Rejecting Reformed Theology Leads to Open Theism
Open Theism is an unbiblical heresy. It is the belief that God does not know the future. He created the world, not knowing what would come of it, and is learning the events of history as they unfold. This is obviously not the teaching of Scripture. Yet, it is the only consistent position one is really left with if one denies Reformed theology.
If we are not Open Theists and we affirm that God knows all things, then we affirm that God knows the future exhaustively. But if God knows the future exhaustively, this presupposes that the future is determined. We cannot speak of God having “knowledge” of future events if those future events are not necessarily determined to take place.
Sometimes critics will respond by using an analogy something like the following. “My son loves chocolate. He hates his vegetables. I know that if I put chocolate and broccoli before him on the table and tell him to pick whichever one he wants to eat, he is going to pick the chocolate. I know that this is going to happen before it actually happens, but that doesn’t mean that I determined that it would happen. God can know what we are going to do but that doesn’t mean He determined that we would do it.”
The first problem with this analogy, however, is that the “knowledge” is not associated with the proper thing. The father in this situation does not have knowledge of the fact that the son will choose chocolate over broccoli. It is quite possible that the son might surprise his father and choose the broccoli. What the father actually has knowledge of is only the possibility, or even probability, that the son will choose one option over the other.
Therefore, this is not a proper analogy, because if God has exhaustive knowledge of the future, then He doesn’t simply know of the probability that I might choose to do something; rather, He knows of the fact that I will choose to do one thing over another. And to have knowledge of that fact presupposes that while it might be conceivable for me to choose something else, it is not actually possible that I may do so. The future choice must in some sense be determined already, or it cannot be said that God has certain knowledge of the fact of its occurrence.
A second problem with the analogy is that it misapprehends how God knows what He knows. In the analogy, the reason the father knows what the son will probably choose is because the father has analyzed the son, learned about the son, and made a prediction based on these findings. But according to Scripture, the very demonstration of God being God is founded on His knowledge of the future. In other words, God knows the future exhaustively because He has decreed the end and all things that lead up to it. He doesn’t just have this magical power where He knows the events of the future because He can look down the corridors of time and see what is coming before we do (as if to imply that some force independent of His providence determines events in time, and then He simply discovered them). The reason He knows all that will happen is because nothing can happen outside His providence. God’s knowledge is limited to what He Himself has purposed and planned. Thus, God has decreed all things, and therefore He knows all things because He knows what all He has planned.
So the analogy fails, and by the way it reveals one of the common problems with Arminian argumentation. And that is that the analogy is based on a philosophical speculation about how things might be, and not on what Scripture declares about how things really are. God knows the future exhaustively. This means that He knows of the certainty of events that will occur in the future. But if future events can be known with certainty, then it follows that those events are already determined to happen. If it is possible (that is, actually, not potentially) for a certain future event to not happen, then it cannot be said that God knows that it will happen, and His knowledge must therefore be limited. This is why Open Theism, a non-Christian heresy, is the only consistent way of denying Calvinism.
So God knows all things because He has decreed all things. The future is determined and He already knows all the choices I will make in my life because they are already determined to be made. Of course, this raises a somewhat troubling question. How can we say that they are my choices if they are predetermined?
This is a good question, but it is a shame that many critics, without asking, merely assume that there is no answer when they raise the false accusation that “Calvinists believe that man does not have a will.” Calvinists do believe that man has a will, and the truth is we’re just following Scripture on this. Scripture teaches that man has a will (although that will is not free), but it also teaches that God has ordained all things, including the course of human decisions (Exod. 3:21; 12:25-36; 34:23-24; Ezek. 7:27; 2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Chr. 21:1; Gen. 45:5; 50:20; 1 Sam. 2:6-7; Gal. 1:15-16; Prov. 21:1; 16:1, 9, cf. Prov. 16:4). In Scripture we read of both actions occurring simultaneously. Men voluntarily make choices that God has preordained. Let’s consider just a couple of examples:
In Isaiah 10:5-14 God chooses to use Assyria to punish His people Israel, but then when He finishes this task, He turns right around and punishes Assyria for its sinful choice to come against Israel. How is this “fair”? Let’s look at the passage:
vv. 5-6: “Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! Against a godless nation [Israel] I send him [Assyria], and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.”
Here God has determined that He is going to use Assyria to brutally punish the rebellion of Israel. This is God’s determining action. But look at what the text says next:
vv. 7-11: “But he [Assyria] does not so intend, and his heart does not so think; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few; for he says: ‘Are not my commanders all kings? Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus? As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images?’”
In other words, even though God determined that Assyria would come against Israel in judgment, Assyria at the same time willingly chose to do this. Assyria wasn’t looking to do God’s will. It simply thinks it is doing this on its own. So God didn’t drag Assyria against its will. Rather, it is already in the hearts of the Assyrians to destroy many nations and seize plunder. They are just doing what they love. And God had a purpose in which He determined He would use this sin. He hardens their hearts against Israel so that they will desire to go against them, just as they did against these other nations. In a single action there are two things happening: God determines the event, and Assyria chooses to do it. Assyria makes the choice willfully, believing that it is doing this of its own accord. But God had a purpose (that He would glorify Himself in the judgment of sin), and He hardened those Assyrians’ hearts in order that they would desire to do what was necessary for that purpose to be accomplished.
So God had preordained the willful choice of this people by placing the desire within their hearts upon which they would then act. He sent Assyria against Israel, and yet in this determinative action Assyria desires to do this thing, and acts on that desire willingly. This is God’s decree — He determined that it would happen — and yet at the same time, Assyria is still held responsible for the choice. We see this because right after God declares His intentions against Israel, he turns right around and says He is going to punish Assyria for the arrogant manner in which it does this thing:
vv. 12-14: “When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes. For he says: ‘By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones. My hand has found like a nest the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wind or opened the mouth or chirped.’…”
My emphasis indicates the obvious arrogance with which Assyria does this. Even though God determined the action, the Assyrian king doesn’t recognize this; he is just doing what he loves to do, and in his arrogance thinks that he is the source of his own strength. So the Assyrian king is sinning, and is held responsible for that sin, even though it was God who determined that this would happen.
Let’s recap what just happened. God determined to bring Assyria against Israel to punish the rebellion of His people, but then He also determines to punish Assyria for carrying out the very act that He just determined for them to do! He purposed to make use of Assyria’s sinful desires, and then also chose to punish Assyria’s sin. The Assyrian king is held responsible for his own choice to do this thing, even though God had determined that it would be done. So God determined that this pagan king would make a particular choice, and yet the king is still held responsible for having made the choice. Men voluntarily make choices that God has preordained.
Consider another example in Acts 2:23:
“This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
Once again, we see here, in a single sentence in fact, that God had determined that a particular event would take place — an event that would involve terrible sin — and yet the individuals who actually carried out the sinful acts are held responsible for having done so. Jesus died because God had determined that He would. But He also died because these sinful men killed Him. How do you reconcile the two? These men were natural born sinners. It is the natural desire of their hearts to rebel against God and to continue in their sin. God had determined that He would make use of this, by hardening their hearts so that they would desire to commit the act. And yet in doing so, the men who actually carried out the act are the ones to be blamed for the sin, not God.
This indicates that although God has predetermined the occurence of these choices, the choices themselves are still the responsibility of the individual making them. God has predetermined all things, including the future decisions of men. But the men who actually make those decisions still make them voluntarily, for they are only acting on the desires that God has placed within their hearts. In the case of righteous choices (e.g. choosing to repent and believe in Christ), God places the desire within the sinner’s heart (cf. Ezek. 36:25-27) and the sinner acts upon it willfully, having not been able to make such a choice otherwise (cf. John 6:44; Jer. 13:23). And in the case of sinful choices, sin is already the natural desire of the fallen heart, which means all God must do is harden that heart by withholding from it the grace that it doesn’t deserve in the first place, and the heart will necessarily, though willfully, choose to act upon that sinful desire, as we saw in Isaiah 10 and Acts 2:23.
