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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 10/23/2003 8:48 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Originally posted by OrthodoxBerean
How do you know that the question was rhetorical?
You're the one implying it was rhetorical. You posted it as an example of God knowing where Adam was, yet asked the question. That's "rhetorical".
quote:
Second when God said, now I know if we can somehow take the quiestion "where are you" ni a non literal manner, however that may be why can't the same be done with this?
He commanded Abram to offer up his son. Explain a rhetorical command to me.
A rhetorical question doesn't have to be answered. Abram was required to follow God's command. The "now I know" was in response to Abram's obedience.
See they're different. One is just a question, "where are you?"
The other is a command, "offer up your son", followed by a conclusion, "NOW that you have offered up your son I have gained knowlege that you fear me". No obedience, no knowlege gain for God.
quote:
To say because it is not a rhetorical question does not seem to be enough. Why can't it be said that God was speaking to Abraham anthropomorphcially (spelling?)?
And you got that from what part of the verse?
"shelter you under his wings" is anthropomorphism because He doesn't really have wings.
"Offer up your son", "Now I know you fear me", how are these anthropomorphisms? God made us in a way He could communicate with us, why would He be so disingenuous towards Abram?
quote:
Why can't something appear, relative to God, as it is even though it is not? For example, God can appear as man even though when he did he was not. Could he not also appear to act sequentially when in reality he does not?
God doesn't act sequentially? Your proof?
See nowhere does God explain how his actions are logically different from ours. He may go beyond our logic, as calculus goes beyond simple math, but He won't contradict our logic. Acting out of sequence is a hugh violation of logic, the causal chain. How can we relate with a creature like that?
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/23/2003 9:39 AM (GMT -6) | | While I think that we were getting off of the main topic I willproceed to discuss this topic until someone helps me with my initial problem.
quote:
Originally posted by Laika
quote:
Originally posted by OrthodoxBerean
How do you know that the question was rhetorical?
You're the one implying it was rhetorical. You posted it as an example of God knowing where Adam was, yet asked the question. That's "rhetorical".
Yes, I did imply that I was simply wondering why you thought it was rhetorical as well. Why not literal as you took the other verse? You have not answered this.
quote:
He commanded Abram to offer up his son. Explain a rhetorical command to me.
A rhetorical question doesn't have to be answered. Abram was required to follow God's command. The "now I know" was in response to Abram's obedience.
See they're different. One is just a question, "where are you?"
The other is a command, "offer up your son", followed by a conclusion, "NOW that you have offered up your son I have gained knowlege that you fear me". No obedience, no knowlege gain for God.
Maybe my question wasn't clear. I am not sure why you are explaining to my why the command was not rhetorical when I never said it was. All I am wanting to know is how you justify the literalness of one verse and not the other. However it is nonliteral is not important to me just the justification for the swithing of methods.
quote:
And you got that from what part of the verse?
"shelter you under his wings" is anthropomorphism because He doesn't really have wings.
"Offer up your son", "Now I know you fear me", how are these anthropomorphisms? God made us in a way He could communicate with us, why would He be so disingenuous towards Abram?
Ummm, maybe we can define this term so we can see how it can be applied. Anthropomorphisicm is the attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.
Hence that would include attribution of human behavior (sequential knowledge) to God. Example, "shelter under his wings" and "now I know". Those both in principle while not in direct likeness can be considered to be anthropomorphic if this is not something that is proper to God's nature.
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God doesn't act sequentially? Your proof?
See nowhere does God explain how his actions are logically different from ours. He may go beyond our logic, as calculus goes beyond simple math, but He won't contradict our logic. Acting out of sequence is a hugh violation of logic, the causal chain. How can we relate with a creature like that?
My proof? It was a question. I was not making any dogmatic assertions. I was simply asking not asserting. I thought you were taking the role of the answerer.
How would God being timeless go against logic? Can you show me the violation. I think you are taking my questions as rhetorical or argumentative but they are not. I sincerly do not know. I am asking for information.
Sincerely, | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 10/23/2003 11:43 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by OrthodoxBerean
Yes, I did imply that I was simply wondering why you thought it was rhetorical as well. Why not literal as you took the other verse? You have not answered this.
Anthropomorphisicm is the attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.
"Where were you?" Is it literal or rhetorical? It doesn't matter, it doesn't damage God's character either way. Personally I think it was literal.
"Offer up your son." I believe this was literal, I haven't seen anything that resembles a rhetorical command.
"Now I know that you fear me." Said in response to Abram's obedience to the literal command "Offer up your son."
Now why would this be anthropomorphic? I don't see any "inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena" present to which "human motivation, characteristics, or behavior" are being attributed. Why do you think it's anthropomorphic? What in the text indicates that?
But you have a real problem with God's character if His test of Abram was not necessary. "Now I know" would be an outright lie. God knew, He just wanted to put Abram through the wringer? Abram was fully settled that he was going to kill his son.
quote:
How would God being timeless go against logic? Can you show me the violation. I think you are taking my questions as rhetorical or argumentative but they are not. I sincerly do not know. I am asking for information.
