quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
The existence or not of god cannot be predicated on the ability of our species to perform acts that we may view as 'good'. People can do 'good' things independently of whether or not gods exist...

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

Of course, you can posit a God who intervenes sometimes, but that seems arbitrary.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

Of course, you can posit a God who intervenes sometimes, but that seems arbitrary.

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Perhaps. But "arbitrary" is no logical objection to a position--more an aesthetic one. And "intervenes sometimes" is actually the real--and only--observed category for the choicemakers we do know exist, namely people. So I wouldn't rule it out as a correct description of God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Thank you for the clarification KC, and permission to post.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I didn't think that the free will defence is an argument for God, but rather it saves the idea of an omnipotent God. Such a being could presumably correct all evil, but some evil must be allowed, so that freedom can exist for individuals. Or, we must be allowed to choose evil, otherwise we are robots.

I don't see how it works with natural evil, since if you argue that nature is permitted to mutate as and when, then God might as well not exist? I mean, there is no difference between a God extant, and a God absent.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
[QUOTE]
To Yorick: There is a difference between gods and God. Gods plural are under external limitations--first and most obvious, the existence and actions of one another. God singular in the usual conception of omni-etc. is limited only by his own nature, that is, his own desires, character, will, and so forth.

I don't think you can safely argue from gods to God.

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quote:

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I doubt my personal criteria are of much interest here, but perhaps you're getting at the question of the origin of morality?

A. Natural sources.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

I'd note that my argument doesn't say much for Christianity, necessarily, though that's my religion. But I do hold that your belief in 'good' is no more sophisticated than anyone's belief in 'God'. That's a f*cker if you want to claim atheism whilst having the individual free will to discern and pursue the 'good'.

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An atheist might say that it is demonstrable that good exists.* The mechanism by which it exists is secondary to the fact that it does.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Freewill is the only thing that saves the universe from being scripted completely. Like a movie where no ad lib is allowed. It also means anything can be.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Freewill is the only thing that saves the universe from being scripted completely. Like a movie where no ad lib is allowed. It also means anything can be.

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Nope, that's physics. What's free will?

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Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
My conviction, for what it's worth, is that free will is a construct of the ego/false self, made to support its sense of its own importance. Once we truly understand and accept the continuing, creative presence of God in our hearts and lives, this is the illusion which is given up.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Freewill is the only thing that saves the universe from being scripted completely. Like a movie where no ad lib is allowed. It also means anything can be.

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Nope, that's physics. What's free will?

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It's the truth that by our own will we may determine to carry out God's will, ie to do good and avoid doing evil, and act accordingly.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

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Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
My conviction, for what it's worth, is that free will is a construct of the ego/false self, made to support its sense of its own importance. Once we truly understand and accept the continuing, creative presence of God in our hearts and lives, this is the illusion which is given up.

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I don't disagree with this way of seeing it.

Comparing this to the invention of flying machines, the first is like the freedom that we all have of accepting or not accepting the laws of physics. The second is like accepting and understanding how to make use of these laws to actually fly.

The first seems like free will, but actually accomplishes nothing. It is the foolish construct of the ego.

Only the second is actual freedom, because it is the freedom to actually do what we wish.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So being able to do what we wish is not free will?
We are only truly free when we realise that we are not?
right.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So being able to do what we wish is not free will?
We are only truly free when we realise that we are not?
right.

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That's it.

In a physical sense we are only truly free when we recognize the forces at work in the physical world and learn to work in accordance with their laws.

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quote:

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Same applies to spiritual realities.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ISTM, it is an unsolvable conundrum in the context of traditional Christian belief.

God cannot be Omniscient, Good and disallow free will. Because this means s/he directly causes horrible things.

God cannot be Omniscient, Good and allow free will. Because s/he knows we will do horrible things.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Without wishing to be derisory or anything, from an atheistic point of view I must say how much simpler the question becomes when one doesn't have to find some way of making such an intransigently round circle into a square. It's so simple and obvious and gut-instinctively true that the answer to the problem of evil is that there is no god, and that the universe is neither cruel nor kind- it is indifferent. From that perspective it all makes perfect sense. In a strange (and perhaps unexpected) way, it is profoundly reassuring to realise this.

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It's so simple and obvious and gut-instinctively true that the answer to the problem of evil is that there is no god, and that the universe is neither cruel nor kind- it is indifferent.

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Well, that's intellectually consistent - but amounts to saying 'the problem of evil is solved by there being no evil'.

I know, KC already made that point - I see your 'Brothers Karamazov' (actually I only half-see it - to my shame I conked out half way through. I must try again) and raise you a 'Crime and Punishment' (I found this one easier!)
 

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Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
OK, a couple of clarifications.

First, the issue is not whether free will proves, disproves, or is compatible with, the EXISTENCE of God, but whether free will demonstrates the compatibility of the existence of evil with belief in the existence of a GOOD God.

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:


First, it accounts for moral evil better than it accounts for natural evil.

Phenomena such as earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, floods, mudslides/landslips, typhoons, forest fires caused by lightning strikes, crop diseases, plus all those horrible diseases (malaria, cholera, ebola, AIDS, syphilis, rabies - you name it)) are not a direct result of human misuse of free will, and must therefore be a result of direct divine fiat.

Any attempt to shift the blame to Satan comes up against the heresy of dualism eg Manichaeism.

Secondly, it does not explain the suffering of animals.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:


Thirdly, if (as traditional orthodoxy seems to suggest) most of humanity are going to end up in hell for eternity, how can this in any meaningful way be seen as a lesser evil than denying creatures free will?

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

Fourthly, if free will is such an imperative good, will it continue as part of the saved's experience in heaven, in which case is there the possibility of a further Fall (or a series of further Falls, such as Origen conjectured)?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:


Fifthly, historic, credal Christianity is theistic rather than deistic (ie God can and does continue to intervene and act in history, rather than setting our world going and then leaving it alone), which means He can and does from time to time overrule human free will, which leaves us with the problem alluded to upthread, of His seemingly arbitrary interventions to prevent some evil and not others.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:


Finally, the free will defence might seem to carry some validity in a tutorial room, but it is too academic and theoretical to provide any satisfaction in the face of horrors such as an appalling disease, or accident, or even deliberate torture, suffered by a child, which God watches but declines to prevent (yes, I have recently re-read Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov).

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Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
There is no free will, because there is no true self, no authentic life outside of God. God's will is entirely self-consistent, so we are drawn by the life of God within us into that life, and out of the comforting illusion of separation.

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Originally posted by Evensong:
I don't recall any orthodox theology or biblical theology that says most of humanity are going to end up in hell.

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Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
There is no free will, because there is no true self, no authentic life outside of God. God's will is entirely self-consistent, so we are drawn by the life of God within us into that life, and out of the comforting illusion of separation.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
I don't recall any orthodox theology or biblical theology that says most of humanity are going to end up in hell.

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"Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"

Matthew 7:13-14 and Luke 13:22-4 are not necessarily proof texts, but are certainly suggestive.

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This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For
there is one God;
there is also one mediator between God and humankind,
Christ Jesus, himself human,
who gave himself a ransom for all

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Fourthly, if free will is such an imperative good, will it continue as part of the saved's experience in heaven, in which case is there the possibility of a further Fall (or a series of further Falls, such as Origen conjectured)?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
I don't recall any orthodox theology or biblical theology that says most of humanity are going to end up in hell.

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"Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"

Matthew 7:13-14 and Luke 13:22-4 are not necessarily proof texts, but are certainly suggestive.

