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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/4/2004 3:51 PM (GMT -6) |   | Tom,
quote:
Of course, I keep attributing this belief to you though you’ve admitted you’re only doubting and haven’t yet settled on a particular view. But I still have no idea why one would believe God’s knowledge of the world is fallible and incomplete. Can you give me some reasons for believing this to be the case, reasons other than “infallible knowledge would be morbid and compromise God’s holiness” and “fallible knowledge is logically possible”?
Since both of our views are logically possible, and yet neither view, to my mind, is proveable or self-evident, I simply lean to analogy as a basis for speculation. While it is true that not all thinking about evil counts as morbid contemplation, there is a degree of it which all would agree WOULD be morbid contemplation. And, thus, I see no reason to assume God knows more about evil than I can rationally convince myself He needs to know for accomplishing His own ends. Since God command us to be simple unto evil, but wise unto good, it would seem that being wise unto good is quite effectual in the absence of a detailed knowledge of evil.
As I admitted earlier, if God is as providentially active as you believe, then God would surely have to foreknow much more than I believe He needs to foreknow. But even then, there would be no reason for God to consider these contingencies until He was about to create.
And, again, analogically thinking, it seems odd that God couldn't have a truly original thought. Not to say that it's inconceivable - it just seems odd to me to deny Him such creativity. Since I have to deny Him eternal omniscience or creativity of intellect, the former just "seems" to be more deniable. I realize that's just my gut speaking, but that's really all I have in the absence of intuition or demonstration to the contrary.
But to get back to the thread, would election "in time" be consistent with the OV if the STV is true? I can't see why not, for now.
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
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| Posted 10/4/2004 4:07 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Jeff: While it is true that not all thinking about evil counts as morbid contemplation, there is a degree of it which all would agree WOULD be morbid contemplation.
Exclude me from your “all.” This is so convoluted Jeff. If not all thinking about evil counts as morbid, then just admit that God knows all evil in this way. Framing it as “thinking about” ignores the point too. The point was that not all “knowing” includes actively “thinking about” or “contemplating.” If God can know x without consciously contemplating or focusing upon x, then you have no reason for supposing that he contemplates x more than he needs to. But you never need to deny that he “knows” x. Still, you seem intent on denying that God even knows x. Whatever!
quote:
Jeff: And, again, analogically thinking, it seems odd that God couldn't have a truly original thought. Not to say that it's inconceivable - it just seems odd to me to deny Him such creativity.
But God’s thoughts ARE original thoughts. God created out of nothing. You can’t do that without being the origin of your thoughts, without being creative. You don’t have to deny God’s creativity as you claim. Besides, even in your scheme, where God chooses not to know much of the future, God doesn’t end up having truly “original” thoughts when he decides to know that which he’s been ignorant of for some time. He’s just learning what was there to know all along. If this counts are having original thoughts, surely knowing the same truths without first having been ignorant of them counts as just as ‘original,’ unless you want to claim that having an original thought by definition can only occur in the movement FROM ignorance TO knowledge. Sheesh!
quote:
Jeff: But to get back to the thread, would election "in time" be consistent with the OV if the STV is true? I can't see why not, for now.
Whatever floats your boat dude! I’m fried.
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/4/2004 4:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
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Jeff: While it is true that not all thinking about evil counts as morbid contemplation, there is a degree of it which all would agree WOULD be morbid contemplation.
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Exclude me from your “all.” This is so convoluted Jeff. If not all thinking about evil counts as morbid, then just admit that God knows all evil in this way. Framing it as “thinking about” ignores the point too. The point was that not all “knowing” includes actively “thinking about” or “contemplating.” If God can know x without consciously contemplating or focusing upon x, then you have no reason for supposing that he contemplates x more than he needs to. But you never need to deny that he “knows” x. Still, you seem intent on denying that God even knows x. Whatever!
But I could just as easily say that you're intent on denying that God can have an original thought. Whatever!
quote:
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Jeff: And, again, analogically thinking, it seems odd that God couldn't have a truly original thought. Not to say that it's inconceivable - it just seems odd to me to deny Him such creativity.
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But God’s thoughts ARE original thoughts. God created out of nothing. You can’t do that without being the origin of your thoughts, without being creative. You don’t have to deny God’s creativity as you claim. Besides, even in your scheme, where God chooses not to know much of the future, God doesn’t end up having truly “original” thoughts when he decides to know that which he’s been ignorant of for some time. He’s just learning what was there to know all along. If this counts are having original thoughts, surely knowing the same truths without first having been ignorant of them counts as just as ‘original,’ unless you want to claim that having an original thought by definition can only occur in the movement FROM ignorance TO knowledge. Sheesh!