O.K. elementary logic says that a proposition cannot be TRUE and FALSE simultaneously. So A cannot be both TRUE and FALSE. A married man cannot be a bachelor.
So, if God lives in some "timeless", sequenceless, durationless state where every event occurs simultaneously to Him and every proposition is true to Him, eternally NOW, you've got logic violations.
Laika is a bachelor, TRUE. Laika is married, TRUE. God is blessing the Hebrew nation, God is cursing the Hebrew nation.
Jesus is eternally NOW hanging on the cross and separated from God due to His carrying the sin of the world and God not abiding in the presence of sin. Think about that, Jesus forever, eternally on the cross; "it is finished" evidently not true. Sin would never be gone from God's creation, sin would be eternally NOW existant.
God exists in His triune nature without any creation, TRUE AND God exists with His creation, TRUE. See the problem? A and not A. Square circles, married bachelors, jumbo shrimp.
In fact, creation would have to be co-eternal with God, backwards and forwards.
You're asking good questions, I just get frustrated at my inarticulousness.
Let me tell you a story. Many years ago, when the glaciers were retreating, I read J.I. Packer's "Knowing God". One thing stood out, he attributed descriptions of physical traits ascribed to God as anthropomorphisms. "arm", "hand", "finger", "wing", "eye", etc. Yet we know "God is spirit". Fine, O.K. by me.
Then Packer attributed descriptions of emotional traits ascribed to God as anthropopathisms. "love", "hate", "anger", "jealous", "compassion", etc. What? I rhetorically asked J.I. Packer, "then in WHAT image of God are we made?"
If God says, "I love you" what does this mean? If God says, "I hate sin", what does this mean? He doesn't REALLY love me? He doesn't REALLY hate sin? Since we are made in His image and it's NOT a physical image, what's left is our soul and emotions.
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 10/23/2003 8:15 PM (GMT -6) | | The context of Gen. 3 suggests Iconoclast is right. Nothing indicates that God was simply wondering where Adam and Eve were. Many other passages would suggest that an omniscient God would know where they were. But this is precisely what is lacking with regard to God's temporally indexed language, e.g. "now I know... SINCE you have not withheld" (Gen. 22). Nothing in the context suggest there's anything rhetorical here. e.g. God is not evoking any kind of behavior. God is simply reporting his perspective AFTER the fact. Moreover, many other passages confirm that God's knowledge of free choices are temporally indexed. e.g. He frequently tests people "to know." He speaks and thinks of the future in subjunctive terms ("perhaps," "if" "may"). He changes his mind. He is disappointed with outcomes and express suprise when the improbable occurs, etc...
Now, to Orthodox's original question: With TGB, I see the main problem not so much as landing on God's knowledge as on the eternal facticity of what he knows. IF God eternal knows x, x is an eternal fact, settled, unalterable (since, as Alan points out, God's knowledge is infallible). If x is a future choice in my life, then I cannot do other than x. If I cannot do other than x, I cannot choose between x and not x. If I cannot choose between x and not x, I am not free to choose x or not x.
It matters not HOW God knows x (though pointing out the impossibility of answering this question -- save by appealing to predestination, as Aquinas and Calvin do -- helps confirm the incompatibility of exhaustive definite foreknowledge and free will). If x is eternally SETTLED, UNALTERABLE, FACT... it cannot be otherwise, and we cannot be free with regard to it.
In sum, if the future exhaustively settled -- whether God knows it or not (though of course, being omniscient, he would know it) -- there is no freedom to choose it over and against anything else. Hence, we are not free. This is the core philosophical reason why open theists argue that the future must be "open" to the extent that we ARE free.
Blessings
Doc
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/24/2003 8:18 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
Now, to Orthodox's original question: With TGB, I see the main problem not so much as landing on God's knowledge as on the eternal facticity of what he knows. IF God eternal knows x, x is an eternal fact, settled, unalterable (since, as Alan points out, God's knowledge is infallible). If x is a future choice in my life, then I cannot do other than x. If I cannot do other than x, I cannot choose between x and not x. If I cannot choose between x and not x, I am not free to choose x or not x.
It matters not HOW God knows x (though pointing out the impossibility of answering this question -- save by appealing to predestination, as Aquinas and Calvin do -- helps confirm the incompatibility of exhaustive definite foreknowledge and free will). If x is eternally SETTLED, UNALTERABLE, FACT... it cannot be otherwise, and we cannot be free with regard to it.
In sum, if the future exhaustively settled -- whether God knows it or not (though of course, being omniscient, he would know it) -- there is no freedom to choose it over and against anything else. Hence, we are not free. This is the core philosophical reason why open theists argue that the future must be "open" to the extent that we ARE free.