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Warnings to faithfulness.

Contraindicated perhaps by 1 Timothy 2:

quote:

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This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For
there is one God;
there is also one mediator between God and humankind,
Christ Jesus, himself human,
who gave himself a ransom for all

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and the rich not being able to be saved but that nothing is impossible for God.

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The problems with the free will defence which I outlined in my last post (assuming I have understood and explained it accurately) are, ITSM, as follows.

First, it accounts for moral evil better than it accounts for natural evil.

Phenomena such as earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, floods, mudslides/landslips, typhoons, forest fires caused by lightning strikes, crop diseases, plus all those horrible diseases (malaria, cholera, ebola, AIDS, syphilis, rabies - you name it)) are not a direct result of human misuse of free will, and must therefore be a result of direct divine fiat.

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
It's the truth that by our own will we may determine to carry out God's will, ie to do good and avoid doing evil, and act accordingly.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
But this definition of natural phenomena, of natural processes as evil requires incredible hubris (in the full definition of Pride as a one of the seven deadly sins). These are not results of divine fiat, they are processes and happenings due to the natural variation and organization of life, the universe and everything. This is not about God choosing to cause every little thing, it God in God's infiniteness allowing infinite variability into the created universe.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
I agree there are lots of problems with a free will theodicy. The basic benefit however is the ethical implications. At the moment the intellectual trend or fashion in child-rearing is to err on the side of permissiveness and of letting children learn from their mistakes. Likewise, in politics the theory (if not always application) trends against paternalistic intervention in social matters; you either let people live with their mistakes or you help them pick themselves up after they've made them (depending on political hue).
The idea is that love grants freedom. That being the case, a theodicy in which God is the limit case exemplar of that is ethically and politically apposite.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
These are not results of divine fiat, they are processes and happenings due to the natural variation and organization of life, the universe and everything.

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Evensong and fausto.

You seem to have jumped from my suggestion that the Bible teaches that few will be saved, to the assumption that I am some sort of Calvinist.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As it happens, I am a thorough-going Arminian who believes that God loves all people, that Christ died for all, that God extends a genuine invitation/command to repent and believe, that he gives everyone the prevenient grace to do so, and that he wants all to be saved.

However, this is not incompatible with believing that he will not overrule human free will, and that most will choose not to respond - which, of course raises all sorts of other questions (about God's foreknowledge, for example).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
The idea is that love grants freedom. That being the case, a theodicy in which God is the limit case exemplar of that is ethically and politically apposite.

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So free will = freedom?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Who is 'us'?

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quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Evensong and fausto.

You seem to have jumped from my suggestion that the Bible teaches that few will be saved, to the assumption that I am some sort of Calvinist.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As it happens, I am a thorough-going Arminian who believes that God loves all people, that Christ died for all, that God extends a genuine invitation/command to repent and believe, that he gives everyone the prevenient grace to do so, and that he wants all to be saved.

However, this is not incompatible with believing that he will not overrule human free will, and that most will choose not to respond - which, of course raises all sorts of other questions (about God's foreknowledge, for example).

---

Not presupposing any Calvinism on your part one way or the other. However, it's not obvious to me that the choice is presented to everyone clearly, freely, and unencumbered in this lifetime. Likewise, it's not clear to me why, if the soul is eternal, a loving God who desires the restoration of all creation would foreclose the opportunity to choose at the end of this lifetime, nor why a just God would decree an infinite eternity of punishment in retribution for a finite lifetime of sin. Nor is it clear to me how, if God's essential character is love and if God is omnipotent, we weak creatures would have the strength to continue to resist the magnetic, conciliatory power of God's love for ever.

Origen taught that ultimately, in the fullness of eternity, even Satan would give up his resistance and be restored.

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Originally posted by Freddy:

On the physical plane our free will enables us to accept or not accept the laws of physics. That's one level of free will. The second level is that if you accept and apply the laws of physics they enable you to do things that are impossible without accepting and applying them. Like fly. That's freedom.

On the spiritual plane, our free will enables us to accept or not accept God and His revealed spiritual laws. That's one level of free will. The second level is that if you accept and apply these spiritual laws, such as the Ten Commandments, they enable you to do things that are otherwise impossible. Like find peace. That is freedom.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Even "foreknowledge" makes nonsense of free will , because if the future can be "known" it is fixed-- if God eternally knows what we will choose (whether in this life or the next) than we cannot choose anything other than what God eternally knows-- which means our experience of free choice is merely an illusion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
These are not results of divine fiat, they are processes and happenings due to the natural variation and organization of life, the universe and everything.

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Interesting speculation, but according to orthodox Christian theism, whatever is "natural", whether an object or a process (eg the cholera bacillus and what it does) is caused, or at the very least permitted, by God.

The theodicean implications of this cannot be evaded by fuzzy, nebulous musings on the rich tapestry of life.

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Why is God's knowledge of what choice we will freely make incompatible with our ability to freely make that choice?

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Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Why is God's knowledge of what choice we will freely make incompatible with our ability to freely make that choice?

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Well said. Thank you!

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Interesting speculation, but according to orthodox Christian theism, whatever is "natural", whether an object or a process (eg the cholera bacillus and what it does) is caused, or at the very least permitted, by God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Even "foreknowledge" makes nonsense of free will , because if the future can be "known" it is fixed-- if God eternally knows what we will choose (whether in this life or the next) than we cannot choose anything other than what God eternally knows-- which means our experience of free choice is merely an illusion.

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I've heard this assertion many times, but I'll admit that it doesn't make sense to me. Why is God's knowledge of what choice we will freely make incompatible with our ability to freely make that choice? To say we can't choose anything other than what God eternally knows seems to have it backwards; it's saying that our choices must be consistent with God's eternal knowledge rather than that God's eternal knowledge must be consistent with our choices. There's a difference, it seems to me, between God knowing what choice a person will make and God imposing that choice—especially if one is working in a framework where God is outside time and therefore can be said to know what choice a person will make because God has already seen the choice being made.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
God cannot have any such knowledge. It doesn't exist. So how can He know it?

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Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
God cannot have any such knowledge. It doesn't exist. So how can He know it?

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This assumes that something must exist for God to know it. Why can't He know things that don't yet exist?

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If you can't choose something different, then it's not a free choice. It's as simple as that.

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Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If you can't choose something different, then it's not a free choice. It's as simple as that.

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Note that "freedom" is a relative, not an absolute value. There are always innumerable factors impinging on our freedom. We can be more free or less free. It is essentially a subjective capacity.

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Originally posted by Freddy:

The idea that God's foreknowledge means that we could not have chosen anything different, and therefore are not free, is confusing two different things.

Once a choice has been made, no other choice is possible any longer - because we can't go back in time. But before a choice has been made then alternatives are possible. Our future inability to make a different choice has no bearing on our current freedom.

The same is true of God's foreknowledge. We are free, but God knows what we will choose.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Why would God issue so very many contingent promises/prophesies if he already knows what we will choose? Why bother warning/promising us?

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If God foreknows your future choice, then you cannot choose anything other than what God foreknows. You have no other options.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
it is logically impossible to maintain this view of God's relationship to time and assume any degree of human freedom. However much we've been assured the two things are not incompatible-- they are. The two are mutually exclusive, you cannot have both.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Why would God issue so very many contingent promises/prophesies if he already knows what we will choose? Why bother warning/promising us?

