Right Divider
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You could have died the moment that you typed that... then none of those things would happen.
So, NO, you "know" no such thing.
On the omniscience of God
- Thread starter JudgeRightly
- Start date
So, NO, you "know" no such thing.
Lon
Well-known member
Ask the question again, perhaps with a yes/no answer if you want clarity. I answered it: if Calvinism were correct, I don't care if I'm a robot with no free choice, not a whit. I'd be 'made' to like it. God not only foreknew, Jesus was crucified from the beginning of the world. If God is omniscient (and I believe He is), then my 'free' is of little consequence, especially when I was in sin. I was among so many weeds. While this often angers free will theists, it isn't where I want to build my theology. I want my God search to be about Him. I am nothing without Him John 15:5 is a truth for me.
Before you respond: I'm not a Calvinist in any 5 point or 3 point sense. I do believe they got some things right. I think Open Theism has some things right. I want to be biblical and it means allowing scripture to my my worldview and then going from there. I've stated clearly the problems with Open Theism and where they have, as far as I understand scripture, significant problems.
That it really doesn't matter. Sugar isn't that great for you. If I was concerned about my health, I'd do steel cut oats (and I do). Does it matter that a doctor chose it for me? Not at all. I don't care about 'my' choice if it is wrong. I don't lift it up against God either, about what is best for me. That is just arrogance and self-delusion. "I got to choose God." It is far far more important to me, that He chose me. He was loving when I yet didn't know what that meant. I find all meaning when I go to His will, cancelling mine and taking His Spirit and nature. It is God in me that wills, acts and does (unless we aren't His).
I agree. It is worth this conversation as thus. We take every thought captive.
It is a service to one another and biblical to talk about Who God is and lift Him up. I've accepted correction on TOL to be more biblical. While it often exasperates, It is a good service to one another.
Are you willing to say He does? And an important follow up: If not, why not? I'll do whatever God calls me to do, His will, not mine. I want to follow Him. If I ever became Open Theist, He will have to make that clear. After 25 years, I've found that Open Theism is free (my) will theism. I every question 'my' ology.
Or none at all. Yes. Important? Not at all. Even if the decision were life and death: His will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
Better, because 'mine' doesn't matter at that point, no?
I am not God. That is an important statement: It means that the Open concern is important for discussion and consideration.
*I'm 'open' to your response and consideration: I don't like the premise of free will theology. Specifically because my will, without God never produces what God desires because I'd followed a sin inclination that separates. Rather my whole life, I'm trying to be more like Jesus which means adopting His will and negating mine. Then, with His Spirit inside me, I desire to do what He prompts me to do (all Romans 7 consideration).
*What is the beauty and majesty of freewill theology that I'm missing? What is so incredibly important about my will other than it following His will? Is there some magic that makes me choosing Him more meaningful than just being obedient and negating my will for His? I think, scripturally, that we are left on the planet as lights, and as learning to that our wills aren't nearly as good as His will is.
Speak to me. I'll try very hard to listen to what you get as a free will theist and why you hold it up as a pinnacle, that it is literally the moniker for such theology: "Free will Theists."
Lon
Well-known member
He had a human nature. Consider these scriptures and help me answer the question.
Not at all.
Again, read the above scriptures and help me out with the answer. My answer: He had a human nature. Hebrews 4:15
Lon
Well-known member
Choice as a small player: I chose vanilla from your freezer. You had both, a couple of scoops are missing from your quart: Small player.
I'm a Christian. Whose choice mattered, mine or His? I never intimated 'slightly' choosing, that is a strawman.
At the very least, thank you for answering the question: "Why does 'free will' theism exist or matter for someone for import?"
Be patient: I don't know what 'falls in love' means. I love God and I love my wife. I wasn't caught up in an emotional state as much as I was aware that I needed Jesus, wanted my wife. Every day, I discover how much further I have to go before I actually love them. I have learned over 50 years, how much more I can love my Savior, and after 35 years, how much more I need to love my wife. I'm learning to love. Now 'choice' is doing that, but it is the doing over the intention (choice) that is the cream. My working definition of love: "Unselfishly (free will?) committed to another's highest good." For me, it'd be a misnomer to intimate I 'fall in love.' There is every sense that I appreciate God and wife more every day. Is that what 'falling in love' means to someone? You answer some of this:
I'm not even sure it is emotion. Emotion is involved, but love is a cognitive choice else I could not love my enemies and do good to them.
