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The Huguenot
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 10/1/2004 10:03 PM (GMT -6) |   | Lets play pretend...
(People who don't have time may want to skip to the end...)
...Suppose with me that a Gentleman wanders into a building called CVM. He himself has stopped in for a Coke, but realizes that the young native down the block (who had given him directions here) has been fooling with him; surely this is not a convenience store! Instead of cokes and chips, he finds a very different sight. Inside the building are many tables, at which a variety of people sit at computers (which are not magically levitating, but resting comfortably on the tables). He wistfully notes that a few of the people sitting at the computers are drinking cokes...
About this time, a Young Man dressed in finest, shimmering garments approaches him. (At this point, our gentlemen notices the most curious thing: on top of the shimmering garments are the remains of a tattered varsity jacket, which has now been reduced to a few threads and stripes. The glory of it is all very much dissipated, though he notices the Young Man nervously run his fingers along what remains of the rags.) The Young Man introduces himself as Brian.
"Hello, and welcome," Brian intones.
"Why thank you very much," the Gentleman responds (for he is quite courteous. It is hard to find a good man, even for the misfit, but that is for other times and other O’Connors). "My name is Quoheleth. Tell me, please, what is this place?"
"This building that you now stand in is a general store. People come here and trade goods."
"Truly? It is as you say? I wonder," marveled Quoheleth, "how they trade as they do sitting at the computers." Both noted that none of the computers were levitating, and still resting quite comfortable on the hard, mahogonay tables.
"Though I am least of those worthy to explain to you the logistical goings-on of this domain, I will try to enlighten you as best I can," Brian replied. "You see, the people here at the (non-levitating) computers do not trade goods, or money, or foods, per se, but rather all those that you see here are merchants of thought, traders of philosophies, and capitalists of noetic fruit. These computers are merely medium for conversation, debate, and discourse to occur."
"I see," droned Quoheleth, who had a nasty habit of droning whenever deep in thought. "However, I do not understand how such commerce can produce coca-colas. How does it work?"
At this, Brian laughes a deep, contented laugh; the kind of laugh one thinks the angels must laugh when a saint wearily and sheepishly performs some good work for the glory of the Father (rooted, of course, in a dynamic love relationship). He leaves Quoheleth to go over to the strangely-levitating refridgerator. Upon mounting the ladder, he takes an ice cold Coke out of the door panel and returns with a happy grin as he graces Quoheleth with the chilled plastic-encased nectar of delight.
"Enjoy that, dear friend. Though I sincerely hate to disappoint you, and do sincerely hope that one day our computers will be able to generate coke and other blessings that our good Lord has made the earth redound with, at this point in our slow history man has not yet understood that process. Rather, the people you see engaging in noetic commerce with one another discuss various points of theology, philosophy, and other venues of higher, critical thinking.”
“Is this so?” wondered Quoheleth. “Of what subjects and content do they discuss?”
“Come with me,” Brian invites, “and allow me the great honor of showing a few of the things to you.”
Both men carelessly sauntered over to a certain nook in the building. While they were standing there, both noted that it felt as if there may be a unicorn in the office, though it was difficult for either man to assess for sure. Quoheleth expressed relief in the fact that at least God knew the actual state of affairs. Aside from unicorn feelings, the space Brian led them to had people at computers just as the rest of CVM building. He explained that here a raging debate continued. When asked pointedly by Quoheleth as to what the nature of the debate regarded, Brian paused for a few moments before answering. Drawing a deep breath, he warily proceeded.
“Technically, the debate is over what some people have termed Open View Theism.” At this, Quoheleth’s face registered in understanding. “Do you have something like this where you come from?”
“As a matter of fact, we do indeed,” said Quoheleth.
“They discuss such matters here,” Brian concluded with a nod and short exhalation from his nostrils. Quoheleth rewarded him with a perplexed look.
“How long have they been at this?” queried the now coke-satisfied traveler?
“Before I hazard an answer to your inquiry, I am afraid I must know better. Do you mean as to how long they sit here, or how long have they been discussing the matter?” Brian asked.
“Surely the latter; how long has OVT been a subject of interest for them?”
“Ahhh,” Brian stalled, “it seems to have been running amongst various circles for at least several years.” At this Quoheleth’s face changed from surprise to shock. “What is wrong?” Brian asked.
“Several years? But what do they have to discuss in all of that time?”
“Oh, to be fastidiously honest, I do not have a full knowledge of every iota of knowledge that leaks into these keyboards. Why, how is this issue and following debate handled where you come from?”
“Well, where I come from,” began Quoheleth, with a far away look in his eyes, “we actually do very little debate amongst ourselves. Where I come from, we have representative battles.”
“Whatever is a representative battle?”
“Well,” started Quoheleth, hesitating how to go on, “a representative battle is fought between the champions of the opposing sides, very similar to how David and Goliath fought representing Philistia and Israel. The reason for this is that there is so much important work going on that it is usually impossible for most of us to keep up with it. For instance, Mark Clinnock debates Lon Piper, and Harry Flanders spars with Moose Bare. The benefit is that more of the argument gets covered, and nothing becomes overlooked.”
“So you’re saying,” an excited, slowly-coming-to-grasp-the-importance-of-the-issue-look was coming over Brian’s face, “that perhaps we should not argue amongst ourselves, but argue amongst our respective heroes?”
“Precisely,” said Quoheleth, who, in a very uncharacteristic mood due to the lateness of the hour, thanked Brian for the Coke and promptly left. Quoheleth was never seen again.
******* ********* ********
Well, what do you think? Anyone buying it? Just in case Quoheleth wasn’t clear, I think it would be edifying to devote a conversation dealing with, for instance, D. A. Carson’s review (in JETS) of “God at War.” We could discuss how well Carson understands the issues at stake, how penetrating his arguments are, etc. I tried to do a lot of searches on the board to make sure I wasn’t going over previously laid track, and I haven’t seen any serious wrestling with many non-biblical sourcs (except for a few helpful comments for OVT’ers to deal with the Reformers rather than modern day neo-calvinists).
The Huguenot (who’s starting to get thirsty…)
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/2/2004 3:27 AM (GMT -6) | | If Carson's review is online, give me the URL. I'll discuss it with ya.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/2/2004 3:41 AM (GMT -6) | | Here it is: http://www.etsjets.org/jets/journal/42/42-2/42-2-pp251-269_JETS.pdf
Your serve Huguenot.
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/2/2004 6:08 AM (GMT -6) | | The first half of Carson’s review is just that, a review. In the second half he lists his objections. Here are the objections with his sub-points.