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Originally posted by fausto:
However, it's not obvious to me that the choice is presented to everyone clearly, freely, and unencumbered in this lifetime. Likewise, it's not clear to me why, if the soul is eternal, a loving God who desires the restoration of all creation would foreclose the opportunity to choose at the end of this lifetime, nor why a just God would decree an infinite eternity of punishment in retribution for a finite lifetime of sin. Nor is it clear to me how, if God's essential character is love and if God is omnipotent, we weak creatures would have the strength to continue to resist the magnetic, conciliatory power of God's love for ever.

Origen taught that ultimately, in the fullness of eternity, even Satan would give up his resistance and be restored.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Apostle's and Nicene Creeds, neither one of which specifies this degree of determinism.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The theological ideas were formulated pre-science, more than 1000 years pre-science. We can hardly expect that it would contain the expanded knowledge we have today. God and creation are far grander, bigger and magnificent than any orthodox Christianity could articulate 1000+ years ago. There's a failure of theology to expand, and a severe fault of confining it to historical understandings.

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

As C.S. Lewis points out somewhere, the fact that Augustine believed that hell was going to be full of unbaptised babies does not mean that he WANTED hell to be full of unbaptised babies.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The theological ideas were formulated pre-science, more than 1000 years pre-science. We can hardly expect that it would contain the expanded knowledge we have today. God and creation are far grander, bigger and magnificent than any orthodox Christianity could articulate 1000+ years ago. There's a failure of theology to expand, and a severe fault of confining it to historical understandings.

---

This contains a distinct whiff of chronological snobbery.

The fact that Christians in the past had less scientific knowledge of the universe than we have today has no bearing on the fact that they believed that God created and sustains the universe and all it contains.

No conceivable increase in scientific knowledge could prove or disprove that theological axiom, then or now.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Thank you folks Cliffdweller and Mouse Theif for raising contigency. This is close to my heart. It explains much both of God and of the natural world.

Would contigency would have allowed Jesus and Judas to choose differently? Judas to not betray and Jesus to have been arrested a different day? Jesus to perhaps have been stoned to death instead of crucified? I think so. Because free will, free choice is real. And there was a plan for all contingencies. What do you think?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Why would God issue so very many contingent promises/prophesies if he already knows what we will choose? Why bother warning/promising us?

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Since He knows the future He knows exactly how much warning and promising will lead us to freely choose the right thing.

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Originally posted by fausto:
Eastern Orthodox views of salvation are far more concerned with growing into harmony with God and less concerned with avoiding a deserved sentence of hell and damnation.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
He can and does know them as possibilities. If he knows them as determined realities, then we do not have freedom.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Since He knows the future He knows exactly how much warning and promising will lead us to freely choose the right thing.

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Wow. That's gotta be one of the most deterministic, authoritarian view of God I've ever read. So God knows exactly how much he has to browbeat/nag you to get you do to his bidding?

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quote:

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God knows all the possibilities, and (as implied in all those conditional promises/prophesies) has a plan in place to accomplish his purposes/promises in each of those contingent possibilities.

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quote:

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Note that expands, not diminishes, God's knowledge. God does not know just one determined future-- God knows multiple, immeasurable (in human terms) possible futures.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
God cannot have any such knowledge. It doesn't exist. So how can He know it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
[QUOTE]
oh... except sometimes people DO choose wrongly. In the Bible. Even after God warned them. So how did that work? Why did God warn them, why did he offer them a contingent promise, if he knew they were going to choose wrongly? Did God fail to nag/browbeat/threaten them enough? Or was he just playing with them, pretending they had the option of repentance, when he knew all along they'd never take the bait?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Since He knows the future He knows exactly how much warning and promising will lead us to freely choose the right thing.

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Wow. That's gotta be one of the most deterministic, authoritarian view of God I've ever read. So God knows exactly how much he has to browbeat/nag you to get you do to his bidding?

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Isn't that actually the position that you're arguing for in somewhat less pejorative language?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Note that expands, not diminishes, God's knowledge. God does not know just one determined future-- God knows multiple, immeasurable (in human terms) possible futures.

---

I am not sure that this actually does any favours for human freedom. If all possibilities are there to be knowable, in what sense do merely possible scenarios differ from what is actual? If God knows all the things we might possibly do our freedom amounts merely to running a highlighter across the pre-existing grid. [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
[QUOTE]
oh... except sometimes people DO choose wrongly. In the Bible. Even after God warned them. So how did that work? Why did God warn them, why did he offer them a contingent promise, if he knew they were going to choose wrongly? Did God fail to nag/browbeat/threaten them enough? Or was he just playing with them, pretending they had the option of repentance, when he knew all along they'd never take the bait?

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Perhaps God even allows us to make wrong choices so that we will learn from our mistakes and grow. As every teacher knows, failure can often be a more powerful learning experience than success.

...It is essentially the same lesson as the parable of the Prodigal Son.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
God cannot have any such knowledge. It doesn't exist. So how can He know it?

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Why are you so certain of this?

Moo

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
God cannot have any such knowledge. It doesn't exist. So how can He know it?

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Why are you so certain of this?

Moo

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Tomorrow's rain hasn't fallen. This I KNOW.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
as Jesus did when he became incarnate

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
God cannot have any such knowledge. It doesn't exist. So how can He know it?

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Why are you so certain of this?

Moo

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Tomorrow's rain hasn't fallen. This I KNOW.

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To needlessly argue Martin's poetic point, whether or not it rains tomorrow is a product of natural forces that even humans can predict to some degree. So I think God can and does know definitively whether it will rain tomorrow. To the extent that rainfall is altered by human activity thru global warming, he may not know if it's going to rain 20 years from today. What God cannot definitively know is the free choices of free creatures-- i.e. whether I'll take an umbrella or get soaked in a downpour, whether I'll go to work the long way or drive thru a flooded intersection and get stuck...

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quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
as Jesus did when he became incarnate

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[tangent]
Did "Jesus" become incarnate? Or would it be more precise to say "as the eternal Logos did when it became incarnate in Jesus"?

I see a meaningful difference. I see "Jesus" as a human being of a particular time and place, but one in whom the eternal divine Logos uniquely manifested itself. To say that "Jesus" himself existed in some incorporeal form even before he was born seems to me a form of Docetism. But I may be looking through a glass darkly.
[/tangent]

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Note that expands, not diminishes, God's knowledge. God does not know just one determined future-- God knows multiple, immeasurable (in human terms) possible futures.

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I am not sure that this actually does any favours for human freedom. If all possibilities are there to be knowable, in what sense do merely possible scenarios differ from what is actual? If God knows all the things we might possibly do our freedom amounts merely to running a highlighter across the pre-existing grid.

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I'm not sure what you mean by "running a highlighter across the pre-existing grid."

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quote:

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Open Theists believes this perception of freedom, so stressed in the Bible with its conditional promises and prophesies, is real.

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quote:

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God knows these things as possibilties but not as realities-- since, for God to know them as realities would constrain our freedom-- if God knows as a reality what we will choose, then we cannot choose other than what God knows, and we are not truly free.

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quote:

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This means that God is truly present in our world, including being fully present in time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Note that expands, not diminishes, God's knowledge. God does not know just one determined future-- God knows multiple, immeasurable (in human terms) possible futures.

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I am not sure that this actually does any favours for human freedom. If all possibilities are there to be knowable, in what sense do merely possible scenarios differ from what is actual? If God knows all the things we might possibly do our freedom amounts merely to running a highlighter across the pre-existing grid.

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I'm not sure what you mean by "running a highlighter across the pre-existing grid."

