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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/31/2004 2:28 PM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Jeff: The "BEST choice given His purposes" would seem to have to do with initial conditions - not future contingencies. God did NOT originally purpose most of what transpired after the Fall. His post Fall purposes are distinct from His original purposes. So does God have a balancing act with His purposes, supposing His original purposes have only a certain probability of obtaining? I don't know anything that would imply that.
You’re missing the point. The point is that, assuming God has purposes for creating us at all, goals he wishes to see fulfilled in and through us, it makes sense to argue (and no sense to deny) that God would choose to create the best sort of world for accomplishing his purposes. Of course the initial conditions would be precisely what best suits those purposes. And of course not everything that happens in the world was “purposed” by God. This is precisely why foreknowledge of the risks involved in any particular world (ours included) is required of informed and wise decision-making. The initial conditions are precisely what are responsible for so much happening in our world that wasn’t purposed by God.
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Jeff: You got that quote right! But you didn't finish it. I said positing an ETERNAL omniscience is neither intuitive "OR DEMONSTRABLE." Moreover, there are some who would find positing such knowledge to God eternally a bit hard to swallow, even if not counter-intuitive. And, as I've argued before, in the absence of self-evidence of demonstration, such gut difficulties can't help but influence which way one goes on this matter. So until a demonstration can be given, such an attribute of God as you and Doc are positing is simply what seems to best fit your own gut.
Eternal omniscience certainly CAN be demonstrated, if by demonstrated you mean shown to be plausible. But you mean “provable beyond the shadow of a doubt.” If you’re looking for that, then plan on spending your life denying much, perhaps nearly everything. THAT kind of proof is not to be had. Like I said regarding W. James, you require such proof for affirmations but not denials. Not a very livable approach to truth.
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Jeff: I'm just saying that denying God the CAPACITY for truly novel thoughts seems to be unjustified without self-evidence or demonstration to the contrary. In other words, unless we can prove that God's providential requirements are not satisfied by thinking done just prior to the creation of a world, how can we be so sure He does not have the CAPACITY for novel thought? To me it's an open question. So I'm proceeding parsimoniously as usual.
As usual. Prove. Proof. Demonstrate to the contrary with absolute proof. Not justified because not proved.
Take W. James’ advice and lighten up. 
Peace out,
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/31/2004 2:54 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
Take a deep breath and try to read WHAT I SAY this time.
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Jeff: The "BEST choice given His purposes" would seem to have to do with initial conditions - not future contingencies. God did NOT originally purpose most of what transpired after the Fall. His post Fall purposes are distinct from His original purposes. So does God have a balancing act with His purposes, supposing His original purposes have only a certain probability of obtaining? I don't know anything that would imply that.
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You’re missing the point. The point is that, assuming God has purposes for creating us at all, goals he wishes to see fulfilled in and through us, it makes sense to argue (and no sense to deny) that God would choose to create the best sort of world for accomplishing his purposes. Of course the initial conditions would be precisely what best suits those purposes. And of course not everything that happens in the world was “purposed” by God. This is precisely why foreknowledge of the risks involved in any particular world (ours included) is required of informed and wise decision-making. The initial conditions are precisely what are responsible for so much happening in our world that wasn’t purposed by God.
You make the following two propositions:
1) Of course the initial conditions would be precisely what best suits those purposes.
2) The initial conditions are precisely what are responsible for so much happening in our world that wasn’t purposed by God.
Given LFW, the initial conditions had nothing to do with the "Fall"-out. It was LFW and LFW only. You make much of risk, but how do I know that God HAD to continue with this creation except for doxological reasons of His own? And if He has continued for doxological reasons, what's the risk?
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Jeff: You got that quote right! But you didn't finish it. I said positing an ETERNAL omniscience is neither intuitive "OR DEMONSTRABLE." Moreover, there are some who would find positing such knowledge to God eternally a bit hard to swallow, even if not counter-intuitive. And, as I've argued before, in the absence of self-evidence of demonstration, such gut difficulties can't help but influence which way one goes on this matter. So until a demonstration can be given, such an attribute of God as you and Doc are positing is simply what seems to best fit your own gut.