---------------------------
(1) ABSOLUTE ANTITHESIS
“Boyd’s entire book sets up an absolute antithesis that caricaturizes his opponents’ positions. He advances a “warfare worldview”; over against this, his opponents espouse “classical-philosophical tradition,” “Western theology,” the “blueprint model of providence,” the “providential blueprint worldview.” In its essence, the opponents’ position is fatalistic or deterministic under a sovereign God who has a blueprint. Assuming for a moment, however, that Boyd wants to argue with his opponents at their best, then why this antithesis?
Boyd focuses on those statements of his opponents that emphasize God’s sovereignty, but those same opponents also speak of the rebellion of angels and of human beings, of their defiance of God, of sin as failing to do what God commands and doing what God forbids, of spiritual warfare, and so forth. He may not like their synthesis, he may think it is philosophically indefensible (I’ll return to this point), but he has no right to caricature them by picking up one element of their understanding of what the Bible says about God and absolutizing it in such a way that they are made to hold positions that they do not in fact adopt.”
(2) MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND FREE WILL
“Boyd repeatedly asserts that human responsibility in moral decisions turns on the kind of absolute freedom that makes God, at such points, absolutely contingent. In his hands, this discussion adopts the form of an absolute antithesis that is related to the first: either God is utterly sovereign and human beings are robots, or human beings (and other moral agents such as angels) are held to be morally responsible because of their utter freedom and God is necessarily contingent. I have already stated that he never defends this antithesis, despite the vast and complex literature on the matter that stands against him. But now I wish to point out that there are many, many passages of Scripture that stand against him as well. Here I mention only three: (a) Gen 50:19–20…(b) In Isa 10:5–19…(c) Acts 4:27–28.
(3) OMNISCIENCE
“One of the elements somewhat hidden in Boyd’s discussion is the question of what God knows. There are brief hints at what Boyd thinks. If God knows that if he does nothing “X” will happen, and decides not to do anything, then in some way or other God stands behind the “X” event when it happens. Thus questions of God’s sovereignty are tied to questions of God’s knowledge. To preserve God from any charge of moral failure (granted Boyd’s antitheses and denial of compatibilism), Boyd is prepared to defend God by
identifying things that God does not know.”
“(a) By way of introductory remark, I doubt that it helps to distinguish between what God does not know and what God chooses not to know (a distinction not made by Boyd: He does not directly address this question, though surely some thoughtful readers sooner or later are bound to raise it). God’s ignorance becomes, for Boyd, part of the defense of God’s morals. But if God were to choose to be ignorant, then surely at some level of his being he knows enough, or once knew enough, to know what he must not know if he is to protect his moral status. At that point his choosing not to know has the flavor of the duplicitous.”
“(b) Those wishing to evaluate claims about God’s ignorance by searching the Scriptures have two kinds of material to challenge them. The first are the generalizing statements about God’s limitless knowledge or ordaining predictions: I have already referred to a few such passages, and of course there are many more (e.g. Ps 139:16). The second are the many instances where God or Jesus specifically predicts or ordains something which from the human perspective turns on one or more future, free, contingent human decisions—sometimes only a little way ahead (e.g. Gen 40:8; John 6:64; predictions of the fall of Jerusalem in Jeremiah and Ezekiel), and sometimes a long way ahead (e.g. Isa 45:13; Mic 5:2; Acts 2:23). In both kinds of Scriptural text it is difficult to square what the Bible actually says with the theory that God cannot know the substance of future, free, contingent decision.”
“(c) It has been argued that the questions God asks in order to elicit information, if taken at face value, show that God is less than omniscient. How much this is the stuff of accommodation (see below) must be sorted out. But at very least one should recognize that at least some of God’s questions in Scripture, though formally they elicit information, cannot possibly be understood to be, in fact, eliciting information—i.e. information that God does not already know. For example, when God calls out to Adam, “Where are you?” (Gen 9:8), no future, free, contingent decision is at stake. No one, so far as I know, argues that God does not really know where Adam is.”
“(d) If it be argued that God knows the results of some future, free, contingent decisions, the question becomes, How is it that he knows some and not others? If he chooses not to know some such results, we are back with (a). If the selection is made on the basis of something else that leaves him genuinely ignorant, what is that something? But if he knows some results of future, free, contingent decisions, what is to stop him from knowing the results of all of them—which is in line with the generalized claims of Scripture?”
“(e) Boyd’s analysis presupposes that God is somehow locked in time, along with his finite creatures. If God is transcendent—i.e. “above” or “beyond” or “outside” the universe that he has created, including the structures of time and space, it is much harder to think of some definitive reason why such a God could not know the results of decisions taken by creatures locked in time and space, where their decisions, by their own reckoning, are future, free, and contingent.”
“(f) It may help to clarify the nature of this debate if we contrast it with the traditional debate between Arminians and Calvinists. Arminians and Calvinists hold in common that God is omniscient, and that this omniscience includes foreknowledge. For both parties, God knows the future. Where they divide is over the nature and extent of God’s sovereignty in nexus with this knowledge. But the advocates of the openness-of-God stance, including Boyd so far as I can see, are saying in effect that what is future to us is future to God, and where that future involves a free, contingent decision, God cannot know that future.”
“(g) One must face the practical implications of a God who does not know the results of future, free, contingent decisions. He cannot know who is alive a century from now. How could he possible know in the sixth century before Christ that six hundred years later the superpower in the Mediterranean basin would be Rome? Were the decisions of Jesus to obey his Father and go to the cross free, future, contingent decisions? If so, then on Boyd’s reading God could not have known the outcome and was taking a bit of a chance: The bit about the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world is a little hard to swallow. But if not, then on Boyd’s reading Jesus was a puppet and his sacrifice scarcely the result of moral choice. In short, the more one pushes this reconstruction the more problematic it becomes. What first appears as a neat solution to the problem of evil eventually makes one appreciate the centuries of Christian thinkers whom Boyd dismisses, but who surely grasped the complexities better than Boyd himself.”
(4) THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
“(a) Boyd repeatedly says that one of the proofs that traditional debates about theodicy must be fundamentally flawed is the fact that the Bible never or at best rarely recognizes that there is a problem. But this, surely, is mistaken. It is hard to sustain that conclusion after a thoughtful reading of, say, Job, Psalm 73, and Habakkuk. In the NT, part of the anguish of the book of Revelation is bound up with the consternation of the martyrs already under the throne: How long will it be until their blood is avenged? Precisely when evil seems so strong and opposition to the people of God so ominous and threatening, John refuses to back off and conclude that since we are in a warfare situation, and God is doing the best he can, we must simply accept the suffering. Far from it. We are indeed in a warfare situation, but the Lord God Omnipotent reigns, and this eschatological note of certain triumph is irrefragably tied to this truth. Moreover, I suspect that one of the reasons why there are not more Biblical writers who cast the problem of evil in the kinds of categories that would please a Hume is because they were not only believers, but they were compatibilists. Western tradition has had most intellectual difficulty with evil when it has distanced itself from Biblical compatibilism.”