My working definition: "Unselfishly committed to another's highest good." I will totally grant that love needs a little more for its definition. I cannot 'unselfishly commit to Hitler's highest good, but rather to the good of others around him, so discernment is missing.
"If you love those who love you, what is that?" Luke 6:32-36 Any debate tenor here isn't for the purpose of debate, but discussion that there would be significant meaning on points here. Is 'unselfishly committed to another's highest good' an acceptable definition of love?
I've entertained as well "Unselfishly committed to action, for another's highest good." In every sense, wanting the unsaved to come to Christ is their highest good and whatever we can do to bring them to Him is the greatest love. "Greater love hath no man than this: that he/she lay their life down for another." We can do that daily in the sense that we put other's needs above our own on a daily basis: My wife asks me to rub her shoulders while mine are in knots....
I believe love is primarily intellectual. It is wholly true that our emotions follow our decisions.
Illustration: If my dashlights on my car are akin to emotion, if I fix all the mechanical issues or keep it serviced, the dashlights are all well and good. In this sense, I agree emotions are involved with our being. Romans 5:8, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Would a better definition be "Value and commit to another's highest good" be clearer?
Notice with me: "Free will" or 'choice' have taken a back stage over 'love' at this venture. It may be you are intimating that love must be chosen to be 'love' but I'll wait for your correction or own definition of what love is.
1 Corinthians 13 "Love is patient, Love is kind..." While my emotion follows when I'm 'being patient' I don't fall in(to) patience, and love is that.
I'd have posted Romans 7 as appropriate as well.
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Lon
Well-known member
At least in likeness, for Jesus to be 'tempted as we are." Good, hard question. More below:
Read this theological treatise. Then: Got Questions (Dallas Theological) gives all perspectives without committing to any one of them, thus, I think, A fair offering for what is on the table. In connection, they list in their subnotes Jesus' Human Nature. The linked author disagrees Jesus had a 'sinful' nature but 'likeness' to sinful human nature (Romans 8:3). In particular, I haven't taken a strong stance, but have leaned toward Hebrews, that He was indeed "tempted as we." If it was some kind of hybrid 'likeness' He somehow managed it in a way that He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness when He was hungry and thirsty according to a nature prone toward sin (as well as having dominion over all the lands). I'd always read that, that Satan had control over the world before Jesus' death on the cross. Thus: I'm not opposed to either idea, both have temptation and His empathy toward us, as the focus. I don't have a problem with Him having a human nature, or "likeness of sinful man," as both are given in scripture. "Likeness" may intimate that He was genuinely that, but also with His Divine being. Or it might be that 'likeness' is merely to say that is exactly how He came, but "Likeness" refers to the fact that He took it on much differently than we, because Paul's next words are about that difference: He didn't sin. That last link does a good job of traipsing the scripture implications.
On the flip side, I have not much problem with someone who sees "only 'like' sinful flesh." It simply means, maybe not exactly like humans, "He was tempted/temptable in every way, like us," so that He is able to sympathize. It'd be temptation by degrees, either very close, or exactly like we. It is wholly possible that He took on the temptation exactly, but by a different nature. Scripture says He became man, but He was still God. I can entertain many thoughts on such specifics because there is definitely a lot to consider. -Lon
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Lon
Well-known member
Adam and Eve, certainly tempted. I'd imagine the angels Satan took with him, were tempted by him. It leaves in question: How was Satan tempted? Deluded? Something was his first sin... Probably above my paygrade...
Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
And He KNOWS us—better than we know ourselves. That's MY point. And WE know ourselves pretty well! We certainly know something like if there are 10 different varieties of premium real ice cream available, and our favorite is chocolate and chocolate's available, that we're going to be having chocolate ice cream. If A then X, if B then Y, if C then Z. We know that. So does God.