In summary, there are two logically consistent options: Open Theism, the idea that God learns from His creation in time and does not have exhaustive knowledge, or Calvinism, which holds to the view that God has exhaustive knowledge of all things because He has decreed all things.
The former option is a heresy, as it denies the God of the Bible. The latter option, therefore, is the only consistent option left for the Christian. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future because He has decreed the future.
Further, this exhaustive knowledge of the future entails the determination of that future. If God has certain knowledge of the fact of future events and choices, then the fact of those future events and choices is already determined and cannot be changed. Thus, to consistently affirm that God knows all things one must also affirm that God has predetermined all things, and the events of the future will happen the way they do because they are all a part of God’s eternal plan to glorify Himself. Or to put it in other words, a consistent affirmation of divine omniscience must result in a denial of libertarian free will.
But a denial of human free will, as we have seen, is not a denial of the fact that man has a will. It is only a denial of the idea that the human will is capable of acting autonomously. The human will still makes voluntary choices — indeed, it chooses whatever it wants to choose. But even though those choices are voluntarily made according to the heart’s desire, they are still predetermined by God, for He determines the course of our hearts’ desires, upon which we freely act.
Tim
Open Theism is not a heresy – it doesn’t contradict any of the ancient creeds and its adherents are completly orthodox in their explanation of salvation
Its disagreement with classical theologians is on the nature of the future not Gods omniscience. The future is partially made up of possibilities of which God knows every possible selection
Scott
Thanks for your comment, Tim.
You appear to be confusing Open Theism with the theory of Middle Knowledge. Open Theism is the idea that God interacts with His creation, experiences it, and learns from it. Hence He does not know the future exhaustively. This is, after all, why the view is labeled “OPEN Theism.” The idea is that God is open to receiving new experiences, and as a result He is not fully sovereign because His reception of such experiences can cause Him to be flexible in the way He will do things in the world to accomplish His intentions. Clark Pinnock, probably one of the most well-known Open Theists, defines it in this way:
“…we may understand God as a caring parent with qualities of love and responsiveness, generosity and sensitivity, openness and vulnerability, a person (rather than a metaphysical principle) who experiences the world, responds to what happens, relates to us and interacts dynamically with humans.” (Pinnock, “Systematic Theology,” in “The Openness of God,” pg. 103)
What you are describing, however, is the philosophical theory of Middle Knowledge. http://www.theopedia.com/Molinism
If you hang around, I plan to post some thoughts on Molinism in the near future. I’d be interested to read your interaction with them.
Scott
Tim
Thanks, but no I meant Open Theism. One of the primary theologians in that area is Gregory Boyd – from him:-
“I am an “Open Theist” – though I honestly don’t care for the label, because as I’ll show, the uniqueness of this view isn’t in what it says about God but in what it says about the nature of reality. (I think it would be better to call us something like “Open Futurists.”)
In any event, I and other Open Theists absolutely affirm God’s “omniscience.” God knows all of reality perfectly, exactly as it is. Open Theists differ from traditional theists not in our understanding of the perfection of God’s knowledge but in our understanding of the reality that God perfectly knows. The difference comes down to this: we believe that the reality God perfectly knows includes possibilities. Since God gave us free will, we believe some of the future is left up for us to decide. We may freely choose one course of action or we may choose another. To this extent the future is “open.” We base this view primarily on Scripture, since the Bible consistently ascribes free will to people and often presents the future as partly open (see my book God of the Possible for a brief presentation of the scriptural portrayal of the future as partly open).”
http://reknew.org/2008/01/is-it-true-youre-an-open-theist-and-that-you-dont-think-god-knows-the-future-perfectly/
Hence, Open Theists believe that God is omniscient, we just disagree with Calvinists as to what is in the box of things God knows. We don’t believe that God or any being can k ow the logically impossible. And we believe knowing the choices free will beings will make is logically impossible. whY? Because they haven’t made them yet. This is similar to me saying that ‘God doesn’t know the colour of my daughters hair’ Why? Because I don’t have a daughter.
Scott
But you’re laying out a contradiction here. The doctrine of omniscience necessitates exhaustive knowledge of the future, including every possible choice that could be made, as well as every choice that actually will be made. If you reject this point, you reject that God transcends time, which is a rejection of His aseity, which in turn is a rejection that God is God. Your affirmation of God’s omniscience and thus the fact that God is God becomes nothing more than a verbal declaration without any real substance. Omniscience entails an exhaustive knowledge of future events and human decisions because a God that does not transcend time cannot know the end as well as the beginning. And if you chalk that up to logical impossibility, well then you’re just denying God’s sovereignty and deifying man, by placing man in the seat of determining the course that God’s creation will take, and God simply becomes the great ratifier, recognizing that course as it comes to pass and merely setting His stamp of approval on it. That IS a denial of how the Bible defines what we call omniscience.
One of the problems here is you’re presupposing the Bible teaches the concept of “free will” (I’m assuming you mean libertarian free will). Defending this concept is crucial to your argument. You have to be able to show from Scripture that man is in fact autonomous in order to argue that these future choices are truly “his” in the sense of them being impossible to know prior to the act of them being made in time. I anticipate your attempt to do this, but I think you’re going to run into many problems trying.
Tim
Hi Scott,
Firstly thanks for the spirit this conversation is being done in.
I disagree on some points and actually agree on others.
I think Omniscience is like Omnipotence. The latter frequently is explained saying there can be no logical contradiction ie God can’t make an object heavier than He could lift. Christians explain that God can only do the logically possible. It works the same for Omniscience. God can only do the logically possible. I take nothing away from God’s Omniscience by saying He doesn’t know the colour of my daughters hair when I don’t have a daughter. Similarly with saying He doesn’t know the choices of free creatures in advance. Because they haven’t made the choice yet.
You have hit on a good point about time. Yes, I don’t believe God is outside of time. I think I would share that with most Open Theists. No where in the Bible does it say that God is outside of time. It is merely the succession of events. What evidence is there for any being being outside of sequence? When you think about is, is it even a coherent statement to say someone is outside of time? Now God may experience time differently than the rest of us , but nothing in the Bible implies He is outside a progression of events….this happened, then that happened etc etc. Time is not a created thing. You can’t go out and buy a bucket of time.
I don’t have to defend the concept of free will, because the Bible speaks abundantly many times of free will choices “Choose this day who you will serve…..etc etc’. Everytime the Bible says Repent it is an appeal to the free will. Note that the bulk of Pre-Augustine Church Fathers believed in free will.
Re. God’s Soverigntiy – I don’t know how you say I am deifying man and diminshing God. Going back to my Omnipotence example – if someone said to you….you are diminishing God’s Omnipotence because you said that he can’t make a stone heavier than He can lift!…..well, you would say, rightly, well that is just illogical. Similarly I am saying God is great because He gave us free will. THe choices we make are real, have real significance.
Calvin and the Reformers did some great things for the Church… smashing the concept of Sacred/Secular division, the Priesthood of all believers etc. However, a great disservice was done in the church with the idea that God is outside of time and controlling everything that happens.
We obviously disagree….however, that is not as important as to say – Bless you.
Regards
Tim
Scott
Tim,
Thank you as well, I’m enjoying the conversation and I hope you’ll be interested in continuing to visit in the future as I build this little blog. I apologize for the length of my reply, but I’m a bit wordy.
I don’t think your comparison of omnipotence and omniscience is an adequate one, but I’ll return to that on the issue of free-will.
To argue that God is bound by time is neither biblically nor philosophical feasible. An exegetical case can be made for God’s transcendence of time on the basis of Genesis 1:1 itself, as well as other texts, and the usage of the language of eternity throughout Scripture also demonstrates God’s transcendence of time, because eternity is a completely different category from time; it is not merely a description of continuous time.