“(b) We must reflect a little more on Job’s anguish. Boyd is right to point out that his is a case of innocent suffering: The narrator says so, and God himself says so, in chap. 1. Boyd is also right to see the warfare dimension in what follows: The defiance and challenge of Satan are what sets this drama in motion. So far, so good. But thereafter Boyd misses some of the main points of the book. Even from the beginning, Satan can only do what God sanctions; he has to secure permission to do Job any harm. In other words, God retains his absolute control. As in Gen 3:1, where the fact that the serpent was made by God and is thus a dependent creature and not an utterly independent force informs the story, so also here: The warfare worldview is real, yet it remains under the outermost limits of God’s sovereign control. That is why there is mystery in evil; that is why Job finds himself in anguish.”
(5) THE PLACE OF PRAYER
“Something similar occurs in Boyd’s treatment of prayer. We have seen that Boyd insists that “the primary purpose of prayer, as illustrated throughout Scripture, is precisely to change the way things are” (p. 204). It is not to bring ourselves into line with what God wants. Thus all kinds of things are contingent in our praying. I am not sure that either formulation—that by prayer I change things, or that by prayer I am changed—is entirely helpful if it is absolutized. Surely no one would want to deny that some of our praying ought to be that we ourselves would be changed: “Not my will, but yours be done.” On the other hand, many prayers in the Bible are cast as the means by which something or other is effected. James warns believers that they “have not” because they “ask not.” By contrast, Moses intercedes for the sinning Israelites, and God spares them (Exodus 32–33). Yet as God makes clear elsewhere, leaders are supposed to intercede on behalf of the people, and thus “build up the wall” of protection for them—i.e. it is in accordance with God’s will so to pray. One interesting example is Daniel’s intercession for the end of the exile, precisely because he knows that according to God’s own word the time for the end of the exile has arrived (Dan 9:2). Daniel prays for what God has promised. These sorts of passages warn us against reductionistic analyses. The connections between prayer and divine sovereignty are complex. Not for a moment do I pretend that any of this is easy. But I wonder if Boyd has re¢ected at length on the implications of his analysis of the subject. If certain things cannot get accomplished until we pray (understanding such prayer to be utterly independent of God), and then God acts in response to our prayer, inciting God to do something that otherwise he had no intention of doing, do we not thereby introduce another range of problems of theodicy?”
(6) FAULTY EXEGESIS
“At many points I wonder if the exegesis is quite right. True, demonized people are regularly viewed by Jesus with compassion. But is it right to make the victims/perpetrators disjunction quite so absolute? After all, elsewhere Jesus can condemn the city, and weep over it. I remain unpersuaded by Boyd’s exegesis of John 9. And even though he introduces the gap theory with commendable hesitation, I see far more diffculties than advantages in his suggestion. Quite apart from hesitations about whether the grammar of Gen 1:1–2 readily supports a gap, the suggestion that God has to wrestle with the powers to get the whole creation going, and then, after a long gap, creates the perfectly “good” universe as we know it, raises numerous questions. Where did the malevolent powers come from in the first place? If they are God’s creations, then none of the problems regarding the origin of evil are reduced, but merely projected farther back. If they were not created, then we have retreated to ontological dualism.”
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/2/2004 7:39 AM (GMT -6) | | Just a couple of initial reactions:
quote:
when God calls out to Adam, “Where are you?” (Gen 9:8), no future, free, contingent decision is at stake. No one, so far as I know, argues that God does not really know where Adam is
It is common for parents to begin an interrogation of their children knowing full good and well what has actually transpired. This is done to engage the mind of the child and/or test their willingness to be honest.
quote:
“(e) Boyd’s analysis presupposes that God is somehow locked in time, along with his finite creatures. If God is transcendent—i.e. “above” or “beyond” or “outside” the universe that he has created, including the structures of time and space, it is much harder to think of some definitive reason why such a God could not know the results of decisions taken by creatures locked in time and space, where their decisions, by their own reckoning, are future, free, and contingent.”
Boyd doesn't ASSUME that God is in time and space. His opponents ASSUME that He isn't. I contend that no one has any idea what that means.
Virutally everything in his disagreement has been addressed in this forum and in replies by open theists.
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The Huguenot
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Total Posts : 16
| Posted 10/2/2004 9:09 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
Thank you for your helpful and edifying work in getting Carson's arguments up and more accessible. May the Lord bless you for your time and effort.
I am thankful for, simply due to the process of history, the fact that we have Boyd's "God of the Possible," for otherwise I am afraid that Carson's critique would be rendered quite outdated. I would like to focus in on Omniscience, and due to Tom's beautiful legwork for us, specifically points (a), (b), and (d) (perhaps [c] as well). It seems to me that Carson's point falls short, in that Boyd (if I understand the good doctor arightly) is not asserting that God does not know the future in any way, but rather that parts of the future are not there to be known factually.
Am I right? Would you, if you were in Carson's shoes, engage Boyd at this fork in the road?
Humbly yours,
The Huguenot
P.S. I sincerely hope no one will feel ill will toward me for this latest volley. I am fully aware that the above has already been spoken of in various formats. If anyone thinks this frivolous or otherwise, please vocalize that. For my own part, I do sincerely hope that this discussion is fruitful where others have failed, and that it serves in furthering the discussion between the ever widening gulf between various parties. | | Back to Top | | |
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The Huguenot
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Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 10/2/2004 9:17 AM (GMT -6) | | By the way, the first offer of thanks was directed to Tom, while the rest is for all. I didn't mean to make this a two man discussion, and I apologize. If anything, the P.S. is for jefscott:
quote:
Virutally everything in his disagreement has been addressed in this forum and in replies by open theists.
quote:
I sincerely hope no one will feel ill will toward me for this latest volley. I am fully aware that the above has already been spoken of in various formats. If anyone thinks this frivolous or otherwise, please vocalize that. For my own part, I do sincerely hope that this discussion is fruitful where others have failed, and that it serves in furthering the discussion between the ever widening gulf between various parties.
I do hope that jefscott and all of us receive some help from this.
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The Huguenot
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Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 10/3/2004 8:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Good evening gentlemen,
JEFSCOTT says,
quote:
It is common for parents to begin an interrogation of their children knowing full good and well what has actually transpired. This is done to engage the mind of the child and/or test their willingness to be honest.
So are you arguing that Boyd et al really think that God DID KNOW where Adam and Eve were, and He was merely calling to them to engage their minds and test their honesty? I think the whole point is that Boyd et al have been (poorly) using this text as a prooftext for OVT(and based on your above comment, I think you agree). We can all see that the above text (from Genesis) doesn't support a view of God that doesn't know future choices because they have not yet happened; or even a God who sovereignly forgoes future knowledge to preserve homo sapien autonomy; this God is simply a bit daft and needs a 101 course on how to use his omnipresence powers! I think we all know Boyd is too smart to be falling back on texts like these. I just wish some of his cohorts in the same camp would be as well. Am I understanding you correctly, sir?
quote:
Boyd doesn't ASSUME that God is in time and space. His opponents ASSUME that He isn't. I contend that no one has any idea what that means.
