Please read carefully. I think this may get at the heart of one difficulty in the general debate.
Consider these statements:
One being can cause, ordain, or will that another being do something, without in any way communicating with it. And it might be that the first being will cause the other to do something that the first being thinks is bad. And the second being is still responsible for doing the bad thing.
If God were to come in a way that you believed it was him and tell you these were true, that the first being was God and the second, you – could you believe it, even if it went against what you thought was possible? Or would you say, ‘Nope, You are wrong.’
I’m not asking ‘Do you believe it?’ or ‘Is it Biblical’ (which are both very important questions), I’m asking ‘Can you believe it?’
In other words, is it possible that something that seems illogical or inconceivable to you is nevertheless true?
If your answer is no, then you can stop reading my ‘both ways’ stuff. We are at an impasse. If Vox believes the answer is no, then our argument subject matter scope is greatly limited.
If your answer is yes, however, that limits the complaints that you have about my other statements.
For example – questions and qualms about God pretending to command or faking anger at disobedience should not be brought into the argument unless there is Biblical warrant for it, i.e. a bible verse that says God doesn’t ordain (choose to have happen) something that he is against. Same with :”Well, if God made me do it, It’s not a sin.”
Note: I am not saying that I have proven anything here, I am merely pointing out what is not proof against the omniderigent view.
To conclude and repeat: Saying (in response to a statement about God) ‘that doesn’t make sense to me’ isn’t a viable argument.
Someone tell me where I am wrong here.
I’m saying this because the above statements are very hard to grasp. But the Bible presents other apparent paradoxes – why not this one?
The Responsible Puppet 
67 comments
December 6, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Hi J—
> In other words, is it possible that something that
> seems illogical or inconceivable to you is
> nevertheless true?
I think we should be careful about using the word “illogical”. Something can be inconceivable to someone, but not be in the slightest illogical. God’s omniderigence is a case in point. For something to be illogical it has to actually violate a principle of rational inference. For example, it is illogical to ask if God can create a rock so heavy he could not lift it. But it is not illogical to say that God causes people to sin and then becomes angry at them doing so. That does not violate a principle of inference; it only violates an _apparent_ principle of reasonable behavior.
> If Vox believes the answer is no, then our
> argument subject matter scope is greatly
> limited.
I think it’s much worse than that. If Vox believes the answer is no, then no avenue of discourse remains. He is favoring his intuition over rational inference. Since debate, by definition, favors rational inference over intuition, it is not longer an option here.
> For example – questions and qualms about
> God pretending to command or faking
> anger at disobedience should not be
> brought into the argument unless there is
> Biblical warrant for it
This is a pretty typical strawman of the Reformed position. Of course, God does not pretend to command, nor does he fake anger. In fact, he really commands, for the very _purpose_ that he will have opportunity to _really_ be angry. Unfortunately, the open theists import their passionate view of God into the Reformed framework. Naturally, this results in incongruity.
> Same with :”Well, if God made me do it, It’s
> not a sin.”
And again—of course, God did not “make” you do it in the sense of forcing you against your will. Rather, God caused you to do it willingly. Just as he caused Pharaoh to sin willingly, and then held him responsible for that exact, unavoidable sin (Ex 9-14).
Are you still planning to formalize this debate somewhat? I’m looking forward to seeing some real interaction between the two views. More pertinently, I’m looking forward to seeing the unchristian open view of God publicly demolished and the biblical truth of his absolute sovereignty exalted.
Regards,
Bnonn
December 7, 2007 at 9:45 am
Starwind
One being can cause, ordain, or will that another being do something, without in any way communicating with it. And it might be that the first being will cause the other to do something that the first being thinks is bad. And the second being is still responsible for doing the bad thing.
In the above passages, how is the house of the Trinity not divided against itself?
December 7, 2007 at 4:04 pm
bethyada
One being can cause, ordain, or will that another being do something, without in any way communicating with it. And it might be that the first being will cause the other to do something that the first being thinks is bad. And the second being is still responsible for doing the bad thing.
I still think you are not specific enough. I get your gist, but I see you saying can God cause every thought and behaviour, neuron firing and molecule shift in the brain, spiritual shift in the mind; such that everything that a man does is under the direct control of God:
1. And that God can in that process do evil via the man but that not be evil in himself,
2. And that God can justifiably be annoyed at man for the behaviour he has forced him to do.
I would say that the first is not logically justified.
I would say that the second is possible to do but seems silly: In the same way that I could create a plane to fly and get annoyed when it flies just as I programmed it.
I do think that God can do things that are not evil but when men do the same they are evil, but that is because of the difference in nature of the creator and the creation.
When men are doing what God has commanded they are not doing evil unless they refuse to do his command how he asked them to. Saul did right in destroying the Amelekites, he did wrong in not obeying God in the process. The evil of Saul is where he departed from God’s will.
If God told me to believe what you are suggesting I can only perceive that my thoughts would be, very well, but I can only think what you are causing me to think, you will have to change my mind to think this way as you have caused it to think in the current way.
December 8, 2007 at 10:32 pm
jamsco
Bethyada,
It looks like you are taking a long time to say – no, I wouldn’t believe it, even if God told me it. You would call him ‘not logically justified’ and ‘Silly’ and say your free will can’t allow to believe him.
Okay, fair enough. So even if I show you that the Bible says this to be the case you will disregard it. Would you agree that there isn’t much point in debating this?
December 8, 2007 at 10:36 pm
jamsco
Starwind,
This isn’t describing a house divided, it’s describing an infinite God with a perfect will and a permissive will.
I notice that you haven’t really answered my questions.
And I’m sorry that you comments got stuck in spam. I will try to look at it in the future.
December 8, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
> 1. And that God can in that process do evil via the
> man but that not be evil in himself,
>
> 2. And that God can justifiably be annoyed at man for
> the behaviour he has forced him to do.
>
> I would say that the first is not logically justified.
>
> I would say that the second is possible to do but
> seems silly: In the same way that I could create a
> plane to fly and get annoyed when it flies just as I
> programmed it.
In the first instance, why is this not logically justified? What principle of inference states that God causing sin through secondary agents is the same as God directly sinning?
In the second instance, I disagree that it is silly. Romans 9:21,22 asks, “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction”? This directly indicates that God does indeed create people with the purpose of displaying his wrath in them. The mistake you are making when you say this seems “silly” is that you are thinking of God as being reactive and passionate like we are. But God is active, not reactive; and affectionate, not passionate. He does not become enraged because of something not going as he wanted, as if anyone could influence him or cause him to experience an emotion against his will. His wrath is of an entirely different sort to ours. When we become angry, we experience it as an emotional disturbance; an unsettling of our feelings which we can’t entirely help. God is not like that; he is impassible. Nothing can unsettle him or disturb him—after all, what could possibly have that kind of power? He is all in all. Rather, his wrath is an expression of his holiness in relation to sin. It is a deliberate affection, rather than a provoked passion (you may want to look up how theologians use these terms, “affection” and “passion”, in order to better understand what I’m saying).
Regards,
Bnonn
December 9, 2007 at 2:02 am
Starwind
jamsco:
This isn’t describing a house divided, it’s describing an infinite God with a perfect will and a permissive will.
Your argument is that one being, God, can cause, ordain, or will that another being do something, without in any way communicating with it. Your argument is also that man (Paul in my cites) has no free will of his own; there is only God’s will, either permissive or perfect.
Your argument is that all will is ultimately (regardless of communication) God’s will, none of which can be Paul’s will freely on Paul’s own, though you hold Paul responsible. But holding Paul responsible doesn’t change that it was God’s permissive will that Paul began with.
God the Father’s permissive will caused, ordained or willed Paul (imperfectly) to persecute Christians and take the gospel to asia while God the Son’s and God the Spirit’s perfect will caused, ordained or willed Paul to stop persecuting Christians and not take the gospel to Asia. Contradictory wills, both ultimately God’s.
As Paul had no free will of His own, in all cases God either permissively or perfectly caused, ordained or willed Paul’s contradictory decisons.
The labels “permissive” or “perfect” do not change the ultimate authorship of the will – God in all cases, never Paul. You could label them God’s “striped will” and God’s “polkadot will” for all the difference it matters – they’re still both God’s. And until Paul (or man) is acknowledged to have their own free will as the source for Paul’s (or man’s) decisions, then the only remaining source, God, is authoring contradictory decisions, hence dividing its own house against itself.
I notice that you haven’t really answered my questions.
They aren’t really answereable, they were designed to affirm a contradictory hypothetical.
You asked: If God were to come in a way that you believed it was him and tell you these were true, that the first being was God and the second, you – could you believe it, The hypothetical condition “if” is a false premise. God has not done that. God has neither come to me nor anywhere in scripture said that man’s will was actually God’s will. God has often said the opposite; that His spirit would not strive with man indefinitely; that man is not to choose in oppositon to God but should choose in conformity with God; Adam and Eve before the fall disobeyed God; and Paul believed man has free will. The definition of sin, rebellion to God, is man pitting his will against God’s. God’s will doesn’t rebel against God, rather man’s will rebels against God. No, God hasn’t stated that your premise is true.
You then raised a contradiction: I’m not asking ‘Do you believe it?’ or ‘Is it Biblical’ (which are both very important questions), I’m asking ‘Can you believe it?’ Which raises the contradiction. Being biblical is in fact determinitive. No I can’t believe something that is unbiblical. Demonstrate, scripturally, that the premise is in fact biblical and scripture (which is “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart”) will confirm it, at which point there will be a demonstrated truth in which to believe.
If your answer is no, then you can stop reading my ‘both ways’ stuff. We are at an impasse.
But it is an impasse you built-in to your unanswerable question.
You stated: One being can cause, ordain, or will that another being do something, without in any way communicating with it. And it might be that the first being will cause the other to do something that the first being thinks is bad. And the second being is still responsible for doing the bad thing.
Holding the second being responsible (whether bad or not, fair or not) is irrelevant. The impasse doesn’t pivot on sin or fairness. The impasse pivots on authorship. The second being’s will is authored (regardless of communication, it is caused, ordained, or willed) by the first being.
Regardless of responsibility or labels, you’ve asserted there is only the first being’s will but that will, utlimately, is self-contradictory.
The impasse is that you’ve set up the first being as the author of contradictory wills. God can’t be self-contradictory. God’s house can’t be divided against itself.
And I’m sorry that you comments got stuck in spam.
Thanks, sincerely, for redeeming them from purgatory. 🙂
December 9, 2007 at 1:23 pm
bethyada
jamsco, it is worth debating. See my post Christian Differences specifically
And if your suggestion is true, then I cannot become a Calvinist in my thoughts without God changing me, my current thoughts are conforming to his will.
Bnonn, the reason I think it is not logically justified is because of my preamble, which is saying if this is the case then God is not indirectly responsible, he is directly responsible.
If I let my son drive my car knowing he is drunk, I may be indirectly (partially) responsible. If I drive my car via remote control into a crowd, I am directly responsible. I see the Calvinist argument to be analogous to the later. If God is controlling me down to the level of my thoughts and actions, making me have evil thoughts and righteous ones, making me do good and bad, such that I am unable to do otherwise, and even my desire to do otherwise (be tempted or avoid sin) is of God, how can God not be directly responsible?
