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Robert Furney
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 24

Posted 11/6/2003 10:39 AM (GMT -6)

I have just finished Erickson's What Does God Know and When Does He Know It? What kind of rebuttal may we expect from you Mr. Boyd, and where can we read of it? He is weak in his arguments concerning immutability but does draw up good questions and very specific and detailed prophecies like Peter's denial. Even though I am an open theist I have always felt the typical answers given thus far have not been totally satisfactory. I see predictive prophecy as the most serious threat to open theism. Nevertheless this doesn't change my mind about being an open theist.

What do you think of Erickson's book?

honorman
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137

Posted 11/6/2003 12:06 PM (GMT -6)

Robert: I have just purchased the book. I will offer my thoughts when I am finished. I am curious: when you state "he is weak," are you speaking of Doctor Boyd or Erickson?

Electra
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Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611

Posted 11/6/2003 12:25 PM (GMT -6)

Speaking frankly, Peter's denial has GOT to be dealt with in a forthright manner by open theists. It poses a CONSIDERABLE issue. Check my thread.

Doc, hurry UP with this, why don't you? Heh... Wink

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing. ~ Dostoevsky

honorman
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137

Posted 11/6/2003 2:35 PM (GMT -6)

I believe Doctor Boyd deals with Peter's denial in "Satan and the
Problem..." I also believe Sander's deals with it in "The God Who Risks," but I'll have to check...

Robert Furney
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 24

Posted 11/7/2003 8:21 AM (GMT -6)

I meant that Erickson is weak, especially on the issues of immutability and impassibility. For example, he says that a car moving ahead and switching lanes as well as slowing down and speeding up is analogous to God changing his mind. However, the proper analogy (especially for Jeremiah 18) would have the car stopping and go in another direction, if not the opposite direction.

Erickson also tries to criticize open theism by attacking annihilationism. This isn't a strong argument in his case, and doesn't deal with open theism per se.

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 11/7/2003 7:22 PM (GMT -6)

Sorry, I've been out of town, hence the delay. But since I haven't read Erickson's book, I can't comment.

Except to say, I for the life of me don't see what the big problem is with Peter's denial. The naming of Josiah and Cyrus are better counter-open illustrations, but even here, if one grants that God can predetermine whatever he jolly well wishes to predetermine, there's no problem.

Doc

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted Yesterday 3:27 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by Electra

Speaking frankly, Peter's denial has GOT to be dealt with in a forthright manner by open theists. It poses a CONSIDERABLE issue. Check my thread.

Doc, hurry UP with this, why don't you? Heh...

Oops. I said that, not Electra. Peace, Evil

"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."

--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God

geebob
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 94

Posted Yesterday 7:07 AM (GMT -6)

one of the fella's from the "Godisnowhere" website had a clever answer for Peter's 3 denials.

God knew that Peters heart was in a place where he would chicken out and deny him consistently for a period. So to fix it that it would be three times, all God had to do was "poke" the chicken and make it crow after the third deniel. Eyebrow

I will gladly pay you teusday for a hamburger today.

-Wimpy

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 11/10/2003 6:13 PM (GMT -6)

[

God knew that Peters heart was in a place where he would chicken out and deny him consistently for a period. So to fix it that it would be three times, all God had to do was "poke" the chicken and make it crow after the third deniel. Eyebrow

Doc: That's pretty much what OT's have been saying all along. But we can go further. From before the foundation of the world, the Infinitely Intelligent God was setting up that chicken in case Peter turned out just as he did. Eyebrow

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

geebob
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 94

Posted 11/11/2003 3:35 AM (GMT -6)

so that chicken exists in all feasible worlds?!

Shock

I will gladly pay you teusday for a hamburger today.

-Wimpy

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 11/11/2003 5:01 PM (GMT -6)

[quote]Originally posted by geebob

so that chicken exists in all feasible worlds?!

Doc: No. Some chicken (actually, rooster) would need to exist in those worlds where Peter turns out to be just as he was prior to his denials. Wink

Doc

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

Robert Furney
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 24

Posted 11/13/2003 9:10 AM (GMT -6)

One of Erickson's objections is to ask how it is possible for God not to know Abraham so well as to predict his behavior would be and so test him, while Jesus could know Peter so well that he could predict his denial of three times.

DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 11/13/2003 9:31 AM (GMT -6)

Peter denying Jesus three times before the cock crows is a specific action that is knowable. The bundle of choices Abraham makes by faith over the course of his lifetime is another matter.

Peter could have already chosen not to deepen his faith so that he would deny Jesus under pressure. Jesus/God could then have worked it out so that Peter's true lack of faith would be revealed by making sure he was in a situation where he would deny Jesus three times. The purpose would likely be to try and build up Peter's faith for later, after Jesus had ascended to heaven.

Its kind of like the Oracle, she often makes predictions, such as the vase breaking, but does so concerning relatively small stuff that falls under what she has more direct control over... That sort of prediction doesn't imply an exhaustively definite future governed by balanced equations.

dlw

Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes."

JET
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397

Posted 11/13/2003 9:44 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
One of Erickson's objections is to ask how it is possible for God not to know Abraham so well as to predict his behavior would be and so test him, while Jesus could know Peter so well that he could predict his denial of three times.

Does Erickson consider the possibility that Peter's character was solidified, while Abraham's was not?

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 11/13/2003 11:07 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
One of Erickson's objections is to ask how it is possible for God not to know Abraham so well as to predict his behavior would be and so test him, while Jesus could know Peter so well that he could predict his denial of three times.

Doc: Since Scripture says God tested Abraham and God concluded "NOW I know SINCE you have not ...." and since Jesus said, "Peter before the night is over you shall..." I will just assume that God did not know Abrahams character in the respect for which it was tested, while he did know Peter's character in the respect about which he predicted. Even if this was hard to understand (which its not), we shouldn't try to outsmart revelation by telling God he knew something before he tells us he knew it ("NOw... since....").

just your run-o-mill fundy I am... Clown

Doc

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151

Posted 11/17/2003 3:21 AM (GMT -6)

A question for the run-o-mill fundy:

In Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views you wrote: "...we are clearly going beyond the evidence if we conclude that the future is exhaustively settled from all eternity on the grounds that Jesus knew what Peter would do in the next twelve hours. The only conclusions justified by this episode are that God possesses perfect knowledge of the past and present and that some of the future is settled, either by present circumstances (Peter's character) or by God's sovereign design." Erickson critiques this statement in his new book. Do you stand by the statement? It does seem to advocate a standard of evidence for past/present knowledge that is wildly different from the standard of evidence for future knowledge. How does the argument go that demonstrates the perfection of God's past/present knowledge from the foretelling of Peter's 3 denials?

"I believe that, in the present divided state of Christendom, those who are at the heart of each division are all closer to one another than those who are at the fringes. I would even carry this beyond the borders of Christianity: how much more one has in common with a real Jew or Muslim than with a wretched liberalising, occidentalised specimen of the same categories."
(C.S. Lewis to Mary Willis Shelburne, November 10, 1952.)

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 11/17/2003 5:40 AM (GMT -6)

Christ: How does the argument go that demonstrates the perfection of God's past/present knowledge from the foretelling of Peter's 3 denials?

Doc: I don't argue for the perfection of God's past/present knowledge "from" (= on the basis of) God's foretelling Peter's 3 denials. I take it as a given that all parties agree on that God has perfect knowledge, hence knows exhaustive the past and present. The point of contention is whether the future is exhaustively determinate, and hence whether God's knowledge of the future is exhaustively determinate. And my argument in the passage you sight is that it is quite a leap from granting that one aspect of the future 12 hours hence is determinate to the conclusion that the whole of the future is determinate from all eternity.

Blessings
Doc

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151

Posted 11/17/2003 5:59 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Doc: I don't argue for the perfection of God's past/present knowledge "from" (= on the basis of) God's foretelling Peter's 3 denials.

You called His possession of such perfection a "conclusion[] justified by this episode". I guess I (and Erickson and David Hunt) read more into that phrase than you intended.

BTW, from what scripture(s) could one argue for, say, God's perfect knowledge of the past without making the sort of extrapolation traditionalists have made when interpreting Peter's denials?

Laika
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Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 11/17/2003 6:42 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by Chris Grant
BTW, from what scripture(s) could one argue for, say, God's perfect knowledge of the past without making the sort of extrapolation traditionalists have made when interpreting Peter's denials?

