ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 3

[godrulz]

I could never have said it better! :thumb:

I am expecting AMR's lawyers to come after me for copyright infringement and defamation.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Here is the problem Lighthouse.

Over here in the “Exclusively Christian” part of TOL your name calling and childish behavior doesn’t really bother anyone. However, over in the “Religion” section where you are supposed to be an ambassador of Christ, it’s a problem.

It is a ninth commandment thing he will never grasp.

http://www.puritanboard.com/ninth-commandment

AMR

 

[godrulz]

It is a ninth commandment thing he will never grasp.

http://www.puritanboard.com/ninth-commandment

AMR

The Law does not apply to MAD, so sad.:help:

 

[Lon]

I give up. For the last time, there is no such thing in reality as a compatibilistic agent as you have described compatibilism. The rest is just an exercise in linguistic parlor tricks. Carry on with your fruitless exercise...without me.:dizzy:

Molinists, your middle knowledge is no better, so don't get comfortable.

At the very least, don't confuse EDF with determinism. They are separate issues in a sense. Granted we are 'created by Him and for Him' such that there is determinism in what and why we are created (for Him). I don't think anybody argues with that, we all have to see His determinism to a major degree and not be too objecting of the premise.

If I know what you will do tomorrow (I can but predict, but 'if') I have no control over that action. "If" I happened to know your favorite food and that you'd eat it tomorrow, it is completely within your will and desire to do so. I believe the jump in logical conclusion to be faulty. Knowing something does not make it happen, it actualizes it happening (AMR's treatise said another way) Even 'if' it eliminated freedom in some way, who would really care? Its your favorite dish!

 

[godrulz]

Desires/inclinations do not explain everything. In your scenario, there is still a possibility I could falsify your supposed foreknowledge (which is still probability, not certainty).

I am not sure how to get you to see that contingency has an element of unsettledness/indeterminancy, so it cannot be compatible with EDF, even by an omniscient being. Some propose eternal now; others explain it by determinism (if you do so, then don't claim to have genuine free will in any sense); others suggest counterfactuals of freedom/middle knowledge.

After decades of thought and research, Open Theism still resonates with reality and Scripture. Good luck convincing me otherwise (your limited e.g. is unpersuasive and irrelevant).

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

After decades of thought and research, Open Theism still resonates with reality and Scripture. Good luck convincing me otherwise (your limited e.g. is unpersuasive and irrelevant).

After millennia of thought and research, classical theism still resonates with reality and Scripture. Good luck convincing me otherwise (your limited e.g. is unpersuasive and irrelevant).

:squint:

AMR

 

[godrulz]

There is no such thing as a classical view/theology. Various view have been debated for centuries. Calvinism is not as old as you think it is.

 

[Lon]

Desires/inclinations do not explain everything. In your scenario, there is still a possibility I could falsify your supposed foreknowledge (which is still probability, not certainty).

I am not sure how to get you to see that contingency has an element of unsettledness/indeterminancy, so it cannot be compatible with EDF, even by an omniscient being. Some propose eternal now; others explain it by determinism (if you do so, then don't claim to have genuine free will in any sense); others suggest counterfactuals of freedom/middle knowledge.

After decades of thought and research, Open Theism still resonates with reality and Scripture. Good luck convincing me otherwise (your limited e.g. is unpersuasive and irrelevant).

That is a shame because AMR is absolutely correct on the logic.
With foreknowledge, it is illogical to say that if something is foreknown, one 'can't' do otherwise but it is absolutely logically correct that he will not refrain from the choice.

Why? Because foreknowledge means what 'will' happen but it in no ways determines that outcome. Again, and you absolutely know this to be true, if I somehow had God's ability and told you it would rain tomorrow, I have absolutely no control over the weather. It proves that AMR's logic (and mine) stands firmly.

You can say it is unpersuasive and irrelevant all you like, the fact stands on its own whether you acquiesce it or not.

 

[Lon]

There is no such thing as a classical view/theology. Various view have been debated for centuries. Calvinism is not as old as you think it is.

Hogwash, debate the point with any Catholic, I will not. They are right (whether you or I like it or not). There has always been a classical traditional view.

 

[King cobra]

...foreknowledge means what 'will' happen but it in no ways determines that outcome. Again, and you absolutely know this to be true, if I somehow had God's ability and told you it would rain tomorrow, I have absolutely no control over the weather. It proves that AMR's logic (and mine) stands firmly.

Please help me to absolutely understand what you are saying.

Are you saying that we, like weather patterns, are driven solely by physical influences and have no cognitive abilities?

