RobE
New member
Bob Hill said:Discernment is good exegesis. Forcing our idea into Scripture is isogesis. We must be very careful how we deal with scripture.
Bob Hill
Agreed.
Bob Hill said:Discernment is good exegesis. Forcing our idea into Scripture is isogesis. We must be very careful how we deal with scripture.
Bob Hill
godrulz said:I agree that it is a premise of OT that the future is not there yet to know and much of it is known as possible until it becomes actual/certain through the present. The potential future becomes the fixed past through present choices.
As a chess game is being played, the parameters of possible are dynamic and fluctuate depending on each move and counter-moves.
godrulz said:I think the will is different than cause-effect categories. Contingent choices may or may not happen. They can be unpredictable, out of character, or somewhat predictable. They are still potential/possible/probable until they are made and become certain/actual, so there is an element (even if small) of unsettledness or uncertainty.
godrulz said:What limits the possible? I cannot fly to the moon by flapping my arms (physical limitation). I cannot draw square cirlces (logical contradiction). I cannot be President of the U.S. (Canadian). I cannot be born black in Africa since I am a white adult. Other's choices also limit my possible freedoms. In the end, God or others or my choices limit the parameters.
(I am not sure what you are getting at).
What I do know is that your or my typing itghw45-9hy=q94uy9- 24wuny=9het-94h cannot be foreknown from eternity past, even by an omniscient God who knows all that is possible to know.
RobE said:If God knows your final choice and He didn't limit it, and others didn't limit it, and no other outside force limited it then who did?
Let me try to disarm you and say that If I know what any of your final choices will be then why doesn't God know any of your choices that aren't limited by any external force? My reasoning would say that if I could know with a certainty that you will never torture and eat a baby squirrel without being coerced(i.e. starvation, facing certain death) then God would be able to discern far more about your future actions than I'm able to do.
Do you see where these connect with our earlier discussion?
Rob
RobE said:Knowledge does not limit it so foreknowledge does not restrict free will.
What limits it or in other words "what causes your free will act"?
RobE said:The argument Clete puts foreward is that if the certain/actual is known then the probable/potential/possible doesn't exist prior to the certain/actual. If we think linearly then that isn't true.
The Meaning of Self-Determination
Premises
P1: Self-determination means that the self gives determinateness to its actions. In other words, regarding any genuinely free act, free agents themselves ultimately transition a range of possible acts into one actual act. By definition, they define (render determinate) what was previously undefined (that is, indeterminate possibilities). They are the ultimate cause and explanation for the move from “possibly this or possibly that” to “certainly this and certainly that.”
P2: Retroactive causality does not occur. We cannot change the past.
P3: Each created free agent begins in time. It is not eternal.
Conclusion: From P1-3, it follows that the determinateness given to an action by a self-determining agent cannot eternally precede that agent’s self-determination. Moreover, if the determinateness does not exist an eternity before the agent creates it, there is no determinateness for God to know an eternity before the agent creates it. Thus, if agents possess self-determination, God does not possess Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge.
Comment: Either the determinateness of my actions comes from me, in which case I am self-determining, or it does not, in which case I am not self-determining. If the determinateness eternally precedes me in the mind of God, it cannot come from me, for I am not eternal (P3) and retroactive causation does not occur (P2). But on the view that God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, all future actions are from eternity within this category. Thus, if God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, creatures cannot possess self-determining freedom.
The Distinction Between Possibility and Actuality
Premises
P1: The most fundamental feature of the distinction between possibility and actuality is the distinction between indefiniteness and definiteness.
P2: Self-determination is the power to change possibility into actuality, indefiniteness into definiteness, what might be into what is.
P3: If God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, then all events are exhaustively definite before they occur. In God’s mind there is no indefiniteness to the future.
Conclusion: From P1-3, it follows that if God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, it does not lie within any created agent’s power to change possibilities into actuality, indefiniteness into definiteness, what might be into what is. If God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge, in other words, creatures cannot possess self-determination.
Comment: Regarding P1, if the distinction between actuality and possibility is not located in definiteness, in what is it to be located? No cogent, more fundamental definition has been given. Regarding P2, if self-determination is not to be defined as an ability to render possibilities actual, how are we to define it? No one has suggested a cogent alternative.
If both are granted, however, the possibility of affirming that the content of God’s foreknowledge is exhaustively definite while at the same time affirming self-determination is logically ruled out. . . . Agents cannot turn possibilities into actualities if there are no genuine possibilities. By its very definition, however, Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge does not allow for future possibilities. Hence, if God possesses Exhaustive Definite Forknowledge agents cannot possess self-determining freedom.
ApologeticJedi said:I disagree that foreknowledge doesn't limit free will. If free will means the ability to change the foreknown future, then those ideas are incompatiable.
If God foreknows the rate that a disease will overtake a person tomorrow that he shall die, and he knows that the disease will kill this person, then God is not free to make changes. His knowledge limits his ability to act against the future that He knows to be true.
If God knows the score of next year's Superbowl, then men are unable to make effectual changes that would alter that future from coming forth that God preknows.
Rob's earlier post said:The argument Clete puts foreward is that if the certain/actual is known then the probable/potential/possible doesn't exist prior to the certain/actual. If we think linearly then that isn't true. The probable/potential/possible always precedes the certain/actual even if the knowledge of the certain/actual exists beforehand.
godrulz said:This reasoning may work to a point, but it would not account for exhaustive foreknowledge of all moral and mundane choices by every creature from trillions of years ago. You are still talking about proximal vs remote knowledge, limited parameters vs unlimited parameters. You cannot extrapolate from a few specific examples to a general rule that is defensible and exhaustive.
God knows way more things than we would know, but it is still not a limitation on omniscience to not know a nothing (cf. omnipotence is not limited by not doing everything possible or not doing the absurd/impossible).
RobE said:Every bird and season, every rain, the oceans, our parents all the way back to Adam. I think He knows and I'm glad for it because what kind of uncertain future would a God who is not omni-capable lead me into.
Rob
RobE said:Free will doesn't mean the ability to change the foreknown future. Free will means that you do what you want to do and nothing else.
RobE said:Untrue. If God "knows that the disease will kill this person" then the person will die. However, God may know that God will heal him; or, God may just decide to Heal the person in which case God would be changing the man's future.
RobE said:I can say that God who created things which we are still trying to figure out is much smarter than we are able to comprehend.
spaz said:How do open theists deal with Acts 17:28. Where paul says in God we have all our movement and being and he uses Greek philosophy to back the point up?
drbrumley said:It would be easy to say you have a very weak faith then? Agree?
I mean, sheesh, God is not God unless He knows everything and has preprogrammed your every step?