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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Let’s solve the problem of evil > Quick Question for Tom... | Forum Quick Jump
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted Yesterday 8:15 AM (GMT -6) |   | Tom,
quote:
Assuming God could have created any number of different worlds, how does God (here’s the providence) determine WHICH possible world is the best to create, which best suits his purposes, if God is ignorant of some or many of the truths the describe each world? On your view, Jeff, the more possibly evil a particular world is, the LESS God knows about it. Our world may have been the worst possible world to create for achieving God’s purposes. How could God determine which world was best to create without sizing up each possible world accurate, without counting the cost? The only way I see to account for our belief in the providential wisdom behind God’s choice to create, that is, the belief that God’s choice to create this sort of world was the BEST choice given God’s purposes, is to argue that God accurately, infallibly, counted the cost, ALL the costs, involved, and weighed the risks, all the risks, involved, and so chose. But on your view such accuracy, such maximally informed decisions, were not possible for God prior to creation. Not all risks were taken into consideration. Whole swaths of information relevant to determining whether or not our world or any other possible world was an appropriate place to pursue his purposes were entirely left out of the equation and never considered? Why? Because a holy God wouldn’t foreknow all the crap and evil that was possible until the evils in question were nearly actualized. THEN God responds on the spot with novelty.
Given that God said that it repented Him that He had made man, it seems at least POSSIBLE that God is telling us that He had NOT foreseen the conditions that man would degenerate to, but rather that He, in His wisdom, took up an alternative plan in time based possibly on commitments He may had already made to Christ, etc. Would you agree that this interpretation of that text is at least possible? Or do you think that a more anthropomorphic interpretation is evident in the text?
It would seem by your view that NOTHING could make God repent of His creation, as He had already weighed EVERYTHING. And yet here we are in a universe where Christ has said that few will enter into Life and most will enter into destruction (by which most open theists mean eternal torment), and the Fall happened almost IMMEDIATELY in history. You have yet to explain why God chooses to continue this creation in terms of benevolence, as opposed to doxological ends. Even IF you say that God is holding out for the FEW to be saved, how is that benevolent to the vast majority? It would seem that even this view portrays God as acting PRIMARILY in His own interest with little regard for the future torment (according to most OV'ers) of the majority of the race.
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted Yesterday 11:52 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey Jeff!
I'm sitting in the airport in Beirut, 1 AM, waiting to board my flight home. Man am I bushed. But as backwards as this country is, they did manage to get wireless internet installed in their airport!
Jeff: Given that God said that it repented Him that He had made man, it seems at least POSSIBLE that God is telling us that He had NOT foreseen the conditions that man would degenerate to…
Tom: If no other information were given except Gen. 6.5-6, if that’s ALL we had, then yeah, it would be at least possible to assume that one explanation of God’s regretting that he made humankind would be his being ignorant of the possibility that humanity could get as bad as it got during Noah’s day. But: a) Gen. 6 isn’t all we have, and b) it’s perfectly reasonable to explain such regret on probability grounds (we regret in precisely this way all the time), and c) what happens to your argument that the greatest providence imaginable is found in God’s being wise enough to respond “on the spot” (or just prior to the spot) in response to sin without having to foreknow the possible sins far in advance, if God is here regretting having made the decision because he was ignorant of the risks? That's different than knowing the risks and deciding they were worth it. On your reading, Gen. 6 is an example of God’s wishing he had the providence I believe he DOES have!  God regrets because he did not foreknow. So if God isn’t providential in the way I think he is, God at least wishes he was. 
Jeff: …but rather that He, in His wisdom, took up an alternative plan in time based possibly on commitments He may had already made to Christ, etc. Would you agree that this interpretation of that text is at least possible? Or do you think that a more anthropomorphic interpretation is evident in the text?
Tom: Not sure a MORE anthropomorphic one is needed. If you and I disagree on the foreknowledge leading up to God’s regret of Gen. 6, I think we agree it’s real regret felt by God. And I agree that the Cross was a contingent plan committed to by Father, Son, and Spirit before creation. But this seems to assume MY understanding of foreknowledge, i.e., that God foreknows sin. Committing to the possibility of the Cross before creation is part of the sort of counting of the cost I imagine God did.
