Theology Club: The Open/Closed Conundrum.
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Lighthouse:
I completely agree with this.
Shasta:
Lighthouse:
What the debate needs to account for is God's faithfulness. Prophecy is only very rarely about prediction of the future. Rather it is about announcing God's mind. God can plan to do something and if he wants to do it enough, then it is guaranteed to happen so the only doubt that can possibly exist over that future event is God himself changing his mind. If God knows some future thing 100% certainly, then he himself is bound to that future and hence loses his ability to do anything differently to what he knows with certainty will happen. He effectively becomes impotent. In open theism, the mechanism through which God can know the future is his own desire/intention to perform some action. So the openness of the future consists of God's ability to change it or to intervene at any time. This is what his sovereignty consists of; that is what sovereignty means.
But faithfulness means that God's creatures need to rely on God for provision, for consistency in the world and for love. His ability to change anything at any time is chacterised by his love for his creatures, which means that in his sovereign expression, he acts with consistency and predictability. So the uncertain future is rendered predictable. That means that we can get on with our lives and have purpose. It means that the future can be meaningful and not random.
I completely agree with this.
Shasta:
Lighthouse:
What the debate needs to account for is God's faithfulness. Prophecy is only very rarely about prediction of the future. Rather it is about announcing God's mind. God can plan to do something and if he wants to do it enough, then it is guaranteed to happen so the only doubt that can possibly exist over that future event is God himself changing his mind. If God knows some future thing 100% certainly, then he himself is bound to that future and hence loses his ability to do anything differently to what he knows with certainty will happen. He effectively becomes impotent. In open theism, the mechanism through which God can know the future is his own desire/intention to perform some action. So the openness of the future consists of God's ability to change it or to intervene at any time. This is what his sovereignty consists of; that is what sovereignty means.
But faithfulness means that God's creatures need to rely on God for provision, for consistency in the world and for love. His ability to change anything at any time is chacterised by his love for his creatures, which means that in his sovereign expression, he acts with consistency and predictability. So the uncertain future is rendered predictable. That means that we can get on with our lives and have purpose. It means that the future can be meaningful and not random.
I was just thinking of the whole “only the Father knows the day and hour” so OV is false. Didn’t God know that Hezekiah would not recover from his illness and even tell him so? But Hezekiah’s prayers changed the date of Hezekiah’s death. After his prayers, God then said he’d have an additional 15 years. Sounds like Hezekiah’s death was conditional. Isn’t the day of Christ’s return conditional? So, even if the Father had an exact day and hour planned out, can’t He change it based on conditions not being met?
:thumb:
As an Arminian, I used to think Christ did not know because of the limitations of the incarnation. Now, as an Open Theist, I believe that He did not know because the exact minute was not settled yet by the Father (future partially open). When the Father knows/decides, the Son will then know. When Jesus made this statement, the date was not even settled in the Father's mind and was contingent on the extent of evangelism, rejection by Israel, etc.
You could be right.
You seem to have concluded that day and hour means its already on the calendar. I think the day and hour could be when God's creation (the field) no longer reaps a harvest. I thing that was the condition that lead to the Flood.
God wants as many believer with Him in heaven as possible. He paid the ultimate price for that through the death of His Son. I think He will patiently squeeze as much faith out of His creation as He can.
I don't know for sure that I am right, but that's what's possible with the OV.
I think there's something to what you're saying. Scripture seems to suggest that wickedness will increase and be at an all-time high just before Messiah's return.
2COR12:9
New member
I understand the perfect present tense of oiden, and I don't argue God's complete knowledge in regards to Christ's return.
Maybe you're not seeing my view, God is not making a judgement call of "if" but when. God knowing the time and date and hour He will send the Son, in any tense, past, present or future, doesn't have to mean He sees it as a date on a calendar, as a set position in time. God having knowledge of when the time will be, I do not see it as having to be a predetermined date, but simply God's perception of when the time is right.
If you have to have this explained through the open view, of needing to be God knowing an exact date, then this is also possible. My school of thought as held by Boyd, is that God in His omniscience, perceives every possible outcome to the degree that they are certainties. So in His infinite wisdom, He can determine every possible date of Christ's return; and within His will, Christ's return is definitive in every possible future; however which date that will be enacted is contingent on many other possible factors. I don't think you can limit His knowledge by saying, He doesn't know the absolute date that will come to pass, because He knows every possible date as though it was a certainty.
That aside, I still see these passages as simply saying He knows when the time will be, regardless if it's contingent on what will come to pass before. His will shall be done regardless; including the time when He sends Christ back, and He fully knows it.