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Eternal omniscience certainly CAN be demonstrated, if by demonstrated you mean shown to be plausible. But you mean “provable beyond the shadow of a doubt.” If you’re looking for that, then plan on spending your life denying much, perhaps nearly everything. THAT kind of proof is not to be had. Like I said regarding W. James, you require such proof for affirmations but not denials. Not a very livable approach to truth.
Your view is only probable if the intellectual requirements for providence are satisfied ONLY with eternal knowledge of contingencies rather than merely pre-creation knowledge of the same. I don't see that you've made that case.
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Jeff: I'm just saying that denying God the CAPACITY for truly novel thoughts seems to be unjustified without self-evidence or demonstration to the contrary. In other words, unless we can prove that God's providential requirements are not satisfied by thinking done just prior to the creation of a world, how can we be so sure He does not have the CAPACITY for novel thought? To me it's an open question. So I'm proceeding parsimoniously as usual.
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As usual. Prove. Proof. Demonstrate to the contrary with absolute proof. Not justified because not proved.
Take W. James’ advice and lighten up.
Now lighten up and listen carefully. What I said was, "TO ME, IT'S AN OPEN QUESTION." How does that equal PROVE, PROOF, ABSOLUTE PROOF? You've had too much caffeine, Tom!
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 10/31/2004 8:11 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
I was really hoping you would give consideration to what some noted commentators have had to say about "inventors of evil." A.T. Robertson, for instance, directly states that this means they come up with NEW ways of sinning.
When forced to choose between God's physical attributes (omniscience) and God's moral attributes (love, goodness, etc.) I would much rather affirm the latter than the former--isn't this precisely the divide between us and the determinists?
I think this particular nuance of Doc's theory is precisely what brings about the objection raised by Meph last year--God IS complicit in evil in Doc's system. And this, all to buttress up a philosophical presupposition about what God's knowledge "must" entail.
In Doc's theory, not only do all possible worlds ad infinitum exist as "a metaphysical surd" (as Doc plainly admits in S&TPOE), further, we have to conclude that God has been eternally conscious of all the evil crimes (rapes, murder, molestation of children, infanticide, genocide, etc.) against humanity that MIGHT have ever been committed (virtually ad infinitum!), as well as all the insane rantings and musings of every POSSIBLE lunatic that MIGHT EVER have existed, AND at the same time we are told that God does all He can, given the way he designed things, to minimize evil!
In this paradigm, we have to jettison (or reinterpret as metaphor) the many passages which depict God as being sincerely surprised (I thought she would return to me...), as well as the ones that depict God as gaining knowledge in real time (Now I know...).
How this paradigm in all its glory is not every bit as absurd as the traditional foreknowledge view that "God knew definitely everything that would happen, but decided to create anyway," is not at all clear. It seems to me that in trying to develop a response to Molinism, Doc has allowed his opponent to define the argument, and as such, philosophical reasons, rather than biblical reasons, have steered the discussion.
As to God coming to know things in real time, I don't see how affirming the Scriptures that reveal this makes God out to be somehow "less worthy of God" at all. How can we say such a thing to God when He himself has chosen (for presumably very good reasons) to reveal Himself in precisely this way?
Sincerely,
John
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/1/2004 10:18 AM (GMT -6) | | Caffeine, caffeine, caffeine…everybody now!...caffeine…
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Jeff: Given LFW, the initial conditions had nothing to do with the "Fall"-out. It was LFW and LFW only.
The initial conditions had nothing to do with the fallout? They have everything to do with the fallout. FLW defines the initial conditions (with respect to our freedom).
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Jeff: You make much of risk, but how do I know that God HAD to continue with this creation except for doxological reasons of His own? And if He has continued for doxological reasons, what's the risk?
Yes, I make much of risk. I do so because I gather from Scripture that God’s purposes for us include relating personally and responsibly in love to God. I have no conception of risk-free love. None whatsoever. If you do, tell me about it.