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What I mean is that all the possibilities are mapped out. They already exist as possibilities since God knows them. All we are doing with our choosing is determining which of the lines on the map will receive actual status. That is, we're running a highlighter across the possibility map.

Although even then I'm not sure we're doing even taht.

I chose to reply to a post on the Ship instead of reading a book. What makes this actual and reading a book merely a possibility? My choice? But I could have chosen to read a book - in that could-have been future I did choose. God knows what I would have been thinking while I chose that way. God knows what I would be thinking now if I were reading. So in what way is that other possibility any less real in the mind of God?
In the mind of God, anything that is true of the real world is also true in all the possible worlds that we might have chosen. There's no difference in the mind of God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

I chose to reply to a post on the Ship instead of reading a book. What makes this actual and reading a book merely a possibility? My choice? But I could have chosen to read a book - in that could-have been future I did choose. God knows what I would have been thinking while I chose that way. God knows what I would be thinking now if I were reading. So in what way is that other possibility any less real in the mind of God?
In the mind of God, anything that is true of the real world is also true in all the possible worlds that we might have chosen. There's no difference in the mind of God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Open Theists believes this perception of freedom, so stressed in the Bible with its conditional promises and prophesies, is real.

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I don't believe the sense of 'freedom' that you're using here is in fact a Biblical concept. A quick online search suggests to me that 'freedom' in the Bible is either political/social or a political/social metaphor (by contrast with slavery).
(Conditionals don't require that both branches be equally true/possible/untrue to be valid.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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God knows these things as possibilties but not as realities-- since, for God to know them as realities would constrain our freedom-- if God knows as a reality what we will choose, then we cannot choose other than what God knows, and we are not truly free.

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I think your argument depends on a logical fallacy - confusing what is conditionally true only because you've presupposed it with what is conditionally true because there's a causal relation.

Compare: if you take the bus tomorrow you can't have chosen not to take the bus. And if you can't have chosen not to take the bus, you've can't be going to be free. I think the fallacy in that argument is the same as in your argument.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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This means that God is truly present in our world, including being fully present in time.

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This cannot be true. To exist in time is not to be fully present. To exist in time is to exist from the past and into the future - with memory and with expectation in the case of conscious beings. It is never to be fully present, to be always on a journey from the past moment that is going to the future moment that is coming. Only that which is eternal can be fully present in time.
So say the philosophers and the mystics.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
I chose to reply to a post on the Ship instead of reading a book. What makes this actual and reading a book merely a possibility? My choice? But I could have chosen to read a book - in that could-have been future I did choose. God knows what I would have been thinking while I chose that way. God knows what I would be thinking now if I were reading. So in what way is that other possibility any less real in the mind of God?
In the mind of God, anything that is true of the real world is also true in all the possible worlds that we might have chosen. There's no difference in the mind of God.

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In a sense you are right: in both we affirming the infinite knowledge of God. But from another pov, they are quite different: Knowing something as a possibility is not the same as knowing it as a settled, unchangeable reality. The difference determines whether or not you have free choice.

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quote:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

I chose to reply to a post on the Ship instead of reading a book. What makes this actual and reading a book merely a possibility? My choice? But I could have chosen to read a book - in that could-have been future I did choose. God knows what I would have been thinking while I chose that way. God knows what I would be thinking now if I were reading. So in what way is that other possibility any less real in the mind of God?
In the mind of God, anything that is true of the real world is also true in all the possible worlds that we might have chosen. There's no difference in the mind of God.

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I think the conditional promises/prophesies in the Bible prove there IS a difference in the mind of God. God responds very very differently to the things we "might have chosen" and the things we actually did choose. see: Nineveh.

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quote:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
I don't believe the sense of 'freedom' that you're using here is in fact a Biblical concept. A quick online search suggests to me that 'freedom' in the Bible is either political/social or a political/social metaphor (by contrast with slavery).
(Conditionals don't require that both branches be equally true/possible/untrue to be valid.)

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I'm arguing that assuming foreknowledge makes conditional prophesies/promises nonsensical. If God knows what we will choose, why bother with the prophesy/promise? What is the point if the future is already fixed? Why make it conditional when, in fact, it's NOT conditional. In fact, it makes God a liar-- he is suggesting a freedom that in fact is illusionary.

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quote:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think your argument depends on a logical fallacy - confusing what is conditionally true only because you've presupposed it with what is conditionally true because there's a causal relation.

Compare: if you take the bus tomorrow you can't have chosen not to take the bus. And if you can't have chosen not to take the bus, you've can't be going to be free. I think the fallacy in that argument is the same as in your argument.

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And what is that fallacy? You have said it is fallacious, but you haven't said how.

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quote:

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In the present or future, you are free to either take the bus or not take the bus. You are entirely free. But once the choice is in the past, it is fixed. It cannot be changed. Once you have chosen to take the bus on Wed. the 17th, you cannot go back and untake the bus. You are no longer free to choose to take or not the bus on Wed. the 17th.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
as Jesus did when he became incarnate

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[tangent]
Did "Jesus" become incarnate? Or would it be more precise to say "as the eternal Logos did when it became incarnate in Jesus"?

I see a meaningful difference. I see "Jesus" as a human being of a particular time and place, but one in whom the eternal divine Logos uniquely manifested itself. To say that "Jesus" himself existed in some incorporeal form even before he was born seems to me a form of Docetism. But I may be looking through a glass darkly.
[/tangent]

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Au contraire fausto.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
as Jesus did when he became incarnate

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[tangent]
Did "Jesus" become incarnate? Or would it be more precise to say "as the eternal Logos did when it became incarnate in Jesus"?

I see a meaningful difference. I see "Jesus" as a human being of a particular time and place, but one in whom the eternal divine Logos uniquely manifested itself. To say that "Jesus" himself existed in some incorporeal form even before he was born seems to me a form of Docetism. But I may be looking through a glass darkly.
[/tangent]

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Au contraire fausto.

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Elaboration please? I am not very well versed in the theology of the incarnation. I am particularly puzzled how to reconcile it to the doctrine of divine immutability.

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quote:

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our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
God, of the Substance [Essence] of the Father;
begotten before the worlds;
and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world.
Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead;
and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood.
Who although he is God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ.
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by assumption of the Manhood into God.
One altogether, not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If you can't choose something different, then it's not a free choice. It's as simple as that. If God is outside of time, and "foreknows" what we will choose, we can't choose something different. And that means we're not really choosing, no matter how much it feels differently.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If you can't choose something different, then it's not a free choice. It's as simple as that. If God is outside of time, and "foreknows" what we will choose, we can't choose something different. And that means we're not really choosing, no matter how much it feels differently.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If you can't choose something different, then it's not a free choice. It's as simple as that. If God is outside of time, and "foreknows" what we will choose, we can't choose something different. And that means we're not really choosing, no matter how much it feels differently.

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Thanks for responding, cliffdweller, and sorry I've been slow to get back to it. But I'm afraid this response doesn't connect any dots got me—particularly the dots that say that if God knows what choice you will make (or have made), the choice isn't freely made because you can't choose something different. That makes no sense at all to me.

To say that God's foreknowledge prohibits us from choosing something different to my mind gets it backward and confuses knowledge with an eternal decree, which is a different issue. The choice comes first; God's knowledge is of the choice made. I simply don't see anything inherent in knowledge of a choice that is incompatible with freely making that choice.