 

[godrulz]

Hogwash, debate the point with any Catholic, I will not. They are right (whether you or I like it or not). There has always been a classical traditional view.

Within this supposed view, there are various conflicting beliefs and evolution/devolution.

 

[Lon]

Please help me to absolutely understand what you are saying.

Are you saying that we, like weather patterns, are driven solely by physical influences and have no cognitive abilities?

Great clarifying question.

I think, in a sense, you are correct in the assumption with the question being affirmative, but let me balance that out with the simple idea that the weather doesn't have self-determinitive qualities. At the same time, it is hard to predict and weather men still aren't 100% on their predictions.

With God, we have the biblical term: Foreknowledge
Acts 2:23 1Peter 1:2 which does literally mean 'known-before.' OV defines it as 'predicting' but this is not a suitable translation of the term because the word is 'know.' For something to be known, it must be certain.

In Isaiah, when God challenges man to foreknowledge, He makes it clear that He has this ability:

Isaiah 41:23 Reveal the things after this, so that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do good, or do evil, so that we may be amazed and see together.

The OV complicates this further by saying that it must be deterministic for such a thing to occur, but 'must' has to be proven for that assessment to be plausible and it cannot be. God may, but doesn't have to determine an outcome to know it (like I don't have to control weather in order to forecast). The difference is, we can merely predict, God knows.
About the closest I can come to foreknowledge of certain happenings is of that which will not change until He chooses them to. The sun will come up tomorrow, but one day I will be wrong according to Revelation. When the sun rises tomorrow, I have absolutely no control over it though I know with certainty that it will happen (until that day).

Psa 139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb.
All the days ordained for me
were recorded in your scroll
before one of them came into existence.

A few OVers on here have tried to say that God recorded His gestation period (9 months) but even if that, which I don't agree with, were accurate, there is no guarantee that he carried to term. Was it 10 months? 8? The fact is, those days were pre-recorded and it is proof that God foreknows what happens to us and the choices made. Some OVers then complicate the matter by saying sometimes God determines in order to know, but as we read both Acts and Peter, we see that God foreknows the actions of men.
In Acts, it is determinitive, In First Peter, we have no such indicator, He just knows.

The latter is an important point of distinction. If we take the term "foreknowledge" as both inspired and literal, we are left only with the outcome that He foreknows the actions of men. What I am trying to show is that determinism isn't necessary for God to foreknow something, that we have choice and are responsible whether He knows or not.

 

[philosophizer]

With foreknowledge, it is illogical to say that if something is foreknown, one 'can't' do otherwise but it is absolutely logically correct that he will not refrain from the choice.

Why? Because foreknowledge means what 'will' happen but it in no ways determines that outcome.

But there's an extra distinction here. God is the creator. Do you believe that God created (or creates) the future? If so, His foreknowledge is necessarily linked to what determines future outcomes. If God doesn't create the future, who does?

 

[godrulz]

Choices do not exist before they are made. For them to be an object of certain knowledge, they must have been made. If God makes them coercively for us (?), He would know them. If we genuinely chose in real-space time in the future, then, and only then, are they known as certain vs possible.

Why do Calvinists have a problem with God allowing creatures to make choices and actualize the potential future. This is how we actually live. Clinging to a wrong understanding (hyper-sovereignty, compatibilism, exhaustive DF vs dynamic omniscience, monergism, etc.) leads to wrong conclusions, circular reasoning, etc.

 

[penofareadywriter]

Open Theists do not deny that God is infinite and cannot be understood beyond revelation and godly reasoning or exhaustively.

This does not mean we cannot know truth about Him and His ways (theology, study of God from Scripture).

For us to challenge your ideas of sovereignty, immutability, impassibility, omniscience, free will, etc. is not contrary to Scripture, but an attempt to have a biblical understanding (Jn. 4:24).

To default to mystery or antimony when there is a more coherent, biblical view available is laziness and indefensible.

Amen!!!

 

[penofareadywriter]

No. Calvinists believe they have free will in all things, but by "free" we mean the ability to choose that which we most desire to choose. Libertarian free will claims the ability to choose otherwise, as if that act of choosing is divorced from any motivations/inclinations. Such a view is illogical in that such a person would never choose, existing in a frozen pose.


Take the above and now ask Who it is that orchestrates the circumstances within which we choose according to our greatest desires/motivations. That would be compatibilism (the very short version).

The longer version for those that want to go deeper...

