advantage to relabelling them "essence" and "energies."
Blessings
Doc
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Tom
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| Posted 12/30/2002 3:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Are we still talking about the principle of bivalence? 
I liked what Doc said. I'm inclined to think that we can deduce SOME things about God's essence from what he reveals.
Fred: But I can't wait to see what Tom has in mind from that Ron Leigh article and its charts.
Tom: I read Leigh’s article long time ago and liked it very much. At the time I agreed that “one person two natures” didn’t communicate very much and bordered on being incoherent. But though Leigh attacks orthodoxy, he still believes in a high Christology. Jesus is full God and fully human. And THIS makes him OK by me. This is what I was talking about (on some other thread); “confession” (that Jesus is the God-man) is one thing. Systematic attempts to describe how God did this are another thing entirely. I think Chalcedon missed it. They made a particular explanation of how the Incarnation is possible a required “confession” rather than the simple affirmation that Jesus is fully God and fully man. I understand the history surrounding Chalcedon. All statements of faith are historical/occasional documents. Still, we ought not press the two-natures model as a requirement for being an orthodox Christian.
Personally, the two-natures model doesn’t alleviate the problem for me. Whatever problems attach to the one-nature model I think attach indirectly to the two-natures model is slightly different ways. An attribute and its compliment can’t co-exist in one nature. Fine. Doesn’t posting two natures fix this? I don’t see that it does. Attributes and their compliments can co-exist in two natures that are inseparable? That seems problematic too. It certainly doesn’t communicate very much.
Fred: Well, since I didn't say that 'God is timelessly temporal' there won't be any quotes to THAT effect. But there are classic statements, going back to the Capadocians that God is unknowable in his essence, and knowable in his energies. THAT, I hope, doesn't need explaination. And it is THAT from which it seems simple to me that God acts in and through time, and yet is not part of creation in his essence.
Tom: OK, try this. If God’s essence is unknowable then how do you know it’s not temporal? We don’t really have the right to say what it is or isn’t do we? How can we speak so knowingly of what we admit is unknowable? If God’s essence is unknowable, you can’t deduce from THAT to anything certain. God may be temporal in his essence for all you know. How would you know he’s not if you admit that the essence you’re speaking of is unknowable? Because time and matter are inseparably bound and God created matter (ergo God created time [or sequence as Doc labels it--I'm not being particular here]? OK, fine. But remember that there are other scientific options just as plausible which don’t lead to this conclusion and open the way for deducing that God is temporal (sequential, whatever).
Still, with Doc I'd say that something about God's inner Trinue life can be deduced from what he's revealed.
What’s this have to do with bivalence! 
Tom
Edited by - TGB on 12/30/2002 09:00:28 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
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| Posted 12/30/2002 1:07 PM (GMT -6) | | Greg,
I just came across an article by a former student colleage of mine at Fordham that critiques Craig's use of the principle of bivalence to rebut the grounding objection to middle knowledge. I think it might be useful to you.
"Counterfactuals of Freedom, Future Contingents, and the Grounding Objection to Middle Knowledge" by W. Matthews Grant, ACPA (American Catholic Philosophical Association) Proceedings, vol. 47, 2000, pp. 307-323.
I don't have the article with me and I only had time to glance at it, but Grant argues that bivalence is consistent with future contingents having an as-yet-underdetermined truth value. All bivalence says is that every proposition is either true or false. Craig seems to take this to mean that every proposition must be either TRUE or FALSE right now. Grant cites some other scholars who interpret it to mean that every proposition must be "EITHER true OR false". In other words, all bivalence requires is that the disjunction be true. It does not imply anything about the truth value of the individual disjuncts.
Condolences on your dad's passing.
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/30/2002 7:57 PM (GMT -6) | | Alan: In other words, all bivalence requires is that the disjunction be true. It does not imply anything about the truth value of the individual disjuncts.
Tom: Oooooo, that’s good.
OK, Al (not Alan), you can find anything on the Internet. Find this paper and I’ll become Greek Orthodox!
Alan: You said the article was written “to rebut the grounding objection to middle knowledge.” Looks to me like this would mean the article would support MK. From the title and your summary it seems that it supports (not rebuts) the grounding objection to MK.
Is my grammar going down the tubes?
Tom
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Tom
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| Posted 12/30/2002 8:07 PM (GMT -6) | | http://www.pdcnet.org/procacpa.html
Volume 74, 2000 – Philosophical Theology
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Edited by Michael Baur, Fordham University
This volume contains contributions from internationally-recognized scholars on central themes in philosophical theology, including (among others) the relation of reason to faith, the problem of evil, the doctrine of creation, the possibility of the resurrection and life after death, human freedom and divine foreknowledge, the efficacy of prayer, and modernity's challenge to Christian belief. The essays in this volume are a selection of those delivered at the annual meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association in 2000, which was organized under the same title. Among the contributors featured in this volume are Eleonore Stump, Peter Geach, David Burrell, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, Peter Van Inwagen, John F. Wippel, and John Haldane.
