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gguskid
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| Posted 12/10/2002 8:42 AM (GMT -6) |   | Perhaps this question has been posed in the past but it came up in a conversation I had with a friend the other day.
Could we speak of God’s knowledge of the future based on 100% accuracy of prediction? Since God has immediate and intimate knowledge of the creatures He created—the minds of men and women of this world—could we not speak of God being able to predict with 100% accuracy what the future is for each and every individual? If so, could we maintain that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future yet at the same time remove no freedom of the human will?
Perhaps this is just too simple. All it would really take to make this argument plausible is a possible world which God chooses to create—with only two key players (Adam & Eve)—and an immediate and intimate knowledge of such creation based on God’s will to create thusly. Once this occurs, is it conceivable that God’s 100% accuracy in prediction (based on His perfect, intimate and immediate knowledge of all things relating to His creation) work itself out as the unknown and freely determined will of the created agent and the omniscience of God—past, present, and FUTURE—simultaneously?
Now, let me add just one more thing. We need to deal with the issue of God’s sovereignty and ability to exercise His will perfectly to the end that He has purposed from the beginning. We don’t want to create some image of God as the proverbial “ground hog” who has been hailed as prognosticator of prognosticators and seer of seers but rather a God who in His infinite wisdom in dealing with His earthly creatures exercises His sovereignty in permissive and providential activity. In His accuracy of prediction—100% accurate—God knows how the future will unfold, BOTH, IF He should so choose to intervene OR NOT intervene.
In this case we see God as always initiating the change of course as the “Unmoved Mover” so to speak. God is never surprised by our activity though such activity is absolutely arrived at through our created and genuine freedom. The freedom of God remains in His sovereignty to providentially act in (to help avert) or permissively will (to refrain from helping avert) a continued course in a 100% accurately predicted world.
Anticipating any feedback on these meager murmuring.
Until That Time…
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blacksheep
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| Posted 12/10/2002 3:39 PM (GMT -6) | | I would have to say that if you're actions are predictable, you don't have "libertarian freedom". In order to be predicted, your actions must be determined. Not that it's implausible, just ignoble.
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 12/12/2002 3:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Blacksheep nailed it. If knowing the present exhaustively allows one to predict the future exhaustively, then it must be the case that the future is exhaustively caused by the present.
Hence no libertarian freedom.
Doc
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SIM
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| Posted 12/30/2002 6:20 AM (GMT -6) | | My belief is that 100% accuracy of foreknowledge is possible with God IF God is not "in our timeline" of events. He is not looking ahead, but sees all events AS THEY HAPPEN. (See C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, chapter on Time). This safe-guards both Divine predetermination AND Man's free will. God sees me typing this post AS I type it from His eternal Present.
By the way, where in the Bible, does it say that God grants humans libertarian as opposed to limited free will?
SIM
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Questioning
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| Posted 1/1/2003 3:24 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
By the way, where in the Bible, does it say that God grants humans libertarian as opposed to limited free will?
SIM,
Will you please define "libertarian freedom" and "limited free will".
Thanks,
kc
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 1/1/2003 5:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Libertarian freedom does not contrast with Limited Free Will but with Compatibilistic Free Will. Everyone grants that free will is limited. Libertarian Freedom is the freedom to do otherwise, whereas Compatibilistic Freedeom is the freedom to do what you want (without the freedom to determine your want -- hence its 'compatible" with God or other factors determining your want). Where does the Bible teach Libertarian Free Will? With every passage presupposes that humans can and/or should do other than they do, and other than God wants them (and pleads with them) to do.
Doc
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Tom
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| Posted 1/1/2003 5:14 AM (GMT -6) | | SIM: My belief is that 100% accuracy of foreknowledge is possible with God IF God is not "in our timeline" of events. He is not looking ahead, but sees all events AS THEY HAPPEN. (See C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, chapter on Time). This safe-guards both Divine predetermination AND Man's free will. God sees me typing this post AS I type it from His eternal Present.
Tom: SIM, have you considered the possibility that such foreknowledge is providentially useless to God? Would God be able to make use of the sort of foreknowledge you suggest he possesses in order to prevent some undesired event? Would God be able to access such knowledge in order to bring about some desired event? Could God base his guidance of our lives upon such foreknowledge? I'd suggest that the answer to these questions is "no." THe accuracy of divine predictions cannot be accounted for on the basis of simple foreknowledge.