Compatibilists like myself hold that genuine human freedom and causal determinism are indeed compatible. What is meant by “genuine human freedom,” however, is something quite different than the indeterminist’s libertarian freedom (the liberty of indifference, “to do otherwise”). For example, the open theist believes that he or she possesses the liberty of indifference, as if he or she can be autonomous from our Sovereign.

To a compatibilist, persons can exercise genuine freedom in their choices, that is to choose according to their greatest inclinations, but even when doing so there are still causal conditions (e.g., character, experiences, circumstances, etc.) which decisively incline the will to respond a certain way without indeed constraining it. The causal conditions are sufficiently strong to get the person to choose a certain option such that there are now some guarantees how the individual will freely respond, yet the person was acting according to their own wishes or desires, i.e. “without constraint.” This is also known as consequent necessity. Let me explain this last part with an example:

Necessity of a hypothetical inference...
If God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter cannot refrain from sinning. (Incorrect)

The interpretation above wrongly interprets God's foreknowledge as impinging upon Peter's moral free agency. The proper understanding is:

The necessity of the consequent of the hypothetical...
Necessarily, if God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter does not refrain from sinning. (Correct)

In other words, the actions of moral free agents do not take place because they are foreseen, the actions are foreseen because the actions are certain to take place.

Finally, it should be noted that compatibilists do not claim that all human actions are genuinely free in this sense. For example, if someone is forced at gun point to steal a car, that action is not free.

An illustration might help to explain the compatibilist view. Suppose I decide I want a given student in my class to leave the room. There are three ways I could accomplish this. I could literally grab the student and carry him out of the room. In this scenario, the constraint in operation on the student involves a force (me) exerted on the student that involves bodily movement, but not bodily movement that the student’s will in any sense made happen. Clearly he did not leave the room freely.

Or, I could threaten the student with a failing grade unless he left the room immediately. In this case, while the student does not really want to leave, yet on the other hand the student does not want a failing grade, so he decides to reluctantly leave the classroom. The constraint operating here is a force (me) that does not entirely remove willing by the student so constrained, although what is “chosen” by the student is contrary to what the student wished to choose. Again, the student did not leave the room freely.

Finally, I could perhaps point out the various factors that make it advantageous for the student to leave the room, though nothing I say threatens the student in any way. The student may not initially want to leave, for after all, I am a fantastic lecturer. Eventually though, I convince the student by reason and argument (without threats or warnings of danger if he refuses to go) to leave the classroom. In this situation, while the student did not initially want to leave, after considering all the pros and cons of staying or leaving, his desire to stay changed to a desire to leave, and the student acted on that new desire. In this scenario, a compatibilist will say that while the act (leaving the classroom) was causally determined, the student was not constrained to leave but did so voluntarily, in accord with his own nature, according to his own wishes.

To summarize, compatibilists hold that for every decision a person makes there are causal conditions playing upon that individual’s will so as to incline it decisively and sufficiently in one direction rather than another such that the agent could not have done otherwise, given the prevailing causal influences.

From the classroom illustration we see that human choices, though causally determined, are still free if they are done in accord with the human’s wishes. In decreeing and knowing all things, God certainly has decreed not only what we will do but also the factors that will lead us to act. In fact, even when causal conditions (e.g., character, experiences, circumstances, etc.) do not constrain our will, it is the conditions that constrain us, not God’s knowledge that does so.

As for sinful acts, while God decrees the circumstances in which we let ourselves become tempted and fall into sin, God neither tempts us nor empowers us to do evil, nor does God’s decree. Like everything we do, we do these acts in concert with our desires, and thus we do them freely (in the compatibilist sense of "free"), and what one does freely is something for which one is culpable.

The above is taken from a longer thread with more discussion here.

AMR

:bowser::bowser:Thoughts on my post #1954?:bowser::bowser:

 

[penofareadywriter]

:spam:

 

[SaulToPaul 2]

Choices do not exist before they are made. For them to be an object of certain knowledge, they must have been made.

Daniel 11
6: And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king's daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement: but she shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm: but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her, and he that strengthened her in these times.

Does she have a choice to make an agreement or not?

 

[penofareadywriter]

Daniel 11
6: And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king's daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement: but she shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm: but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her, and he that strengthened her in these times.

Does she have a choice to make an agreement or not?

Yes. Again, this is a issue of ABILITY not KNOWLEDGE.
God would have no problem making sure these events unfolded WITHOUT violating anyones free will.

 

[SaulToPaul 2]

Yes. Again, this is a issue of ABILITY not KNOWLEDGE.
God would have no problem making sure these events unfolded WITHOUT violating anyones free will.

How would he "make sure" that she made an agreement without interfering with her ability to choose?