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JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 12/18/2004 7:56 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
ISF:
I honestly dont see why people feel Craig's use of Ockhamist notions at this part is a problem. I think it was actually Alvin Plantinga who originally argued that route - and it seems to be proper, since Ockhams' soft facts can be thought of in terms of counterfactual dependence on the future. That is, if the creature would have chosen/acted differently, God would have known differently.
I am not conviced by the Ockhomist solution. However, if I felt is was necessary to affirm classical foreknowledge, I would probably go that route too. As it stands, I do not see that it is necessary to affirm classical foreknowledge, so I find the appeal to soft facts, etc., unnecessary (and therefore untenable--per another one of Ockham's ideas).
peace,
JET
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ISF
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Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 23
| Posted 12/18/2004 8:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Sisters of Cain,
quote:
That's why I wrote definite choice. The actual choice, not a prediction of a choice. Predictions can fail.
"Philosophical sophisticates" would have noticed the difference.
hehe. but then again i never claimed to be philosophically sophisticated - like i told JET, i am still learning, but i enjoy your comments anyway.
I would say that when we "predict" something, we are assessing probabilistically whether a "definate choice" (a CCF) as you call it is true of false. However, since God is Omniscient, He need not assess such things probabilistically because He knows the truth of the actual propositions themselves. Where we guess the truth value, God knows it with absolute certainty as He demonstrates in prophecy and other Scripture (1 Cor 2:8).
Nonetheless, if we believe some CCF to be true, for example, "if my sister goes to the store, she will buy a sweater" and it turns out that when she goes to the store, she does buy a sweater, we believed a proposition about a future contingency that was true. yet, your knowledge of the truth of said CCF does not mean that you in any way cause your sister to buy the sweater, right? The problem you seem to have is not with God's knowledge of these propositions (since it is congruent to this example in some way) - but with His perfect knowledge, that He will not fail to know the truth of all of the CCF's in our actual world. (or perhaps HOW he knows such CCF's with certainty? if this is the case, i wonder if you know HOW God created the world with words, or HOW God parted the red sea, or HOW Jesus became Incarnate by the Holy Spirit - that is, we often know that certain things are true without knowing How exactly God accomplishes such things)
quote:
Your friend-prediction doesn't scale very well, you certainly couldn't predict accurately what your friend's descendant would do a thousand years from now, could you?
That's why God can know all possibilities, all paths through a decision tree, all counterfactual worlds but not know the actual choice/path/decision made first, without being the author of it.
a thousand years from now? well, i would simply say, we are not God. All i meant to show was that knowledge of the actual truth of the contingent future does not constrain the freedom involved in such situations. While it is true, that I could fail to state the truth of the actual contingent future (and i may be predicting in some probabilistic way) this type of knowledge is no problem for God.
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ISF
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Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 23
| Posted 12/18/2004 8:31 AM (GMT -6) | | JET,
quote:
This is not a denial of bivalence. I affirm that each of these types of propositions are either True or False and that God knows the truth value (either T or F) of each of these types of propositions.
i think it is.
Consider the following CCF:
if X is in C, they will freely choose S. (where X is a free moral agent, C is a set of circumstances, and S is a moral decision).
The principle of bivalence states that this statement is either TRUE or FALSE for all X, C, S. but whether you admit it or not, you believe these CCF's are neither TRUE nor FALSE or uniformly FALSE.
Now, lets consider the specific case we are discussing in this thread. (barring your concession that this may be a special case of God's determination)
If Peter is asked to deny Christ (at time t in the future, include all circumstances), then Peter will freely deny Christ at t.
do you believe that before and when Christ gave the prophecy that He believed this statement was EITHER TRUE OR FALSE? since you believe that bivalence holds for all propositions (as you should, assume it was a contingent fact and Peter denied freely).
since you think it is a special case, lets consider a contingent case.
If President Bush has breakfast tomorrow morning, He will drink coffee with breakfast.
Now, assume, that tomorrow our President does eat breakfast and therefore does have coffee. Does God believe today that this proposition is either TRUE or FALSE? I think the Open view denies either God knowledge of this simple fact, or denies the principle of bivalence.
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JET
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 12/18/2004 8:33 AM (GMT -6) | | ISF: I would say that when we "predict" something, we are assessing probabilistically whether a "definite choice" (a CCF) as you call it is true of false. However, since God is Omniscient, He need not assess such things probabilistically because He knows the truth of the actual propositions themselves. Where we guess the truth value, God knows it with absolute certainty as He demonstrates in prophecy and other Scripture (1 Cor 2:8).
JET: There is indeed a difference between our predictions and God’s predictions. We predict from a nescient point of view. God predicts from an omniscient point of view. However, there is no reason to say that God does not assess probabilities (unless you want to say that the future is determined). Rather, (if the future is not determined), one could say:
1. If the probability of X occurring is 1, then an omniscient God would believe that “x will occur”.
2. If the probability of X occurring is 0, then an omniscient God would believe that “x will not occur”; and
3. If the probability of X occurring is .5 (for example), then an omniscient God would believe that “x might and might not occur and the likelihood of x occuring is equal to the likelihood of x not occuring”.
ISF: Nonetheless, if we believe some CCF to be true, for example, "if my sister goes to the store, she will buy a sweater" and it turns out that when she goes to the store, she does buy a sweater, we believed a proposition about a future contingency that was true.
JET: If in fact it was true that “if my sister goes to the store, she might or might not buy a sweater”, then God would have believed THIS (and WE would have been wrong to believe that she WOULD buy a sweater).
ISF: yet, your knowledge of the truth of said CCF does not mean that you in any way cause your sister to buy the sweater, right?
JET: My BELIEF that she would buy a sweater does not cause her to buy a sweater. However, if I was omniscient and I KNEW that she WOULD buy a sweater, then it would not be true that she (historically speaking) could NOT buy a sweater. (I.e., she would not be free in a libertarian sense.)
ISF: The problem you seem to have is not with God's knowledge of these propositions (since it is congruent to this example in some way)
JET: I believe that God does know some true CCF’s. Peter seems to be an example of this. But I do not believe that there is a true CCF that corresponds to every action of a free creature.
ISF: - but with His perfect knowledge,
JET: The open view affirms God’s perfect knowledge without qualification. The debate is about the content of that perfect knowledge.
ISF: . . . that He will not fail to know the truth of all of the CCF's in our actual world. (or perhaps HOW he knows such CCF's with certainty?
JET: The grounding objection.
ISF: if this is the case, i wonder if you know HOW God created the world with words, or HOW God parted the red sea, or HOW Jesus became Incarnate by the Holy Spirit - that is, we often know that certain things are true without knowing How exactly God accomplishes such things)
JET: The grounding objection is the MAIN philosophical objection to Molinism. Are you saying that the Molinist answer to the grounding objection boils down to an appeal to mystery?
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JET
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 12/18/2004 8:44 AM (GMT -6) | | ISF: Consider the following CCF:
if X is in C, they will freely choose S. (where X is a free moral agent, C is a set of circumstances, and S is a moral decision).
The principle of bivalence states that this statement is either TRUE or FALSE for all X, C, S. but whether you admit it or not, you believe these CCF's are neither TRUE nor FALSE or uniformly FALSE.
JET: I believe that ALL propositions are either True or False. Take the proposition,
P1: If X is in C, X will freely choose S
Clearly, this proposition is either True or False.
I also believe that the following propositions are either True or False:
P2: If X is in C, X will freely choose ~S
P3: If X is in C, X might or might not freely choose S
Furthermore, I believe that if P1 is True, then P2 and P3 are both False. If P2 is True, the P1 and P3 are both False. If P3 is True, then P1 and P2 are both False. How is this a denial of bivalence?
ISF: Now, lets consider the specific case we are discussing in this thread. (barring your concession that this may be a special case of God's determination)
If Peter is asked to deny Christ (at time t in the future, include all circumstances), then Peter will freely deny Christ at t.
do you believe that before and when Christ gave the prophecy that He believed this statement was EITHER TRUE OR FALSE?
JET: Yes.
ISF: If President Bush has breakfast tomorrow morning, He will drink coffee with breakfast.