Think about it. There's nothing a God who possessed timeless forknowledege (simple foreknowledge) could do that a God who did not possess such foreknkowledge could not also do.
Tom
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Tom
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| Posted 1/1/2003 5:23 AM (GMT -6) | | SIM-
Just some notes I had on file about timeless (simple) foreknowledge gathered over time. Some of Doc is in here, some of Sanders, some of my maybe. Can’t remember!
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The simple-foreknowledge model affords no providential value whatsoever. If God timelessly knows all of history in the sense argued by advocates of simple-foreknowledge, then he knows his own as well as our choices, and he knows them in one single, timeless sweep. He does not acquire this knowledge in stages; he timelessly possesses it as an attribute. In this case, simple-foreknowledge provides God no providential advantage in governing the universe for the simple reason that God cannot intervene into the story line of history on the basis of such knowledge. He cannot access such knowledge of the future in an attempt to determine what his own actions are to be. This includes attempting to prevent undesired events, to bring about what he does desire, to warn and guide people, and to prophesy future events. What is foreknown, according to this view, is what actually happens and by definition is already the “result” of whatever has or has not been done to influence it. Such knowledge cannot then also be the “basis” of such interaction for the simple reason that this knowledge comes to God too late (logically speaking) for God to use it to influence the future.
For example, let us say God timelessly knows that Susan will be in a fatal car accident on her 21st birthday. Granted, this does not mean God arranged her death or determined her choice to go driving with her friends. We’re only talking here about whether or not timelessly definite foreknowledge provides God a basis upon which he is able to act providentially. Can God use his foreknowledge of Susan’s death to warn Susan not to go driving? Can God act in a miraculous way to prevent the accident? In fact, can God do anything on the basis of his foreknowledge of Susan’s death to prevent this tragedy? The answer to these questions is, of course, that God cannot intervene on the basis of simple-foreknowledge in order to prevent this event from happening. Since God’s foreknowledge is infallible, what he foreknows will happen will indeed happen. Not even God can act in order to change what he infallibly knows will come to pass. Simple-foreknowledge, if it existed, would be useless to God in preventing foreknown evil and other undesired events.
The same thing applies to God’s acting to bring about some event he wishes should happen. Why? Because by the time God foreknows what will happen it’s logically too late to make use of this knowledge in order to bring about this event. The foreknown event is already the “result” of whatever divine influence contributed to bring it about. It cannot also be the “basis” of that influence. On the simple-foreknowledge view, everything that God knows he knows timelessly. He doesn’t gain his knowledge of the future in stages. Therefore, if God were to timelessly possess exhaustively definite knowledge of past, present, and future, such knowledge could not provide him a basis upon which to determine how to act in ways not also timelessly foreknown by him. Thus, there is nothing a God who possesses simple-foreknowledge can do that a God who does not possess such foreknowledge cannot also do.
In truth, whatever might be the reciprocal nature of the relationship between God’s actions and ours within the foreknowledge of God, the simple-foreknowledge model offers us no help whatsoever in understanding it. In my exposure to advocates of simple-foreknowledge, it appears that the chief reason they hold to this model is because of the perceived providential advantage it gives God and the perceived basis for trust in God it gives them. But once the providential uselessness of simple-foreknowledge is faced, and the providential advantage of infinite intelligence (to be discussed immediately) is understood, one can continue trusting with the added benefit of understanding and intellectual integrity.
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What d’ya think SIM?
Tom
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SIM
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| Posted 1/1/2003 4:15 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
SIM:By the way, where in the Bible, does it say that God grants humans libertarian as opposed to limited free will?
KC: Will you please define "libertarian freedom" and "limited free will".
Libertarian freedom to me means complete freedom that could go against God's permitted will. What I mean by limited free will is the freedom we have within God's permitted will.
quote:
DOC: Where does the Bible teach Libertarian Free Will? With every passage presupposes that humans can and/or should do other than they do, and other than God wants them (and pleads with them) to do.
SIM: But couldn't the passages you're referring to be human choices that God only permits to happen, but doesn't want in His highest will?
To Tom: After reading and feeling inadequate to respond to your post, I had a discussion with my son, a computer engineer graduate student home from college, about God and time. He has fairly recently taken modern Physics which includes studies on relativity, and has read numerous books (relativity, time, quantum mechanics, theology).
