ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1

[DFT_Dave]

Then don't address it. Let it go if it is dumb to you. I was trying to tell you our understanding of measurement is within a superficial framework. God measures more exactly than we. But in the same way you might say God has to use a ruler, the argument I'm hearing is that God has to go through our same incremental steps of duration, and I cannot agree. He is both here with us now, and seated in Heaven. He already supercedes our increments. It would take us hundreds of years just to fly out of our galaxy. It takes almost 5 minutes just to get a signal from Mars. God already supercedes our movement in time. We live in an accelerated pace. We don't spend as much time as our forbearers gathering food, preparing it, traveling, etc. We travel faster. We arrive sooner. For us it is unidirectional. When Jesus told the Pharisees "Before Abraham was, I was. He says I AM. What is very important here is that it was bad grammar unless you were claiming God's name, and unless you really didn't exist in the past in a present state somehow. The Arian's miss the first, but the second is important as well.

You have a good point "that God has to go through our same incremental steps of duration, and I cannot agree." I see it somewhat differently as well. The I AM statement has to be looked at too, but I want to develope God as "infinite potentiality" in contrast to "pure actuality" before I comment on this.

 

[Lon]

Originally Posted by DFT_Dave
We should make sure we're reading the same Bible, because mine says that it is God who says "now I know", God referring to himself. Your Bible seems to say that it is Abraham that says "now I know". I hope you see how this misrepresents the passage. God does not know our thoughts before we think them, and certainly not before we were created--this is hardly a mute point.

This is a good summary of our differences. It is interesting that on almost every point of dichotomy we take the opposite view:

OV nonOV

God repents God doesn't repent
God changes God doesn't change
God knows much God knows all
God is constrained by time God is timeless

So clearly we are taking two different approaches to understanding scriptures and our paradigms are drastically different.

I understand your problem with a nonOV. The more I'm on here, the more I appreciate your concerns. I agree it is convoluted, but the OV has an equal number of logic holes as I see them. I wouldn't say it is a coin toss, but I truly appreciate how OV makes me think and appreciate.
I also appreciate you think you are correct and I'm wrong. I haven't been convinced, but I appreciate one who loves God with their minds as well as the other facilities God has given us to know and appreciate Him.

 

[themuzicman]

Can I make a slight disagreement with your contrast of OV v. Non-OV?

"God changes" vs. "God doesn't change"

Many non-OV theologians have abandoned impassibility, suggesting that God has emotions of some kind. They are also abandoning complete immutability as a result of losing impassibility.

I think the better way to put this is:

"God changes His mind" vs. "God never changes His mind"

Also:

"God knows much" vs. "God knows all"

Both OV and non-OV say that God knows all. The difference is in the nature of "all". The non-OV has a static view of knowledge, such that the contents of God's knowledge don't ever change. The OV has a dynamic view of knowledge in that new knowledge comes into being with every decision that is made, and God instantly knows all new knowledge as it comes into being, and thus continually knows all... We might better say:

"God created a universe with an unknowable future" vs. "God created a univers with a knowable future."

Muz

 

[Yorzhik]

This is a good summary of our differences. It is interesting that on almost every point of dichotomy we take the opposite view:

OV nonOV

God repents God doesn't repent
God changes God doesn't change
God knows much God knows all
God is constrained by time God is timeless

Let me see if I can help by fixing your table here...

OV; nonOV

God repents; God doesn't repent despite what the bible says
God changes; God doesn't change and is a stone
God knows all; God knows all even logically contradictory things
God is real and lives in all time; God is timeless and thus meaningless

 

[Yorzhik]

Actually, Muz said it better.

 

[elected4ever]

You have a good point "that God has to go through our same incremental steps of duration, and I cannot agree." I see it somewhat differently as well. The I AM statement has to be looked at too, but I want to develope God as "infinite potentiality" in contrast to "pure actuality" before I comment on this.

Why is god potentiual and not actual to you?

 

[themuzicman]

Why the false dichotomy?

