I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to post this for over an hour. Sheesh!

Dragon Chaser: To me this is silly, using liner logic to explain the nature of God when truth is often too abstract or unwieldy when applied to statements about the world, let alone the true nature of God.

Tom: I want to respond to this at the very end…

I appreciate the logic lesson, Chaser. By the way, it’s not cool to quote a source (at all, much less at length) and not recognize your source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_logic.

But I don’t see anything in the wikipedia article that amounts to an example of a self-contradictory proposition which is in fact true. A self-contradictory proposition is a proposition that affirms what it denies and denies what it affirms. Again, are you sure you want to say this?

Wikipedia: To give an example, from propositions A, and A à B one may conclude A ^ B.

Tom: This assumes a discrete A and B that are distinct from one another and a view of entailment that allows B to follow from A while A and B both persevere. But as the example you quote without naming shows, in some cases it doesn’t follow from “A” and “If A then B” that “A and B.” A tree follows from a seed that falls to the ground, but the seed doesn’t endure as a seed. It’s transformed. Butter may follow from milk’s heating and churning, but milk will not survive the churning process. These changes involve the transformation of A into B. So the mathematical formula “A, if A then B, therefore A and B” follows for SOME A and B (discrete A’s and B’s that are ADDED to one another) but not for ALL A and B. Once this is recognized, all is well.

Wikipedia: However, truth is often too abstract or unwieldy when applied to statements about the world. For example, suppose I have a quart of milk from which I can make a pound of butter. If I decide to make butter out of all of my milk, I cannot then conclude that I have both milk and butter! Yet, the logical schema outlined above lets me conclude that milk, milk ⊃ butter ⊢ milk ∧ butter…

Tom: The schema doesn’t require you to conclude “milk and butter” since there are determining factors that the supposed “A, if A then B, therefore A and B” excludes. So “A, if A then B, therefore A and B” is not true for all A and B. Depending on what A and B are, the theorem may be true or false. But in any event, coming up with an A and a B (milk and butter) for which “A, if A then B, therefore A and B” is not true doesn’t prove what you claim is the case with God, namely, that God knows contradictory claims.

Look, there’s nothing difficult about how truth-value is behaving here. It’s plainly false that “IF milk THEN butter” simpliciter. Not all milk turns into butter. Butter doesn’t follow necessarily from milk. Butter follows when you do certain things TO milk, things that transform milk into butter. You have to remove only the cream from whole milk, sour the cream, heat the cream, churn the cream, then remove the buttermilk from the butter (I think that’s the process). We’ll call this process C done to milk. What’s true is:

(B) If C is done to milk, then milk is changed into butter.

THAT is a true proposition. The contradictory of (B) is ~(B), or

~(B) It’s not the case that if C is done to milk, then milk is changed into butter.

What you claim is that God believes contradictory claims, that is, God believes both (B) and ~(B) are true.

Are you sure you want to say this?

Wikipedia: The failure of ordinary logic to accurately model this activity is due to the nature of milk, butter, and resources in general.

Tom: If by “failure of ordinary logic” you mean the assumption that “A, if A then B, therefore A and B” holds for all A and B, then you’re right. But why believe “A, if A then B, therefore A and B” holds for all A and B? If one doesn't assume the theory holds for all A and B, there’s no failure of ordinary logic to model the churning process.

Wikipedia: The accurate statement about my butter making activity is: From a quart of milk and a process to convert a quart of milk into a pound of butter, I obtain a pound of butter.

Tom Now you’re talking. Milk is transformed into butter.

Wikipedia: In linear logic this is written…using different connectives…and a different notion of logical entailment.

Tom: It’s not so difficult, Chaser. “IF cream is heated and churned THEN it separates into buttermilk and butter.” Notate it however you like, you get a perfectly logical claim that’s either true or not, and for which the rule of non-contradiction holds.

