Open Theism and Determinism

[psimmond]

mattrose wrote: Omniscience has logical limits. He can't know what free will creatures will do in the future (that doesn't make any sense).

Actually it does make sense to a lot of people. Have you read any of Plantinga's or Craig's work on middle knowledge and counterfactuals? Or Keathley's Salvation & Sovereignty? These guys are all pretty sharp and they're not noted for being illogical.

Determinism and openness aren't the only games in town.

[mattrose]

My statement, in context, was a statement of my opinion. Usually when I argue for a view, I argue aggressively b/c it is then that I'm most likely to expose my own weaknesses and/or the weaknesses of the other views. Elsewhere in the thread I made clear that I think different views are possible. I, personally, can't make sense of some of them. I, especially, find the middle knowledge position to be strange in that I can't make much good sense of it NOR do I think it really solves the problems it sets out to solve. It is my least favorite of all the positions in the debate, though I know that I could just be too stupid to get it (but even that works against it, since I tend to think the truth is rarely super super complicated).

[brody196]

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?

Hi Paidion and Matthew,

Would you guys agree that some future events that involved the freewill of man were foreknown by God? For example, Peter's denial of Christ(Matthew 26:34)? There are many other examples that can be given, but needless to say that God throughout both testaments predicted many things would come to pass and some of them involved the freewill choices of man.

How would you guys reconcile these things with your open theism?

Thanks!

[mattrose]

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?

Hi Paidion and Matthew,

Would you guys agree that some future events that involved the freewill of man were foreknown by God? For example, Peter's denial of Christ(Matthew 26:34)? There are many other examples that can be given, but needless to say that God throughout both testaments predicted many things would come to pass and some of them involved the freewill choices of man.

How would you guys reconcile these things with your open theism?

Thanks!

Hey Brody

Actually, that very passage was discussed in this very thread for some length. Paidion gave a lengthy treatment of it from his open theist perspective and I chimed in as well. I am not wholly satisfied with my own thoughts here, but I consider the problem less formidable than the problems that I feel come with the non open theist positions.

To more directly answer your question... I don't think any future events that involve the freewill of man could possibly be 'foreknown' by God if by foreknown you mean known for certainty before the freewill choice. They couldn't possibly be foreknown in that sense since the future doesn't exist in this view. There is nothing to foreknow. The future is genuinely open.

[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.

I just stumbled on another argument that supports my concern over supposing a fundamental difference between temporal "past" and "future." In case anyone is still interested, here it is. I apologize for simply linking to a Wikipedia page, but it is only two paragraphs long, and I couldn't really summarize it more succinctly than it already is on the page. It demonstrates, as a matter of physics, that there are circumstances under which there is no answer to the question whether a remote event is past or future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rietdijk–Putnam_argument

CThomas

[Paidion]

The operative phrase in the argument is "If special relativity is true". In spite of the fact that scientists generally believe it to be true, and that the assumption that it IS true has helped to solve particular spatial-time relationships, it nevertheless may not be true in all of its supposed ramifications.

If I understand it correctly, objects supposedly shorten as they approach the speed of light, and time slows down. One implication of the theory seems to be that if one travels in space at a speed approaching that of light, and then returns to earth, he will have aged at a slower rate than the people who have remained on earth.

Rather than accept all the ramifications of the theory, it may be sensible to reject some of the supposed ramifications of the theory. Indeed many have done exactly that, claiming that the theory does not describe space and time at all, but rather describes the behaviour of light.

[mattrose]

There is nothing in that article that leads me away from the common sense position that the future doesn't exist yet.

[kenblogton]