And vanilla Roman Catholicism simpliciter has the Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by JP2. You always know the vanilla Roman Catholic simpliciter position by checking JP2's Catechism—very convenient. But also come to think of it, since the Bible is the infallible Word of God, that means the Bible's table of contents is infallible too (no other option). So whoever fixed the Bible's table of contents exercised infallible power. Did you ever think of that?
This is weird. I know that President Trump will post on social media today. I don't even know him personally but I know that. It isn't even fallible knowledge, it's 100% certain he's going to do it.
The only obv exception would be if something happens to him which prevents him from posting on social media today. But that's going to be a different situation from a normal day, a normal day we might call condition A, and X is he's going to post on social media. If A then X. But if it's not a normal day, then maybe he doesn't post today. But that's a different condition, circumstance, or situation. Condition B or condition C or something.
This argument also says you yourself cannot know you will answer the phone tomorrow at 9 AM.
Problem is twofold. One is the phone needs to ring at 9 AM. How's that going to happen? Who's DEFINITELY calling? If you're answering the phone at 9 AM then someone's CALLING at 9 AM—who is that? How are they involved?
Let's set it aside, and figure it's a robo-call made by a computer. Let's further say the computer calls at 9 AM based purely on a pseudorandom algorithm, so that it's not even a computer programmer's choice involved in the call being made at 9 AM.
So God knows the computer based on its pseudorandom algorithm will call at 9 AM, because He's God. But now He also knows what you yourself know about yourself, viz. that when the phone rings you always answer it. This is a case of condition, circumstance or situation A entailing that you will choose free choice X, if A then X.
So if condition A obtains, then you will do X. A obtains. Now you do X.
You're saying, this argument is saying, that you can't even have this knowledge about YOURSELF and be a free person. This doesn't have anything to do with God's foreknowledge, it also denies your own foreknowledge about YOURSELF.
The other problem is what if you're like Two-Face, and you never ever do anything without first flipping a coin? Now in your argument before you answer the phone, you flip a coin to see whether you should answer it. God being God, knows the coin will come up heads say. You always assign heads to doing the affirmative thing, and so you answer the phone. You'd say that you are determined but not in the same way, right? The fact that there's a randomizer involved ties you not so much to God's foreknowledge, but to the coinflip. You're not determined because of God's foreknowledge that you'll answer the phone, but to the coin coming up heads.
Those two problems nullify this argument.
Just think of it as 'what comes to pass.'
I didn't straw man anything.
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Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
Yeah I see what you mean. You are importing a ton of other meaning into the word 'mother' than you otherwise would, in any other case. In any other case the word 'mother' to you isn't triggering, but when it comes to Jesus's mom you start hallucinating about what the word REALLY means or something.
I misspoke, earlier, when I commented to @Lon that the Nestorian controversy wasn't over Mary but over Jesus. It was actually over the word 'mother', or in their case, TOKOS, which just means, basically mother, but especially a mother is who bears¹ a child.
So what I said earlier about how a pregnancy "surrogacy", where the woman who is pregnant is genetically unrelated to the child in her womb, would be significant if we equate a mother with a bearer,¹ because this woman would be that child's bearer,¹ but it's tricky because usually the child a pregnant woman bears¹ is her own child, having half of her own D.N.A.
And that's exactly what Mary did and who Mary was. It wasn't an outlier or a hard case like "surrogate" pregnancy is.
So therefore ... she's Jesus's mom, simpliciter, that's even right out of the Scripture, when Our Lady's cousin Elisabeth says c. "Behold the mother of my Lord".
This is so stupid. In every single conversation the word doesn't NEED to be defined because you KNOW what it means. Now suddenly you have amnesia. Suddenly it's Greek to you.
The truth is you think that admitting the logical fact of the matter here would sound Roman Catholic, and you just can't have that. So that makes you biased and a partisan. Like the mainstream media who shill for the Democratic Party in America, you're not entirely interested in the unvarnished truth—in the whole truth. Incidentally Catholic means whole. When the truth suggests that maybe your theological ideology (your pet theology) isn't correct, you cover your eyes and your ears. You stop thinking.