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Jeff: Your view is only probable if the intellectual requirements for providence are satisfied ONLY with eternal knowledge of contingencies rather than merely pre-creation knowledge of the same. I don't see that you've made that case.
Pre-creation is all I argued for. But I understand you to be denying even this. But I’ll take what I can get. So, Jeff, you now agree then that prior to creation God foreknew all this world’s contingencies (good and evil)?
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John: I was really hoping you would give consideration to what some noted commentators have had to say about "inventors of evil." A.T. Robertson, for instance, directly states that this means they come up with NEW ways of sinning.
Check out my post again, John. I argued that they DID invent “new” ways of sinning. I just argued that making sense of this doesn’t require denying divine foreknowledge of the possible ways we’d come up with for sinning. The major part of my post addressed precisely this point.
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John: When forced to choose between God's physical attributes (omniscience) and God's moral attributes (love, goodness, etc.) I would much rather affirm the latter than the former--isn't this precisely the divide between us and the determinists?
I’d much rather affirm both. And I recall you being the one to champion our not pitting one divine attribute against another. So I’m surprised to see this. Not quite sure what the point is about the “divide.” I guess I just don’t see what the “problem” is here. What “problem” are you solving, John, if you deny omniscience? I can see problems that are solved in denying that the only truths that exist (and which an omniscient God knows) are of the “x will occur” and “x will not occur” sort. But omnisciently knowing “will,” “will not,” and “might and might not” truths?
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John: I think this particular nuance of Doc's theory is precisely what brings about the objection raised by Meph last year--God IS complicit in evil in Doc's system. And this, all to buttress up a philosophical presupposition about what God's knowledge "must" entail.
Well, I think I understand Mephi’s argument for divine “complicity” in the fallen structures of the world. We’ve talked about it a bit. But there’s nothing about “omniscience” per say that’s even part of that particular issue for Mephi. Mephi doesn’t argue that God is complicit in evil because God is or isn’t omniscient. In fact, if you put the question to him, my guess is Mephi will agree that God is omniscient, i.e., God knows all and only truths. His argument for God’s complicit involvement in evil, in the fallen structures of the world, is an entirely different debate.
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John: In Doc's theory, not only do all possible worlds ad infinitum exist as "a metaphysical surd" (as Doc plainly admits in S&TPOE)…
I’d like to see your quote of Doc arguing that that the truth conditions of propositions that describe future contingencies constitute a “metaphysical surd.” He in fact doesn’t believe this. I think you guys are mistaking Doc here. Doc’s criticism of Craig is that Craig refuses to ‘ground’ the truths which describe conterfactuals which Craig argues are the basis of God’s providential choices regarding which world to create. Craig believes that there are eternally true propositions describing what every libertarianly free agent would do in every possible situation. Doc asks, “What ‘grounds’ these truths?” That is, what are the truth conditions? What renders ‘determinate’ all these free choices? Craig admits it’s not God. And he admits it’s not the agents. What is it? Craig says it's "nothing." Craig has to dismiss the grounding objection to Molinism. Nothing ‘grounds’ the truths which describe what free agents “would” do in any possible situation. THAT is a metaphysical surd. But this is NOT what Doc (nor Alan and I, in our upcoming paper) argue. On the contrary, if there are any true propositions at all, they must have truth conditions that constitute the “grounds” in virtue of which the propositions are true. This is to deny that these truths are simply a metaphysical surd.
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John: …further, we have to conclude that God has been eternally conscious of all the evil crimes (rapes, murder, molestation of children, infanticide, genocide, etc.) against humanity that MIGHT have ever been committed (virtually ad infinitum!), as well as all the insane rantings and musings of every POSSIBLE lunatic that MIGHT EVER have existed…
Including everything that might be offered by members of this board as reasons for why God is best thought of as ignorant instead of all-knowing. Have a re-read of my longer post on this page, John. This notion of yours and Jeff’s that “knowing” entails “consciously contemplating” or “focusing upon” what is known is simply not true. But in any case, God can handle whatever being omniscient might demand of him.
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John: …AND at the same time we are told that God does all He can, given the way he designed things, to minimize evil!
