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Open Theism?

frisian said:

Which issue? Free will, all knowing, or God in relation to time?

Most of what I speculated about is in the thread you didn't read over @ RR.

:p
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God and time, I suppose.

Once it gets more interesting over there, I'll start reading again ;)
 
Dorian Gray said:
But a better example is watching a movie or game for the second time - you know exactly what will happen, but you still can't influence the events
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To sharpen up the analogy, suppose that you created the movie or game or whatever. Then there's no need to influence the events, because you caused them all to happen the way they do.
 
Martin said:
To sharpen up the analogy, suppose that you created the movie or game or whatever. Then there's no need to influence the events, because you caused them all to happen the way they do.
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Exactly, that is where "all knowing" whether or not "pre-knowing" can still curtail if not deny free will.
 
Free will seems the most ridiculous thing about religions.

It epitomises the contradiction which all religions are.

God must have given us “free will” otherwise he must have made some of us evil (and a loving God can’t do that)!

But the “free will” is completely negated by God being “all knowing”.

God already knew what we were going to do before he created us, so making us and just letting that happen is the most pointless ridiculous exercise imaginable.

So God is either evil or a cretin.. when confronted with this religious people just mutter about mystery and we can’t understand God and we don’t really know.. etc etc..
 
To sharpen up the analogy, suppose that you created the movie or game or whatever. Then there's no need to influence the events, because you caused them all to happen the way they do.
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I meant 'game' as in a sporting event.
Soccer, or football to non-Americans, was invented long ago, but who invented it is unknown. Ostensibly there was someone who invented it or 'created the game', and thus caused events to happen the way they did regarding soccer. If that person watched a game, and then watched it again on a tape, he would know what would happen, would have caused events to happen the way they did, yet wouldn't have any influence on the outcome of the game itself.

God may have caused life and matter to exist, and may know how they turn out, but doesn't necessarily have to have any influence on the outcome of one specific atom, molecule, life form, planet, galaxy, etc. All I am arguing is that while 'God' certainly could influence the future that he has foreknowledge of, it doesn't necessarily follow that he will or must influence the future in a specific manner.

Perhaps a better analogy is you throwing a ball down a hallway. You know which direction the ball will go, but not whether an object or person will move to block the ball at some point before it comes to rest naturally (due to friction, gravity, etc.). If God watched you throw that ball, he might very well know that 5 seconds after you throw it, 'Bill' will come from around a corner and catch it - but that doesn't necessarily mean that God caused Bill to catch the ball.
 
Dorian Gray said:
I meant 'game' as in a sporting event.
Soccer, or football to non-Americans, was invented long ago, but who invented it is unknown. Ostensibly there was someone who invented it or 'created the game', and thus caused events to happen the way they did regarding soccer. If that person watched a game, and then watched it again on a tape, he would know what would happen, would have caused events to happen the way they did, yet wouldn't have any influence on the outcome of the game itself.

God may have caused life and matter to exist, and may know how they turn out, but doesn't necessarily have to have any influence on the outcome of one specific atom, molecule, life form, planet, galaxy, etc. All I am arguing is that while 'God' certainly could influence the future that he has foreknowledge of, it doesn't necessarily follow that he will or must influence the future in a specific manner.

Perhaps a better analogy is you throwing a ball down a hallway. You know which direction the ball will go, but not whether an object or person will move to block the ball at some point before it comes to rest naturally (due to friction, gravity, etc.). If God watched you throw that ball, he might very well know that 5 seconds after you throw it, 'Bill' will come from around a corner and catch it - but that doesn't necessarily mean that God caused Bill to catch the ball.
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With respect, your analogy is still flawed.

In your ball scenario, God created you, the ball, the walls and 'Bill'. He created throwing, bouncing, catching and all possible combinations of the three.

God may not have thrown the ball for you, he may not have been the wall that it bounced off of and he may not have been 'Bill' who caught it but he created all those things and indirectly set them all in motion and is therefore the ultimate cause of them all.

Did you ever play that board game 'Mousetrap' when you were a kid? You move around the board and set up a complicated mechanism of levers, rolling balls and elastic bands. When the mecanism is complete, you start the thing going at one side of the board and, on the other side of the board entirely a cage falls onto the mouse.


mousetrap.gif


God is the person who builds the trap and the person who trips the switch on the near side of the board. The mouse never sees him nor does it even know he exists, necessarily, but he is nevertheless the one responsible for the mouse's capture.