Truth may be unwieldy at times, but not so much as to be logically equivalent to its contradiction. If we need to develop a logic that account for the sort of transformation that milk undergoes in becoming butter, that’s cool. Let it be done. But nothing about it requires a denial of the laws of identity and non-contradiction or an affirmation of contradictory claims.

Let me finish by responding to your opening comment: “To me this is silly, using liner logic to explain the nature of God when truth is often too abstract or unwieldy when applied to statements about the world, let alone the true nature of God.”

I’ve never claimed that the God cannot have properties that follow from other properties in the transformational sense, like milk and butter. I think God does have contingent properties that give way to other contingent properties in the transformational sense. But none of this establishes your claims that a) God believes in contradictory claims, and that b) unless God is believed to know such contradictory claims he can’t be believed to know anything at all.

Gotta go butter my toast!

Tom

Meph:

--God knows every conscious, subconscious, and unconscious belief and motivation of every human being at all times.

--God knows every event that has ever happened to every human being that exists following conception.

--God knows how all the actions of every human being affects every other human being in the past and present.

--God has ideas about the potential existence of every person before they came into existence.

I don't think that we fully understand how much predictive power this would give God. God would put our best psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists to utter shame!

Jeff:  Absolutely!!  HOWEVER, humans have predictive power, but that does not imply perfect foreknowledge of contingencies, independent of experience.  Nor do humans have MUCH predictive power without actually OBSERVING (IN TIME!!) what significant numbers of humans actually DO in the course of life.  Nor does such a POWER imply eternal, attribute knowledge of the kind that Tom and Doc posit.  I have YET to see anyone on this board even ATTEMPT to prove that, philosophically or biblically.  Is it supposed to be self-evident, like causality?

An engineer can design a car, understanding quite well the reasons for every decision made in it's particular specifications, based on the car's INTENDED use.  That, however, gives the engineer NO insight, whatsoever, into how the car will ACTUALLY be used.  A movie producer can come along and drop a boulder on it in an action scene for reasons of his own.  But that doesn't in any way imply that the engineer was STUPID.

Likewise, God could have designed the human psyche perfectly for it's INTENDED function, being oblivious to the possibility of said psyche degenerating after the Fall to the point of becoming a necrophile.  Genesis doesn't indicate to me that Satan was already evil at the time of creation.  Parsimoniously, I would assume that Satan (as one of the hosts of heaven), as well as Adam and Eve, were created in an unfallen state, and that, quite improbably, Satan fell and took Adam and Eve with him. 

Hence, some of the more dispicable consequences, thereafter, could have been unforeseen by God in the EXACT same way that I wouldn't have thought of necrophilacs apart from their EXISTENCE.  Not because of any STUPIDITY on my part (not that I'm NOT stupid, but for sake of argument, etc...), but because of the telelogical nature of my intelligence, GIVEN the sensibilities which regulate the RANGE of it's imagination.  HOW can I know that God is not analogous?  Do we REALLY want to say that our inability to associate the ideas of "intimate" acts and dead bodies is due MERELY to SHEER STUPIDITY??

AFTER observation of the degenerative process of the human psyche for a period of time, there is NO DOUBT that God could have (indeed HAS) become the ABNORMAL pshycologist, extraodinaire--precisley BECAUSE of all your points above!!  But observation CAN be the explanation of that predictive power just as conceivably as attribute-knowledge. 

Even according to those scientists that deny scripture (per authorial intent, at least), humans (and, hence, angels, per my view) have been around for MILLIONS of years before scripture was written.  Isn't that enough time for God to have become MIND-BOGGLINGLY predictive?  INDEED, isn't that enough time for even ANGELS (who are NOT omniscient!!!!) to have become MIND-BOGGLINGLY predictive?

I realize that you don't accept the Genesis account.  Perhaps Tom doesn't either.  However, I'm arguing for the coherence of Gen 1-6 on the assumption of authorial intent.  On THOSE GROUNDS ALONE do I think my view of Gen 6 can be sustained. IF, INDEED, Gen 1-6 is non-historical, and God planted man in a world full of natural and moral evil, I concede that we should quit worrying about making sense of texts.

