Calvinism and Universalism

[auggybendoggy]

From my understanding Arm. Theology (from the scholarly) do not endorse that God looks down the tunnel of time to see who and who wont love him. Rather that God pre-destines that ANY who should freely choose him will have eternal life.

You can correct me if I am wrong about that.

Now CC is a different story. Their stuck in tons of contradictions which are not apparent to them. I have heard the same thing from CC radio (K-wave here in so cal) and I wonder if they even think about what their talking about.

But I don't consider CC to be Arm. After reading Roger Olson I am convinced (as Olsen states) they are simply wanting to use both sides which is impossible. If I remember right Olson states the calmenian position is simply not logical nore it is possible.

Aug

[Paidion]

Let us say that I will wake up at 7:00 tomorrow morning...

And therein lies the meat of the problem. Your argument rests on the above as if it were a statement of fact. If it were a statement of fact, it would be impossible for you not to wake at 7. Even if you took a heavy dose of sleeping pills at 4 A.M., you would wake at 7.

Consider the statement made at 2 P.M. on a particular day:

Bob will raise his hand at 4 P.M. today.

If this sentence is a true statement, then Bob cannot refrain from raising his hand at 4 P.M. Of course, no physical or psychological restraint prevents Bob from keeping his hand down at 4 P.M. There is no causal necessity which forces Bob’s hand up. But there is a logical necessity. For if Bob raises his hand at 4 P.M., then the given sentence, which we assumed to be true is, in fact, false.

Similarly, if we assume the negation is true, that is “Bob will raise not his hand at 4 P.M. today”,then logically, Bob cannot refrain from raising his hand at 4 P.M.

We know that, unless there is some form of restraint, Bob has the ability either to raise his hand at 4 P.M. or to refrain from raising it. Therefore, we must conclude that the sentence “Bob will raise his hand at 4 P.M. today” has no truth value prior to 4 P.M. It is neither true nor false.

It would seem that this could be extended to all statements which involve future choices or possibly all statements in general which concern future events.

However, according to the principle of the excluded middle in formal logic, every logical statement has truth value. Thus we need to exclude sentences which appear to be statements about future events from the category of “logical statements”. Such sentences are not statements at all, but expressions of intention or prediction and might be termed “meta-statements”.

For example, the sentence “I will go to town tomorrow” is not a statement of a fact, but an expression of my intention. I am not making a statement about what must happen; I am actually saying, “I intend to go to town tomorrow.” I do not know that I will go to town tomorrow. It is impossible for me to know that I will go to town tomorrow. I may change my mind, or conditions may arise which prevent me from going.

When I utter the sentence “My wife will be on the internet tomorrow”, I am not making a statement of a fact. Rather I am making a prediction. Based on my experience of my wife going onto the internet every day, I can confidently make this prediction. But she may choose to do something else tomorrow instead. As long as we see this utterance as a prediction, there is no contradiction. But if we see this sentence as a statement which is now true, then she cannot refrain from being on the internet --- or if it is a statement which is now false, she cannot be on the internet. Future contingencies are not present facts.

Some sentences about the future appear to be inevitable. Perhaps the strongest example concerns astronomical events such as the movement of planets, moons, comets, etc. But are they inevitable? Could not a comet or even a planet explode? What if some insane scientists prepared a huge nuclear explosion which caused the whole earth to blow up? Or what if the Creator Himself intervened in some astronomical event?

So there is no inevitability concerning the future. Indeed the future does not exist. That’s why it called “future”. Events occur which are caused by prior events and/or by the choices of free will agents.

[steve]

Hi Paidion,

You wrote:

“Bob will raise his hand at 4 P.M. today” has no truth value prior to 4 P.M. It is neither true nor false.

I disagree. The statement is either true or it is false, since it is professing to supply information. The event itself is not true or false prior to the time predicted, but the statement is either a true statement (and will prove itself to have been true if the event materializes), or it is a false statement (which will prove to be false if the event does not occur). Since the statement professes to give information, it must either be a true statement or a false statement—a fact or a fallacy. It is simply unknown by humans whether the statement is true or false—but it might not be unknown to God.