Now, assume, that tomorrow our President does eat breakfast and therefore does have coffee. Does God believe today that this proposition is either TRUE or FALSE? I think the Open view denies either God knowledge of this simple fact, or denies the principle of bivalence.
JET: If Bush drinks coffee tomorrow, then one of two propositions is now True: either:
P4: If President Bush has breakfast tomorrow morning, He will drink coffee with breakfast.
Or
P5: If President Bush has breakfast tomorrow morning, He might or might not drink coffee with breakfast.
I don’t know which one is true, but God infallibly knows whether P4 or P5 is True, and whichever one is True, the other one is False.
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ISF
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Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 23
| Posted 12/18/2004 12:06 PM (GMT -6) | | JET,
quote:
there is no reason to say that God does not assess probabilities (unless you want to say that the future is determined).
well, i guess in a sense the future is determined to be as it is, but it is simply begging the question to say that God's knowledge is what causally determines the future as such. are you not assuming that if God knows the future, then God causes the future, (that is causally determines it)? But this is the question at hand. It seems to me that Dr. Craig, Plantinga, and others have successfully debunked the argument for theological fatalism (as it principally confuses certainty with necessity and commits a logical error).
i do not think God predicts things based on probability. I think God rather knows with absolute certainty (1 or 0) that each fact about the Universe is either true or false. Hence, God knows only and all true propositions).
you seem to suggest the problem has to do with historical ontological necessity or something like that. could you explain that a little?
you said:
quote:
My BELIEF that she would buy a sweater does not cause her to buy a sweater. However, if I was omniscient and I KNEW that she WOULD buy a sweater, then it would not be true that she (historically speaking) could NOT buy a sweater. (I.e., she would not be free in a libertarian sense.)
well you would have to explain why belief and knowledge are different things. if i know something to be true, i believe that it is true. omniscience (scope/perfection of God's knowledge) changes nothing in terms of causal determination. it seems to me that God knowing something to be true, is exactly the same as a person knowing something to be true. Its just that in God's case, He will never hold a false belief.
i think you are confusing necessity with certainty. it is not the case (historically speaking) that she could not buy the sweater, in fact she is free to buy the sweater or not. There is no necessity to her buying the sweater. God simply knows that she will. We can be certain that if God does foreknow that she will buy it, that she will. but this does not mean that she necessarily will. (and again, the ockhamist solution, which you agreed is perfectly valid and intuitive).
quote:
But I do not believe that there is a true CCF that corresponds to every action of a free creature.
and why is that? do you deny this on the basis of the grounding objection? or because it just points out the problem with your theory?
quote:
The grounding objection is the MAIN philosophical objection to Molinism. Are you saying that the Molinist answer to the grounding objection boils down to an appeal to mystery?
but it seems to be an unfair constraint. Consider facts about the past. "Peter ate breakfast with Jesus". This fact is contingent and true. Yet, Peter and his breakfast no longer exist (Peter exists in some form, but nonetheless..). So what "grounds" the truth of this past-tense fact? it seems that it is simply the state of affairs that Peter ate breakfast with Jesus.
this is exactly what grounds future-tense facts as well. "I will go shopping tomorrow" is either true or false by whether it is the case that I go shopping the next day from when this statement is uttered, and this state of affairs (me shopping) obtains.
my point, was that for Sisters of Cain, the issue seems to be not with God knowing some truth, but that they (and you?) feel that God's absolute knowledge contrains the future (theological fatalism). my questions were meant to say not that theres no good reasons, but rather that a good reason may not always be necessary for a fact to be true.
rest assured, i do not appeal to mystery, unless something truly is mysterious (and it is agreed as such).
quote:
P1: If X is in C, X will freely choose S
Clearly, this proposition is either True or False.
I also believe that the following propositions are either True or False:
P2: If X is in C, X will freely choose ~S
P3: If X is in C, X might or might not freely choose S
Furthermore, I believe that if P1 is True, then P2 and P3 are both False. If P2 is True, the P1 and P3 are both False. If P3 is True, then P1 and P2 are both False. How is this a denial of bivalence?
It is either a denial of Bivalence, or denies God Omniscience, or just leads to absurdities.
Consider the future-tense statement, "I will go to the store tomorrow". Now, since this is contingent, it falls under your view that both this statement, and its negation - "i will not go to the store tomorrow" are both false. (and the statement "I might or might not go to the store tomorrow" is true). Since conjunction is valid for future tense statements, i can combine these first two, stating "I will and will not go to the store tomorrow", and know that this statement is false, therefore its negation is true - "I will not and will go to the store tomorrow" which is a clear contradiction. Either I will go to the store, or I will not. This is the same as saying either "I will go to the store" is true or false. hence, the principle of Bivalence.
Further, if God believes the statement "ISF will go to the store tomorrow" is false, since He believes that I "might or might not go to the store tomorrow", then when I do go to the store tomorrow, God held a false belief (that the first statement was false, since it was in fact true).
which goes back to this:
quote:
ISF: since both statements express the same fact from different temporal viewpoints. both express the tenseless truth that "C does (tenselessly) X at t".
JET: They don’t express the same fact. “C does X” at t makes a truth claim about the present at time t. However, declaring at t-1 that “C does X at t” makes a truth claim about the present at time t-1 (namely, that given present reality at t-1, it is true that “C will do X at t”). If it is true at t-1 that “C will do X at t”, then God knows said truth. But if it is true at t-1 that “C might or might not do X a t”, then it is FALSE that “C will do X at t”
You are basically saying that because something happenned yesterday, my knowledge of the actual reality which happenned yesterday is somehow different than my knowledge of the actual reality yesterday? This is also an absurd claim, to my mind. How can the reality expressed by "It is raining today" be different from the claim "it will rain tomorrow" or "it rained yesterday" They are all expressing the same fact - rain on the day expressed as "today". what is your proof that every future-tense statement does not have a truth value? (including contingencies).
im going to read that article and see if i can understand your position a little better.
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JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 12/18/2004 6:14 PM (GMT -6) | | ISF: well, i guess in a sense the future is determined to be as it is, but it is simply begging the question to say that God's knowledge is what causally determines the future as such.
JET: If the future is determined to be as it is, then determinism is true. Whether the future is determined necessarily or "accidentally" (as Freddosa would say), its still determinism (the opposite of indeterminism).
ISF: are you not assuming that if God knows the future, then God causes the future, (that is causally determines it)?
JET: Nope. Trust me, I do not assume that. However, I do assume that if my future choices are certain prior to my existence, then my choices are NOT determined by ME.
ISF: But this is the question at hand. It seems to me that Dr. Craig, Plantinga, and others have successfully debunked the argument for theological fatalism (as it principally confuses certainty with necessity and commits a logical error).
JET: I don’t care what you call it (“accidental necessity” or whatever), if my choices exist prior to my existence, then my choices are not caused by me. The problem with Molinism is NOT that it claims that God causes my choices. Rather, the problem is that (1) Molinism offers no workable explanation as to what DOES ground the CCF’s that make my choices knowable (via middle knowledge) from the beginning of creation and (2) Molinism precludes ME as the originator of my choices.
ISF: i do not think God predicts things based on probability. I think God rather knows with absolute certainty (1 or 0) that each fact about the Universe is either true or false. Hence, God knows only and all true propositions).
you seem to suggest the problem has to do with historical ontological necessity or something like that. could you explain that a little?
JET: I was referring to the difference between something being possible in history (i.e., in our actual world) vs. something being merely logically possible.
ISF: well you would have to explain why belief and knowledge are different things.
JET: To “know” something means to have a belief that is true. For an omniscient being, belief and knowledge are co-extensive. However, a non-omniscient may believe a proposition that is not true.
ISF: if i know something to be true, i believe that it is true.
JET: But my "belief" may be wrong, in which case I don’t really “know”.
ISF: omniscience (scope/perfection of God's knowledge) changes nothing in terms of causal determination. it seems to me that God knowing something to be true, is exactly the same as a person knowing something to be true.
JET: I would say only true beliefs qualify as “knowledge”. Therefore, God's beliefs have different implications than our beliefs. Specifically, God's belief that a future event is certian to occur entails that the event really is certain to occur.