I would STILL, however, like to see a philosophical proof of the supposed eternal, attribute-omniscience of God.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 9/3/2005 12:54:46 PM (GMT-5)

Mephi: Can YOU think of anything?

Tom: Sure. Anytime what was unexpected occurs. Jer. 3. Do you want to build group dynamics and such into such a determinative force that individuals in effect don't exercise libertarian freedom? OK, then. So there are objective probabilities to libertarian events. If probabilities, the improbabilities.

Tom

Jeff: I would STILL, however, like to see a philosophical proof of the supposed eternal, attribute-omniscience of God.

P1: It is the case that with regard to any actual event S, it was true at all points in time prior to S’s occurrence that S ‘might’ occur. [Digression: This is undenialbe. Before something happens, it has to be possible that it happen. And the possibility is eternal. If you want to deny P1 by supposing that some possibilies 'come into existence' then THAT has to be possible as well. So there's no way to deny P1 without involving one's self in an infinite regress. For whatever happens, it's eternally the case that it 'might' happen.]

P2: Propositions positing what is true are grounded in what is real (or in objective reality--corresopndence theory of truth).

P3: God is temporally eternal (let's assume this for the moment, OK?).

P4: Before the creation of the universe God was all the reality there was.

P5: Therefore, at all points in time prior to creation God was the grounds for whatever was true about the future (which per P1 includes truths positing the possibilities of all the actual events that have ever occured in the world).

P6: God knows himself perfectly and infallibly (including all his own relations).

P7: Truth grounding is a relation.

P8: Therefore, God knows what truths he grounds.

P9: Therefore, prior to the creation of the universe God knew all future possibilities regarding the world he created (because his existence grounds those possibilies and because in knowing himsel infallibly he knows all his relations, including what truths he stands in relation to).

It’s just a try off the top of my head. Probably needs work, but the answer is in this direction. Basically I get God's knowing all truths at all points in time prior to creation by assuming God knows himself infallibly (which is a safe assumption I should tink). So as the truth grounds for all that's true prior to creation, God would know what's true prior to creation by simply knowing himself. I think a version of it could be worked out if an open theist wanted to agree with Craig that God is atemporal sans creation.

Basically the vulnerable points are P2 (correspondence), P5 (God as the truth grounds for all truths where nothing else but God exists), and/or P6 (God knows himself and his own relations infallibly). If there are truths about future possibilites prior to creation, they must be true by virtue of God's own nature and existence. But if God is ignorant of these truths, then it appears to follow that God doesn't know himself perfectly. He grounds truths, stands in relation to them as their grounds, but is ignorant of these truths. Not good news I should think.

Mephi, do you basically agree here? If so, are you uncomfortable with the idea that God is the grounds for the possibility of evil? Does that land us in metaphysical dualism? I don't think so. What d'ya think?

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 9/3/2005 1:34:42 PM (GMT-5)

Tom:  Basically I get God's knowing all truths at all points in time prior to creation by assuming God knows himself infallibly (which is a safe assumption I should tink).

Jeff:  OK.  But what does it mean to say it is a "safe" assumption.  Does "safe" mean it's grounded in something intuitive or highly plausible?  If so, what?

Tom:  Basically the vulnerable points are P2 (correspondence), P5 (God as the truth grounds for all truths where nothing else but God exists), and/or P6 (God knows himself and his own relations infallibly).

Jeff:  Agreed.  P6 seems to be asserting that God cannot repent.  But that is the very question at hand.  I can't see how I can rule out the possibility that God could be oblivious to the contingency of necrophiliacs (until some sufficient ground of inference existed) for the same reason I was once.  It is simply based upon the way one's sensibilities regulate a person's imagination.  There is NO doubt that evil minds imagine things completely foreign to a benevolent mind.  How, in other words, can I KNOW that God doesn't imagine IN TIME?