By original thought, I'm talking about purposing our creation and imagining how to design it to bring about His and Christ's optimal glory and pleasure "IN TIME." This is not moving from ignorance to knowledge of what IS - it is true creative thought like humans are capable of, except to a more awesome degree. Sheesh!
quote:
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Jeff: But to get back to the thread, would election "in time" be consistent with the OV if the STV is true? I can't see why not, for now.
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Whatever floats your boat dude! I’m fried.
Well Lock, I take it Tom concedes! The OV is consistent with election "in time." 
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/4/2004 5:44 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: But I could just as easily say that you're intent on denying that God can have an original thought.
Tom: From far left field. I'm simply unable to figure your reasoning, Jeff. I've done nothing but affirm God's ability to have original thoughts. I just don't think, as you do, that God has first to be ignorant in order to have such thoughts. In your reasoning, the only sort of being that can have an original thought is an ignorant being.
Jeff: By original thought, I'm talking about purposing our creation and imagining how to design it to bring about His and Christ's optimal glory and pleasure "IN TIME." This is not moving from ignorance to knowledge of what IS - it is true creative thought like humans are capable of, except to a more awesome degree.
Tom: Again, I simply don't follow you. We were discussing whether or not God's knowledge of what IS (as you say) is infallible. You flat out deny that it's so. Then you brought in the question of whether a God whose knowledge was always infallible would be able ever to have an original thought. I'm now completely in the dark.
Jeff: Well Lock, I take it Tom concedes! The OV is consistent with election "in time."
Tom: I don't think anybody else is reading this now but you and me. But for the record, I don't concede your "in time" election. I'm just too tired of running in circles to keep debating it.
Nite nite,
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/5/2004 3:19 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: By your view, God can't IMAGINE a truly new and creative idea the way humans can.
Tom: On the contrary. God can imagine and think creatively. He just doesn't have to first be ignorant as is the case with us. See, the "way humans imagine" is a less than perfect way of imagining because it involves moving from a state of ignorance (about the possibilities that are imagined) to a state of knowing. When we imagine something "new" (Ford's assembly line, Edison's light-bulb, Whitney's cotton gin, Franklin's bifocals, etc.), it's new TO US, but we do not by imagining something "create the possibility." On the contrary, these were all "possible" before people imagined them. When we imagine, we discover what is possible; we don't create what is possible. When God imagines, he creates what is possible. Now, if you insist on defining an "original" thought as "creating" something that wasn't first possible, then you're insisting upon something that is self-contradictory.
So, I do believe God imagines and thinks original thoughts. God's creating at all is impossible to explain apart from his ability to first imagine. I just don't think God has first to be ignorant in order to imagine as is the case with us. You simply assume that whatever limitations we face in imagining, God must also face.
So, Jeff, we seem doomed to fail to understand each other. Our posts are now a matter of just correcting the other person's misunderstandings of our view! 
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Tom
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| Posted 10/5/2004 5:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: If God foreknows all contingencies from eternity, then He foreknew that He might imagine our particular universe and it's possibilities from eternity past. Thus, if He imagined anything at any point in time, He was not imagining an original idea, for that very act of imagining and it's contents were known by Him from eternity past - at least as a possible future occurrence. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point about possibilities, etc.
Tom: You're insisting that originality and creativity of thought actually require ignorance. But this doesn't seem at all to me to be true. You certainly don't argue it. You just assume it's true. You're just assuming that God's knowledge of possible responses to future contingencies can't count as original and creative. You assume without argument that "when" God has his thoughts determines whether those thoughts are original and creative. If he doesn't have such thoughts until the very moment at which his actually having to act requires him to, then his "responses" are creative and original. But if he contemplates such thoughts and responses before having to act upon them, such thoughts don't count as creative and original. Really, Jeff. Why in the world assume that?
What you're arguing with respect to God is analogous to arguing that geniuses who were ahead of their time weren't original thinkers since the things they imagined (like da Vinci conceiving of and sketching out designs for airplanes even though he could not act with respect to actualizing his imaginations) were never "actualized." They never got farther than being merely creative and imaginative thoughts. Others acted on their thoughts. You would say that since their creativity and originality remained "thoughts," they weren't really creative and original. But of course they were. So just think of God as being the greatest genius around, far ahead of his time, who like other geniuses thinks creative and original thoughts long before the rest of the world even becomes the sort of place where God's thoughts get turned into action.