As to the second, I think the response silly because of the reaction I suggested; that God can gain glory by destruction of the wicked I do not deny.
December 9, 2007 at 1:40 pm
bethyada
When we become angry, we experience it as an emotional disturbance; an unsettling of our feelings which we can’t entirely help. God is not like that; he is impassible. Nothing can unsettle him or disturb him—after all, what could possibly have that kind of power?
I agree that God has complete control over his emotions. I think that we can affect God however. I think he is sad (even though he knows events will transpire prior) because of his creatures and that he changes what he would have done in response to our prayers.
Our actions do have an effect on God, not because of our great power, rather his great love.
December 9, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
bethyada—
Two questions: firstly, when you talk about God being “responsible”, are you referring to ethical responsibility, or simply metaphysical responsibility?
Secondly, how can you say that God has complete control over his emotions, but then in the same breath say that our actions do have an effect on him? Regardless of the reason for your contention, it remains that either he has complete control over his emotions and is not affected reactively, or he is affected reactively and does not have complete control over his emotions.
Regards,
Bnonn
December 9, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Starwind
Jamesco, my previous post from last night seems to be hung up again in spam purgatory.
If this post appears it is because I lied about my email address, and I used yours.
My continued participation here is not tenable as things are, so I’ll bow out.
December 10, 2007 at 9:46 pm
bethyada
Bnonn,
Responsible as in ownership, so probably metaphysical, though not certain I see a big difference with God. God is answerable to no one.
Try:
Can an omniderigent God do evil via a man but not himself do evil?
I would say no. I am willing to be proven incorrect scripturally.
What God does is good. One could claim that is by definition, though I would say goodness is part of his character (God is good rather than God defines good, perhpas this is quibbling). So the logical error in the question (if answered yes) is that what an omniderigent God wills in man cannot be evil for man.
By control of his emotions I mean that God does not let his emotions get the better of him the way men do. I think God can be sad in response to our sin. And that, had we not sinned he wouldn’t be sad (about that particular issue).
That God knows what we will do does not remove his emotional response to it when it happens.
Of course, if God is beyond time, “when” becomes difficult to define.
December 11, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
> God *is* good rather than God *defines* good
Unless you believe in a higher standard of good than God, the two clauses of your sentence are synonymous. I see no distinction between God *being* good, and God *defining* good, given that good itself inheres in God and is only meaningful because of him.
>So the logical error in the question (if answered yes) is that what an omniderigent God wills in man cannot be evil for man.
But we know from Scripture that God wills that Pharaoh prevent Moses and the Israelites leaving Egypt, *precisely because* he wished to judge Pharaoh and the Egyptians and unleash his wrath upon them. God deliberately hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and the hearts of his court officials, so that they would refuse to obey God’s command through Moses. And God then judged and punished these actions he had caused. So clearly, it is quite possible for God to cause sin: that is, to bring it about inexorably and inevitably, so that it proceeds necessarily from his will; and equally clearly, he himself does not sin by doing so. This would appear to apply whether God is omniderigent or not.
> That God knows what we will do does not remove his emotional response to it when it happens.
Are you saying that God’s emotional response is inevitable, and proceeds necessarily from our actions?
Regards,
Bnonn
December 11, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
As an aside, I’m interested to know what syntax is required to format blockquotes, italics, etc in this particular combox. Nothing I have tried seems to work.
December 11, 2007 at 3:25 pm
bethyada
Bnonn, they may be synonymous, but I prefer is as it is not as if God is arbitrarily defining good.
In terms of Pharaoh, we can discuss this in more detail, I have no qualms with much of what you have written, it is not that God cannot do things, rather an omniderigent God doing this and calling Pharaoh evil. I think Pharaoh evil and God not evil precisely because I do not think God is omniderigent!
God did some things in Pharaoh’s heart, or at least gave him the will to resist God when that would normally be not possible in the situation, but Pharaoh had made his choices.
No, God’s response is not inevitable, or a particular response anyway. I see where you are headed with this (I think), I would say that God’s emotions, again, are part of his character—sadness at our ingratitude, hatred toward sin.
Is God’s love inevitable, I guess he can choose to whom he shows love, but he cannot but love, it being who he is.
December 11, 2007 at 3:31 pm
bethyada
Let’s hope this works, wordpress doesn’t have a preview.
Including text in [i]italics[/i] and [b]bold[/b]. Quoting people [blockquote]It was the best of times it was the worst of times[/blockquote] Note that there is no hard return before or after the quotes.
And if you wish to link (“a” is for “anchor”) include the link in the anchor and the text between the codes [a href=”http://bethyada.blogspot.com/”]True paradigm[/a].
The above with square brackets [ and ] replaced by angle brackets
Including text in italics and bold. Quoting people
Note that there is no hard return before or after the quotes.
And if you wish to link (“a” is for “anchor”) include the link in the anchor and the text between the codes True paradigm.
December 11, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
> In terms of Pharaoh, we can discuss this in more detail,
> I have no qualms with much of what you have written, it
> is not that God cannot do things, rather an omniderigent
> God doing this and calling Pharaoh evil. I think Pharaoh
> evil and God not evil precisely because I do not think God
> is omniderigent!
Okay, let’s focus on this for a moment. Why do you think that God would have been unjust to harden Pharaoh’s heart if he is omniderigent, but not unjust if he is not omniderigent?
Regards,
Bnonn
December 11, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Testing standard HTML markup.
December 11, 2007 at 8:51 pm
bethyada
Bnonn Okay, let’s focus on this for a moment. Why do you think that God would have been unjust to harden Pharaoh’s heart if he is omniderigent, but not unjust if he is not omniderigent?
More than a moment, as this is likely the key issue.
If God is omniderigent, then everything Pharaoh has done since birth including all thoughts and actions, is an extension of the will of God. It is as if Pharaoh is a robot or a puppet (be it a self-conscious one). So Pharaoh could not have done anything other than what he did in his life. There was never a possibility he could have done any action differently. He never could have chosen not to sin. Every lustful, greedy, selfish thought he had in his entire life occurred because God willed it.
I see little difference in this scenario between God’s desires in himself and God’s own desires in the mind of Pharaoh.
If God is not omniderigent, then God’s actions in Pharaoh are tied to Pharaoh’s response to God.
God knows what Pharaoh will do but I deny that this is because God forces it, rather because of God’s omniscience. Let’s put this aside for the moment as we both agree that God knows the specific future (though Vox denies this).
So Pharaoh rejects God’s call on his life so God uses him as an object of his wrath. (We are all by nature objects of God’s wrath because of the fall, but God desires to make us all objects of his mercy.)
God knows Pharaoh will reject him so uses him to show God’s power in the deliverance from Egypt, but it is not as if Pharaoh had no choice his whole life. He made his choice and could not avoid being used by God as an object of God’s wrath, but had he responded to God’s call in his life when he was able, then God would have used someone else for his purpose, God can change the dynasties of Egypt.
December 12, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
bethyada—
Assuming this for the sake of argument, which is difficult given that there was no call of God in Pharaoh’s life before this time, never mind the doctrine of total depravity, it remains that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart specifically in order to multiply his sin, and so as to reveal his wrath against him. In other words, God caused sin so that he could punish sin. Whether or not this was done as a response to an initial self-hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is irrelevant to the principle of justice we see here. God causes sin, then God punishes sin. It therefore remains that it is not unjust for God to punish sin which he has caused. You say, “I see little difference in this scenario between God’s desires in himself and God’s own desires in the mind of Pharaoh”—but this criticism applies to either of our positions, since for all intents and purposes God is omniderigent in the specific example of Exodus 9-14. Therefore, it would appear that your inability to see a distinction between God’s desires in himself, and his desires in the mind of Pharaoh (which, to be forthright, I see very clearly), is a problem for you, but not for Scripture.
But I don’t think we can put this aside, because your affirmation of God’s omniscience while denying his omniderigence has very problematic implications for your metaphysic and epistemology. You appear to be suggesting that God’s knowledge of human actions comes chronologically prior, but logically consequent to those actions. This in itself is unproblematic since God exists in a timeless state, so he may perceive past and future simultaneously, and be able to then act in the past with knowledge of the future. However, it is problematic when we come to ask what knowledge is, and how we—and more importantly God—come by it.
The Reformed view is that knowledge is intrinsic to God; it inheres in him just as do all transcendent things. Without God there would be no knowledge, because in him “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”. If Jesus is indeed the logos, then he is the very knowledge, wisdom, and reasoning of God. We know he <is God, and that he was “brought forth” by God (Pr 8:25, but see 8:22ff). So knowledge is something which inheres in God. If we have knowledge, it comes from him (Job 38:36).
The problem with your position is that it makes knowledge an external but still transcendent category. This in itself denies the scriptural evidence, but more importantly, it immediately raises the question of where it comes from. How can transcendent things exist apart from God? Indeed, since knowledge by definition entails a mind, you are implying that there is a more transcendent mind than God’s. One might as well purport that logic exists apart from God. Not only is this at odds with what the Bible says, but it is self-evidently absurd. If there are higher transcendent categories than God, then he is not God at all. Someone else is. But then we are just pushing the problem one stage higher, since knowledge must still inhere in some transcendent entity, and therefore must come logically prior to the chronological events which are its object.
If you wish to say that knowledge is not a real thing as I am describing, but rather is simply a perception of how things are, then even more serious problems arise. Firstly, again, it is anti-biblical. Secondly, it makes the mechanism of knowledge-acquisition at best opaque. In Reformed theology, God’s knowledge of the world is predicated upon his action. Since he “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3), and to uphold the universe is an active and ongoing process which must involve also upholding every part of it, exhaustively, moment to moment (or those parts would cease to exist)—it follows that everything he upholds he knows. He can hardly not know what he upholds, after all. However, if he does not uphold everything exhaustively moment to moment (which by definition he cannot if he is not omniderigent and we do have a will which is free from him), then two questions arise:
Firstly, what is keeping the universe (or, at least, us) going? Things do not begin to exist without a cause, and neither do they continue to exist without one. So what is the cause of our existence? Surely we are not ascribing to ourselves the same power of self-cause which we ascribe to God?
Secondly, how does God come to knowledge of things he has nothing whatsoever to do with in the metaphysical sense? What is the knowledge-acquisition mechanism involved here? It is not as if knowledge is a magical thing which simply springs into being in the mind when an event occurs. There must be some kind of transaction between the event and the mind.
Thirdly, on the same note, how do we come to knowledge of things? If knowledge-acquisition is a transaction between a reality and a mind, and if God is not the arbiter of such transactions, then what is? Neither God nor ourselves would appear to be able to come to any knowledge whatsoever under such a scheme—unless God is not God, and some other entity is, which destroys your theology in any case.
These are just some of the problems which arise from a non-omniderigent position, whether it is Arminian or open view or whatever. Because these theologies are unbiblical, and what is unbiblical is irrational and at odds with reality, they therefore cannot make sense of reality. Some of the issues I have raised here can be expanded into the sorts of arguments I mentioned to Jamsco before—arguments which thoroughly and crushingly defeat the open view position, and more generally just the libertarian free will position. I hope that in his continuing debate with Vox, he will make use of some similar lines of reasoning, as I think they are much more powerful than the backward-and-forward “I read, you read” exegetical arguments.