Jeff: It would seem by your view that NOTHING could make God repent of His creation, as He had already weighed EVERYTHING. And yet here we are in a universe where Christ has said that few will enter into Life and most will enter into destruction (by which most open theists mean eternal torment), and the Fall happened almost IMMEDIATELY in history. You have yet to explain why God chooses to continue this creation in terms of benevolence, as opposed to doxological ends.
Tom: And you have yet to explain what those doxological ends are, if indeed God has doxological purposes that our sinning help fulfill. This sounds like the Edwards approach to God’s purposing sin for the glory he gets out of it (though you rejected this earlier). So I’m not sure what you even have in mind by the “doxological ends” of sin.
But why assume genuine regret only makes sense on grounds of previous ignorance regarding the possibility of that which is regretted? This simply isn’t at all true. We truly regret choices we make even when those choices were made in the full light of knowing what the risks were.
Jeff: Even IF you say that God is holding out for the FEW to be saved, how is that benevolent to the vast majority?
Tom: I’d like to pursue this more, Jeff. When I read passages like that in (I think) 1 Pet. Were Peter says God has postponed his coming to wind things up “because he is patient” and because he “wants all to be saved” I have to agree (against the argument for pessimism) that God doesn’t hold out patiently for what he knows isn’t going to happen. Maybe we’re just so conditioned by sin and failure that we can no longer defend “optimism” logically. That’s sad.
Jeff: It would seem that even this view portrays God as acting PRIMARILY in His own interest with little regard for the future torment (according to most OV'ers) of the majority of the race.
Tom: Whatever torment lies ahead for the wicked, I’m prepared to agree that God does everything possible to avoid it. Divine love wouldn’t be love if that much were not true. Heck, I wouldn’t believe in an eternal hell at all if I didn’t feel constrained by Scripture (and a few philosophical points) to hold on to it. Then we have the Cross, which I refuse to drift too far from. I’m so dependent upon it. If that’s a weakness, so be it.
Tom
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted Yesterday 2:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
Thanks for the response. I'm still thinking about all this. And I think Scott Taylor is going to contribute later, so it should be interesting to see his epistemological approach.
quote:
Jeff: Given that God said that it repented Him that He had made man, it seems at least POSSIBLE that God is telling us that He had NOT foreseen the conditions that man would degenerate to…
Tom: If no other information were given except Gen. 6.5-6, if that’s ALL we had, then yeah, it would be at least possible to assume that one explanation of God’s regretting that he made humankind would be his being ignorant of the possibility that humanity could get as bad as it got during Noah’s day. But: a) Gen. 6 isn’t all we have, and b) it’s perfectly reasonable to explain such regret on probability grounds (we regret in precisely this way all the time), and c) what happens to your argument that the greatest providence imaginable is found in God’s being wise enough to respond “on the spot” (or just prior to the spot) in response to sin without having to foreknow the possible sins far in advance. On your reading, Gen. 6 is an example of God’s wishing he had the providence I believe he DOES have. So if God isn’t providential in the way I think, he at least wishes he was.
I see what you're saying, but consider your statement "Maybe we’re just so conditioned by sin and failure that we can no longer defend “optimism” logically. That’s sad." Now what caused me to make my post was something I read from a Revival Theology publication by Gordon Olson. He said, "It is awful to think of the magnitude that such knowledge [of eternal torment, etc.] would impose upon the Divine mind, robbing it of that happy bliss of expectancy that parents have as they view the shining face of their offspring and watch its growth to maturity." So the whole optimism thing can be seen from two different perspectives. So if Olson is correct about God's optimism, it would not seem obvious that God would wish to have the kind of eternal omniscience you're defending.
quote:
Tom: ...If you and I disagree on the foreknowledge leading up to God’s regret of Gen. 6, I think we agree it’s real regret felt by God. And I agree that the Cross was a contingent plan committed to by Father, Son, and Spirit before creation. But this seems to assume MY understanding of foreknowledge, i.e., that God foreknows sin. Committing to the possibility of the Cross before creation is part of the sort of counting of the cost I imagine God did.
But we see God speaking of the Seed that will crush the Serpent's head AFTER the sin had occurred. So a post-Fall response, following an Olson type optimism, is also compatible with that.
quote:
Jeff: It would seem by your view that NOTHING could make God repent of His creation, as He had already weighed EVERYTHING. And yet here we are in a universe where Christ has said that few will enter into Life and most will enter into destruction (by which most open theists mean eternal torment), and the Fall happened almost IMMEDIATELY in history. You have yet to explain why God chooses to continue this creation in terms of benevolence, as opposed to doxological ends.