Maybe you're not seeing my view, God is not making a judgement call of "if" but when. God knowing the time and date and hour He will send the Son, in any tense, past, present or future, doesn't have to mean He sees it as a date on a calendar, as a set position in time. God having knowledge of when the time will be, I do not see it as having to be a predetermined date, but simply God's perception of when the time is right.
If you have to have this explained through the open view, of needing to be God knowing an exact date, then this is also possible. My school of thought as held by Boyd, is that God in His omniscience, perceives every possible outcome to the degree that they are certainties. So in His infinite wisdom, He can determine every possible date of Christ's return; and within His will, Christ's return is definitive in every possible future; however which date that will be enacted is contingent on many other possible factors. I don't think you can limit His knowledge by saying, He doesn't know the absolute date that will come to pass, because He knows every possible date as though it was a certainty.
That aside, I still see these passages as simply saying He knows when the time will be, regardless if it's contingent on what will come to pass before. His will shall be done regardless; including the time when He sends Christ back, and He fully knows it.
My school of thought as held by Boyd, is that God in His omniscience, perceives every possible outcome to the degree that they are certainties. So in His infinite wisdom, He can determine every possible date of Christ's return; and within His will, Christ's return is definitive in every possible future; however which date that will be enacted is contingent on many other possible factors. I don't think you can limit His knowledge by saying, He doesn't know the absolute date that will come to pass, because He knows every possible date as though it was a certainty.
Open Theism is saying that God’s knowledge is limited, because He does not pre-know the actions of the authorities, powers and principalities He created. Open Theist’s should not be afraid to say that. I disagree with Boyd’s “every possible outcome” theory for a couple reasons.
First, God is not a metaphysical supercomputer that constantly processes reams of date that will never be used. His concern is with the “what is” not the “what if.” (I’m not saying God doesn’t ponder the future)
Secondly, and more importantly, God is not the author of sin. To illustrate this, I like to ask the question, where does a book originate? Does it originate at the end of a printing press (or on a computer screen) or does it originate in the mind of the author? People typically admit that a book originates in the mind of the author. That being the case, the author owns the content of the book.
God did not finish creating and say “it is good” knowing full well how homosexuals would soon be degrading the human anatomy, for instance. I believe that God was aghast, shocked, mortified, certainly angered the first time He saw what rebellious people would physically do to themselves and one another.
What God did know at the time of creation was that creatures with the ability to love would also have the ability to withhold that love, or hate. So He formulated a strategy for dealing with rebellion if it took place.
With respect to the date and time of Christ’s return it could already be calendared. God may have decided before creating that “I’m going to work on this project for this amount of time and then I am going to punch out.” But I do not think that is what He did. I think that God will return when there are no longer branches in the vineyard that produces fruit.
Open Theism is saying that God’s knowledge is limited, because He does not pre-know the actions of the authorities, powers and principalities He created. Open Theist’s should not be afraid to say that. I disagree with Boyd’s “every possible outcome” theory for a couple reasons.
First, God is not a metaphysical supercomputer that constantly processes reams of date that will never be used. His concern is with the “what is” not the “what if.” (I’m not saying God doesn’t ponder the future)
Secondly, and more importantly, God is not the author of sin. To illustrate this, I like to ask the question, where does a book originate? Does it originate at the end of a printing press (or on a computer screen) or does it originate in the mind of the author? People typically admit that a book originates in the mind of the author. That being the case, the author owns the content of the book.
God did not finish creating and say “it is good” knowing full well how homosexuals would soon be degrading the human anatomy, for instance. I believe that God was aghast, shocked, mortified, certainly angered the first time He saw what rebellious people would physically do to themselves and one another.
What God did know at the time of creation was that creatures with the ability to love would also have the ability to withhold that love, or hate. So He formulated a strategy for dealing with rebellion if it took place.
With respect to the date and time of Christ’s return it could already be calendared. God may have decided before creating that “I’m going to work on this project for this amount of time and then I am going to punch out.” But I do not think that is what He did. I think that God will return when there are no longer branches in the vineyard that produces fruit.
Shasta
Well-known member
For one thing disciples were talking about specifics - the literal day of His coming not generalities. They assumed the day and hour were already fixed on God's calendar and that Jesus, being the Son, would know when that would be. Jesus could have corrected their misconception that "the day" was not a fixed day. For instance, He could have said "the Father will decide when that will be." Instead, He said the Father already knew the date. In Acts 1:6-8 Jesus says that those times have already been set, fixed or established by the Father's authority. It is not penciled in.
