godrulz said:
Fair enough... I have always supported this balanced concept. It should be remembered that Boyd's thinking has developed and changed over the years. Your quote was not from a recent theology book, but letters that he wrote to his agnostic father (who later became a Christian as the Open view undermined atheistic objections to God's love and goodness). Other teachings of Boyd go a step further. He emphasizes that God can and does know some of the future as settled. He affirms the two motifs in Scripture, not just the one set of texts. God certainly can know contingencies (Craig's Molinism or 'middle knowledge' says that He can know all of them without determining them, but this is still problematic to genuine freedom/contingencies). What OT's disagree with is that He exhaustively saw or knows all future contingencies (this is closer to simple foreknowledge/Arminianism vs Calvinism/determinism). He knows many contingencies, especially proximal to the choices (as opposed to trillions of years ago when there was no relevant objects of knowledge). God knew Peter's and Judas' character based on perfect past and present knowledge. It cannot be extrapolated that He knew these things before the earth was created.
God knows I will likely have a slurpee or ice cream this week. When does He know this? Not from before I was born and developed my addictions. He still knows these contingencies as possible, not certain. I could get sick and die before I have my next fix. I could get motivated and not give in to my cravings. The slurpee machines might be broke.
Failing to distinguish certainty, necessity, possibility, probability, actuality, etc. violates modal logic. God correctly knows things as they are. He knows possible/probable things as such. He knows certain/actual things as such. He knows reality as it is. It is an unwarranted assumption to think the future is there as a possible object of knowledge.
Your understanding of Boyd and Open Theism needs refining lest you reject a straw man caricature of the view. I commend you for at least trying to understand it (I hope you are not just getting quotes from anti-OT books...their Calvinistic assumptions and comments will jade the OT author's intents and credibility).
thanks for the update on Boyd's thinking... I was not aware that he had shifted in this way... what would you recommend (hopefully something free online, being disabled my income is extremely limited) to help me get up to speed on these developments?
I have gone by books that are both older and newer that are from a non-OT perspective... I would not think that this necessarily makes their account of OT wrong any more then I should think that if you read
primarily pro-OT books or literature that this would inordinately prejudice you against the Calvinist view, or, even more importantly, that because you read mostly books from the pro OT perspective you cannot get accurate and fair information about what it is that Calvinists believe, though you may hear it second hand, through the works of OT authors. In the end, for me, it is simply a matter of not being able to afford to buy many books any more, so I regret not being able to go out and buy any and every book I would like to get. Sure, it would be nice to get it from the horse's mouth so to speak, and I do have a couple of books from OT authors, but I do not think it any embarrassment to say that out of my relatively large personal library, the majority are Calvinistic. I have had to thin out my books many times over the years due to pressure from my wife!! loll!!!!! So I had many books from all sorts of theological positions, but when forced to weed out many many books, I think you could understand that I kept the reference books from the theological position I eventually came to adapt, ie Calvinistic. At any rate, either side will biased, there is just no avoiding that, but the authors I do have from the non-OT perspective are reputable men who would not, IMHO, intentionally misrepresent OT. I would no think that these authors would be any more likely to intentionally or unintentionally misrepresent the OT view any more then the OT writers would intentionally or unintentionally misrepresent the Calvinistic view.
Overall, however, the point still stands that the typical OT thinks that much of the future, being created by beings with libertarian freedom, simply cannot be known by God because it is not a reality of any sort, and is thus not there for God to know. And if you think about how many decisions these billions of beings make every day, and if the best God can do is surmise what they will do, based on perfect and exhaustive knowledge of the past and present., there is still a great deal (billions upon billions of free will decisions made every moment) that God cannot know.
You said
Failing to distinguish certainty, necessity, possibility, probability, actuality, etc. violates modal logic.
Well, I would think that failure to distinguish between these things would violate any kind of logic.
At any rate, I will have to do some reading to understand modal logic as you are using the phrase. From what I have seen if has the possibility of several different definitions.
You said
It is an unwarranted assumption to think the future is there as a possible object of knowledge
True, if it was truly an unwarranted assumption. However, those who believe in a fixed/combatibilistic view of the nature of God’s relationship to time do not, in fact, feel as if it is either unwarranted, or that it is a careless assumption. If they did, they would not hold to it! Lol…… You need to give credit where credit is due. For the most part, you are very cordial, and I appreciate the level of respect you have given to myself and others, but don’t fall into the trap that just because people disagree with your view, or the OT view, that they do so for irresponsible reasons. I mean, imagine, if you will, if I were to say that you and those in the OT camp think “It is an unwarranted assumption to think that the future is not there as a possible object of knowledge for God.” I do not think you would be very impressed by such an accusation, would you? Likewise, any accusations aimed towards myself or of the authors I mentioned of such careless activities will not be accepted very warmly.
So when you say
What OT's disagree with is that He exhaustively saw or knows all future contingencies.
you are simply saying what I have been saying all along, and what you say is in direct disagreement with Bob and Clete. Either that, or they are having trouble saying what they mean, which seems unlikely as I was able to immediately understand your views, so if there is any trouble in communication per se, it is not coming from my end. The fact is, I think that Bob and Clete's understanding of this issue is at odds with typical OTthey are either unaware of what the typical OT believes, or they consider themselves and their view to be what the typical OT believes. I have shown that this can't be the case, since the authors I cited earlier are all the primary spokesmen fo rthe OT view, and their view is just what I have been saying all along, that God can't know future congencies with certainity, becasue there is no-thing (as I have seen it put) there to know.
As far as the specifics, your slurpee example etc, as I mentioned by giving the books I have read on the subject, I am well aware of the views that OT have regarding the nature of time and God’s relationship to it. The only thing you have clarified is that God can know
some things for certain in the future. And this is really not that new either, nor did I deny it, it’s just that I have not had an opportunity to speak about the nuances of OT as I have not been able to even get Bob and Clete to understand the very worldview they claim to have. They claim to be typical OT, but they are anything but. At any rate, I know that the OT say that there are some things God will accomplish (ie “settled”) regardless of what anyone does with their free will, and these things have been settled from before the foundation of the world. The point here is that when you say
He still knows these contingencies as possible, not certain.
God’s knowledge of the future is still not certain, that because of the contingencies brought on by your/their understanding of free will being libertarian in nature, God can’t possibly know for certain what will happen in the future in so far as contingencies based on free will, and not based on other aspects of creation which can be "settled" without interfering with man's exercise of his free will, though God may have some good guesses. God’s knowledge of the future is based on possibilities, i.e. He is the consummate chess player, and not on certainty.
At any rate, I am
very grateful for the sane, cordial conversation.
as an aside, the negative rep points are very funny!! As if any Christian who is convinced that their views are biblical is concerned with what "man" thinks!!! lol.... I mean, lets face it, if OT were in the opposite position, posting on a non or even anti OT board and recieved negative rep points for defending OT, they shouldn't give one iota of credence to what anyone there says. If they are convinced that their view is the biblical view, then their reputation to others who disagree, who they think to be in serious doctrinal error, is a moot point. And thats exactly how I feel posting here.
Gal 1:10 esv For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
blessings