You talk about the difference between knowledge of possibilities and knowledge as a settled, unchanging reality, but the latter option has two possibilities within it: a settled, unchanging reality because God has determined it or a settled, unchanging reality because God knows what our freely made choice will be/is and honors that choice.

To be clear, I not really trying to argue for a specific viewpoint right now. I'm simply trying to explain why I find assertions that foreknowledge is incompatible with free will not just unconvincing, but illogical.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Well, let's try turning it around, then. Can you explain to me how you can be said to have made a meaningful choice if there is no possibility of choosing something different? If God knows that I will choose B, can I choose A?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Sorry for the double post, but my brain is not keeping up with my fingers, or the edit window. You asked if I could explain how one can be said to have made a meaningful choice if there is no possibility of choosing something different? It's the assumption underlying that question—that there is no possibility of choosing something different—that I have trouble buying into because I see no basis for it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Yes, we are circling, I'm afraid. To my mind, to ask "if God foreknows you will choose A, are you free to choose B?" is backwards—especially if, as mousethief notes, "foreknowledge" on the part of God is simply the knowledge of one not bound by time. I would ask whether God could know that you will choose/have chosen A unless you in fact freely choose A. The way you have stated it seems to me to conflate knowledge with determinism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Am I free to choose A if God knows I will choose B?

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quote:

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Why does God enter into time to prophetically warn me against B if God knows I will choose it anyway?

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quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:
I see "Jesus" as a human being of a particular time and place, but one in whom the eternal divine Logos uniquely manifested itself. To say that "Jesus" himself existed in some incorporeal form even before he was born seems to me a form of Docetism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
They were just as smart as we are, but they didn't have all of our accumulated knowledge.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Am I free to choose A if God knows I will choose B?

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Again, you're asking me to answer a question built on what seems to me to be faulty premise. Your choice does not depend on God's knowledge; God's knowledge depends on your choice. So you are always free to choose A or B; God's knowledge of what you will choose is based on knowing what you did choose, because assuming my premise—that God is outside time—God sees the before and after of our choices all at once.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Am I free to choose A if God knows I will choose B?

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Again, you're asking me to answer a question built on what seems to me to be faulty premise. Your choice does not depend on God's knowledge; God's knowledge depends on your choice. So you are always free to choose A or B; God's knowledge of what you will choose is based on knowing what you did choose, because assuming my premise—that God is outside time—God sees the before and after of our choices all at once.

quote:

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Why does God enter into time to prophetically warn me against B if God knows I will choose it anyway?

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I can think of a variety of reasons, not least of which would be to honor free will. If God really does give us free will, then God must give us the ability to exercise that will freely. How can you choose to heed or ignore a prophetic warning if God says "well, I know how this is going to turn out anyway, so why bother offering advice?"

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Am I free to choose A if God knows I will choose B?

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Again, you're asking me to answer a question built on what seems to me to be faulty premise. Your choice does not depend on God's knowledge; God's knowledge depends on your choice. So you are always free to choose A or B; God's knowledge of what you will choose is based on knowing what you did choose, because assuming my premise—that God is outside time—God sees the before and after of our choices all at once.

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I think quite plainly that if one is not willing to accept that God is outside of spacetime, then you can't square God's eternal knowledge of our choices with freewill. Freewill doesn't make sense with omniscience and process theology. One of the three has to go.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
As soon as you say "God knows in the future," you have dragged God back into time. God doesn't know anything in the future because God isn't in the future. God is in the eternal Now.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

By process theology, and I may have the term wrong, I mean in part the idea that God is in time and changes over time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Freewill doesn't make sense with omniscience and process theology. One of the three has to go.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We're circling here, but here goes:

Assuming a choice of A or B:
1. If God foreknows you will choose A, are you free to choose B?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
As soon as you say "God knows in the future," you have dragged God back into time. God doesn't know anything in the future because God isn't in the future. God is in the eternal Now.

By process theology, and I may have the term wrong, I mean in part the idea that God is in time and changes over time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:
This may seem an oversimplified analogy.

When my children were small, sometimes I knew what they were going to do and I didn't want them to do it. I decided not to intervene. They did it and it turned out badly.

I did not cause them to do it or not do it.

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Yes. I am always puzzled by the imagined connection between foreknowledge and causation.

On the other hand, if God didn't know that this whole "Creation" project would turn out well in the long run, then He would never have done it.

Who wants to create a universe that just ends up destroying itself?
 

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Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But again, then you DON'T have free will, you CAN'T choose differently, so what is there to honor? How is it "honoring" to pretend we have choice when we don't? You're portraying God as a charlatan, essentially lying to us in Scripture itself, in order to engage in a colossal sham.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Does it make any sense to say that God is both within and outside of time? As he is without it, he has knowledge that, if it were ours, we would call foreknowledge. As he is within it, he is yet another actor in the drama that we see as proceeding from Act I to V, and must be allowed the same freedoms as other actors (e.g. the right to try to change other people's minds without being charged with absurdity).

This may not make any sense. Good night.

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I think it makes more sense than positing God entirely outside of time, and it allows God to be relational-- you can not really have a relationship with someone who is not in time as you are in time.

But it doesn't solve the foreknowledge/free will problem for the simple reason that it retains God's foreknowledge. I don't think there's any reason for that. The Bible never says God has "foreknowledge"-- it instead talks about God's future knowledge more in ways that have to do with God's future intent. God has foreknowledge in the sense that God knows what he intends to do in the future, and has the power and ability to insure that his future promises are true. But he cannot know definitively what his free creatures will choose in the future, even though, again, I believe he knows all the contingent possibilities and has a plan in place to accomplish his purposes in any contingency. He also has infinite knowledge of the past and present, which gives him probably a better idea what we're going to choose than we ourselves do-- but it is not a definitive knowledge because that would preclude free choice.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Nick Tamen, I think you make a really good point. I'm going to attempt to supply that missing link, and then if people shoot it down, we'll know I was wrong.

I suspect the missing logical link between "God foreknows my choices" and "therefore they are not free choices at all" is this:

[implied] "If I were to attempt to choose something other than what God foreknew, God would in his omnipotence put a stop to it, and force the other choice."

In other words, the idea that God would be coercive about it, in order to make his prophetical sums come out right.

All right, folks, shoot me down. (runs and hides)
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But again, then you DON'T have free will, you CAN'T choose differently, so what is there to honor? How is it "honoring" to pretend we have choice when we don't? You're portraying God as a charlatan, essentially lying to us in Scripture itself, in order to engage in a colossal sham.

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I don't think I'm protraying God that way at all—it's certainly not my understanding.

I'll try once more. You keep saying that if God has (fore)knowledge of our choices, then our choices are not really free. That assertion is a non sequiter to me. I simply do not understand why it is true, much less why it seems to be obvious to some others. I have tried to explain why it doesn't make sense to me—because it seems to conflate knowledge with determinism, because it seems to make our choices dependent on God's knowledge rather than making God's knowledge dependent on our choices.

But when I've asked why the assertion is true, why God's (fore)knowledge means our choices aren't really free, I just get the assertion back again in a different form—how can our choices be free if God already knows what they are?

I'm really not trying to defend a position; I'm trying to understand a position. And I'll readily admit that there may indeed be something here that is obvious to others but that I'm simply missing. I may just be clueless—it certainly wouldn't be the first time. But so far, I haven't seen an explanation that makes sense to me of why God's (fore)knowledge is incompatible with free will. I just keep seeing assertions that seem to take for granted that that is obviously the case.

What am I missing?

