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revprodeji
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2005
Total Posts : 17
| Posted 7/21/2005 7:50 PM (GMT -6) |   | |
I started a discussion on a catholic theology board I play with about Open theism and its acceptability to catholic doctrine. This is the conversation..any insight would be very appreicated as I am ganged up here.(no catholic bashing comments please)
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Can you define "open theism" for us, please? Because my two cents' worth is that it is very difficult to reconcile with Church teaching, and in particular with the dogma that God is immutable. And it is dogma:
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Lateran IV, Canon I wrote: |
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We firmly believe and openly confess that there is only one true God, eternal and immense, omnipotent, unchangeable, incomprehensible, and ineffable, .... |
(cf. Denzinger 428)
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Vatican I, Chapter I of the Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic Faith wrote: |
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Since [God] is one, singular, completely simple and unchangeable .... |
(cf. Denzinger 1782).
If I misunderstand open theism, or if it can be reconciled to those canons, please feel free to correct me.
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SeanMc wrote: |
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From a Protestant website:
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Quote: |
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Open theism, also called openness and the open view, is a theological position dealing with human free will and its relationship to God and the nature of the future. It is the teaching that God has granted to humanity free will and that in order for the free will to be truly free, the future free will choices of individuals cannot be known ahead of time by God. They hold that if God knows what we are going to choose, then how can we be truly free when it is time to make those choices since a counter choice cannot then be made by us because it is already "known" what we are going to do.1 In other words, we would not actually be able to make a contrary choice to what God "knows" we will choose thus implying that we would not then be free. |
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And there is your most grave error. God does not predict the future. He is already there. What do you think the terms "omniscient" and "omnipresent" mean? He knows the future because He is in the future. When we travel into the future, God is always there waiting for us. God knows the choices we will make, because, as far as He is concerned, we have already made them.
This is utterly heretical.... is this what you mean by "open theism" revprodeji
?
Predestination is a dogma of the Church (so is free will). How the two reconcile is a bit debated. But to deny that God knows future contingent events is heretic... it was a position of the neo Aristoteleans and has been condemned before Calvin or any protestant even pooped their panties.
But, perhaps you mean something different? If so, please explain
Is this closer
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Quote: |
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Open view theists believe that the future exists partly as actualities (future events which God sovereignly determines to bring about) and partly as possibilities (aspects of the future which God sovereignly allows his creatures to bring about). |
Because it is still heretical (and seems to be based on poor reasoning...)
Unless "open theism" can be reconciled with God's omniscience, it runs afoul of the same Vatican I quotation I gave above (D 1782). See Ott 39-40.
So that raises the question: What is it that Dr. Boyd sees in the standard answers to theodicy that is inadequate?
Everything that God has brought into being he protects and governs by his providence, which reaches from one end of the earth to the other and orders all things well . All things are open and laid bare to his eyes, even those which will be brought about by the free activity of creatures.
Vatican I
As I understand it open theism teaches that God creates certain possible outcomes contingent on our free responses.. He does not foreknow or preordained our choices. Well, in Catholicism we affirm that God "who works is us both to will and accomplish" Providentially orders all things, including contingent events. The Jesuits might teach a scientia media by which God knows future contingent events infallibly while Thomists teach it belongs to His general knowledge... and exactly how we are predestined to heaven (if we be elect, God willing) and yet frely cooperate in salvation is a mystery... but both must be true. Basically, Catholics believe that God is the author of history. We believe that He does indeed predestine the elect. That His providence preordains the course of history. But we also believe in free will. Rather than dividing the sphere of actions into "events ordained by God" and "contingent events left to free will", we believe that even those events, choices and actions that are affected or effected by our free wills are also preordained by God. We believe that God is the "First Cause" in all acts (except the malice of sin, which He permits, but in such a way that it fits with His providence), but that His being the first cause in this or that act of ours does not negate our part. How this free will and divine ordination go together is a mystery. One, perhaps, that we may be able to understand more and more but never fully. There are various ideas in Catholicism to reconcile these, but they all admit of God's just ordering of all things...as one author said "even the number of hairs on your head" is predestined.
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the future free will choices of individuals cannot be known ahead of time by God. |
Sounds like they don't believe God is truly Omniscent....
don't see why the examples of God "not knowing the future" or "repenting" aren't anthropomorphisms.
For example:
KJV Genesis 6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
In Gen 1:1 the perspective is that of God in heaven, in verse 2 it shifts to earth and hence day and night exist.