ISF: i think you are confusing necessity with certainty. it is not the case (historically speaking) that she could not buy the sweater, . . .
JET: Here’s what I mean by “historically”. If it certain that she will buy the sweater, then its impossible (historically speaking) for her to not buy the sweater. It may be logically possible for her to buy the sweater, but not historically possible.
ISF: . . . in fact she is free to buy the sweater or not.
JET: This goes to the question of how we define libertarian free will. If LFW only requires that it be logically possible for her to buy the sweater, then a Molinist can affirm LFW with no problem. But if LFW requires that it be historically possible for her to buy the sweater, then a Molinist can’t affirm free will because, as you say, it is certain that she won’t buy the sweater.
ISF: There is no necessity to her buying the sweater. God simply knows that she will. We can be certain that if God does foreknow that she will buy it, that she will. but this does not mean that she necessarily will.
JET: I understand the argument that certainty does not entail necessity. Again, it goes to the nature of freedom and self-determination. If you want to affirm that free agents determine their own choices (because you don’t want to pin creaturely choices on God), then you can’t say that the choices were certain before the free agent ever existed to make the choice. I’m not saying that certainty entails necessity. I’m saying that if my choices are certain before I make them (indeed before I even exist) then my choices do not come from ME. I’m NOT saying that if my choices are certain before I exist that my choices must be determined by God or must be necessitated in any particular deterministic or fatalistic way. I leave it to you to try to explain where my choice would come from. All I’m saying is that if my choice is certain before I exist, then the choice does NOT ORIGINATE WITH ME. Make sense?
ISF: (and again, the ockhamist solution, which you agreed is perfectly valid and intuitive).
JET: I didn’t mean to suggest that I believe the Ockhamist solution is perfectly valid and intuitive. Personally, I’m not convinced by it.
ISF (in response to my denial that that there is a true CCF that corresponds to every action of a free creature): and why is that?
JET: Because: (1) I have good reasons to believe that God does not cause or determine such CCF’s to be true (Molinism agrees with this); (2) I don’t know of any other grounds for all such CCF’s to be true; and (3) if there is a true CCF that corresponds to every action of an agent, then all actions of the agent are certain before the agent even exists and, thus, the possibility is removed of the agent itself making something ELSE certain. (I'm not confusing necessity with certainty here. I don't care whether or not the CCF's make the agents actions "necessary". I'm talking about the fact that CCF's make the actions of the agent certain before the agent exists.)
ISF Consider facts about the past. "Peter ate breakfast with Jesus". This fact is contingent and true. Yet, Peter and his breakfast no longer exist (Peter exists in some form, but nonetheless..). So what "grounds" the truth of this past-tense fact? it seems that it is simply the state of affairs that Peter ate breakfast with Jesus.
JET: I claim that all truths must be grounded in some true statement about the present. Thus, the truth of the statement “Peter ate breakfast with Jesus” is grounded in the truth of the proposition that it is NOW TRUE that “Peter ate breakfast with Jesus”.
ISF: this is exactly what grounds future-tense facts as well. "I will go shopping tomorrow" is either true or false by whether it is the case that I go shopping the next day from when this statement is uttered, and this state of affairs (me shopping) obtains.
JET: If it is true that “I will go shopping tomorrow”, then this truth must be grounded in some true proposition about the present. I suppose it is possible that there are present states of affairs that render it certain that I will go shopping tomorrow. (E.g., it is logically possible that God has determined it, or perhaps I am addicted to shopping and all the state of affairs constituting present reality renders it certain that I will be at a store and psychologically unable to not shop.) Obviously, I don’t believe that either one of these scenarios is likely. More likely, it is the case that “I might or might not go shopping tomorrow”. If this is true, then what grounds the truth of this proposition is the fact that there is no present state of affairs that renders it certain that I will (or certain that I will not) go shopping tomorrow.
ISF: Consider the future-tense statement, "I will go to the store tomorrow". Now, since this is contingent, . . .
JET: You seem to be saying that all future statements about future actions of agents are “contingent”, but I’m saying “will” propositions are NOT contingent. I’m using the term “will” as follows: “X will occur” means it is certainly (I’m not saying anything about causation or necessity, just certainly) the case that x will occur. True historical contingency is expressed by “might and might not”.
ISF: Consider the future-tense statement, "I will go to the store tomorrow". Now, since this is contingent, it falls under your view that both this statement, and its negation - "i will not go to the store tomorrow" are both false. (and the statement "I might or might not go to the store tomorrow" is true).
JET: Let's break it down:
P1: I will go to the store tomorrow.
P2: I will not go to the store tomorrow.
P3: I might and might not go to the store tommorow.
The negation of P1 is not P2. Rather, the negation of P1 is:
P4: It is not the case that I will go to the store tomorrow.
(Note, P4 is consistent with either P2 or P3.)
So, P1 and P2 may both be false (in which case P3 is true). Or, P1 may be true (in which case P2 and P3 are false). Or, P2 may be true (in which case P1 and P3 are both false).
ISF: Since conjunction is valid for future tense statements, i can combine these first two, stating "I will and will not go to the store tomorrow", and know that this statement is false, therefore its negation is true - "I will not and will go to the store tomorrow" which is a clear contradiction.
JET: Nope. The negation of:
P5: I will and will not go to the store tomorrow
is:
P6: It is not the case that “I will and will not go to the store tomorrow.
P5 is clearly false, while P6 is clearly true.
ISF: Either I will go to the store, or I will not.
JET: At the present time either (1) it is certainly the case that I will go to the store or (2) it is certainly the case that I will not go to the store or (3) whether or not I will go to the store is not certain (i.e., I might and might not go to the store).
ISF: This is the same as saying either "I will go to the store" is true or false. hence, the principle of Bivalence.
JET: I agree that “I will go to the store” is either true or false. Hence, bivalence.
ISF: Further, if God believes the statement "ISF will go to the store tomorrow" is false, since He believes that I "might or might not go to the store tomorrow", . . .
JET: If God believes the statement “ISF will (certainly) go to the store tomorrow” is false, then God EITHER believes that (1) “ISF will not go to the store tomorrow” OR (2) “ISF might and might not go to the store tomorrow”.
ISF: . . . then when I do go to the store tomorrow, God held a false belief (that the first statement was false, since it was in fact true).
JET: You’re overlooking (or just denying) the whole category of historical contingency. If ISF’s going to the store was historically contingent then it was true that “ISF might and might not go to the store” and false that “ISF will (certainly) go to the store”. Thus, God’s belief that “ISF will (certainly) go to the store” was false, was not a false belief. God correctly believed that ISF might and might not go to the store.
ISF: You are basically saying that because something happened yesterday, my knowledge of the actual reality which happened yesterday is somehow different than my knowledge of the actual reality yesterday? This is also an absurd claim, to my mind. How can the reality expressed by "It is raining today" be different from the claim "it will rain tomorrow" or "it rained yesterday" They are all expressing the same fact - rain on the day expressed as "today".
JET: These statements are not expressing the same truth claim.
The statement “it is raining today” (declared on Dec. 19) makes a truth claim about the state of present reality on Dec. 19 (viz, that it is raining). Let’s call this present reality R19.
The statement “It will rain tomorrow” (declared on Dec. 18) makes a truth claim about the state of present reality on Dec. 18 (viz, that present reality on Dec. 18 is such that makes it certain that it will rain on Dec. 19). Let’s call this present reality R18.
The statement “It rained yesterday” (declared on Dec. 20) makes a truth claim about the state of present reality on Dec. 20 (viz, that present reality on Dec. 20 includes that unchangeable fact that it rained on Dec. 19). Let’s call this present reality R20.
So each of the statements expresses a different truth claim. The first statement expresses a truth claim about R19. The second expresses a truth claim about R18. And the third expresses a truth claim about R20.
ISF: what is your proof that every future-tense statement does not have a truth value? (including contingencies).
JET: I believe that every future-tense statement (proposition) DOES have a truth value.
Again, thanks for the discussion and feedback.