And it's pronounced when it's over something so innocuous as the meaning of the word 'mother'. In every other case you know what mother means. Now, here you pretend to not know. Because you're a partisan. You just love your pet theology too much, and it's clouding your judgment.
Mother.
No. I think Our Lord is far more than any other CHILD Who's ever been born. (Remember "born" is past tense of bear—supra¹.) Mary is just His mother. And I don't mean "just" as if therefore she's just like every other woman, that's absurd to suggest this. I mean ontologically she's just like every other woman. But she is "blessed" among women. (She's also "full of grace", something not said about anybody not until Paul says it about the Body of Christ—the Church—some ... what, 50 years later?) Not because of her, but because of Him. She's His mom. That does make her special and unique.
If you weren't so blind with bias, you wouldn't struggle to see facts.
:freak:
Why would you IMPORT that meaning into what 'mother' means, Clete? Why would you ever do that? You NEVER do that in any other situation. You always just use the word 'mother' simpliciter, without any such notion that somehow 'mother' means CREATOR.
Why would you think that!
Mothers and fathers don't CREATE their children Clete, idk if you've taken figures of speech too literally, sometimes people will actually say that husbands and wives create their children, but it's untrue. GOD alone creates us, and especially with Our Lord Jesus Christ, Him being God, Mary is certainly not HIS Creator! NOBODY would think that. But ... see below, because actually it was addressed.
That is the fattest straw man I've ever seen. Here's a quote from the Roman Catholic Church in the year A.D. 431
“Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity
received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that,
since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of
God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her,
the Word is said to be born according to the flesh.”
Emphasis mine. Roman Catholicism simpliciter holds that to this day. I found this quote in JP2's Catechism. Incidentally.
She's the first of us who believed in Jesus.
Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
You are also exaggerating, like @Derf .
Look did President Trump post on social media yesterday or no? If he did, am I omniscient? ofc not.
And, if I was going to die, that's something God does know. He's going to know my heart's going to give out or I'm going to fall while rock climbing or whatever. That has nothing to do with my choice, but that's in His purview to know, because He's God, He knows what circumstances and conditions are going to obtain.
So you're missing my point, talking past me, committing a straw man fallacy, or a red herring fallacy. It's one of those or a combination.
I definitely do KNOW I'll be going to my appointment later on today. Unless unforeseen circumstances (unforeseen by ME—not God) change my plans. Or unless, like I mentioned to @JudgeRightly , I'm like Two-Face and employ a randomizer to decide for me. But even then, God can foresee what the randomizer is going to do. That's straight out of the Bible.
In most cases, I'd be inclined to take someone's word for it that I've misunderstood a particular doctrine they hold, but I'm afraid that I don't trust you to be telling me the truth. Of course Mary was Jesus' earthly mother. There's no controversy about that. There would never be any reason to even ask anyone whether they accepted that or not. Asking a Christian who Jesus' mother was and then really pressing hard for assurances that they mean it when they answer "Mary", would be like asking any human being on Earth what the color of the sky is and then acting like you really need to nail their feet to the floor when they answer "Blue". It makes no sense.
Catholics believe the following things about Mary....
- Mother of God: Mary is honored as the mother of Jesus, who is both God and man.
- Immaculate Conception: Mary was conceived without original sin to be a pure vessel for the birth of Jesus.
- Perpetual Virginity: Catholics believe Mary remained a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Jesus.
- Assumption: Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life.
- Intercessor: Mary is considered a powerful intercessor, meaning Catholics believe she prays for them to God.
- Queen of Heaven: Mary is honored as the queen of heaven and earth, a title given due to her role as the mother of the King (Jesus).
- Co-Redemptrix (debated): Some Catholics believe Mary played a unique role in the redemption of humanity, though this is not an official doctrine.
Right Divider
Body part
No, I simply gave you a legitimate example that demolishes your claim.
That's not the kind of knowledge that is meant by "God knows all things infallibly."
Thanks for establishing my point.
Whatever that's supposed to mean... Would you care to define it?
Another term that has absolutely no meaning to me...
So....... A man-made work that claims to detail what the Bible says?
That's your authority?
HEY! The Catholic finally got something right for once!
The "table of contents" that was added by men centuries after scripture was finished being written, you mean?