In Gen 6:5 the perspective changes from God to an observer, they see God repenting:
Genesis 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
This is classic anthropomorphism.
To me the element of truth in open theism is that man is free to act, there is no double predestination. While God insists no elect be lost, He did not thereby close the door on the non elect. They can choose life:
Genesis 4:7 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
They don't because they don't want to, not because they are predestinated unto damnation:
Matthew 13:15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
I admit it is appealing to consider God took risks for love. However open theism must, in the final analysis, deny omniscience and that renders it unsound.
However I thank you for discussing this theory and I look forward to reading your replies to these others and further exposition of this view.
open theism is unsound because it denies omniscience.
Yes, Im a catholic open theist... | | Back to Top | | |
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revprodeji
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Date Joined Jun 2005
Total Posts : 17
| Posted 7/22/2005 6:01 PM (GMT -6) | | | Here is an update..i really dont see a problem with the immutability issue. Perhaps it is their interpretation, not actual dogma..hmm
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,......"Here's the key problem: To say that there is a difference between things God knows in the past and present (which have happened and which are happening) and things which may happen in the future is to make God Himself subject to time. That is not possible; God created time and is Himself outside of it.
Furthermore, the problem Dr. Boyd raises--how can our choices be free if God knows them?--has a standard classical answer, given by St. Thomas here.
I further have to ask (and I think I speak for many) that you find sections of your material that speak directly to the questions being raised. I am not inclined to wade through that much material on my own time--I have to do enough of it during the school year under duress.
| revprodeji wrote: |
One of the most frequent and most emotionally charged objections to the open view of the future is that, if God doesn’t know with certainty all that shall come to pass, he cannot ensure that his purposes for a individual’s life or for world history will be accomplished. As Bruce Ware puts it, the open view of God posits a “limited, passive, hand-wringing God” who can do little more than hope for the best.[1] In his view, what is “lost in open theism is the Christian’s confidence in God.” And he continues:
| Your neo-Molinism is heretical
If God doesn't know future contingent events with certainty then there are several dogmas of the Church that are false. It doesn't matter what are or are not the consequences. It is DOGMA that God knows all things with certainity.
By the knowledge of vision (scientia visionis) God also forsees the future free acts of the rational creatures with infallible certainity (De Fide)
The Vatican Council teaches: "Omnia enim nuda et aperta sunt oculis eius (Hebrews 4:13), ea etiam, quae libera creaturarum actione futura sunt." "All things are naked and open to His eyesm even those that will happen through the free actions of creatures"
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The dogma of human freedom is not abrogated by the dogma of infallible certainity of the Divine prevision of future free actions. The Fathers point to the eternal character of the Divine knowing and conclude that the Divine foreknowledge imposes as little compulsion on fututre actions as human remembering does on the past.
(Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pg.41)
Yes, Im a catholic open theist... | | Back to Top | | |
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revprodeji
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Date Joined Jun 2005
Total Posts : 17
| Posted 7/22/2005 6:03 PM (GMT -6) | |
TGB said... But divine simplicity will have to go. Have fun, Tom
what is divine simplicity according to you friend?
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 7/23/2005 7:50 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom's right, Rev. It DOES ultimately have to do with absolute divine simplicity. Absolute divine simplicity is NOT consonant with open view theism.
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From Aquinas' Summa...which appears to corroborate Augustinian thought. Notice the section I have in bold. "Whether God is altogether simple?"
www.newadvent.org/summa/100307.htm
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On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. iv, 6,7): "God is truly and absolutely simple." I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways.
First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple.
Secondly, because every composite is posterior to its component parts, and is dependent on them; but God is the first being, as shown above (2, 3).
Thirdly, because every composite has a cause, for things in themselves different cannot unite unless something causes them to unite. But God is uncaused, as shown above (2, 3), since He is the first efficient cause.
Fourthly, because in every composite there must be potentiality and actuality; but this does not apply to God; for either one of the parts actuates another, or at least all the parts are potential to the whole.