In ref. to quote:
Tom: Since God’s foreknowledge is infallible, what he foreknows will happen will indeed happen. Not even God can act in order to change what he infallibly knows will come to pass. Simple-foreknowledge, if it existed, would be useless to God in preventing foreknown evil and other undesired events.
The same thing applies to God’s acting to bring about some event he wishes should happen. Why? Because by the time God foreknows what will happen it’s logically too late to make use of this knowledge in order to bring about this event. The foreknown event is already the “result” of whatever divine influence contributed to bring it about.
It sounds like this quote describes a God in our timeline. The logic does not pertain to a God out of our timeline, because God doesn't "foreknow" in time. There is no "too late" in God's eternal Present.
My son believes that God is greater than time, and contains time, and that the "simple foreknowledge" view is lacking. He believes that God created time and matter at once, and calling it "fore-knowledge" is a misnomer because "fore" pertains to time and when God "knows" something, it becomes a part of God, and therefore what He knows is in a sense an attribute of Him and He cannot change, as you indicated in your post. My son says that God "looks" at events and doesn't "know" events (in the sense of it being an attribute in His mind), and then acts within time however He desires. My son believes that starting with the right concept of God is of utmost importance to understand His relationship with His creation.(I wanted him to write this because I don't feel capable to respond to any responses about it, but he's getting ready to go skiing, and then back to school.) From my thinking, what he says makes sense.
This (http://answers.org/newlook/NEWLOOK.HTM#Contents) is an interesting link that addresses a new look at Creation from an old earth view, also addresses the creation of time and its relation to matter, and Einstein's theory of relativity.
All this reading and research makes me believe that once I am clear about who God is (to the extent I'm capable), then I will have expanded my understanding of how God relates to His creation.
I'm still not sure exactly what I think about all this. Very deep, will take me a long time to think it through.
SIM
Edited by - SIM on 01/02/2003 12:32:51 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 1/1/2003 10:32 PM (GMT -6) | | SIM: Libertarian freedom to me means complete freedom that could go against God's permitted will. What I mean by limited free will is the freedom we have within God's permitted will.
Tom: I see what you’re getting at, but remember, libertarian free will is not the ability to thwart God’s will in ways he doesn’t permit himself to be thwarted. In this sense alone evil is “permitted.” Thus, nobody has the freedom to make the world something other than what God already freely permitted it COULD be. So you’re right, libertarian freedom is limited. Libertarians don’t deny this.
SIM: But couldn't the passages you're referring to be human choices that God only permits to happen, but doesn't want in His highest will?
Tom: All depends on what you mean by “permit” and “highest.” The human choices in these passages were obviously “permitted” by God. They happened, right? So God permitted them. But in what sense does he “permit” them (and other evil choices)? In the sense that the POSSIBILITY of such evil happening was permitted by God (actually, required of God in order to have a world where love is also possible, right?) in the first place, but not in the sense that God doesn’t also do everything he can to prevent such evil, that is, not in the sense that “permit” ends up meaning something like “need” in that the good that God’s “highest” will desires requires evil to occur.
SIM: To Tom: After reading and feeling inadequate to respond to your post…
Tom: I’m a puppy dog dude! Anybody can handle me. Shoot, I’m as lame as they come. I have zero philosophy background and zero science know-how.
SIM: He [my son] believes that God is greater than time, and contains time, and that the "simple foreknowledge" view is lacking.
Tom: What you son describes IS the simple-foreknowledge view.
Now, I think God is greater than time too. But you don’t have to be timeless to be greater than time. A temporally eternal being (one without beginning and end) who is not subject to the ravages of time (doesn’t grow older, doesn’t forget things, has perfect recall, etc.) IS greater than time even though such a being is temporal. On the other hand, I’m not sure a timeless being, simply by virtue of being timeless, is necessarily greater than time. That doesn’t seem to follow.
SIM: He believes that God created time and matter at once, and calling it "fore-knowledge" is a misnomer because "fore" pertains to time and when God "knows" something, it becomes a part of God, and therefore what He knows is in a sense an attribute of Him and He cannot change, as you indicated in your post. My son says that God "looks" at events and doesn't "know" events (in the sense of it being an attribute in His mind), and then acts within time however He desires.