If you plow through the “Carlie” thread from this past Jan/Feb you’ll find even Mephi agreeing to this. I find it workable. Given the fact that there are no weakness-free theodicies, you gotta go with what pulls things together best for ya. If omniscience and omnibenevolence don’t work, hey, go with what works. I’ve got less problems making sense of our world as it is given an omniscient and all-loving God than I have given a partly ignorant and relatively loving God.
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John: In this paradigm, we have to jettison (or reinterpret as metaphor) the many passages which depict God as being sincerely surprised (I thought she would return to me...), as well as the ones that depict God as gaining knowledge in real time (Now I know...).
But you still have this problem if Jeff is right about precreational omniscience. I’m thinking he’ll end up denying this too. But anyhow…did you read the long (sorry it was long) post of mine on this page? I talked about “surprise.”
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John: How this paradigm in all its glory is not every bit as absurd as the traditional foreknowledge view that "God knew definitely everything that would happen, but decided to create anyway," is not at all clear.
Not at all clear? Wow.
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John: It seems to me that in trying to develop a response to Molinism, Doc has allowed his opponent to define the argument, and as such, philosophical reasons, rather than biblical reasons, have steered the discussion.
Looks like you and Jeff are as philosophical as the rest of us. The biblical examples of “surprise” you’ve mentioned (which we’re all familiar with) don’t in fact require the denial of omniscient foreknowledge. They just don’t. Surprise can be explained quite easily on probabilistic grounds. Unless you just WANT to deny omniscience, what’s the problem?
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John: As to God coming to know things in real time, I don't see how affirming the Scriptures that reveal this makes God out to be somehow "less worthy of God" at all.
When have I (or Doc, or Alan) denied that God ever “comes to know things in real time”? We wholeheartedly affirm that God does begin, in time, to know things he did not know before. I just link the changing state of divine knowledge to a changing reality, which you (mistakenly I think) believe you have to deny. God doesn’t have ever to be “ignorant” of truth in order for God to “come to know things in real time.”
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/1/2004 11:09 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
John: I don't think anyone questions God's ability to know who might win the World Series, especially in the week of the Series. The problem, as I see it, is that Doc's view requires us to imagine that God has known as an eternal possibility each and every kind of evil that man has ever dreamt up. There's a huge qualitative and quantitative difference between knowing something that may or may not happen in the next few days or even months (that's not in a moral category, anyway) as opposed to something that God reveals in his Scriptures as bringing unspeakable grief and sorrow to His righteous soul (like Gen. 6:4-7).
Hey John-
You and Jeff need to offer a real argument for the idea that “knowing” entails “consciously contemplating.” Until you do that, I’m dismissing the argument. It’s demonstrably not the case. But if you wanna challenge it, go ahead.
It would help too if you could explain your approach to truth a bit. What I mean is, your understanding of what (if anything) makes propositions true. If God can know two weeks before the Sox win the pennant that “The Red Sox might and might not win the pennant,” what is it that grounds the truth of this proposition. I suggest that it’s reality. It seems to follow logically that if S occurs at t, then it was at least true before t that “S might and might not occur at t.” That much is solid. I feel bound to follow arguments where they lead. That much is just being intellectually honest. Now, if it’s true before t that “S might and might not occur at t” it follows that “S might and might not occur at t” is true at all times prior to t. If you can offer some argument, some ontology, that makes sense of it’s being false (or neither true nor false) 10,000 years before t that “S might and might not occur at t,” then let’s have it. As far as I can tell, the truth value of this proposition goes right back in time. I think eternally, something like “S might and might not occur at t in possible world p” was true. And I think the argument that similar true propositions must exist for every event that occurs (and every event that doesn’t occur but might have occurred). This must is just logic. And it’s consistent.
Do you want to attack the logic of omniscience, or do you want to concede the logic of omniscience and simply deny that God is omniscient? That is, do you want to argue that God is omniscient (meaning, God knows all and only truths—or something like that) but that the propositions describing future contingent evils simply don’t exist (or exist but aren’t true or false) more than two or three weeks (or however long YOU decide God can stand the awful tension of foreknowing possible sins) before those contingent evils play out or not? Or do you want to concede that the propositions do exist (as logic demands), but that God’s just flat out ignorant of such truths?