Scripture was scripture the moment it was written, not when a bunch of men compiled it into a book.
Saying it doesn't make it so.
No, you don't.
Sure, it's extremely likely, barring some unforseen event that prevents him from doing so.
But that's entirely the point, isn't it?
"barring" = with the exception of ==> means that other possibilities are possible
"some unforseen event" = an event that isn't known ==> means an event that isn't accounted for, a catch-all
Except it's not.
Unless you have infallible foreknowledge that it will happen, and are trying to demonstrate it to us?
But at best, all such events can be chalked up to simple confirmation bias...
But then it wouldn't be "100% certain he's going to do it," now would it?
There's always that small possibility that he doesn't.
Which is entirely my point.
So what?
We're talking about God's knowledge, not man's.
It's completely irrelevant and besides the point..
You're overcomplicating this, Idolater.
It's completely unnecessary to know the reason for the call to be made, because the point is made without it.
We're not talking about a "pseudorandom algorithm," Idolater.
We're talking about God's knowledge of the future.
Regardless of who or what calls you tomorrow at 9 am, if God has infallible foreknowledge of the future, you will not answer the phone freely.
Infra.
The argument is not about the limits of human knowledge, Idolater.
It's about God's knowledge.
If God infallibly knows the future, then men do not act freely. PERIOD.
Supra.
If God infallibly knows the outcome, then it doesn't matter. Nothing will happen "freely." Not even the coin as it moves through the air.
You're trying to have your cake and eat it to.
Either the future is 100% infallibly known by God, or it is not. That's what omniscience means.
If 100% of the future is NOT infallibly known by God, then God is not omniscient, and the future is not settled, to whatever extent God does not infallibly know the future.
"How much of the future is settled" is a different topic entirely.
You're trying to address "Is the future settled" with "how much is settled". It doesn't work.
Those two "problems" demonstrate my very position. Thanks for that!
Then just say that, Idolater. There's no need to use such stilted language.
Yeah, you did.
You're not even addressing the point of contention.[/QUOTE]
Derf
Well-known member
My point, and the point of your link's #4, was that unless God made someone with a sin nature, which goes against His character, then it is possible to be tempted without having a sin nature. And, as you have acquiesced partially, human nature is not the same as sin nature, as Jesus had a human nature, but not a sin nature (unless you side with your link's #2, which even the link's author eschewed). Remember that the main question the Got Questions article was focused on was "how could Jesus be human without being born with a sun nature?" (my paraphrasing), not "Did Jesus have a sin nature?"
Derf
Well-known member
Huh?
Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
You never got around to post 1538, I'm just reposting word-for-word here:
We know all sorts of things about future choices, you're exaggerating. You know you're going to eat today. You know you'll answer nature's call a few times. You'll retire to bed tonight. You'll get out of bed tomorrow. All kinds of stuff.
That wasn't a new breed, that was a breed I saw on TOL over 20 years ago. That's why I answered the way I did.
Yeah. Remember we don't know the future, I'm not claiming otherwise, and by future here I mean conditions, circumstances and situations. We don't know the weather for instance, or whether there'll be a viral pandemic. And if the situations which obtain are just out of our common experience, like a World War breaks out, then ofc nobody really knows what they're going to do in the future, but it's not because we don't know ourselves, it's because we're taken by surprise by the circumstances which obtain. If things settle down and there's nothing surprising in the future, then we do have excellent certainty about the future choices that we will make.
And that choice you're going to make is going to depend on your situation. Sometimes you wake up and you just have a hankering for syrup, and if you were to study this biochemically and take daily blood tests perhaps you'll see that when your blood sugar is on the low side, which only occurs once every 30 days or so, then it's associated with the hankering for syrup. Who knows. Point is, you don't know the future, in this case, your future blood sugar, or some other biomarker in your bloodwork. It affects how you feel, which affects your choice, but it remains true that when your blood or your central nervous system or some other physical condition that's beyond your ability to control, is a certain status, that you will choose syrup that day. And if it's not that status, you will choose just butter. If A then X, if B then Y.
Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
I know. The point is that the position I'm actually critiquing is "(our future choices are not known to Him)". I'm saying that even if it's untrue that "God knows all things infallibly", He still knows AT LEAST as much as we do, even about ourselves, which means He knows quite a bit about what we're going to do, since WE know quite a bit about what we're going to do, in the future, in advance. God can't know LESS than us.
I don't, but I must. Mel Gibson is famously Catholic, and even Roman Catholic, but he's not a vanilla Roman Catholic simpliciter, because he denies the Pope rn. He doesn't think there's any valid Pope, it's like he thinks President Biden's election was stolen, and as a result, Biden's not really the President.
In American terms, it doesn't really matter if you don't believe the President is really the President, but in Roman Catholicism, if you don't believe that the Pope is really the Pope, such as if you're like Mel Gibson or other "sedevacantists" (SAY-duh-vay-cant-ist is how I say it, although SEE-dah-vay-cant-ist is also plausible), you don't go to Mass at your neighborhood Roman Catholic parish, if you go to Mass at all. It's got to be at a minimum a Traditional Latin Mass (T.L.M.), preferably presided by a fringy cleric. And if that's not available then you just don't go to Mass at all.
Those folks call themselves Roman Catholic, but they are not vanilla Roman Catholic simpliciter like me and like very most Roman Catholics who satisfy our Mass obligation. Only reason I'm making the clear distinction is for anybody [who's] aware of the various species of people or influencers online who identify as Roman Catholic, but who are in some way irregular Roman Catholics.
Perhaps "regular Roman Catholic simpliciter" is a better formulation, but "simpliciter" should really be in there just because it answers still deeper and more prodding questions anybody reading this might have about what really underlies my regular /vanilla Roman Catholicism—it's simpliciter, meaning it's exactly as you'd expect with no surprises and nothing fringy. First is JP2's Catechism (and notably, I do not turn primarily to the Tridentine Catechism or Roman Catechism which was promulgated in the late 1500s, which was an answer to Luther's Protestant Reformation without any benefit of centuries of hindsight), and the Scripture and the Canon Law, and the current Roman Missal (not one from the 1950s or 60s for counter-example), which are all current and lively and "evergreen" sources of guidance and teaching, on almost all matters, but definitely on core matters at the heart of our faith and practice and style of living. The broadest questions are answered in these sources.
JP2 is shorthand for former Pope John Paul II (now canonized a Saint in Heaven, because he's had two miracles attributed to him, since he went softly into the night).
It's no more man-made than the Bible's table of contents is man-made.
No I mean the actual contents, the books of the Bible. The table of contents just reflects and signifies the books in the Bible. So who decided which books are in the Bible, decided on the table of contents. Infallibly. No other option.
Totally agreed, but it is not the point. Who identified the Scriptures did so infallibly, because whatever books they did not identify as Scripture is not Scripture. And there's no way any books are out there that are really Scripture, but that are not in the Bible. There are lots of ancient documents that didn't make the cut. There was even some question, for centuries, especially regionally, about which books were and weren't actually Scripture. So when that was finalized, that decision was infallible. No other option. And that means that infallible power was exercised, again no other option.
? Which is literally why I followed it up immediately to explain. Why you insist on chopping up users' posts into unintelligible little bits is beyond us all. Why do this? Why waste space and time doing this? It's a red herring AT MINIMUM. It's not at all what I said, as if I was just making a bald assertion. ofc "saying it doesn't make it so". I didn't act like it does. I said something, and then I immediately expounded, which you know, since you responded to it here below!:
The way you demonstrate is to check and see if it happened. I posted this on Wednesday I think, I haven't checked, but did President Trump post on social media that day? Yes or no. idk. But if he did, then that's how I'm demonstrating infallible foreknowledge, it's literally how the Bible says to test prophets, to see if what they say comes to pass, or not. That's the Biblical test, agreed?
Say I predict the Eagles squeak one out this weekend and deny the Chiefs their "three-peat". Say I'm also an Eagles fan. I couldn't even chalk THAT up to confirmation bias, even though I am biased in favor of my beloved Eagles (Fly Eagles Fly). If the Eagles win, then according to the Bible, I've demonstrated infallible foreknowledge, and in this case ofc I don't have that. It's a prediction of a football game. Nobody has that, not unless there's Chicago style "Black Sox" corruption involved somewhere.