Tom: The point of view your son describes is not really different than the “simple foreknowledge” view. Saying God looks at but doesn’t know events needs some explaining. But that’s OK. Doesn’t effect the end result here. On this view he’s right; people call it “FORE-knowledge” but like strictly speaking it’s not FORE-knowledge at all. My comments would apply to your son’s view as well. If God’s knowledge of events is complete and perfect, then it includes God’s own as well as our choices. Right? God doesn’t timelessly (with or without it being an attribute in his mind as your son states) know all human choices and actions and only THEN decide (as your son seems to suggest) in response how he will fill in the blanks. God knows it ALL timelessly.
But if this is true, then there’s no logical “room” (“wiggle room” somebody called it) for God to act; no room for him to know OUR actions as a basis upon which to decide how HE is to act, for how he acts is equally timelessly known to him. There’s never a logical moment in the life of God when God knows the event without also knowing what he does. So the knowledge of the event (since it includes God’s actions too) cannot also be the basis of God’s actions. See it?
Assuming that God knows all history in the sense suggested by your son, how does THIS knowledge account for how God is able to a) predict anything at all, b) guide believers who ask for wisdom, c) prevent undesired events, or d) act to bring about what he desires. It can’t. It seems to me that even if Einstein is right and God timelessly knows all history, we still have nothing that explains how God is able to act providentially in the world. Belief in such divine knowledge has no practical value to us.
SIM: I wanted him to write this because I don't feel capable to respond to any responses about it, but he's getting ready to go skiing…
Tom: Well, somebody gets to have fun! 
SIM: I'm still not sure exactly what I think about all this. Very deep, will take me a long time to think it through.
Tom: I hear ya. It’s overwhelming sometimes. But think on this: Timeless (fore)knowledge of all the events and choices of history would be useless to God even if he possessed it. There’s nothing God can DO with such knowledge (because it already includes what he’s done). And if timeless knowledge is useless in explaining God’s relationship to the world, why believe it? Let’s look elsewhere.
Tom
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SIM
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| Posted 1/2/2003 4:17 PM (GMT -6) | | Some thoughts that have come to mind:
I am thinking, How does a God who is "temporal" listen to the prayers of more than one person at a "time"?
If God does change (which would be logically impossible for an Eternal God), How is He eternal? If OV believers believe in a God who changes, would that not be believing in a God in process, the god of process theology?
If God is infinite He is not localized by space or time. This fact is presented throughout the Scriptures. Solomon, when dedicating the temple prayed, "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heavens of heaven cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built" (I Kings 8:27).
Jeremiah records God as proclaiming, "'Am I a God near at hand.' says the Lord, 'And not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?' says the Lord; 'DO I NOT FILL HEAVEN AND EARTH?' says the Lord." (Jer 23:23f, emphasis added)
And, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there" (Psalm 139:7).
God is unchanging as opposed to us who do change. Num 23:19: "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not establish it?"; Mal. 3:6 "Since, I, the Lord, do not go back on my promises, you, sons of Jacob, have not perished."
The One True God is worthy of the highest worship "Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him" (Psalm 33:8).
SIM
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Tom
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| Posted 1/2/2003 7:54 PM (GMT -6) | | SIM-
I'm out the door in just a minute, so I can only puch out a line or two.
SIM: I am thinking, How does a God who is "temporal" listen to the prayers of more than one person at a "time"?
Tom: Don't over-anthropomorphize God. We want to take biblical descriptions of him seriously, and literally if possible, but there's no need to think that becauses God is temporal that he's necessarily limited in his ability to handle information, like a lot of prayer at one time. If we want to do this I might just reply that he has really big ears.
A temporal God can listen to the prayers of more than a million people at one time because he is infinitely intelligent. He can give each of a trillion people 100% of his attention. Because God's intelligence is "infinite" it doesn't get divided up. It's not as if one person gets 100% of God's attention and abilities, two people get 50% each, three people get 33%, etc.. But God is infinitely intelligent. He's being temporally intelligent doesn't affect this.
Now, if your objection DOES stand, then I could respond with is this objection: How can a God who is timeless, who hears all the prayers EVER prayed (past, present, and future) timelessly--AS they are prayed--listen to them all at all? Of course, this only works if your objection is sound to begin with. But since it's not, I won't offer it.