There is also the other question of timing.  If God KNOWS all things about Himself, does He deduce (i.e., IN TIME) all the relations from that self-knowledge, or are all the relations simply known eternally, like His self-knowledge.  If the latter, we're just asserting attribute knowledge, it seems--not proving it.  If the former, how could we prove WHEN He deduced all the relations?

Tom:   If there are truths about future possibilites prior to creation, they must be true by virtue of God's own nature and existence.

Jeff:  Granted.  Just like there are truths about future possibilities due to my own nature.  But they're true independent of my knowing them.

Tom: But if God is ignorant of these truths, then it appears to follow that God doesn't know himself perfectly.

Jeff:  ...or all the implied relations.  Agreed.  But in one sense, one could say that Christ, prior to creation, grounded in some ways the possibilites of this creation.  Yet he was ignorant of all those relations during the incarnation, and, for all I know, prior to creation, also.  Grounding doesn't necessitate knowing.

Tom:  He grounds truths, stands in relation to them as their grounds, but is ignorant of these truths. Not good news I should think.

Jeff:  Well, we live in a war zone.  That's not good news.  The good news is that God is powerful enough to do something about it, WHETHER or NOT He knew of all of it prior to creation.  How does God's KNOWING (prior to creation) of all the bad news in anyway change things?  The bad news has arrived, regardless.  And per Genesis, it would be a LOT worse had God not intervened with POWER.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 9/3/2005 2:39:19 PM (GMT-5)

Tom:  Basically I get God's knowing all truths at all points in time prior to creation by assuming God knows himself infallibly (which is a safe assumption I should tink).

Jeff:  OK.  But what does it mean to say it is a "safe" assumption.  Does "safe" mean it's grounded in something intuitive or highly plausible?  If so, what?

Tom: Knowing what’s true isn’t safe or unsafe. Whether God chooses to create a world that faces possibilities a-z is, I assume, based in part on what sort of goals and purposes God has in creating. Just how he goes about determining whether the possibilities of a particular world are acceptable or safe risks or not is a separate issue. For now the question is purely one of knowing or not knowing (as opposed to judging or not judging which possible world is best to create).

Jeff:  P6 seems to be asserting that God cannot repent. But that is the very question at hand. I can't see how I can rule out the possibility that God could be oblivious to the contingency of necrophiliacs (until some sufficient ground of inference existed) for the same reason I was once.

Tom: But you’re not THE grounds for truths posting the future possibility of necrophiliacs. You can happen upon the truths that posit this possibility because they’re grounded in states of affairs OTHER than your own existence and nature. But in the pre-creation state where God is the ONLY available truth grounds for truths that we are forced to admit do in fact exist, we can’t suppose they’re grounded in anything other than God himself.

Secondly, it’s true that you can be the grounds for truths of which you’re ignorant. But that’s because you don’t know yourself and your relations infallibly, perfectly. Do you want to say God knows himself fallibly, that God can stand in relation to truths for which God is the grounds but of which he is ignorant?

Jeff: How, in other words, can I KNOW that God doesn't imagine IN TIME?

Tom: By the logic of the argument I shared. If God thinks some thought in time, it follows necessarily that it’s possible that God think the thought in question, in which case it was true before God thought it that “God might think thought S.” And this possibility obtains at all points in time prior to God’s thinking S. So “God might think thought S” was true before God created, when God himself can be the only grounds for this truth. But if God’s existence and nature alone ground this truth, and God knows himself fully and infallibly, God knows that "I [God] might think thought S.”

Jeff: There is also the other question of timing.  If God KNOWS all things about Himself, does He deduce (i.e., IN TIME) all the relations from that self-knowledge…

Tom: I don’t know that God would need to ‘deduce’ them at all. It’s simply a matter of knowing himself directly. But the point is, if God doesn’t (pre-creation) know all future possibilities then he doesn’t know all things about himself, since what truths he grounds is a thing about himself, not something other than himself.