This also leads to a simple philosophical argument to offer. If God is bound by time then God must have been created, for nothing could have existed forever in time prior to this moment. That’s a contradiction in terms. To speak of something having existed “forever” in the past, if we are talking about within time, implies an infinite regress of moments in time, which is only potentially, not actually possible. It would be like me saying that I can count to infinity. That’s a potential possibility in the sense that there are an infinite series of possible numbers, but it is not actually possible because “infinity” is not a number, it is a concept. No matter how long I were to spend counting, there can never be a point in time where I can say I have counted to infinity. In the same way, no matter how many points in time you add up, you can never say that God has “always existed” in time. Even if time were infinite, it would be impossible to transgress it, which means that the very fact that we are here (the world having been created at a *point* in time) is proof that time did not always exist prior to us. God would have had to transgress an infinite number of points in time to “reach” this point, which is like counting to infinity. God must transcend time. And if He transcends time, then it makes perfect sense to say that He knows all events that will ever come to pass, because he sees all events — past, present, and future — instantaneously.
And, if we were to say that the fact that future things are not yet reality implies that God is limited by time because He cannot know them, I think we would be reasoning backwards. We have to define time and what’s possible within time in the context of eternity, not vice versa. I would argue that the fact that God transcends time, and has created time, tells us what the limits of time are. In other words, rather than concluding that God must be bound by time because future events are not yet reality, we should conclude that human autonomy is a logical impossibility because the determining of events within time come from outside of time; they can’t come from a being subject to the limits of time itself.
As for free-will, I think you do have to defend the concept of free-will (libertarian free-will, that is), because you’re equivocating on an important distinction. No one denies that men make voluntary choices, not even Calvinists. The issue is whether those voluntary choices are made on the basis of desires of the heart which God has sovereign control over, or on the basis of an ability the human has for autonomous determination. I touched on this toward the end of my post.
Let me illustrate the distinction. You quoted, “Choose this day who you will serve.” The Calvinist reads this and doesn’t deny that man must freely choose Christ. However, the Calvinist is going to say that the reason *why* a man chooses what he does is due to the inclination of his heart — either an inclination toward sin (which is the natural inclination of every man; Rom. 8:7-8), or an inclination toward righteousness (which would only happen if and when God draws the individual to Himself; cf. John 6:44; Jer. 13:23). On this view, there is nothing logically impossible about saying that God has exhaustive knowledge of all future events (including human decisions) because He decrees those events, being sovereign over the desires of our hearts, and yet at the same time He is not the one responsible for the actual choices that are made. This is the point I was arguing from Scripture in my post. In Scripture we see that men willingly make choices that God had predetermined. This is not a contradiction, as the Calvinist position of compatibilism demonstrates.
So you can define “free-will” in two ways. If all you mean by it is that men have the ability to choose whatever they want to choose, no one would disagree with that idea, and it does not necessitate Open Theism because it is perfectly compatible with the idea that future choices are already determined (at least in some sense). But I think you’re actually presupposing more than that, because you seem to want to say that man is autonomous. That is, not only does he make the choice, but God is not in control of the desire of his heart that inclines him to make that choice, either, and therefore God cannot know the future result of the choice because it is the man who directs his own heart, and not God Himself.
That’s the difference between compatibilism and libertarian free-will. You’re assuming libertarian free-will without distinguishing it from compatibilism and demonstrating why compatibilism isn’t biblical. But you can’t quote passages of Scripture that speak of men making choices and simply assert that libertarian free-will is what follows, because compatibilism is consistent with that same evidence. Thus, I think that in order to make your argument here you do have to demonstrate libertarian free-will in Scripture. You have to show more than the fact that men make choices. You have to demonstrate that God is not in control of the desires of our hearts, which would require you to deal with an awful lot of Scripture that could be used to argue the contrary, starting with the sampling I gave in my post.
On the issue of God’s sovereignty, I suggest that your view ends up deifying man and diminishing God because you’re essentially suggesting that man is the agent who determines the course of God’s creation, and God is more like the ratifier who simply recognizes what man determines and puts his stamp of approval on it. I don’t think your comparison of omnipotence and omniscience makes the point you intend for it to, because as I believe compatibilism demonstrates, there is no contradiction in saying that God has exhaustive knowledge of all future human decisions, has determined those decisions in some sense, and yet man still makes the choices voluntarily. And again, I believe the Scripture I brought up in my post argues toward this point.
Further, I don’t buy the common Arminian sentiment that God “gave us free will in His sovereignty.” I don’t see why that would be relevant, because even if He did do this, it’s really just an admission of the belief that God chose to suppress the power of His sovereignty for the sake of increasing our own determinative abilities. And that seems to concede to the Calvinist challenge that Arminianism elevates man and diminishes God, not rebuke it. Also, I think that argument reveals a man-centered understanding of reality (I don’t mean that in a derogatory way). That is to say, to argue that God would find it best to suppress His own sovereignty for the sake of human freedom, is to suggest that God’s concern for our freedom is greater than His concern for His own. This gets into a lot of other issues that we can discuss in other future posts on this blog if you wish, but the point I wish to emphasize for now is that I simply think that runs contrary to the greater theme of Scripture which teaches us that God’s primary intention in creating was to glorify Himself. I believe Scripture teaches that His creation of man, and love for man, is a secondary means toward the greater end of accomplishing that purpose, and not an end in itself. Thus, He is more concerned about accomplishing His purpose to glorify Himself, than He is to focus on what would best please us.
That turned out to be a lot longer than I intended for it to be, but hopefully that didn’t dissuade you from reading through it.
Scott
Jono
But the affirmation of Covenantal Properties by your Dr. K S O also leads to a process/open theism, since God is said to change in accidents and not in substance. God “takes on” properties and those properties admit change. God learns as to his “coventantal” nature but not his divine substance.
Scott
Jono,
I am a student of Oliphint but that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with him on his covenantal properties argument, so I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish by way of response to this blog post by taking the route you have.
But for what it’s worth, I can’t agree with your point. Open Theism and Oliphint do share a commonality as far as both want to say that covenantal properties exist, but there is also a very important distinction. Namely, Open Theism’s understanding of these properties denies God’s aseity. Oliphint’s does not.
Open Theism says that God takes on covenantal properties by experiencing the world and interacting dynamically (to borrow terminology from my Pinnock quote above) with His creatures in response to what he learns from that experience. In other words, God Himself is subject to time and is not therefore in full control of the events of history. That’s a denial of His aseity. But all that Oliphint is really trying to demonstrate is that God condescends in time, first in creation and the covenants, and ultimately in the bodily revelation of Himself through the incarnation. But this in no way leads of necessity to a denial of His aseity, and that’s why Oliphint makes the distinction he does between essential properties and covenantal properties. In Oliphint’s argument, God does not change in His essence, and, to what extent He does “change” or dynamically interact with His creation through condescension, it is not an interaction in which God is bound by the events of time, reacting to what He is learning through an experience with the world. Rather, this interaction is itself something that He has predetermined, and He has exhaustive knowledge of everything that He is going to do in interacting with that creation, because of that predetermination. That is the crucial difference.
So I’m confused by your distinction between “substance” and “accidents.” Again, the issue of contention between the Open Theist and Oliphint concerns God’s essence and whether the accruing of covenantal properties to God constitutes a change in that essence, or a denial of certain aspects of it in the first place (namely, omniscience and sovereignty). Oliphint never argues that God comes to know things in some accidental sense, and his argument that God takes on covenantal properties is NOT an admission that God “learns” something He did not know in eternity past.
Tim
Scott – there was no ‘reply’ button beneath your latest post….so I have decided to post here.
I confess your comments about infinite regress of time gave me pause for thought. After some reflection here are my comments. I was somewhat surprised by your comments on this because I had usually heard that argument from atheists ie if God created everything who created God? – being a modification of your argument. Now we know from scripture that God has always existed. But God is the uncaused being. It is not logical to say ‘who caused the uncaused being’? He is the only being to not have a cause. Infinite regress back in time is no more difficult than infinite progress forward in time. Do you believe going forward that sequence of events will stop?
Then I thought about scripture. john 17:5 where Jesus talks about the glory he had with the Father BEFORE the world was. The word ‘before’ is a word related to time and sequence. The phrase before the foundation of the world I take to refer to before creation. So there was a time before creation. A moment in sequence before creation. Therefore time and sequence existed before creation. Therefore time and sequence weren’t part of creation.