Hmmm... "what that means..." I hope you won't mind too terribly if you allow me to do a little assuming myself (we all know what happens to the unlucky fellow when that happens!!). I could assume that you mean by this contention that meaning is experiential:
I say, "God is outside of time and space." You, naturally, lean on my definitions and point out that this is incoherent for us. However, I don't think this is what you mean, since this is easily refutable by a quick primer on apophatic theology. This would simply be a low reading of you.
Or I suppose you probably mean that for God to be outside of space and time is something like drawing a circle with four straight lines or coloring a giraffe the number six. To this, I would like to offer three objections (though since I am not Southern Baptist, they will not all start with the same letter...):
1. This thinking does not wholly escape the apophatic theology critique. There are things that we ascribe of God (or ascribe negatively) that are simply beyond our understanding, empirical, analogical, or otherwise. I would submit two evidences for your scrutiny: Trinitarian ontology and holiness. I contend that egg analogies (yolk, white, and shell, yet one egg) or water analogies (three phases, same element) in any way accurately convey to us trinitarian thinking, EVEN ANALOGICALLY. None of the components of the egg love each other or create together, and none of the phases of water beget one another, or proceed from each other. Holiness, and here I am defining it as moral perfection and ontological otherness, is by definition non-analogical. I can start my mind down the path of what it means for something to be other than me, though that is about it. The whole point is that it is actually other. I think Emmanuel Levinas brings a devastating critique to any who would say otherwise. God is outside of space and time, and though I cannot conceive of what that means, it is nonetheless true.
2. Secondly, there is a sense in which we are capable of understanding God being outside of space and time (this is not to be seen as irreconcilable with #1 above). God is outside of space: what must this mean? God is a spirit, and contrary to certain allusions to Him in Scripture, He does not have a body. Therefore, I would humbly request you bear the burden to mangle my logic:
To have a body is to be in space
To be in space is to have a body
God does not have a body
Therefore, God is not in space.
(Think ahead to how I’ll resond; I don’t think I’m ironclad, but I do think its tougher than it looks!)
As pertaining to God being outside of time, here again I’ll merely set up the definition of eternity to be outside of time. (We can discuss M. Erickson’s God the Father Almighty or a Four Views type of book as well if you’d like. I highly recommend The Untamed God by Jay Wesley Richards for those of you who wish to destroy classical theism.) If you wish to view eternity in another light, I would refer to what kind of eternity is set in men’s hearts? An eternity that is within time? Why is that set in their hearts?
3. Finally, I do not think it necessary for us to understand the complete depth of a doctrine to propose it with full force (I want you all to know, dear OVTs, that I grant this same right to you yourselves. It was not easy on the reformers when they first started in those glorious days, and I do not expect it to be easy for you). Who can plumb the depths of God’s plenary inspiration and Peter’s cantankerous and obtuse grammar? Trinity? Dual nature of Christ? Creation ex nihilo?
***The Huguenot leans back with a contented sigh, realizing that he has just efficiently stated that it is impossible to know something (#1), we can know it (#2), and we don't have to know it very well (#3). All in a long days work...***
Seriously though, my stunning use of logic will be the subject of my next post, as it pertains to the philosophy that jefscott so ably alluded to. I hope I have been faithful to Boyd, Carson, jefscott, and all other parties.
The Huguenot
SDG
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The Huguenot
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Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 10/3/2004 8:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Not to be entirely overbearing, but I must use my time wisely...
JEFSCOTT says,
quote:
I think the main difference between Doc (Boyd) and Carson is that Doc assumes that scripture SHOULD be philosophically/logically consistent.
This is, in the humble opinion of THIS continental thinker, an excellent diving board, jefscott. Thank you for taking us here. However, I would so very much appreciate the opportunity to ever so quickly interact with the rest of your post.
quote:
Carson admits that the anti-OV'ers can't resolve the contradiction between God's sovereignty and human responsibility but say this is because of lack of information. But how can we know this? Couldn't any adherent of another religion make the same claim about contradictions in their scriptures? How can we teach or debate without the assumption that truth is logically consistent? And that being the case, wouldn't God only reveal to us truths that we can logically make sense out of? That's my approach to scripture, anyway. Much of this debate IS philosophical, which in turn affects exegesis.
Nevermind, jefscott, there is not going to be two parts to this post. You have raised an excellent (though ugly) standard, and I will most assuredly try to give you what you deserve, namely, my very best. I hope that it comes close to satisfying you.
First, I would like to state two areas of complete agreement between us. I agree that quote:
Doc assumes that scripture SHOULD be philosophically/logically consistent.
I also agree with your enthymeme which states that you and Doc[tor Gregory Boyd] think that Carson does not operate under such scruples. My final area of agreement is that if we don't grant such logistical consistency, we are definitely up a mighty big creek (perhaps the Mississippi, or the Missouri, though probably not the Yellow River, since that's in China), and floundering in a very postmodern fashion.
But here are my disagreements and challenge. First of all, I think Carson understands Scripture to operate on a certain logical basis as well. In other words, I do not think Carson has an un-logical bias towards Holy Writ. Even the Westminster Confession thinks the Bible is logical, and that our hermeneutics must be as well (WCF I.I.VI). So basically what I wish to allude to, is that Carson has a different logical principle controlling his hermeneutics (which I believe is evidenced in the article, that Tom so kindly brought up).
Here, I want to leave you with two instances as case tests that may prove beneficial to us here.
1. Follow Carson's logic. (I am following Tom's post, and his numeration.)
i. 3.c argues that God does in fact know some future, free, contingent decisions.
ii. This leads to 3.d, which raises why God does not know all of them.
iii. How God knows some and not others, Carson thinks, forces you back up to 3.a or deeper into 3.d.
What will you do with this logic? If you deny the freedom of (i), you cross Boyd. I do not know how you will deny future or contingent. This forces you at least to (ii). From here, I do not know which route you will go.
2. If God commands something of us, does this mean we are able to do it? If not, was it a fair command? When Jesus feeds the five thousand, before the miracle, the disciples urge Him to send the crowd on their way so that they have time to eat (Luke 9:12ff.). Verse 13: "But He said to them, 'You give them something to eat.'" So our Lord commands, we fail to completely obey, and yet He fulfills with His own perfect obedience to make His own will come about. Based off this logic, the whole rest of the Bible (giving of the Law, election, etc.) is interpreted by the classical Reformed camp. Is this fair?
I eagerly await your quite probably excellent and staggering replies.