I gotta give ya this though, Jeff. You're ideas on this are certainly creative! 
Jeff: As I understand it, God cannot "first imagine" by your view. Any act of imagination by God was foreknown from eternity as a possible imagining.
Tom: Then you don't understand my view.
Jeff: In my view, God is ignorant of our creation before He imagines it analogous to the way He is ignorant of what volitional beings will actually do by their free-will. It doesn't exist yet as a fact to know. Once He imagines our world (or once we act volitionally) there is something to know about it.
Tom: A providential nightmaire in my view. But hey, if it works for ya, fine.
But your "Once He imagines our world (or once we act volitionally) there is something to know about it" is conflicted. Which is it? That is, when is there something to know about the world? When God imagines it (presummably before the world is actual)? Or when the world (at any moment in time) actualizes? When is there something to know? Are you suggesting that when there's something to know that God necessarily knows it? You've denied this all along.
You've got God playing chess but not foreknowing possible moves. All God does is respond to each move after the fact, since he's ignorant of even possible moves. He only knows what's actual, for as you say "once we act...there is something to know...." But here you're contradicting something you agreed to earlier, namely, that there IS something to know about our actions before we act. You agreed to P1 through P4 which said that at any given point in time there are some actual states of affairs that render it determinately the case that some other states of affairs "will" happen, while other presently obtaining states of affairs render it determinately the case that some states of affairs "will not" obtain, while still other presently obtaining states of affairs render it indetrminately the case that some state of affairs obtain, so that at any given point in time what "will," "will not," and "might and might not" obtain in the future IS knowable. You just denied that God knows all that is knowable at any given point in time. Now, however, you're denying that there is in fact anything knowable about our actions before we act. How else are we to take your "once we act volitionally...there is something to know about it [our actions]"?
Tell me again, What problems do you think this fixes? That's what I keep forgetting. What problem are we trying to solve? That God would be morbid if he was omniscient? I just can't take this seriously anymore, Jeff. Sorry. Help me see why God's always knowing all there is to know creates such problems for you.
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/6/2004 4:34 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
What you're arguing with respect to God is analogous to arguing that geniuses who were ahead of their time weren't original thinkers since the things they imagined (like da Vinci conceiving of and sketching out designs for airplanes even though he could not act with respect to actualizing his imaginations) were never "actualized." They never got farther than being merely creative and imaginative thoughts. Others acted on their thoughts. You would say that since their creativity and originality remained "thoughts," they weren't really creative and original.
I'm contending that a given thought or imaginitive idea can only be original if it originated in time as new to the thinker. It has nothing to do with being "actualized." Your view precludes this possibility. If God can create stuff ex-nihlo, why not new ideas?
quote:
Jeff: In my view, God is ignorant of our creation before He imagines it analogous to the way He is ignorant of what volitional beings will actually do by their free-will. It doesn't exist yet as a fact to know. Once He imagines our world (or once we act volitionally) there is something to know about it.
Tom: A providential nightmaire in my view. But hey, if it works for ya, fine.
I agree that it is a nightmare for your view of providence. And I'm open to being convinced of your view of omniprovidence, but I don't see it in scripture, yet.
quote:
But your "Once He imagines our world (or once we act volitionally) there is something to know about it" is conflicted. Which is it? That is, when is there something to know about the world? When God imagines it (presummably before the world is actual)? Or when the world (at any moment in time) actualizes? When is there something to know?
When He imagines it with enough substantial idea - before it is actual. I.e., He could know things about it theoretically as an engineer knows things theoretically about a mechanical design before it is actually built.
quote:
Are you suggesting that when there's something to know that God necessarily knows it?
No. Just wondering why God's ignorance of a world He's never imagined yet is any more problematic than His inability to know with certainty the outcomes of volitional acts.
quote:
You've got God playing chess but not foreknowing possible moves. All God does is respond to each move after the fact, since he's ignorant of even possible moves.
Nope. I agree with you that God MUST foreknow all those contingencies that are pertinent to His providence, at least. And He certainly knows other things as well. Just don't know how to prove that He's so omniprovidential to have to deduce all contingencies - much less do I know how to prove that He has known all of them from eternity.
quote:
Now, however, you're denying that there is in fact anything knowable about our actions before we act. How else are we to take your "once we act volitionally...there is something to know about it [our actions]"?
The whole quote was: "In my view, God is ignorant of our creation before He imagines it analogous to the way He is ignorant of what volitional beings will actually do by their free-will. It doesn't exist yet as a fact to know."
