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Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 516
| Posted 6/26/2001 6:01 PM (GMT -6) |   | Mephi, here's a quick question I have for you.
Do you have any concerns about openness theology that you don't also have about Arminianism in general? If so, will you please specify what they are and what it is about openness that generates them.
What I'm primarily (though not exclusively) wondering about is whether you agree with my "Infinite Intelligence Argument" which attempts to prove that a God of infinite intelligence doesn't loose any "advantage" by entertaining possibilities rather than certainties. I grant that a God who controls everything has an advantage (in terms of control) over a God who grants libertarian freedom (but, I'd argue, who looses other advantages by gaining this advantage -- different point however). But if one grants, as both Arminians and openness people grant, that agents do possess libertarian freedom, I argue that they are at least on equal footing in terms of God's ability to anticipate future contingencies. Agree or not?
Peace in all things
Doc
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Mephi2K
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713
| Posted 6/28/2001 6:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Sorry This Took So Long. 
Doc said:
Do you have any concerns about openness theology that you don't also have about Arminianism in general? If so, will you please specify what they are and what it is about openness that generates them.
About Arminianism. I would agree with Clark Pinnock that free will theism or open view theism is just a much more consistent version of Arminianism. Arminianism, in my view, is logically incoherent and problematic. Pinnock notes well in his "Grace of God, Will of Man" that, by affirming EDF the way it does, Arminianism effectively denies (at least significantly) that which it seeks to affirm: libertarian human freedom from its OWN perspective. Moreover, Arminianism is pretty much built upon simple foreknowledge...and we all know how Sanders had a field day with that in "God Who Risks", showing SF's main problem with providence. I also think open view theologians other than Pinnock and Sanders probably notice the inconsistency within Arminianism, too. Pinnock also suggests something about the relations between Arminians and the more Reformed evangelicals (and I think he's right). This was in a footnote of a paper by Pinnock: "Divine Relationality: A Pentecostal Contribution to the Doctrine of God [Journal of Pentecostal Studies 16 (2000) 3-26]
"Apparently, they [Calvinists] can tolerate classical Arminianism with its belief in timeless omniscience because they think it implies determinism, but they cannot tolerate the openness model because it certainly does not."
Friggin BINGO! :) To me, this has been quite obvious for some time now. Calvinists and Arminians, in my opinion, are able to have their little compromise among themselves in evangelicalism because the consideration of timeless omniscience naturally affirms the type of providence that BOTH sides wanted to maintain. Calvinists are just more consistent in producing it. I saw through this a while back and I've long since rejected Arminianism as a logically coherent, workable system.
Anyways... Because I take issue with the notion of libertarian free will, as Arminians AND open view theists conceive of it, I've got beef with both parties.
My larger concern with open view theism than Arminianism is exactly what I would praise about it: it's greater consistency with respect to libertarian free will. Open view theism has much larger ramifications for things then I think many people realize...when everything is thought out. Claiming the open view provides a "scarier world to live in" doesn't even really do justice to what is actually transformed in the Christian worldview. In some ways, more problems are raised than solved. (Hopefully, some of my past posts have indicated some of these things) It has huge impacts on divine providence, prayer, and other things. And I think these impacts are much more important than they are given credit for. Moreover, though I believe it is MORE consistent than Arminianism, I think open view theism still has inconsistencies of its own. Surprisingly enough, some of the most poignant critics of these inconsistencies are process theologians like David Ray Griffin. I think there may be a good reason for that, actually.
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Doc said:
What I'm primarily (though not exclusively) wondering about is whether you agree with my "Infinite Intelligence Argument" which attempts to prove that a God of infinite intelligence doesn't loose any "advantage" by entertaining possibilities rather than certainties. I grant that a God who controls everything has an advantage (in terms of control) over a God who grants libertarian freedom (but, I'd argue, who looses other advantages by gaining this advantage -- different point however). But if one grants, as both Arminians and openness people grant, that agents do possess libertarian freedom, I argue that they are at least on equal footing in terms of God's ability to anticipate future contingencies. Agree or not?
On the IIA thing. I'd argue that when you couple God having IIA (which I believe wholehearted that God has) WITH God knowing all potential agents and existents intimately and exhaustively (as I discussed on another thread), WITH ex-nihilo creation, then you basically have EDF in effect. Kind of a modification of "middle knowledge" See, I've always believed in the infinite intelligence of God. But I don't think that you see the implications of the IIA that you posit.
Think back to the chess player analogy. It would be USELESS for any person to play an infinitely intelligent opponent simply for the fact that no move that they would try to make would make any real difference in the end analysis. The II opponent would just turn all their moves back on them to keep them from winning. In fact, the poor person would probably say something like this:
"Wow. This guys counters EVERY move I make. He's got me continuously where he wants me. It's almost like he's reading my mind."
