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rsirkel
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 183
| Posted 9/13/2004 7:41 AM (GMT -6) |   | Troy
Thanks for the link. Very good.
Peace
Ron
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/13/2004 8:47 AM (GMT -6) | | That’s it! I’m writing a friggin book of my own. OK, I start his article and immediately run into this:
quote:
the orthodox view, which holds that God knows everything that ever has happened, is
happening, and ever will happen; and
the openness view, which holds that God has only a limited knowledge of the future.
Let me say at the outset that I am uneasy with both views, because neither of them seems to have any absolute biblical warrant, and also because intuition and logic lead me to view both of them with a degree of suspicion. In other words, I find it difficult to accept either that…
(1) God has absolute innate prescience; or that
(2) God has no innate prescience.
Both views seem to me to treat scripture less than honestly, and to create either a measure of
discomfort or a degree of irrationality.
Can anybody get it right? Sheesh!
(1) The openness view does NOT, I repeat, does NOT hold that God has only limited knowledge of the future. So the author already shows he doesn’t understand the fundamental claim of open theism. It’s not that hard folks. Come on. 
(2) I’m also uneasy with the two views he presents as he defines them. I also neither accept the classical view nor what he thinks is the open view. But the open is not what he dismisses.
I’ll read the rest. Maybe his third option IS the open view but he doesn’t know it.
Hoping for the best,
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/13/2004 9:05 AM (GMT -6) | | Just skim read it. What he offers as the third option and even calls an “open future” is basically the open view! So I’m not sure what HE thinks is the openness view with he supposes holds that God has only limited knowledge of the future and with which he disagrees.
He makes a mistake in framing the entire issue in terms of whether or not the future is “knowable.” Bad move. Thise leaves open the question of whether or not there are in fact true propositions about the future which are logically impossible to know (like propositions positing contingent states of affairs). This is what kills Hasker’s view as far as I can tell, and it seems this author takes that route, though he never gets into the semantics of future-tense propositions. It’s deadly to argue there are true propositions which are not logically knowable. Deadly. For like it or not, this denies omniscience.
Far better to frame it in terms of whether or not the future is exhaustively “determined” or not, then let the chips fall. Discuss the nature of historical contingency, and ground the truth value of propositions in conditions that obtain at the time propositions are asserted and which constitute their truth-conditions and not in the future states of affairs about which future tense propositions make some claim. In this way all propositions are either true or false and are known as such by God. What is presently determined to happen (for whatever reasons) God knows as true “will” propositions. What is in fact presently determined to NOT happen God knows as true “will not” propositions. And whatever is indeterminate God knows as true “might and might not” propositions. Easy as cake. So, of course the future is knowable. It's knowable through the presently obtaining states of affairs which render it NOW true that some future event "will" happen, NOW true that some events "will not" happen, and NOW true that some events "might and might not" happen.
Could have been a MUCH better paper.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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rsirkel
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 183
| Posted 9/13/2004 9:32 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom
Easy now, he does start off with the popular tension, probably gearing with the anticipation his readers will be more familiar with the present public stance between classical and OV which you immediately reject, and rightly so. As he continues he brings in the open view and articulates it with scripture and understanding. He understands the issues correctly. In my opinion the beginning was calculated so people with superficial understanding of OV would keep on reading. Now my first reading was fast and I skimmed over a whole lot but will read it tonight but I didn't notice where he continued with a personal belief in his opening statements.
Troy
Is there a contact page or e-mail address. We can ask him directly if there is a reason he stated the beginning as he did. I shouldn't presume so much about the author's intent.
Peace
Ron
Tom
You posted again while I was writing. I agree with you.
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/14/2004 1:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey Sahid-
I think the idea that open theism holds that God doesn't know the future, or doesn't know all of the future, comes from some open theists who actually express it this way. It's so entrenched that exhaustively definite foreknowledge is what "knowing the future" means that when you take the "definite" out of "exhaustive definite foreknowledge" it feels natural to say you no longer believe "God knows the future" even though you've left "exhausitve" in the phrase. So we end up conceding the classical view of the future in our language and then try to make sense of the open view in terms and meanings that work against us. I think it is sooo cricial to be clear on definitions.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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