You elaborated:

For example, the sentence “I will go to town tomorrow” is not a statement of a fact, but an expression of my intention. I am not making a statement about what must happen; I am actually saying, “I intend to go to town tomorrow.” I do not know that I will go to town tomorrow. It is impossible for me to know that I will go to town tomorrow. I may change my mind, or conditions may arise which prevent me from going.

If you are the one uttering the prediction (and not God) then all that you say above is correct. As James (4:13-15) says:

"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that."

However, when Jesus said to Peter, "Before the cock crows twice, you will have betrayed me three times," He was stating a fact. If it had not occurred, then Jesus would have spoken falsely, and everyone would know that it was not a fact. Of course, the Son of God cannot speak falsely, so His predictions are all facts. It reminds me of the exchange between Mary Magdalene and Peter after Peter's betrayal, as portrayed in "Jesus Christ Superstar" (which is a musical that I, of course, cannot recommend!):

Mary:
Peter, don't you know what you have said?
You've gone and cut him dead

Peter:
I had to do it, don't you see
Or else they'd go for me

Mary:
It's what he told us you would do,
I wonder how he knew...

You wrote:

When I utter the sentence “My wife will be on the internet tomorrow”, I am not making a statement of a fact

.

That depends on if the statement is true or not. If it is true, it qualifies as factual, though you, of course, will not know for sure whether it is true or not until the event occurs. If you make two statements: “My wife will be on the internet tomorrow” and “My wife will NOT be on the internet tomorrow,” you have made two statements about the future. One of them is certainly a fact. Neither is a historical fact, but one of the statements is factually correct.

I realize that openness theology is concerned about how divine prescience affects free will. So am I. I simply don't have the same problem acknowledging that there is something that I will do tomorrow. The thing I will do tomorrow we might call "X." I will not do anything other than "X." I may come about by a free choice of my own or else by factors beyond my control—but "X" is going to happen. That God may know the value of "X" seems to me not impossible. He knew about Peter. By whatever means He knew that, He may also know about me. What's the difference?

[steve7150]

I have met a number of believers in universal reconciliation, besides Talbott, who think that God will make the universal reconciliation happen. This seems to be a form of Calvinism except that in this form, everyone is elected and predestined to be saved instead of just a few.




Paidion, The thinking is that our wills are influenced to such a degree by evil in the world and in us that although we are accountable to God for our choices it is God who is ultimately responsible for us. This is not Calvinism because God does'nt need to micro-manage us but accepts responsibility for us since he created us as being so susceptable to sin and morally weak that we are his responsiblity although we still are accountable for our actions.
This approach actually makes sense to me additionally because of the enormous differences in the circumstances of people. When people are starving they are obscessed with obtaining food, perhaps everyday of their lives, can they be said to have free will. Is their free will as free as folks born into a Christian home in this country who are prosperous and clearly appear to have much more to be thankful for then the starving person in Africa? For our wills to be really free should'nt we all be playing on an equal level playing field? Our wills are greatly influenced by our circumstances therefore i can not see how our wills can be truly free.

[Homer]

Paidion and Steve,

While I am in agreement with Steve, I think the discusssion would be helped if the terminology was correct in the classic sense. Truth and fact are being confused. Consider:

Fact: from Latin factum, originally something done, a deed or an action

Facts are always true, but a truth is not a fact prior to its occurance.

For example Steve wrote the following which I have changed, with his original word in parenthesis:

However, when Jesus said to Peter, "Before the cock crows twice, you will have betrayed me three times," He was stating a truth (fact). If it had not occurred, then Jesus would have spoken falsely, and everyone would know that it was not true (a fact). Of course, the Son of God cannot speak falsely, so His predictions are all truth (facts).

Perhaps the rewrite makes it clearer (but then, maybe not ).