Regards,
Bnonn
December 13, 2007 at 10:43 am
Starwind
(I have borrowed Jamsco’s email to make this post)
Bnonn, Bethyada:
I thought I might interject my two cents.
In Reformed theology, God’s knowledge of the world is predicated upon his action.
A false premise which is precisely the problem with Reformed theology; that God can’t know what God doesn’t cause; that God’s knowledge of Sin is predicated upon His sin. The illogic of Reformed theology doesn’t get any clearer than that.
Since he “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3), and to uphold the universe is an active and ongoing process which must involve also upholding every part of it, exhaustively, moment to moment (or those parts would cease to exist)—it follows that everything he upholds he knows. He can hardly not know what he upholds, after all. However, if he does not uphold everything exhaustively moment to moment (which by definition he cannot if he is not omniderigent and we do have a will which is free from him)
But parts of the universe are in fact ceasing to exist, moment by moment.
We are dying. We decay. Rust corrodes. Death happens. Celestial and planetary movements are slowing, stars are burning out. Sin and decay entered the world at the fall. The world changed and continues to change for the worse. But God is immutable and never changes. The old heaven and earth are dying and will pass away and a new heaven and earth will replace them. God in fact is *not* exhaustively upholding everything moment by moment. Rather God is allowing it to decay and die. God tells us to store up treaure heaven where there is no decay. He did not allow Jesus to undergo decay, in contrast to the rest of us.
Firstly, what is keeping the universe (or, at least, us) going? Things do not begin to exist without a cause, and neither do they continue to exist without one. So what is the cause of our existence?
It is not “going” unchanged, its existence is diminishing. It is decaying, slowing and transforming. Entropy is increasing. Disorder is emerging from order. Regardless of that decay commensurate with sin having entered the world, God is the cause and creator of the world, in the beginning. And yet, today even a baby is newly born with some genetic “decay”; disease, cell death, and a mortal lifespan vastly shorter than the antediluvian patriarchs. God remains the “cause” of our existence without being the “cause” of the decay in our existence.
Secondly, how does God come to knowledge of things he has nothing whatsoever to do with in the metaphysical sense? What is the knowledge-acquisition mechanism involved here? It is not as if knowledge is a magical thing which simply springs into being in the mind when an event occurs. There must be some kind of transaction between the event and the mind.
For humans, yes there is some kind of transaction between the event and the mind. But for an infinite creator God who is Spirit and outside of space-time and existence, how God comes to knowledge presumes He didn’t have it to begin with (a false presumption) and further presumes some materialistic mechanism by which it is transmitted (another false presumption). God’s means of knowing is easily “magical” for all we’ll likely ever understand of How God “knows”.
Perhaps without realizing, you are anthropomorphizing, imputing human limitations to God. Just because we don’t know how God knows all or foreknows all doesn’t falsify His own declaration that He in fact does know everything and foreknows everything. God need not be sensory or sensate in human terms. He needn’t depend upon material transmission of information carried in photon packets or field fluctuations impinging upon His receptors, or even carried and reported by angels. He is outside all that.
Thirdly, on the same note, how do we come to knowledge of things? If knowledge-acquisition is a transaction between a reality and a mind, and if God is not the arbiter of such transactions, then what is?
Unlike God who is Spirit, we are materialistically sensory. The “arbiter” of such transactions is the material world in which we were designed to live and be aware. Awareness of what is on the printed page comes to the receptors in our eyes carried by a pattern of photons reflected off the typeprint on that page, and so we acquire knowledge. But God does not need to mediate, to carry every individual photon nor trigger every receptor nor nerve synapse to make that happen. God can and did design our bodies and the material world to function independently on a materialistic level. They sense, they reproduce, they heal, they replenish energy supplies, and they interact with their surrounds. Conversely, our spirit receives leading from God’s Spirit; we have a conscience that informs us of what God’s will is.
But nothing in our limited material existence in anyway diminishes God’s sovereignty over us and our existence whenever He chooses to exercise His sovereignty, for whatever reason He chooses.
God is sovereign regardless of our independent functioning. God is sovereign regardless of however much grace He may extend. God is sovereign regardless of the responsibility He has delegated to us. Just like the Dept. or Motor Vehicles gives us a priviledge to drive and delegates to us the responsibilty to drive lawfully, God delegates to us our own decisions. We can freely disregard a traffic law, but that doesn’t diminish the sovereignty of the DMV or the law. A traffic officer can ignore or forgive a violation, but that doesn’t diminish the sovereignty of the DMV or the law. We remain subject to the DMV and the law, including ultimate revocation of our priviledge to drive; even though it is our hands steering, our eyes reading signs, our foot accelerating, etc. God had delegated stewardship of the earth and our lives to us, individually, and He can pull us over and cite us for any infraction or revoke our privileges anytime He wishes, and He has stated that He knows all infractions (foreknew them as well) and will in fact judge all infractions in the end, even though He allowed us to freely choose to commit them.
God is sovereign and has delegated freewill decision making to us under His sovereignty.
Lastly, consider the argument on this thread. By Reformed theology, the posters herein are nothing more than sock puppets into which God has put His hands and are fighting in opposition to each other and in opposition to God’s house being unified and self-consistent. And for what? So God’s Son could sacrifice Himself to atone for that fighting? A cup of sacrifice He’d rather have passed? God “sustains” a decaying creation and sacrifices His only begotten Son to atone for self-conflicted arguments God himself authors? All to reconcile a false dichotomy between God’s sovereignty and God’s delegated free will.
December 13, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
Notice how all you have done here is assert. I gave clear arguments which demonstrate the logical absurdity of a Christian worldview which denies that knowledge is intrinsic to God. I showed how God’s knowledge must be predicated upon his action; indeed, how everything must be predicated upon his action, if we are to even be able to account for such simple things as causation and transcendent categories. I gave other clear arguments showing that God does indeed bring about sin directly, yet without himself being sinner. You have effectively just pretended these arguments don’t exist, by simply asserting that I’m wrong. I doubt anyone will find that as convincing as if you had even tried to engage with the arguments themselves. I’d like to quote a few statements of yours below so as to demonstrate how completely they fail to interact with what I have said:
Firstly, which parts? You have talked about entropy (decay), but that has nothing to do with parts of the universe ceasing to exist. It also has no bearing on my argument. The concept of God upholding the universe does not presuppose a lack of change. You seem to think that if he stopped upholding it, it would just gradually decay. Why? Clearly, without God’s constant action, nothing would exist whatsoever except for God himself. Therefore, if the universe is decaying, this could not happen apart from God’s action either.
Similarly, even if parts of the universe are ceasing to exist, which does not appear to be the case, this would not affect my argument either, which is predicated upon the Scripture I cited. Attempting to refute the argument by an appeal to empirical evidence therefore automatically constitutes an attempt to refute the Scripture upon which it is based. Rather than implicitly trying to show that the passage itself is false, you would be better off trying to show that my understanding of it is.
But how did you infer the concept of “going unchanged” from my colloquial phrase “what keeps the universe […] going?” When have I ever even suggested that I think the universe is not changing, decaying, running down, subject to futility, or however you would like to describe it? It is like you are quoting me, but then writing a reply to someone else entirely.
That is a remarkable assertion, particularly since my previous post explicitly pointed out that causation doesn’t “just happen”. If God is the cause of all our existence, and decay is part of our existence, then God is the cause of the decay. Just as, if all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, then Socrates is mortal. Your argument commits a basic set error. To give an analogy, it is like saying that God created all of your body, but not your kidneys. Since your kidneys are a subset of your body, and your body was entirely created by God, that statement is simply wrong. Furthermore, who then did create your kidneys in my facetious analogy?
But my whole argument is predicated upon the fact that, if libertarian free will exists, then God must come to knowledge logically consequent to human actions. To phrase this as “he didn’t have knowledge to begin with” is a chronological expression, and so it fails to capture what is happening very well—however, yes, there is a still a logical situation present in which God acquires knowledge. But that is your problem; not mine; it is part of my argument! I certainly do deny that God acquires additional knowledge, or that anything he knows comes logically consequent to human actions. The very thrust of my argument was to demonstrate that knowledge is intrinsic to God, and that this therefore implies that it must be predicated upon his own actions. If his knowledge were predicated upon our actions, which is implied by libertarian free will, then it cannot be intrinsic to him. Not unless you think we can create something in the immutable God.
I’m sorry, but have you actually done any reading on this topic? How precisely does the physical pattern of photons create knowledge in our immaterial minds? You have just jumped from “photons are received by our eyes” to “so we acquire knowledge”. I trust you can see the very large hole between the two clauses; that is, the complete lack of explanatory power of your statement. You can’t just wave your hand and say “it just happens” when you are trying to give an explanation. It seems as if you hold to an empirical or naturalistic philosophy of mind, which I must say is a pretty outrageous thing for a professing Christian to do, but I’m prepared to accept that this is simply because you haven’t really studied or considered the topic before.
Another frankly outrageous assertion notably unsubstantiated by any kind of proof. Where do you find this in Scripture, which says that actually God upholds the universe by the word of his power (Heb 1:3), that in him all things hold together (Col 1:17), that in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), and shows us his micromanagement of all creation in Job 37-38?
None of the rest of your post seems to be underwritten by any attempt at argumentation either, and since my arguments above therefore stand, there seems little else that needs be said. I’m afraid that imaginative analogies do not suffice in place of scriptural and philosophical proofs.
Regards,
Bnonn
December 14, 2007 at 2:06 am
Starwind
Bnonn:
You have not. You have asserted such, but they are unsubstantiated assertions. You have assumed a priori an anthropomorphized and limited God who can’t know without causing, and only knows everything by causing everything. And yet, even I can know something without causing it; I can know what would tempt me without creating that which would tempt me. God can likewise know what tempts us without creating or causing the temptations:
If you are going to argue that God’s knowledge, even His foreknowledge, of our being tempted (as scripture clearly indicates we are) is predicated on God’s action, then demonstrate from scripture how you reconcile that:
– James teaches God does not tempt anyone, yet you argue God’s knowledge of temptations predicates the very action of temptation which James says God does not do.
– James teaches we are tempted by our own lust, yet you argue God’s knowledge of our lust predicates the very action of lusting which James says is ours, not Gods.
– Paul teaches God will not allow and provideds a means of escape from being tempted beyond what we can bear, yet you argue God’s knowledge of that temptation which we cannot bear predicates the very action of temptation which Paul says God will neither do nor allow.
Reconcile your argument that "God’s knowledge must be predicated upon his action" with the above verses that teach God prevents such action, yet God knows.
No you have not. You have only cited the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, which hardening Pharaoh himself initiated (Exo 8:15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and Exo 8:32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also) and pursued and then God finalized as per Pharaoh’s decisions (Exo 9:12 And the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart). Again, in terms of temptation, demonstrate from scripture that God’s actions predicated a temptation to Pharoah that Pharoah could not have initially withstood.
