Open Theism, (cont'd from earlier)

[RickC]

Hi Homer -

Thanks for the link.
It seems a bit off topic (or as an aside) w/r/t the Open Future View.
But I'll read it.
====================================

At one time Boyd may have agreed with what you posted, Paidion.
However, he no longer does (if he ever did).

Rick, what did I post with which you believe Gregory Boyd does not agree? I have read his book God of the Possible and it's clear that we are on the same side of the fence.

Hi Paidion, I was referring to where you wrote --

Surely no one, including God, can know the unknowable. But He does know all that is possible to know, and thus we open theists agree that He is omniscient.

(And re-posting Greg Boyd) --
An Alternative Perspective
God's Sovereignty Incorporates Flexibility
The Open View of the Future (note Boyd doesn't say "of God")
1. God knows all things
2. All things includes future possibilities (Note: Possibilities are Ontologically Real)
--> Some of reality (past, present, and future) is definite and perfectly known by God as such
--> Some of reality (some of the future) is indefinite (possibly this and possibly that) and perfectly known by God as such
3. God Settles Whatever He Chooses Ahead of Time and Opens Up Possibilities Ahead of Time to Whatever Extent He Chooses
4. God is Infinitely Intelligent and Can Therefore Anticipate Each Possibility as Perfectly As If It Was a Certainty

Number 1. would be one difference.
Numbers 2-4 seem to continue with the same.
Greg Boyd's ideas have developed since at least 2008.
I'm not sure when God of the Possible came out.
I'll guess before 2008.

Anyways, thanks,
======================================

Edited in, a few minutes later (to Homer and Paidion)--

On the Closer to Truth: Greg Boyd link --
Check out:
How could God know the future?
and
Has God settled the future?
I'm watching the first one right now (which mentions "God being outside of time" as some see it, Homer). The second one is a very good, concise summary of 'Views of Sovereignty' in terms of Calvinism, Arminianism, Molinism, and Boyd's version of Open Theism (aka, Open Future View and/or Flexible Sovereignty). Boyd almost repeats word-for-word from what I posted from his 2008 lecture (above).

Thanks some more and Happy New Year too!

[benstenson]

When I became convinced open theism was true, I still thought that God had to know every little detail about everything (omniscience). So I adopted what I've heard called "dynamic omniscience". This was my reasoning and my version of dynamic omniscience:

I accepted the idea that God can change his mind and he doesn't foreknow who will be good or bad. This made perfect sense to me. Why make people if you foreknow they will be bad? Can a good tree deliberately create bad fruit? What impacted me greatly was the rush of hope and encouragement I experienced upon considering the fact that God did not foreknow I would end up in hell. I knew apostasy was possible for any man and I knew that I did not know my own future choices. Therefore I always knew that God could possibly foresee me in eternal punishment separated from him forever. So that was very encouraging to realize there wasn't any such thought in God's mind about my future.

I still believed God knew everything though. This was a challenge for me philosophically because I always viewed time like film strip or a calendar. All the scenes and days are already visible to an outside observer but we are only in one frame at a time. So, if the future is there for God to see then how could he not see it? Now, some open theists have suggested that God chooses not to know, or not to peek ahead at certain things. No offense, but this always sounded far-fetched and silly to me.

I eventually questioned my assumption that the future even exists already. This was philosophically significant for me. I had always viewed change and motion as an illusion - like frames in a video or film. I was having a hard time articulating the new thoughts about time but a physics article I found helped me figure out what my problem was. I concluded that the future does not even exist like it does in sci-fi stories. If the future does not exist yet, then it could not be a part of "everything". Everything means every .... thing; every thing that is real; every thing that exists. (If this sounds totally crazy I suggest giving the physics paper a try.) Now if God must know every thing, and the future simply is not a thing, then there is no contradiction between omniscience and open theism.

I thought, "Of course God can calculate the position of every atom in the universe on into infinity, but free will is certainly exempt from the laws of cause and effect by which such calculations are made. Predicting how the planets will rotate is a matter of physics and mathematics, but love is not so mathematical and mechanical. Righteousness and wickedness simply cannot be predicted by some mathematical formula." (I never accepted the idea that possibilities exist ontologically - Something that 'might be' ... actually is? I don't think so.) So I figured God foreknew every detail about non-freewill things, but his knowledge regarding moral choices reflected reality, that is, just as moral character can change and develop in reality, so can God's perfect knowledge change and develop as a perfect reflection of reality.