Your last post was large and will take some time to pour over…give me some time to respond to that
Scott
Tim,
I am still learning the functionality of this blog as well.
I figured out that after the “4th tier” of reply, the reply button disappears (so the column of text won’t continue to grow more thin). But if you scroll up to the last “reply” button you see, even if it’s on your own comment, it’ll post your reply below the latest reply in that discussion. But posting a new comment works just as well. (By the way, just in case you’re curious, I also discovered that < strong> < /strong> tags (without the spaces) work in comments to emphasize text with bold.)
I raised the “who created God” question because my point was I think that actually becomes a legitimate question if you reject that God transcends time. I believe that God transcending time is precisely the reason why the atheist’s argument is absurd. Time is a measurement of a sequence of events. Thus, if God has always existed within this sequence of events, you would have to say that He has already transgressed an infinite sequence in order to reach the point we are at right now. That is like saying that I have counted and reached infinity. But that can’t be, because infinity is a concept, not a number. And most importantly, it is the concept of a never-ending sequence, and therefore by definition it is a contradiction to say that an infinite sequence can be transgressed (because transgressing a sequence presupposes a start and end). That simply doesn’t make sense. It’s a logical impossibility.
Thus, if I can try to summarize, the fact that God has always existed (I agree with this) necessarily presupposes that this eternal “past” is an existence “prior” to time. (I believe Scripture uses terms like “before” creation because that’s simply the only way we can really comprehend how to describe it. Scripture speaks phenomenologically — that is, according to the appearance of things — and not necessarily scientifically.) It must be an existence “prior” to time because if we are simply talking about a never-ending sequence of events within time extending into the past, then there can never be a “point” within time (like creation) at which we can say that such an infinite sequence has come before us. Again, that’s like saying that one has successfully counted to infinity. It would be like saying they’ve transgressed an infinite, and reached a point. That’s a contradiction. So eternity must be understood as a different category from time altogether — that is, a kind of existence that is not measured by a sequencing of events.
Thus, to say that God existed eternally, but to also say that He is bound by time, I think is every bit as logically contradictory as saying that God can create a rock so big that He cannot lift it. And that’s why I think that this simply has to shape our understanding of eternity and time, just as the God and the rock question simply has to shape our understanding of omnipotence.
And please, take your time with my previous reply.
As I said, I know I write a lot.
Scott
Just to briefly follow up, my argument is that an eternal being, by definition, logically must be outside of time. He can see all events instantaneously, as if they simply “are,” rather than as unfolding through a progression of events. Granted, God does stoop down and interact with time and His creation, which is what Reformed authors speak of when they speak of condescension. But that condescension is a situation in which God, who exists in the eternal and uncreated realm, steps into the time-bound and created realm in order to reveal Himself. In essence, though, He exists in that separate realm, outside of time and created things. This is how He is able to transcend all things simultaneously — all events in time appear instantaneously to Him, and he can be in all places at once. It is because His existence takes place in a greater realm not restricted by laws of creation, such as time and physics.
Tim
Or……the word ‘before’ simply means ‘before’.
Sorry for the brievity of the reply above, it is not meant to be discourteous, it just was the easiest way of expressing my reply Scott. You also haven’t responded to my comment that the arguments you bring for infinite regress could equally be said about the future…but do you really believe that time and sequence will eventually stop? Ie no more events happening, no more this happened then that happened etc etc….but if you believe that events will continue to happen in a sequence, then you believe that state of affairs will continue for ever ie to an infinite time forward. And if the timeline can go infinitely forward then there is no reason why it can’t go infinitely back.
Here’s another thought, if God is outside of time as you say He is, but can enter time when He desires, why doesn’t He go back into the past and change things? After all if He is outside the timeline, He can jump into anywhere on that timeline.
I think you would agree that whatever our view – it has to conform to the Bible. I think there are abundant places in the Bible that shows that God is in time. You obviously think and feel differently. My thoughts of the calvinist view are..if there was no augustine or Plotinus or calvin…. Would you.and other calvinists even have thought of this concept of God outside being of time. I believe that this view doesn’t come from a natural reading of the scriptures rather it is a syncretistic.merging of early western thought with Christianity.
Kasara
Stay with this guys, you’re hlepnig a lot of people.
Scott
The question isn’t so much “what does the word mean,” but rather “in what sense is it to be understood”? For instance, I can talk about something being chronologically “prior,” or I can talk about something being logically “prior” (just to give an example). That’s two senses in which I can talk about something coming “before” something else, but only one of those senses actually refers to one event happening prior to another in time. Given the considerations raised in my previous replies, I think the burden of proof here would be on you to defend your understanding of “before,” not me. I see no reason to understand this language to be telling us something about the nature of time and eternity. For one, the verses in which this language is used are not intended to define a doctrine of eternity, and secondly, I believe my arguments in previous comments show definitively that an infinite regress of events in time is a contradiction of terms. I don’t even see it worth arguing, because it’s like saying that I can count to infinity. It’s nonsense.
The reason I didn’t address your arguments concerning an infinite regress into the future wasn’t to be disrespectful, but rather it was simply because I didn’t feel they needed addressing after the other issues I raised. Do I believe that time will eventually stop? Well, I honestly don’t really see why not. I don’t see why heaven would necessarily have to involve a sequencing of events. That might sound boring to us but that’s only because we have no idea what it’s like to experience eternity. Again, if we understand eternity as a different concept from time, then there’s nothing contradictory about affirming the eternal existence of God and the saints in heaven while at the same time affirming the end of creation and time. To point to phrases like “before creation” and “in heaven” in order to argue that this separation of concepts cannot be, would be question-begging, because you have to begin by assuming your point in order to make the argument that these words can only be understood in one sense. In other words, if we exist in a physical realm bound by time, but there exists a non-physical realm that is eternal and not bound by time, then there is no way for us to adequately comprehend what that would be like, and we would simply have to use temporal language to do the best we can to communicate the idea in a way we can understand it. So speaking of God existing “before” time does not necessarily entail a contradiction, because we use that language simply for lack of a better word.
But returning to your question about the future and the possibility of an infinite regress of events into that future (I will entertain the idea for the sake of argument; I think the Scriptures speak too little of heaven for us to speculate too much about the nature of it), I disagree that going forward into infinity is the same as an infinite past. A world is conceivable in which time begins at a point, but then never ends. But you cannot conceive of a world in which time always was prior to its existence. Again, use my analogy of counting numbers to demonstrate the difference. I can start with the number 1, and count up, and it is conceivable how I can count on into eternity, never stopping. However, you would never be able to say that for eternity past I have always been counting negative numbers, and then now, at this point in time, I have arrived at the number 1. Again, that’s like saying that I have successfully counted to infinity.
Let me try to state it another way. Again, using my numbers analogy, how would you conceive of the idea of someone having always counted? We can’t even ask the question, “What number did they start at?” because that would contradict the idea of the counting having always been in progress. The very idea of having always been counting, without a starting point, is inconceivable because it is logically impossible. This is because with one event following another, it is the very nature of such a thing to have a beginning and an end. This is why, again, I affirm that eternity must be understood as a completely separate concept from time — something we are not capable of understanding (at least on this side of heaven) — and not merely a description of an infinite sequence.
I’m not quite sure I understand your question about why God doesn’t go into the past and change things. My very belief that God transcends time goes hand-in-hand with my affirmation that God is sovereign over the events of time, and thus ordains all that takes place. In other words, He doesn’t change things in the past because history has occurred exactly as He intended for it to. He was not surprised by what happened, nor was He powerless to prevent it. Rather, what has happened has happened only because God ordained it to happen, and it could not have been any other way. Of course, this raises the question of the problem of evil, which might be a discussion best left elsewhere for another time, but in short my response to that problem would simply be that God has a purpose in evil (cf. Prov. 16:4). That is, God didn’t create evil, and He doesn’t take pleasure in evil, but, He did ordain that it would exist, and He did so for a purpose — namely, the purpose of glorifying Himself through using that evil to facilitate the development and accomplishment of a plan of salvation and ultimately to also overcome and destroy that evil.