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You're missing one step. I'm not conflating foreknowledge with causation, I'm saying that fore knowledge and free will cannot co-exist because of a logical impossibility. Here's the steps you're missing:

1. In order to have free will, you must have a choice between at least 2 options, both possible. Your choice may be constrained in some ways (it usually is), one option might be significantly more obviously better or more likely, but still there must be at least one available alternative in order for it to be a real choice.

2. If there is such a thing as foreknowledge, then if God foreknows something, it cannot be other than how he knows it to be.

3. We may posit (as many do) God as outside of time, but that is a theoretical (and, fwiw, extrabiblical) construct. But whether or not God exists in time (I believe he does), we exist in time. We make our choices in time. We experience the past as fixed-- unchangeable-- and we experience the future as open-- flexible, unfixed. So when we make a choice, it will happen "in time", with all the qualities of time.

4. If we are making a choice and God foreknows what we will choose, then it is impossible to choose something different from what God knows it to be. Not because I'm conflating knowledge with causation, but because it is a logical impossibility. See point #2-- if God knows I will choose B, even if his knowledge is somehow "outside of time", then my choice as a finite creature in time cannot be anything other than B. This means I am not free to choose A, which by definition means I do not have free will, at least re A vs. B.

This is a significant point in both Process and Open (or free will) theism, that will then be unfolded as part of a larger, well thought-out systematic response to the problem of theodicy, but at this point it's not about theodicy per se. It's not about whether or not God "allows" us to do something evil. It's about logical impossibilities.
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
"significantly more obviously better"= 3 whacks with the style manual.
 

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Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
Thanks cliffdweller. I appreciate your response. I'll admit, I still don't get it as something obvious—points 2 and 4 seem to me to either rely on assumptions that I'm not sure are well-founded or to exclude possible explanations that it seems to me shouldn't be excluded. But rather than belabor the point, I think it'd be better for me simply to ponder awhile.

Again, thank you.
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Nick Tamen, I think you make a really good point. I'm going to attempt to supply that missing link, and then if people shoot it down, we'll know I was wrong.

I suspect the missing logical link between "God foreknows my choices" and "therefore they are not free choices at all" is this:

[implied] "If I were to attempt to choose something other than what God foreknew, God would in his omnipotence put a stop to it, and force the other choice."

In other words, the idea that God would be coercive about it, in order to make his prophetical sums come out right.

All right, folks, shoot me down. (runs and hides)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:
This may seem an oversimplified analogy.

When my children were small, sometimes I knew what they were going to do and I didn't want them to do it. I decided not to intervene. They did it and it turned out badly.

I did not cause them to do it or not do it.

Moo

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
You're missing one step. I'm not conflating foreknowledge with causation, I'm saying that fore knowledge and free will cannot co-exist because of a logical impossibility.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The objection is one of logical impossibility. It's not that "God would stop it"-- it's that it's already stopped. It's because you can't logically choose something other than what God knows it will be-- so you're not choosing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The objection is one of logical impossibility. It's not that "God would stop it"-- it's that it's already stopped. It's because you can't logically choose something other than what God knows it will be-- so you're not choosing.

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Put it the other way around:
God can't logically foreknow that you will choose something other than what you will choose. The logical constraint is on what God foreknows, not on what you will choose.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The objection is one of logical impossibility. It's not that "God would stop it"-- it's that it's already stopped. It's because you can't logically choose something other than what God knows it will be-- so you're not choosing.

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Put it the other way around:
God can't logically foreknow that you will choose something other than what you will choose. The logical constraint is on what God foreknows, not on what you will choose.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The objection is one of logical impossibility. It's not that "God would stop it"-- it's that it's already stopped. It's because you can't logically choose something other than what God knows it will be-- so you're not choosing.

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Put it the other way around:
God can't logically foreknow that you will choose something other than what you will choose. The logical constraint is on what God foreknows, not on what you will choose.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If there is any such thing as an "eternal Now" we finite creatures would certainly know nothing of it.

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quote:

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It certainly is not a proven proposition that can be as blithely assumed as you seem to be suggesting.

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quote:

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The whole of Scripture is written as if God is in time, to the extent that most of it is nonsense if God is outside of time-- the conditional prophesies being only the most obvious example.

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Open theology is similar in positing God as inside time, but does not share the conviction that God changes over time in the same way that Process does.

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because of the way you're listing free will, omniscience, and process theology all as similar items on the buffet line, whereas Process is an overarching philosophy, and freewill and omniscience are individual doctrines. Process explicitly affirms free will and rejects omniscience-- in fact, those are defining elements, so it was confusing to include them in a list in that sort of way-- sort of positing the definition.

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quote:

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Open (the topic of this thread) and Process have some similar assumptions ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
In my rush to agree, I think I left out a step:

... And, if we are free, God can't definitively know what we will choose until we choose it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If there is any such thing as an "eternal Now" we finite creatures would certainly know nothing of it.

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Only as little as God chooses to reveal to us. Such as when Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I am." The "theory" of the Eternal Now (if that's the right word) seeks to explain this (and passages like it), how a God who created time relates to it, how God can know everything, etc.

The problem with putting God inside time is that God created time. I suppose God could choose to put godself in time, as during the Incarnation, but that's a deliberate choice, not an integral part of godness.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It certainly is not a proven proposition that can be as blithely assumed as you seem to be suggesting.

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I worked out my ideas about this over many years and much reading, thank you very much. Blithe my ass.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The whole of Scripture is written as if God is in time, to the extent that most of it is nonsense if God is outside of time-- the conditional prophesies being only the most obvious example.

---

You would have to prove, rather than just assert, that conditional prophesies require or presuppose a God-in-time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
because of the way you're listing free will, omniscience, and process theology all as similar items on the buffet line, whereas Process is an overarching philosophy, and freewill and omniscience are individual doctrines. Process explicitly affirms free will and rejects omniscience-- in fact, those are defining elements, so it was confusing to include them in a list in that sort of way-- sort of positing the definition.

---

Fair cop. So how is this:

These three things are mutually exclusive, and if two are true the other must go:

divine omniscience, human free will, God being in time

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Open (the topic of this thread) and Process have some similar assumptions ...

---

I thought the topic of this thread was Free Will Theodicy?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by TomM:
I have to say, it strikes me as we are having this conversation backwards.

According to the Christian tradition, where is the fullness of freedom to be found except in God? So in the proper sense we are never freer than when we cooperate in the divine initiative. As such it makes no sense to say that we are not free because God knows how we will choose.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
At first reading I exulted, BLISS! I thought. But then, is OUR already happened future in God's now for you? For me it cannot be.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
On the other hand, if God didn't know that this whole "Creation" project would turn out well in the long run, then He would never have done it.

Who wants to create a universe that just ends up destroying itself?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think it [God both inside and outside time, as per L.C.] makes more sense than positing God entirely outside of time, and it allows God to be relational-- you can not really have a relationship with someone who is not in time as you are in time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
God can't logically foreknow that you will choose something other than what you will choose. The logical constraint is on what God foreknows, not on what you will choose.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Yes, that's right. And, if we are free, God can't definitively know what we will choose until we choose it.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
In my rush to agree, I think I left out a step:

... And, if we are free, God can't definitively know what we will choose until we choose it.

---

This is the step, however, that doesn't connect for me. I'm thinking the difference in understanding turns on differences in understanding about how God relates to space and time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
On the other hand, if God didn't know that this whole "Creation" project would turn out well in the long run, then He would never have done it.

Who wants to create a universe that just ends up destroying itself?

