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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 516
| Posted 6/28/2001 12:02 PM (GMT -6) |   |
Still_unsure
03/09/01 9:27 PM
God's foreknowledge
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I just finished Dr. Boyd's book "God of the Possible" and found it very interesting and appealing. I am still uncertain though, exactly where God's foreknowledge fits with an open future. What can God foreknow about anything if we contingents help create the future. As I myself am the result of the free choices of my ancestors, how could God know anything about me untill my conception...or did he? Can anyone help me resolve this?
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
TGB
03/10/01 8:49 AM
Surprise!
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Still Unsure-
If I understand the OV, God had no idea YOU would ever be born, or anybody for that matter, excepting his own birth via the incarnation of course.
Disappointed?
Tom
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
Still_unsure
03/10/01 3:12 PM
RE: Surprise!
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Tom:
I maybe a little disappointed, although not that God may not have forknown me before my birth. Scripture obviously teaches God's foreknowledge of individuals (i.e. Jeremiah). If the O.V. cannot accomodate this then it is flawed somewhere. Perhaps God knows all possible worlds intimately (I am obviously part of one possible world) and, as the possible becomes the actual, interacts with it accordingly to bring about His purposes. It seems a bit ponderous but the total number of possible worlds must be finite, as our universe had a beginning and will have an ending (as we are told in scripture).
Rob
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
GregBoyd
03/11/01 11:43 PM
RE: RE: Surprise!
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TGB is quite mistaken in saying that in the OV God had "no idea" you'd be born. NONSENSE TGB.
God is a God of infinite intelligence. He thus doesn't have to "spread his attention thin" when he considers possibilities. He can attend to each of a trillion possibilities as thoroughly and as perfectly as if it was the ONLY possibility. Whatever comes to pass, God was as perfectly attentive and prepared for it (and in the case of people, in love with it) AS THOUGH it were the only possiblity that could come to pass.
The Open View, you see, does not ascribe to God less confidence about the future than the classical view. It just says that God is so intelligent he can have this confidence without needing to only pay attention to ONE possibility. Things could have gone differently. But if they had, God would be as perfectly prepared for THAT contigency AS IF IT were the ONLY possiblity that could ever come to passs.
So God eternally had his eye on you, unsure. And he was always in love with you.
Chew on it.
later
Doc
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Ex0dus777
03/12/01 1:59 AM
RE: Related Question
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Hey All,
I have a quick question about Open Theism that may seem stupid. It is an overly-discussed topic where I am from, and I am just getting introduced to it. In any case here it is: What does Open Theism say about Prophecies in the OT, such as Jacob and Esau, fighting in Rebekah's womb. The Lord told her right off the bat what their roles in life would be. (Gen. 25:30) What's the deal, and how does OV fit in here?
Keep on walkin'
-E
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
TGB
03/12/01 9:05 AM
Heh?
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Doc-
I obviously missed it. So, that can only mean I have absolutely NO idea what the OV means, is, or believes. I'm starting again a ground zero.
If my birth is the result of my parents' free choice to conceive me, and their births the result of their parents' free choice to conceive them, how could God have possibly known for certain that I, Tom Belt, would be born? God's "intelligence" has nothing to do with it. How can he know as a "certainty" what depends entirely upon a "contingency"? Now THAT seems like a married bachelor to me.
Tom
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
RevivalTheology
03/12/01 9:12 AM
RE: RE: RE: Surprise!
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I'm not sure I buy what Dr. Boyd is saying about God knowing ALL possibilities. I have pondered this for many years, and I have a couple of issues that haven't satisfactorily been answered in my mind: a) It appears that God has built into the Universe a certain element of chaos that is truly unpredictable. Now, I know that the unpredictableness of, say, quantum particles still are less than infinite in possible actions, but a near infinite number of possibilites occuring every nano-second for a near infinite number of particles for a near infinite amount of time seems bothers my "gut". I think somehow Occam's razor may even apply here.