JET
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ISF
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Total Posts : 23
| Posted 12/19/2004 12:51 PM (GMT -6) | | JET,
quote:
If the future is determined to be as it is, then determinism is true. Whether the future is determined necessarily or "accidentally" (as Freddosa would say), its still determinism (the opposite of indeterminism).
this is not exactly what determinism is, though. Determinism states that for every event, there are conditions given which, under said conditions, nothing else could have happenned.
But God's knowledge does not constrain what COULD happen, only what WILL happen, and i see no reason to accept your view of "historical possibility" - i think that given Ockham's solution, there is the real historical possibility that we could do other than we do in fact do. it is not just a "merely logical" possibility. However, if we do act "differently" in history, God knows that instead.
You must admit that even though you are unconvinced by Ockhams' solution - in this situation it is perfectly rational to say that God's knowledge of future contingents are "soft facts" about the past.
I suspect that you are appealing to the unalterability of the past as the basis for your argument, as shows up in your later statements in this post. I think this is a mistake though, since as Dr. Plantinga points out, "strickly speaking, however, it is not alterability that is here relevant; for the future is no more alterable than the past...we can imagine someone saying 'Paul will in fact walk out the door at 9:21 A.M., hence Paul will walk out at 9:21 A.M. is true; but Paul has the power to refrain from walking out then; so Paul has the power to alter the future.' But the conclusion displays confusion; Paul's not walking out then, were it to occur would effect no alteration at all in thr future. To alter the future, Paul must do something like this: he must perform some action A at a time t before 9:21 such that prior to t it is true that Paul will walk out at 9:21, but after t (after he performs A) false that he will. Neither Paul nor anyone - not even God - can do something like that". ("On Ockham's Way Out", Alvin Plantinga)
Of course, Dr Plantinga, as Ockham did, does go on to say that there is some kind of asymmetry between the past a future, namely that Paul has the power prior to 9:21 to make it false that he will walk out, but after has no such power.
but if you will notice, this has nothing to do with the actual reality of the future (historical possibility?) but rather it has to do with an agent's causal powers.
(Thus, Ockham's distinction of "necessity per accidens" is not some kind of ad hoc solution, but reflects some real feature of time and necessity.)
I contend, as I think others do, that God's knowledge of the future is about the actual reality of the future (which is unalterable, and hence fully knowable by God), and not just concerning an agent's causal powers. That is, God knows both what COULD happen (if we choose to bring about one state of affairs or another) and also what WILL happen.
quote:
But my "belief" may be wrong, in which case I don’t really “know”.
right, which is a function of your humanity and imperfection. But does that really mean that you fail to have knowledge of future contingents, simply because sometimes you are wrong? absolutely not. yet you can hardly argue that in the cases where you are right and have correct beliefs about the future (congruent to a small proper subset of God's foreknowledge) that you yourself constrain the freedom of others in those cases. Hence, God's knowledge of the actual contingent future (like your's) does not limit the libertarian freedom (especially their causal powers, perhaps) of an agent.
quote:
This goes to the question of how we define libertarian free will. If LFW only requires that it be logically possible for her to buy the sweater, then a Molinist can affirm LFW with no problem. But if LFW requires that it be historically possible for her to buy the sweater, then a Molinist can’t affirm free will because, as you say, it is certain that she won’t buy the sweater.
Again, i would like to clarify on this point - that logical possibility is probably the only thing we could be talking about here in terms of what "COULD" happen if my sister chooses in some other way than she does - since the future is as unalterable as the past (as per Plantinga, above). and it seems what you are calling "historical possibility" is merely referencing the possibilities which a causal agent has within its power to bring about. In other words, there is a historical possibility, as you call it, that something other than what will happen does happen (a near possible world) but if it did, then THAT would be what will happen, and God would know that instead. Notice, an agent will ultimately choose one possibility or another (acting or refraining from acting, lets say). and whichever possibility they do ultimately choose, God knows this with certainty (but not necessity!).
also, it is quite clear that here you are again confusing certainty (a property of persons) with necessity (a property of propositions) since in the last line of this quote, you used "certainty" to mean "necessity". It is not necessary that the proposition "my sister will buy the sweater" is true, but if God knows this proposition, it is certain (since God's foreknowledge cannot fail but the content is in no way necessary - He could have completely refrained from creating and had no foreknowledge at all!).
quote:
If you want to affirm that free agents determine their own choices (because you don’t want to pin creaturely choices on God), then you can’t say that the choices were certain before the free agent ever existed to make the choice. I’m not saying that certainty entails necessity. I’m saying that if my choices are certain before I make them (indeed before I even exist) then my choices do not come from ME. I’m NOT saying that if my choices are certain before I exist that my choices must be determined by God or must be necessitated in any particular deterministic or fatalistic way. I leave it to you to try to explain where my choice would come from. All I’m saying is that if my choice is certain before I exist, then the choice does NOT ORIGINATE WITH ME. Make sense?
it really doesnt. You are affirming theological fatalism (that certainty entails necessity) and then you are denying that you are. Your choices absolutely do come from you, even though they are known before you exist. That is to say, God's knowledge of your free choices are counterfactually dependent on the state of affairs of you causing those choices. Or to put it another way, God knows how you will exercise your causal powers. This is, in fact, what middle knowledge is. Since God knows that you will freely choose some action/choice in some set of circumstances, then if God does create a world where you are in those circumstances - and He certainly knows which world He is deciding to bring about - then you will freely choose it.
Or perhaps you are struggling with the HOW of foreknowledge, as Sisters of Cain was before. but as many have pointed out in the past, if it is not impossible for God to simply have innate knowledge (since God does not gain knowledge OF ANY KIND through sense perception, couldnt it also be the case that God does not gain all knowledge through causal influences as well? - as i believe you want to convey), then there is no reason that i can think of to force God to not have innate knowledge when it comes to future contingencies. It simply seems like special pleading in that case.
maybe the issue here is simply a perceptualist vs. rationalist view of God's Omniscience (as Dr. Craig points out - The Only Wise God Chapter 11) and there is no reason at all to accept the Perceptualist view of God's knowledge (which Edward Khamara argues denies God the knowledge of both the past and the future - since you cannot see the past in the same way you cannot see the future). Rather, a rationalist view of God's knowledge claims that God knows any and all true statements/propositions - including those concerning the future. Molinism/middle-knowledge is this type of model, with the added stipulation that future-tense statements are based on other logically-prior statements.
quote:
(3) if there is a true CCF that corresponds to every action of an agent, then all actions of the agent are certain before the agent even exists and, thus, the possibility is removed of the agent itself making something ELSE certain. (I'm not confusing necessity with certainty here. I don't care whether or not the CCF's make the agents actions "necessary". I'm talking about the fact that CCF's make the actions of the agent certain before the agent exists.)
this is just a string of false statements. The only way that the "possibility...of the agent making something ELSE certain" is in fact removed is if the agent's actions are necessary (really, propositions concerning these actions, but for simplicity's sake...). Since the agent's actions are not necessary, but merely certain (due to God's foreknowledge) then it is entirely possible that some other choice could be made (and therefore God would be certain of that instead). You absolutely are confusing the two terms here.
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(2) I don’t know of any other grounds for all such CCF’s to be true;...I claim that all truths must be grounded in some true statement about the present. Thus, the truth of the statement “Peter ate breakfast with Jesus” is grounded in the truth of the proposition that it is NOW TRUE that “Peter ate breakfast with Jesus”.
Well, how about the truth of the proposition that "It is NOW TRUE that i will (freely) eat breakfast tomorrow". What disqualifies this statement about the present (concerning a future contingent state of affairs) when it is an exact equivalent to the statement about the present (concerning a past contingent state of affairs) "It is NOW TRUE that Peter (freely) ate breakfast with Jesus"?