Your argument from the morbidity of foreknowledge doesn’t hold. One may “know” without consciously contemplating. Likewise the argument from “surprise.” You guys got nuttin.
That propositions describing future contingents at time t are true at all times prior to t is actually a pretty tight argument (provided there are any truly indeterminate events, which we open theists already grant). This of course doesn’t mean anybody HAS to know these truths. It’s just an argument that such truths exist.
The dual problem of just when and how any God who is completely ignorant of the truth “S might and might not occur at t” has not been faced by you or Jeff. If God is ignorant of some truth about the future, who or what teaches God this truth? When do they teach God? What mechanism is responsible for revealing to God the truths God is ignorant of?
Peace out,
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 11/1/2004 11:40 AM (GMT -6) | | Originally posted by TGBquote:
Check out my post again, John. I argued that they DID invent “new” ways of sinning. I just argued that making sense of this doesn’t require denying divine foreknowledge of the possible ways we’d come up with for sinning. The major part of my post addressed precisely this point.
If we subscribe to the standard definition of "invent," (as I cited above from Webster's, American Heritage, and several other standard dictionaries) your distinction does not hold true.
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John: When forced to choose between God's physical attributes (omniscience) and God's moral attributes (love, goodness, etc.) I would much rather affirm the latter than the former--isn't this precisely the divide between us and the determinists?
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I’d much rather affirm both. And I recall you being the one to champion our not pitting one divine attribute against another. So I’m surprised to see this. Not quite sure what the point is about the “divide.” I guess I just don’t see what the “problem” is here.
A basic impulse of the Open View is that in the classical view of God's foreknowledge (physical attribute), God is to blame (moral attribute). The Open View endeavors to avoid this implication on God's moral character (rightly, I think), by reworking the commonly accepted understanding of omniscience.
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What “problem” are you solving, John, if you deny omniscience?
I don't think I'm the first Open Viewer to say that it is not necessarily denying omniscience to deny someone else's definition of omniscience. If there is nothing there to know (with, for instance the eternally possible evils that MIGHT have happened had moral agents chosen so), then why construct an empty category?
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John: In Doc's theory, not only do all possible worlds ad infinitum exist as "a metaphysical surd" (as Doc plainly admits in S&TPOE)…
Tom said:
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I’d like to see your quote of Doc arguing that that the truth conditions of propositions that describe future contingencies constitute a “metaphysical surd.” He in fact doesn’t believe this. I think you guys are mistaking Doc here. Doc’s criticism of Craig is that Craig refuses to ‘ground’ the truths which describe conterfactuals which Craig argues are the basis of God’s providential choices regarding which world to create. Craig believes that there are eternally true propositions describing what every libertarianly free agent would do in every possible situation. Doc asks, “What ‘grounds’ these truths?” That is, what are the truth conditions? What renders ‘determinate’ all these free choices? Craig admits it’s not God. And he admits it’s not the agents. What is it? Craig says it's "nothing." Craig has to dismiss the grounding objection to Molinism. Nothing ‘grounds’ the truths which describe what free agents “would” do in any possible situation. THAT is a metaphysical surd. But this is NOT what Doc (nor Alan and I, in our upcoming paper) argue. On the contrary, if there are any true propositions at all, they must have truth conditions that constitute the “grounds” in virtue of which the propositions are true. This is to deny that these truths are simply a metaphysical surd.
Okay. Perhaps I have mistaken Doc's statement on this point. I was quoting from memory, but will look it up later tonight when I am able to get to my books. However, you guys do believe that each and every possible choice (world) and all subsequent possible choices/worlds are eternally known to God perfectly, as if they were the only world that might in fact actuate. What grounds all these virtually infinite possible worlds?