2) (to follow a previous poster's example ) I believe that human beings have some genuine creativity - i.e. that some decisions, choices, etc., arise out of nothing but the creative gift God has designed us with. Perhaps not often, but often enough to make the so-called "possibilities" unforeseeable beyond a certain "distance" into the future.
I am quite comfortable with the idea that 5 billion years ago God didn't have any knowledge about me. As for His "eye" being on me, well, given even Dr. Boyd's analysis of God's knowledge of all possibilities "I" didn't exist to have His "eye" on me in any sense beyond being a potential of somekind, not a real being.
Further (and this just sort of clarified in my thinking) the idea is subtley materialistic in that it still seems to make us the sum of cause and effect. I believe that personality is far more mysterious than that.
Well, the musings of one person don't matter a hill of beans in this crazy world!
In the Lamb
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
ModesofThought
03/12/01 11:06 AM
RE: Heh?
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Let us not forget that God is omnipotent (has all the power God needs to do what God wills to do) and providential (has a desire-not a blueprint-for creation that will be accomplished). If it is important to God that something go a certain way, God is able to see to it that it goes a certain way. The Bible requires this perspective of us. The qualfication is two-fold:
1. This does not mean that all events are of this nature (That God determines them), though some surely are.
2. God does not hold us morally responsible for events which are out of our control. Greg has made this case repeatedly and extensively.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
springs
(Forum Moderator)
03/12/01 1:12 PM
RE: God's foreknowledge
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Good Question Exodus. I looked around the site cause I knew we had discussed this a bit before. I found a thread called Jacob/Esau in Romans on page 6.
Hey Modes could you help us out here? Do you remember where else we discussed this? Perhaps you could just hit some of the high points
of this topic again for Exodus. thanks
springs
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
TGB
03/13/01 12:41 PM
RE: RE: Heh?
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Which being interpreted means...?
I think it means God could NOT have foreknown Unsure's birth as a certainty without predetermining it.
Doc likes analogies, so perhaps he will provide an analogy of how one might foreknow as certain an event which is the result of an unknown/contingent event. The insurance agency (he has suggested before) does not work. Insurance agencies predict future events based on an established track record "of the same event" (e.g. car accidents, teenage overdoses, incidents of wife abuse). But Unsure's birth and identity are historically unique. What past track record would have provided God the means by which his intelligence (infinite though it is) would have known "for a certainty" that Unsure would be born possessing a particular personality/identity?
At this point the OV appears philosophically inconsistent.
Tom
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
might-be-don
03/13/01 6:42 AM
RE: Heh?
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Maybe I missed it but I don't believe Greg said that God knew the birth as a certainty... only a possibility.
GREG:The Open View, you see, does not ascribe to God less confidence about the future than the classical view. It just says that God is so intelligent he can have this confidence without needing to only pay attention to ONE possibility. Things could have gone differently. But if they had, God would be as perfectly prepared for THAT contigency AS IF IT were the ONLY possiblity that could ever come to passs.
DON: Note the AS IF IT .
A side note: Lends more evidence that God can't be "surprised" , He knew it might happen. Delighted you were born, but not suprised.
don
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
TGB
03/13/01 12:51 PM
RE: RE: Heh?
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Don-
How is God genuinely "grieved" at the "depths" of human sin in Gen. 6 if he knew such depths as a possibility and was therefore genuinely prepared for it?
Tom
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
might-be-don
03/14/01 8:39 AM
RE:Heh?
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TGB,
That's what bothering me about the OV according to Greg. He wants God to be God , but more like humans . I can't define "God surprise" and compare it to "human surprise" . It appears to me that OV'rs want to define "God surprise" = "human surprise" and given God's knowledge of ALL possibilities I don't see how that's possible.
What am I missing?
don
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
ModesofThought
03/14/01 10:52 AM
RE: RE:Heh?
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Don't make it harder than it is don and Tom. Its like this, you hop in your car fully expecting that it will start, you then fully expect that your car will get you to work safely. Well one day, it doesn't start. You knew that was a possibility, but it still surprises you doesn't it? Or your car does start and someone swerves into you and you DON'T get to wok safely that day. Again, this surprises you, but you knew it was possible right? Even likely given enough time and enough driving.