Gosh, isn't that what I said before?

by creating the universe the way it is, exactly the way he did, God has in fact done something to direct or influence the course of action of all future events.
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Why yes, it is!

Graham
 
Aussie Thinker said:
God already knew what we were going to do before he created us, so making us and just letting that happen is the most pointless ridiculous exercise imaginable.

So God is either evil or a cretin.. when confronted with this religious people just mutter about mystery and we can’t understand God and we don’t really know.. etc etc..
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One point... by saying God knew before, you're placing God inside of time. If, instead, you conceive of him as outside and looking at our entire timeline, this problem can be cleared up. This way, he sees our actions because we do them, and not before or after- all our times are the present to him.
 
sparklecat said:


One point... by saying God knew before, you're placing God inside of time. If, instead, you conceive of him as outside and looking at our entire timeline, this problem can be cleared up. This way, he sees our actions because we do them, and not before or after- all our times are the present to him.
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Placing God outside of timeonly makes the problem worse, IMO since at the moment of creation he created the whole thing, from begining to end, all at once.

He didn't even have to wait and watch us "play out" the game plan. He created each and every one of our actions in that one moment of creation.

Graham
 
Graham said:


Placing God outside of timeonly makes the problem worse, IMO since at the moment of creation he created the whole thing, from begining to end, all at once.

He didn't even have to wait and watch us "play out" the game plan. He created each and every one of our actions in that one moment of creation.

Graham
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Not necessarily. What if instead he were only to create the initial starting conditions? Then yes, he would see the results of the whole thing, but not have caused them.

Assuming any sort of free will is possible, but thats another matter.
 
sparklecat said:


Not necessarily. What if instead he were only to create the initial starting conditions? Then yes, he would see the results of the whole thing, but not have caused them.

Assuming any sort of free will is possible, but thats another matter.
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What if I put it this way:

"Time A" - at least a single moment pre-creation

"Time B" - the moment of creation of the starting conditions and

"Time C" - from starting conditions to the entire history of the universe.

Even if God is outside of time, there still has to be A and B - this is the critical flaw in the "outside of time" argument, IMO.

Ignoring that for a minute, though, if God is outside of time, C is created at the same time as B, from his perspective.

He creates them both, do you see?

Or am I missing something?

Graham
 
How does that work though, if you have God creating time itself? There wouldn't be moments pre-creation, just.. eternity, for lack of a better word, with our reality (time included) inside of that.

The mental image is a bit hard, admittedly :D
 
sparklecat said:


One point... by saying God knew before, you're placing God inside of time. If, instead, you conceive of him as outside and looking at our entire timeline, this problem can be cleared up. This way, he sees our actions because we do them, and not before or after- all our times are the present to him.
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You seem to be defining all knowing differently then the typical theologian. I thought the typical thought was that God foreknew.
 
Diogenes said:
What if God doesn't bother with ' looking into the future ' ?


It seems that this would clear up the free will problem..
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I have this vision of god creating the world with his eyes screwed tight shut and his hands over his ears and shouting "LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA"

. . .

On second thoughts, that does explain rather a lot

. . .

:(
 
Just thought to add..

He certainly has enough to keep him busy just dealing with the present. And there are those who might suggest he is not doing a very good job at that...

Anyone see ' Bruce Almighty '? I'm reminded of all unintelligible noise of everyone praying at the same time..
 
frisian said:

You seem to be defining all knowing differently then the typical theologian. I thought the typical thought was that God foreknew.
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Define typical theologian ;)

Personally, I don't use the word because I don't like it. I think its an incorrect way of looking at things, if God is to be seen as in "eternity."

And its necessary to retain his omniscience...
 
Graham,

I just don’t think people are listening to you.

You have spelled it out clearly.

I would like to add the POINTLESSNESS of a creation that you KNOW the outcome of if that creation is “supposed” to have some special purpose !

Can you imagine.. you make a human (or their soul or whatever) and you want them to love you and come into your kingdom.. yet you KNOW they will fail and reject you and you will have to send them to hell.. what sort of cruel animal would make the creature in the first place KNOWING he will send it to eternal torment !

The “busy managing of day to day stuff” and “not bothering to look at the future” are just strange excuses to avoid facing the inevitable truth that the God proposed by most humans could not be “all knowing” and make any sense.
 
Aussie Thinker said:
...the inevitable truth that the God proposed by most humans could not be “all knowing” and make any sense.
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Aargh... speaking of not listening to someone.

I assure you that I did listen to Graham, and we had a little discussion a few posts back on that very point.

As for the other posts, I assumed that they were at least slightly facetious.
 
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