Paidion wrote:

For example, the sentence “I will go to town tomorrow” is not a statement of a fact, but an expression of my intention. I am not making a statement about what must happen; I am actually saying, “I intend to go to town tomorrow.” I do not know that I will go to town tomorrow. It is impossible for me to know that I will go to town tomorrow. I may change my mind, or conditions may arise which prevent me from going.

Of course it can not be a fact, but nevertheless, it might be true, or not, because you are but a man. This does not preclude the truthfulness or falsity from being known by God.

God is truth and there is nothing false in Him. There are many things that God has predicted that involve, or have involved, a complex web of activities by men, and if we have free-will, and God can not see the future, how can we have any confidence that what God says will in fact occur? I have no doubt that, as we are told in scriptures, it is a truth that some will be alive to see Christ's return. This may not be a truth, if men have free will, and God can not see the future; we may exterminate ourselves before He returns.

Perhaps I have only muddied the waters. I am not trying to be picky, but the use of truth and fact interchangeably is confusing to me.

[steve]

Homer is correct. After posting what I wrote, I realized that the word "truth" would have been better than the word "fact." I used the word fact because that was the word that kept appearing in the portions of Paidion's piece that I was quoting, but realized afterward that I should have said just what Homer just said—"God's foreknowledge does not depend on His prescience being a fact, but rather upon its being true."

[NJchosen]

Also does anyone allow for mystery on this topic? Christ had two natures, His divine and His mortal human. Yet we accept this mystery and dig into the Bible only so far. We can't understand everything about it, but we can apprehend it from scripture. So what parts, if possible, could there be mystery on this topic? And can you be trying to figure out those mysteries and go to far?

NJchosen

[steve7150]

Also does anyone allow for mystery on this topic? Christ had two natures, His divine and His mortal human. Yet we accept this mystery and dig into the Bible only so far. We can't understand everything about it, but we can apprehend it from scripture. So what parts, if possible, could there be mystery on this topic? And can you be trying to figure out those mysteries and go to far?




There is nothing in scripture warning us to stop and go no further is there? In fact Paul commended the Bereans for searching the scriptures.

[SteveF]

steve wrote

If we were to suggest the possibility that God knows tonight that I will awaken at 7:00 tomorrow, will His knowing this fact require that He must be the one who determined it? Perhaps this would be the only way that He would know such a thing with certainty, but what if He had some other way of knowing, which has not been revealed or explained to us, by which He has access to knowledge, but does not make any determination in the matter. He knows what factors will cause me to wake up at that moment, and not at some other, and they might all be factors that I, or someone else, set in motion, apart from divine intervention...

NJchosen wrote

Also does anyone allow for mystery on this topic?

I agree

I think we have to accept we may never fully understand these things……in this life anyway. I like to use this example. Imagine you’ve never seen water before and you read an account of someone swimming. You may be able to comprehend, to a certain extent, what they’re describing but you’ll never understand completely until you go swimming yourself. In the same way, I think there are many things we try to understand that cannot be fully comprehended in our present state.

[Paidion]

“Bob will raise his hand at 4 P.M. today” has no truth value prior to 4 P.M. It is neither true nor false.

I disagree. The statement is either true or it is false, since it is professing to supply information.

I don't think it is professing to supply information. For the maker of the statement (if it is, in fact a statement) cannot supply absolute information about the future. The best he can do is to make a prediction based on the infomation which he does possess.

I have adequately shown in my previous post, that if this sentence were, in fact, a logical statement (a statement which is either true or false, and which excludes any other truth value), that it is inconsistent with free will. Just to recap this proof. If the statement is true, then Bob cannot refrain from raising his hand at 4 P.M. If the statement is false, then Bob cannot raise his hand at 4 P.M. Either way there's something Bob cannot do. This implies that Bob does not have free will. For there is nothing forcing him either to raise his hand or refrain from raising his hand.

The event itself is not true or false prior to the time predicted, but the statement is either a true statement (and will prove itself to have been true if the event materializes), or it is a false statement (which will prove to be false if the event does not occur).

