Open Theism and Determinism

[mattrose]

Paul referenced this i think in Rom 4 when he said "God speaks of things that are not yet as though they are" , so how does God do this?

I think He does that in areas where He is going to act unilaterally.

I think when He prophesies something that involves human free agents it is obviously conditional.

It seems to me if God allows the possibility of being wrong he allows the possibility of being untruthful.

It is not necessarily untruthful to make a prediction that doesn't come true. It may have been the right prediction given the circumstances at the time.

Let me turn the tables a bit...

Why would God EVER change his mind if the future is absolutely known already from his perspective? Why would there be any conditional prophecies, even, if God knew in advance whether or not the conditions would be met?

[kenblogton]

Reply to steve7150 Monday January 6 "I don't understand how God could predict anything if Openness is true because even if the probability is as remote as one/million that God can be wrong , that would mean he could have been wrong.
If it could have happened differently , if it could have been a different outcome (even if it was not) that puts God in the position of potentially making incorrect predictions or statements and seeming quite human."
God knows each and every one of all the possibilities with 100% accuracy. He doesn't predict, He knows! So no possibility can surprise Him because He knows them all. What God does not know is which possibility will be chosen. If He knows which possibility will be chosen, you don't have free will. The mental challenge is to realize that God does not know the one choice you will make, but He knows all of them!
kenblogton

[Paidion]

I agree, Ken, that God knows all possibilities. That which seems not to be the case, is the idea that God is never surprised.

According to two different dictionaries I consulted, a "surprise" is "an unexpected event".

According to Jeremiah, Yahweh did not expect Israel to continue to worship idols during a particular period under particular circumstances :

The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return... (Jeremiah 3:6,7)

So it seems that the fact of Israel NOT returning to God under the circumstances was NOT expected, and therefore was a surprise to God.

[Ian]

We all know how Solomon turned out. But 1 Chronicles does give us the impression that for a while God thought he was a better bet than David for building the temple. And added:

If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.

1 Chronicles 28 v 9

It does read as if God is not expecting that Solomon will go on to accumulate a world record number of wives, and in a different way do much worse than David. Or could this be read differently?

On a related note, if I can`t pleasantly surprise God, how can I really please him? Isn`t pleasant surprise one of the chiefest joys? And if determinism is true, isn`t God deprived of that?
Sorry if this aspect of surprise has been covered before. I haven`t read all the replies in this thread, but young ( ) Paidion`s previous post caught my attention.

[steve7150]

The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return... (Jeremiah 3:6,7)

So it seems that the fact of Israel NOT returning to God under the circumstances was NOT expected, and therefore was a surprise to God.









You really think God was surprised and this is not a poetic way of writing. Even in Open Theism God knows every emotion we have and should be able to predict what we do.
Was not Israel particularly predictable?

[steve7150]

On a related note, if I can`t pleasantly surprise God, how can I really please him? Isn`t pleasant surprise one of the chiefest joys? And if determinism is true, isn`t God deprived of that?











Depends exactly what it is God determines. Is it every detail or is it really big things?

[kenblogton]

Reply to Paidion & steve7150
"According to Jeremiah, Yahweh did not expect Israel to continue to worship idols during a particular period under particular circumstances :

The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return... (Jeremiah 3:6,7)

So it seems that the fact of Israel NOT returning to God under the circumstances was NOT expected, and therefore was a surprise to God."
Anthropomorphically, God was disappointed with Israel, but not surprised - He certainly knew of the possibility of her unfaithfulness.
kenblogton

[kenblogton]

Reply to steve7150
"On a related note, if I can`t pleasantly surprise God, how can I really please him? Isn`t pleasant surprise one of the chiefest joys? And if determinism is true, isn`t God deprived of that?"
You please God by choosing to do what is good. It is impossible to surprise God, who knows all the possibilities. If we were not free will humans, determinism would be true - but we are free will humans, so determinism is false.
kenblogton

[jaydam]

So how would openness explain the coming of Christ, and the predictions of how it would go down?

Did God look ahead and see the future?

OR

In the present time of Mary, did God decide then that this was when Christ would be born? Then God ensured he "forced" the events to happen which would fulfill past prophecy?

I find myself believing in partial openness, but there are things I struggle to rectify with full openness, such as the prophecies regarding Christ. Admittedly, I am not well read on openness.

[jaydam]

As for the Peter prediction and openness, that one seems easy for me.

I believe that God arranges times of testing to reveal our hearts and allow us to learn, and he had one arranged for Peter. It is not hard to see Jesus' prediction to Peter as not a foreknowledge based issue of a free event that would freely occur, but a divine knowledge that a God-initiated testing was laid before Peter, and a knowledge from understanding Peter's character leading to understanding of what would undeniably happen.

When I was in the military I knew my soldier's character and knew who I could trust to unfailingly fold under testing/pressure. Knowing my soldiers allowed me to determine where best to place them, and know who could operate self-sufficiently and who I would have to supervise under fire to ensure they did not fold as I knew they would if left on their own. My pitfall was that I did not always know when the enemy would engage us, so I never exactly knew when testing would come. Also, I could not perfectly know what was going on behind the scenes in my soldier's hearts that could make a predictably poor soldier act unexpectedly gallantly for a moment, or cause a dependable soldier to fold, an action for either one that would be out of the norm.

Christ had the benefit of access to the knowledge of the exact time of testing for Peter (that night), and to flawlessly understand where Peter's character/heart was (fearful/cowardly). His prediction seems to me to be one of assured knowledge given the two things he did know, rather than foreknowledge already of what Peter's choice would be.