I agree with you about God not being a supercomputer. To me this is an attempt to attribute to God a modicum of traditional omniscience while keeping Him within the limitations of time. The whole idea that God knows "all things knowable" means that there is a great deal (mainly about human choice and the future) that He does not and CANNOT know, even with the ability to know every possible outcome.
Shasta
Well-known member
The series of events prophetic of Christs return are not really in the same category as God answering a person's prayer. Sometimes God changes the course of our lives, saves us from some consequence which would have happened to us had we done nothing. God gives us a lot of responsibility and even discretion. God shows prophetic foreknowledge (not the term as used in Open Theism) because He does know what people will choose to do sometimes thousands of years in advance.
Prophecies and promises have been known to be conditional long before the latter day advent of Open Theology. Historically, it was believed that men made real choices but that the transcendent God rather than predestining them to make those choices simply foreknew what they would do.
God as defined in Open Theology cannot possess true foreknowledge because He is linked with the temporal spatial universe. Being within the time line He is unable to stand outside it to see anything other than the past, the present or events that He Himself has decided to cause or allow to happen and then only if those events are not changed through the prayers of free agents
The God of Open Theism is always being "surprised"Since the future does not exist what is "knowable" to Him is mostly in the present. Of course what is not "knowable" to Him today will be tomorrow. In fact every moment of time will bring more knowledge as well as more that is unknowable. God will always be learning.
I wouldn’t say this is accurate, because the God of the open view is just as prepared for the future as the God of the settled view. It’s just that the God of the OV requires more wisdom, resourcefulness and intelligence than the God of the settled view. He is not “surprised” in that He is taken off-guard, but He can be disappointed hoping that another path would have been taken.
In a sense, yes, God is always “becoming” (i.e. “I will be who I will be” -- אהיה אשׁר אהיה). This expression, ehyeh, indicates He is dynamic rather than static, perpetually realizing Himself. God, the author of all life, is certainly not static. Change is part of being alive!
Shasta
Well-known member
No, it is not unreasonable to predict that men will sin or that they will do so more at certain times than at others. I could predict that myself that even without the the gift of prophecy. Paul was not talking about any ordinary period of backsliding . There have been many such seasons in history. He is talking about a particular season so distinct from others in its pervassiveness and intensity that it could be takem as a sign of the End.
The Great Apostasy is a particular time when “the love of MOST will grow cold” It is immediately connected with the coming of The Antichrist and the Great Tribulation which is to be the worst in history.
It immediately precedes and intimately connected with the Tribulation, is to be the worst in history. How could God predict that that this particular time would be uniquely bad? To know that such a time as the Tribulation would be worse than any other even past or present He would also have to have in mind what all similar times past and future to use as points of comparison, The only way that could be done is if He foreknew those times
For example, it would be perfectly accurate for me to say "this is the worst storm I have ever seen" because my knowledge is limited by my own experience in time. I could not say "this is the worst storm that ever has been or ever will be" unless I had complete knowledge about every storm that ever had been or ever would be. Only a God who could see all events could make this claim.
Is God waiting for something like that to happen first so He can co-opt it as a sign? In that case He would just be an opportunist rather than a prophet.
It would be like me saying to my kids, "Children, your father is a prophet. Verily I say to you as we go forth on this road trip there will come a time when we will hit a dip deeper than all others, so deep that will shake the very frame of the car. After that ye may enter the place of the golden arches and dine.” Of course, if I am on the road long enough I know I am bound to hit a dip and that probably one will end up being deeper than the previous ones. sooner or later. When I hit that one I claim this to be a sign tae it upon myself to pull off the road and dine at the promised land
If my children were young and simple they would be impressed. “Wow. Dad had knew the future (i.e., that I had foreknowledge).” My older children would know that I waited until the opportunity presented itself and took advantage of it
For me doing that to my children would be a game, a harmless joke. Writing my predictions down in a book called Matthew 24, Thessalonians and Revelation and passing it off to them as the very words of God would be a deception of the worst kind. That would make God not Jehovah Jireh (the God who sees) but the God who "waits around and sees."
If God were simply saying He was planning to unilaterally perform an action AND such an action was not conditioned on the unpredictable actions of free agents then a specific date could be stated wutg assurance. However, this is not the case. Turning from Christ is a choice freely make.
According to Open Theism God has on many occasions been caught by surprise when one of His own betrays him. If it is so hard to know know that millions would turn away from Him at a definite time several thousand years before in a future world which does not exist?