---

Playing devil's advocate here: Perhaps God thinks that the good created in such a universe is worth the trouble, even though in the end it winds up getting destroyed. On a smaller and perhaps ridiculous scale, the maker of a paper cup doesn't feel the exercise is pointless, even though they know the cup will ultimately be destroyed. But along the way someone will drink from it, and that good, plus the ease of disposability, outweigh the final fate of the cup.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Yes, that's right. And, if we are free, God can't definitively know what we will choose until we choose it.

---

Aaaaaand that is not right. You say Dafyd is right, then reject the whole point of what he said.

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Yep. I messed up the first time, hence the need for a correction.

[ 18. August 2016, 15:16: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The problem with putting God inside time is that God created time. I suppose God could choose to put godself in time, as during the Incarnation, but that's a deliberate choice, not an integral part of godness.

---

Yes, that is how I and probably most Open Theists would posit it (there's a wider variation among Process theologians, who also tend to have a wider range of religious convictions).

---

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I've already detailed how I believe that conditional prophesy makes God to be a liar or a con if he already knows what we'll choose-- he's playacting to offer an "if/then" prophesy if he already knows the outcome.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
These three things are mutually exclusive, and if two are true the other must go:

divine omniscience, human free will, God being in time

---

That certainly makes it clearer in form. But I'm not sure it's true that you can have any of the two. You can't, for example, have both divine omniscience and God being in time-- and if you could, it wouldn't rule out human free will.

---

quote:

---

I would say simply that divine omniscience is (arguably) incompatible with both free will and (more obviously) God being in time.

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quote:

---

Open Theology and Free Will Theodicy are synonyms.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Absolutely-- hence the debate between mousethief and I re whether or not God exists in time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
[QB] Does it make any sense to say that God is both within and outside of time? /QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
Open Theology and Free Will Theodicy are synonyms.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
That's not what I'm saying. Again, I'm not at this point addressing the problem of theodicy.

The objection is one of logical impossibility. It's not that "God would stop it"-- it's that it's already stopped. It's because you can't logically choose something other than what God knows it will be-- so you're not choosing.

So when I'm raising the question of conditional prophesy, I'm not asking it because I think God should stop you from choosing wrongly rather than warn you. I'm asking it because it's a logical impossibility. And as such, it makes a liar or con out of God. For God to issue a conditional prophesy, "if you choose A then X will happen, but if you choose B, Y happens..." makes absolutely no sense if he already knows which you will choose. Not because he's allowing you to choose the wrong thing, but because he's implying a level of freedom you don't have. He's implying a choice-- almost fraudulently presenting it as such-- when there is no choice, no logical possibility, of choosing something different.

---

First, I wasn't addressing this specifically to or about you--rather, I was thinking of the vast numbers of people who hold the position that foreknowledge rules out free human choice. And I'm not sure what theodicy has to do with it...

Still trying to get my coffee ingested. I'd better set up an IV, I think.

In the meantime, please do keep in mind that I am caffeine-deficient and very likely impaired.


Just one point in response to the rest of this rapidly growing thread--

Logical priority does not imply chronological priority. Particularly if we are dealing with a Person who does or may relate to time differently than we do.

Therefore God's foreknowledge (which exists from our perspective in the present) is logically AFTER our free choices, even though in terms of time the free choices occur later, in our future.

A similar problem with logical and chronological priority not matching up has to do with the Father as the "source" of the Son. The Father is logically prior--he is the ground of the Son's being--but as they are both co-existent from eternity, and there never was a time when both were not there, there is no chronological priority.

I tend to visualize this kind of thing in terms of two blocks, one resting upon the other. The spatial metaphor helps me avoid the built-in chronological bias that sneaks into so many discussions of logical priority.

Yo, any real scientists out there--aren't there examples of thingies in the subatomic world where logical and chronological priority don't match up? I have vague memories of reading something...
 

---

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Absolutely-- hence the debate between mousethief and I re whether or not God exists in time.

---

Okay, which means that it's only obvious that free will and God's (fore)knowledge are mutually exclusive if certain other assumptions are accepted or rejected. They are not mutually exclusive standing alone.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Absolutely-- hence the debate between mousethief and I re whether or not God exists in time.

---

Okay, which means that it's only obvious that free will and God's (fore)knowledge are mutually exclusive if certain other assumptions are accepted or rejected. They are not mutually exclusive standing alone.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Well, I am arguing the other way around-- that because of the inherent logical conflict between omniscience and free will, God is best understood as inside time. But obviously most do not see it that way. This is a common experience for Open Theists.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Well, I am arguing the other way around-- that because of the inherent logical conflict between omniscience and free will, God is best understood as inside time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Well, I am arguing the other way around-- that because of the inherent logical conflict between omniscience and free will, God is best understood as inside time.

---

Yes, but for me to get there, I have to be convinced that there actually is an inherent logical conflict to start with. I'd agree that there is a potential logical conflict, but it's also possible that there's no conflict at all. That's the missing step for me—getting from potential logical conflict to inherent logical conflict.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
Thanks mousethief. Well I'm half happy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

As I said before, I don't see the logical difference between God knowing an outcome and there simply being an outcome.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
God can't logically foreknow that you will choose something other than what you will choose. The logical constraint is on what God foreknows, not on what you will choose.

---

This is close to my position, although I do not accept God as "foreknowing" because that puts God inside time. Just knowing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Put it the other way around:
God can't logically foreknow that you will choose something other than what you will choose. The logical constraint is on what God foreknows, not on what you will choose.

---

Yes, that's right. And, if we are free, God can't definitively know what we will choose until we choose it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Put it the other way around:
God can't logically foreknow that you will choose something other than what you will choose. The logical constraint is on what God foreknows, not on what you will choose.

---

Yes, that's right. And, if we are free, God can't definitively know what we will choose until we choose it.

---

If we are free, God can't definitively know what we will choose unless we choose it.
'Unless', not 'until'. There's no 'until' if God is outside time. And if you think what I say is right, that negates your chief objection to the view that God is outside time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I saw a young fellow a number of years ago who'd been doing drugs and had quite the temper. I told him that I thought he might end up in jail, charged with a violent offence if he kept following this path. Did I know the outcome? But I was right, he beat his common-law partner to death and went to jail. (I hated being right, I expect God hates to have the predictive ability too oft-times. I also hate that the partner is a prop to the plot and his story. But then a lot of the bible has people-props in it.)

I knew something, but I certainly didn't have control over it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But you didn't know something. You suspected something, based on your depth of knowledge of the person it was sadly a very accurate prediction. But you didn't know it definitively. Had you truly known it you would have been criminally culpable for failing to warn the police of an imminent murder

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But you didn't know something. You suspected something, based on your depth of knowledge of the person it was sadly a very accurate prediction. But you didn't know it definitively. Had you truly known it you would have been criminally culpable for failing to warn the police of an imminent murder

---

So does God merely suspect the future?

I see that what we are trying to avoid is His criminal culpability for these kinds of things..

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

I see that what we are trying to avoid is His criminal culpability for these kinds of things.

Aren't there better solutions to this problem?

The most persuasive solution to me is that God permits some evil in order to avoid greater evils.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
In the Open system, all of those things were known as contingent possibilities, but not specifically allowed or warranted. They are the contingent possibilities of living in a world where there is true freedom. The degree to which we are free to choose good/love is the degree to which we are free to choose evil/hate. Thus in this world we see both horrific, unimaginable evil-- but also beautiful acts of love and sacrifice.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
The most persuasive solution to me is that God permits some evil in order to avoid greater evils.