Can't write more! Gotta run.
Tom
"When you mix things up they get messy" Fred
Edited by - TGB on 01/03/2003 12:57:02 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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SIM
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| Posted 1/2/2003 7:58 PM (GMT -6) | | TGB: Timeless (fore)knowledge of all the events and choices of history would be useless to God even if he possessed it. There’s nothing God can DO with such knowledge (because it already includes what he’s done). And if timeless knowledge is useless in explaining God’s relationship to the world, why believe it? Let’s look elsewhere.
Augustine and Aquinas would disagree:
quote:
Augustine, for example, held that God moves our wills, working in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure, as scripture says (Phil. 2:13). Yet he insists that this does not diminish our freedom, for if it did we would not be told in the same passage to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. Similarly, Thomas Aquinas maintains that all of our doings, even those in which we sin, are on a par with the rest of creation in having God as their first cause. Only the defect of those actions which is their sinfulness derives from us. Sin, he says, is like limping, in which the defective motion arises from the crookedness of the limb, rather than the power of locomotion that impels it. Like Augustine, moreover, Aquinas sees no conflict between God's activity as creator and ours as free creatures. On the contrary: he holds that God's activity as first cause is actually the cause of our freedom, since he moves us in accordance with our voluntary nature. As to how this can be, it has to be said that Aquinas offers little by way of explanation. There is, however, an interesting suggestion in the Summa Contra Gentiles, where Thomas maintains that if the will were moved by an external principle as agent, the movement would be violent, and moves to the conclusion that God alone is able to move the creaturely will as agent without violence, since he alone is the cause and sustainer of its being, and thus is able to move it from within.
I ran across the following about the Doctrine of Divine Immutability (DDI)at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/immutability/#4 and I HAD to post it, it being so apropos considering your last post.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST DIVINE IMMUTABILITY
There are many arguments against DDI. One that some find particularly forceful begins from the fact that God is omniscient. If God is omniscient, they say, God knows what time it is now. What he knows, then, is constantly changing, since what time it is now is constantly changing. But knowledge of what time it is is intrinsic to God. And change with respect to something intrinsic is intrinsic change. So it seems that God cannot be intrinsically immutable.
One reply is that knowing the correct time is not an intrinsic state of God's. Intrinsic states are those settled entirely within one's own skin. But then unless P is a truth entirely about matters within one's own skin, knowing that P is not an intrinsic state. For that one knows that P rather than believes falsely that P only if P is true, and if P is not a truth entirely about matters within one's own skin, whether P is true is at least partly settled by matters outside one's own skin. But when it is now is not a matter settled within God's own skin. What time it is now is not a fact about God alone. It is a fact about time, which is not God, and also about the entire temporal universe. Further, it arguably is not the case even that what is within God's skin settles what time it is in the sense that were nothing else than God to exist, facts about God would suffice to determine what time it is. For this would be at best a contentious claim, as it implies that God would be in time if he existed alone, without a universe. Many would say that time is an aspect of the physical universe -- no universe, no time either. Moreover, even if God existed alone and were then in time, knowing what time it is would not be a temporally intrinsic matter. God knows that it is now t just at t. So knowing the correct time at t is temporally intrinsic only if it does not entail the existence or occurrence of anything that exists at other times. But for any time after the first instant (if there was one), knowing what time it is involves knowing the temporal distance between the present time and some other time: knowing that it is noon, April 16, 2002, implies knowing a relation between that time and date and the date traditionally assigned to the birth of Christ. Thus knowing what time it is entails knowing that there was some time other than the present -- a time outside the period in which God knows that it is now this time. Knowing what time it is at any time after the first instant thus is not a temporally intrinsic state. And if this is so, it is hard to see why even knowledge that it is time's first instant would be. Thus the objection has a false premise. If God's cognitive state with respect to what time it is changed, it would not follow from this that he is not intrinsically immutable. This result may seem a bit hard to swallow. One wants to know how a change in knowledge could fail to be an intrinsic change. One answer might appeal to externalist theories of mental content. On these, my knowledge that P is a complex consisting of my inner mental state plus certain items in the world. Perhaps God's knowledge that it is now t is something like a complex consisting of God's inner cognitive state and an external component, t. If it is, perhaps the only change involved when God first knows that it is now t and then knows that it is now t* (> t) is the change from t to t*.