ISBN 0-918090-34-2 • ISSN 0065-7638 • Published June 2001 • Softbound • 364 pages • $30
Doesn’t look like the article is online anywhere. But it’s probably over at Lutheran Seminary.
Tom
"When you mix things up they get messy" Fred
Edited by - TGB on 12/31/2002 01:08:15 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/30/2002 9:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc: ...it seems to me that if God’s "energies" (activities?) REVEAL God, they reveal his essence
Al: (Your not far off; but in need of some 'aiming.')
I zeroed in on the word "seems", Greg, as revealing a preconception. That'd be OK if it were true. That the fact that it anticipates that it (energies) reveal something is TRUE. So its not to be discarded. You may disagree with what I'm going to suggest, and that's fine, but here goes (In words that are "mine"--albeit learned): Since it is (in the Eastern Christian tradition, at least) the hypostasis of the Person that is the source of deity, and not the substance of deity that determines person, I think that we should look to the energies as revelation of the Person of God in so far as that revelation being alligned with whatever God decides to reveal to us about Himself.
Doc: This doesn’t mean that we know EVERYTHING about God’s essence. But it does mean we KNOW God’s essence.
Al: Differentiate "knowing" from "knowing about." I remember the smerks "knowing in a Biblical way" elicited in Sunday School when I was growing up. When I read, or say in my "own" words "know" I'm taking it as something akin to "participating in." And we CAN'T participate in the Trinity EXCEPT "In Christ." (The verbage is that we can participate "by grace" but not "by nature.")
Doc: ...as I read it, what God’s activities reveal is (among other things) that God is in real relationship with us.
Al: True.
Doc: Why postulate an unknowable essence BEHIND this revelation that is utterly different from (as different as sequence is from sequencelessness) these revelatory activities?
Al: I think that you'd find that no Orthodox would postulate that God is "utterly different..." (from anything) for TWO reasons: first, that would be weird, because that would make God a liar--right; and second, that such a postuation would STILL be postulating about what we in our creaturliness can't know.
Doc: ...as different as sequence is from sequencelessness
Al: I think that you are back into your "square circles." Not any harder than "a red square." God reveals in a sequential environment. But THAT does not require something like a social theory of the Trinity, with its "relation of opposition" (C. Lossky mentions this with regard to a "triadological principle formulated by Thomas Aquinas.") Orthodox Trinitarian statements, with all of their refusal to venture into positive speculation DO portray the Son as consubstantial with the Father, but the Father NOT consubstantial with the Son. "Eternally begotten" does not give more than an little idea to our imaginative powers; but it does not give us false ideas either.
But AT STAKE is the "Personal" basis of God. And it always seems weirdly amusing that Open Theists -- who shun Essence Based theology -- end up embracing it in part anyways! As Lossky paints it, if the "real basis" of the persons of the Trinity is the "one essence" and that then the Trinity is a matter of "differentiated by its internal relations" THAT is an impersonal basis. (Lossky: "The general character of this triadology may be described as a pre-eminence of natural unity over personal trinity, as an ontological primacy of the essence over the hypostases.")
What's at stake is that God is a LIVING God. Not a "deity."
We can speculate all that we want about deities. They subject themselves very well to all sorts of speculation and rationalizing. They seem almost tailor made for it.
Lossky, to the contrary, says of the Living God:
quote:
When we speak of the Trinity in itself, we are confessing, in our poor and always defective human language, the mode of existence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one sole God who cannot but be Trinity, because He is the Living God of Revelation, Who, though unknowable, has made Himself known, through the incarnation of the Son, to all who have received the Holy Spirit, Who proceeds from the Father and is sent into the world in the name of the incarnate Son.
Lossky also has this, convenient quote, that distinguishes between "essence of the Trinity and its energetic processions":
quote:
The distinction between the unknowable essence of the Trinity and its energetic processions, clearly defined by the great councils of the fourteenth century, allows Orthodox theology to maintain firmly the difference between tri-hypostatic existence in itself and tri-hypostatic existence in the common manifestation outside the essence. In His hypostatic existence, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone; and this ineffable procession enables us to confess the absolute diversity of the Three Persons, i.e. our faith in the Tri-Unity. In the order of natural manifestation, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son (dia Huiou), after the Word; and this procession reveals to us the common glory of the Three, the eternal splendor of the divine nature.
But the personal, living God is beyond that. God is "closer to us that we are to ourselves."
Doc: Why assume sequence is created? Why assume God’s timeless essence (even if we postulate such) includes God’s EXPERIENCE and knowledge of the temporal world?
Al: I'm not so quick to conclude that I do assume this. I just don't equate them on the same 'plane' (to stretch for a noun). I don't have a problem with Christ's kenosis not stripping the Son of anything. And I don't see God's experience in creation and sustaining creation as affecting God's deity.
BUT, I won't--at the same time--allow anyone to suggest that God is impersonal, or deals impersonally, in any way.
