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Keith
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2001
Total Posts : 10
| Posted 12/13/2001 3:33 PM (GMT -6) |   | This is a question for Doc. Maybe he can just point out an old thread.
Your book "God of the Possible" as well as your chapter in "Divine Foreknowledge" mentions 2 scriptural "motifs" resulting in a partly open future and a partly closed future. Rice, Pinnock, and Sanders all survey Biblical evidence w/o bringing up your first motif (God knows some of the future).
I have to say that it seems more coherent to me to say God doesn't know any of the future (except that He already plans to bring about or that which are fully settled in light of presently known states). I don't think Rice, Pinnock, Sanders or probably Hasker emphasize the possibility of a "partly settled future" known to God. I would like to say God's omniscient is complete in that He knows none of the future because it is not yet available to be known. But His omniscience seems to be somewhat imperfect if He knows some but not all of the future.
I understand that certain non-conditional prophecies like Gen 15, Peter's Denial and Judas's treachery seem to say some of the future free acts of real people are known prior to the acts. But as a non-inerrantist (as I've already admitted to on this board), I'd rather say that Gen 15 was written well past the Exodus and the oral traditions in the Gospels get magnified as most historical accounts do.
These are just some of my thoughts on the overall open view position.
Any comments?
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n/a
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 218
| Posted 12/13/2001 4:35 PM (GMT -6) | | you don't believe the bible is infallible?
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA, just kidding bro! I wish I was "enlightened", so I could answer your question. But that is what Greg Boyd's are for. I hope you get the answer.
Like I said before........
Blessings
Our natural greatness is seen as part of God's image, and that natural greatness has been conferred on us to enable us to achieve our supernatural destiny:to be related to God and to obey him freely.---Diogenes Allen | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 12/14/2001 9:17 PM (GMT -6) | | Keith:
I don't see that affirming God knows the future partly as settled and partly as unsettled in any way denies God's omniscience. If the future IS partly settled and partly unsettled, then this is precisely how an omniscient being should know it! It only sounds like this view denies omniscience if you assume at the start that the future is exhaustively settled.
Both Sanders and Pinnock have talked this way about the future in their most recent books.
Now, I understand and appreciate your point that none of the future is real, for it isn't here yet. And here we come to the ambiguity of speaking about the future. When we say "future" we imagine a time line extending before us. This is our metaphorical conception of the future. But its not literal, for the future doesn't yet exist, as you noted. The "future" can only be our way of speaking of what SHALL or MAY come to pass. This is what I mean by settled ("shall") and unsettled ("may"). An omniscient being would know what shall, and what may, come to pass.
So, though it initially sounds paradoxical, I agree with you that the future is not real, but disagree with you that this entails God doesn't know anything about it.
You gotta love theology!
Blessings
Doc
"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul | | Back to Top | | |
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