Verse that refutes both Calvinism and Open Theism at once?

[Jeff]

Can't believe I haven't thought of this yet, but it seems that this prediction and all the fulfilled prophecies indicate that God can and does know the future. I've always taken the approach that even though God knew that Adam and Eve would fall, and all the sin that would follow, He still viewed us as "worth it" for the relationship that He would have with the ones that love Him.Jeff




God can cause his prophecies to happen rather then seeing into the future. That would mesh better with the belief, man has freewill. I think there is no doubt God knew Adam would fall no matter which belief system one believes because He can read our hearts and predict even if the future is not knowable.

True. Good points.

[Homer]

It seems to me that Open Theism limits God's independence and makes Him reactive to what men do.

In Calvinism, God not only sees the future but has ordained all things and knows, in advance, His exact response to all we do.

In the Armenian view, God does not ordain all future things, but He knows (or can know) all that will happen, including His response.

In Open Theism, although God may know an infinite number of possible events, and know what His response will be to each one, Unless He goes Calvinistic in a particular scenario, He does not know what He will be doing until man acts, so His actions are determined by man, and thus in most cases He is reactive.

[steve7150]

In Open Theism, although God may know an infinite number of possible events, and know what His response will be to each one, Unless He goes Calvinistic in a particular scenario, He does not know what He will be doing until man acts, so His actions are determined by man, and thus in most cases He is reactive.




I would'nt say God's actions are determined by man but rather determined by God's own will. If the future is unknowable and if man really does have freewill then it's true God is reactive to a certain extent but that goes along with real freewill. If that limits God's independence that's God's own decision about that, another words because that would be his own will in this matter.
I know folks believe though God can see the future , which means it's a done deal and set in stone , yet man can simultaneously have freewill. I'm not sure how "set in stone" and "freewill" co-exist.

[steve7150]

In the Parable of the Prodical Son, the father in this story is thought to represent God and this is Jesus description.

"But while he was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him , he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." Luke 15.20

Does'nt this sound like God was not just pleased and compassionate but actually surprised?

[darinhouston]

In the Parable of the Prodical Son, the father in this story is thought to represent God and this is Jesus description.

"But while he was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him , he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." Luke 15.20

Does'nt this sound like God was not just pleased and compassionate but actually surprised?

I think that's probably pressing the metaphor/parable too much.

[steve7150]

"But while he was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him , he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." Luke 15.20

Does'nt this sound like God was not just pleased and compassionate but actually surprised?

I think that's probably pressing the metaphor/parable too much.
darinhouston




"he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." Jesus could have left this part out and still made the main point yet i think he included it to reveal something to us about God's character.

[John]

I am jumping in here a little late, but I wanted to throw out some additional info that could be helpful regarding Peter's denial.

In Greg Boyd’s work Satan and the Problem of Evil he addresses Peter’s denial (Matt 26:36) in greater detail on pages 130-133. Greg’s answer is that he deals with this passage as a Molinist would deal with this passage. In fact, he thinks that the open view is so close to Molinism that it could be described as Neo-Molinism. Molinism maintains that God knows all “would-counterfactuals” (what free agents would do in certain situations.) Neo-Molinism or the open view acknowledges that God knows “would-counterfactuals”, but also maintains that God knows “might-counterfactuals” (what free agents might or might not do in certain situations.)

From Satan and the Problem of Evil page 131:

“This aside, it should be clear that this episode poses no significant problems for the open view of the future. God knew and perfectly anticipated (as though it was the only possible outcome) that if the world proceeded exactly as it did up to the point of the Last Supper, Peter’s character would be solidified to the extent that he would be the kind of person who would deny Christ in a certain situation. God eternally knows all might-counterfactuals, as we have said, and all would-counterfactuals that follow from might-counterfactuals. On the basis of this knowledge and his sovereign control as Creator, God decides at some point to providentially ensure that just this situation would come about. For pedagogical reason (see below), he informs Jesus of this future certainty and inspired him to share it with Peter.”

“This way of understanding this episode is in principle no different from the way a classical Molinist would understand it. Neo-Molinism modifies this view only in adding that at an earlier point in his life Peter could have (and should have) developed a different character, and if this had occurred, the Passion narrative would not have included Peter’s denial.”

This is obviously just a snippet. Greg goes into a lot more detail on this account regarding Peter's character, how God uses this situation to humble a future pillar of the church, and how God could have ordained certain events (people inquiring about his association with Jesus.)