If we differ there it is because we might be beginning at different places. And Lossky's comments above are as good an an explaination as we might want: essence-based versus person-based.
quote:
AL: That means that God is not part of the time and space and matter that He created and sustains, and yet He is and always has--so far as creation (and His thoughts about it...which is a concept way over my own head) is concerned--involved directly through his divine uncreated energies.
Doc: From where I sit, Al, it sounds like you have attempted to resolved the contradiction of "timeless temporality" by simply relabeling the "timeless" as "essence" and "temporal" as "uncreated energies." I see no reason to accept the timeless-temporal contradiction to start with, and see no advantage to relabelling them "essence" and "energies."
Al: No. Not at all. As your post says, you think I took an existing concept and relabled it. The history of the terms is very different from that. And the nature of how the terms are constrewed is very, very, very different. "Timeless" can describe essence. But as it does not exhaust it the t-word is a subset of the e-word. And since from Basil and Co. the Personal nature of God has been emphasized as never derivative of essence, in no way can the Person of God be subordinated to the t-word.
I didn't "relabel" anything.
If you want to get into the "timeless-temporal contradiction" then I suppost that some of what Newcomb has been toying with becomes interesting. I'm thinking of how some of what I've posted about the relationship of Time and Meaning reflects on relationships between temporality and what it might be used to describe. Here's what I mean: the change of us and our world has one kind of meaning with respect to temporality and another kind of meaning when it is applied to the "end" of a thing. That difference alone can be confounding to rational investigation.
Leonardo DaVinci found that out. Brunelleschian Perspective worked very well in mapping observable experiences of a town courtyard viewed by one eye, at one time, from one location (a dirlled hole in a door). But Leonardo learned that rationality DIDN'T WORK with respect to composition. (so me made some fudgings in it). I used to tell my drawing students that "linear perspective" doesn't work. Having grown up with photographs (and thinking they knew what they were looking at) they needed a concrete illustration to disprove what they wanted to believe. I asked them to imagine the longest high school hall they knew of. Standing in the middle, they might observe the lines of the floor and ceiling converging into a classic single point in the distance -- and at least heading strongly towards that 'vanishing point.' And the same is true of the other end of the hall. But what they would see if they faced the nearest locker would be the impression of parallel lines on the top and the bottom of the locker. The "straight" lines that converge at halls-end would also be at the top of the locker, and at its bottom. BUT THAT DOESN'T WORK. For the "parallel lines" to converge at each end of the hall, they have to bend in the middle. Leonardo decided to keep some lines in his pictures parallel (like building's tops and bottoms) but to curve other lines (lines extending up into the sky).
The whole "now and not yet" aspect of Christian experience throws a monkey wrench into the rationality of time. Or, maybe it just wakes us up to notice things more carefully, as they really are. Told that "parallel" lines bend can enable us to see just that. But it flies in the face of man-moment centered rationality. (But it is far from irrational !!!!!!)
I just wonder whether the "timeless-temporal contradiction" is a construction in the Brunelleschian vein, in need of a Leonardo to make some compromises that better fit ALL of the rational experience that we have.
Our INTERACTION with God is total. But that is not at all dependent on how "knowable" God is in his essence. If it were, then there would be a huge problem! But its not. "He was knowable only through His 'energies,' as revealed through the Three Persons and their activity, in His interaction with ourselves and with His cosmos." As Dionysius said, "we cannot say what God, the totality and the creative life power, is. We can only say what it is not and its interaction with ourselves." But, again, the salient thing is our INTERACTION with God. (Now how fully rationalizable he is.)
'Night.
Edited by - Al2Si2H4O9 on 12/31/2002 02:07:21 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/30/2002 9:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom: (saying that he may "go native")
Al: www.acpa-main.org/Program%202000/Abstracts.htm
Seventy-Fourth Annual Meeting of theAmerican Catholic Philosophical Association -- "Philosophical Theology: Reason and Theological Doctrine" (Abstracts of Contributed Papers)
Session VIII: Knowledge and the Limits of Causality
“Counterfactuals of Freedom, Future Contingents, and the Grounding Objection to Middle Knowledge”
W. Matthews Grant, Fordham University
According to the doctrine of Middle Knowledge, God knows prior to creating what each possible free creature would do in any set of circumstances; he knows all true propositions of the form, "If person P were in circumstances C, he would freely perform action A."Opponents of Middle Knowledge have argued that God cannot know such "counterfactuals of freedom," because there is nothing which makes such propositions true, nothing which grounds their truth. The best response to this "grounding objection" contends that if counterfactuals of freedom are ungrounded, then so are future contingent propositions. But future contingent propositions are true; therefore, we should assume that the grounding objection is misguided. I critically examine this response, especially as it has been developed by William Lane Craig.
Best I could do, Tom.
Al
..........................
P.S. What I wondered about in the other article were the chart illustrations he used. They would not reflect the assymetrical aspect of the incarnation (as I see it).
Edited by - Al2Si2H4O9 on 12/31/2002 02:20:56 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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