Open Theism and Determinism

[Paidion]

If Open Theism is true then God must be almost totally ignorant about the future.

There is no future about which God can be ignorant. All events which will take place subsequent to the present have not yet occured. Therefore they do not exist now. So there is no future to be ignorant of. God is omniscient. He knows everything that is possible to know.

Seems He is continually being caught off guard in a great number of ways.

It doesn't seem that way to me, though it depends upon what you mean by being "caught off guard." Since He is omniscient, He knows the thoughts and intentions of everyone's heart, and so is in an excellent position to predict what they will do. However, sometimes people do not carry out the thoughts and intentions of their hearts. Instead, they sometimes change their minds. Since God has created man with free will, He fully EXPECTS them to sometimes change their minds. Man has been created in the image of God. God also changes His intentions sometimes.

[Paidion]

Let us modify the sentence:

Sarah will freely choose to eat a chocolate at 8 P.M. tomorrow night.

Okay. I accept the modification. If the sentence is now true, can Sarah freely choose NOT to eat a chocolate at 8 P.M. tomorrow night?

[CThomas]

Here's one of the things I don't understand, Paidion and Matt. You say that the future "does not exist" because it has not occurred yet. But I don't see any principled distinction in this respect between the future and the past. You can argue that the present moment exists and nothing else does. But there is no sense in which the past is any more existent right now than the future is. We as finite and fallible humans have only imperfect, probabilistic knowledge of both the past and the future. We have more direct and immediate experiences of present sense impressions, but we rely on imperfect memory to reconstruct the past and imperfect prediction to anticipate the future. We all (I assume) agree that God has perfect and infallible knowledge of the past. Yet the past "does not exist" right now any more than the future does. One holding your views might answer that the past existed at a different time, and hence omniscience allows knowledge of it. But one could say the exact same thing about the future. It exists at a different time -- the arrow from the present just happens to be opposite that of the past event. I think this whole idea of "existence" is a red herring. Something either occurs or does not occur at time t. That fact does not change as the present moment marches forward in time. So I think that the omniscient God knows the truth or falsity of every sentence about occurrences of events at any time t.

CThomas

[mattrose]

I don't think the issue is as complicated as you're making it out to be.

Some people believe that time is a created thing. God exists outside of time. Therefore, he has full access to the past, present, and future. The timeline is complete from his point of view.

Other people believe that time just is. God exists in time. Therefore, he has full access to what has transpired and what currently is.

Your entire paragraph assumes the former. I assume the latter.

I believe in God's omniscience. He knows all things that may be known. Omniscience has logical limits. He can't know what free will creatures will do in the future (that doesn't make any sense). This is no different from how basically every Christian views omnipotence having logical limits (God can't make a circle a square while still being a circle... he can't make 2+2=5). Omnipotence has logical limits. Omniscience has logical limits.

[steve]

CThomas,

I am not openness myself, but it does seem that knowledge of the past and knowledge of the future are fundamentally different in nature. Knowledge of the past is similar to knowledge of the present. In order to have perfect knowledge of either, one only would only require information about everything that exists, and a memory of every formerly-present thing that existed at any point previous to this one. The past and present can be known because they are a certain way, and cannot be altered. The past, like the present moment, is what it is. It is set and unchanging. It can be documented and known.

Change can only occur in the future. The question is whether all future changes are, in some way, infallibly predetermined or not. If they are, then they can be known just as the past can be—so long as someone has access to the information. If they are not determined, then there is no information there to have access to.

I do not think that the Bible tells us that all things future are predetermined, which leaves the question unanswered. If things are in fact predetermined, it is a second question whether it is God alone who predetermined them, or some other abstract concept of a "destiny" comprised of a combination of human and divine interactions. This is way above my pay-grade.

In any case, it seems to me that knowledge of the past and knowledge of the future are dissimilar in principle. If God lives in the timeless "eternal Now," as some philosophers have speculated, then He can see the future in the same way that He can see the past and present. However, the Bible does not affirm or deny this particular speculation. I think that it is not wise to pretend that we (or, in any case, that I) know for certain how much God does or does not know, or need to know, about the future.

[Paidion]

I agree with you, Matt. But believe it or not, some people believe God can work a contradiction. For example, I know a person who believes that God can create a rock so large that He can't lift it, and that because of His omnipotence, can lift it anyway. To affirm a contradiction is to say nothing. For example, if I tell you that the shirt I am wearing is entirely green, and that it is not entirely green, I have told you nothing about the shirt I'm wearing.

[CThomas]

Okay, let me approach it from a different angle then (which obviously also isn't original to me). If you take texts like Genesis 1 at face value, it seems a fair inference that God created the whole cosmos. By the same token, if you take modern science at face value, then time itself originated at the big bang (as a component of the space-time continuum). So if there was no time "before" the big bang, and yet God caused the big bang, it seems a fair inference that God exists outside of time. Yet if God exists outside of time, and is not constrained by it, then it seems to follow that God's knowledge is not limited (like ours certainly is) by reference to a gradually moving moment in time designated as "the present." Rather, if God exists outside of time, and created the entire structure of space-time, then His omniscience would seem naturally to encompass every occurring event in space-time, whether or not that event appears "future" from our time-bound perspective.