Point is that while WE do not know what the day will bring, GOD does.
Yes, and GOD knows when that possibility will come to pass (and we don't).
That was MY point. I'm saying God knows AT LEAST what we know, and more (because He also knows what situations, circumstances and conditions will come to pass).
It means the argument, if it obtains, proves too much. I'm saying it doesn't obtain. But if it did, then it also proves that we are not capable of truly free choice even in the case where we know what we will do in the future. The only exception is where we don't know that the robo-call will be made at 9 AM like God does, but whenever the call comes in, we are going to answer it, which, according to your argument, means we do not possess truly free will, but are locked in, in advance, due to our own foreknowledge (independent of whether God has foreknowledge).
So either way, that argument—if it obtains—refutes free will. And it's YOUR argument. So YOU don't believe in free will. (Like @Lon .)
You could just ignore parts that don't make any sense to you, especially when I compartmentalize it so that it doesn't interfere with the rest of the argument. Which is what I did.
And it's the same for YOUR foreknowledge of the future. This argument proves TOO MUCH. By it, YOU don't believe in free will either, not just Lon here.
I know what 'supra' means because Town, a lawyer (or at least he played one on T.V., we really don't know or care on anonymous internet discussion boards who people really are, since we're only here for their words anyway), would use it all the time here. I had to research to understand the term, and sure enough, in reading through case law and contracts and legal writing, you see the term used all the time. It means, "see what I said above, I'm not going to repeat it", and other lawyers are meant to go check themselves, rather than the writer having to do that work for them. There is a rather curt expectation that the lawyers reading this legal writing will do their lawyer work and that the writing lawyer doesn't have to do it for them by continually repeating and re-quoting themselves.
So Town used the term because of how frequently responding to posts on TOL leant itself to using the term. It was compact and efficient, and certainly moreso than re-quoting himself or repeating himself all the time.
So fine.
I did not encounter "infra", idk what that means. And the snippet of my post you are responding to here doesn't shed any contextual light on its meaning either.
And it's the same ... for you. If YOU have infallible knowledge of what YOU are going to do in the future, then YOU do not act freely, PERIOD. Catch-22. Either way. That's what YOUR argument proves—it proves too much. In trying to take down Classical Theism, you've taken down your own position, it's mutually assured destruction, ironically, M.A.D.
There's that word.
It is? So you're allowing for the possibility that the future is settled, but that God also doesn't know what's going to happen in the future? That is to put it mildly an extreme view. I'm assuming that you do not allow for that possibility in my posts to you here. I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt that you exclude that as a possibility. But now you're saying that's in play? I mean, I'm going to continue to respond to this post giving you the benefit of the doubt that you do exlcude that as a possibility, just for continuity's sake, because I'm going to have to think on this revelation here from you, and perhaps take another tack with you in our discourse.
Thing is there's no word "come to pass-ment", like there is 'obtainment'. 'Obtainment' is a good word, compact, efficient. I can't write what I mean to write if I'm censored in the words I can use, I'm already banned from using certain colorful language on TOL and that's already limiting my ability to write, but that's OK because frankly in most serious discourse such colorful language is not common anyway, but a word like 'obtainment' is certainly found in the literature, just like 'supra' is certainly found in the literature, and the reason it is, is because it's compact and efficient.
If you just search 'obtain' in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 'Obtain' doesn't come up as an entry, because it's not a dictionary, but a number of articles come up with snippets of their content, featuring the term 'obtain' and its variants, and so you can see the word being used in the litature, "in the wild" so to speak, get a feel for how it's used, to understand its meaning. This is really the way Wittgenstein explained "language games" was seeing how the terms are used in common parlance and in discourse to discern what they mean, like how chess pieces are used differently in chess, than they would be used as markers in board games, like in Monopoly for instance maybe you lost all your little pewter pieces so you use pawns and rooks and knights from your chess set instead, those pieces are used differently in those two games. So you can see that if you search S.E.P. for 'obtain' to see it "in the wild" in the literature.
Saying it doesn't make it so.
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