Tom: And you have yet to explain what those doxological ends are, if indeed God has doxological purposes that our sinning help fulfill. This sounds like the Edwards approach to God’s purposing sin for the glory he gets out of it (though you rejected this earlier). So I’m not sure what you even have in mind by the “doxological ends” of sin.
The scripture tells us that ALL things were created FOR God AND Christ. I think the continuation of this creation has more to do with assuring that Christ (and probably God) will get Their due from it more than it does that God is longing for relationships PER SE. For He could just as easily have destroyed Adam, bound Satan, and started over, etc., obtaining relationships otherwise without all the problems that Satan has caused. Does God HAVE to allow Satan and his minions to keep causing so much grief? If not, why does God allow it? Why not bind 'em and start back in the Garden for relationships under the originally purposed conditions? What philosophy or scripture suggests He couldn't do that?
If the straight-forward reading of the end of Revelation is to be taken, God is going to allow Satan to be unbound after having bound him for 1000 years, after which Satan goes out to deceive the nations. Why would God do that in your opinion? Or what do you think it means if not what I'm contending? It seems to me that God gives men light and then allows them to prove that EVEN that was not good enough for them. God allows Satan to try his hand only to trump it with little or no effort. God raises up a rebellious Pharoah to show His power to the whole world. In other words, God seems to take pleasure in showing rebels Who's WHO. And the passage in Revelation seems to indicate that God KNOWS that hoardes of them will turn against God after Satan is loosed. That's why the whole risk thing is not so clear to me. Too many verses seem to suggest that God KNOWS how pathetically rebellious we humans are. In God's point of view, even being habitually disobedient to parents is evidence of having a reprobate mind.
We Americans have been conditioned to accept all this rebellion as understandable, but it is not so to that Holy God of ours who is a consuming fire, per scripture. Indeed, Hebrews portrays God's forebearance in much less amiable terms than humans tend to think of it - How shall we escape (judgement) if we neglect so great a salvation. In other words, God's forebearance makes people MORE ACCOUNTABLE. For where much is given, MUCH IS REQUIRED. So when we put the two together - 1) that forebearance begets accountability and 2) God FOREKNOWS that most won't repent - it makes the risk question look a lot different to me.
quote:
But why assume genuine regret only makes sense on grounds of previous ignorance regarding the possibility of that which is regretted? This simply isn’t at all true. We truly regret choices we make even when those choices were made in the full light of knowing what the risks were.
I could see how we could regret outcomes, but not choices, if those choices were made with FULL knowledge of the risks and we chose rationally. For we would have to choose the same way if we had it all to do over again. This is what rational beings do.
quote:
Jeff: Even IF you say that God is holding out for the FEW to be saved, how is that benevolent to the vast majority?
Tom: I’d like to pursue this more, Jeff. When I read passages like that in (I think) 1 Pet. Were Peter says God has postponed his coming to wind things up “because he is patient” and because he “wants all to be saved” I have to agree (against the argument for pessimism) that God doesn’t hold out patiently for what he knows isn’t going to happen. Maybe we’re just so conditioned by sin and failure that we can no longer defend “optimism” logically. That’s sad.
I'm all for optimism, it just seems that Christ was saying He KNEW that most would end up in destruction.
quote:
Jeff: It would seem that even this view portrays God as acting PRIMARILY in His own interest with little regard for the future torment (according to most OV'ers) of the majority of the race.
Tom: Whatever torment lies ahead for the wicked, I’m prepared to agree that God does everything possible to avoid it. Divine love wouldn’t be love if that much were not true. Heck, I wouldn’t believe in an eternal hell at all if I didn’t feel constrained by Scripture (and a few philosophical points) to hold on to it.
I would say that the only thing that philosophy could get us in this regard is that people should get their just deserts. But that is not necessarily eternal torment. And the scriptural debate would have to go to another thread, obviously.
quote:
Then we have the Cross, which I refuse to drift too far from. I’m so dependent upon it. If that’s a weakness, so be it.
Aye, but the Cross only means what is consistent with scripture. I'm certainly not trying to play down the Cross, just trying to see what it fully means in light of all of scripture.
Hopefully, Scott will post soon and we'll see where we can go from there. But again, I think you're probability interpretation of the "repent" passage in Genesis makes good sense. I think the different approaches to optimism will come out in the discussion with Scott since Olson is published by Revival Theology ministries.
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