I am not trying to convince anyone here; I just thought it could be helpful. Also, here is a link to an article on Neo-Molinism by Greg Boyd: http://www.gregboyd.org/essays/warning- ... ce-of-god/

**Comment Edited To Include Link

[DanielGracely]

Hi Steve,

To address your comments, if not in their order:

You ask why God would experience either pleasure or displeasure if the future was a known certainty. But surely God is not so emotionally different than us, since we are made in his image and likeness. So, regarding us, apparently, you are one of the lucky ones who have never had the displeasure of watching a parent succumb by degrees. As Millard Erikson has pointed out (in so many words), children feel acute grief when a parent dies, even though that event has been a long known certainty. It appears then, that my former endorsement of the idea that God's foreknowledge would be like watching endless reruns of Andy Griffith, is not how any of us, God included, experiences historical moments.

As for Isaiah 46:9-11 [including the “ravenous bird” (KJV) from the east], I see all of Is. 46 as a continuation of Is. 45, in which Cyrus the Great is in view, and also serves as a fore-shadowing of the Messiah, unopposed, subduing the nations, before whose way the crooked path is made straight, etc., described also in vs. 13:

“I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts.”

Admittedly, not every phrase in Is. 45—46 speaks of the Messiah (at one point God says of Cyrus that God was unknown to him), but generally the parallels are too uncannily similar not to understand much of the chapter as prophetically Messianic. Nor IMO does this flow of thought ever much abate in chapter 46. Bel bows, Nebo stoops, the Israeli beasts are unable to deliver their burden of idols and are taken captive along with Israel before their conqueror/Conqueror. It is at this point that God tells the men of Israel to remember their past transgressions (of idolatry), and know that God calls a “ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country.” Here IMO we have a picture of Cyrus, standing unopposed from the eastern region of present day Iran/Iraq—to conquer all the peoples of the mid-East with such rapidity as though he flew, having been given these kingdoms by God (as the king himself states in Ezra 1), in accordance with God’s counsel for judgment against these nations.

So, Steve, I don’t see this bird which is summoned as a real bird, as you seem to think. In fact, I don’t see why, IF God were interrupting this passage to speak about His authority over animals/creation, He would speak of a solitary bird, as if that had some significance. To me is doesn’t fit the passage well, if at all. So, I understand the summoned bird as Cyrus the conqueror coming from the East, even as the Messiah would one day conquer the nations and enter Jerusalem from afar (from heaven, even), to enter through the East Gate, having been given all earthly kingdoms by His Father.

Now, this is not to say that other passages don’t speak to your point about God’s authority over the animal kingdom and creation. But for what implication Is. 46:9-11 might have for Matt. 26 and the cock crowing twice, etc., I don’t think there is one, unless it be along the lines of an instructive example to us of God’s non-determinative foreknowledge of Cyrus and the Messiah.


But to get to the heart of the matter, I think the chief problem with Boyd is that he fails to establish the very concept he wishes to promote—the freedom of human will. For time and again, as indeed the quotes show which I included in my earlier response to RickC, Boyd speaks like a Calvinist determinist. He indicates prophecies are fulfilled through God’s direct action to make it so, and that this is the case not just with prophecies like the cock crowing twice, but also with those including the sinful acts of men. John in his Aug. 2, 2010 11:59 PM comment has given us the dilemma in a nutshell, quoting Boyd’s ‘explanation’ of the cock crow. Says Boyd:

“This way of understanding this episode is in principle no different from the way a classical Molinist would understand it. Neo-Molinism modifies this view only in adding that at an earlier point in his life Peter could have (and should have) developed a different character, and if this had occurred, the Passion narrative would not have included Peter’s denial.”

Thus Boyd offers the same doublethink ‘explanation’ that, in fact, has plagued Calvinism and classical Molinism all along. For according to, e.g., classical Molinism, God considered all the possible worlds He might create, knowing this or that kind of world would produce this or that free will choice-response of man, then created the world which He wished. Thus the world would be one in which God knew man’s choices would be X, yet ones in accordance with His eternal decrees. In this manner not only the sovereignty of God is established, but also the free will of man. The problem? Well, I think really there are two problems. One is the kind of implication I infer from such theology, as can be seen in a news story from the Philadelphia area which so many people heard about some years ago—namely, that of the 8-year old girl who was raped and strangled (or suffocated) to death during a girls’ sleepover, and whose body was dumped onto a vacant lot. According to Molinism’s implication, this murder was a part of what God designed by creating the world He wished. The second problem is with Boyd’s claim that Peter “should have” developed a different character so as to avoid the denial. But I must ask, why should Peter have been morally obligated to a should-have if God decreed and “orchestrated” the exact kind of world He wished, which included Peter’s denial? Thus the doublethink of Boyd. For if Peter should-have, so should-have God.