Indeed God foreknew Pharoah would harden his own heart and God used Pharoah’s yielding to temptation for God’s glory, but neither you nor scripture have demonstrated that God’s knowledge or foreknowledge was “predicated” on God’s actions.
I read your cites, but you have not provided the explication or exegesis that your cites actually support, let alone prove, your argument. And you will need to do so in a manner that does not introduce inconsistencies with other Biblical passages. For example, I earlier cited Paul’s persecution of Christians and wanting to take the gospel into Asia and God’s subsequent stopping of Paul, as examples of how, if Paul was first acting under God’s permissive will and then acting under God’s perfect will, both wills are God’s (regardless of labels) and both of God’s wills were in conflict with each other. God’s house can not be divided against itself, and similar to demonstrating how God’s actions do not predicate temptation you’ll also need to demonstrate how God’s knowledge of Paul’s inconsistent actions did not predicate God acting inconsistently.
The living parts that die and rot into their constituent elements? The inanimate parts that exhaust their nuclear fuel and collapse and go dark or explode and go dark? Elements decay into isotopes. Planets are torn and worn by gravitational forces. I listed examples of "parts" in my previous post. Perhaps the converse is more readily understood: which parts do you think are *not* decaying or dying and will exist eternally?
Why would God need to keep His Holy One from decay (Psa 16:10) if decay wasn’t an ever present reality? Why does Paul tell us our outer man is decaying (2Co 4:16) if decay wasn’t an ever present reality in this world. Why will heaven and earth pass away and be regenerated (Mat 19:28) and/or replaced (Rev 21:1) if not decayed? How many cites do you need? Even the so-called inert noble gases have half lives. You know our lives are shorter than the antediluvian patriarchs. How many "parts" decaying do you need before you’ll acknowledge the ongoing state of decay and their consequential death and ceasing to exist? Why does this even need to be spelled out?
Then why, when God rested from all His work on the seventh day (Gen 2:2-3), did the universe not come to a grinding halt and cease to exist? Did God need to recreate the universe after He rested? Did God really rest or was it only a coffee break? What saith scripture?
Does not appear to be the case? What planet are you on? Which part of “death”, “disease” and “decay” is not empirically evident to you? Will you seriously argue that which physically, materially decays and dies, nonetheless continues to exist?
Mere denial that death and decay don’t appear to be the case is hardly an argument. In addition to the above verses about decay here are couple on the inevitibility of death:
Your scriptural basis relied on figurative language, not literal. From “Heb 1:3 … and upholds all things by the word of His power” you misapplied the meaning of “upholds” to suit your argument. “Upholds” is translated from the Greek "phero" (Strong’s G5342) and means (as per Thayer) “to carry some burden; to move by bearing; to keep from falling; of Christ, the preserver of the universe; to endure; bring forward” The word is used only figuratively in the New Testament. It figuratively means Jesus bears the burden of governing, directing and taking care of (i.e being responsible for) all things. It does not mean Jesus materially is the underlying cause for photons to streak, electrons to spin, synapses to fire, etc. In no sense does the word convey “how God acquires knowledge” or a “kind of transaction between the event and the mind”. Further, God, who knows all things, can know that a sparrow falls without Himself being the cause of the sparrow falling (yes, you argue that God’s knowledge is causative, but you have not demonstrated how what God knows God must of necessity without exception also cause). This is a fallen world in which sparrows die, their bodies decay (are imperfect and become diseased and old) and die. Obviously Jesus is not “upholding” things to the extent that death and decay don’t exist and sparrows don’t fall.
That is why the language is figurative, not literal: Jesus is not "upholding" the world like some mythical Atlas with the world perched on His shoulders, exhaustively preventing every part from ceasing to exist. And that was precisely your argument. Your exact words were:
Well parts have in fact ceased to exist, both animate and inanimate. Your appeal to “upholds” in Heb 1.3 misconstrues its definition, and fails to reconcile with biblical examples of “parts” (men, heaven and earth) inevitably ceasing to exist as well as empirical observation.
A non-sequitur. Yes, God caused creation “in the beginning” but it was sin (man’s free will rebellion against God) that subsequently entered creation and caused decay (Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin …). You assert but have not proven either scripturally or logically that God is the cause of sin. That is where this disagreement pivots – on authorship of sin. You presume a priori that God caused or authors sin because He caused creation, but you ignore that God’s will is distinct and striving in opposition to man’s will (Gen 6:3); that freewill offerings are voluntary from the man’s heart (Exo 35:29, and others); and Paul even stated a man has free will (Phm 1:14). To make your argument you need to demonstrate, scripturally how those passages don’t present man having free will and scripturally how God causes sin and man’s decisions (instead of man’s free will), all without God causing unbearable temptation, being self-conflicted and dividing His house (take note of my post to Jamesco on God’s will vs Paul’s will above for the specific cites).
On this point of your asserting you have demonstrated from scripture that God causes sin without being the sinner, you wrote earlier:
It is not irrelevant. Pharaoh’s self-hardening goes right to the point that it was Pharaoh who freely sinned initially, that God did not cause it, and God further (through Moses’ miracles) gave Pharaoh several opportunities to repent, which God foreknew Pharaoh would ignore, and after Pharaoh repeatedly rebelled and hardened his own heart, God finalized it. But God did not create or cause Pharaoh to defy God, rather God accommodated Pharaoh’s self-hardening and permanently gave Pharaoh over to the consequences of his own choices.
I never argued God “didn’t have the knowledge to begin with” – that is a strawman. Rather, I’ve argued that what God foreknows of our decisions is a logical consequence of what decisions we make, decisions He delegated to us to make ourselves but God foreknows them temporally before (sequentially out of time) we make our decisions. God’s foreknowledge is both atemporal and logically consequential. My exact refutation was "how God comes to knowledge presumes He didn’t have it to begin with (a false presumption)" i.e. God does have all knowledge to begin with, that God does not need to acquire knowledge. God is timeless, eternal and outside of our 4-D spacetime. Because He is atemporal, His foreknowledge precedes our temporally constrained awareness. But God’s foreknowledge (in so far as our choices are involved) is also a logical consequence of our decisions. He knows what we will decide. If we reject Christ, He foreknew and we are already condemned. If we accept Christ, He foreknew and we are justified and we are elect and our names are in the Lamb’s book of life. Further, logically consequent to our acceptance, God commensurately proceeds to transform and sanctify, but those don’t happen prior (either temporally or logically) to acceptance but as a consequence of it, a consequence God foreknew but a consequence nonetheless conditioned on our decision. If we decide other, God logically and atemporally is aware of other. But God’s foreknowledge in and of itself is not causative. God want’s me to choose life, but He expects me to decide. He tells everyone to choose life (Deu 30:19), knowing that many will instead freely reject Him (Mat 7:13).
Let’s accept, hypothetically, for the sake of argument that knowledge is intrinsic to God.
Here then is the non-sequitur. God’s intrinsic knowledge commensurately reflects our decisions/actions (as previously demonstrated) because God atemporally and as a logical consequence knows our decisions/actions and responds commensurately. But our free decision/action in no way diminished His intrinsic knowledge. His intrinsic knowledge already included what we would decide or not decide. His intrinsic knowledge was complete and neither diminished nor increased regardless of which choice we made. His foreknowledge and omniscience was and remains complete and perfect, whatever we choose.
Moreover, granting, hypothetically, that all of man’s “knowledge” comes from God first, knowledge is not a zero-sum concept. God’s intrinsic knowledge didn’t decrease by imparting some knowledge to men. Nor did God’s intrinsic knowledge decrease by delegating free will to men either, because God foreknows what our decisions and actions will be, and He can know them (atemporally) without needing to cause them (temporally).
Foreknowing is not causative, and no impairment of God’s intrinsic knowledge is implied by libertarian free will. All coexist in His sovereignty and perfect foreknowledge and omniscience.
Nor can you just wave your hand and say we don’t acquire knowledge when we read something. If you’re going to argue that we can’t understand what we sense without God doing it for us, then the burden of proof remains on you as you are making the extraordinary and unconventional claim; you need to make the scriptural case that God does our thinking and learning for us. God says His Spirit will not strive against man forever (Gen 6:3). Against what, precisely, in man is God’s Spirit striving, especially if (as you assert) it is God that does all of man’s thinking for him?
Scripture declares God made us, in His own image (an image that doesn’t specify needing constant sustaining or upholding) and breathed life into us, one-time (He didn’t put us on a respirator); we multiply and reproduce in that same "image"; that the earth was designed to continually grow food for all (without needing constant sustaining or upholding); that God formed our inward parts, knit our bones and sinews together, in the womb, and that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (not made needing constant sustaining or upholding):
Would antediluvian life not simply have died had God stopped “upholding” them? Why drown them unless, without God taking some adverse action, they would have continued to live?
As previously noted about Heb 1.3, Col 1:17 is likewise a figurative passage, similar to Joh 1:3 “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being”. These passages teach the divinity, sovereignty and supremacy of Jesus, not a bodily physiological dependency. In Job 37 is Elihu speaking and you ought not base any doctrine on Elihu. In Job 38, God is anthropomorphizing His creative acts for Job’s comprehension to demonstrate how insignificant is Job relative to God.
None of these passages teach that God literally causes our bodies to function moment by moment and without which all parts exhaustively cease to exist. Yes, we are sustained in that the things our bodies need for life (air, food, warmth, shelter, protection from the enemy, stable planet, spiritual leading) are provided directly and indirectly by Him. You may argue that He indirectly sustains life in general by supplying what is needed, and that is certianly true, but supplying what He designed our bodies to require does not negate that He designed, formed and breathed life into them, and like the antediluvians, as long as the required corequsites for life are supplied, our bodies will function (albeit imperfectly in a fallen state) until they are killed or decay.
December 14, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
I appreciate the time you took to respond, but I think you have missed the primary argument I was making. This has led you off onto a number of exegetical and rhetorical tangents which, while important, aren’t really relevant at this stage. I will reply briefly to a couple of them, but I would mostly like to concentrate on the initial argument.
No; this is why I think you have missed, or at least, misunderstood, what my argument was. I am not attempting to place limitations on God, or to make a priori assumptions about his nature, except the assumption of his transcendence. I think we would agree that, by definition, that does not imply any anthropomorphizing or limitations.
What I have said is that, by merit of the fact that knowledge is transcendent, and by merit of the fact that it implies a mind, it must be the case that all knowledge originates in a transcendent mind. I have given scriptural evidence which shows that, indeed, all knowledge finds its origin in the mind of God. That is one of the concepts implicit in the logos of John 1. I am not certain whether or not you agree with me here, but I think you do. The alternative is that knowledge in some way exists apart from God, which implies a higher transcendent mind (if there can be such a thing as a “higher transcendent”). Obviously this is a conclusion with which we would both disagree. However, if you feel that I am in some way missing something regarding the origin of knowledge, please say so.