Remember, it cannot be that the objects in question exist (since Peter and his breakfast no longer exist in the exact way that my breakfast tomorrow does not exist)
Or even better, if you insist on something that exists: "God knows that I will (freely) eat breakfast tomorrow". Since, God's knowledge can be said to actually exist right now this is a candidate for a statement about the present that grounds a statement about the future.
it may be objected that nothing grounds the above statement? But how about the statement "God knows only and all true propositions" - Which is grounded by God's necessary nature?
in any case, if the disquotation principle is not sufficient for grounding (i think it is) then there certainly are statements about the present which qualify in the same way as statements about the past do.
quote:
These statements are not expressing the same truth claim.
i think that they are. They are all expressing the same tenseless fact - rain on December 19th. Just because one is expressing this truth before it happens, one during, and one after - does not in any way change the fact - rain on december 19th. Perhaps what is changing is YOUR ANTICIPATION, PERCEPTION, and MEMORY of the event (ie. "it will rain, and i am anticipating it", "it will rain, and i see it" and "it did rain, and i remember it"!!), but this is not at all what the plain statement is about - it is simply about rain on dec. 19th.
thanks for a very interesting discussion.
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 12/19/2004 9:35 PM (GMT -6) | | JET and ISF,
I've missed a lot of your discussion till now. I have a lot to say, but for now I'll just comment on something ISF said in his recent post:
quote:
Originally posted by ISF
How can the reality expressed by "It is raining today" be different from the claim "it will rain tomorrow" or "it rained yesterday" They are all expressing the same fact - rain on the day expressed as "today". ... They are all expressing the same tenseless fact - rain on December 19th. Just because one is expressing this truth before it happens, one during, and one after - does not in any way change the fact - rain on december 19th.
The future tense statement "It will rain tomorrow" uttered on Monday says that rain is yet to come. The past tense statement "It rained yesterday" uttered on Wednesday, says that rain has already come. Since it cannot be the case that the same rain both is yet to come and has already come, these two statements do not have the same truth conditions. In fact, they have incompatible truth conditions--they cannot both be true at the same time.
Your mistake, and Craig's, is to ignore the tense of the statements. It is not sufficient for the truth of "It will rain tomorrow" uttered on Monday that rain fall on Tuesday. All the falling of rain on Tuesday establishes is that it was possible on Monday that rain would fall on Tuesday. The only way that rain on Tuesday would suffice to establish that it was true on Monday that it would rain on Tuesday is if the tensed statement "It will rain tomorrow" uttered on Monday means exactly the same thing as the tenseless statement "It rains on Tuesday". But not only is this bad semantics (since tense does communicate information about the temporal relation of the event spoken of to the speaker's temporal reference frame), eliminating tense in this way commits you to a B-theory of time. If you follow Craig in rejecting the B-theory of time, then you, as well as he, should reject this argument.
Regards,
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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ISF
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 23
| Posted 12/20/2004 6:41 AM (GMT -6) | | alan,
quote:
In fact, they have incompatible truth conditions--they cannot both be true at the same time.
Alan, indeed - i was not arguing that all three statements could be simultaneously true. "it will rain tomorrow" is true up until the next day (of course, it could rain the following day, but anyway..) and the statement "it rains today" is true only on the appropriate day where the state of affairs of it raining obtains.
however, what this is trying to show is that, if in fact the statement "it is raining today" is true on December 19th. Then there is no reason to doubt the statement on December 18th "it will rain tomorrow" is true. They are both expressing the truth of the exact same state of affairs.
True, they are different statements from different perspectives (expressing what is presently true in the universe), but as i pointed out, our own perception of this temporal becoming does not change that the same reality is being referenced.
it merely demonstrates that all present-tense statements of the kind we are speaking (in the universe, especially contingencies, but all statements), have corresponding future-tense statements that are also true before the present tense statements are true and therefore known by God.
quote:
All the falling of rain on Tuesday establishes is that it was possible on Monday that rain would fall on Tuesday. The only way that rain on Tuesday would suffice to establish that it was true on Monday that it would rain on Tuesday is if the tensed statement "It will rain tomorrow" uttered on Monday means exactly the same thing as the tenseless statement "It rains on Tuesday".
no it doesnt. it is ALWAYS possible on any Monday (or any day of the week) that it will rain the following day. (how could such a statement be false!? yet, if we utter "it will rain tomorrow" and then if doesnt rain the following day, then the statement was clearly false) the statement "it will rain tomorrow" on monday expresses the truth of rain the following day. if in fact it does rain on tuesday, then for what reason can you deny that the the statement "it will rain tomorrow" known on monday was false? it can be nothing other than true.
wasnt it just the truth that "it will rain tomorrow" is true on the day before "it rains today" is true, in exactly the same way that "it rained yesterday" is true the day after?
it seems you are trying to say, with no sufficient reason, that when people (or GOD!) know future-tense statements, they really know something else instead. but why? simply because you cannot grasp how a contingent truth could be known before it obtains?
quote:
eliminating tense in this way commits you to a B-theory of time.
not at all. eliminating tense in this argument was meant to show that all three temporal statements reference the same state of reality, not that all three were not expressing different truths about what is "now true" in the Universe. But i am still fully committed to the A-theory of time. I believe that there are temporal facts about the Universe AS WELL AS tenseless facts - and so, God knows both. That is, God experiances the temporal shift in which temporal facts are true - as future tense statements become false and true, as present tense statements become false and true, and as past tense statements become false and true.
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JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 12/20/2004 7:28 AM (GMT -6) | | ISF,
I want to see if I understand your views (or Molinism in general) correctly. The question is whether the future (in God’s mind, not ours—and assuming God knows all truths and believes no falsehooods) is settled or open. Molinism claims that the future is settled as far as God is concerned inasmuch as God has chosen to create this world based on his middle knowledge of CCF’s (which do not change). (And Molinism denies this entails fatalism or precludes creaturely freedom.)
Thus, Molinism holds that the only possibilities regarding a future state of affairs “S” are “S will occur” and “S will not occur”. Molinism categorically denies the possibility of an omniscient God believing that “S might and might not occur”.
Would you agree with the foregoing?
Thanks,
JET
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 12/20/2004 8:19 AM (GMT -6) | | ISF:If in fact the statement "it is raining today" is true on December 19th, then there is no reason to doubt the statement on December 18th "it will rain tomorrow" is true. They are both expressing the truth of the exact same state of affairs.
Alan: Au contraire, the two statements do not posit the same state of affairs. "It will rain tomorrow" uttered on Monday posits its being the case on Monday that there is to be rain on Tuesday, not simply rain on Tuesday. Likewise, "It rained yesterday" uttered on Wednesday posits its being the case on Wednesday that there has been rain on Tuesday, not simply rain on Tuesday. Since they posit different states of affairs, they have different truth conditions.
ISF: All present-tense statements of the kind we are speaking (in the universe, especially contingencies, but all statements), have corresponding future-tense statements that are also true before the present tense statements are true and therefore known by God.
Alan: This is question-begging against the open future view. Moreover, it is incompatible with a dynamic view of time. A proposition is true iff what it posits to be the case is the case. According to presentism, the only time that anything state of affair can be the case is now, in the present. Since a proposition's being true is itself a state of affairs, the only time that a proposition can be true is now, and since a proposition is true iff what it posits to be the case is the case, a proposition can be true now iff what it posits to be the case is now the case. Accordingly, rain falling on Tuesday suffices to make it true on Tuesday that rain is falling, but it does not suffice to make it true on Monday that rain will fall on Tuesday. For that to be true on Monday the tensed state of affairs it's going to rain on Tuesday must obtain on Monday.
ISF: It is ALWAYS possible on any Monday (or any day of the week) that it will rain the following day.
Alan: Not in the relevant sense of possibility. We're not interested in bare logical possibility, but in causal or historical possibility. Is it or is it not causally contingent on Monday whether there is to be rain on Tuesday? Or it is causally necessary? Or impossible?
ISF: If in fact it does rain on tuesday, then for what reason can you deny that the the statement "it will rain tomorrow" known on monday was false? It can be nothing other than true.
Alan: It is false on Monday that it will rain on Tuesday just in case it is causally contingent on Monday whether there is to be rain on Tuesday. Think of it like this. If someone says on Monday "It will probably rain on Tuesday", does the mere fact that it rains on Tuesday make that true? Of course not. At the time the statement was uttered it may in fact have been improbable. Improbable things do sometimes happen and this does not make it antecedently probable that it would happen. Likewise, to say that something "will" happen, without any "probably" qualifier, connotes that it is definite or objectively certain that it will happen (i.e., that it has a probability of one). But clearly, that something happens doesn't show that it had an antecedent probability of one.