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Moreover, see New Advent's The Nature and Attributes of God, Section C: Simplicity of God
www.newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm#IC
God is a simple being or substance excluding every kind of composition, physical or metaphysical. Physical or real composition is either substantial or accidental -- substantial, if the being in question consists of two or more substantial principles, forming parts of a composite whole, as man for example, consists of body and soul; accidental, if the being in question, although simple in its substance (as is the human soul), is capable of possessing accidental perfections (like the actual thoughts and volition of man's soul) not necessarily identical with its substance. Now it is clear that
an infinite being cannot be substantially composite, for this would mean that infinity is made up of the union or addition of finite parts -- a plain contradiction in terms. Nor can accidental composition be attributed to the infinite since even this would imply a capacity for increased perfection, which the very notion of the infinite excludes. There is not, therefore, and cannot be any physical or real composition in God.
Neither can there be that kind of composition which is known as metaphysical, and which results from "the union of diverse concepts referring to the same real thing in such a way that none of them by itself signifies either explicitly or even implicitly the whole reality signified by their combination." Thus every actual contingent being is a metaphysical
compound of essence and existence, and man in particular, according to the definition, is a compound of animal and rational. Essence as such in relation to a contingent being merely implies its conceivableness or possibility, and abstracts from actual existence; existence as such must be added before we can speak of the being as actual. But this distinction, with the composition it implies, cannot be applied to the self-existent or infinite being in whom essence and existence are completely identified. We say of a contingent being that it has a certain nature or essence, but of the self-existent we say that it is its own nature or essence. There is no composition therefore of essence and existence -- or of potentiality and actuality -- in God, nor can the composition of genus and specific difference, implied for example in the definition of man as a rational animal, be attributed to Him. God cannot be classified or defined, as contingent beings are classified and
defined; for there is no aspect of being in which He is perfectly similar to the finite, and consequently no genus in which He can be included. From this it follows that we cannot know God adequately in the way in which He knows Himself, but not, as the Agnostic contends, that our inadequate knowledge is not true as far as it goes. In speaking of a being who transcends the limitations of formal logical definition our propositions are an expression of real truth, provided that what we state is in itself intelligible and not self-contradictory; and there is nothing unintelligible or contradictory in what Theists
predicate of God. It is true that no single predicate is adequate or exhaustive as a description of His infinite perfection, and that we need to employ a multitude of predicates, as if at first sight infinity could be reached by multiplication. But at the same time we recognize that this is not so -- being repugnant to the Divine simplicity; and that while truth, goodness, wisdom, holiness and other attributes, as we conceive and define them express perfections that are formally distinct, yet as applied to God they are all ultimately identical in meaning and describe the same ultimate reality -- the one infinitely perfect and simple being.
From the Vatican archives. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part One: THE PROFESSION OF FAITH, Section Two: THE PROFESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, Chap. One: I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER
(www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p1.htm)
202 Jesus himself affirms that God is "the one Lord" whom you must love "with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength".6 At the same time Jesus gives us to understand that he himself is "the Lord".7 To confess that Jesus is Lord is distinctive of Christian faith. This is not contrary to belief in the One God.
Nor does believing in the Holy Spirit as "Lord and giver of life" introduce any division into the One God:
We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal infinite (immensus) and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple. [Lateran Council IV: DS 800 cited]
Going further...stuff from Lateral Council IV from the Catholic media network, EWTN
(www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/LATERAN4.HTM)
We firmly believe and simply confess that there is only one true God, eternal and immeasurable, almighty, unchangeable, incomprehensible and ineffable, Father, Son and holy Spirit, three persons but one absolutely simple essence, substance or nature {1}. The Father is from none, the Son from the Father alone, and the holy Spirit from both equally, eternally without beginning or end; the Father generating, the Son being born, and the holy Spirit proceeding; consubstantial and coequal, co-omnipotent and coeternal; one principle of all things, creator of all things invisible and visible, spiritual and corporeal; who by his almighty power at the beginning of time created from nothing both spiritual and corporeal creatures, that is to say angelic and earthly, and then created human beings composed as it were of both spirit and body in common. The devil and other demons were created by God naturally good, but they became evil by their own doing. Man, however, sinned at the prompting of the devil.
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To me, this seals the deal. Divine simplicity is inextricably linked to affirming God as "actus purus" (www.newadvent.org/cathen/01125b.htm) which EXCLUDES God from any element of potentiality. Actually, St. Aquinas says this HIMSELF explicitly when he talks about the nature of God's perfections. From "Whether God is Perfect?"
www.newadvent.org/summa/100401.htm
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On the contrary, It is written: "Be you perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48).