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Until you accept modern physics point of view of time being as real a thing as space or gravity, the you will be hopelessly loss in the world period.

baloney (pun intended)

Go back..... back before creation. Back prior to Genesis 1. Prior to God creating the heavens and the earth.

At that point there was no energy, there was no matter.... only God. Prior to creation there was no E=MC2. There was nothing to bend or manipulate time with, it was just God.

And you must ask yourself.... was there time then? Did one event happen after another event? Did one thought happen after another thought for God? Or was He in some sort of eternal now?

Can we know?

YES!!! We can know the answer to that question! We can know because God isn't still stuck in some eternal now prior to creation. God DID at some point create! God advanced to the point where He created.

IF.... time did not exist prior to creation God could have never advanced to the stage where He created. God would still be in that eternal now, forever being stuck in an irrational existence where all events happen simultaneously forever. Yet here we are in a reality where time flows one event after another where the only moment that really exists is the ever passing moment.

If God created time how long did it take Him to create time? That funny line is actually pretty powerful when you think about it because it's impossible to have a "time" before time since getting to the point where time existed would take a step in a sequential reality (it would require time).

The following two types of existences are mutually exclusive.

- An eternal now, where all events happen simultaneously forever.
- A sequential reality where one event follows another event and so on.

Those two types of possibly realities could not co-exist with each other even if one existed before the other. One of the above must be true and the other must be false.... for all eternity.

Now you might say to yourself, OK God was in an eternal now but then broke out of that eternal now to create a sequential reality that we live in now. For that to be true the eternal now would have been a timed event where God allowed the eternal now to exist for a "time" prior to the moment when He felt it best to create a sequential reality. Obviously that defeats the purpose of an untimed existence therefore that must be false.

In conclusion, we can prove that God has always existed sequentially due to the fact that God has acted sequentially at any point in history, which of course is obvious to everyone that that time is now and for all of our known history.

 

[Lon]

Actually, Muz said it better.

Yes he did.

 

[Philetus]

"God created a universe with an unknowable future" vs. "God created a univers with a knowable future."

Muz

:thumb:

 

[patman]

This is a consistent OV problem that even Godrulz falls for on occassion in his reasoning of a nonOV position. It is the idea that what is unconditional to God is unconditional also to us. While I don't like 'illusion' of freewill theology, it is very important to recognize that God's truth is different than ours, always. Any similarity is coincidental in understanding and imago deo by design.

I don't like the chess 'game' analogy at all, for it has a lot of analogous extrapolation, but it would be like an omniscient opponent playing one without it.

Well, God is the one making a conditional promise, or prophecy. Not man.

Conditional = God says B will happen if A happens. Otherwise C will happen.

The problem for the S.V. is that God knows A is never-ever-ever-ever-ever going to happen. Did he really make a prophecy, did he really make a promise if he knew he would break it?

Isn't that a form of a lie, to say something will happen (conditional or not) when you know it won't? Isn't that God leading his people on?

And before your answer like other S.V.ers, should God do evil that good may come of it?

 

[elohiym]

The Johannine use of light vs darkness is moral, not physical. Where does it say rocks can speak? Jesus used hyperbole to make a point.

I wish the rocks had spoke, godrulz; but even if they did, I doubt you would have believed. Jesus was not using hyperbole. The guy walked on water, remember?

I have often said that God cannot make a rock too heavy to lift since this is a logical contradiction/absurdity. It is NOT a limitation on omnipotence to not be able to do the impossible (make square circles, married bachelors, pregnant and not pregnant at the same time, etc.).

Like walk on water, part seas and rivers, raise dead people to life, make donkeys speak?

This debate is waste of time. By limiting God, you only limit yourself. God will not be put in your box.

 

[elohiym]

The future doesn't exist.

Any evidence of your claim?

The fact that their is no lapse of time between photons at opposite ends of the universe soundly defeats your claim. Why don't you just ponder that fact for a while instead of making claims you cannot prove?