The "day and hour" of the Son's coming is not a general guideline applicable to many times. He does not say "May father WILL know the Day but that He has already seen it. That us not my opinion but the grammar.
The time of the Second Coming is not “penciled in.” The specific time of the Coming down to the “day and hour” is already on God’s calendar. God knew it because He has seen it just as clearly as he had seen the apostate believers fall away. When Jesus was on earth it was a secret the even the He did not know it but it was not a general "The father knows when the time will be right" but that the Father has aleady perceives ona knows both the time, hour and day. This is an example of foreknowledge, not forecasting
Shasta
Well-known member
The idea of God being surprised is not my view. It is held by some major proponents of the Open Theological system. The reason God cannot know the future is not founded about His ability to calculate outcomes but on Theological assumptions about His connection to time (which in turn is a facet of the temporal spatial universe). As time progresses so do we and so does God changes.
There is in my opinion a serious flaw in any theology that holds that God must depend on His own creations to grow and reach His potential. The idea that He can learn and develop as time passes makes Him a mere student of knowledge (albeit an a very advanced one) in the schoolhouse of the material spatial universe of time. It is a schoolhouse He can never graduate, thus at many points it would be possible that you could ask the teacher when He would be returning and He would say "I do not know the answer to that one and even the Father does not know yet." What kind of an answer was that?
What He currently knows in this moment of time compared to all of infinite amount of learning that lies ahead is and always will be indefinite. No matter how many eons past there is always just as much that is "unknowable" lies in the future as in the past. Thus each moment of Gods knowing will always be and infinitismal. God will never at any point be omniscient. He will never be fully actualized either.
I wonder how He could have come to know so much prior to creation when we were not available to assist Him in actualizing Himself. We are not improving the creators experience or facilitating His growth. How could we as humans be so presumptuous as to think He needs something from us to make up for or improve something for him?
The Trinity already had unspeakable glory and joy before creation (John 17) and this glory had to do with the fellowship of love. Because He already had a sharing love and thus needed no one else to make it complete. God just decided to make us so we could enjoy with Him. He enjoys us the way I enjoyed my children. Had they not come I would enjoy my wife anyway. Even though hell will be visible to God from all eternity it will not dimish His joy, "Hell" Lewis said, "Cannot blackmail heaven."
God loves us and enjoys us but the real reward is what we will learn about Him not vice versa. Our crowns being cast down cannot reward HIM. Our reward is about knowing Him, enjoying and exploring Him in ages to come (Ephesians 2:7). We are the ones who will learn not Him.
Well, if it was a truthful answer then why would you want the answer to be any different to what it was?
Don't forget that Jesus was speaking of a very specific issue: the day and the hour. Jesus gave plenty of clues as to what to look out for. It was not as if ignorance or some lack of authority was being displayed here. That information had simply not been determined at that time. I don't see why you would have a problem with this, especially as you seem to be happy with the concept that God knows everything that it is possible to know.
By the way, I'm not saying that I agree with GR's suggestion that neither Jesus nor the father knew when Jesus was coming back. I'm just saying that if that is what it means and it is the truth, then why would you want to take issue with it? But I think that GR's main point would still be true even if the exact time had already been fixed. It was just one those things Jesus did not know.
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I’ve only read the original question on this thread. What I want to point out is that the Bible is very clear that God is not the author of sin.
God is love, and He created Man so that He could love more. Love is not something God created. It is His own essence. God loves within the Trinity because wants to, not because he has to. Love is completely volitional. So in order to enter into loving relationships with Men, God had to make them able to love too. That means they also had to be able to not love, or hate.
The question I like to ask is, “Does a book originate at the end of the printing press or in the mind of the author?” Answer – it originates in the mind of the author. The same is true for any completed creative work.
God did not create man and say it is good knowing full-well what in short order sodomites would do with the human anatomy. Before creating God could conceive of a rebellion but He did not think through every possible perversity, including the ones humans haven’t got around to yet.
So God’s creation, in my mind, is not complete or else He would be the author of all the sin that is part of it. God finished building, but He did not finish experiencing the decisions of the free agents that He made. We are helping God write the final chapter of His creation.
God reacts to what humans do. That is why we should be amazed at his mercy, grace and patience.
I agree with the above.
I don't get it.
Where's the conundrum?
What does the phrase "looks like contingency" mean?
It sounds like you're attempting to have it both ways, where God has both anticipated every future contingency and is somehow ignorant (even slightly) of the future. The two are mutually exclusive.
It feels like I'm not understanding your point. Perhaps you could elaborate further.
Resting in Him,
Clete