Jeff: If the latter, we're just asserting attribute knowledge, it seems--not proving it. If the former, how could we prove WHEN He deduced all the relations?

Tom: If the latter, and God fails at any time to deduce truths he eternally grounds, then he doesn’t know himself fully. If the former, then the argument I’m sharing is the proof. Again:

Necessarily, for any actual event S, it’s the case at all times prior to S that “S might happen” is true. Necessarily, truths are grounded in reality. God existed prior to creation, at which time truths positing all future possibilities were grounded in God’s own existence and nature. God knows his own existence and nature infallibly. Therefore, God knows all truths that are true by virtue of his own existence and nature, including truths describing future possibilities prior to creation.

If that doesn't do it for ya, bro, it can't be done for ya!

Jeff:  Granted. Just like there are truths about future possibilities due to my own nature.  But they're true independent of my knowing them.

Tom: And the truths that God grounds pre-creation (where God is the only one around to ground anything) would also be true (let’s assume) independent of God’s knowing them. I’m not saying they wouldn’t be. But then as I said above; your not knowing some truth YOU ground is due precisely to your not knowing YOURSELF fully and infallibly. But we’re assuming God DOES know himself better than you know yourself. We’re assuming God knows his own existence and nature perfectly, infallibly, in which case there’s no explanation for God’s NOT knowing the truths which his existence and nature ground.

Tom: But if God is ignorant of these truths, then it appears to follow that God doesn't know himself perfectly.

Jeff:  ...or all the implied relations. 

Tom: The relations aren’t implications. They simply obtain in God by nature. There’s nothing pre-creation but God. So why only “implies”?

Jeff: But in one sense, one could say that Christ, prior to creation, grounded in some ways the possibilites of this creation. Yet he was ignorant of all those relations during the incarnation, and, for all I know, prior to creation, also. Grounding doesn't necessitate knowing.

Tom: He's on the ropes folks! Somebody throw Jeff a life-preserver! Why would you assume this? Are you assuming that whatever is true of the incarante Christ was true of God eternally?

In any event, I’m not claiming that grounding necessitates knowing. I’m claiming that

a) my being the SOLE ground of truth S,

and

b) my knowing myself fully and infallibly, necessitates

c) my knowing S.

You’re agreeing S is true eternally and that God is the only reality that exists pre-creation. So to deny that God necessarily knows S you have to deny either a) that God’s existence and nature ground truth S, or (if you concede (a)) that b) God doesn’t know his own existence and nature fully and infallibly. Which is it gonna be cowboy? The sun's a settin' and I’ma tiyad stayindin' hiya on Main Street waitin fur ya to draw.

Jeff:  Well, we live in a war zone. That's not good news. The good news is that God is powerful enough to do something about it, WHETHER or NOT He knew of all of it prior to creation.

Tom: This is one thing I’m uncomfortable with about your view. You have to appeal to sheer brute force.

Jeff: How does God's KNOWING (prior to creation) of all the bad news in anyway change things?

Tom: I’ll let Mephi answer that! But it's beside the point really. You asked for a logical/philosophical proof for the claim that God eternally knows all truths positing future possibilities.

So, Jeff, which is it for you?

(1) God knows himself fully and completely but is not the pre-creational grounds for truths positing possible world contingencies (in which case there is some other eternal entity besides God that does ground these truths and of which God is ignorant OR these truths aren't grounded in anything; they're just a metaphysical surd of which God is also ignorant)? or

(2) God's existence and nature DO ground the truths positing possible world contingencies but God doesn't know his own existence and nature fully and infallibly?

You already agreed that God alone grounds all truths about futue possible worlds. So that leaves you with (2)--God doesn't know his own existence and nature fully and infallibly? If not, what?

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 9/3/2005 5:11:00 PM (GMT-5)

DC: My argument goes this way. You say that God is omniscient and He is also perfectly good - Holy. Those are in contradiction.

Tom: Why?

DC: Why?

Tom: Yeah, why?