ISF: It seems you are trying to say, with no sufficient reason, that when people (or GOD!) know future-tense statements, they really know something else instead. But why? Simply because you cannot grasp how a contingent truth could be known before it obtains?
Alan: I'm not saying that at all. If someone really knows a future-tense statement (or rather, proposition), then it follows that they know it. The problem here is one of semantics. Propositions are assertoric units of meaning that are canonically expressed by statements. But one statement can express different propositions on different occassions of use, so we can't simply assume that when a person uses words like "will" or "true" or "know" in a statement that those statement are proper or adequate expressions of the proposition that they seem, at face value, to denote. The issue is not what people say, but what people mean by what they say. And the fact is, people often say that things are "true" when they don't mean that that they are strictly true. And people often say that things "will" happen when they don't mean, strictly speaking, that they will happen.
Regards,
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/20/2004 4:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi ISF! Welcome to the site. Thought I’d jump in for a comment or two. Can’t stay long. Hitting the road tomorrow morning to travel south for the holidays. ISF, I appreciate your good questions and insightful comments.
ISF: while it is possible that Jesus may be able to predict how Peter would react if asked to deny Jesus, there is no way, except by resorting to determinism to have exactly 3 people question Peter before the cock crowed twice.... how does Jesus know with certainty that these others will freely question Peter? shouldnt that be left "open" - unless you resort to determinism?
Tom: I’m certainly willing to concede that God can determine three people to ask Peter a particular question. So long as people are not held morally accountable for asking a person if they know Jesus, I don’t see a problem with God’s determining that three people ask Peter this question. The open view doesn’t deny that God ever determines things, even peoples choices from time to time. The objection regards the Calvinist’s claim that God ‘unconditionally’ determines our choices and also holds ‘us’ accountable to him for those choices. Now, I’d also concede that God can determine a rooster to crow a particular number of times, no more and no less, at a particular moment in time, neither earlier nor later. But who cares about the freedom of roosters? Point is, if we have to admit a certain bit of determinism going on here and there, fine. The open view isn’t thereby destroyed.
ISF: other views, such as arminian simple-foreknowledge, or molinism handle this much better, giving Jesus through the Holy Spirit certain knowledge of Peter's free denial.
Tom: Simple-foreknowledge doesn’t even register on the radar in terms of plausibility, in my view. But even if the view were true, such knowledge wouldn’t provide God a shred of providential advantage whatsoever, since what is known on this view cannot also be the basis for actions God takes to influence events. God could not make use of such knowledge in preventing evil, in bringing about good, in prophesying, guiding, or otherwise acting providentially. So, it’s impossible on the simple-foreknowledge view to account for how God is able to do something as simple of prophesy a future event.
Molinism is a fascinating view. I respect your holding to it. I think it fails, however, but that’s an entirely different thread.
ISF: This may be overstepping the topic at hand - but since God is omniscient, there is no reason to deny Him knowledge of contingent future propositions. The only way God would not know them is if these facts about Peter's future are either uniformly false (and then God would hold a false belief about Peter's denial) or if they have no truth value at all. But if Peter does deny Christ 3 times, then it is true that Peter denied Christ 3 times. And just before Peter denied Christ, it was true that Peter will deny Christ. (my italics) This is a true proposition, that an omniscient God would know - and Jesus through the Holy Spirit would know.
Tom: I see that Alan has answered the italicized part. It simply does not follow for every event S that happens that it was necessarily true before S happened that “S will happen.” S’s obtaining is perfectly explainable on the grounds that before S obtained “S might and might not obtain” is what was true, and especially so if S is a contingent event.
ISF: I suspect that these "might and might not" semantics are really not what they seem. Because since God is omniscient God does not know if something MIGHT be true or false, but knows what is absolutely true or false. Might seems to indicate some kind of probabilistic certainty, and to affirm "might and might not" is to affirm nothing at all. For example, "2+2 = 4" might and might not be true. "2+3 = 4" might and might not be true. In this case, since we have absolute knowledge of the truth of these statements (under customary semantics and definitions of these symbols) we know that the first statement is true (and "might and might not" says nothing concerning the actual truth value of the statement) and the second statement is false.
Tom: You misunderstand the sort of contingency under consideration and what one says when one says, “S might and might not obtain.” The contingency in question is not that of truth values (that is, of propositions which might or might not be true or false), but rather that of an event S (which might or might not obtain). That is, the contingency we’re debating is an attribute of states of affairs and not of propositions. Your comments misconstrue the whole question under consideration. We’re not attributing “might and might not” to the true value of propositions. We’re attributing it to states of affairs which, in the passage of time, resolve their possibilities into actualities. Thus, it’s not that a proposition is either true or false and that since we don’t know the ‘fact’ of the matter it’s then true for us that the proposition “might” be true and “might not” be true. The issue is rather that there is a future contingent event the TRUTH about which is expressed in the claim that it “might and might not” happen.
True, if it’s true now “S might and might not obtain tomorrow,” then it’s true that the proposition “S obtained yesterday” might and might not become true the day after tomorrow. But this is simply to describe another EVENT, the becoming true or false the day after tomorrow of a proposition describing an event which might or might not occur. Clearly if spoken the day before S obtains or not, “S obtained yesterday” is false. But it “might and might not” become true after the time in question.
ISF: If counterfactuals of creaturely freedom have truth value, and the principle of bivalence holds for such propositions, then there is no reason that God would not know them.
Tom: No disagreement here. But neither bivalence nor omniscience requires that any of them be TRUE. They might just be false. And if the events described are of a libertarian sort, then there are good reasons for believing such propositions are false. But this can be maintained without denying bivalence or omniscience.
ISF: Unless, of course, you are denying that God is Omniscient (knows only and all true propositions) or the principle of bivalence fails for CCF's.
Tom: Again, assuming God is omniscient in the sense you define it (which sense I agree with), and bivalence holds, CCFs may in fact be FALSE.
ISF: I would say that when we "predict" something, we are assessing probabilistically whether a "definate choice" (a CCF) as you call it is true of false. However, since God is Omniscient, He need not assess such things probabilistically because He knows the truth of the actual propositions themselves.
Tom: Once again you construe “probability” and “contingency” as an attribute of propositions, where we take it as an attribute of reality, of the world. You’re treating the entire issue of “contingency” as an epistemological limitation—we say “might and might not” because we DON’T know the truth, we’re not omniscient. So we say, “The truth of the matter might be this, or it might not be that.” This is not the only sort of contingency out there. We, however, treat the contingency in question as an ontological category (as JEE’s being pointing out). By ontologically open, we mean that ontology, or reality, viz., the nature of the universe at any given point in time, neither causally entails nor causally excludes the occurrence of some future event. In this case we say the event is historically contingent.
Now, what you define above is what I call “guessing.” And guessing is what WE do when we don’t know the facts of the matter and we want to claim what we think, without justification, the fact of the matter “will” be when the time comes. Open theists agree God does not GUESS in this manner. But this doesn’t mean an omniscient God could not know the truth about historical contingency. On the contrary, if the world is sometimes indeterminate with respect to the future occurrence of some event, one would expect an omniscient God to know this is the truth of the matter.
ISF: i think it [the open view] is [a denial of bivalence]. Consider the following CCF:
if X is in C, they will freely choose S. (where X is a free moral agent, C is a set of circumstances, and S is a moral decision).
The principle of bivalence states that this statement is either TRUE or FALSE for all X, C, S. but whether you admit it or not, you believe these CCF's are neither TRUE nor FALSE or uniformly FALSE.
Tom: Well, ISF, if you admit that they’re being uniformly false is an option we can take, then you can’t claim that taking that option amounts to the denial of bivalence. On the contrary, to claim they are uniformly false is to affirm bivalence.