The second analogy works better for God's experience because as we know people are to some extent unpredictable. This is the point. God would know that it was possible that some drunk moron might swerve into you, but at some level, God experiences that surprise, because that sort of knowledge of the future isn't available insofar as that swerving was done freely. Again this analogy breaks down because God would know this drunk person so well that it would be very likely that God would know precisely how this drunk person would react to any and all stimuli that didn't directly engage his freedom. But nevertheless, there is a concievable situation where freedom could be involved and God and you would be surprised. God less so than you, because God would have the infinite perspective of the present that you lack, but nevertheless, surprise is possible. Most of the Biblical examples of God's suprise, actually I may dare to say ALL of them, involve choices that people have yet to make. In the end, the Bible says God is surprised, and as far as that goes, I think we are obligated to take that seriously. This is not the same as saying God is a rock. I trust you see the difference...
We can see plainly what is meant by God is a rock--God is steadfast, trustworthy, strong.
We cannot see what is meant by God is surprised if it doesn't mean something like what the word itself indicates.
What do you say? Do I get a cookie? Some cheese at least? Awww common throw me a bone...
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
might-be-don
03/14/01 2:59 PM
RE: RE: RE:Heh?
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Ok... in some sense God can be surprised. Not due lack of knowledge like me when I get surprised. As long as it's clear God isn't like me, although I hope I'm becoming more like Him.
don
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Still_unsure
03/14/01 8:22 PM
RE: RE: RE:Heh?
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ModesofThought, I am interested in your opinion of what "free will" actually entails...is it, by definition, a decision that is made with no predispositons? By that I mean that there was nothing prior that caused you to deciced one way over another. I ask this because it seems that the O.V. implies God is unable to know some choices we will make. If He knows us intimately, He would know our leanings to a minute detail. He should be able to predict our behavior easily. If not isn't a "free will" the same as a "random" or "arbitrary" will? What is the advantage of being able to make "random" decisions?
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Still_unsure
03/15/01 6:04 AM
RE: RE: RE: RE:Heh?
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I should maybe clarify what I am trying to say. (bad headache when I wrote the first message) If the O.V. is correct then I have to assume that if God formed a copy(simulation) of me in his infinite mind, it would not behave in the same manner as the "real" me. If that is true then some of my decisions must result from something other than my personality(likes,dislikes,etc.) or the way my physical brain is "wired". Wouldn't these "inderterminable choices" be the same as pulling numbers from a hat?(random chance) If so, how can we be morally responsible for them? Actually, how can we be morally responsible for the choices we make that do result from our physical and mental make-up? (how am I reponsible if I can't do ought) (headache's coming back!)
Help!
Rob
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
mn777saint
03/15/01 2:38 PM
RE: God's foreknowledge
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Sorry if this is a reprint - but some people dout look at all the threads...
I needed an answer and after studying and reading books and all the different papers regarding the views on God’s foreknowledge, I was still left with no answer. In fact I had more questions. So I decided to fast & pray, but not just for a day, but until God answered my prayers, I would not stop praying & fasting till I heard God’s Voice. So I waited on the Lord.
I now believe God spoke to me and said to share what he said, not only to my pastor, but then to the Board members of my church and then to my congregation, to Greg Boyd and now with all of you.
And this is what he said:
“I am the Lord thy God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, God of Moses, Joshua, and Jacob. I am the Alpha and Omega, The Beginning and the End. And I am the God who loves you; it was in that love that I created you. For Love is a choice and it was with that choice I so chose to create you. And in that creation I chose to give you part of myself. It was with that Breath of life I gave you. That was my Breath, a part of me, it carried with it the ability to love and make choices as I. For it was in the image of me that I created you” thus saith the Lord.
It seemed to me that the views of the extremes on either side couldn’t coexist with one another. So while still in the Lord’s presence, I asked “Father God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, in all your unlimited creativeness, create a boulder, in light of your unlimited power and strength, create that boulder as to where you, Oh Lord God could not lift it?” That was a question I could never answer myself, could God create a boulder he couldn’t lift?