From Homer June 8, 2013 "It seems to me that if open theism is true, then in every prophetic statement regarding what men will do in the future, the event is determined by God and caused by His action, and men thus have lost their free will to the extent necessary for that which is predicted to come true. Then, just as seems true with Calvinism, God is the author of sin."
Hi Homer Interpreting Scripture accurately requires considering all, or a fully representative sample, of all the Scriptures related to the topic.
In Genesis 15:13-14; Exodus 9:13-16, 12:40; Psalm 139: 16; Psalm 147:5; Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32; Hebrews 4:13, the Bible tells us God is all-knowing or omniscient. In Deuteronomy 30:19-20, God exhorts people to choose good over evil, indicating we have free will. If we can't choose because God already knows the choices He's predetermined for us, then God is a cosmic con-man! So we seem to have a dilemma: if God knows all, it seems we can't have freedom of choice. If we truly have freedom of choice, it seems God can't know all. So what's the resolution?
One of the other things we know about God is that He is Good and cannot do evil: commit sin, as Scripture tells us: Psalms 25:8, 86:5, 100:5; Matthew 19:17; Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19; James 1:13. So let's consider David committing adultery with Bathsheba and then arranging the murder of her husband Uriah to conceal the adultery, as recounted in 2 Samuel 11:1-12:13. If God created David knowing he would commit adultery and would also be responsible for arranging murder, then God Himself is accountable for evil, which is impossible! But if God didn't know of David's adultery and murder, He's not omniscient! And now we can see an answer emerges.
Open Theism speaks of the God of possibilities. The Bible also speaks of choice possibilities for humans. Jeremiah 6:16 states “This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; …, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls….’” Considering David, this means God created him with at least 2 possibilities: One that he could choose to, and another that he could choose to not, commit adultery with Bathsheba. God knew both (or all) of David's possibilities. If God is not the God of possibilities, He has made some very serious mistakes throughout human history. Within 2000 years of His having created humankind, His creatures are so bent on sinning that He is forced destroy most of them and start over again (see Genesis 3-6). However possibilities tells us God is not an incompetent creator, but rather takes a calculated risk with the creation of humans with free will. Clearly God gives us choices - the choices to do good or to do evil. He knows and establishes all our choices but leaves our actual choices up to us.
All the best Homer.
Blessings kenblogton

[dwilkins]

I think that some of the more interesting examples of foreknowledge or determinism are the mundane one such as Paul's admonition that if the sailors leave the ship they will all die. Is that because God states things through his prophets as contingencies in some sense? It seems to me that the energy in Paul's confrontation demands that it was possible both for those sailors to leave the ship and for everyone to die if they did. If this is possible, then how can we see what will happen in the future as a fact that God sees as finished? It seems to me that in a sense when God says something will happen in the future he's saying that it will happen unless something significant changes direction of the story.

Doug

[robbyyoung]

...the Bible tells us God is all-knowing or omniscient. In Deuteronomy 30:19-20, God exhorts people to choose good over evil, indicating we have free will. If we can't choose because God already knows the choices He's predetermined for us, then God is a cosmic con-man! So we seem to have a dilemma: if God knows all, it seems we can't have freedom of choice. If we truly have freedom of choice, it seems God can't know all. So what's the resolution?

Our Heavenly Father's supreme knowledge in no way contradicts man's "free-will". If the scripture denotes both realities, the answer is therefore inherent in the same, notice the following:

Isa 40:28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? The God of the age -- Jehovah, Preparer of the ends of the earth, Is not wearied nor fatigued, There is no searching of His understanding.

Rule #1 - Stop trying to reconcile what God has not revealed and therefore concentrate on the revealed (Deut 29:29 'The things hidden are to Jehovah our God, and the things revealed are to us and to our sons -- to the age, to do all the words of this law.)

Fact #1 - Jer 1:5 'Before I form thee in the belly, I have known thee; and before thou comest forth from the womb I have separated thee, a prophet to nations I have made thee.'

Fact #2 - 1 Chron 28:9 'And thou, Solomon, my son, know the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind, for all hearts is Jehovah seeking, and every imagination of the thoughts He is understanding; if thou dost seek Him, He is found of thee, and if thou dost forsake Him, He casteth thee off for ever.

So yes, God knows and that puts us at his mercy to ultimately seek him out. For all are without excuse to ignore His eternal power and majesty by the signature of His creation (Rom 1:19-20).

The Apostles and Disciples of Jesus new this without question as given in the following account:

Acts 1:23-26 And they set two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias, and having prayed, they said, 'Thou, Lord, who art knowing the heart of all, shew which one thou didst choose of these two to receive the share of this ministration and apostleship, from which Judas, by transgression, did fall, to go on to his proper place; and they gave their lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

In summary, God not only knows all of His creation beyond our understanding, but he also reveals to us how much we don't know concerning His eternal power. Simply put, our decisions and thoughts, are, and will forever be known of God and that ought to make us wise to this fact.

God Bless!