On the omniscience of God

[JudgeRightly]

Jus because God knows something will happen that does not mean that God causes those things to happen.

Granted. No one has said otherwise.

What we've said, repeatedly, is that infallible knowledge of a future choice necessitates that choice be made exactly as it is known. There is no alternative, because that would defeat the knowledge being infallible.

No alternative means the choice is not made freely, by necessity.

You're begging the question.

You're assuming that God's infallible foreknowledge of a supposedly free choice is compatible with that choice actually having genuine alternatives, when that's the very point under dispute.

And saying that God's knowledge doesn't cause the choice doesn't answer that problem. The issue is necessity, not causation.

The Potter changes His declared intentions in some cases when sinners change their ways, according to Jeremiah 18.

You can't have it both ways.

Either God infallibly knows all future free choices as already-settled truth values, OR there exist genuine alternatives that people can choose from and those choices cannot be known with 100% certainty until they are made.

Jeremiah 18 presents the latter.

And there's another problem with what you're suggesting.

If God already knew with infallible certainty that the sinners would repent, then He already knew with infallible certainty that He would not carry out the judgment He declared.

So in what sense did He ever genuinely intend to carry it out?

You seem to be saying that God genuinely intended one thing, while simultaneously knowing with absolute certainty that He would later do something else because of a choice He already knew would happen.

But an intention cannot be changed retroactively.

If God genuinely intended at one point to bring judgment, then that was His actual intention at that point.

If He already infallibly knew that the people would repent and that He would relent, then the supposed earlier intention to judge was never really His settled intention in the first place.

Jeremiah 18 makes much more sense if the alternatives are genuine:
> If they continue in evil, God intends judgment.
> If they repent, God will relent.

What God does depends upon what they actually choose.

That is a genuinely open future, not a prerecorded one.

 

[Clete]

I believe God can see what will happen in the future as clearly as He can see what happens in the present. I believe Jesus dwelt in heaven and on earth at the same time and that He dwells in the past and future at the same time.

Why do you believe this?

 

[way 2 go]

No. Open Theism acknowledges this as true but we do not merely say it, as if it is a matter of opinion or that we simply decide arbitrarily that this is what we desire to believe. It is simply a fact that we decide we aren't going to ignore.

you saying it doesn't convert your assumption to fact

open theism assumes this is true
"open theism says if God has exhaustive infallible foreknowledge we don't have free will"
but if it were true
then the only thing necessary here would be that God believes it and God definitely believes it
God says "they did not repent"
not , might not maybe not no ish
(Revelation 9:21) And they did not repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

I still don't buy God's foreknowledge of our choices makes them any less our choices

and we know foreknowledge is not a force

We do not "apply" anything to that verse. We simply read it and allow it to say what the words normally mean.

God said "did not repent" , past tense , fact , not conditional
(Revelation 9:21) And they did not repent

This, in fact, is our default course.

selective literalism is your default course ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We read the bible like it was written by rational men who knew what they wanted to say and how to write in such a way as to communicate what they meant.

if you read " (Revelation 9:21) And they did not repent " as written we wouldn't be having this debate

We then conform our doctrine to that. You (and virtually every other Christian alive) does the opposite, which is what you are here accusing us of doing. I can assure you that it is not so. We do not bring our doctrine to the text except where it is necessary to do so, which does happen from time to time.

selective literalism is your default course ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No reading of scripture can be permitted to contradict God's own nature. A reading of scripture that makes God out to be unjust, for example, would be a false reading of the passage in question. If you think this policy is unique to Open Theism, you're flatly wrong. Indeed, such a position would prove you to be naive almost beyond belief.

no reading of scripture can be permitted to contradict open theism

How so?

The verse is the last in chapter 9 of Revelation where John is simply recording what happened in the vision he was given by God of what would happen during the Tribulation.

can't read it straight ? did happen (Revelation 9:21) And they did not repent

I don't dismiss the verse and I don't take it to be woodenly literal either. It's very likely hyperbole. (That's a kind of figure of speech that exists on every single page of the bible. That last sentence was itself hyperbole. Get it?)

selective literalism is your default course ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Clete]

you saying it doesn't convert your assumption to fact

Of course it doesn't. I'm not stupid like most of the morons on this website.

I can prove it.

And, by the way, I mean PROVE, as in establish it as factual. I do not mean that I can make a sort of nice sounding semantic statement that makes it go down smoothly. I mean that I can prove it.