This explains why Boyd comes to his “neo-Molinism”. It is because his open theism still must account for the problem of evil, which for him inconveniently crops up in biblical prophecies about the future. For in order for these prophecies to become history, the partly closed future (i.e., partly closed, Boyd says, because of God’s “orchestration” of the future) must nevertheless still include the sinful acts of men. Therefore Boyd lapses into talk of God’s “perfect knowledge of the present [which] gives God the ability to anticipate the future in ways we can hardly imagine,” and elsewhere of God’s “unilateral control” in a “small portion of the immediate future” to produce Cyrus’ rise to kingship. Small portion?! But in the convoluted rise of any king to renowned power—especially of a king who at the first does not know God—surely there are countless events involving many persons (including the king) and their actions, some which may be righteous, but certainly others unrighteous. And Boyd asks us to grant that God is in “unilateral control” of all this?! Further, Boyd presses on with his idea of divine unilateralness, saying God “determines” [the king’s rise] shall come about in a certain manner, and “predetermines” what Cyrus’ name shall be. Then, too, regarding Is. 53, Boyd states that God was “wisely orchestrating matters as much as was necessary to ensure that Jesus’ death would occur in a certain prescribed fashion, e.g. he would die with criminals….” Really? God was “orchestrating” events to be sure there would be sinful criminals around? Oh, but I hear the objection—“But Boyd says, only as was necessary.” But where, then, I ask, is the “Molinism” in neo-Molinism which seeks to account for ALL the necessary decrees of God over ALL the free choices of men?

I could go on, but I hope the point is made. Of course, Boyd, like any doublethinker, refutes his own statements about divine unilateralism by elsewhere reminding us again and again that God is not crystal-balling the future and not directing robots, and that God’s exhaustive knowledge of the present makes certain so much of the future as can be “hardly imagine[d]”. It appears in the end Boyd’s “hardly imagine[d]” is merely his own version of Calvinism’s God hid in mysticism.

IMO none of Boyd’s open theist or neo-Molinist explanations really form a novel view of God. They are simply a rehash of trying to establish man’s free will along the lines of “orchestrating” a future in which it is still necessary to account for the evil in it. And so Boyd reacts to Molinismin the same way Van Til observed Kierkegaard reacted to reprove Hegel, i.e., by criticizing his predecessor for not making brute fact brute enough, or contingency contingent enough. In other words, Boyd makes a deeper foundation (while denying doing so) of irrationality by supporting both sides of the existing doublethink (God determines/ God doesn’t direct robots) with an additional lie on the one hand yet an additional fact on the other, to support both sides of an existing Both/And irrationalism. So in one sense Boyd is right!—Molinism and neo-Molinism are in the end not fundamentally different, since neither, we see (though Boyd does not) offers comprehendible definitions of God’s “determinism” or “human will.” And so neo-Molinism is only different in the sense that it is longer winded.

Given all this, let me urge that we fall back instead on the great majority of readings that support the semantic and lexical meaning of a non-determinative, divine foreknowing, which has none of the trappings of Calvinist, Molinist, or Open Theist irrationalism. Only this proper view of non-determinative foreknowledge allows for the logical priority of God having foreknowledge based on man’s free will, not the reverse. And so it doesn’t resort to the kind of unnatural reading of Matt. 26 in which God must force the rooster to withhold or anticipate his usual crowing at dawn until that 3rd person came around to allow for a third denial. Or are we to suppose that God timed the servant girl so that the cock would crow as usual? (And yet Boyd doesn’t offer this explanation, but instead appeals to God’s prompting.) Indeed, Steve, your comments about God “puppetering” a servant girl all but suggests that God orchestrated Peter’s temptation. For since in open theism God’s exhaustive knowledge of the present is so relied upon in order to predict so much of the future in ways we can “hardly imagine,” and, since the present knowledge God had of Peter prior to his third denial was nothing but of Peter’s two previous denials—the momentum of which was obviously building (as events would prove), what in God’s present knowledge would have prompted God to puppeteer the servant girl to give Peter yet another opportunity to confess he was a follower of Christ? There simply is no reasonable explanation in Open Theism. But if you would reply that God can be mistaken about the future, having relied upon Peter’s past confession that Christ was the Son of God, and so wished to give Peter another opportunity to prove himself, and therefore puppeteered the servant girl to be present for that purpose, I would only say that this conclusion about God’s mistakenness would be made necessary by your theology, but certainly not by the Bible.