Thank you so much,
The Huguenot
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Tom
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| Posted 10/4/2004 5:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Sorry about the length.
On (1) ABSOLUTE ANTITHESIS—
Carson complains that Boyd paints a caricature of his opponents by failing to mention that in addition to believing that God unconditionally determines all things, we are also free and morally responsible. Yes, of course theological determinists speak of angelic and human rebellion, of sin as failing to do what God commands, of spiritual warfare, and so forth. The question is: Does it make sense, is it in fact meaningful to say we are morally responsible for what God “unconditionally” determines us to do? Does it make sense, is it in fact meaningful to say sin is “doing what God commands us not to do or doing what God forbids” if it’s also true that God alone, and unconditionally, determines/decrees whether or not his commands are kept by us? I say, this is not meaningful. I don’t know what meaning to give to Carson’s claims, hence, the antithesis. The contradictoriness of the two claims IS absolute. If it’s not, then all Carson has to do is tell us what it means to say “God unconditionally determines all our choices” but “justly holds us morally responsible for those choices.” In the absence of any analogy giving meaning to this claim, there’s every reason for believing they are antithetical.
If Carson is unhappy with this antithesis, let him provide an analogy making sense of the claim that both are true: God unconditionally determines everything that happens, all our choices, AND we are morally accountable for our choices. He hasn’t and can’t provide such an example. He repeatedly mentions “all the literature” that’s out there on secondary causation. But to date none of it offers a single analogy that gives meaning to the compatibilist’s claim.
On (2) MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND FREE WILL—
Carson starts out wrong. Nobody asserts that human responsibility in moral decisions turns on our possessing “absolute” freedom which in turn makes God “absolutely” contingent. What’s claimed is that though our freedom is finite and limited in many ways, it is genuinely libertarian where it matters, viz., in moral decisions, and does NOT make God “absolutely” contingent. True, we argue that God’s relationship to us is, if it is to be a personal and loving one, contingent upon SOME things, not absolutely everything. But Carson objects to even this.
I’m fine with saying God is metaphysically necessary, that is, not metaphysically contingent. But Carson wants this same non-contingency to apply to relationships God has with us, relationships he wants to argue are personal and moral.
Carson’s passages (Gen 50:19–20; Isa 10:5–19; Acts 4:27–28) are familiar, but there are explanations of these that are compatible with libertarian free will. We can talk about ‘em if you want.
On (3) OMNISCIENCE—
Open theists don’t “identify things God does not know.” What a curious way to phrase it! As an open theist, I can hardly see anything in Carson’s comments here that resemble my own beliefs. If God believes “If I do nothing, x will happen” (Carson’s example) then the future IS open! For God would presumably believe “I might and might not do anything in this situation” is true.
Carson does have a point, though, when he says God’s knowledge is tied to providence. We’ve never denied this. We’ve just argued that the sort of exhaustive and unconditional sovereignty Carson believes in isn’t the only model of sovereignty.
But Doc doesn’t argue, as Carson claims, that God’s not knowing some things preserves God from any charge of moral failure. THAT particular use of God’s knowing an open future has never, to my knowledge, been attempted by any open theist. Quite the contrary, since we argue that God knows all possibilities, we could never appeal to an open future to preserve God from any charge of moral failure.
On Omniscience (a)—
Carson brings up the belief that God may choose not to know some things. But I find self-chosen ignorance as problematic as Carson does. Carson agrees that Boyd never makes the distinction between “what God doesn’t know” and “what God chooses not to know” but then proceeds to engage Boyd as if he did make this distinction. Carson claims that Boyd attributes “ignorance” to God. (Having begun by chiding Boyd for not engaging determinists at their best and failing to mention all they believe, Carson makes the same mistake here.) Open theists (apart from a few exceptions like Jeff!) don’t believe God is ever “ignorant” of any truth. But in any case, Doc doesn’t appeal to “what God doesn’t know” to defend God’s moral. Quite the contrary, Doc’s infinite intelligence argument means we can never appeal to an open future as an excuse of any kind for God.
On Omniscience (b)—
Carson continues to attribute to open theists the belief in God’s “ignorance.” Maybe HE should read more of what open theists have actually written. Carson then lists a few passages which he claims show God predicting future events that include free choices. We can talk about these passages if you like.
On Omniscience (c)—
I agree with everything Carson says here, as would any open theist.
On Omniscience (d)—
Examples please?
On Omniscience (e)—
So many theologians, openness and non-openness, have abandoned divine timelessness it’s funny to find people using it to argue some point. Even if God’s transcendence meant God was “outside” time, such timeless existence would not provide God a basis upon which God could then act providentially in the world. So sure, let’s all agree that God is timeless. He lives in the “eternal now,” sees all our history in one, timeless, blinking of the eye (so to speak). What can this explain? Nothing.
On Omniscience (f)—
Here Carson again shows how poorly he grasps the open view, for open theists do, as surely as do Calvinists and Arminians, hold that God is omniscient and that this omniscience includes foreknowledge. My own understanding of omniscience comes from Bill Craig, who opposes the open view as vehemently as does Carson. It’s a definition of omniscience Craig believes open theists can’t possibly hold: “God knows all truths and believes no falsehoods.” Our ability to hold to the same definition of omniscience that somebody like Craig holds, while still believing the future to be partly open, shows that the issue is not God but the nature of creation. Yes, God knows the future. So what’s the future? That’s the question. Carson doubtless assumes without argument that the only future-tenses proposition that are true are “will” and “will not” propositions. But what about “might and might not” propositions? Knowledge of these would not amount to ignorance of the future. It would amount to knowledge of the possibilities.
Carson does hit the nail on the head though when he says “But the advocates of the openness-of-God stance, including Boyd so far as I can see, are saying in effect that what is future to us is future to God, and where that future involves a free, contingent decision, God cannot know that future.” Couple of comments. First, open theists aren’t the only ones claiming that what is future for us is future to God. Lots of non-openness folk are saying this, not the least of them Bill Craig! You don’t have to be an open theists to believe that what is future for us is future for God. Secondly, where the future involves free, contingent decisions open theists don’t argue that “God doesn’t know the future.” No. God does know the future. But what he knows are contingent possibilities. It’s not a matter of ignorance (that just begs the question), it’s a matter of what counts as knowledge. And nobody has shown that knowledge of a determined future event alone counts as knowledge, whereas knowledge of some indeterminate future event is really ignorance.
On Omniscience (g)—
I’m all for facing the practical implications of what one believes, open theists included. But this is precisely what Carson refuses to do with HIS OWN beliefs. All is unconditionally decreed by God. But we are morally responsible for our choices. Now to me it seems that the practical implications of this are incoherence and meaninglessness. I completely understand the implications of believing that everything I do is unconditionally determined by God. I also completely understand the implications of believing that I am free to determine myself in morally responsible ways. What I find impossible to do, which neither Carson nor any Calvinist has done to date, is show how both these beliefs and their implications are compatible, how they can be meaningfully embraced by us.