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John: …further, we have to conclude that God has been eternally conscious of all the evil crimes (rapes, murder, molestation of children, infanticide, genocide, etc.) against humanity that MIGHT have ever been committed (virtually ad infinitum!), as well as all the insane rantings and musings of every POSSIBLE lunatic that MIGHT EVER have existed…
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Including everything that might be offered by members of this board as reasons for why God is best thought of as ignorant instead of all-knowing.
"Ignorant" is a rather loaded word in common parlance. However, it need not have negative connotations. No one thinks it a deficiency in God for him to be ignorant of the existence square circles, for instance. In the 1800s, what is now known of as the Open View was typically called "divine nescience," (not ignorance, but simply "not knowing.")
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Have a re-read of my longer post on this page, John. This notion of yours and Jeff’s that “knowing” entails “consciously contemplating” or “focusing upon” what is known is simply not true. But in any case, God can handle whatever being omniscient might demand of him.
I will give your longer post a re-reading. I would also say that God can handle whatever being omnipotent might demand of him.
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John: …AND at the same time we are told that God does all He can, given the way he designed things, to minimize evil!
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If you plow through the “Carlie” thread from this past Jan/Feb you’ll find even Mephi agreeing to this. I find it workable. Given the fact that there are no weakness-free theodicies, you gotta go with what pulls things together best for ya. If omniscience and omnibenevolence don’t work, hey, go with what works. I’ve got less problems making sense of our world as it is given an omniscient and all-loving God than I have given a partly ignorant and relatively loving God.
I don't agree that my view makes God "relatively" loving. I would counter that it is your view that does; at the very least your view makes God out to be only relatively omnipotent, relatively omniresourceful, and relatively omnibenevolent, for though he WISHES he could totally minimize evil, he can't, even if he wants to.
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John: It seems to me that in trying to develop a response to Molinism, Doc has allowed his opponent to define the argument, and as such, philosophical reasons, rather than biblical reasons, have steered the discussion.
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Looks like you and Jeff are as philosophical as the rest of us. The biblical examples of “surprise” you’ve mentioned (which we’re all familiar with) don’t in fact require the denial of omniscient foreknowledge. They just don’t. Surprise can be explained quite easily on probabilistic grounds. Unless you just WANT to deny omniscience, what’s the problem?
Tom, I don't "want" to deny omniscience; I'm sincerely trying to work this issue out in my head. (That said, we did see a while back how scant the evidence is scripturally for God being omniscient).
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John: As to God coming to know things in real time, I don't see how affirming the Scriptures that reveal this makes God out to be somehow "less worthy of God" at all.
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When have I (or Doc, or Alan) denied that God ever “comes to know things in real time”? We wholeheartedly affirm that God does begin, in time, to know things he did not know before.
How is this different from what I'm saying, then? If God did not know certain kinds of evil might come to be, why would your "he did not know before" be any different from my "he did not know before?"
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I just link the changing state of divine knowledge to a changing reality, which you (mistakenly I think) believe you have to deny.
I do not deny that God knows the totality of present reality, nor that He is fully cognizant of the continually changing state of reality, moment by moment.
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God doesn’t have ever to be “ignorant” of truth in order for God to “come to know things in real time.”
I think we're using different definitions of "ignorant" and "come to know." I of course agree that God knows probabilities, but that still does not mean the same thing as certainties.
John
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 11/1/2004 3:34 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
Given the fact that there are no weakness-free theodicies, you gotta go with what pulls things together best for ya. If omniscience and omnibenevolence don’t work, hey, go with what works. I’ve got less problems making sense of our world as it is given an omniscient and all-loving God than I have given a partly ignorant and relatively loving God.
I think the above is helpful. What I think you're admitting here, Tom, is what I've been admitting about myself. Namely, that we are all conditioned by our personalities and environment to be more sensitive than others to giving up certain kinds of attributes or qualities of God. And we simply must give up something no matter which way we go. You're view requires that we give up the possibility of God having novel purposes or ideas. Mine requires giving up omniscience.
