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geebob
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 94

Posted 6/28/2004 6:24 AM (GMT -6)

This depends upon what it means to be self determining. I think if one is truely self determining, then nothing outside of that person determines what ever it is that that entity is determining. compatibilists like this term and I don't know why. I sometimes use the term "uniquely" self determining to distinguish this real version of self determinism from the compatibilists.

I'd like to point out two things from this defintion, for your benefit though it is not really relevent. libertarian free will gets you self determinism, however you do not need libertarian freedom. I believe that an infinitely temporal being can be self determining with regard to a behavior or decision without being libertarian free because it may not be possible for that being to choose otherwise. But that being has always choosen that way and has never been determined by anything exterior to it to choose that way. anyway,eonugh of this digression and on with the show.

From unique self determinism, then, clearly, what is determined depends upon the existence from that person who is doing the determining.

Here's the problem with the counterfactuals. Their existence not only precedes the existence of the creature, but the creature doesn't even have to exist for the counterfactuals of middle knowledge to exist.

If they exist independently of the allegedly self determined creature, then clearly the self determined creature is not really self determined with regard to them.

I will gladly pay you teusday for a hamburger today.

-Wimpy

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 6/28/2004 10:41 PM (GMT -6)

geebod: Here's the problem with the counterfactuals. Their existence not only precedes the existence of the creature, but the creature doesn't even have to exist for the counterfactuals of middle knowledge to exist.If they exist independently of the allegedly self determined creature, then clearly the self determined creature is not really self determined with regard to them.

Greg: This is in essence "the grounding objection" to molinism. What "grounds" the eternally truth of counterfactuals that God eternally knows. From all eternity, God allegedly knows that "in situation z Greg WOULD DO x." What MAKES THIS eternally true? Nothing other than God exists. Yet the Molinist doesn't want to say GOD makes it true, for this would undermine freedom. But GREG can't make it true, for Greg does yet exist. The fact just sits there as an eternal surd (unaccountable reality), caused by nothing. Its almost a form of dualism, as I argued in Four Views on Foreknowledge. Two things eternally exist, both equally uncaused: God and all of future actual existence and all possible existence. (Note, this objection holds not just to Molinism but to all who affirm God's eternal forknowledge whle denying God is the ultimate cause of all that exists).

Greg

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

1Heart
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2004
Total Posts : 1128

Posted 6/29/2004 3:21 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd

geebod: Here's the problem with the counterfactuals. Their existence not only precedes the existence of the creature, but the creature doesn't even have to exist for the counterfactuals of middle knowledge to exist.If they exist independently of the allegedly self determined creature, then clearly the self determined creature is not really self determined with regard to them.

Greg: This is in essence "the grounding objection" to molinism. What "grounds" the eternally truth of counterfactuals that God eternally knows. From all eternity, God allegedly knows that "in situation z Greg WOULD DO x." What MAKES THIS eternally true? Nothing other than God exists. Yet the Molinist doesn't want to say GOD makes it true, for this would undermine freedom. But GREG can't make it true, for Greg does yet exist. The fact just sits there as an eternal surd (unaccountable reality), caused by nothing. Its almost a form of dualism, as I argued in Four Views on Foreknowledge. Two things eternally exist, both equally uncaused: God and all of future actual existence and all possible existence. (Note, this objection holds not just to Molinism but to all who affirm God's eternal forknowledge whle denying God is the ultimate cause of all that exists).

Greg

Hi,

If what you're saying is true, then people can be molinists without understanding they are.

Don't you think, that faith needs to "work?" If we can't make it "work" intellectually, we'll make it work practically - so those who claim to be calvinists, or arminianists - may actually live like they are open theists in some respects. For example prayer. How many people do you hear say that God knows every detail of our lives, that nothing happens that He does not already know, and allow...but when a crisis hits - they pray, believing that their prayer will change the outcome.

Aren't we all - really a mixture? Perhaps that is why (from the thread on narrative theology), being part of the narrative is the main thing - while theology can mess us up? I'm not sure if I'm making practical sense here. Just trying to figure this all out in my head.

I have another question - for you Dr Boyd, if you're still reading this and have time to answer. Why is Open Theism so unheard of? There is one other person in our church who is an open theist (who actually understands it much better than I do, yet - even though I'm reading and learning - but if you mention it to anyone else - they look at you as though you have 3 heads. I understand the importance of fleshing out what you believe and letting your life speak for itself, so I tread carefully.

When I was perhaps overly enthusiastic (in a nice way) in my own family, I earned the label of "wacked." I do not understand how a theology that makes the most practical sense (and explains countless passages of scripture that remained heretofore a mystery), would scare people so much - to the point of being labelled heretical, or "wacked."

I'm sure you've probably answered countless questions like this before. I'll open it up to anyone to answer.

God Bless,
Jo-Anne

"Sometimes all we can do is go back to the character of God, and drop anchor there."

Bobber
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 199

Posted 6/30/2004 4:33 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
When I was perhaps overly enthusiastic (in a nice way) in my own family, I earned the label of "wacked." I do not understand how a theology that makes the most practical sense (and explains countless passages of scripture that remained heretofore a mystery), would scare people so much - to the point of being labeled heretical, or "wacked."

Hi Moon River.... Not sure you know my position on open theism, but I guess mine is a little different then some on here....I believe that God didn't know the future for the future is not a real place until it occurs...its like asking what the weather is like today in the real land of the Wizard of Oz....well the weather is not really like anything there for there is nothing real about the place....so with the future....God deals only in things of reality and it is no shame to not know something which does not exist....nor is it a limitation....

...its my feeling though that God does know all the future not by guessing it would be a certain way but by actually knowing it....How would God know it therefore? By time travel....once the future does occur it becomes a reality and the revelation of it is blasted back through time, to the time before the creation of the earth.....so God knows our choices and we are therefore the elect by foreknowledge, in other words God saw our choices, the choices we made from the place of eternity. So why would people consider this position or that of open theism as heretical? For the reason they think it attacks on the belief that God is all knowing...

...a belief that God didn't know something causes them to choke....Well to a Calvinist they would hold that all our actions are ordered by God....in other words God would have actually programmed people to commit evil towards others like rape, Nazism, snuff movie’s, you name it. Well God forbid that anyone should think that way but I guess that some do......but over in the free will camp, they believe that no God didn't control our choices, we made them but God saw our choices before we made them from his eternal place above time...Anyway you cut the cake though if God knew because he saw our choices then if they are our choices he couldn't have known them until we made them....

...absolutely totally impossible! So God therefore is not all knowing, and a way of cornering a free will person is by insisting that if its based on our choices if I haven't made it yet then God doesn't know the outcome. How could he....I hadn’t made the choice yet...if I hadn't made the choice yet, then I haven't made the choice yet period!One can't have it both ways. My point is the time travel does answer I believe the dilemma. Just because I go back in time and tell something I did see in the future cannot mean that I controlled it or caused it to occur. Blush

JET
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397

Posted 6/30/2004 5:25 AM (GMT -6)

Bobber, you might be interested in an article by William Lane Craig that discusses divine foreknowledge and time travel. William Lane Craig is a Molinist/Ockhamist who argues that we have the power to bring about what God eternally knows (or something like that). Here is the article:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/tachyons.html

Tachyons, Time Travel, and Divine Omniscience
Dr. William Lane Craig

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