Other arguments against DDI appeal to Scripture's depiction of God as changing, e.g., in the Flood story. Facing such texts, DDI's friends defuse the appearance of divine change by appeal to doctrines less speculative and theoretical than DDI. Thus Philo argues from God's foreknowledge of the future and constancy of character that God cannot repent or feel regret, as the Flood story suggests. The Incarnation is an especially knotty problem for DDI's Christian friends. In general, these argue that all change it involved occurred in the human nature God the Son assumed rather than in God; God was eternally ready to be incarnate, and eternally had those experiences of the earthly Christ which the Incarnation makes part of his life. Through changes in Mary and the infant she bore, what was eternally in God eventually took place on earth.
Another argument against DDI appeals to God's power. Before Creation, God could assure that no universe ever existed. God has this power now only if he can alter the past. Few think he can. So events seem to change God's power. DDI's defenders reply that any change here is purely extrinsic. God has the power he always has. He has lost a chance to use it, and so we no longer want to call his power a power to prevent a universe. But God is intrinsically as able as ever to do so.
A final objection goes thus: God does change extrinsically. Even full DDI grants this. But whatever changes extrinsically is in time. For different things are true of it at different times, even if the ‘real’ changes due to which this is so are in other things. And whatever is in time changes intrinsically -- it grows older. So DDI is false. Some would reply by denying that growing older is an intrinsic change. A more controversial response might be to deny even extrinsic change to God. This can be done by holding that God is atemporal. For if God exists at t and at a later t*, and, at t, P is true of him and, at t*, P is false of him, he does change extrinsically. He bears different relations to proposition P, at least. If God is atemporal, he exists neither at t nor at t* -- his existence is not temporally located. If this is so, there are never two times such that different things are true of him at different times. Rather, all that is ever true of him is true of him timelessly. But a thing changes, even extrinsically, only if different things are true of it at different times. Perhaps, then, defending DDI requires commitment to divine timelessness.
(I didn't even try to follow that, but it appeared well thought out.)
Sorry this went so long, but thought it might be of interest.
SIM
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Tom
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| Posted 1/2/2003 11:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi SIM-
Comparing my comments to Augustine and Aquinas is shifting things considerably. Of course they’d disagree with what I said. That would follow since neither of them espoused the simple-foreknowledge view! They were determinists, which is another can of worms altogether. If you want to talk about determinism, OK, but I thought we were talking about the providential value of simple-foreknowledge.
Of course a God who exhaustively determines all things possesses more control than a God who doesn’t. In an exhaustively determined world EVERYTHING goes exactly as God wishes. God could have created this sort of world if he wanted to. But what reason is there to believe he did? Several things combine to suggest to me at least that God didn’t want this sort of world and that he decided he would not be the only one deciding what happens in the world. He shares that power with us, but this choice to share power involves the possibility that we may misuse this power. Do you disagree with this much?
About God’s knowing what time it is now, I certainly agree that “what time it is now” is a fact not intrinsic to God. Unfortunately this in itself doesn’t go far in proving that God can know what time it is now and remain immutable in the sense Aquinas argued, for it’s not the changing state of time itself which challenges such a notion of immutability, but rather God’s knowledge of the changing state of time. Contrary to the comments you posted, this appears to involve more than simply knowing the temporal distance between two dates. One could know this distance and still not know what time it is now. These arguments are all well-worn. I see no reason for believing that immutability as Aquinas understood it is more appropriate to God than believing God experiences changing states of mind and emotion while remaining unchanging in his essential character (holiness, faithfulness, truthfulness, etc.). What do you gain by believing God is immutable in the Aquinian sense?
Tom 
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SIM
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| Posted 1/3/2003 4:51 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
TGB: Several things combine to suggest to me at least that God didn’t want this sort of world and that he decided he would not be the only one deciding what happens in the world. He shares that power with us, but this choice to share power involves the possibility that we may misuse this power. Do you disagree with this much?
Yes, I agree that He allows us to have a certain amount power to choose freely.
quote:
What do you gain by believing God is immutable in the Aquinian sense?
I gain a lot. When I think of an Infinite changing God, to me that is a paradox. A God who changes is not the God that I worship. A changing God is a logical contradiction in terms.
SIM
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