DC: Because omniscient means He is able to know anything…

Tom: Where did you learn that? It’s not true. Some people believe falsehoods. Some people think men never walked on the moon. That is, after all, something a person can believe. Can God believe men never walked on the moon?  Well, no, God doesn’t know falsehoods. God doesn’t know that I’m a girl, for example. Omniscience means God knows what’s true.

DC: …which would include being able to know immoral things.

Tom: Why?

DC: Why?

Tom: Yeah, why?

DC: …a perfectly good creator would not be able to do so, and so Christians are essentially saying that God is able to know immoral things but He is not able to do immoral things at the same time. This is a violation of the Law of Non- contradiction. If God is not self- contradictory than God can only know good and do good. Therefore God is not this holy being of the bible that can only be good. He may be all knowing but only knows good because he is Holy. If this is the case, Satan is greater than God because he can know and do good and evil. The Bible in itself is self-contradictory because the god of the Bible commits evil all the time, for instance killing Canaanite children, but retains his holy status. How can you truthfully say that a God who is totally good is more than a god who is capable of doing evil, even though the one who is capable of doing evil, in a sense, can do things that the totally moral God can't do.

Tom: Somebody pour me a stiff drink! DC, I know immoral things without being implicated in the morality of what’s know. So do you. I know Hitler killed six million Jews. I know specific crimes too. I know that ____ sold drugs. How does knowing these “truths” implicate me in the immorality they describe? It doesn’t. Propositional knowledge is amoral. Knowing that sin X is being committed by Suzy doesn’t transfer the immorality of Suzy’s action to the knower. It just isn’t so. And if you’d drop this false assumption about knowledge I think you’ll be better off.

Your comments about God killing Canaanite children and Satan doing ‘good’ are beside the point (they have to do with theodicy). I’m not saying they’re not important. They are. They’re just not important to what it means to be omniscient, to know the truth value of all propositions. That’s all. And there’s nothing evil or good in and of itself about apprehending the truth value of a proposition.

Tom

Tom: I don’t know that God would need to ‘deduce’ them at all. It’s simply a matter of knowing himself.

Jeff: But it seems that your conceding my point. If, by the phrase "simply a matter of," you mean that God's self-knowledge IS EQUIVALENT to knowing all future contingencies, then you are merely asserting the eternal, attribute view. You're not proving it. For you have not PROVED that God is infallibly knowledgeable of Himself.

Tom: So it looks like you agree that IF it’s the case that God knows his own nature infallibly THEN infinite intelligence is proven. And so you should. Granted, I’m ASSUMING God knows himself this well. I was assuming you would agree. If you believe God doesn’t know himself fully and infallibly, then my argument fails for you.

---------------

Jeff: Granted, He may be, but it doesn't seem self-evident to me.  For if God has a nature that accounts for His sensibilities…

Tom: Please, once again, tell me what sensibilities God has that require his ignorance of future possibilities? I’ve heard you mention his holiness and how incompatible it seems to you that God would have the knowledge of some future depraved act eating at his brain (so to speak). What other sensibilities are you thinking of Jeff?

---------------

Jeff: There are aspects of God's eternal existence that are beyond my comprehension. I only understand about Him what I can understand by analogy, to some degree.

Tom: I haven’t suggested anything that isn’t rooted in human analogy and isn’t meaningful. So you must be doing MORE than JUST looking for understanding by analogy.

---------------

Jeff: And there is no analogy from other sentient beings that gives me insight into how one can know himself exhaustively, apart from experience. And since God is experiencing NEW things in this universe, I can't assume He has had every conceivable experience prior to this universe.

Tom: Knowing the truth value of a proposition positing the future possibility of my experiencing a car accident doesn't require my feeling what I’d feel actually being in a car accident. We’re just talking about possibilities, Jeff, not the actual experiences which might and might not occur. I never said infinite intelligence rules out God’s experiencing new things or claimed that God’s had every conceivable experience prior to creating.