This Dynamic Omniscience idea served as a stepping stone for me between Exhaustive Foreknowledge and being able to believe what the Bible says about God without importing my old philosophy of time. (I had now rejected the film-strip idea of time for purely logical/philosophical reasons). I don't currently think Dynamic Omniscience is the exact Biblical view but it certainly is a big improvement on the Exhaustive Foreknowledge view. I would still be considered open theist but I no longer think omniscience is what the Bible teaches us about God. But let me add, I think he is way too smart to even need omniscience.

[Candlepower]

I concluded that the future does not even exist like it does in sci-fi stories. If the future does not exist yet, then it could not be a part of "everything". Everything means every .... thing; every thing that is real; every thing that exists.

Ben,

I enjoy reading your posts, though much if it is over my head.

I am convinced that the Calvinist idea that God ordains everything meticulously is incorrect. It does not seem to match what I find in the Bible. It makes God responsible for all sin. In fact (perhaps I'm overstating my case) it makes God the only sinner in the universe, because it makes Him responsible for everything: every murder, every rape, every child molestation. But the Bible tells us that man has genuine responsibility to submit to God, to obey Him, and to live righteously. That teaching from Scripture is unavoidable and undeniable, IMO. Even the Calvinist admits this truth, but then negates it by asserting that though man is responsible, God dictates his every thought and deed. Then they declare their contradiction is a mystery. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. To me, one of the clearest, least mysterious, and most often repeated doctrines in the Bible is that man has true, actual, genuine responsibility.

I have much less difficulty (not none) with the non-Calvinist view of God's sovereignty. It asserts that man has genuine responsibility and limited parameters of free will, but that God knows in advance everything that will happen (foreknowledge). It seems to me that if God knows something is going to happen, how can it possibly not happen, and, therefore, be predetermined? Are foreknowledge and pre-ordination, in effect, the same?

Individual responsibility and foreknowledge are both clearly taught in the Bible, so I have little trouble accepting this non-Calvinist view as a mystery of God. But I'm not at all comfortable with the Calvinist notion that God determined before creation what socks I would put on this morning...and which foot I would dress first. I don't see that notion in Scripture.

Okay, I said all that to ask this: If Open Theism is correct (that God does not know the future either because it has not yet happened or because He has chosen to limit His knowledge of it), then how does prophecy work? I ask this humbly, not provocatively.

Candlepower

[darinhouston]

I'm curious in his answer, but I think the open theist would say that this is because God knows His chess pieces perfectly and intimately, and knows exactly what levers to pull to obtain a specific result, thus leaving them free morally to make the choice (but it still sounds pretty determinate to me). I don't see a big difference in such certain manipulation and actual deterministic irresistable control.

[Candlepower]

Yes, Darin, but how does the Open Theist (one who believes that God does not know the future -- for whatever reason) explain the existence of prophesies that reveal the future hundreds of years in advance? How can such a view explain how God can reveal a future about which He is ignorant? That seems impossible, but I am curious.

Candlepower

[benstenson]

...how does prophecy work?

Hi Candlepower, I'm glad you enjoyed the post.

I've gone through the following three steps in understanding prophecy so far.

For me the first step was realizing prophecy was not always a simple prediction of future events but often a statement of God's own plans which he will make happen. For example, God plans on judging the world so he told us he will. God can make and reveal plans far in advance.

Then realizing that much of prophecy should be understood as conditional. Jeremiah 18 contains a deliberate and clear explanation of this. God can change his mind in response to people's behavior. I do not see how this could be possible if he saw his own future already set in stone before him. Not only would exhaustive foreknowledge contradict our free will, but it would contradict God's own freedom as well.

Third, realizing that people's outward behavior (as opposed to the attitude of the heart) can be predictably influenced (or even manipulated) without violating their own moral freedom or predetermining their eternal destiny. God is so smart that he can bring about prophecy through improvisation. Even if people are being bad and uncooperative, he can work with that to orchestrate amazing fulfillment of prophecy (or even parallels with non-predictive scriptures). The story of Joseph illustrates this very clearly and deliberately.

If there is any kind of prophecy I have missed it may be interpreted according to this hermeneutic: Ultimately God values fellowship more than predictability and that is why he gave us freedom rather than creating a purely predictable universe. I believe this is the proper context of the whole Bible.

[Candlepower]

...people's outward behavior (as opposed to the attitude of the heart) can be predictably influenced (or even manipulated) without violating their own moral freedom or predetermining their eternal destiny. God is so smart that he can bring about prophecy through improvisation. Even if people are being bad and uncooperative, he can work with that to orchestrate amazing fulfillment of prophecy...

Ben,

Thanks for the interesting response. I think I see what you mean.

Sometime within the last year, I heard what I thought then, and what I think even more since, is an excellent analogy. It agrees, I think, with your words above. It went something like this:

Suppose a man were to decide to drive a car from his home to the store. And suppose that every system and part in the car worked exactly as the engineers had designed. How amazing or difficult would that accomplishment be? Not very.