This sounds like backwards causation. But if not, then my argument above holds. If it is a true statement, then the event of his raising his hand at 4 P.M. is a necessary truth. It cannot turn out to be otherwise. For the true proposition "Bob will raise his hand at 4 P.M. today" is inconsistent with Paul carrying out the decision to keep his hand down at that time.Thus the logical implication is that Bob does not have the free will to keep his hand down at 4 P.M.

It is simply unknown by humans whether the statement is true or false—but it might not be unknown to God.

Although I believe that all sentences about the future are metastatements (sentences which are in the form of statements but which have no truth value, and are actually either sentences expressing intention or sentences which are predictions) and that none are logical statements, this cannot be proven, which is the case with all such universal statements, e.g. one cannot prove that all ravens are black no matter how many black ravens one exhibits. The best I can do is provide examples. I will now show scripturally that not only man, but God Himself utters metastatements.

God said through the prophet Jonah that He would destroy NInevah in 40 days (Jonah 3:4). Was this a logical statement, or a metastatement? If it were a logical statement, then it was either true or false. Clearly it was not true, since Ninevah wasn't destroyed in 40 days. But if it were false, then God lied, since He was the one to make it happen. But God cannot lie. (Titus 1:2). Thus this sentence was not a logical statement; it was a metastatement, of the same type I mentioned in my last post (I will go to town tomorrow). In saying this, I am expressing my intention. Likewise, God was stating His intention to destroy Ninvevah. This is not merely my explanation. It is a scriptural fact as is evident from the following verse:

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. Jonah 3:10 ESV

I haven't studied Hebrew, but according to the Online Bible Hebrew Lexicon, the Hebrew word "nacham" means to feel sorry. The Greek Septuagint translates the Hebrew word as "μετενοησεν ". This Greek word means "changed (His) mind". Either way, the prophecy through Jonah was an expression of intention to destroy Ninvevah. It could not have been a logical statement. Nor could God have known that the Ninevites would repent. If so, why would He have felt sorry concerning the disaster that He had said He would do to them and not do it? Or (if the Septuagint translated the word correctly), why would He change His mind about the disaster He said he would do to them and not do it? If God had known that the Ninevites were going to repent and forsake their evil ways, instead of feeling sorry about his decision to destroy the city, or changing His mind about it, He would have said, "Ahhhh. The Ninevites repented. Now I won't destroy the city. Everything is fitting right into my plan!"

I realize that some try to maintain that God knew they would repent by suggesting that the prophecy through Jonah was conditional. They say that He really meant, "Unless you repent, Ninevah will be destroyed in 40 days." If that were the case, why didn't Jonah speak the prophecy in this conditional form? Obviously, Jonah didn't see it as conditional, since he sat outside the city in order to watch its destruction in spite of his knowledge that the Ninevites had turned from their evil ways.

Further, just as man makes metastatements about the future which are predictions but not knowledge about the fuute such as my example, “My wife will be on the internet tomorrow”, so God also made such predictions. Here is an example:

Jeremiah 3:7 And I said after she had done all these things, She will return unto me; but she returned not: and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ERV

Is God's statement, "She will return to me," not a prediction? For if it is a logical statement it is either true or false. It is not true, since she did not return to Him. If it is false, then God made a mistake. I am sure we all believe that God does not make mistakes.

I am aware that some translations render "She will return to me" as the command, "Return to me". But the Jewish Publication Society, whose translators are experts in Hebrew did not so render it:

And I said: After she hath done all these things, she will return unto me; but she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. JPS

Similarily in their more modern translation:

I thought: After she has done all these things, she will come back to Me. But she did not come back; and her sister, Faithless Judah, saw it.

It is certainly true that some of man's predictions come true and most of God's predictions come true. The number of cases in the Bible in which His predictions do not become reality are far fewer than those which do. That is doubtless because of God's omniscience. He knows the thoughts and intentions of the heart, whereas we don't. So He is in a MUCH better position to predict the future than we.