Actually, the only way that the person would even try to have a chance is to play completely ERRATICALLY...and pray that the II opponent wouldn't have any way to counter those irrational moves. Now, can you imagine the power the II opponent would have over the poor person if he could ALSO read the person's mind and plans...AND knew all of the inclinations and past actions of the person...and knew exhaustively more about this person and his surroundings than the poor player could ever know??? Hmmm...his defeat is assured, no matter what he tried! Taking all this back to God, it seems like a foregone conclusion that a God who possesses infinite intelligence, exhaustive knowledge of all things including initial states, and exhaustive knowledge of all possibilities would NEVER be thwarted for any reason. Perhaps now you can see one of my problems. The open view conception of God has God being surprised and wrong about some VERY substantial things. Not only that, but it also has God seemingly being "thwarted" every other friggin minute. (This is how all the gross, pervasive evil is being explained, as I see it) I don't think that either of these things would ever happen to the Infinitely Intelligent god that you want to posit, Doc...when we take the thinking out to it's logical conclusion.
If outright EDF isn't affirmed, then we can surely say that the "free will" that we possess would be so negligible to an Infinitely Intelligent, omnipotent as to be innoculous. Our decisions would NEVER be such that we would in any meaningful sense "prevail" upon God.
Meph 
Love God. Love People. Love Truth. Dedicate your all to that which you love.
Edited by - Mephi2K on 06/28/2001 11:30:45 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Glamdring
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 35
| Posted 6/28/2001 8:00 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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BBBCanada
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 6/30/2001 7:26 AM (GMT -6) | | I have a question for Meph. This may not have anything to do with the question Greg asked. But I have read that our orthodoxy affects our "orthopraxis" (sp?). Bowman wrote about this in his simple book on heresy (can't remember the name of it off the top of my head). But how do you see "open theology" affecting the practice of our faith? Not to judge the "rightness" or "wrongness" or accuracy of theology by it's usefulness, but there are those theologians out there who have deemed OT as "dangerous." How is it this in your opinion in a practical sense-that is, when it comes down to it, how does OT affect my life or my relation with God any differently (in a negative way) than say Calvinist assumptions have? I remember you talking about this before, yet you didn't use the word, "utilitarian" (I can't remember the word you used, I believe it started with a "p") but how does OT undermine my faith in a practical sense?
Brandon
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Mephi2K
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713
| Posted 6/30/2001 10:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey, Brandon 
Forgive this abbreviated answer but I'm short on time.
I would say that, for lots of people, having the open view belief would possible be somewhat beneficial...when not thought out too deeply. My concern is that when all the ramifications are thought out, there is a significant change for the Christian life. And they are not necessarily positive. I'll try to say more later.
Meph
PS: I think the word is probably either "pragmatic" or "pragmatism"
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 7/3/2001 10:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Yo Mephi, my server has been down for several days... hence my lack of involvement as of late. This is my first posting on the new board. VERY COOL, heh?[red I'm just going to experiment a bit with all the neat gadgets. ]
Thanks for your response to my question. I'm take it as a compliment that you see Open theism as a more consistent form of Arminianism, and there your beefs with OT are really identical to your beefs with Arminianism in general. I've had a number of Calvinist express this same sentiment to me. "The Open view is more dangerous than Arminianism because it drops the 'felicitous inconsistency' of Arminianism."
Now, you seem to almost understand the Infinite Intelligence Argument... but not quite. It is not virtually the same as Exhaustive Definite Foreknowledge, but, as you note, it does offer all the same advantages. Because God perfectly anticipates every possibility as though it was the only possibility (viz. certainty), he is never caught off guard.
But if humans have libertarian free will (which I know you deny, but the question here is about the internal consistency of the argument, not whether it is based on factually correct information) then there is no inconsistency in holding that even though God perfectly anticipates every possibility, things might not go as he desires them to go. There's no inconsistency in saying he might loose some pawns along the way to his victory. Indeed, there's no inconsistency in saying that God can be "surprised" in the sense of expecting one thing to occur -- because it was in reality more probable -- only to have a different thing occur which was less probable (here I'd appeal, of course, to passages like Jer. 3 and Isa 5).
Blessings bro.
Doc
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Mephi2K
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713
| Posted 7/4/2001 9:23 AM (GMT -6) | | Doc,
I understand the IIA thing completely. What I'm saying is that the implications of God's
1) body of "eternal concepts" knowledge
2) exhaustive present knowledge
3) ability to know all emergent sentient being exhaustively
taken together with the concept of IIA makes God the potential manipulator par excellence. He would be able to lose only the pawns he really WANTS to lose anyway. I've not said that your IIA idea is not self-consistent. I am saying that I don't think you are taking the thought out far enough to see the implications. I tell you what. Ask a process theologian about your concept. I think an erudite one would probably tell you exactly the same thing.
Blessings and Happy 4th,
Meph
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