I didn’t have to wait long for God to respond, for he said: “I created you, didn’t I?”
I asked, “what do you mean Lord?” He replied:
“ It’s not that I can’t, for within me all things are possible, It’s if I chose to create and then chose not to lift. And I chose to create you, for you are that boulder.”
Perplexed, I asked, “Please Lord, tell me do you know what will be, or do you not know what will be?” His answer was not a Yes or a No, one way or the other It was “ If I Chose to.”
I Believe, God has spoken. And it seems clear to me that we are to come together in one mind and one faith in the unity of love and understand that it’s not a matter of whether God knows of what is to be, or whether he knows not of what is to be. It’s what he chooses to know or chooses not to know.
We see in scripture over again where God chose to know certain events, and we also see over again where God chose not to know certain events, It’s a choice he makes.
To say that God cannot know our future decisions because we haven’t made them yet. Or to say God doesn’t know the future for it isn’t written yet is to go against the ability of what He can and can’t do, or have we forgotten “with God All things are possible.”
Just like He said, He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. He created us in his image, gave us a part of himself with the breath He breathed in us. He gave us a free will, the ability to make choices and to live up to the consequences of our actions. Every decision we make, every choice we choose, every action we take has an impact on the path we walk.
For God did in fact write the beginning and the end, but not just to one end, for when I asked “Lord do you know the end of the path I will follow?” He said, “I know all of them.” He then also wrote every possible ending to every possible action, every possible choice, and every possible decision we could possibly make. So God has written the book of our lives from the beginning to all its possible endings. And in giving us His breath, the Breath of Life, took the book out of His own hands gave it to us and by making us in His image gave us the same ability He has, The ability to choose.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
ModesofThought
03/15/01 3:18 PM
RE: RE: RE: RE: RE:Heh?
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Perhaps the best illustration I can give you is backwards because it argues from what we don't know fully, but the argument is built on what we must say to remain orthodox. I'll call this "an argument for free will based upon God's aseity":
1. God is said to have created our universe freely.
2. By this we mean that the world is not necessary but contingent. God could have refrained from creating it.
3. What then caused God to create the world? Was God forced to do so because "God is love" and so needs an object of love? We dare not say this. God is also Triune. Love is the internal structure and nature of God.
4. Where there other "sufficient causes" internal to the mind of God? If you say "yes," then God could not have refrained from creating, because these causes where "sufficient" to motivate God to create.
5. Rather, we say "No." God created out of a fullness, an abundance. What do we mean here? It is a mystery to be sure. But dare we say that God HAD to create the world? Would that not be panentheism? (a necessary God-world relation)
6. I have heard consistant Calvinists say that God had to create the world. Why? Because they understood the logic of this problem. To confess God's aseity is to say that God has libertarian freedom. God could have done otherwise.
7. Is this then randomness? No. Please understand, there are many times when a person is faced with multiple choices and by all conscious standards several of the choices seem good. There is an element of CREATIVITY, and imagination that must be accounted for in these choices. My conviction is that my own sense of creativity corresponds in some very meager and small way to God's creativity, sinc God has fashioned me in God's image. I can and must do something with this gift. Do I understand the mystery of this gift of freedom, imagination, creativity? not really, but do I dare deny it? Look at the world in its most beautiful aspects, see that God was not compelled, but playfully and creatively engaged in painting a masterpeice! Of course that is only the beginning of the story...
In short, the doctrine of God's aseity requires that we adhere to the idea of libertarian free will at least for God. God could have refrained from creating, to say less is heretical. This confession inserts the concept of freedom in the libertarian sense into our theological tool box. No further rationale is needed. If it must be true of God then it must be plausible. If it is plausible, as a concept, even on the basis of faith alone, it is available to help us understand our world. I do imagine that another way of proving this is available, but in case I am mistaken, it is enough for me to use this proof.