As for your comments concerning Calvin and Augustine and the origin of the idea of God being outside time, yes, as a matter of fact, I do think I would think of God outside time if it wasn’t for these individuals. I can’t conceive of how it would make any sense to think of God as being subject to time. I wouldn’t even be able to call Him God, because I can’t see how His aseity can be maintained with that idea. I would have to simply picture God as a super-human, not a different being that we are unable to comprehend apart from having Him reveal Himself to us. I think there are indeed an abundance of Scripture passages that speak of God relating to us in time, but I can’t see an exegetical case being made for the idea that any of these passages entail the notion that God’s essence is actually bound by time. I think Scripture actually requires us to accept just the opposite — God in His essence exists outside time, but He has condescended to our level to reveal Himself to us.
I don’t want to sidetrack what I think is the vital point in this discussion. Unless you can show the error in my logic, I simply think you would have to concede that it is a logical contradiction to speak of God having already transgressed an infinite sequence of points in time to reach the present point. I think that suggesting this is no different than saying that one has already counted to infinity, and with all due respect I don’t think raising any other point or argument will be enough to counter this dilemma you face. A logical contradiction can’t be softened.
Tim
The problem I have with the whole God is outside of time idea, is that it seems so contrived. We can’t even conceive of what that means. God doesn’t experience sequence? It seems to me that Calvinists haven’t adequately thought that through. Sometimes you find some writing that puts things better than you could put yourself on thr implications of God not experiencing sequence, so here I found something useful posted by Boyd:-
http://reknew.org/2007/12/what-is-your-perspective-on-the-classical-view-that-god-is-above-time/
Regarding your question about infinite regression in past. Yes, i find it hard to get my head around. But what is the alternative? To believe that before (theres that word again) there were no sequence of events? I can’t see how love is possible in that state of affairs. Acts of love denote action. A progression ehich involves sequence. The Bible says that the members of the trinity have been loving each other forever. Also, you say you can conceive of a time in the future when sequence will stop…..but.again that has all the same problems.
The real issue is that because of history in the last 1600 years the western church has repeated this artificial contrivance of God being ‘outside of time’ so much that people think that is the natural state of thinking. But when you think about it…what evidence anywhere makes you think a being could live outside sequence, progression etc. i feel the onus is on those who hold to that view to prove it is logically tenable….because everything we know and have experienced implies sequence. Please don’t say that it is a Mystery….because that can be used for any argument that doesn’t hold to inspection. (I say this in full respect)
Scott
I think we’ve gotten to the real heart of the problem. It seems that your standard of determining what to believe about God is the question of what we are capable of understanding. Thus, if man’s reasoning cannot understand it, then it must not be true. Not only do I think that inherently denies biblical authority, but I think it also leaves you in a position where it is actually impossible to arrive at a right understanding of God. Any attempt you would make would necessarily be idolatrous. The fact that we are finite and God is infinite entails that human reason as an authority in itself is incapable of grasping an adequate understanding of God’s nature. Hence why revelation is necessary in the first place. God is incomprehensible, and without condescension it would be impossible for us to know Him. Your comments reveal that you are relying too much on your desire to comprehend the nature and ways of God.
Take the Trinity as an example. How do you comprehend the idea of God being 3 in 1? You can’t, not without arriving at an unorthodox understanding of the Trinity anyway (all Trinitarian heresies begin this way, when someone starts with the assumption that assertions concerning God’s nature must be able to be comprehended for it to be true). Yet you wouldn’t deny the Trinity on the basis of your difficulty comprehending the concept, would you? I think you’re simply relying too much on the implications of your own thinking and philosophy, and not enough on the implications of Scripture (I would simply offer the further thought here that if you deny that God transcends time, you’re going to have a nightmare trying to get around all the deterministic passages that Calvinists cite, because you’ll have even more explaining to do than the Arminian does).
You might suggest that I am relying too much on philosophy as well to make my case, but I would beg to differ. For two reasons. One, my presuppositions on this matter stem from the logical conclusion of what I read in Scripture regarding God’s determination. I’ve given a small sampling of evidence for this issue in my blog post above. Two, you wouldn’t be able to take my infinite regress argument and claim that I am basing my own conclusion on the mere fact that I can’t conceive of how time could have always existed. You wouldn’t be able to do this because, unlike your argument, my argument is not analogous to the Trinity example. There is a difference between something being logically possible, yet incomprehensible in our understanding, and something simply being logically impossible. The Trinity is an example of the former. We can’t comprehend how God is 3 in 1, but we do know that the idea is not a contradiction, because God is 3 in a different sense in which He is one. But in the case of my infinite regress argument, however, the argument is made on the basis of the fact that it is a simple logical contradiction to speak of the existence of a past infinite sequence of chronological events or points. It is a contradiction in terms. It’s like trying to argue for the existence of a square circle. Such a thing is impossible because they are defined as two completely different things. You simply cannot argue that God is bound by time if you affirm that He has always existed in time, and diverting the point to other issues that don’t directly interact with the logical contradiction here do nothing to soften it. A logical contradiction is a slam-dunk failure of any argument on any issue, no matter what other points and concerns that are raised. You have to concede this point, or otherwise somehow demonstrate how it is not a logical contradiction to say that a particular point in time exists after an infinite number of points in time prior to that point have already been transgressed. In other words, your argument that God is bound by time stands or falls on your ability to demonstrate how it even makes sense to say that it is possible to “count to infinity.” How does it even make sense to say that a chronological sequence of points can have so many points added to it that the concept of “no limits” can be “reached”? With all due respect, I think you are ignoring the seriousness of my reply simply in order to be able to continue maintaining your tradition.
Also, you have not substantiated the claim that the concept of God being outside of time somehow originated with Augustine and the Reformers, nor do I see how you would be able to do so (or, again, what relevance it really has to answering my charge that you are arguing for a logical contradiction). You also have not substantiated the claim that Scripture teaches the concept of libertarian free-will, which is the specific brand of the idea that you were presupposing earlier in our conversation.
Tim Martin
Hi Scott,
re. your point about idolatrous bringing down God to a level of our understanding argument. Again, my response is with full respect…but I find this amusing. The reason being is the person giving that statement is assuming that his position is the ‘right’ position. But that is far from established. I could equally say that you are being idolatrous because you can’t conceive of a God who has lived forever and will live forever in time. Hence, you are using a man made argument about God someone being outside of time. It cuts both ways. The other reason I question this argument is that could be used to stand behind any nonsense argument about God. eg if someone had the view that God lived in cafe above a family of turtles – well they coudl say to those who don’t understand how that could be ….well, you are just trying to bring God down to your own understanding. Again, no dis-respect.
Regarding God being in time well all the following phrases are from the Bible:
Everlasting – From of old – Before ever He had formed the earth – The Ancient of Days – Before the world was – From before the ages of the ages – From ancient times – He continues forever – Remains forever – Immortal – The Lord shall endure forever – Forever and ever – Who lives forever – God’s years – manifest in His own time – God who is – Alive forevermore – Who was – Who is to come – Always lives – Forever – In the age to come – Continually – God’s years never end – From everlasting to everlasting – From that time forward, even forever – And of His kingdom there will be no end.
In contrast I don’t see anywhere in the Bible about this ‘outside of time’ position.
re. Augustine. I am not sure that he was the first Christian to postulate this ‘outside of time’ position….but I am not aware of another Christian before them. My take on it is that the whole time issue comes from Christians syncretistically taking Platonic philosophy (it is beyond Argument that Augustine was heavily influenced by Plotinus
who was a major Neo-Platonic philosopher). The way I think it happened (though in this I am guessing there – this is far from established) it came from a need to make God immutable (a Greek philosophical concept) ie unchangeable. If God was in time then his knowledge, experience etc would change – the argument going that change can only happen to the better or worse – but since God is always perfect this is impossible. (This argument can easily be shown to be fallatious – I’ll elaborate on that if you want me to).
Scott
Tim,
To be honest, I feel my previous replies have already sufficiently answered the concerns you raised here, and you’re simply not willing to interact with them.