But as I understand your example (if X is in C, they will freely choose S), X is a particular agent (in a given world with a particular history and context leading up to the choice), not ALL agents in all conceivable worlds; C is a particular circumstance in THAT world (not in all possible worlds), and S is a particular moral decision in that specific world (not every conceivable moral decision in every possible circumstance in any possible world). When we say “If X were in C, X would freely do S” we’re positing particularity with respect to agency, circumstance, and action. In this case, I’d agree that the proposition is bivalent. It’s either true or false. But I’d argue that it’s false if “freely” means libertarian free will exercised at the time of the choice. So you’ve failed to show how open theists MUST either deny bivalence or omniscience. What IS true in the case of your example? I’d suggest this proposition: “If X were in C, X might and might not freely do S.” Make sure you attribute the contingency of “might and might not” to the obtaining of S and not to the truth value of the proposition “If X is in C, X might and might not freely do S.”
JEE has rightly referred to THREE propositional options regarding the future:
P1: If X is in C, X will freely choose S
P2: If X is in C, X will freely choose ~S
P3: If X is in C, X might [and] might not freely choose S
These are the jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive options.
ISF: …it is simply begging the question to say that God's knowledge is what causally determines the future as such. are you not assuming that if God knows the future, then God causes the future, (that is causally determines it)?
Tom: No, we’re not claiming this. We don’t object that in such an instance it is God’s knowledge that causes anything. That’s silly. How would ‘knowledge’ itself cause an event to occur? But what such knowledge reveals about the event in question is that the obtaining of the choice or event is “settled,” that is, its occurring is other than free. It seems certain that the agent herself didn’t ‘determine’ the event, for it is known by God as determinate before the agent exists. So what renders the event determinate in God’s mind? It’s not the agent. And its not God. Fine. So something other than God’s knowledge and the agent is the grounds upon which the proposition “…will occur” is true. What is that something? Molinists don’t know. That’s a problem. But what this shows at least is that the agent is NOT THE ONE determining the choice, and that is all that’s needed to show that the choice of an agent, if known as that which “will” occur and known as such before the agent even exists, cannot be said to be a libertarianly free choice.
Craig admits that a) God isn’t the one making such CCFs true. He admits too that b) the agent can’t be the one making such propositions true. So Craig now concedes that their truth value is simply a metaphysical surd. It’s just there. All that we “would” do in any conceivable situation is just an ungrounded, unaccounted for truth for all eternity.
ISF: i do not think God predicts things based on probability. I think God rather knows with absolute certainty (1 or 0) that each fact about the Universe is either true or false. Hence, God knows only and all true propositions).
Tom: So do I. I just think there are some “facts” about what “might and might not” happen. You can’t show such “facts” to be vacuous. An event’s obtaining with a REAL probability of .86 is a perfectly logical notion. If an event truly, genuinely, at the level of ontology, has a probability of greater than 0 but less than 1 of occurring, then that IS the truth, the fact, which an omniscient being would know.
Well, gotta run. Early morning tomorrow. Alan’s right on in his comments, so I won’t belabor the point.
Blessings,
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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ISF
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 23
| Posted 12/20/2004 8:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
i appreciate your candor, and your taking time out to join the fun. i must admit right off the bat, as i have with others, that as of now, i am not an expert in philosophy (though i am finding, that most of my issues are not with cocepts, but with semantics) or theology for that matter. i do love it all very much, though, and want nothing more than to grow - and arguing here with you all has been so much more beneficial than arguing (if it can be called such) with determinists (Calvinists, others). you all are very sophisticated, which is great.
that being said, many of the issues you commented on have to do with semantics, and i do understand now the openness view.
i am noticing that there is a bit of the realism vs. anti-realism debate present in these discussions. do you agree?
especially, it seems to me, on how exactly God's knowledge should be understood. molinists seem to take conceptualist view - that God's knowledge is a collection of all true propositions, innate to God's Nature. whereas, many here seem to see God's knowledge in perceptualist terms - that God knows things when He either (1) "sees" it (2) remembers it (3) anticipates Himself bringing it about / it obtaining due to creation/necessity. All ways, to perceive things and gain knowledge (like we do).
Hence, since what creatures bring about with their own causal powers cannot be perceived in this way, God does not know it.
Whereas, molinists have no problem with this kind of thing - since they view God's knowledge in terms of true propositions - all one need is a proposition to be true. (trust me i know all the arguments about why you all think the kind of propositions i mean are not true...)
now to get to where about i am caught up with semantics and what exactly you all are arguing...
quote:
But what such knowledge reveals about the event in question is that the obtaining of the choice or event is “settled,” that is, its occurring is other than free. It seems certain that the agent herself didn’t ‘determine’ the event, for it is known by God as determinate before the agent exists. So what renders the event determinate in God’s mind? It’s not the agent. And its not God. Fine. So something other than God’s knowledge and the agent is the grounds upon which the proposition “…will occur” is true. What is that something? Molinists don’t know. That’s a problem. But what this shows at least is that the agent is NOT THE ONE determining the choice, and that is all that’s needed to show that the choice of an agent, if known as that which “will” occur and known as such before the agent even exists, cannot be said to be a libertarianly free choice.
but who cares if the future is epistemically "settled"? isnt the issue here with moral choices being causally-determined by something or someone other than the agent? There is no reason to think that a choice cannot be both 'settled' (epistemically, that is, known by God) and free (could have been different). You know full well that the opposite of free (libertarian, agent can choose between two real choices) is determined (no other choice could have been made) not "settled" as you call it (what will happen is known, but another choice could have been made).
in other words, the agent does cause the choice in question. God's knowledge is counterfactually dependent on the agent's choice. And an agent need not exist for a contingent truth to be known (that is, true) about him or her. In fact, such counterfactual statements - as their name betrays, can be contrary to fact about the actual world altogether. For example, the counterfactual truth stated in 1 Cor 2:8 is both contingent and true, but is about another possible world and not our own. So what grounds this truth? It cannot be God, since it is about demonic forces or evil men - and it cannot be the existence of the creatures involved or the state of affairs involved (since it is about another possible world). Yet, Paul uttered the statement through the Holy Spirit, and so we must concede it is a true statement.
Also, Craig concedes that it is not God who CAUSES the counterfactuals to be true of false - indeed that would imply determinism. However, what could be the case is that what renders these truths epistemically "settled" is God's perfect nature and God's knowledge about His own nature that He knows "only and all true propositions". | | Back to Top | | |
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ISF
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 23
| Posted 12/20/2004 9:16 PM (GMT -6) | | JET,
quote:
Thus, Molinism holds that the only possibilities regarding a future state of affairs “S” are “S will occur” and “S will not occur”. Molinism categorically denies the possibility of an omniscient God believing that “S might and might not occur”.
Well, if i understand it correctly, if you follow God's knowledge through its logical stages, God knows what COULD occur (natural knowledge) and then what WOULD occur should certain conditional statements also be true (middle knowledge) and then what WILL occur (free knowledge) as well.
so for any future contingent choice, God knows what the agent WILL choose call it Cx, and he also knows that the agent MIGHT choose not-Cx (but of course, he/she will choose Cx, but this is not necessary, only certain). So I guess God knows the agent "might or might not" choose Cx, which is to say that it is contingent. but, God also knows that ultimately, the agent will freely choose Cx.
peace. | | Back to Top | | |
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JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 12/21/2004 10:50 AM (GMT -6) | | ISF: Well, if i understand it correctly, if you follow God's knowledge through its logical stages, God knows what COULD occur (natural knowledge) and then what WOULD occur should certain conditional statements also be true (middle knowledge) and then what WILL occur (free knowledge) as well.
so for any future contingent choice, God knows what the agent WILL choose call it Cx, and he also knows that the agent MIGHT choose not-Cx (but of course, he/she will choose Cx, but this is not necessary, only certain). So I guess God knows the agent "might or might not" choose Cx, which is to say that it is contingent. but, God also knows that ultimately, the agent will freely choose Cx.
JET: We're using terms differently. Tom, Alan and I are using the term "will" to refer to what you are saying is "certain". For us, "will" = "certain to happen". For us, "will" refers BOTH to future states of affairs that are "necessary" (i.e., could not be otherwise) and to states of affairs that could have been otherwise, but are now at this time CERTAIN to obtain.