But suppose he made that same trip to the store in a car in which nearly every system malfunctioned. And not only malfunctioned but also deliberately rebelled and conspired against him. The radiator hose burst. That upset him, but he patched it with duct tape. The gas tank sprung a leak. He was disappointed, but he patched it with…duct tape. The rearview mirror fell off. He secured it with…yes, duct tape.* The old engine decided to throw a rod. He threw it out and installed a new one. Etc, etc, etc. And suppose that through hard work and creativite intervention that man was somehow able to drive that car and complete the trip he had planned. Now, that would be an amazing accomplishment!

Any dummy can make the trip with the first car. It would take a creative genius to make the trip with that other car.

The analogy (as you have already guessed) pertains to different views of how God has chosen to exercise His sovereignty. The first car trip pictures a world where every minute detail is meticulously predetermined (even sin) to work precisely as designed. No liberty allowed! No need for creative intervention.

The second car trip pictures a world where liberty does exist and difficulties do arise, but the driver is so smart that he is able to respond and intervene in order to complete the trip he intended.

In both stories, God finishes the planned trip. The second scenario allows for free will, for human responsibility, for genuine answers to prayer, and for God changing His mind. All of these are described in Scripture. They all function within the context of His divine goal and without violating His sovereign authority. It seems to me Scripture reveals that granting man a degree of free will is how God has decided to exercise His sovereign rule over humanity. The reason that doesn't diminish God's sovereign authority one iota, because it is what God decreed.

The first scenario, however, robs man of his God-given free will; it effectively makes God the author and perpetrator of all sin; it makes prayer unnecessary; and it makes unclear those Scripture passages where God clearly changes His mind. It makes Divine intervention into human history an oxymoron, because if God has ordained everything that has happened and will happen, what need could there be for Him to intervene? Intervention is required only when things go wrong.

I think the Bible describes God driving the second car. He allows it to rebel and backfire, but He’s the creative genius in the driver’s seat. He knows His predetermined destination, and He’s going to get there -- in a fixer-upper.

Augustine and Calvin put God in the first car, which is why (IMO) their doctrine often does not accord with Scripture and why they hid their doctrinal deficiencies behind mysteries.

God bless you,

Candlepower

*You can tell my degree of mechanical ability

[benstenson]

I like that analogy with the two cars. It is awesome that God's competence is not based on something that diminishes his ability to be in relationship with people.

Here are a couple more analogies I emailed to someone recently.

Imagine a chess master who plays the game in such a way as to provoke you to thinking you are making the winning move when in fact you are making his victory certain.

Imagine a young boy singing a haphazard melody which his father is able to skillfully harmonize with - even predicting how his son will react to various harmonizations and thus able to direct the song to some degree. The more skilled the father is at singing and the more familiar he becomes with his son's unique creative style the more he will be able to shape the song without even telling his son what to sing.

I was impressed to consider the following passages in light of the chess analogy:

Joseph's Brothers: "here comes this dreamer ... we shall see what will become of his dreams."
(...and the Baker's dream, the Butler's dream and Pharoah's dreams)
Joseph: "you meant it for evil but God meant it for good"

Caiaphas: 'It is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.' And he did not speak this of his own accord but ... he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation ... Then from that day forth they took counsel together to put him to death.

[Paidion]

The Open View of the Future (note Boyd doesn't say "of God")
1. God knows all things
2. All things includes future possibilities (Note: Possibilities are Ontologically Real)
--> Some of reality (past, present, and future) is definite and perfectly known by God as such
--> Some of reality (some of the future) is indefinite (possibly this and possibly that) and perfectly known by God as such
3. God Settles Whatever He Chooses Ahead of Time and Opens Up Possibilities Ahead of Time to Whatever Extent He Chooses
4. God is Infinitely Intelligent and Can Therefore Anticipate Each Possibility as Perfectly As If It Was a Certainty

Number 1. would be one difference.
Numbers 2-4 seem to continue with the same.
Greg Boyd's ideas have developed since at least 2008.
I'm not sure when God of the Possible came out.

Points 1 to 4 all seem to be made in Boyd's book The God of the Possible. The book was copyrited in 2000, with the 7th printing in 2007. I have no evidence that Boyd's ideas of the open view have changed in recent years.

