General Question about various beliefs held by various people

[njd83]

"Your question is: "How is it that God can know innately the Truth Value of a Proposition without causing the outcome?" "

William Lane Craigs "barometer" analogy is great, but it does work for the future. Again, the assertion that God has a weather barometer for the future, but that the barometer does not "Cause necessarily the weather of the future", is still an assertion. How can you prove this assertion?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYoWhxOK8dE

[dizerner]

I want to remind you, Augustine, who had HUGE impact on the future church after 400s, was probably wrong about all kinds of theological stuff.

Now, now, I said reading Mr. Boyd would brainwash you, not that you are a trying to brainwash me. A bit of a twist there!

And I don't assume early fathers were correct. You'll never find me doing so. Neither do I assume they are incorrect, right. It's honestly really pointless to bring it up. Let's talk about ideas just for their own merits here. Some people assume the church that left a historical record would be more likely to be guided by the Holy Spirit. I don't assume that, but it would be good to consider looking to see where the Spirit's work might be.

People do talk past each other because they all define words kind of differently. But reality in my view is spiritual, not just mental. To understand what a word like God or love or faith or knowledge means, can begin to be things we take for granted.

Making time something God is subject to does have long range ramifications on a lot of logic. If you even make logic a part of God it affects how you think about things. And someone who is smarter and taken more classes—might have more difficult humbling themselves.

To say we all bring presuppositions is not incorrect, and not something I denied. But do you really hear Dr. Boyd openly and honestly admitting that? I don't. I hear "This is my powerful brain saying this way must be!" That's not admitting presuppositions, is it. I see subjecting God to time as lowering his greatness.

You have to understand, that if I apply just logic—only logic—to the idea of the ability that I could potentially choose different things than I will choose—that idea does not really make logical sense to me. I am entering a realm of metaphysical thinking. Free will is supernatural. It is not quantifiable on a strictly logical level. From strict logic, determinism would necessarily be true, because different multiple outcomes never can happen.

Here's some exploratory thought I wrote on defining free will:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aJk ... sp=sharing

[njd83]

"Can God Change the future?"

Again, its a loaded question with different views viewing the future in different ways. If the future is foreknown by God, God cannot change the future. If the future is not completely Foreknown by God, both humans and God can change the yet unknown future, or the predictable course the future seems to be coming to.

There is a serious difference in fundamental views of reality I think.

[njd83]

misread, I corrected it:

I think you define time itself very differently than I do, and maybe Boyd does. So I can start to understand your claim that I am trying to brainwash a "logical difference" [in myself, edit], but you may also have a presupposition that you are asserting which comes to different conclusions.

Now, now, I said reading Mr. Boyd would brainwash you, not that you are a trying to brainwash me. A bit of a twist there!

I meant that via Body I am trying to "Brainwash" myself, which would actually be fairly accurate, or I could be trying to "re-learn" what the truth actually is. Depends on how you look at it, and what the truth actually is.

[njd83]

Funny, I have a similar distrust for Logic in its ability to be used in all things pertaining to God, myself. Not useless, just maybe limited.

I bring up Augustine, simply because so much of our current mainstream theology had strayed from early church, more apostolic, theology since his impact. What I mean is, you may very well have deep presuppositions about reality that stem all the way back to the changes in church mainstream thought that started bc of Augustine. Is that relevant? I thought so. Am I saying Church Fathers are perfect? Not necessarily, either. Its not pointless to bring it up, because everything has a history, how it all got to its present state, including your own theological influences and assumptions, as well as how you see the world. You know the West sees the world very differently than the East? Is that pointless to consider? I think absolutely not.

[dizerner]

Again, its a loaded question

I want to ask you one yes or no question and see if you will honestly answer it.

Do you think Dr. Boyd ever asks loaded questions?

Yes?

Or no?

[dizerner]

If the future is foreknown by God, God cannot change the future.

This is logically false.

If God can CHANGE the future, that is the future God would foreknow.

God does not need gimpy limited knowledge to be able to change something—there is nothing there but insistence of a non sequitur.

KNOWLEDGE IS NOT LOGICALLY RELATED TO FREEDOM, something does not need to be "UNKNOWN" to be FREE.

Same mistakes both Calvinists and Open Theists make.