I answer that, As the Philosopher relates (Metaph. xii), some ancient philosophers, namely, the Pythagoreans and Leucippus, did not predicate "best" and "most perfect" of the first principle. The reason was that the ancient philosophers considered only a material principle; and a material principle is most imperfect. For since matter as such is merely potential, the first material principle must be simply potential, and thus most imperfect. Now God is the first principle, not material, but in the order of efficient cause, which must be most perfect. For just as matter, as such, is merely potential, an agent, as such, is in the state of actuality. Hence, the first active principle must needs be most actual, and therefore most perfect; for a thing is perfect in proportion to its state of actuality, because we call that perfect which lacks nothing of the mode of its perfection.
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Didja see it? From all this, it's clearly implied that possessing potentiality is pretty much SYNONOMOUS with imperfection AND is a mark of being a compound existent. Thus a perfect being MUST lack any potentiality.
But that's a problem...because at its base, any CONSISTENT (emphasize that word there) open view theism must say that there is SOME element of potentiality in God. SOME ability to have truly contingent expressions of God's NECESSARY essential existence. Said it before and I'll say it again. Doc's view of openness is the most consistent to me, out of all the evangelicals I've read...because it is based off of his reconstruction of PROCESS theology (specifically Hartshorne's) which affirms the existence of divine potentiality and temporality.
So what's all this stuff mean? Simply put...
Any theological position that is grounded in God being without any degree or form of potentiality" CANNOT consistently be compatible with open view theism's presuppositions about divine reality. If it is the case that Roman Catholic theology is significantly grounded in the ideas of "actus purus" and "absolute divine simplicity", then it is the case that Roman Catholic theology is incompatible with the presuppositions of open view theism.
Sorry, Rev. I could be wrong on all this. But I think you have a serious choice to make with this one. Holding authorized, longstanding Catholic theological dogma or believing that God TRULY possesses an element of potentiality.
Later,
To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 7/23/2005 9:22:59 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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revprodeji
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2005
Total Posts : 17
| Posted 7/23/2005 7:59 PM (GMT -6) | | update...
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| revprodeji wrote: |
Open theists are presentists (the A-series view of time). They hold that only the present exists. The past and the future do not exist. Presentists believe that temporality is a necessary, not contingent, feature of everything that exists. Therefore they believe that God is a temporal being. So in summary:
| 1. You really need to be more careful before you dismiss Saint Thomas here. His teachings on these things aren't his easiest to grasp and take a lot of study to get the gist. 2. God is not a temporal being. Open theism seems to reject every sound conception of God in a pseudo philosophy. It's very presuppositions are heretical. God is not temporal, for instance I will ask you three questions 1. What do you conceive time as? The standard answer is "the duration of that which changes" 2. Do you believe God's will is subject to change? 3. What makes you conclude that only the present exists before God?
| revprodeji wrote: |
It doesn’t seem to me that open theism is at all reconcilable to absolute divine simplicity. One cannot assert the open view without also asserting that God is temporal and experiences changing states of mind and emotion. Yes, there are crucial ways God does not change also, but that wouldn’t satisfy Catholic dogma.you don’t have to abandon ‘omniscience’ (def = God knows all and only truths) to be an open theist. You really can believe God knows all truths (past, present, and future) and also believe God knows the future as partly open. You can also believe God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent (necessarily good). But divine simplicity will have to go.
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And Divine Simplicity is Catholic Dogma as well!
So you see the consequences of open theism is to reject every fundamental dogma of the Church about God?
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Oh brother how poor is this philosophy...
Listen, it seems you make the same error that Aristotle did about future contingent events. In Peri Hermenias he argues (chapter 9) that if you could say true or false of future contingent event then that event must necessarily happen and if it must necessarily happen then it is determined before those things, namely supposedly free choices, actually occur. Therefore there is no free choice. Aristotle then rejects that one can say true or false of a future contingent statements. But he errs.
Perhaps a better explanation is Newcomb's paradox. Say you have two boxes. One box is open and you see 1000 dollars. The other is closed. You are told that it has either 1,000,000 dollars or none. You can either take the closed box or both. But here is the catch. The guy placing these boxes before you claims to be able to perfectly predict your choice. If he predicts you were going to take the closed box only he place 1,000,000 dollars in it. If he predicted you were going to take both, then he placed nothing in it. He has done this a 1000 times and has never been wrong. But as it is, the money has already been placed or no.
What do you do?
On the one hand, the evidence is fairly obvious that if you choose to take only the closed box you will get one million dollars, whereas if you take both boxes you get only a measly thousand. You'd be stupid to take both boxes.