Now I'm not saying this is a rock-solid proof that open theism is wrong. But I think it at least is a highly plausible account, consistent with what we know about the universe and I don't think inconsistent with anything in the Bible. I present it in response to the arguments I have seen from Matt and Paidion in favor of open theism, to the extent that they have rested upon general philosophical arguments based on the nature of the future and the like. As such, I think that even a reasonably plausible argument of the sort I personally find the previous paragraph should be enough to conclude that those arguments (e.g., "Open theism is true because the future does not exist yet.") are not valid grounds supporting open theism. Curious to hear thoughts about that.

CThomas

[mattrose]

Okay, let me approach it from a different angle then (which obviously also isn't original to me). If you take texts like Genesis 1 at face value, it seems a fair inference that God created the whole cosmos. By the same token, if you take modern science at face value, then time itself originated at the big bang (as a component of the space-time continuum). So if there was no time "before" the big bang, and yet God caused the big bang, it seems a fair inference that God exists outside of time. Yet if God exists outside of time, and is not constrained by it, then it seems to follow that God's knowledge is not limited (like ours certainly is) by reference to a gradually moving moment in time designated as "the present." Rather, if God exists outside of time, and created the entire structure of space-time, then His omniscience would seem naturally to encompass every occurring event in space-time, whether or not that event appears "future" from our time-bound perspective.

Now I'm not saying this is a rock-solid proof that open theism is wrong. But I think it at least is a highly plausible account, consistent with what we know about the universe and I don't think inconsistent with anything in the Bible. I present it in response to the arguments I have seen from Matt and Paidion in favor of open theism, to the extent that they have rested upon general philosophical arguments based on the nature of the future and the like. As such, I think that even a reasonably plausible argument of the sort I personally find the previous paragraph should be enough to conclude that those arguments (e.g., "Open theism is true because the future does not exist yet.") are not valid grounds supporting open theism. Curious to hear thoughts about that.

CThomas

Personally, I wasn't intending to communicate a logical argument: "Open theism is true because the future does not exist yet." Rather, I don't think the Bible makes such issues plain one way or another. Since we are left without knowledge in this area, we are free (if we like) to put forth theories. One theory is that God exists outside of time (as you have suggested). Another is that He does not (as I have suggested).

Each of these theories has explanatory power, pros, and cons. You consider your theory (that God exists outside of time) to be a good explanation for modern science's appraisal that time had an origin. If time had an origin, and God caused all origins, then God must have caused time (and must exist outside of it). I disagree. I don't claim to be an expert on modern science... but I don't think time itself had an origin. Time might have been experienced very differently than it was post-creation, but I still think it existed. God is Trinity. The relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit must include some form of time... at least to my mind. Heck, I can't fathom existence itself 'outside of time.' I'm not totally opposed to believing in things I can't fathom, but if there is a more powerful explanatory theory out there... why resort to it? The only decent reason I can think of for insisting that God exists outside of time is the evidence of prophetic precision... But I'm finding that there are, perhaps, better ways to account for that.

[Paidion]

Even with my view, and that of the early Christians, that the first act of God was the generation (or "begetting") of His Son, it is presumed that God had to exist "outside" time in order to bring about that first act.

However, even if God "existed outside time" in order to generate His Son, or produce the theoretical "big bang", it doesn't follow that He exists or existed "outside time" after that first event.

If the generation of the Son (or possibly the second event) marked the beginning of time, then it would have been impossible for God to exist "within time" in doing that first act, since there was no time at that time. Oops. It's hard to comment on those things without contradiction.

It is true that God's knowledge is not limited (in the sense that there is no reality which God does not know). But from that fact, it cannot be inferred that He knows what cannot be known because it doesn't exist, namely the future—just as any one of us cannot know something which does not exist. For instance, you cannot know that you have a big Cadillac outside your house, if you don't have one.

[mattrose]

John Sanders has a good section on this subject in the updated version of "The God Who Risks." It's on pages 200-205 and it almost directly responds to CThomas's challenges. He distinguishes between metric/measured time (which began at creation) and psychological time (which exists by virtue of God being a relational being, even in and of God's self).

He goes on to point out a number of problems with the 'God is timeless / static' view of time
1. If the past and future are just as present to God... then God is not omniscient b/c he doesn't know what is now
2. If the past is just as real as the present/future... then evil will always exist from God's point of view
3. If the future already exists... then determinism is implied (no other possible future could occur)
4. If God is timeless, God is limited (God can't plan, deliberate, change, adjust, anticipate, respond... but the Bible says God does these things)

He concludes that God isn't timeless and the dynamic theory of time is preferable to the static view.