Now the problem for you is that you believe, because it is a necessary condition of libertarian free will, that God’s knowledge of our actions is predicated upon those actions themselves. His knowledge comes logically consequent to them. But there is an obvious incongruity here. If all knowledge has its origin in God, it must in some sense by “created” by him, to quote the Septuagint on Proverbs 8:22. There is an active principle involved. Again, this is corroborated by what the logos is in John 1. However, how can we say that God “creates” knowledge of our actions if it comes logically consequent to the actions themselves? Is it not, in fact, the case that the actions somehow “create” knowledge in God? I think this is quite a serious difficulty; indeed, I would characterize it as an insurmountable contradiction between the nature of God, and the nature of libertarian free will. Since the nature of God is clearly taught in Scripture, but libertarian free will is not, we ought therefore to discard the latter.
Let me use something else you said to phrase this problem of knowledge a little differently:
But this implies necessarily that creation logically precedes God’s omniscience. I haven’t actually worked out the full implications of this myself, but surely you would agree that it sounds problematic to say that something immutable, non-contingent, and eternal is predicated upon something mutable, contingent, and temporary?
In any case, the problem does not just end there. There is also a real dilemma surrounding God’s knowledge of counterfactuals. I presume that you would agree that God does not just have definite and exhaustive knowledge of things that are, but also definite and exhaustive knowledge of things that could be. Ie, God’s knowledge is not limited to factuals, but extends to counterfactuals. However, surely you would also agree that, since God’s knowledge of human actions occurs logically consequent to those actions occurring, he could therefore have no knowledge whatsoever of actions which will never occur? For example, God does not, and cannot know whether I would choose chocolate or cheese in some given circumstance which has never happened and will never happen. If you think that God would know which I’d choose, then you will have to explain why. After all, if his knowledge is predicated upon human actions, then he cannot have any knowledge of actions which don’t occur.
This has some pretty serious ramifications for the concept of God having plans for history. For example, how can he implement a plan of redemption if his foreknowledge is simply a knowledge of what has happened in the future? Wouldn’t this, in fact, imply that he is already too late (even “before the foundation of the world”) to make any plans at all? One wonders how he could even act at all, at least without “changing history”. And even if he did that, since he cannot know what would happen, given some circumstance or other that he might bring about, how would he go about achieving his objectives? Does he make a change in the past to see how it propagates through to the future, and just play around until he achieves what he wants? I suppose he has all eternity, after all. But this doesn’t seem very likely.
More importantly, Scripture indicates that God does indeed have counterfactual knowledge of human decisions. Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13 indicate that Tyre and Sidon would have repented if Jesus had performed in them the works he performed in Chorazin and Bethsaida. I assume that you would affirm that these passages should be interpreted as a mere guess on Jesus’ part? An educated guess, perhaps? Is he merely making a rhetorical statement devoid of any real truth? How do you justify such an interpretation from the text itself?
Anyway, I don’t want to spend too much time on the manifold ways in which this argument can be developed into absurd conclusions that the Arminian is (presumably) unwilling to accept. I had thought of writing much more, and I think an investigation of the problems inherent in Acts 2:23 would be interesting, but it is the sort of situation where each new conclusion leads to yet another, even more ridiculous one, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to belabor the point. I’d prefer to briefly wrap up by responding to a couple of other things you have said:
You also say that John 1:3 is figurative. What exactly do you mean by that? Do you think that God did not literally create the world through Jesus? What does a figurative creation then entail? Similarly, what does it mean for Jesus to be figuratively upholding the universe by the word of his power? You have asserted that phero is only used figuratively in the New Testament, but even in the case of Hebrews 1:3 there is no evidence in the text, or the semantic range of the word itself, that this is the case. What authority do you cite in support of this view? Phero is a primary verb, meaning literally ‘to carry’ or ‘bear’ or ‘move with oneself’ (Crosswalk, ‘phero‘). You rightly point out that it is used “of Christ, the preserver of the universe”. But you offer no argumentation to support your interpretation of “preserver” as figurative language. Although you accuse me of making a priori assumptions, I cannot see how you yourself have not just assumed from the outset that this must be figurative, and that it has nothing to do with God’s active power in continuing the existence of all things.
Speaking of which—
I must confess that, given my knowledge of what happens to souls after death, and of the laws of thermodynamics, your question just doesn’t make sense. Perhaps you could define precisely which things you believe “cease to exist”, and in what way? I am not denying that death and decay occur. I am simply denying that anything in the universe actually stops existing. (I know that the whole current universe will be destroyed before the beginning of the new heaven and new earth, and I presume that this entails it ceasing to exist, minus the people in it—but that is a future event.) Please understand, though, that I am speaking in the fundamental sense. The only way I can see that you might have misunderstood me is if you have confused the idea of change with the idea of non-existence; or, perhaps a better way to put it, you are talking about relative non-existence while I am talking about absolute non-existence. Perhaps you mean that some things cease to exist as those things? If so, well, I agree—but it doesn’t engage with my point, which was that God upholds the universe, including all of its laws and motions, which obviously includes the cycle of death and decay which began with the fall.
The other items you have mentioned may bear discussion later on, but I think that getting into them now is premature. We need to focus on and resolve the problem of knowledge which I have raised, before we can start to investigate the implications it may have.
Regards,
Bnonn
December 15, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
I agree God is transcendent, but that is an inadequate description for purposes of this discussion. I maintain that you have unwittingly placed human limitations on God, but I will pursue your line of reasoning for now and return to this point later.
No, knowledge per se is not transcendent. God is transcendent, yes. God has knowledge, yes. Some knowledge such as foreknowledge, prophecy, and spiritual information are transcendent, yes. God has transcendent knowledge, yes. But not all knowledge is transcendent.
God knows that 2+2=4, as do we, and that is not transcendent. You might argue hypothetically that our knowledge that 2+2=4 came from God, but regardless upon our awareness it unarguably ceased to be transcendent. At a minimum, this is true of all knowledge we have, none of our knowledge is transcendent. Knowledge in and of itself is not transcendent, though it can be possessed by a transcendent being, but likewise such possession does not bestow “transcendency” upon it.
transcendency is an attribute of the knower, not of knowledge (a special case being recognized for that known exclusively by a transcendent being, and even then it is relative; what angels know is “transcendent knowledge” might be relative to us but not relative to God).
But origination does not equate to transcendency.
Knowledge may originate with God but when it is subsequently shared, such shared knowledge is neither transcendent nor original. I know that 2+2=4 and I can teach 2+2=4 to a student at which point the student also knows 2+2=4 and that knowledge did not originate in a transcendent mind. It was promulgated from my non-transcendent mind to their non-transcendent mind. My “copy” and the student’s “copy” of the knowledge that 2+2=4 might have originated with God in the beginning, but myriad copies of that now common knowledge are shared at present amongst non-transcendent minds.
There are two kinds of sequences involved in foreknowledge: “chronological” (timelike, temporally constrained) and “logical” (cause and effect).
God in His transcendent state foreknows all my decisions chronologically before I know them, and He knows them logically consequent to my knowing them: God knew I would write these words chronologically before I wrote them, and He observed what I wrote logically after (as a consequence of) my writing them. He foreknew both what I would write and what I would not write. He foreknew all outcomes, including the outcome I chose (which choice He delegated to me). God’s atemporal foreknowledge transcends and chronologically precedes my temporal knowledge (He knew before what I now know I wrote), but God’s foreknowledge is also logically conditioned on what I wrote (He knew my result before I did but commensurate with my choice).
Logically, my choice to write “Alpha” causes “Alpha” to be written and the commensurate effect is God foreknowing I would write “Alpha”. Were God to logically observe a different effect (some word other than “Alpha”), His foreknowledge would be incorrect, and neither of us believes that. God’s foreknowledge of our decisions/actions is in fact logically consequent upon our actual decisions/actions; were it not so, God would be mistaken.
Correctly (perfectly) observing an effect consistent with its cause is arguably a logical “dependency” but that is neither a pejorative nor a limitation. It is not a sovereign or providential dependency – God is not dependent upon us in any way. But effects are necessarily dependent upon causes, and God has delegated to us the freedom to be causative in our choices, and the commensurate effects God observes and foreknows perfectly. The Bible is replete with examples of if-then-else logical cause/effect dependencies. God states a conditional and warns of consequential results. If God did not correctly correlate the conditions and the dependent results random arbitrariness and injustice would reign. But God has no dispute (nor are there any theological or doctrinal problems) with His judgments being logically consequent (“dependent” if you insist) to man’s acts of rebellion or obedience, as the case may be.
In all God remains sovereign. He can intervene and compel us anytime He chooses; His foreknowledge remains perfect, His omniscience remains complete. It would be illogically inconsistent for God to not know our choices “after” we make them.
This is a false dichotomy. Yes knowledge exist apart from God. I can have my own “copy” of the knowledge that 2+2=4, but in and of itself that neither implies a higher transcendent mind (other things testify to that high transcendent mind, but knowledge per se isn’t one of them), and while there obviously is such a thing as a “higher transcendent”, it is not knowledge that distinguishes transcendency.
Knowledge is merely knowledge – a passive database if you will. God’s is fully complete and contains kinds of knowledge (foreknowledge, spiritual knowledge) that our database will never have. But there is a shared subset of “common” knowledge like 2+2=4 that may have at one time originated with God, but now is possessed by us as well and exists apart from God. There is also the “knowledge of good & evil”, now possessed by us as well (in disobedience to God’s command). None of which makes us transcendent, nor God any less transcendent.
But God does not need to “recreate” every copy of whatever knowledge He has shared with us. The knowledge I have does not need to be exclusively recreated by God for my use. I can acquire a shared copy of knowledge from another non-transcendent source – I can read my Bible, I can attend a school. Even if, hypothetically, all knowledge had its origin in God and was “created” by Him, that does not equate to all “copies” of what is now “common” knowledge (like 2+2=4 or the knowledge of good and evil) necessarily being doled out exclusively by God to each individual. He expects us to learn. Again the bible is replete with admonitions to learn, to acquire knowledge, wisdom, to take instruction and teaching from our parents (e.g. Proverbs).
Quite simply, “knowledge” per se is not transcendent, and does not need to be “exclusively created by a transcendent being. We can “create” knowledge in so far as we can know what we do, what we choose. I can write “Alpha” and thereby create my knowledge of it, and God in His foreknowledge can know beforehand that I would and know logically what I wrote commensurate with my writing.
The “omniderigent” nature of God (the view you are defending) is *not* clearly taught in scripture (as you’ve yet to provide and explicate in a consistent fashion any cites to support your assertion) and free will most clearly is (I’m not sure that the label “libertarian” distinguishes anything, nor am I certain what distinction you draw from it) as evidenced by the cites I have provided above, which you deem tangential when it doesn’t suit your argument yet freely assert when you try to buttress your argument. I consequently expect you to address the biblical inconsistencies with your argument I’ve raised in my previous post – they obviously aren’t tangential, are they.
Several false dichotomies and premises in there. “Creation” (as in Genesis 1) was entirely of God causing. He planned it, He foreknew it, and as it unfurled He was omniscient of all of it. The concept of “precedence” is introduced when time and mankind is introduced. As far as God is concerned, outside of time and creation) there is no precedence. There is only precedence relative to our temporal awareness (He knows before we know) and our actions (He not only foreknows our actions, He knows how we act commensurate with our acting). I’ve elaborated on this earlier in this post.