----------------

Jeff:  But it is undeniable that He DOES exercise power. In fact, it is the "minimizing evil" view that requires WAY more ACTION, per se, than my view. I'm pretty much deriving my conjectures about God's exercise of power from scripture, alone. It WAS the power of God that brought about the Flood, wasn't it? Was it really mere foreknowledge? 

Tom: Quite right. But then I haven’t claimed that foreknowledge is how God brought about the Flood.

------------------

Jeff: How, on your view, do you think foreknowledge of contingencies, alone (independent of the intervention of power), brought about the Flood? Or the Exodous? Or the collapse of Jericho? Or the ressurection and ascension of Christ? Or signs and wonders? Or the sanctification of believers?  And so on....?

Tom: Again I don’t think “knowledge” accomplished these things. Obviously not. My concern is the role foreknowledge plays in avoiding undesired events and in bringing about what’s desired. Power can’t do that without knowledge. Power is just that. Power. It has to be intelligently exercised. The exercise of power I’m criticizing is that which would have been unacceptable had it been foreknown as possible, that which might have been easily avoided, say, had God capped human age at 120 years to begin with. If all God wants to do is clean up after us, then power is all he needs. Power can only be exercised in the present. So where the future is concerned, exercising power responsibly, lovingly, wisely, intelligently, requires knowledge of the future--what it might be, what it might not be, what the possibilities are and whether taking route A that's open to evil possibility S is better suited to God's purposes then route B that's open to evil possibility Z. God can't exercise power in those future possibilities, but he can act in powerful ways now with regard to those possibilies IF HE KNOWS THEM.

This is why 'what God foreknows' is important to me. If see good reason to suppose God knows himself infallibly (not an unintelligible concept) and so knew when he created all the possible trajectories which creating might take. Believing God to be perfectly loving and good, I have no analogous way (you'll like that!) of conceiving of his taking risks (exposing himself and the world to unacceptable possible worlds) that he might later truly regret. If God knows according to his sensibilties, and God is love (if that's not in doubt too!), then one might argue that God's loving sensabilities (his nature!) absolutely wouldn't move toward creation without evaluating every possibile consequence to see if it contributed or undermines the fulfilling of his loving purposes. Love would do that. A less than loving God might not do it. Hey, analogies work for me too! Power is there and it's exercised, yes. But God is love.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 9/3/2005 8:00:23 PM (GMT-5)

DC: That was a pretty good job of dodging the self-contradictory God issue.

Tom: That was a pretty bad job of dodging the conversation.

Post Edited (Dragon Chaser) : 9/3/2005 6:38:31 PM (GMT-5)

Jeff: Granted, He may be, but it doesn't seem self-evident to me.  For if God has a nature that accounts for His sensibilities…

Tom: Please, once again, tell me what sensibilities God has that require his ignorance of future possibilities? I’ve heard you mention his holiness and how incompatible it seems to you that God would have the knowledge of some future depraved act eating at his brain (so to speak). What other sensibilities are you thinking of Jeff?

Jeff:  What I was trying to say, there, is that in the same way that I have NATURAL sensibilities without having ANY idea how they "work" at the causal level, I don't assume that God MUST have an understanding of HOW and WHY He feels the way He does to HAVE a nature.  That's what I need explained to me, I guess, to understand the NEED to postulate God's exhaustive self-knowledge.  Maybe I'm still missing why you think God's exhaustive self-knowledge is necessary.  I'm not understanding what problem it solves.

Tom: Knowing the truth value of a proposition positing the future possibility of my experiencing a car accident does require my feeling what I’d feel actually being in a car accident. We’re just talking about possibilities, Jeff, not the actual experiences which might and might not occur. I never said infinite intelligence rules out God’s experiencing new things or claimed that God’s had every conceivable experience prior to creating.

Jeff:  What I'm saying is: I must have had an experience to even know about cars and accidents to even POSTULATE a contingency.  I have read of psychologists who believe that the animal mind, if it never died, would freely associate ideas FOREVER.  But that doesn't mean they could freely associate ANYTHING.  There are laws of association that constrain those possibilities.  Experience provides the raw material for association, memory, and, unltimately, reason in created beings. 