But there are two things that condition my particular view of the problem. First is the fact that I simply don't see scripture saying that God minimizes evil. For the life of me I don't see why He couldn't have prevented the bullet from the drive-by shooter's gun from hitting the little girl a few weeks ago. What I see scripture saying is that God doesn't DO anything malovelent - at least gratuitously. So I don't see the providence problem as being as demanding of radical amounts of knowledge as you do. Like John, I think God's power can trump His need for knowledge in many cases. And God certainly is aware of the current state of affairs perfectly, whether or not He considers all that such states entail.
Second, I never in all my years ever thought of God as having foreknowledge in the way you or Calvinists think of Him - i.e., eternally. Before I became an open theist in the mid 80's wrestling with the problem of evil, I had held to the simple foreknowledge view, although I believed that God never thought about our creation until He purposed it in time. So when I became an open-theist, I simply changed to thinking that God knew even less about our world than before. In fact, it was not until I was reading up on Calvinism that I first became aware that people believed God had foreknowledge about this creation from eternity. Maybe I'm a nut, but the thought had never crossed my mind. As John said, the scripture doesn't seem to go out of it's way to say much about what God did or thought from eternity. But it does say much about His wisdom. But wisdom works dynamically in time.
To me it truly seems bizarre that God cannot think an original thought or purpose an original plan. To me it seems bizarre that God would have knowledge of perversion and violence eternally, ungrounded in any actual state of affairs that would give Him providential cause to know it. But that's just me. I could be wrong, and I admit it. I see both of our views as being logically possible, and yet unproveable. What I was hoping for was Scott Taylor to weigh in so I could see if he was aware of some scripture that might shed more light on the subject.
What I think is most important is the OPEN idea that we all share. For that is what can get us a rational theodicy. But I'm always interested in obtaining more info, philosophical or biblical. And, unfortunately, I'm way too interested in coffee!!
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 11/1/2004 4:30 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
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Jeff: Given LFW, the initial conditions had nothing to do with the "Fall"-out. It was LFW and LFW only.
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The initial conditions had nothing to do with the fallout? They have everything to do with the fallout. FLW defines the initial conditions (with respect to our freedom).
But there was a whole universe of created entities besides LFW. My point was that the universe, having been created VERY GOOD, had nothing to do with the Fall, per se.
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Jeff: You make much of risk, but how do I know that God HAD to continue with this creation except for doxological reasons of His own? And if He has continued for doxological reasons, what's the risk?
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Yes, I make much of risk. I do so because I gather from Scripture that God’s purposes for us include relating personally and responsibly in love to God. I have no conception of risk-free love. None whatsoever. If you do, tell me about it.
For all I know, had Satan not "fallen," and more humans had been born, any violators of the prohibition about the tree would have died instantly without stopping the continuation of the rest of the race in the VERY GOOD conditions until the earth was filled up as God had intended. So why couldn't God have "locked up" Satan after his fall and prevented the temptation of Eve? After all, He locked up the angels that sinned in Noah's day, didn't He? You're assuming God has no options like that. I'm not so sure of that. And risk is relative to options.
As I've said before, Christ seemed to be sure that few would enter life while most will go into destruction. No risk or uncertainty about that - a few WILL love and most WON'T.
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wstaylor
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2002
Total Posts : 4
| Posted 11/5/2004 5:15 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by jefscott
John,
quote:
Scott doesn't post here very often at all; however, he and I keep up somewhat regular email correspondence in my email discussion group. In fact, Scott's excellent arguments are a big reason why I have chosen to bring this up now.
I'd be curious as to how Scott argues against Doc's view, in particular. Doc's argument against Bill Craig in the foreknowledge book seems to be problematic for his own view (to me, at least). Doc said the following about Craig's view:
quote:
Second, classical molinism is philosophically problematic. In this view, every possible decision any possible free agent might ever make in any possible world is an eternal fact. Every future free decision and every possible future free decision is exhaustively settled in eternity before it takes place. How do we account for this eternal settledness? Craig concedes that it cannot exist because God wills it to exist, for that would constitute determinism. But neither can this eternal settledness exist because agents other than God will it to exist, for created agents are not eternal, and Craig rightly denies retroactive causation. Moreover, agents never will the counterfactuals that are supposedly true about them. They are what the agents would have willed had they been created in a different possible world.