I’ve explained already why my criticism does not cut both ways. You can’t ignore my arguments if you want a productive discussion. There is a major difference between having trouble comprehending something, and a simple logical contradiction. It is 7not a logical contradiction to say God lives above a house of turtles. It IS a logical contradiction to say God has transgressed an infinite number of points in time. So your analogy fails. Your difficulty understanding how God could exist outside time is a completely different issue than that of there being a logical contradiction in the statement that something can exist infinitely within a concept that is actually defined by limitation. I already explained this point with my example of the Trinity.
Once again, you must concede your position unless you can demonstrate how it is not a contradiction to say that it is possible to transgress infinity and reach a point on the other side where you can say the task was accomplished. Your case is done if you cannot do this. Raising issues of concern about my own position does nothing to save yours from this fatal flaw.
I also think you may have misunderstood my comments about idolatry. My point was simply that Scripture must be our authority. We cannot know God through our own reason.
You also have still yet to demonstrate libertarian free-will from Scripture, which is another assumption that is driving your position. There is no reason to reject God’s exhaustive knowledge of the future if man is not autonomous. So you need to argue that point from Scripture to make your case. But I submit to you you cannot do this, because the idea is foreign to Scripture.
Until you deal with these two issues there’s nothing else to discuss. What the church fathers may or may not have believed does not determine the truth of the matter, and the phrases you mentioned from Scripture must all be defined and interpreted in light of Scripture, not in light of unaided reason. You have to substantiate your understanding of the will and omniscience from Scripture before you can argue that these phrases are to be understood the way you suggest they should be. I’ve already discussed the fact that Scripture often speaks in terms we are capable of understanding, not necessarily in terms that discuss the nature of things.
Scott
Tim
Scott – I’d like to thankyou for this vigorous discussion. We obviously don’t agree on some substantial points (but we knew that going in didn’t we
)
My view is that Open Theism is one of the legitimate options in the discussion about God’s foreknowledge, along with Calvinism and Arminanism. I don’t require people to confirm to my view but don’t believe that Open Theism deserves or warrants the term ‘heresy’ associated with it. How could it really? Adherents hold to the ancient creeds and their view of salvation is orthodox. None of those creeds talk about God’s knowledge of the future. Indeed how could one’s position on the nature of the future be an essential doctrine of the faith? Like the subject of baptism – we accept that this isn’t a core issue and we accept those who have different views. Open Theism should be held in the same light.
Again, enjoyed the discussion. Bless you in your walk.
Regards
Tim
Scott
Tim,
Thanks for your comments, I’ve enjoyed the conversation. I haven’t interacted with many self-professed Open Theists before and it was good to learn more about where people of your persuasion come from.
Just to make my own closing remark, the reason I would classify Open Theism as heresy is because I believe it necessarily leads to a rejection of the doctrine of aseity — i.e. God’s being God. I don’t believe you can consistently maintain an orthodox view of God when you reject that He has exhaustive knowledge of the future (meaning, knowledge of all events that will ever take place). I believe that is how Scripture defines omniscience, and rejecting it has major implications regarding an understanding of who and what God is (implications that I believe would in fact require rejecting certain parts of the creeds you refer to). God is doing something in creation. He created the world to accomplish a determined purpose. On Open Theism, we are forced to view God as only one of several determining forces defining the nature of things and course of His creation. That implies a radically different understanding of both the nature of creation and the nature of God than what I would argue orthodox and historical Christianity maintains.
I hope to see you around here in the future. Thanks again for commenting.
Scott
Scott
Tim, I also meant to ask you, when Jesus told His disciples that one of them would betray Him, and when He told Peter that he would deny Him three times, was He merely making a prediction that could have been in error, or was He declaring a fact about the future? How do you reconcile this with your view that man’s will is autonomous from God’s decree?
Tim
I would add that where the Bible text says ‘eternal’ I believe that means ‘everlasting’ ie existing forever.
Tim
Hi Scott,
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate and understand your position. Obviously I feel and think differently about an Open Theist position impacting ‘God being God’. I think Open Theism is primarily a debate about the nature of the future not the nature of God. Is the future knowable in fixed terms or not? By any being. Does it exist in any sense in advance? Depending on your view of that one can come to an entirely different answer to what is in the box of everything that God knows. We both agree that God knows everything that can be known I think – yes? Given that, then the only question is what can be known about the future in advance. Hence, again that is why I strongly deny that this is a question for heresy given that ones speculations about the nature of the future is a subject that is at the core of the Christian faith. Perhaps more akin to the subject of baptism and how much water to use. Most Christians allow for flexibility of this position without using the H word.
Responding to your question about Peter’s denial of Jesus. I first want to say that not being God myself, all I can provide is educated guesses on how that was achieved (because not seeing being the scenes it is hard to be concrete on this). I believe however that that happening can harmonize with an Open Theist position.
My first point is that God’s granting of freedom isn’t total. All Open Theists say that the future is only partially open to the choices of free creatures. God has reserved certain things to be absolutely certain of occuring in the future eg the second coming of Jesus Christ. So how does prophesy work if God ‘doesn’t know the totalatit of the future in the fixed terms’. My answer is through illustration. I would say that you yourselves predict the future frequently and on a daily basis. And many of your predictions come true. For instance, you may say, “I will drive to work today”. That is a statement of what will happen in the future. And lo and behold many times it comes to pass just as you predicted it. Or you may say, “This salad I am making will have tomatoes”. And then lo and behold the salad ends up with tomatoes in it. What I am saying is that those statements were statement of plans. And you knew something ie that you had the power to bring about those plans when the time came. You might counter….well, those plans could have come undone…perhaps an oil tanker could have blocked my driveway so I couldn’t drive my car out, or I might have found that the tomatoes were spoiled so I didn’t add them to the salad. But that is the difference between you and God – who is going to stop God in his plans? In God’s case. He knows that He will be around forever, so He will be there at the time that the plan needs to be executed. He also knows that He has the power to execute it when the time comes. Hence, I would say, that Prophesy in general (though not totally) is more about God’s omnipotence than God’s omniscience.
Moving to Peter’s denial. It is pretty clear from the Gospels that Jesus knew the apostles hearts intimately and comprehensively. Satan had already asked to sift Peter and Jesus warned Peter of this. So given certain circumstantial pressure Jesus would have known that Peter would deny him. The Cock Crowing? My response is that if God could create an entire universe, then it would be very easy for him to make a Cock Crowe at the right time. The assumption is often that the Cock Crowed at a time known in advance of this event. But why couldn’t it equally have been that God made the Cock crowe enqueue straight after Peter’s denial?
Kind Regards
Tim
Scott
Tim,
Your understanding of the nature of the future is necessarily going to inform your understanding of God (or your understanding of God will inform your understanding of the future, either way). They are inseparable issues. If God’s knowledge of the future is not exhaustive, then that presupposes an understanding of God which says the determination of events in time is separated from His decree. The reason I hold to the view that God’s knowledge of the future is necessarily exhaustive is because I believe the Scriptures clearly teach that whatever happens in time only can happen the way it does because all of time and creation are a product of God’s decree. He is the only primary determining force (although there are secondary determining forces) which means that nothing can happen independently of His intention. Thus, if you hold to the view that God does not have exhaustive knowledge of the future, what you are actually saying is that the reason you disagree with me on the nature of the future is because your view of God and His relationship to time is fundamentally different than my own.
As for your response to my question about Peter’s denial of Jesus, with all due respect I simply think it’s a cop out, and you’re not being consistent. On the one hand you want to say that God can’t be outside of time because you can’t comprehend how that can be (even though I’ve already demonstrated it is a logical contradiction to say He is bound by time), but on the other hand when I ask you a tough question that I can’t see reconciled with your own point of view, you simply chalk that up to, “well I’m not God so I can’t know the answer.” That’s awfully convenient. If I explain a view of my own that can’t be fully understood or comprehended, I get accused of making something up (even though my position is derived from my reading of Scripture and the fact that to reject that position leads to a logical contradiction). But if you explain a view of yours that can’t be fully understood or comprehend, well, that’s supposed to just be acceptable, even though I would suggest that view is itself contradictory. It seems to me you are the one with the contrived point of view.