---

As someone noted in a class yesterday, that view is easier to hold in the (relatively) privileged West than in areas of great war or poverty where the depth of that evil is on full display.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
In the Open system, all of those things were known as contingent possibilities, but not specifically allowed or warranted. They are the contingent possibilities of living in a world where there is true freedom. The degree to which we are free to choose good/love is the degree to which we are free to choose evil/hate. Thus in this world we see both horrific, unimaginable evil-- but also beautiful acts of love and sacrifice.

---

How is permitting something that is known as a contingent possibility any better than something that is known definitely?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
The most persuasive solution to me is that God permits some evil in order to avoid greater evils.

---

As someone noted in a class yesterday, that view is easier to hold in the (relatively) privileged West than in areas of great war or poverty where the depth of that evil is on full display.

---

I think that the opposite is true. It is in the relatively privileged West that this view is met with skepticism. In places where life is difficult people tend to have more, not less, faith.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
How is permitting something that is known as a contingent possibility any better than something that is known definitely?

---

Because it's not a specific tit-for-tat allowance-- it's not "I allowed your child to be raped & murdered in order for this good thing to happen". It's a more general "I created a world where there was the possibility of great evil in order for their to be the possibility of great good". In order to be able to freely choose love, we have to be free to choose hate.

As I said, Open Theism is an imperfect answer, it's just better than the alternatives.

---

quote:

---

... as atoms moved through the void, there were occasions when they would "swerve" (clinamen) from their otherwise determined paths, thus initiating new causal chains. Epicurus argued that these swerves would allow us to be more responsible for our actions (libertarianism), something impossible if every action was deterministically caused.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
How is permitting something that is known as a contingent possibility any better than something that is known definitely?

---

Because it's not a specific tit-for-tat allowance-- it's not "I allowed your child to be raped & murdered in order for this good thing to happen". It's a more general "I created a world where there was the possibility of great evil in order for their to be the possibility of great good". In order to be able to freely choose love, we have to be free to choose hate.

As I said, Open Theism is an imperfect answer, it's just better than the alternatives.

---

News flash: Open Theism is not the only theology that believes God created a world with a possibility of great evil in order for there to be the possibility of great good. That's bog-standard Christianity. If this is the only place Open Theism is better than the alternatives, Open Theism is no better than the alternatives.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I found a discourse on Epicurus (ancient Greek philospher) yesterday was rather enlightening.

quote:

---

... as atoms moved through the void, there were occasions when they would "swerve" (clinamen) from their otherwise determined paths, thus initiating new causal chains. Epicurus argued that these swerves would allow us to be more responsible for our actions (libertarianism), something impossible if every action was deterministically caused.

---

The discussion went on to discuss the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, where we can know the location or the energy state of matter, but not both. I realize this sort of application of physics to matters spiritual is fraught with risks of childish approaches to religion and science both, but it does suggest that the fabric of the universe (including us) does include at least some freewill.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
I didn't realize you were summing up the whole thread, but leaving a lot unsaid. I thought you were responding to Freddy's post. My bad.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
"Attacked"? Puh-leeze. If pointing out an error in what you've said is an attack, you need a thicker skin.

If you say:

X
Y
Z
Open Theism is better than the alternative

You'll have to forgive your readers if they think you're saying that Open Theism is better than the alternative because of X, Y, and Z. If you really mean it's better than the alternative because of A, B, C, D, E, .... X, Y, Z, then it would be easier to tease out what you're saying if you were more explicit about that.

Particularly when X, Y, and Z are things Open Theism shares with all Christianity. Which was my point. Which you've ignored.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
My point is that X, Y, and Z are shared with all Christianity (except maybe some weird ancient or ultramodern side groups). Which is to say, the idea that God allows evil that greater good may come of it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
I am most assuredly not an Augustinian/Calvinist. How does it apply to me?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm trying to represent the Openness position, which again, is opposed to the idea that "God allows evil that greater good may come of it".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm trying to represent the Openness position, which again, is opposed to the idea that "God allows evil that greater good may come of it".

---

I can see that this is what you are explaining.

I'm still not sure how God allowing for vague negative possibilities is any better than God knowing specifically what bad thing will happen and allowing it.

Aside from which, if God knows the contingencies in detail then He does anticipate specific horrific evils.

Either way He anticipates evil and lets it happen. Why does He do that if not for the sake of a greater good?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
In both of them God could have created a fixed universe where there was no possibility of Horrible Thing X.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Time to call in the big guns. Here's an excellent video with John Polkinghorne in which he explains the Openness view of time and how it fits both the physics of the universe and a Christian understanding of God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
Good answer. I definitely understand where you are coming from.

But what about this:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
In both of them God could have created a fixed universe where there was no possibility of Horrible Thing X.

---

Could He have?

It seems like an obvious alternative. I think that we understand, though, why this would not be a better alternative. Or do we?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Time to call in the big guns. Here's an excellent video with John Polkinghorne in which he explains the Openness view of time and how it fits both the physics of the universe and a Christian understanding of God.

---

Thank you for that. I think though that he rather handwaves the problem of simultaneity under special (or general) relativity.

It is true that as he says the contradictions in ordering only become apparent for any one observer once everything is within the past. The problem is that if God is within time there is theoretically an observer for whom everything is apparent in the present. And that is what is not allowed by the theory.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
It is true that as he says the contradictions in ordering only become apparent for any one observer once everything is within the past. The problem is that if God is within time there is theoretically an observer for whom everything is apparent in the present. And that is what is not allowed by the theory.

---

when you say "theoretically an observer for whom everything is apparent in the present"-- by "everything" you mean everything, everywhere that is happening in the present, right? (as opposed to the "eternal now" of knowing past, present, and future all as one). I would ask why is that not allowed, but I fear the answer would be "above my pay grade."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
You seem to be agreeing with me that he could have created a fixed universe, but that would not be a better alternative to one in which we can freely choose love. What are you asking?

---

I'm not asking anything. Just agreeing.

Or maybe I am saying that God could not really have created such a universe, because it would be inconsistent with His nature, which is love.

So I think that it is ironic that so many people feel that it is just the opposite - that God's creation of people who could choose to do the opposite of His will is what is inconsistent with love.
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
skipping down to the part I understand

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

Or to put it another way, if someone is moving at no speed at all or has no location (like God) they can't have any order of past events. And that means they can't have a now in the present either.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
You seem to be agreeing with me that he could have created a fixed universe, but that would not be a better alternative to one in which we can freely choose love. What are you asking?

---

I'm not asking anything. Just agreeing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

Or maybe I am saying that God could not really have created such a universe, because it would be inconsistent with His nature, which is love.

So I think that it is ironic that so many people feel that it is just the opposite - that God's creation of people who could choose to do the opposite of His will is what is inconsistent with love.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

Or maybe I am saying that God could not really have created such a universe, because it would be inconsistent with His nature, which is love.

So I think that it is ironic that so many people feel that it is just the opposite - that God's creation of people who could choose to do the opposite of His will is what is inconsistent with love.

---

You sound very much like an Open Theist! Polkinghorne would be proud.

---

Yay.

And to think that this is a dilemma that drives so many to atheism.
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

Or to put it another way, if someone is moving at no speed at all or has no location (like God) they can't have any order of past events. And that means they can't have a now in the present either.

---

Polkinghorne says (I guess contrary to what you're saying) that time is "ordered" for God-- he experiences events sequentially as do we.

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