On (4) THE PROBLEM OF EVIL—
There is so little argument here I hardly know what to respond to.
quote:
We are indeed in a warfare situation, but the Lord God Omnipotent reigns, and this eschatological note of certain triumph is irrefragably tied to this truth.
Irrefragably? Come on. Anyhow, open theists can rejoice with Carson that God’s promise of eschatological victory over evil is irrefragably tied to the belief that God now “reigns.” But where Carson believes there’s only one model of “reigning” or “sovereignty” that can guarantee God finally wins in the end, open theists point to other models of control and sovereignty that guarantee final victory but which also allow some measure of freedom and risk.
quote:
Western tradition has had most intellectual difficulty with evil when it has distanced itself from Biblical compatibilism.
That’s a claim I’d like to see Carson support. If it's true, then all the worse for Western Christianity. What can be more intellectually difficult than asking people to affirm two contradictory claims?
quote:
We must reflect a little more on Job’s anguish. Boyd is right to point out that his is a case of innocent suffering: The narrator says so, and God himself says so, in chap. 1. Boyd is also right to see the warfare dimension in what follows: The defiance and challenge of Satan are what sets this drama in motion. So far, so good. But thereafter Boyd misses some of the main points of the book. Even from the beginning, Satan can only do what God sanctions; he has to secure permission to do Job any harm. In other words, God retains his absolute control.
Given the prelude (Satan in heaven and his challenge before the courts of heaven), one can argue that the sort of control God exercises is conditioned by factors outside of God and not simply “absolute.”
quote:
The warfare worldview is real, yet it remains under the outermost limits of God’s sovereign control. That is why there is mystery in evil; that is why Job finds himself in anguish.
I can agree to this. But where claiming that the war is “real” for me means that it’s also not “unconditionally determined” by God and that “sovereign control” includes (rather than excludes) God sovereignly creating a world in which God doesn’t always get what God wants, Carson wants to claim that the war is unconditionally determined by God so that God always gets what God wants.
On (5) THE PLACE OF PRAYER—
quote:
Something similar occurs in Boyd’s treatment of prayer. We have seen that Boyd insists that “the primary purpose of prayer, as illustrated throughout Scripture, is precisely to change the way things are” (p. 204). It is not to bring ourselves into line with what God wants.
Doc can speak up for himself, but in my view this is just wrong. Since “the way things are” includes “the way WE are,” praying to change the “way things are” means praying to change “the way WE are.”
quote:
Thus all kinds of things are contingent in our praying. I am not sure that either formulation—that by prayer I change things, or that by prayer I am changed—is entirely helpful if it is absolutized.
No problem here.
quote:
Surely no one would want to deny that some of our praying ought to be that we ourselves would be changed: “Not my will, but yours be done.” On the other hand, many prayers in the Bible are cast as the means by which something or other is effected.
Sounds good to me. But Carson of course will have to qualify this later (as he does), with, “Oh yes, of course, whether or not people pray and become secondary causes of God’s decree is itself unconditionally determined by God.” So in the end it’s always the case that what happen was what God decreed should happen.
quote:
James warns believers that they “have not” because they “ask not.”
Which makes absolutely NO sense to me if our not asking and so not receiving are unconditionally determined by God.
quote:
By contrast, Moses intercedes for the sinning Israelites, and God spares them (Exodus 32–33). Yet as God makes clear elsewhere, leaders are supposed to intercede on behalf of the people, and thus “build up the wall” of protection for them—i.e. it is in accordance with God’s will so to pray. One interesting example is Daniel’s intercession for the end of the exile, precisely because he knows that according to God’s own word the time for the end of the exile has arrived (Dan 9:2). Daniel prays for what God has promised. These sorts of passages warn us against reductionistic analyses.
True. But the only view of prayer (in my view) that isn’t reductionistic is one that assumes a partly open future. In such a view we have to take into account what is determined by God, what is determined by us, what influence God as well as angelic and human agents play in bringing about our answers to prayer, as well as what is indeterminate. THAT is a complex view that refuses to reduce everything down to being the effect of God’s unconditional decree. It’s Carson’s view of prayer that seems to me to be reductionistic, for it boils whether we pray or not, as well as all secondary causes, down to being an effect of God’s unconditional decreed.
quote:
The connections between prayer and divine sovereignty are complex.
On the contrary, given God’s unconditional decree, the connection between prayer and divine sovereignty is not complex at all. Whether we pray or not is determined by God. Whatever influence our prayers (or the lack of them) play in events is precisely what God unconditionally predetermined them to play. In a world that is unconditionally determined by one person (God), what’s complex?
quote:
If certain things cannot get accomplished until we pray (understanding such prayer to be utterly independent of God), and then God acts in response to our prayer, inciting God to do something that otherwise he had no intention of doing, do we not thereby introduce another range of problems of theodicy?”
Well, if it introduces complexity into the problem of theodicy, so be it. It just shows that everything can’t be reduced down to one, divine, all-controlling decree as is the case with Carson.
I don’t like Carson’s use of “incite.” That suggest we twist God’s arm, which I don’t think is ever the case. The point open theists have tried to make is that sometimes what God WANTS to do is sovereignly made dependant by God upon our choice to pray or not (as is the case in Ezek. 22, where God wants to spare the nation from destruction but binds himself in this instance to the cooperation of others). Open theists just want to argue that such cases are exactly what they appear to be, which isn’t the case if God unconditionally determined that nobody offer to stand in the gap for the nation.
On (6) FAULTY EXEGESIS—
Carson doesn’t like the Gap theory. So what. Open theism doesn’t require it. John Sanders doesn’t buy it.
quote:
Quite apart from hesitations about whether the grammar of Gen 1:1–2 readily supports a gap, the suggestion that God has to wrestle with the powers to get the whole creation going, and then, after a long gap, creates the perfectly “good” universe as we know it, raises numerous questions. Where did the malevolent powers come from in the first place? If they are God’s creations, then none of the problems regarding the origin of evil are reduced, but merely projected farther back. If they were not created, then we have retreated to ontological dualism.
As far as I know Doc answers these questions. He denies metaphysical dualism and admits that the malevolent powers are demonic beings who rebelled. Maybe Doc can jump in here if he wants. But I’ll just say that the Gap theory isn’t born out of exegesis at all. Nobody who believes it suggests that it is. It’s a theological construct. Though nothing exegetically forbids it, neither does exegesis demand it.