Your explanation of Peter’s denial goes against what the text plainly says. You’re not deriving your view from an exegesis of Scripture. You’re trying to force into it an idea which you already have a prior commitment to. Look at Matthew 26. Peter is rebuking Christ, telling Him that he would never fall away. Jesus replies by telling him, very specifically, that he will deny Him three times before the cock crows. First, He tells Peter how many times he will actually do this. Second, He tells Peter at what specific time he will actually do this. The “cock crowing” is a reference to early morning time. Cock/rooster in Matthew 26 is alektwn; an extension of that word, alektorophonia (found in Mark 13) can literally be translated either “cock’s crow” or “before dawn.” What Jesus is telling Peter is that he will deny Him that very night, at a specific time. And, did Jesus know this to be fact? Or did He just know of the probability? You almost sound like you want to say the latter, when you say that the reason Jesus knew of this is simply because he knew Peter’s heart.
You make a very interesting statement at the end of your response. You say, “why couldn’t it equally have been that God made the Cock crowe enqueue straight after Peter’s denial?” I would ask you the same question. Why can’t it be that the reason God knows future events is because He decrees those events? The only answer you have offered thus far is the mere assertion — and it is nothing but an assertion — that man possesses a libertarian free will. You have still yet to demonstrate this from Scripture, so you have not established a legitimate basis upon which you can assert that God would only act this way sometimes, and not always. Again, I submit to you that you are constructing a viewpoint that merely fits around a preconceived idea, rather than exegeting your way through the Scriptures and simply allowing them to speak. There are countless other examples we could bring up here which you’re going to have an equally difficult time answering. Why did Judas betray Jesus? Did he choose this freely (in the libertarian sense), and if so, then why do the Scriptures say that it was God’s intention that he would do this? What about Herod, and Pilot, and the Roman soldiers? Acts 2:23 says that these men delivered Christ up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. It was His intention. He knew their future acts because He decreed them. And yet, at the same time, they are still held responsible for having made the choices themselves. I think there is a lot you are missing when you allow an assumed libertarian free-will to drive your interpretation of everything else. The Scriptures do not speak of man’s freedom determining reality. They speak of man’s will acting in accordance with an eternal decree of God. This is why He does know the future exhaustively. He has decreed all events in time because He is the very author of time.
I’m actually working on a lengthy article that goes into this issue in greater depth in one section of it. I hope you’ll continue to visit my blog in the future because I’d be interested to see your interaction with that posting as well.
Scott
Tim
The most recent discussion ie over the last couple of weeks – seems to have disappeared.
Scott
I’m not sure why you aren’t able to see it. I can still see everything fine, and haven’t messed with anything. Are there posts still not visible to you?
Jeffery Murphy
The predictive model of divine foreknowledge holds that God knows the future by prediction, by calculating the way that the world is going to be on the basis of the way that the world is now. There are laws of nature that govern the way that the different entities in the world interact. Using these laws, even we, with our imperfect knowledge, can often make accurate predictions about the future. Think about the way that we calculate the future positions of satellites orbiting the Earth. We know where the satellites are now, and what laws govern their interactions, and so project where they will be in the future.
Scott
That’s a cute theory, but it’s not biblical. The Scriptures don’t speak of God merely making educated guesses, as one would when predicting the weather or calculating the position of a satellite. They speak of God having perfect, certain, and absolute knowledge of all future events, including the choices of men. He possesses such absolute knowledge because, being the author of all of creation and time itself, nothing can occur in time outside of His sovereign decree. God knows all things because He has decreed all things. He knows what He knows because He is what makes things the way they are.
Tim
Hi Scott,
You realise that the Calvinistic view of absolute determinism is held by only a minority of Christians.? It isn’t the worldwide normative position of Christianity. Arminians for instance, don’t believe that God determines everything. Every time the Bible says ‘Repent’ is an indication that what God desires isn’t happening on the earth (otherwise why repent/change from doing God’s will?). The Lord’s prayer asking that God’s will be done on earth as it is on heaven is superfluous if God’s will is being done totally already. Now of course you are entitled to that view. But it is just one in a range of views of God’s interaction with the world. Even though I think Scripture abundantly speaks of a view of God that is contrary to that position, I don’t sideline those who are Deterministic Calvinists to the Heretic box. In my view only core Christian beliefs of the identity of Christ, the efficacy of his death on the Cross to save us, His resurrection ie the stuff covered in the apostles creed, the Nicene creed are the core unassailable beliefs. (By that I mean, that having other views on water amount in Baptism, ones position on the nature of the future etc are relatively minor beliefs and need charity when speaking with other Christians on this.). Calvinism does not equal orthodox Christianity – it is just one take on what Christianity is about. As I have said, earlier – I admire the Reformers for things such as the Priesthood of all believers, their view that all good work can glorify God, their breaking down of the sacred/secular division. But I don’t admire their views on Predestination etc. I am using my Reformation won rights to interpret the Bible best I can.
I don’t think my comments on Peter’s denial are a cop-out. I was trying to be humble in saying that I don’t know all the levers that God pulled around that event. The Scriptural record isn’t totally comprehensive. All I meant to say is that the event doesn’t have to contradict Open Theist theology. God could have orchestrated the event at the time. One other thing also to make clear. All Open Theist theologians say that the Future is only partially open. God can determine anything He likes and does on occassion eg He has determined that Jesus will come again – and He by His power will bring it about in the future. So we agree that God does determine the future, but my view is that this is only partially done, whereas you think it is comprehensive. Hence, using my earlier example of you predicting when you will drive a car – God makes plans and executes them sometime in the future. Sometimes He lets us in on what are His plans are in advance – this at least partially explains prophesy. God isn’t seeing, as it were, in a chrystal ball, He is merely explaining what He will bring about in the future.
Scott
Tim,
I do not hold to the view of “absolute determinism,” nor do the vast majority of Calvinists. You’ll note in the blog post I argued for compatibilism — the view that God’s sovereign decree is compatible with human choice and responsibility. I am also aware that Calvinism does not represent the majority of Christianity. That’s actually the reason I wrote this blog post. My intention was to point out what I believe to be an inconsistency in Arminianism. Arminians do believe that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future, but at the same time they want to say that the future is not determined. That’s a contradiction. My point in the article is that if the Arminian is consistent with himself, he must either adopt Calvinism (if he maintains the belief that God knows the future exhaustively), or Open Theism (if he rejects that belief in order to hold on to the conviction that humans have an autonomous free-will). I never argued for a hard determinism.
You said, “Every time the Bible says ‘Repent’ is an indication that what God desires isn’t happening on the earth.” I’m a little concerned at this point that you may not be familiar with the distinction between libertarianism and compatibilism, because multiple times now I have pointed out that you can’t simply assert this idea. You have to substantiate your claim. You are asserting the view of libertarian free will. There are other understandings of the human will. You can’t just assert that the call to repentance indicates that God’s desires don’t always come to pass, until after you first wrestle with the Reformed views of compatibilistic freedom as well as the distinction between God’s prescriptive will and His sovereign decree. These views explain perfectly well how it makes sense to say that the future is determined, and yet humans make choices voluntarily, and how it is that God can issue a call to all men to repent, genuinely desire that to come to pass in some sense, and yet at the same time not determine that it will, and not be in contradiction with Himself. I’ll repeat it once more: You have to interact with these viewpoints before you can make your case, especially since these views are argued from Scripture. You can’t just make assertions that presuppose the falsehood of these views without providing any argument, which is precisely what you’re doing by acting as though there is only one way to understand human freedom.
Forgive me if I have misread you, but I also sense that you are not being very honest in your treatment of my last comment. You know that I have never made the claim that everyone who is not a Calvinist is a heretic. Yet, you almost sound like you want to think that I did. I specifically explained for you several times now why I believe Open Theism in particular falls out of line with orthodox Christianity. If you want to actually interact with that explanation, we can continue this point of our discussion. Otherwise, I’d encourage you to realize the truth that your comments are serving to avoid the points I am raising, rather than responsibly interact with them. I would just remind you that you have yet to refute the fact that I have demonstrated a clear logical contradiction in your position, and yet you have tried to continue the argument down countless other routes anyway.