[njd83]

Making time something God is subject to does have long range ramifications on a lot of logic. If you even make logic a part of God it affects how you think about things. And someone who is smarter and taken more classes—might have more difficult humbling themselves.

To say we all bring presuppositions is not incorrect, and not something I denied. But do you really hear Dr. Boyd openly and honestly admitting that? I don't. I hear "This is my powerful brain saying this way must be!" That's not admitting presuppositions, is it. I see subjecting God to time as lowering his greatness.

You have to understand, that if I apply just logic—only logic—to the idea of the ability that I could potentially choose different things than I will choose—that idea does not really make logical sense to me. I am entering a realm of metaphysical thinking. Free will is supernatural. It is not quantifiable on a strictly logical level. From strict logic, determinism would necessarily be true, because different multiple outcomes never can happen.

I guess I am going to have to figure out what kind of ramifications making God subject to Time would have on logic.

You know, I actually see God as semi-subject to the Free Will agents he created. So time would not be a hard step for me.

So, right off the bat, I am already disagreeing with you. Did you know a high angel named Lucifer rebelled against God and continues to use his free will as the ringleader of the rebellion against God? Would you call that "God being subject to his created beings?" I would not use that terminology, but maybe semi-subject. Because I view God's creating Free Will Agents was part and parcel with God "limiting himself" in allowing those agents to continue to exist for a time in using their free will for good or bad.

I just am not convinced of all the ideas about "God is outside of Time". What does that even mean anyway? It seems very manufactured, and the texts do not convince me of it. I used to say "some things we just can't understand about God", I used to teach my friends this very idea, but I never really understood what I was saying.

Boyd does talk about his books are explorations in thought. I think he assumes the reader knows that he is an academic which floats around ideas for the sake of argument and though provoking content. I only realized that after I had read some of his stuff, and heard a video from him that refenced these ideas. He could be more forthcoming, maybe he forgot, or maybe he is very convinced of this particular thought experiment. Again I don't ascribe to the idea that saying "I don't know" necessarily means someone is being humble. Someone can say "I know" and actually be a humble person. They could be wrong. I think the Traditional View lends itself to its believers considering adamantly that "we cannot understand God", and so anyone with a view that we can understand God more, and states "I know", to them seems very arrogant, because they assume "you cannot know!". see?

agreement there on free will being of a supernatural substance, of the immaterial soul, and that logical laws or whatever probably can't do Free Will justice all the time.

[njd83]

njd83 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 3:17 pm
If the future is foreknown by God, God cannot change the future.
This is logically false.

If God can CHANGE the future, that is the future God would foreknow.

God does not need gimpy limited knowledge to be able to change something—there is nothing there but insistence of a non sequitur.

KNOWLEDGE IS NOT LOGICALLY RELATED TO FREEDOM, something does not need to be "UNKNOWN" to be FREE.

Same mistakes both Calvinists and Open Theists make.

But that's my whole point that the different Views will see the question differently. Again, you are assuming its "gimpy" for God to limit himself in creating Free Will Agents in his image.

KNOWLEDGE IS NOT LOGICALLY RELATED TO FREEDOM, something does not need to be "UNKNOWN" to be FREE.

You are asserting an assumption about foreknowledge and the fundamental reality of the future.

[dizerner]

What I mean is, you may very well have deep presuppositions about reality that stem all the way back to the changes in church mainstream thought that started bc of Augustine. Is that relevant? I thought so.

Which of us is quoting someone else's thoughts more?

You or me?

You want to make a claim to relevance that my thoughts have been "influenced" in some way I am not aware of. I'm open to that. But by saying that, you are implying I am a person who is not thinking deeply about where my thoughts are coming from. You need to cite specific thoughts I am saying the exact source they are coming from outside of logic, and not vague generalities to poison the well.

Its not pointless to bring it up, because everything has a history, how it all got to its present state, including your own theological influences and assumptions, as well as how you see the world. You know the West sees the world very differently than the East? Is that pointless to consider? I think absolutely not.

And are you claiming that you are incapable of differentiating between the inherent logic of something and just swallowing what someone else says?

Doesn't that show something about your methodology?

I have thought things through, and throwing out vague and indefinite accusations of some unspecific genetic fallacy out there somewhere that might have "bit" me is not only unconvincing... it's just silly.