That “something” predicated is knowledge (passive data or information in the purest sense of the term). What is known to that “immutable, non-contingent, and eternal” being yes is logically predicated on a mutable, contingent, and temporary “creation”. When God created “light” even mutable, contingent, and temporary “light”, then “light” is what God knows, predicately, commensurately. If God creates an inanimate process “nuclear fusion in stars” even mutable, contingent, and temporary “nuclear fusion in stars”, then “nuclear fusion in stars” (and all its contingent states and results) is what God knows commensurately. If God creates an animate process “human decision making” even mutable, contingent, and temporary “human decision making”, then “human decision making” (and all our contingent thoughts and choices) is what God knows commensurately.
God’s knowledge (foreknowledge or omniscience) is not limited or impaired by His creation, be it static, dynamic, inanimate or animate. But God is logically consequentially aware of what His creation is and does, would be and would do, isn’t and won’t do.
Agreed.
Disagree. Here is where you anthropomorphize and limit God. God can and does perfectly know actions which will never occur. Again He is outside our 4-D spacetime. He has foreknowledge of futures that won’t occur (such as the miracles not performed in Tyre and Sidon (Mat 11:21 & Luk 10:13), and no, Jesus was not guessing. He (or at least His divinity) knew for a fact.
But let’s consider the converse as it applies to your argument.
God expressly, explicitly, scripturally declares His knowledge of miracles *not* performed in Tyre and Sidon and repentance *not* made in Chorazin and Bethsaida. Your assertion is that:
Here then:
– in Tyre and Sidon, are predicate actions that God did not take (miracles not performed), and yet God has knowledge of unpredicated actions (miracles not performed and repentance that would have been made) in contravention to your assertion that God’s knowledge *must be predicated* upon his action.
– in Chorazin and Bethsaida, the people did *not* act (repentance was not made), and yet God has knowledge of predicated actions (miracles were performed, the repentance He desired) in contravention to your assertion that everything must be predicated upon his action – God took predicate action (miracles were performed in Chorazin and Bethsaida) and yet God did not “know” their repentance (but rather the opposite).
God’s inaction in Tyre and Sidon to *not* perform miracles did not impair (did not predicate) His knowledge of repentance that would have been made in Tyre and Sidon. God’s predicate action in Chorazin and Bethsaida to perform the same miracles did not result in God “knowing” their repentance. In both cases, God is the same immutable, foreknowing, sovereign God knowing the same miracles. The difference is the people and how they exercised their free will; unrepentant in Chorazin and Bethsaida, (potentially) repentant in Tyre and Sidon.
Disagree. Again, here is where you anthropomorphize and limit God. God can and does foreknow what flavor you will and won’t choose. He Declares the end from the beginning and things which have not been done (Isa 46:10, and also Mat 11:21 & Luk 10:13); God is greater than our heart and knows all things (1Jn 3:20); He knows our thoughts before we speak them (Psa 139:2-4). His knowledge is logically consequential to our actions, but chronologically precedes our actions. I can’t explain how God foreknows – time itself is the least understood and most constraining of all empirical parameters. But I have pointed to the scriptural evidence that God says He foreknows. He either knows in advance or He doesn’t. He either knows what choice you will make or He doesn’t. He says He does, and He says the choices are yours, not imposed or implanted by Him.
I disagree with Arminian theology as well as Calvinist, “Berean” is the best label for my beliefs, as limiting as labels are.
The AMG Complete Word Study Dictionary:
G5342
phérō; fut. oísō, aor. ḗnegka, aor. pass. ēnéchthēn, obsolete form oíō (G3634a), to bring, carry. To bear, bring.
(I) Particularly to bear as a burden, bear up, have or take upon oneself. In the NT, only figuratively.
(A) To bear up under or with, to endure, e.g., evils, with the acc. (Rom_9:22; Heb_12:20; Heb_13:13; Sept.: Gen_36:7; Deu_1:12; Eze_34:29; Eze_36:15).
(B) To bear up something, uphold, have in charge, to direct, govern, with the acc. (Heb_1:3; Sept.: Num_11:14; Deu_1:9).
That is Thayer’s (still figurative) elaboration on definition I ‘to bear up’:
G5342
phérō;
1c) to bear up, i.e. uphold (keep from falling)
1c1) of Christ, the preserver of the universe
“Figurative” refers to “figure of speech” as opposed to literal speech. I gave you an example in the mythical Atlas who literally had the world (a globe) perched on his shoulders, whereas figuratively Jesus does not. When the Bible says the government will be on Jesus’ shoulders, it doesn’t mean administrative buildings and rulings and courtrooms will be physically perched on the back of His neck, rather it means He will bear the responsibility and authority. The same word is translated “carry” in “Luk 23:26 … and placed on [Simon of Cyrene] the cross to carry [G5342 phérō] behind Jesus” and here the language is literal, not figurative ,in that Simon of Cyrene literally carried Jesus’ cross (or perhaps the patibulum).
The distinction between figurative and literal language in your appeal to Heb 1.3, is important because you are making very literal argument, that Jesus literally “upholds every part of the universe, exhaustively, moment to moment (or those parts would cease to exist)” even to the point where you further assert Heb 1.3 (inter alia) implies our physical bodies not able to function independently on a materialistic level without Jesus doing something to keep them alive. That is a very literal argument and it requires literal support. It might be a true argument (maybe Jesus does do something physiologically, moment by moment, to keep us alive) but Heb 1.3 doesn’t provide that literal support. It is figurative.
Jesus figuratively ‘preserves and upholds all things by the the power of His word’ in the same sense the US president figuratively ‘preserves and upholds the constitution by the power of his office’. Figurative language does not mean the president hermetically seals in a glass case the US constitution (the document) and holds it over his head. Likewise the figurative language of Heb 1.3 does not mean that Jesus prevents physical decay and physically carries everything on the force of his spoken breath. Again, just to be absolutely clear, it might be that Jesus does exactly that, but the figurative language of Heb 1.3 not the literal proof required of a literal argument.
That cuts both ways. My cites of God making us in His image, being fearfully and wonderfully made, are likewise figurative language and in and of themselves are weak proof that we are designed to physiologically function independently of some external support, which is why I buttressed my point with empirical observations and acknowledged the need for life-sustaining corequisites (air, food, etc).
The difference between your argument and my refutation is that yours is an unusual assertion contradicted by experience and scripture (God resting from creation, the flood to kill all life), whereas mine is commonly observed and implied by scripture generally in that what we commonly experience as self-sustaining biological life is commonly reflected in scripture. Your assertion might be right, but Heb 1.3 will not make your case and inconsistenices with your assertion need to be reconciled by you, at which point Heb 1.3 would be supportive of your case because the figurative language does not negate what you are literally arguing, the figurative language merely in and of itself is inadequate proof of a literal argument.
Disagree. I have patiently and studiously responded to all of your challenges. I have neither deferred nor dismissed any, and I have pointed out the relevancy of my challenges to the core of your argument; that man has no free will, that whatever God knows God must cause or be predicated on God’s actions, and that God can cause sin without being the author of sin.
I herewith reiterate and anticipate your responses to all the following:
God the Father’s permissive will caused, ordained or willed Paul (imperfectly) to persecute Christians and take the gospel to Asia while God the Son’s and God the Spirit’s perfect will caused, ordained or willed Paul to stop persecuting Christians and not take the gospel to Asia. Contradictory wills, both ultimately God’s. As Paul had no free will of His own, in all cases God either permissively or perfectly caused, ordained or willed Paul’s contradictory decisons and such self-contradictions divide God’s house against itself.
If you are going to argue that God’s knowledge, even His foreknowledge, of our being tempted (as scripture clearly indicates we are) is predicated on God’s action, then demonstrate from scripture how you reconcile that:
– James teaches God does not tempt anyone, yet you argue God’s knowledge of temptations predicates the very action of temptation which James says God does not do.
– James teaches we are tempted by our own lust, yet you argue God’s knowledge of our lust predicates the very action of lusting which James says is ours, not Gods.
– Paul teaches God will not allow and provideds a means of escape from being tempted beyond what we can bear, yet you argue God’s knowledge of that temptation which we cannot bear predicates the very action of temptation which Paul says God will neither do nor allow.
– in Tyre and Sidon, are predicate actions that God did not take (miracles not performed), and yet God has knowledge of unpredicated actions (miracles not performed and repentance that would have been made) in contravention to your assertion that God’s knowledge *must be predicated* upon his action.
– in Chorazin and Bethsaida, the people did *not* act (repentance was not made), and yet God has knowledge of predicated actions (miracles were performed, the repentance He desired) in contravention to your assertion that everything must be predicated upon his action – God took predicate action (miracles were performed in Chorazin and Bethsaida) and yet God did not “know” their repentance (but rather the opposite).
December 15, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Starwind
All:
I should clarify I disagree with Open View theology as well, at least in so far as I understand its meager defense to date.
And a correction:
should be
December 16, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
Firstly, with regard to transcendence. I’m not sure from what epistemology you are operating, but it seems to be a naturalistic one—which by definition is opposed to biblical metaphysics. Perhaps you could clarify. In any case, I am using the term “transcendent” to speak of things which are not a part of the material universe. In this regard, all knowledge is transcendent. Furthermore, “copies” of knowledge, if you would like to use this terminology, are still only reflections of an ultimate transcendental fact. They are not independent of the fact they describe, as a copy of a document is independent of the original. They are wholly dependent, in the way that a reflection is dependent on the object it is reflecting. The equation 2+2=4 would mean nothing if God did not exist. Even if the “copy” of knowledge remained in our minds, it would be meaningless. Logic itself is rooted in the mind of God and would not exist without him. Again, I would point you in the direction of the logos. It is not just that God knows that 2+2=4; rather, 2+2=4 because God knows it. You keep asserting that knowledge is an independent thing from God, without justifying this honestly very strange belief; nor apparently recognizing the significant epistemic and metaphysical problems it causes; nor engaging with the scriptural evidence I have given showing that knowledge is actually intrinsic to him.
Secondly—
I don’t really need to say much else at this point. You have yourself admitted that your god is logically contingent upon his own creation. I mean no offense, but this is self-evidently absurd. If the logos is immutable and non-contingent, then how can it be logically dependent upon mutable and contingent things? If God is indeed simple, and if he is indeed non-contingent, then how can there be a part of him (his knowledge of creation) which is contingent? Your philosophy appears to be very confused.
Thirdly—
You just assert this, sans argumentation. You have not dealt with my reasoning which shows that, if God only knows human decisions logically consequent to their occurring, it is a simple matter of definition to say that he does not know human decisions which will never occur. His knowledge is contingent upon reality (see point 2 above). This is obviously absurd in and of itself (see point 2 above); but it leads to other problems, such as this one. You are welcome to keep saying “disagree” and “you are anthropomorphizing and limiting God”, in place of argumentation (or even any proof that this is indeed what I am doing, which clearly it is not). But I don’t expect anyone reading this will find that very convincing.