Blessings
Doc
Doc, I am still not seeing the connection. If God knows what I am going to do it is a result of me going the all the possibilities "in his kowledge" and making that choice. When I hear, "I cannot do otherwise" I say to myself, It is not whether I can or cannot do X, it is that I did not do otherwise, for if I did God would have known that and not what I "would have have done". If God knows all that he would ONLY know, so it seems to me, he does not know what I "wouldn't do". See what I am saying. I am not seeing the logical connection between
God knows what I will do
Therefore I cannot do otherwise
What I wold do otherwise would be exactlly what God knew I would do since he only knows all that I will do and not what I would have done. | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 10/24/2003 8:54 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
If God knows what I am going to do it is a result of me going the all the possibilities "in his kowledge" and making that choice. When I hear, "I cannot do otherwise" I say to myself, It is not whether I can or cannot do X, it is that I did not do otherwise, for if I did God would have known that and not what I "would have have done". If God knows all that he would ONLY know, so it seems to me, he does not know what I "wouldn't do". See what I am saying. I am not seeing the logical connection between
God knows what I will do
Therefore I cannot do otherwise
What I wold do otherwise would be exactlly what God knew I would do since he only knows all that I will do and not what I would have done.
Look at it this way, OB. God's knowledge of your choices is either (a) logically prior, (b) logically posterior, or (c) logically coincident with your choices.
(a) If his knowledge is logically prior, then your choices cannot be free because their truth value is already settled before you make your choice--hence your choice can't make it the case that God would have known otherwise if you had done otherwise.
(b) If God's knowledge of your choices is, as your suggest, a result of your choices, then yes God's knowledge is not incompatible with your free will. But in that case God does not have fore-knowledge of your choices because it is the result of your decisions and is therefore logically posterior to those decisions. In other words, God does not know what you "will choose", but only what you "have chosen".
(c) Finally, if God's knowledge is somehow neither logically prior nor logically posterior to your choices but logically coincident with them, then free will is possible, but then God's knowing what you will choose would be, strictly speaking, coincidental. If God gets it right it's only because he made a lucky guess. But it would not be right to call this "knowledge" on God's part--lucky guesses aren't knowledge.
In sum, there seems to be no coherent way to cash out the idea that God knows what we will freely choose. If he knows it then it's either (a) not free, or (b) free, but not future from God's perspective, and thus not knowledge of what we will choose, or (c) not knowledge at all.
Make sense?
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/24/2003 11:34 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Alan Rhoda
quote:
If God knows what I am going to do it is a result of me going the all the possibilities "in his kowledge" and making that choice. When I hear, "I cannot do otherwise" I say to myself, It is not whether I can or cannot do X, it is that I did not do otherwise, for if I did God would have known that and not what I "would have have done". If God knows all that he would ONLY know, so it seems to me, he does not know what I "wouldn't do". See what I am saying. I am not seeing the logical connection between
God knows what I will do
Therefore I cannot do otherwise
What I wold do otherwise would be exactlly what God knew I would do since he only knows all that I will do and not what I would have done.
Look at it this way, OB. God's knowledge of your choices is either (a) logically prior, (b) logically posterior, or (c) logically coincident with your choices.
(a) If his knowledge is logically prior, then your choices cannot be free because their truth value is already settled before you make your choice--hence your choice can't make it the case that God would have known otherwise if you had done otherwise.
(b) If God's knowledge of your choices is, as your suggest, a result of your choices, then yes God's knowledge is not incompatible with your free will. But in that case God does not have fore-knowledge of your choices because it is the result of your decisions and is therefore logically posterior to those decisions. In other words, God does not know what you "will choose", but only what you "have chosen".
(c) Finally, if God's knowledge is somehow neither logically prior nor logically posterior to your choices but logically coincident with them, then free will is possible, but then God's knowing what you will choose would be, strictly speaking, coincidental. If God gets it right it's only because he made a lucky guess. But it would not be right to call this "knowledge" on God's part--lucky guesses aren't knowledge.
In sum, there seems to be no coherent way to cash out the idea that God knows what we will freely choose. If he knows it then it's either (a) not free, or (b) free, but not future from God's perspective, and thus not knowledge of what we will choose, or (c) not knowledge at all.
Make sense?
Alan
Yes, that made perfect sense! Thanks that helped out tremendously. It will give me something to chew on this weekend. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/25/2003 3:14 AM (GMT -6) | | OB: I am not seeing the logical connection between:
God knows what I will do
Therefore I cannot do otherwise
Tom: Another way to see the connection between God's knowledge of our choices and the freedom of those choices is to point of that freedom to other than X would mean the power to bring it about that God does not know that I will do X. If God infallibly knows that I will do X, I do NOT have it in my power to bring it about that God is wrong in his knowledge, nor can I bring it about that God does not know that I will do X. If I don't have that power, then I'm not equally free to do X and not not X. See the connection between God's knowledge and our freedom a bit better now?
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 10/25/2003 11:31 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
OrthodoxBerean:
I am not seeing the logical connection between
God knows what I will do
Therefore I cannot do otherwise
I hear you, but what about this . . .
I can do otherwise.
Therefore, God cannot know what I will do.
JET | | Back to Top | | |
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