And about God wrestling with rebellious powers, what's the problem? Yes, God has the "muscel" to disintegrate them with a word, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that God created the world under such conditions that rule out his simply disintegrating his enemies. Perhaps there are factors at play that make God's war with fallen spiritual powers a REAL war. Surely that makes more sense of God's relationship with fallen angelic powers being a "war" than does believing God to have unconditionally determined it all, in which case there is no war. God is just shadow boxing.
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Tom
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| Posted 10/4/2004 5:58 AM (GMT -6) | | With Jeff, I’d agree that one has to decide whether or not one will admit contradictory claims as meaningful. Will we believe both p and not-p? For that is precisely how I view Carson’s third alternative, i.e., compatibilism.
Also, God’s question to Adam, “Where are you?” isn’t evidence for God’s ignorance. Of course God knew where Adam was. The question is rhetorical. Open theism doesn’t dismiss rhetorical questions. But you have to argue how a question’s being rhetorical makes sense. I don’t think Doc or any other Openness author uses this as a proof text for the open view. At least I hope not. Denying that it’s rhetorical would end up attributing to God ignorance of present reality and so undermine omniscience.
On the whole question of “time” you can’t do any better than Bill Craig’s God and Time. A great argument for God’s being temporal since creation. He argues that God was atemporal in the absence of creation, but that doesn’t concern me now. Now there IS a world, and God is temporal. Whatever might have been God’s relationship to time prior to creation, in the end it is entirely beside the point. Creation is now here and THAT is what matters.
I don’t find any of the arguments that appeal to God’s being outside or unlimited by time as a basis upon which to believe God knows the future and acts on the basis of knowing what the future holds. If God does know all the future in this way, such knowledge would be providentially useless. Such knowledge could not be the basis upon which God acts in order to bring about or prevent some foreknown event. Timeless existence explains nothing.
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Tom
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| Posted 10/4/2004 3:53 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Jeff: I would agree that it is problematic to say God chooses to be ignorant of certain matters. And I think I did, in fact, word a past response that way. What I meant was that God may not choose TO KNOW. Just as we don't always choose TO KNOW all things that we might know.
Don't wanna sidetrack things, but you’re still attributing ignorance to God, Jeff. When we choose “not to know” we choose to “remain ignorant.” The choice to not know what one can know is a choice to be ignorant about what one can know. In the end, it's still a choice for ignorance.
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Tom
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| Posted 10/4/2004 4:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: But again, how is God morally culpable by virtue of His supposed ignorance of contingencies? What are you and Carson meaning by this?
Tom: That's Carson, not me. I'm guessing he thinks that open theists all believe as you do, viz., that God is ignorant of much of the future. But whereas you believe God all of a sudden knows what he was ignorant of when knowing it becomes relevant (like when it's about to happen), Carson assumes that we think God only knows what he was ignorant of when the event in question occurs (after it's too late to do anyting about it). One could argue that this makes God responsible for evil. God chose not to know what he could have known, and had he chosen to know it God could have acted to prevent it. By choosing not to know contingent evils until they occur, Carson reasons, God chose not to act to prevent them and so shares in the blame. He could have foreknown them and by foreknowing them acted to prevent them. I guess that's what he's thinking. But this objection of Carson's has no bite to it. The only kind of foreknowledge that serves as a basis upon which God can act to prevent what it foreknown is foreknown possibilities, viz., foreknown "might and might not" events. God can do nothing on the basis of foreknowing the actual future via his timelessness to change what is foreknown. So Carson's objection only has bite if what is foreknown can be influenced to happen or not to happen. And the only candidate for this sort of influence is what is foreknown as open.
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/4/2004 4:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Huguenot,
quote:
3. Finally, I do not think it necessary for us to understand the complete depth of a doctrine to propose it with full force (I want you all to know, dear OVTs, that I grant this same right to you yourselves. It was not easy on the reformers when they first started in those glorious days, and I do not expect it to be easy for you). Who can plumb the depths of God’s plenary inspiration and Peter’s cantankerous and obtuse grammar? Trinity? Dual nature of Christ? Creation ex nihilo?
I don't have time to respond to all of your comments, but I would contend, for the sake of clarification, that the "depths" of God's plenary inspiration, Peter's cantankerous and obtuse grammar, and Creation ex nihilo, are difficult or impossible to "plumb" but require no contradictory ideas. Certain doctrinal theses about the Trinity and the dual nature of Christ, on the other hand, may very well contain contradictory notions. The inexplicable is not problematic in the way that contradictions are. I would reject any theory of the Trinity or the dual nature of Christ that contained contradictions.
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/4/2004 4:40 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
Tom: That's Carson, not me. I'm guessing he thinks that open theists all believe as you do, viz., that God is ignorant of much of the future. But whereas you believe God all of a sudden knows what he was ignorant of when knowing it becomes relevant (like when it's about to happen), Carson assumes that we think God only knows what he was ignorant of when the event in question occurs (after it's too late to do anyting about it). One could argue that this makes God responsible for evil. God chose not to know what he could have known, and had he chosen to know it God could have acted to prevent it.
God says that no one has given unto Him first that it should be recompensed unto him. That seems to mean that God owes no man anything. Thus, as I see it, if God doesn't intervene to prevent evil, He isn't morally compromised in the least. Any intervention by God is undeserved grace or mercy. If, on the other hand, He promises to do something and doesn't, then He is unfaithful. Am I wrong here?
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Tom
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| Posted 10/4/2004 5:53 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Jeff: God says that no one has given unto Him first that it should be recompensed unto him. That seems to mean that God owes no man anything. Thus, as I see it, if God doesn't intervene to prevent evil, He isn't morally compromised in the least. Any intervention by God is undeserved grace or mercy. If, on the other hand, He promises to do something and doesn't, then He is unfaithful. Am I wrong here?
Tell Carson. It's his point, not mine. I'd respond to Carson by arguing that God is never ignorant of the future. You agree that God is ignorant of some of the future but that since he's God he doesn't owe anybody an explanation of any of his actions.
I'd only add that saying God doesn't owe anybody anything doesn't mean we're free to attribute any sort of behavior to God we want and then suppose that God is free to act in such a way without consequence. You and I have very different understandings of God's love and righteousness. I'd argue that God does whatever God can do, given the sort of world he has purposed to create, to prevent evil and that where such evil cannot be prevented, God then does all he can to minimize it.
When we fail to what we can do to prevent evil, Jeff, are we more or less like God?
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/5/2004 1:07 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
You agree that God is ignorant of some of the future but that since he's God he doesn't owe anybody an explanation of any of his actions.
Nope. That's not what I said. I said if God DOES something that violates a promise, then God is unfaithful. I would also say that if God inflicts gratituous suffering on someone, then He is evil. And I do see God doing things for the good - like determining the boundaries of the habitation of men that they should seek the Lord, stopping the Tower of Babel, bringing and end to the likes of Egypt, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the Caananites, etc. I just don't know how to prove that He's OMNIprovidential in the way you believe.
quote:
I'd argue that God does whatever God can do, given the sort of world he has purposed to create, to prevent evil and that where such evil cannot be prevented, God then does all he can to minimize it.
