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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 10/24/2003 9:32 AM (GMT -6) |   | The basic logic of open theism as I see it is this:
(1) If a choice is free, then reality must be partly open with respect to the outcome of that choice. (Libertarian Free Will)
(2) If reality is partly open, then God must know it as such. (Divine Omniscience)
(3) Some of God's creatures have libertarian free will.
Therefore,
(4) God must know reality as partly open.
This argument is deductively valid. Premise (1) follows from the definition of libertarian free will. Premise (2) follows from the definition of divine omniscience. Premise (3) is an empirical fact. So the argument is not only valid but sound. What this means is that any denial of open theism must be either (a) deny libertarian free will, (b) deny divine omniscience, or (c) commit a logical fallacy.
The point I want to make is this. There are various non-open versions of free will theism, most notably simple foreknowledge and Molinism. These viewpoints accept libertarian free will. Therefore, according to the argument I have given they must logically reject divine omniscience or lapse into logical incoherence. The incoherence results in saying both that some of God's creatures have libertarian free will and that the future is not partly open, or both that the future is partly open and that God is omniscient yet does not know the future as partly open.
Ironically, open theism is the only form of free-will theism that can consistently affirm divine omniscience.
What think ye?
Alan
Do small things as if they were great, because of the majesty of Christ who does them in us and lives our life. Do great things as if they were small and easy, because of his almighty power.
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 10/24/2003 1:02 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Alan, could I have your permission to repost your argument on a website that I frequent? I think this would be good for some of my reformed friends to chew on.
Sure, Ochuk. If there are any interesting responses let me know. I suspect that many reformed believers will just deny libertarian free will in favor of compatibilism.
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 10/24/2003 2:26 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by DLW
Oh come on Alan, humor me?
Deductive conclusions are implied in their precepts and so your assumption/fact 3 is just a way of sneaking in a declaration that OVTheists/Molinists/SimpleForknowledgists are right, and Calvinists aren't.
I'm not sneaking anything in, DLW. I stated quite frankly in the title of this thread that I am raising a problem for "non-open free-will theisms", i.e., positions that take premise (3) for granted. Calvinism is not the issue here. Furthermore, I explicitly pointed out that one way of avoiding the conclusion is to reject premise (3). Calvinists, presumably, will do this, but so what? I didn't defend the premise because I'm posing a problem for free-will theists, who accept it by definition. You are correct that the argument begs the question against Calvinism, but that observation is irrelevant because Calvinism wasn't my target.
Thanks for the feedback.
Alan
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rossfadeinout
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428
| Posted 10/25/2003 4:49 AM (GMT -6) | | DLW,
quote:
I'm still not sure that the practical, ecclesiastical consequences of proving that somethings are open for God will be that great. Okay, petitionary prayer matters. But, one does not need to have an open-view of theology to inculcate the importance of that into one's believers.
This may be true, but I think that Alan, Doc, and others on this board are refining arguments to show the Theistic academic community that Open Theism is NOT the heretical and logically incoherent position that it is caricatured to be by its opponents. And this, in my opinion, IS very important.
Thanks,
Ross
"Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite." -Thomas Reid | | Back to Top | | |
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Ochuk
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 102
| Posted 10/27/2003 11:11 AM (GMT -6) | | Ok, the crticisms are in!
Detractor 1: I'm in agreement. If the Bible teaches libertarian free will, open theism is either affirmed or inerrancy is denied.
Fortunately, the Bible doesn't teach libertarianism, so it's a moot point, but I do believe that OT is the only logically coherent view of Arminianism.
Detractor 2: Yes, I agree that it does depend upon premise one. However, not regarding the "if" statement, but the "then" statement. I believe that conclusion is quite unnecessary and unprovable. I believe choices are free, but I do not believe the result and conclusion is the same as stated. This is analogous to, "If God is love, then He cannot hate." That simply is not true. It is true God is love, but it is not true that it is exclusive of his hate. The same is true with the conclusion of premise one.
Detractor 3: I also think his conclusion of Molinism, or his critique, is quite invalid, especially regarding counter-factual knowledge, of which the OV god does not take account.
Question 1: Now, one must ask where one's definition of free is derived.
********************
I think you guys have covered that whole counter-factual thing. But other than that, premise one is the battle.
Read my blog at ochuk.gizzar.com | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 10/27/2003 2:26 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc: Many have tried to argue that "freedom to do x" does not entail "power to not do x."
Alan: Isn't that just a rejection of libertarian free will, or am I missing something?
Doc: Many argue that we have the power to "bring about" the truthfulness of God's belief that we will do x, and that this "power" isn't falsified by our inability to falsify God's belief (because it's infallible). Along these lines, some make a distinction between the "hard" and "soft" facts of history. God's past beliefs about our future actions are "soft."
Alan: Hmmm. I hadn't considered this kind of reply. Thanks for pointing it out to me, Doc. I have a couple questions about it. First, doesn't this entail backward causation? Since on this view God's beliefs about what we will do are true prior to our existing, then it seems that we can "bring about" their truth only if something like backward causation is true. That's a highly counterintuitive idea. Second, what exactly is the hard/soft fact distinction? I looked it up in the glossary of Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views and they gave two different definitions for each. Thus:
(H1) A hard fact is a fact that has been settled or determined by the course of events.
(H2) A hard fact is a fact that is genuinely and strictly about the past.
(S1) A soft fact is a fact that has not been settled or determined by the course of events.
(S2) A soft fact is a fact that is either not genuinely or not strictly about the past.
Now why can't a fact be determined by the course of events (H1) and not be genuinely or strictly about the past (S2)? Any fact about the future that follows deterministically from past causes would be an example of this. It seems to me that the important distinction is whether a fact has been settled by the the course of events or not, in which case a fact does not become "soft" merely because it pertains to the future.
Appreciate any further feedback you have to offer.
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 10/27/2003 2:40 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for posting those comments from the other board, Ochuk.
Detractor 1: I'm in agreement. If the Bible teaches libertarian free will, open theism is either affirmed or inerrancy is denied. Fortunately, the Bible doesn't teach libertarianism, so it's a moot point, but I do believe that OT is the only logically coherent view of Arminianism.
Alan: This response makes sense to me. It's the kind of response that I anticipated a Calvinist would make, namely, deny libertarian free will.
Detractor 2: Yes, I agree that it does depend upon premise one. However, not regarding the "if" statement, but the "then" statement. I believe that conclusion is quite unnecessary and unprovable. I believe choices are free, but I do not believe the result and conclusion is the same as stated. This is analogous to, "If God is love, then He cannot hate." That simply is not true. It is true God is love, but it is not true that it is exclusive of his hate. The same is true with the conclusion of premise one.
Alan: Detractor 2's comments are hard to decipher. He seems to be offering a counterexample to premise (1) in the presumably false claim that "If God is love, then He cannot hate." That may indeed be false, but I frankly do not see how it counts against the premise (1) of my argument. He seems to be raising a different issue entirely and not seriously engaging with my argument.
Detractor 3: I also think his conclusion of Molinism, or his critique, is quite invalid, especially regarding counter-factual knowledge, of which the OV god does not take account.
Alan: Again, this doesn't seriously engage with my argument. He doesn't show how the argument is invalid, nor does he offer reasons to think that any of the premises are false. And his claim about open theism not taking into account counterfactual knowledge is simply false.
Thanks, Ochuk.
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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