Granted, God MUST have some mental "materials" (like the ability to imagine color, e.g.), independent of experience, to even account for our finite universe (unless of course, things have existed independent of God all along for Him to experience).  So by postulating sufficient mental materials in the imaginative mind of God, I can account for the universe without positing eternal omniscience or exhaustive self-knowledge. 

This view may be wrong.  My only point is, it's conceivable.  Yours is conceivable, too.  So how do we prove which is true.  I would say we can't, so I go with parsimony.  It's the only rule I know to use to settle such questions.  Since my view most parsimoniously (I think, at least) accounts for the universe AND the passage in Genesis, I'm going with it for now.

Jeff: How, on your view, do you think foreknowledge of contingencies, alone (independent of the intervention of power), brought about the Flood? Or the Exodous? Or the collapse of Jericho? Or the ressurection and ascension of Christ? Or signs and wonders? Or the sanctification of believers?  And so on....?

Tom: Again I don’t think “knowledge” accomplished these things. Obviously not. My concern is the role foreknowledge plays in avoiding undesired events and in bringing about what’s desired. Power can’t do that without knowledge. Power is just that. Power. It has to be intelligently exercised. The exercise of power I’m criticizing is that which would have been unacceptable had it been foreknown as possible, that which might have been easily avoided, say, had God capped human age at 120 years to begin with. If all God wants to do is clean up after us, then power is all he needs. Power can only be exercised in the present. So where the future is concerned, exercising power responsibly, lovingly, wisely, intelligently, requires knowledge of the future--what it might be, what it might not be, what the possibilities are and whether taking route A that's open to evil possibility S is better suited to God's purposes then route B that's open to evil possibility Z. God can't exercise power in those future possibilities, but he can't act in powerful ways now with regard to those possibilies IF HE KNOWS THEM. 

Jeff:  OK.  Lets look at what I underlined in your response.  I think we can say that the only adjective that is really important there is "lovingly."  For love implies all the others for an intelligent being.   

My view only contends that God COULD NOT have foreknown the contingencies in question UNTIL a point in time where His experience INFORMED Him.  Remember, I'm basing it in His NATURE.  I'm claiming that His ignorance of necrophilia at the time of creation was EXACTLY analogous to our ignorance of it until we were told about it.  CLEARLY, we are capable, on a mere INTELLECTUAL level, of conceiving of necrophilia.  But it is the teleological NATURE of our intellect, given the constraints that our sensibilities impose on the laws of association, that keep us from imagining the possibility of necrophilia. 

IF, and I mean IF, God's intellect is analogously constrained by NATURE, it cannot be an act of irresponsibility on His part to have not seen the necrophilia coming ahead of time.  He could NOT have helped it since He was truly UNABLE to foreknow it until He was abruptly informed.  Hence, it had NOTHING to do with selfishness, irresponsibility, or anything like that.  My view can accomodate God's acting providentially as SOON as He knows enough to do so--which was probably not too terribly long after creation.   

Additionaly, I find it bizarre that I'm painted as the guy that views God as less than loving when I am in a small minority that believes that God created the original universe PERFECTLY benevolent, free from natural and moral evil.  How is the view of benevolence that posits God as planting man in a created order with natural and moral evil more benevolent than mine?  I've never understood that.

IF you can get me an explanation of the Genesis passage that seems plausible, I'll be less apt to even concern myself about which of our views about God's omniscience is true.  It really does get down to the Briggs-Meyer stuff more than we would like to admit!

Post Edited (jefscott) : 9/4/2005 11:09:22 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (jefscott) : 9/4/2005 1:55:22 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (TGB) : 9/4/2005 2:45:19 PM (GMT-5)

Where's Albert, the hebraist, when we need him??

Post Edited (jefscott) : 9/4/2005 3:54:28 PM (GMT-5)