As for your comments on Peter’s denial, all I need to say is you didn’t interact with my response to you. Tim, you have made many claims in this conversation that are simply arbitrary and baseless. I mean that as respectfully as I can say it. Many times now I have asked you a question, you have given your opinion in reply, and when I challenge that opinion with logical or Scriptural arguments, you fail to actually interact with those arguments and demonstrate the error in them. Instead, you simply say, “Well it doesn’t have to contradict my view.” I encourage you to recognize, that yes it does. If you cannot refute the challenges that are raised against your view, that means your view is in error. I’ve already demonstrated the contradiction in your claim that God exists eternally within time, and I’ve raised many concerns from Scripture as well which you must be able to deal with before you can have any biblical basis for arguing your claims. Yet most of these concerns you have not even addressed, and those which you have addressed have all been presented as, “Well I think this or that could be the case,” and not, “Here is what Scripture argues.”
Scott
Tim
Hi Scott,
I apologize – I haven’t spent enough time reflecting on your writing about Compatibilism. I realise there are different kinds of Calvinists and it was unfortunate that I bundled you into the camp that believe everything is ordained and pre-determined with God. I’ll do some reading and get back to you on this.
Re. the Heresy word. I was reacting in part to the very first sentence of your post ‘Open Theism is an unbiblical heresy’ – my view is that ones view on the nature of the future is not a core Christian belief and used Baptism as an example of orthodox Christians accepting other Christians having different view without labelling them outside Christian Orthodoxy. Many Open Theists would rather the term be ‘Open Futurists’ – because as I have said, we believe it is more about ones view on the nature of the future than the nature of God. I believe I have interacted with that point – and honestly. You think it is illogical to have an infinite past in time – and I pointed out that it is exactly the same for having an infinite future from now. Statements about infinite regress are the same as for Infinite progress going forward. The Bible never indicates anywhere that time or sequence will stop. In fact it says the exact opposite. The Bible talks frequently about God being everlasting…see quotes I listed before. “From everlasting to everlasting”. It is for Biblical reasons that I believe in infinite time (or at least sequence). Now you may differ in your interpretation of the Biblical passages I grant, but that in no way implies I am not holding to my view honestly.
I am grateful for your interest in the discussion. Even though we have different views I hope that we can continue in a good spirit.
Thankyou
Scott
Tim,
No worries. For clarification, I do believe that God has ordained and predetermined all things. Compatibilists and hard determinists agree on this point (compatibilism is still a form of determinism). The disagreement concerns the implications this has for human volition and responsibility. The argument of compatibilism is that God’s predetermination of all things is compatible with man’s ability to choose as he pleases. That is, men do have a will, and they have the ability to act on that will (according to the deepest desire of their hearts, but not contrary to it), and this does not contradict the further fact that God has preordained all things, including the future free choices of men.
As for your other comments, I hope you won’t consider my reply to be disrespectful, but I simply think I have answered them sufficiently already, and you did not offer a reply. I’ve explained why I believe our differing understandings of the future necessitates different understandings of God. You didn’t rebut my point. I’ve replied to your language references in Scripture. You didn’t have too much to say in response. I’ve already demonstrated how an infinite regress in the past is not the same as one in the future. Again, you did not offer a rebuttal.
To clarify once more, a future infinite regress is not the same as a past infinite regress, not if you’re talking about moments in time. A future infinite regress is by definition something that can never be fully transgressed, because it is a never-ending sequence of current and yet unfolding events. Thus, a future infinite regress is perfectly conceivable. But a past infinite regress is a contradiction in terms, because it, by definition, is something that has been successfully transgressed already.
So a future infinite regress is like saying, given enough time, you can count on and on and on into eternity, never stopping. You will never actually “reach” infinity, but the concept of never-ending time allows you to continue into eternity without ever stopping. But a past infinite regress is like saying you have already successfully counted to infinity, having reached a point in time where you can say that an “infinite number of events” has already been transgressed.
The problem with your statement is you’re taking the number analogy too far, and actually begging the question of your position as a result. Numbers represent a potential infinite; you’re treating them as if they represent an actual infinite (that is, as if their “infiniteness” is not just a concept, but something that can actually be transgressed in reality), yet you’re not arguing this assumption; you’re just stating it as fact. You’re understanding time as if it extended in two directions, rather than just one. When you talk about past and future infinite regresses, you’re conceiving of the present being the point in time at which you start, and then the infinite regresses extending from that point into the future and back into the past (like a line of numbers; starting with zero, and extending infinitely either into positive integers, or negative integers). But ironically enough, you’re actually assuming my view in doing this. I understand eternity as a separate concept that transcends the nature of time, and thus it makes sense to speak of an “eternity past” and “eternity future.” But time itself is uni-directional. It goes from past to future. So, when you talk about an infinite regress of points in time, you can’t understand that as starting with the present and extending backward infinitely. You have to understand that past infinite regress as a progression of events from “infinite past,” forward, into the present. In other words, to speak of an infinite regress of events in time being in the past behind us, is to speak of a completed transgression of infinity. Yet, to speak of an infinite regress of future events in time, is no different than saying that I can start counting now, and simply never stop. The major difference is, the past infinite regress presupposes an end point at which one can say, “Ah, infinity has been reached,” whereas the future infinite regress, by its very definition, presupposes that there never will be such a point. Past infinite regress = “I have already counted to infinity.” Future infinite regress = “I will never stop counting.” They’re not the same thing.
What this essentially comes down to is that it’s just another way of saying that time, by the very definition of the concept, had to have had a starting point. It might be possible for that time to continue on and never end, but, there had to have been a point where the sequence actually began to take place. You can conceive of what it means to say that numbers are infinite. But you cannot actually count an infinite number of numbers. You can start counting and never stop, but, you have to start somewhere. You can’t say that you’ve “always been” counting.
Just to refresh, in case a reader comes into this discussion late, it is not my position that there is no such thing as eternity past. There is such thing as eternity past. God has always existed. My position is that, because God has always existed, and because time by definition must have had a starting point, eternity and time must be understood as different concepts. We don’t have to be able to comprehend how that is so, or what that might look like. All we need is to recognize the fact that it must be the case, because it is a logical contradiction to deny it. God transcends time.
Tim
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the clarification on your position. Compatibilism seems to have some difficulties in my view. The way I understand it saying is that Humans perceive they are making free choices but really there choice has already been determined by God. So it is just the appearance of making a choice not really a ‘free’ choice.
1/ It runs counter to our intuition and experience. We really think that we are choosing between options.
2/ It makes God ultimately responsible for all the evil in the world. Hitler’s choices ultimately get traced back to God. That is the implication. You say that God ordains the choices. Therefore nothing has ever happened that God didn’t ordain first. Ultimately that makes Him responsibile for every choice. This is a God unrecognizable from the New Testament God.
3/ Similar to point (2) is our holding others responsible for their choices. Ultimately if God is behind every ‘choice’ then they aren’t responsible. If people are compelled through threats, coertion, illness – to make choices – we in that instance modify their culpability for their actions. We don’t hold them responsible. In the compatibilist scheme no-one is ultimately responsible except God.
Ultimately is still ends up with the position that no truly Free choice can be made. That I believe is a very dangerous position given the above reasons.
Regarding Isaiah 10 and Assyria…..it could be equally that God understood Assyria’s heart and used their heart towards his purposes.
(Also note: Open Theism doesn’t preclude God unilaterally overriding someone’s will. It says however, that it is not normative. I believe it God did that He would not hold the person that was done to accountable for it. How could he?)
Scott
Tim,
Compatibilism argues that man’s choosing is compatible with God’s sovereign decree. It does not suggest that choice is just an illusion. God determines the desires of a man’s heart, thereby guaranteeing a certain outcome (because we always act on our desires), but man still willingly makes the choice and is held responsible for it. It’s honestly irrelevant if that sounds unreasonable to you. The point is Scripture teaches it, as I’ve already shown in the post above.
Scott
Tim
Can’t see my latest post.