But the key phrase is "given the sort of world He has purposed to create." How do you know that OMNIprovidential intervention would not be inconsistent with "the sort of world He has purposed." God could do a LOT to stop evil but doesn't. That must mean it's inconsistent with other doxological ends or something, doesn't it?
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Tom
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| Posted 10/5/2004 7:42 AM (GMT -6) | | Huguenot-
I’m putting your (2) first because I wanna speak to your (1) and (3) together.
quote:
Huguenot: 2. Secondly, there is a sense in which we are capable of understanding God being outside of space and time (this is not to be seen as irreconcilable with #1 above).
I’d agree that timeless divine existence in the absence of creation is a meaningful concept. What we are not capable of explaining in a meaningful manner is divine timeless existence in relationship with a temporal world. Craig argues this best when he shows that temporality and atemporality are contingent attributes of God. God may be (Craig argues God is) atemporal in the absence of creation, Craig argues, but God necessarily abandons this mode of existence for a temporal mode of existence when he chooses to create.
Now, what’s really problematic are attempts to show how God relates providentially to a temporal world on the basis of his being atemporal; that is, God makes use of timeless knowledge of the entire history of our world in determining how to act, what to prevent, what to prophesy, etc. But this is all meaningless. One can demonstrate easily that timeless knowledge is providentially useless to God. Whatever might be the reciprocal nature of the relationship between God’s actions and ours within the foreknowledge of God, the timeless model offers us no help whatsoever in understanding it.
quote:
Hugeunot: God is outside of space: what must this mean? God is a spirit, and contrary to certain allusions to Him in Scripture, He does not have a body. Therefore, I would humbly request you bear the burden to mangle my logic:
P1: To have a body is to be in space
P2: To be in space is to have a body
P3: God does not have a body
Con: Therefore, God is not in space.
This argument doesn’t seem valid to me. P1 holds true only for embodied beings. Physical bodies are necessarily in space, or take up space. But this says nothing about whether immaterial beings can be present in the world. P2 seems to me to be false. It doesn’t follow from P1. It doesn’t follow from a body’s taking up space that being in space means having a body.
Here is another syllogism that parallels yours precisely, but which shows why your conclusion doesn't follow from the premises:
P1 To have what is essential to being an orange is to be a fruit (true).
P2 To have what is essential to being a fruit is to be an orange (false).
P3 A banana does not have what is essential to being an orange (true).
Concl: Therefore, a banana is not a fruit (false).
You can rightly argue that God’s presence in the world doesn’t amount to “taking up space” in a way we can measure with rulers because it's not physically measurable, but that doesn’t in itself rule out God’s presence in the world being a real presence. It only rules out it’s physically taking up space.
Anyhow, I don’t want to get lost on this. It seems to be that omnipresence is a contingent attribute of God. It makes no sense to claim that God was omnipresent in the absence of creation. God becomes omnipresent once there is a physical world he relates to and fills.
quote:
Hugeunot: As pertaining to God being outside of time, here again I’ll merely set up the definition of eternity to be outside of time…If you wish to view eternity in another light, I would refer to what kind of eternity is set in men’s hearts? An eternity that is within time? Why is that set in their hearts?
Why not? What’s so impossible about the notion of everlasting duration? It’s certainly more easily gotten to intellectually than absolute, atemporal, unchanging existence. I doubt that such a notion is “set” in our hearts intuitively. But that we are meant for more than just this earthly life? Now there’s something one can argue IS set in our hearts; the inescapable drive to find a meaning for my life that lasts. That’s what Ecclesiastes appears to be saying in my view.
quote:
Hugeunot: 1. There are things that we ascribe of God (or ascribe negatively) that are simply beyond our understanding, empirical, analogical, or otherwise. I would submit two evidences for your scrutiny: Trinitarian ontology and holiness.
Now this I’d disagree with. All meaning for us is analogical. If we ascribe to God attributes which are absolutely ungrounded in any analogy or experience, we cannot be said to attribute anything meaningful to God. If belief in the Trinity amounts to a belief utterly unrelated by analogy to human experience, then my belief in the Trinity cannot be a meaningful one, in which case I’m not worse off if I abandon belief in it. Likewise for truth-claims we make about divine otherness. If the idea of “otherness” cannot be related meaningfully to us by analogy, it cannot be a meaningful concept, in which case we posit nothing meaningful when we say God is wholly other. But come to think of it, why believe God is “wholly” other anyhow? Where does the Bible make the claim that the difference between God and us is (as SK incorrectly argued I think) both “infinite” and “qualitative.”
quote:
Hugeunot: 3. Finally, I do not think it necessary for us to understand the complete depth of a doctrine to propose it with full force…
I’d agree, but under your no. 1 above you don’t claim that we simply fail to understand the depth of belief in the Trinity or God’s holiness, you make the much stronger claim that we understand nothing about it. This must be said if it’s true that the Trinity is infinitely and qualitatively unlike anything in our experience. Meaning is analogical. No analogy. No meaning.
quote:
Hugeunot: Who can plumb the depths of God’s plenary inspiration and Peter’s cantankerous and obtuse grammar? Trinity? Dual nature of Christ? Creation ex nihilo?
None can understand all there is to understand about these, but that’s not to say we can understand nothing about them.
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rsirkel
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| Posted 10/5/2004 7:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom
quote:
The only kind of foreknowledge that serves as a basis upon which God can act to prevent what it foreknown is foreknown possibilities, viz., foreknown "might and might not" events. God can do nothing on the basis of foreknowing the actual future via his timelessness to change what is foreknown. So Carson's objection only has bite if what is foreknown can be influenced to happen or not to happen. And the only candidate for this sort of influence is what is foreknown as open.
Ron
You or someone else have probably stated the above before but this impressed me with such certainty today I had to reply. With this logical presentation of foreknowledge (Tom's OV definition)kept in view I think many would be helped with their difficulty in explaining the relevance of the OV. This is such a practical and simple statement as a way of introducing the OV. If anyone can show where this is wrong I would like to read it. Maybe The Huguenot can try. His writing is such fun to read. Anyway, good job Tom.
Peace
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The Huguenot
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Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 10/5/2004 6:29 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Maybe The Huguenot can try. His writing is such fun to read.
Oh, so my reading is fun, huh? Fun?! In my day, we didn’t play with fun, we only had rocks, and six miles to school both ways in five feet of snow without shoes! We didn’t call that fun! Bunch a low-brow kids these days and their fun… Wish I had some rocks to throw at ‘em…
A very disgruntled Huguenot (I'll go home and play with MY rocks, then we'll see who's who!...) | | Back to Top | | |
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