Fourthly, regarding God’s knowledge of counterfactuals in my own theology. You are correct: I was imprecise in my statement that God’s knowledge must be predicated upon his action. I was speaking in the context of factuals; but, to broaden the statement to reference all of God’s knowledge, we can say that it is predicated upon how he will, or would, act. I would have thought that was implicitly clear, though, by merit of the fact that I affirm that knowledge is intrinsic to him.
Finally, and very briefly, to address your ancillary concerns:
I would simply suggest that you do some reading of good Reformed theologians with regard to God’s perfect and permissive will. You seem to think that having complex intentions somehow makes God “divided”. I disagree; you are anthropomorphizing and limiting God. If God has the ultimate goal of his own glory, which requires that he create “vessels of wrath” so as to reveal his holiness in all its manifest ways (mercy, justice, wrath, jealousness, love, faithfulness, etc), that does not mitigate the fact that one aspect of his holiness (love) by definition entails that he desires all men be saved—even though he has intended from eternity to save only some. Why do you deny that God can have multiple intentions which are all harmonious with his nature?
As regards James, I don’t see what relevance this has. James is not speaking in the primary metaphysical context. He is not even making a metaphysical statement at all. He is talking about our being tempted by our own desires, so as to ensure that we don’t attempt to weasel out by blaming God. This does not deny that, if God is causing all things, and we are tempted by our own desires, then God causes this to occur. But the fact remains that we are tempted, by our desires (regardless of their ultimate cause). You seem to be conflating remote and proximate causes. This applies equally to your citation of Paul.
As regards phero, I cannot speak for the general usefulness of the AMG Complete Word Study Dictionary, but I can’t say as it looks terribly trustworthy given this fairly serious error. It even seems to contradict itself when it lists “bear up” as a purely figurative definition, as you yourself admit in citing Simon’s bearing of the cross. Furthermore, why does it confine Jesus’ work in upholding the universe to this specific sense? Look at Matthew 7:18. Does a tree literally or figuratively produce (phero) fruit? Look at Matthew 14:11. Look at Luke 5:18. Were the men literally or figuratively carrying the paralyzed man on his bed; and did they literally or figuratively bring him in? Even in Hebrews, did Christ make a literal or a figurative purification for sins (Heb 1:3, the very same verse)? I do not at all deny that phero can be used figuratively; nor do I even deny that it has a figurative sense in Hebrews 1:3. What I deny is that it is purely figurative in a way which precludes its obvious, literal (metaphysical; not physical) meaning. God does not “uphold” the world in the same way the president upholds the constitution. The analogy makes no sense, because the constitution is not a physical thing. Rather, God “upholds” and “moves” and “carries” the universe in a metaphysical sense, as a ship does physically a person. Similarly, God “produces” and “bears” the universe metaphysically, as a tree physically does a fruit.
Regards,
Bnonn
December 16, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
Mea culpa. That was poorly worded on my part, not AMG’s. I had written:
but I should have written:
Here is the entire AMG entry on phero:
I only gave the relevant snippet of definition (I), (IA) and (IB) in response to your request for my authority, you now have the full entry which illustrates the other usages, many figurative, many literal as we both noted but the usage in Heb 1.3 is figurative and I already explained why with examples. AMG deserved to be exhonerated of my phrasing error.
Because you persist in conflating immutable with unconditional, and conflating God’s attributes about Himself with His judgements toward His creation. God is immutable, His creation is not. His judgements are conditioned on the mutable response of His creation. He conditions which judgement He would met out commensurate with the response of those subjected to judgement. He does this every time the phrase “If you will ….” or “If you will not …”. If they repent or not (mutability) then His judgement is conditioned on obedience or disobedience, as He sovereignly determined, and foreknew which condition would be satisfied.
Or will you deny that “if” means “if”? Will you now argue that “if” does not connote a contingency but rather means “regardless”? Or perhaps all passages containing God’s contingent warnings or exhortations are just irrelevant to your theology.
Your “reasoning” (to be charitable) was dealt with succinctly by scripture passages cited and the accompanying explication. You just ignored it, again:
God doesn’t know them only logically. He also foreknows them atemporally and He also knows the “counterfactuals” (to borrow your term). And as I’ve pointed out, He knew the miracles *not* performed in Tyre and Sidon and the repentance in sack cloth and ashes that would have occurred – i.e. He does know human decisions which will never occur (e.g. the repentance that never occurred in Tyre and Sidon). Your “simple matter of definition” is unarguably wrong on the face of this passage alone. (good grief, open your eyes)
But that went right over your head, again, didn’t it. Everything seems to likewise go right over your head.
I don’t deny it. I cited conditional passages where God has multiple intentions, conditioned on obedience or disobedience. Go buy a clue.
What I deny is that your assertions are harmonius with scripture. I deny your ability to demonstrate the harmony of your assertions of His omniderigent nature against the scriptural passages I’ve cited.
But then you weren’t asked if you did, were you. More relevant at this point is your refusal to demonstrate the harmony of your assertions with the passages cited.
Don’t just claim harmony. Show us the harmony. Show how the passages I’ve cited demonstrate harmony with your omniderigent assertions.
Your “reasoning” is flawed. The flaws have been repeatedly contrasted by biblical passages with which you refuse to harmonize your flawed reasoning. You disingenuously dismiss them as “irrelevant” or deflect to other uncited sources and appeals to your own authority.
You have no intellectual standing at this point to expect any further responses. When you can be honest enough to address the challenges in at least as much detail and specificity as they have been put to you, I’ll continue and further address your arguments. Otherwise, your evasions will not be further accommodated.
December 17, 2007 at 2:24 am
bethyada
Starwind, while I in general agree with your take on this matter, I do not think Bnonn lacks intellectual standing, read his blog, it is well written and outside the Calvinist debate you may find some of his stuff interesting.
Bnonn, while I follow the gist of your argument (your command of English is better than mine, me being more of a scientist), a lot of what you are suggesting is a logical consequent of what you find in Scripture. I would argue, as Starwind already has, that because your conclusions contradict Scripture (at least that is how we see it) you need to review your arguments or your premises.
God may be omniscient, omnipotent, transcendent, simple and a host of other things, but we gain this knowledge based on Scripture. And even these things have caveats. Reasonable people define omnipotence to be capable of doing that which is logically possible, not impossible. But even that does not cover everything, God cannot lie but we can, so one could say there are some things we can do that God cannot.
What I propose is that there is much more Scripture (by a long way) that talks about men having to repent. The if/ then clauses that Starwind mentioned than there is about things like simpleness. If that is the case then possibly the former is of greater concern, and perhaps we can know more about this aspect of God that other characteristics that we can know acurately, but only in part.
Starwind
Bnonn
You appear to perceive that “simplicity” of God is of greater value than his “responsiveness” whereas Starwind places greater value on the later. I would argue that given the later is so repetative in Scripture that if there is a logical problem then maybe our understanding of simplicity is not fully scriptural. If it is scriptural then perhaps the argument needs work.
Though I haven’t fully thought this thru I wonder if the problem is making the knowledge God has part of his nature (like omnipotence). Just like omnipotence is incorrect if it includes power to do the illogical, I would argue that omniscience can also be incorrect if it is too broad.
Omniscience I see as the capability of knowing everything that can be known. I do not see it as deterministic.
If you claim this definition for omniscience, that God’s knowledge is based on him determining all, then I must deny that I think God has that quality.
December 17, 2007 at 2:28 am
bethyada
The if/ then clauses that Starwind mentioned than there is about things like simpleness.
There are more if/ then clauses (in the Bible) that Starwind mentioned than there are passages about things like simpleness.
December 17, 2007 at 8:21 am
Starwind
Bethyada, Bnonn:
When I wrote Bnonn has “no intellectual standing at this point to expect any further responses” I mean Bnonn has foregone any entitlement to have his arguments addressed.
The issue is not his ability to write. The issue is his unwillingness to respond, in kind.
His hypocrisy in demanding that his cites and arguments be “engaged” while he studiously evades the challenges put to him is intolerable in intellectual discourse.
December 17, 2007 at 10:06 am
Starwind
Bethyada:
FWIW, here are examples of Bnonn’s hypocrisy to escape ruinous scrutiny.
Bnonn writes:
And yet, James teaches:
and Paul teaches:
Bnonn asserts God causes all things, included being tempted by our own desires, that God ultimately causes us to be tempted, and yet James says God does *not* tempt anyone.
Bnonn asserts God’s actions are predicated upon God’s knowledge both factual and counterfactual, and yet Paul teaches that God will not allow temptation we cannot withstand, which would be a counterfactual temptation which inturn predicates God’s action of tempting us beyond what we can bear.
Bnonn asserts an unbiblical distinction between remote and proximate causes, but contradictorily rejects the same distinction between remote and proximate knowledge, but then relies upon the same distinction between remote (perfect) and proximate (permissive) wills, but will argue they are all instrinsic to God and none held by man. The only real immutable distinction is between man and God, and yet Bnonn equivocates and vacillates; imputing part of what Bnonn asserts is intrinsic to only God inconsistently to man, endeavoring to make man responsible for what only God is and does, as Bnonn asserts.
In response to my challenge regarding God’s self-conflicted permissive and perfect wills, Bnonn asserts:
The scriptural passages with which I challenged Bnonn demonstrate God’s two opposing wills reflected in Paul’s actions. Bnonn superficially (and thoughtlessly) asserts God can create “vessels of wrath” implicity of Paul. Well, was Paul then a “vessel of wrath” who became a “vessel of honor”? Where is Bnonn’s explication of God’s immutability in Paul’s contradictory and self-dividing actions and type of vessel.?
Bnonn asserts:
And then in the very next paragraph blunders with:
Bnonn blithely presupposes his “reasoning” to be “implicitly clear”, and yet Bnonn himself can’t reason consistently, even in adjacent paragraphs: Does God have knowledge of counterfactuals such as human decisions which will never occur, yes or no? Which is it Bnonn – what is your reformed theology du jour?.
December 17, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
The challenge again was for you to demonstrate, to harmonize, God’s immutability, permissive will, perfect will, foreknowledge predicating all God’s actions, and man’s lack of free will with the passages cited. The challenge was for you to affirmatively demonstrate what you do think, not obscure what I don’t think.
Luk 11:17-20 But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against
itself falls. 18 “If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by
Beelzebul. 19 “And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. 20 “But if I
cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Jesus illuminates that if a person possessed of demons (by Satan’s authority) is subsequently dispossed of those same demons by Jesus
(under authority of Beelzebul, a different persona for Satan, as the Pharisees accused), then Satan is authorizing both possession and
dispossession, hence his kingdom or house is divided against itself.
Here then is Jesus’ application to, and the “engagement” and refutation of, your assertion:
If a person acting in disobedience (by God’s permissive will) repents and obeys (by God’s perfect will), then God is willing both
disobedience and obedience, hence God’s kingdom or house is divided against itself. As the distinction between the personae “Satan” and
“Beelzebul” matters not to preclude self-division (both being of Lucifer’s kingdom), commensurately the distinction between God’s
permissive or perfect personae likewise matters not to preclude self-division (both being of God’s kingdom).