For us, "contingent" refers ONLY to a future state of affairs as to which it is now ontologically (and, thus, in the mind of an omniscient God) NOT CERTAIN whether or not it will obtain. (I.e., God is epistomologically CERTAIN that the the future state of affairs is NOT CERTAIN either to obtain or not obtain.) Thus, when we say "might and might not" we're referring to THIS type of contingency.
Molinism denies that this type of contingency exists, so obviously Molinism uses the term "contingent" in a different sense (i.e., contingent = future states of affairs that are not "necessary").
The terms themselves are not important. What is important is the use or meaning intended. Do you see how we're using these terms differently?
Thanks,
JET
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Spiderman
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 12/27/2004 9:15 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Open Theism does not assert that every decision a person makes is free in the Libertatian sense. In this case, Peter's character could have been solidified to the extent that Christ knew as certain what his decision would be given the circumstances. In other words, through Peter's earlier Libertarian Free Will decisions, his character had been solidified to where this decision was compatibalistically determined.
I do not see this explination as fitting Litertarian free will. To be free in the libertarian sense, a person's actions cannot be determined by character. When you start to talk about actions being set based upon their character, then you are dealing more with a Compatabilistic theory of free will. Open Theists reject Compatibilism.
Now, you are right, not ALL events are Libertarian free, even for the Libertarian. However, if Libertarian's say that some decisions are determined by character, then how do they differ from Compatibilists?
quote:
Originally posted by TomEwall
God can see all possible futures. If all the possibile futures showed that Peter would deny Christ, then Christ could make the prediction with certainty even though Peter had the free choice to not deny Christ.
But the point of Libertarian free will and the point of Open Theism is that if God foreknows an event, then that event is determined. I thought Open Theists rejected a determined future? | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 12/27/2004 10:30 AM (GMT -6) | | In Dr. Boyd's own words, "libertarian free will becomes compatibilistic free will."
Or, in other words, "choices when persisted in form habits, habits in turn form character, and character determines destiny."
To the extent that a moral agent has formed his character through habituation, he is predictable. God, who "knows the very thoughts and intents of the heart" of all people, certainly knows how predictible someone (such as Peter) is.
In Open Theism, the future is partly open, and partly settled/fixed/determined. The chief distinction of the Open View is that it argues that the future is to some extent open, not that the future is in every aspect open.
Lee: Why would a determinist have a problem with God "poking" a rooster to get him to crow at just the right time? As far as that goes, a consistent Open Theist can even go so far as to say that God coerced the rooster to crow precisely when He wanted him to. The fact that God may choose to unilaterally cause an animal (non-moral agent) to do something certainly does not pose any logical problems for the Open View.
Open Theism does not require us to say that Jesus "could've been wrong" when he predicted Peter's denial, based on Jesus' discernment, knowledge of Peter's already formed character as that of a coward, and perfect knowledge of what was in Peter's heart. Jesus knew all this, just as He knew "what was in man," as John 2:24-25 says.
http://revivaltheology.net | | Back to Top | | |
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 12/29/2004 5:57 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi Jee,
quote:
Jee: To the extent that a moral agent has formed his character through habituation, he is predictable. God, who "knows the very thoughts and intents of the heart" of all people, certainly knows how predictible someone (such as Peter) is.
And also the doorkeeper, and the soldiers around the fire? And also Peter's memory?
quote:
Why would a determinist have a problem with God "poking" a rooster to get him to crow at just the right time? As far as that goes, a consistent Open Theist can even go so far as to say that God coerced the rooster to crow precisely when He wanted him to.
Twice, too! And the first time, did he keep Peter from remembering?
quote:
Open Theism does not require us to say that Jesus "could've been wrong" when he predicted Peter's denial, based on Jesus' discernment, knowledge of Peter's already formed character as that of a coward, and perfect knowledge of what was in Peter's heart. Jesus knew all this, just as He knew "what was in man," as John 2:24-25 says.
Then if Jesus could not have been wrong, then this part of the future was not open! Indicating that other, similar predictions, involving choices, are not open, either. I agree...
Blessings,
Lee
==================================================
"Even now we seem to have dim glimpses into regions
from which we receive no word to bring away" (George MacDonald) | | Back to Top | | |
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Spiderman
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 12/29/2004 6:38 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by JEE
[size=3][font=Book Antiqua]In Dr. Boyd's own words, "libertarian free will becomes compatibilistic free will."
Or, in other words, "choices when persisted in form habits, habits in turn form character, and character determines destiny."
To the extent that a moral agent has formed his character through habituation, he is predictable. God, who "knows the very thoughts and intents of the heart" of all people, certainly knows how predictible someone (such as Peter) is.
Well, ok, but then what is the point of libertarian free will? Peter's denial was an extremely crucial moment in his life. Yet you are telling me that he had absolutely no choice in the matter because his character had already predetermined how he would respond. Fine. But then how "open" is the future? And how free are our decisions if, like Peter, we are the product of predetermined character?
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 12/29/2004 7:22 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Spiderman
Well, ok, but then what is the point of libertarian free will?
To provide us a genuine and uncontrived probationary period of existence, in which our own fully responsible choices form our character. It's certainly a very different thing from viewing ourselves as merely automatons or just slaves to animal impulses. If Peter is responsible for having determined his character up to that point, then God is justified in condemning his behavior, for no one forced Peter to form his character as he did.
quote:
Peter's denial was an extremely crucial moment in his life. Yet you are telling me that he had absolutely no choice in the matter because his character had already predetermined how he would respond.
The point of Jesus' prediction of Peter's denial was not to show how "closed" the future was, it was expressly to deflate Peter's pride. He had just said, "Though all forsake you, I won't!" And Jesus lovingly corrected Peter by predicting how he would deny him.
Also, just because a moral agent's character may be even totally solidified towards evil, doesn't mean that that person is somehow not responsible for their actions. It would probably not be disputed by anyone that Satan's character is fully formed for evil, but does that mean he's not responsible for his actions, and that he couldn't choose to refrain from any particular sin that he does?
Blessings,
John
P.S.: Hey Sisters of Cain, where did you post go? Anyway, I thought it was good. You should repost it.
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Spiderman
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 12/30/2004 6:08 AM (GMT -6) | | JEE,
This, in my opinion, is an area in which Open Theists need to do a lot of work. On the one hand, they want to build a theology around the notion of freedom, openness and genuine choice. The point of this is that we can then say, "Yes, you have free will and are thus responsible for your actions." Fine. This I can understand. However, where Open Theists (particularly Boyd) become unclear (at least as far as I can see) is that they lean heavily on the idea that character determines behavior and that the future is, to some extant, closed.
An example might illustrate this point:
On the one hand, we have the Open Theist’s position that Peter’s character determined his actions and thus Jesus could predict his denial. However, let's go to the Old Testament. God speaks of being "surprised" at the behavior of the Israelites, even going so far as to say that their actions "did not even enter my mind." The Open Theist states that this is proof positive that man is free and not determined, that the future is open, that God is surprised, etc. But let's back up. The Israelites had a long history of rebellion and infidelity. The whole pattern of their behavior was steeped in continued sin and rejection of God. Did God really believe that a people who had established such a vicious cycle of rebellion would repent? Did God really not understand how the character and behavior of the Israelites has been, in large part, determined by a long history of disobedience?
Further, did the possibility that they would reject him after so much infidelity really not even enter his mind? If I have a girlfriend or wife who has cheated on me several times in the past and shows no signs of changing, at some point I have to realize that her character is, in many ways, determined and probably will not change. But these Old Testament passages are the cornerstone of Open Theism. We are suppossed to read them in a rigidly literal sense; actually believing that God did not have a clue that these stiff-necked people might actually do the same thing they had always done.
I tend to agree with your observation that the point of Jesus' prediction was to deal with Peter's pride. Yet why can't we look at the Old Testament in the same way? Maybe much of the language of surprise is not so much about God trying to make a grand metaphysical point about free will; maybe he was just expressing his incredulity with Israel or present His case or do something to get His people to reconsider their infidelity and rebellion. | | Back to Top | | |
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