 

[patman]

Any evidence of your claim?

The fact that their is no lapse of time between photons at opposite ends of the universe soundly defeats your claim. Why don't you just ponder that fact for a while instead of making claims you cannot prove?

That's stupid. If we only said what was proven we wouldn't ever say anything.

Prove it does exist!

 

[elohiym]

That's stupid. If we only said what was proven we wouldn't ever say anything.

It is not stupid to ask someone for proof of a claim. Your assertion that it is stupid to ask for proof is.

Prove it does exist!

I thought you just said it was stupid to ask for proof? :think:

I have already given the proof. Two photons. Points A, B, and C. No time lapse between points A and C. Point B had a past, present, and future that can be seen simultaneously at points A and C. God is at all points.

There is no lapse of time between two photons at the opposite ends of the universe.

 

[patman]

It is not stupid to ask someone for proof of a claim. Your assertion that it is stupid to ask for proof is.
I thought you just said it was stupid to ask for proof? :think:

I have already given the proof. Two photons. Points A, B, and C. No time lapse between points A and C. Point B had a past, present, and future that can be seen simultaneously at points A and C. God is at all points.

There is no lapse of time between two photons at the opposite ends of the universe.

Are you dense?

It is stupid to ask someone for proof when you yourself don't have proof for the alternative.

As for your "proof," as you call it... how does that show the future exists? What if at point B.5 the Star Ship Enterprise flies up and shoots it? C never happened. So God only knew A,B,and B.5 as it happened, if he thought C would happen, he didn't take into consideration Captain Kirk's freewill to kill that photon.

You S.V.er's who are trying to use Physics to explain the future seeing nature of God are going at it all wrong. You should just give up. What did God do to see the future before he "created the future?"

Do you think he wasn't all knowing until he, "created the future/time," is that it? Because there seems to be some unwritten rule that all knowing requires there be future knowledge around here.

 

[Philetus]

Any evidence of your claim?

The fact that their is no lapse of time between photons at opposite ends of the universe soundly defeats your claim. Why don't you just ponder that fact for a while instead of making claims you cannot prove?

uh,er,uh, oh! It doesn't exist.:rotfl:

 

[Philetus]

I have already given the proof. Two photons. Points A, B, and C. No time lapse between points A and C. Point B had a past, present, and future that can be seen simultaneously at points A and C. God is at all points.

There is no lapse of time between two photons at the opposite ends of the universe.

TWO photons?

OK. On one side of the universe is photon A. Photon A looks at his watch and tells God its 10:36 am. (just humor me) On the other side of the universe is Photon B. Photon B looks at her watch at exactly the same instant and tells God it is 10:36 am. (that is what you said, though I don't think it is what you meant).

Now further humor me by 'proving' you are not stupid and restate your 'proof' for what ever it is you are arguing about God being light and photons seeing for God.
​

 

[godrulz]

I wish the rocks had spoke, godrulz; but even if they did, I doubt you would have believed. Jesus was not using hyperbole. The guy walked on water, remember?
Like walk on water, part seas and rivers, raise dead people to life, make donkeys speak?

This debate is waste of time. By limiting God, you only limit yourself. God will not be put in your box.

Walking on water is within the realm of supernatural possibility. Parting seas is doable by the omnipotent. Raising dead people, same thing.

Creating married bachelors is a logical absurdity. It is not in the realm of what is doable, even by an omniscient being.

 

[baloney]

Knight, no energy or matter=no time. In fact modern physics says at the point of the big bang there was no succession=no time.

God is not in some kind of eternal realm. God is eternity. The simultaneous possesion of all limitless life.

You are falling into the same argument that Stephen Hawking presents to forward his agnostic views.

As I already said God is not the first in the order of temporal events, but first in the order of sufficient reasoning.

You are right that God who is eternity and temporal world are distinct, but that does not mean they cannot co-exist.

I'll post an explanation how God can create a sequence of events without being chained down by the sequence.