Another whole approach could be taken on the basis of a rejection of Newtonian metaphysics. This only gets us as far as indeterminateness, but that is a start (after all, these things get determined somehow! The metaphysical "breathing room" acheived by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a necessary precondition for freedom). The argument above works for me because I am committed to the independence of God.
How's that?
I also could have made a biblical case based upon the continuous calls to action, choice, faithfulness, etc. but i assume you've seen all those arguments and find them uncompelling for some reason...
Another case could be made on the basis of the doctrine of sin: understood as that which opposes the will of God. Luke 7:30 records that "the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves..." This implies that we can do otherwise than God wills. (Showing synergism rather than monergism here.)
Anyway, lots of things point in one direction, and then I start to have some faith...Can I prove it absolutely? Probably not. I am not sure I can prove much of anything absolutely...
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
TGB
03/16/01 7:40 AM
Analogy
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Modes-
“Its like this, you hop in your car fully expecting that it will start, you then fully expect that your car will get you to work safely. Well one day, it doesn't start. You knew that was a possibility, but it still surprises you doesn't it? Or your car does start and someone swerves into you and you DON'T get to wok safely that day. Again, this surprises you, but you knew it was possible right? Even likely given enough time and enough driving.”
Here’s the problem as I see it. MY expectations in this case are based upon past performance. I’ve gotten in my car, started it, and driven safely to work five days a week for seven years. So, CHANCES ARE IN MY FAVOR that I’ll do the same today. I know engine failure and accidents are possibilities, but they’re FAR LESS POSSIBLE than not, and THAT is why I’m surprised when my car doesn’t start.
As I understand Doc, this is precisely NOT what’s happens with God’s “expectations.” Here he is:
“He [God] can attend to each of a trillion possibilities as thoroughly and as perfectly as if it was the ONLY possibility. Whatever comes to pass, God was as perfectly attentive and prepared for it…AS THOUGH it were the only possibility that could come to pass.”
To me, Modes, this makes genuine surprise on God’s part impossible. It’s nothing like what’s going on with me when my car’s engine won’t start or I have an accident on the way to work. In the case of Unsure’s birth, Doc believes God was as perfectly prepared for it as if it was the ONLY possibility. It’s this that makes it difficult for me to see the meaning in the claim that God can be genuinely surprised at something. How could he? He knoww that something could happen (like my car not working, granted), but UNLIKE ME he is EQUALLY PREPARED FOR IT. This is where the analogy fails.
The word “prepared” might be throwing us off. I’m not saying that God may on occasion not know how to respond or not have the resources to respond perfectly and appropriately. In this sense God IS perfectly “prepared.” God will never NOT KNOW what to do about something. But this is different than what we’re talking about. In saying “God was perfectly prepared” for contingencies, I mean “equally prepared” for and thus “equally expecting” all contingencies. It is expectations which define “surprise.” If God is surprised, it’s because his expectations were not fulfilled, something happened that he was not expecting. But if you’re equally prepared for, or expecting, two possible outcomes, you can’t really be surprised at either one.
Again, Doc:
“God is so intelligent he can have this confidence without needing to only pay attention to ONE possibility. Things could have gone differently. But if they had, God would be as perfectly prepared for THAT contingency AS IF IT were the ONLY possibility that could ever come to pass.”
Again, how can God be genuinely surprised at the occurrence of something he was as equally prepared for it as anything else? In fact, when it happens, he would have been PREFECTLY prepared for that happening AS IF IT were the only thing that could have happened. Apply this to Jeremiah 3. I can’t see it. What I hear Doc saying is that God equally expects all contingencies to be actualized. I don’t see that God does.
In fact, in Jer. 3 Doc argues that, given God’s past investment, he was quite prepared for Israel to return and call him Father. When that didn’t happen, he was surprised. Had God been “equally expecting” either Israel’s rebellion or return, equally prepared for either possibility, in what sense could he have been surprised at Israel’s not returning? Doc seems to be denying that God’s expectations differ, which I understood to be how Calvinism views God, not the OV.
Adios,
Tom
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
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