1. Boyd and I agree that "God knows all things". There is no difference.
2. Boyd and I agree that all things include future possibilities. However I (and I think, Boyd) do not agree with your note that possibilities are ontologically real. Possibilities do not exist. They are only concepts of what could happen if something different happens. For example, a master chess player understands all possibilities. If his opponent makes move A, then he will make move Q. However, his opponent makes move B. Thus the master does not make move Q. Thus the possibility that the master makes move Q is not "ontologically real". That move does not now exist, nor will it ever exist in this particular game.
3. I know that Boyd believes that some things God makes up His mind to do, and so the future is settled in that respect. Yet, He may change His mind about what He intends to do. Boyd has referred to several scriptures to show that that is the case. Because of this, I see none of the future as "settled". I am aware of no other point than this with which I disagree with Boyd.
4. I don't know what it means to be "infinitely intelligent". If someone is 100% intelligent and omniscient, how can anyone be more intelligent than that? I do agree that God can "Anticipate Each Possibility as Perfectly As If It Was a Certainty." ---- just as I, a perfect player in the game of Nim, can anticipate all possible moves my opponent can make in any given turn. But this doesn't imply that I can know in advance which moves my opponent will, in fact, choose to make.

[RickC]

Points 1 to 4 all seem to be made in Boyd's book The God of the Possible. The book was copyrited in 2000, with the 7th printing in 2007. I have no evidence that Boyd's ideas of the open view have changed in recent years.

Again, the "Flexible Sovereignty" videos are from Aug 2008. His ideas seem to have "morphed" since writing the book.

1. Boyd and I agree that "God knows all things". There is no difference.

All views think God knows all there is to know, though they differ on what can be known (with Open Theists being the exception to the traditional/classical view. Boyd stands as an exception to many/most(?) other Open Theists).

2. Boyd and I agree that all things include future possibilities. However I (and I think, Boyd) do not agree with your note that possibilities are ontologically real. Possibilities do not exist.

In Part 2 (above link) Boyd states that "Possibilities are ontologically real" (and that) "they are built-into-reality." (The real difference between his view and others is on the Nature of Reality)!
For further clarification, check out:
Greg Boyd: Closer to Truth
How could God know the future?
and
Has God settled the future?

Possibilities do not exist. They are only concepts of what could happen if something different happens. For example, a master chess player understands all possibilities. If his opponent makes move A, then he will make move Q. However, his opponent makes move B. Thus the master does not make move Q.

Where Boyd and you part-views seems to do with "what will obtain" (philosophical way of saying "what will actually happen"). Boyd would probably say that God foreknew-as-if-it-was-a-certainty that the player might or might not make any Move (A or B, C, D, etc.); that God foreknows might-or-might-not-possibilities (as contrasted to EDF, exhaustive definite foreknowledge in Calvinism, Arminianism, and Molinism). So Boyd: What will obtain is open, depending on future choices possible, future choices made, and to what extent the future is settled by God.

Thus the possibility that the master makes move Q is not "ontologically real". That move does not now exist, nor will it ever exist in this particular game.

Yes. After Moves A and Q have obtained, the future has become settled (and is now the past). Prior to them, the future remained open, as God foreknew Move A or Move B (and any number of other Moves) as ontologically-real-possibilities-and-as-if-they-were-certainties.

3. I know that Boyd believes that some things God makes up His mind to do, and so the future is settled in that respect. Yet, He may change His mind about what He intends to do. Boyd has referred to several scriptures to show that that is the case. Because of this, I see none of the future as "settled". I am aware of no other point than this with which I disagree with Boyd.

Yes. Boyd sees the future as settled to the extent that God has chosen it to be.

4. I don't know what it means to be "infinitely intelligent". If someone is 100% intelligent and omniscient, how can anyone be more intelligent than that? I do agree that God can "Anticipate Each Possibility as Perfectly As If It Was a Certainty." ---- just as I, a perfect player in the game of Nim, can anticipate all possible moves my opponent can make in any given turn. But this doesn't imply that I can know in advance which moves my opponent will, in fact, choose to make.

Boyd uses "Infinitely Intelligent" to illustrate his view that God can see "trillions and trillions of possibilities as if they are certainties." That is, God is a LOT smarter in comparison to the traditional (or classical) view which sees God as knowing what will or will not obtain. Put another way, the traditional/classical view has God knowing simply "this or that" will or will not obtain, while Boyd says God can foresee an infinite number of possibilities.

Calvinism: EDF, all predetermined/settled, just this-not that.
Arminianism: EDF, and maintaining there is free will --
(which I see as contradictory and/or nonsensical).
Molinism: EDF, with foreknowledge not determining what will or will not obtain --
(also contradictory and/or nonsensical to me).
Note: Only Boyd's View has to do with not what might or might not obtain.

Arminianism and Molinism present with essentially the same problems W/R/T foreknowledge and free will, imo. Why I'm a Boyd Flexible Sovereignty guy.

Thanks and Happy New Year, Paidion!