Do you ever even make any attempt at all to prove what you believe to be true to actually be consistent with what is actually the case? Has it ever occurred to you that such a thing is possible? Or do you just think that every major premise that any one holds is a matter of their own personal opinion?

open theism assumes this is true

We do not assume ANYTHING be to be true. We do not even assume that God is just or even that He exists for that matter! We do, of course, accept that God exists and that He is just but not because we merely assume those things to be true.

Our doctrine, at rock bottom, rests on two, and only two, first principles.

Existence is real.
Reason works.

That is, we accept as the two undeniable premises of all thought, whether theological or otherwise, that existence is real and that we can know something about it. Every thought in your head and every intelligible syllable you utter presupposes those two truths. You cannot deny or even question them without relying upon them to do so. As such, even those first principles are themselves not merely assumed to be true. We know that they are true because there could be no such concept as "truth" if they weren't true.

There is not one single syllable (of which I am aware) of my doctrine that is not derived from those two axiomatic statements of truth, including the very existence of God Himself, which is where all theology begins.

"open theism says if God has exhaustive infallible foreknowledge we don't have free will"

We accept this as true and it serves as a premise for many other doctrines but we do not merely say it. It IS a fact and we conform our doctrine to the facts of reality.

but if it were true
then the only thing necessary here would be that God believes it and God definitely believes it
God says "they did not repent"
not , might not maybe not no ish
(Revelation 9:21) And they did not repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

You are, in fact, not intelligent enough to be having this conversation.

You need to look up the term "begging the question". Go find the longest article you can find on the subject and read it twice.

God's belief is not the only thing that would be necessary. It isn't mere belief that renders an act not free, it is INFALLIBLE foreknowledge. If God's belief can be wrong then the actions that He has predicted would still be free.

How many times IN THE BIBLE is it recorded that God expected on thing (i.e. He believed one thing would be true) and something else happened?
I wonder what you would do if there were a passage of the bible that was explicitly about that exact subject? I wonder, if God were to have recorded His own thoughts, where He repeatedly states that He expected something that didn't happen and asks questions like "What else could I have done to make it happen that I didn't do?", whether such a passage would move you an inch off your nearly mindless dogma?

Let's try it and see!

Isaiah 5:1 Now let me sing to my Well-beloved​

A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard:​

My Well-beloved has a vineyardOn a very fruitful hill.​

2 He dug it up and cleared out its stones,​

And planted it with the choicest vine.​

He built a tower in its midst,​

And also made a winepress in it;​

So He expected it to bring forth good grapes,​

But it brought forth wild grapes.​

​

3 “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,​

Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard.​

4 What more could have been done to My vineyard​

That I have not done in it?​

Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes,​

Did it bring forth wild grapes?​

5 And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard:​

I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned;​

And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.​

6 I will lay it waste;​

It shall not be pruned or dug,​

But there shall come up briers and thorns.​

I will also command the clouds​

That they rain no rain on it.”​

​

7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,​

And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant.​

He looked for justice, but behold, oppression;​

For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.​

​

​

Here's what I expect. You will not be move AT ALL by that passage.

I still don't buy God's foreknowledge of our choices makes them any less our choices and we know foreknowledge is not a force

No one cares what you do or do not buy. Your rejection of a truth has no bearing on whether it is actually the case.

No one has suggested it is a force nor does that have anything to do with it. I wasn't kidding a moment ago. You serious do not appear to have the requisite intelligence to grasp the argument. If you do, then you're dishonest. Either way, I feel no obligation to feed either stupidity or stubbornness and will not do so. If you wish discuss the issue then address it on it's actual terms and stop playing idiot games.

God said "did not repent" , past tense , fact , not conditional
(Revelation 9:21) And they did not repent

Yeah, that's how language works.

selective literalism is your default course ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Truly, I cannot tell. Is it stupidity or are you a liar?

if you read " (Revelation 9:21) And they did not repent " as written we wouldn't be having this debate

selective literalism is your default course ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

no reading of scripture can be permitted to contradict open theism

can't read it straight ? did happen (Revelation 9:21) And they did not repent

selective literalism is your default course ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Actually, I don't care which it is.

At bottom either you're right and Isaiah 5:1-7 is false, or Isaiah 5:1-7 is true and you're stupid.

Wouldn't it be weird if someone showed up on TOL who wanted to actually have a real discussion that required honest deliberate intellectual effort?!