Given our ability to know past events (limited by resources, not by metaphysics), why do you think there needs to be scriptural support for God's ability to know past events?

inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade

Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151

Posted 11/17/2003 6:58 AM (GMT -6)

quote:

Given our ability to know past events (limited by resources, not by metaphysics), why do you think there needs to be scriptural support for God's ability to know past events?

Are scriptures really unnecessary to conclusively establish God's perfect knowledge of the past? How about the present? From what scripture(s) could one argue for, say, God's perfect knowledge of the present without making the sort of extrapolation traditionalists have made when interpreting Peter's denials? (In a relativistic universe, I'm not sure we have much knowledge of present events, do we?)

Laika
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Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 11/17/2003 7:09 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by Chris Grant
How about the present? From what scripture(s) could one argue for, say, God's perfect knowledge of the present without making the sort of extrapolation traditionalists have made when interpreting Peter's denials? (In a relativistic universe, I'm not sure we have much knowledge of present events, do we?)

For the set of all present events, is there any in that set that I couldn't know, given sufficient resources, upon occurrence? For example, given a very quick reporting apparatus, is there any soccer event in the world I couldn't know the outcome of upon it's immediate conclusion?

Matt10:30 "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered."
Indicates pretty comprehensive present knowlege.

inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade

Chris Grant
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151

Posted 11/17/2003 7:56 AM (GMT -6)

quote:

For example, given a very quick reporting apparatus, is there any soccer event in the world I couldn't know the outcome of upon it's immediate conclusion?

It seems to me that there are several issues involved here. What does "upon its immediate conclusion" mean in a relativistic universe? Isn't simultaneity relative? And is news that has travelled to me at the speed of light news about the past or news about the present?

quote:

Matt10:30 "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered."
Indicates pretty comprehensive present knowlege.

Concluding that God has perfect knowledge of the present on the grounds that Jesus knew how many hairs there were on Peter's head seems no less an extrapolation than "conclud[ing] that the future is exhaustively settled from all eternity on the grounds that Jesus knew what Peter would do in the next twelve hours".

Laika
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Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 11/17/2003 8:09 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by Chris Grant
It seems to me that there are several issues involved here. What does "upon its immediate conclusion" mean in a relativistic universe? Isn't simultaneity relative? And is news that has travelled to me at the speed of light news about the past or news about the present?

Is it possible for me to know an event exactly as it transpires? Yes it is. (an event I'm involved in, for example) So it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Is it possible for God to know an event exactly as it transpires? Yes, if it's possible for me, it's possible for Him. me < Him

Is it possible for me to know the outcome of a future event? No, totally out of my realm of experience. Ask bookies and gamblers as well.

Is it possible for Him to know a future event? Well, since that is so EXTRAORDINARY for me, He'll have to give me EXTRAORDINDARY evidence and explanation in scripture. Which He doesn't. His concept of love is so different from mine that He expends quite a bit of capital explaining that in scripture. But where's the extraordinary, comprehensive explanation in scripture that His knowlege of the future is so different from mine?

That He knew Peter well enough, and the crowd/climate/environment well enough to guess that Peter would be quizzed and then poke a chicken before the forth query, well that's not so out of the realm of possibility that I would consider it proves fatalism for all time.

inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 11/17/2003 8:12 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by Chris Grant
quote:

Matt10:30 "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered."
Indicates pretty comprehensive present knowlege.
Concluding that God has perfect knowledge of the present on the grounds that Jesus knew how many hairs there were on Peter's head seems no less an extrapolation than "conclud[ing] that the future is exhaustively settled from all eternity on the grounds that Jesus knew what Peter would do in the next twelve hours".

But if I had been around, I could have counted Peter's hairs. So *that* is not out of the realm of possibility for me. So why think it extraordinarily out of the realm of possibility for Him, enough that He has to explain that in scripture?

inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade

Chris Grant
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 151

Posted 11/17/2003 8:33 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Is it possible for me to know an event exactly as it transpires? Yes it is.

Really? How quickly do nerve impulses propagate in your neurons?

quote:

That He knew Peter well enough, and the crowd/climate/environment well enough to guess that Peter would be quizzed and then poke a chicken before the forth query, well that's not so out of the realm of possibility that I would consider it proves fatalism for all time.

Oh, it was a guess, was it? Would you agree, Dr. Boyd?

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