We are left then with the unappealing alternative of denying that anything grounds the eternal settledness of future free acts and of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. From all eternity the fact of what free agents would do was simply there - without any sufficient reason to account for it. It is simply a metaphysical surd. This position, I submit, is at best strongly counterintuitive. It could also be charged with being dualistic, for the settledness of the world, and of every possible world, is depicted as an uncreated reality that eternally coexists alongside God. Like an attribute of God, it has no explanation outside of itself.
Now Doc's argument seems to be quite strong. But Doc's view, too, posits an eternal omniscience about future contingencies. These contingencies include all possible thoughts of God, himself. Thus, God can never originate a truly novel thought. These contingencies also include ka-zillions of evils that never in fact occur. This knowledge exists eternally as an attribute of God just like Craig's view of God's foreknowledge. If the divine attribute that Doc posits for God is not counter-intuitive (as he claims is true for Craig's), it is a least NOT intuitive. Nor do I see how it can be proved.
Now Doc, as Tom, seems to think this solves problems concerning providence. But why would God have to know ka-zillions of evils (some of which would never occur in contingent worlds that never actualized) from ETERNITY. If God is capable of originating novel thoughts/purposes, such knowledge/purposes could occur in time, alleviating the problem of positing an attribute to God which is neither intuitive or demonstrable.
Could you possibly persuade Scott Taylor to weigh in on this question?
Jeff,
I have been desirous of entering into this thread for a few weeks now but have just gained the time this weekend to offer some comments and discussion.
As there has been a considerable amount of *flak* in the air I was toying with the idea of pulling the discussion out of this thread, and create a new one with a proviso. That is, that the Title be shifted to something like "Incipient Evil, Nescience, & First Truths"
Here's why I think it would be useful. First, I hope to address what appears to be a deficiency of significant proportion. That is, properly defining your terms. It was woefully apparent that some of you are shadow boxing and using thinly disguised ad hominem jabs to boot. Put the two together and you get alot of ash and a very bad smell. I don't mean to infer that no good has, or will not come, rather it seems that a the thread is leaning ever more in that direction.
Secondly, I'd like to start a new thread for the express purpose of coming to some agreement on First Principle and Definition of Terms. If there is no critera for differentiating what constitutes proof (according to the class of material being discussed)evidence, and where the burden of proof lies then you are doomed to the aforementioned result. This must be agreed upon at the outset. O.K. those are the primary drivers.
All that notwithstanding, it maybe that being such a newcomer here I don't have permission to create a new thread. If not, then my involvement becomes moot in that regard. IF that is so then I would ask someone who is interested in coming to a better resolution to the problem than currently exists, to do the honors.
Whether or not it would be deemed appropriate and feasible to implement the move I will certainly pick up Jeff's request to talk to the issues.
Your indulgence please,
W Scott Taylor
Board Member & Web Editor
Evangelical Educational Ministries, Inc.
http://eeminc.org
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 11/6/2004 7:26 AM (GMT -6) | | Scott,
quote:
Secondly, I'd like to start a new thread for the express purpose of coming to some agreement on First Principle and Definition of Terms. If there is no critera for differentiating what constitutes proof (according to the class of material being discussed)evidence, and where the burden of proof lies then you are doomed to the aforementioned result. This must be agreed upon at the outset. O.K. those are the primary drivers.
Thanks for posting. I agree with your approach. In fact, I had tried to argue along these lines previously, stating that attributing to God an attribute-like, eternal knowledge of contingent evils is neither intuitive nor demonstrable - hoping that we could proceed from there to sounder biblical and philosophical evidence.
quote:
All that notwithstanding, it maybe that being such a newcomer here I don't have permission to create a new thread. If not, then my involvement becomes moot in that regard. IF that is so then I would ask someone who is interested in coming to a better resolution to the problem than currently exists, to do the honors.
As far as I know, anyone can start a new thread. I look forward to the discussion, as I think both my views and those of Doc etal could stand some better substantiation. Thanks again for your time.
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