Now, Steve, I have read elsewhere many wise and accurate things from you about numerous other topics in Scripture. And I am glad you are doing such fine work on so many fronts. So if I have spoken here with any particular force or frankness, it is at least in part because I am concerned that your reputation as a wise man and scholar of the Bible, a reputation I think deserved, should nevertheless unduly influence other readers toward accepting an open theism that leads down so many dubious paths.

Sincerely,

Daniel Gracely

[Homer]

Hi DanielGracely,

You wrote:

Now, Steve, I have read elsewhere many wise and accurate things from you about numerous other topics in Scripture. And I am glad you are doing such fine work on so many fronts. So if I have spoken here with any particular force or frankness, it is at least in part because I am concerned that your reputation as a wise man and scholar of the Bible, a reputation I think deserved, should nevertheless unduly influence other readers toward accepting an open theism that leads down so many dubious paths.

Being new to the forum, you have apparently mistaken Steve7150 for Steve Gregg of the Narrow Path program. Steve Gregg is not an open theist unless he recently changed his position, and he just goes by "Steve" when he posts here at the forum.

Been enjoying your posts though!

God bless, Homer

[RickC]

Greetings -

Greg Boyd's book Satan and the Problem of Evil (which John quoted from) was written in 2001. Boyd's article: Neo-Molinism and the Infinitie Intelligence of God (John linked to) is from 2002. At the very bottom of this article is footnote (5)....

Excerpted from William Lane Craig--Molinism and Open Theism - cf. footnote (5) in bold -

Greg’s Neo-Molinism argument saw several published reviews, all negative. In my own conversations with Greg over time I know that Greg’s changed his opinion on the validity of such a ‘Neo-Molinist’ strategy. He tried to bridge the gap between Molinism and open theism.

Greg kept working on his own articulation of counterfactual semantics and open theism and in 2006 Greg and I co-authored with Alan Rhoda “Open Theism, Omniscience, and the Nature of the Future” (Faith and Philosophy 23 [2006]: 432–459). You can find that article on Alan’s site ( http://www.alanrhoda.net/papers/opentheism.pdf ).

People still continue to respond to Greg’s “Neo-Molinism” argument as if it’s a strategy he’s still pursuing. But that’s not accurate. Anybody who has read our 2006 Faith and Philosophy article would know we don’t view “might and might not” propositions as “counterfactuals.” Moreover, Greg added an explanatory footnote (5) to his Neo-Molinist article available on his site stating:

(5) “This essay was written in 2002. Now (in 2008) I would not refer to ‘would’ and ‘might’ counterfactuals, for I now see that this way of speaking presupposes there’s a settled future that is factual which these statements are ‘counter’ to. I would thus rather speak of ‘would-factuals’ and ‘might-possibilities’.”

Boyd's lecture (I linked to on youtube): "A Flexible Sovereignty: A Biblical Understanding of Providence and the Nature of the Future" was on April 11, 2008.

I had read Neo-Molinism and the Infinitie Intelligence of God a few months ago, and now recall seeing footnote (5). From this article I also had the impression that "Boyd sounds too Molinist" (and/or Calvinistic, as Daniel has observed). But I wanted to know more about Boyd's take on things since the article was written (in 2002). So I googled and found what I figured would probably reflect Boyd's most recent understanding: the video (from 2008).

I read the link I quoted from (above) and will go to Alan Rhoda's site, as well as the other links provided. Boyd identified himself to a certain extent as "Neo-Molinist" (in 2002). In the youtube lecture, I didn't detect "Neo-Molinism"...but I wasn't really looking for it. As is apparent to me now, Boyd's changed his views pretty radically (since 2006).

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Just in case I didn't request it - Watch the video lecture, please!
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Thanks!

Add-Ons (links from my quote, which I haven't read yet) -
http://www.alanrhoda.net/ -
“Open Theism, Omniscience, and the Nature of the Future:
by Alan R. Rhoda, Gregory A. Boyd, Thomas G. Belt (2006)”
(is at the very bottom)

Click Page 2 - then - The Open View of the Future and Middle Knowledge -
Two Ancient (and Modern) Motivations For Ascribing Exhaustive Definite Foreknowledge to God: A Historic Overview and Critical Assessment: by Dr. Gregory A. Boyd (from 2009)
(open the pdf, not quick view)

Edited in later - (from my quote above)
William Lane Craig on Greg Boyd's Neo-Molinism (probably from about 2002)
(Thomas Belt replies to this in my first link at the top of this post)