On the other hand, at the time you make your decision, the closed box already is empty or else contains a million dollars. Either way, if you take both boxes you get a thousand dollars more than if you take the closed box only.
And no matter what the closed box contains, you are $1000 richer if you take both boxes than if you take the closed one only.
What is your answer? |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 7/23/2005 10:49 PM (GMT -6) | | Rev-
Before you spend one more minute on open theism or on dialoguing with your Catholic friends, take some time off (a few days or weekd, whatever you need) and find an answer to this question:
* Am I prepared to to affirm the truth as my conscience bears witness to it before God even if it means being cast out of the Catholic church as a heretic?
If you can't possibly conceive of taking a doctrinal position contrary to Catholic dogma, then hang this whole open theism up right now. Don't bother with it, except to confirm for yourself whether it does in fact contradict Catholic dogma, and that is not for just any of your Catholic friends to determine. It is an ecclesiastic matter for your leaders to consder and render a judgment on.
I suggest you completely drop out of dialogue with your Catholic friends on this until YOU figure out in your own head what the open view is, what it entails or doesn't entail, and whether you in fact find it to be biblically sound. Figure THAT our firist. If you do that, you'll have ready answers for your friends. Until then, you seem to just be running notes from confirmed open theists back to your friends and then back again to open theists. Take some time to wade through it yourself, slowly and patiently, outside of having to 'debate' it. That's much harder to do. Just an idea.
If believing God is a temporal being makes one a heretic, then there are far more non-Catholic heretics in the world than open theists, for many non-open view Protestants affirm that God is a temporal being. And remember, for an open theist to be called a heretic by a Catholic means absolutely nothing since ALL Protestants in fact are heretics in the view of the Catholic church. This may mean more for you as a Catholic, but hey, for us heretical Protestants, it matters little. Sorry.
Tom
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Tom
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| Posted 7/24/2005 4:58 PM (GMT -6) | | Rev: Protestants are not considered heretics in the way you are thinking...
Tom: I don't recall specifying the way in which I thought Rome considered protestants heretics. But go ahead and inlighten me. In what way does Rome consider me a heretic? In what way does it not consider me a heretic? I'm all ears.
Ecumenism means different things to different people. Some of the understandings available are a good thing. Some aren't. I don't know what you think it is, so I don't know if I can agree with you.
I'm very poorly familiar with the in's and out's of Ecumenism, but I do know that several scholars from my own denomination are heavily involved in traveling to Rome to dialogue with Catholic scholars (cf. the Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue). And I recall that at Vatican II, the Pontifical Council, speaking of dialogue with "separated brethren," said: "The results will be that, little by little, as the obstacles to perfect ecclesiastical communion are overcome, all Christians will be gathered, in a common celebration of the Eucharist, into the unity of the one and only Church." The "one and only Church" of course being the Roman Catholic Church. From the Catholic point of view, it seems that ecumenism amounts to talking with protestants with a view to gathering them back under the umbrella of Rome (not at all inviting from my point of view). From my perspecitve, there is one Church, one body of Christ, to which all true believers belong. But in my view some of those believers are not faithful Catholics and have in fact been anathematized by Rome.
But this is getting off point. All I encouraged you to do was to ask yourself whether or not you would be willing to follow the dictates of your conscience, before God, in embracing a doctrine which the Catholic church has declared heresy. If you're convinced open theism doesn't contradict Catholic dogma, cool. I'm happy for you. I think you ought to stay right where you are. But if it really does contradict Catholic dogma, what are you prepared to do?
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 7/25/2005 8:06 AM (GMT -6) | | Rev: if I find it does contridict catholic doctrine than i would put my autonomy aside and put faith in the church, work for a better understanding of what they teach.
Tom: Then you're only concern really is to find out whether or not open theism is in fact compatible with Catholic dogma. And if divine simplicity is Catholic dogma, then the answer to that is clear.
The answer seems clear to me, as well. What I'm terribly interested in is Rev's response. Rev, you'd continue to believe in ideas of absolute divine simplicity and "actus purus"...even after all your consideration of a temporal God that has an element of potentiality...because you'd want to continue putting faith in the Church's dogmas considering God?
This feels to me like those people who still hold to a literal 7 24 hour day creation of the universe...just cause their particular church tradition affirms it.
Maybe I'm just to American and too Protestant. I really don't get it. Help me understand how you'd do that.
Maybe that whole Galileo debacle has me hung up.
To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
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