"ACTUALLY DO BY THEIR FREE-WILL" was the key phrase.
quote:
Tell me again, What problems do you think this fixes? That's what I keep forgetting. What problem are we trying to solve? That God would be morbid if he was omniscient? I just can't take this seriously anymore, Jeff. Sorry. Help me see why God's always knowing all there is to know creates such problems for you.
I'm trying, in the absence of self-evidence and proof, to start with analogy and parsimony and then add on as logic requires. I see no problem that is solved by assuming that God knows all contingencies from eternity. Thus, it is a violation of parsimony to me thus far to assume that. If your view of providence is correct, I would see a need to add on total foreknowledge of contingencies once the creation is purposed. But I don't have your view of providence, so even adding on that thesis would be a violation of parsimony for me.
I agree that your view is a logical possibility. I just see mine as a logical possibility that makes more sense to me analogically and parsimoniously. Should we move to the providence debate or hash this out a bit more? We could do the providence debate in the "spiritual warfare" thread we've already posted to.
P.S. Why, again, did you claim your view is inconsistent with election in time? I can't see why it would be?
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Tom
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| Posted 10/7/2004 3:16 AM (GMT -6) | | I don't know how much more we'll be able to milk this conversation, Jeff. I'll just reply a bit and then leave it to you.
Jeff: I'm contending that a given thought or imaginitive idea can only be original if it originated in time as new to the thinker.
Tom: Then you define “imaginative” in such a way that it entails “ignorance,” in which case I’ll have to deny that God has any “imaginative” (as you define it) thoughts, which I don’t view as a weakness on God’s part at all (again, given your definition).
Jeff: If God can create stuff ex-nihlo, why not new ideas?
Tom: When folks say God created the universe “out of nothing” they mean to say that universe was not formed out of any previously existing matter or substance. It first came to exist as it now exists when God created it. But God himself is obviously not included in the “nothing” of the proposition. So when God creates “ex nihilo” one assumes that what’s created first existed (logically prior if not also temporally prior) in God’s own mind. So creation “out of nothing” doesn’t really provide you with an example of something that was “new” to God, as if God had never thought of gravity until AFTER he created it. That’s ridiculous. Such a view would rule out God’s being the source of creation. That God created the physical world itself shows that the “thought of” or “imagining” the creation came before the actual creation.
So your real problem here is that creation “out of nothing” excludes God, whereas you want to use it as an analogy for including God, and so it doesn't really provide the basis for the sort of thing you want to claim, for you want to include God’s own knowledge of what’s possible within the “nothing” out of which God then imagines what is possible. You want God to be able to create thoughts or imaginations which even God never considered, even as possible, before.
Jeff: I agree that it is a nightmare for your view of providence. And I'm open to being convinced of your view of omniprovidence…
Tom: It’s omnibenevolence, not omniprovidence that concerns me. But you’ve already said (if I remember) that you don’t think God loves all people equally. If we don’t agree that God is love we won’t agree on the sort of loving providence follows from that.
Jeff: Just wondering why God's ignorance of a world He's never imagined yet is any more problematic than His inability to know with certainty the outcomes of volitional acts.
Tom: Because the former is ignorance (i.e., failure to know what is in fact the case) while the latter is knowledge (i.e., knowing what is in fact the case). God’s not knowing the outcome of libertarian choices isn’t ignorance, Jeff. Quite the opposite. It counts as knowledge.
Jeff: I agree with you that God MUST foreknow all those contingencies that are pertinent to His providence, at least.
Tom: You’ve yet to show how it is God determines the providential relevance of things he does not know.
quote:
Jeff: The whole quote was: "In my view, God is ignorant of our creation before He imagines it analogous to the way He is ignorant of what volitional beings will actually do by their free-will. It doesn't exist yet as a fact to know." "ACTUALLY DO BY THEIR FREE-WILL" was the key phrase.
Your whole problem is your viewing God’s “not knowing what volitional beings will actually do” as “ignorance.” It is not ignorance. There is in fact no truth describing what “will” or “will not” actually occur in the case of libertarian choices. Not knowing either "will" or "will not" as true doesn’t count as “ignorance” and so isn't an analogy (as you argue) of God not knowing what IS true. But there IS a truth describing what “might and might not” occur, and if THIS truth is not known by God, then God is counted as ignorant. But if there is an analogy between the way God foreknows libertarian choices (as “might and might not’s”) and the way God forknew creation before he created it, then my view stands, for God did foreknow as “might and might not” the contingent universe he created.
Well, I think we’ve about beat this horse to death. Thanks Jeff.
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