A further non-sequitur in your assertion is demonstrated in that for God’s “permissive” and “perfect” wills to be mutually opposed in
Paul’s sin, and later to be mutually opposed again in Paul’s evangelism, necessitates something in God to be mutable from one episode to
the next. The same God can not direct Paul to persecute Christians and then not; the same God can not direct Paul to evangelize
Christians and then not; unless something mutates (and that something can’t be Paul as Paul has neither will nor predicate knowledge,
does he).
December 17, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Starwind
(sigh – here is that same post without the inadvertent CR/LF’s)
Bnonn:
The challenge again was for you to demonstrate, to harmonize, God’s immutability, permissive will, perfect will, foreknowledge predicating all God’s actions, and man’s lack of free will with the passages cited. The challenge was for you to affirmatively demonstrate what you do think, not obscure what I don’t think.
Luk 11:17-20 But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. 18 “If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. 19 “And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. 20 “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Jesus illuminates that if a person possessed of demons (by Satan’s authority) is subsequently dispossed of those same demons by Jesus (under authority of Beelzebul, a different persona for Satan, as the Pharisees accused), then Satan is authorizing both possession and dispossession, hence his kingdom or house is divided against itself.
Here then is Jesus’ application to, and the “engagement” and refutation of, your assertion:
If a person acting in disobedience (by God’s permissive will) repents and obeys (by God’s perfect will), then God is willing both disobedience and obedience, hence God’s kingdom or house is divided against itself. As the distinction between the personae “Satan” and “Beelzebul” matters not to preclude self-division (both being of Lucifer’s kingdom), commensurately the distinction between God’s permissive or perfect personae likewise matters not to preclude self-division (both being of God’s kingdom).
A further non-sequitur in your assertion is demonstrated in that for God’s “permissive” and “perfect” wills to be mutually opposed in Paul’s sin, and later to be mutually opposed again in Paul’s evangelism, necessitates something in God to be mutable from one episode to the next. The same God can not direct Paul to persecute Christians and then not; the same God can not direct Paul to evangelize Christians and then not; unless something mutates (and that something can’t be Paul as Paul has neither will nor predicate knowledge, does he).
December 17, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Starwind
Another correction:
Should have been:
December 17, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Starwind
Yet another correction:
In my post at December 17, 2007 at 10:06 am I inadvertently reversed the components of Bnonn’s assertion (as I understand it):
and should have phrased the challenge as:
In other words, for God to *not* tempt us beyond what we can withstand requires that God know what we can’t withstand, but (by Bnonn’s assertion) that knowledge is predicated upon God having tempted us beyond what we can’t withstand (because God’s knowledge is predicated on His actions), which irresistible temptation is contrary to what Paul taught as well as what James taught.
December 18, 2007 at 11:46 am
Starwind
Bnonn:
You draw a distinction:
And draw again a distinction:
There are many passages that explicitly demonstrate God does not absolve responsibility for causation when that responsibility is indirect or “remote” (to borrow your term):
Clearly, God Himself makes no distinction regarding responsibility for indirect or remote causation of someone’s actions. Consistent with scripture then, any doctrine which holds that God Himself can be the indirect cause, the “remote” or “permissive” cause, of someone’s sin and not be commensurately responsible for that sin is unscriptural.
Further, any doctrine which holds that God can declare Himself “removed” or remote from contradictory and consequently self-dividing behaviours by asserting distinctions in God’s will (such as “perfect” versus “permissive”) or in God’s responsibility (such as “ethical” versus “metaphysical”), is again unscriptural as accountability or blame remains on the original cause, the author of, the contradictory behaviour.
Any defense of such doctrines needs to show harmony, to demonstrate reconciliation, with the above scriptural passages at a minimum, as well as not introduce conflicts into any other scripture passages including those cited on this thread.
Until I see such a defense, a competent and comprehensive defense, I’ll not post further.
December 18, 2007 at 11:49 am
Starwind
Bnonn:
This will likely be my last post.
You draw a distinction:
And draw again a distinction:
There are many passages that explicitly demonstrate God does not absolve responsibility for causation when that responsibility is indirect or “remote” (to borrow your term):
Clearly, God Himself makes no distinction regarding responsibility for indirect or remote causation of someone’s actions. Consistent with scripture then, any doctrine which holds that God Himself can be the indirect cause, the “remote” or “permissive” cause, of someone’s sin and not be commensurately responsible for that sin is unscriptural.
Further, any doctrine which holds that God can declare Himself “removed” or remote from contradictory and consequently self-dividing behaviours by asserting distinctions in God’s will (such as “perfect” versus “permissive”) or in God’s responsibility (such as “ethical” versus “metaphysical”), is again unscriptural as accountability or blame remains on the original cause, the author of, the contradictory behaviour.
Any defense of such doctrines needs to show harmony, to demonstrate reconciliation, with the above scriptural passages at a minimum, as well as not introduce conflicts into any other scripture passages including those cited on this thread.
Until I see such a defense, a competent and comprehensive defense, I’ll not post further.
December 18, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
I did not offer a lengthy consideration of your various passages for several reasons. Firstly, since the argument I was forwarding was specifically an argument from knowledge, discussing these ancillary issues was at best premature. Secondly, since the argument I was forwarding was originally directed to bethyada, continuing the discussion with you was a courtesy, and I felt in no way obligated to acquiesce to your demands that I exhaustively justify my position outside of the immediate argument. Thirdly, you did not exegete the passages you cited so as to prove that they contradict my position. Fourthly, on the same note, your citing of those passages indicated to me that you don’t actually understand my position. I am quite willing to work through the various implications of my argument after we have resolved it, but it will require a systematic examination of those issues; not a hodge-podge series of accusatory biblical citations, a la an inquisition, followed by ultimatums and invective.
Again, my argument from knowledge is what was under discussion—and, since I have limited time here, I would like to keep the discussion confined to that topic. If no resolution can be had using simple logic in a basic argument, then it is certain that no resolution will be forthcoming in exegesis, which is more complex. So why get distracted with exegesis, when simple logic is still being disputed? Furthermore, the argument itself has logical priority over any exegesis we can do, since it will establish a presupposition about God which will color the exegesis itself.
So, that said, my argument still stands. I have shown that your position makes it impossible for God to have knowledge of counterfactuals. You have not refuted this. You have simply given Scripture passages showing that God does have knowledge of counterfactuals. It seems strange to me that you would do this, since it only strengthens my case, but thank you anyway. We both agree that God does indeed know the outcome of things which will never happen. However, as I have shown, this disproves your position. Unless you believe that logic is not actually useful for discovering truth—in which case your presence here is a mystery—the fact remains that your beliefs about the logical priority of our actions to God’s knowledge are contradictory with your beliefs about God’s ability to know actions which don’t occur. Let me lay it out for you so as to be sure there is no confusion:
P1. If human beings have libertarian free will, and God has definite knowledge of human actions, then it is necessary that God’s knowledge of those actions is logically contingent upon them.
P2. If God’s definite knowledge of human actions is logically contingent upon them, then God cannot have definite knowledge of human actions which will never occur.
P3. But God does have definite knowledge of human actions which will never occur.
C4. Therefore, human beings do not have libertarian free will.
You have agreed with premise (P1). You have simply disagreed with premise (P2) on the basis of your belief in premise (P3), which contradicts it. But that does not disprove the logical validity of (P2). It just means that you affirm two contradictory beliefs to both be true. But to affirm two contradictory statements is actually to deny them both (logically speaking). You should either actually attempt to refute premise (P2), or acknowledge that your position is irrational, and bow out of further argumentation.
bethyada—
Thank you for your charitable attitude. I understand that my arguments might appear to be incongruent with how you understand Scripture—but logic does not lie. If you understand from Scripture that we have libertarian free will, and you also understand from Scripture that God has knowledge of counterfactual human decisions, then one of these understandings is false. They cannot both be true, because they are mutually contradictory. (I assume that you, like myself, do not consider a contradiction within Scripture to be a possibility.) Now, it is my contention that, even aside from the argument I have offered, Scripture teaches plainly that we do not have libertarian free will. I can cite many passages myself in support of this position—Exodus 4:21; 7:13; 7:22; 9:12; 10:1; Deuteronomy 2:30; Joshua 11:20; Judges 9:23; 1 Kings 22:22; Ezra 6:22; Psalm 33:11; Proverbs 16:1,9; 20:24; 21:1; Isaiah 6:10; 46:10; 63:17; Jeremiah 10:23; Ezekiel 14:9; John 12:40; Acts 2:23; 3:18; 4:27-30; Romans 9:18; Ephesians 1:11; 2:4-16; Philippians 2:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:11; Revelation 17:17. I can further point to the complete lack of any passages which explicitly do teach the doctrine of libertarian free will. But without exegesis, none of this is unlikely to be convincing to you. And exegesis in turn relies on numerous presuppositions—so it is often helpful to examine those first.
Speaking of presuppositions, this time as regards the responsiveness of God: there is nothing about this responsiveness which necessarily entails that God is in some way mutable, or in some way logically contingent upon his creation. There is nothing similarly about commands to repent which necessarily entail an ability to do so apart from God’s own action. Consider 2 Timothy 2:25; and compare for example Deuteronomy 10:16 against Deuteronomy 30:6. It is my experience that, when reading texts like Deuteronomy 10:16, those who believe in libertarian free will automatically assume that what is commanded is possible (because that is how we generally talk in everyday conversation). In other words, such people read the Bible with the implicit assumption or presupposition that God is not totally sovereign, and that man does have libertarian free will. So it is no surprise that they “find” these two beliefs being “taught” in certain passages. Our preconceptions very strongly color our interpretations.
Regards,
Bnonn
December 19, 2007 at 1:31 am
bethyada
P1. If human beings have libertarian free will, and God has definite knowledge of human actions, then it is necessary that God’s knowledge of those actions is logically contingent upon them.
P2. If God’s definite knowledge of human actions is logically contingent upon them, then God cannot have definite knowledge of human actions which will never occur.
P3. But God does have definite knowledge of human actions which will never occur.
C4. Therefore, human beings do not have libertarian free will.
And my response is C4 is biblical therefore P1 or P2 or P3 is incorrect.
My suspicion is that you are using the word contingent in a way that I either disagree with, or you are equivocating.
You are suggesting that God’s knowledge of our actions are based on our doing them, but I would suspect that it is based on his knowing what we will do in any given situation without causing our actions (in an omniderigent way).
Bnonn [Starwind], since the argument I was forwarding was originally directed to bethyada, continuing the discussion with you was a courtesy, and I felt in no way obligated to acquiesce to your demands that I exhaustively justify my position outside of the immediate argument.
2 things, Starwind can be very charitable, I would guess it frustration concerning this issue (which I suspect has been discussed with others previously); Calvinists must remember that non-Calvinists consider that Calvinism doctrine equals God ordains sin, and therefore heretical. Grudem considers openview rank heresy; myself, I am not certain it is worse than Calvinism. Secondly, Starwind, I guess, would consider this an open forum (as do I), so comments to individuals can be reasonably be answered by all and sundry; perhaps we are wrong in this.
December 19, 2007 at 1:46 am
bethyada
Bnonn If you understand from Scripture that we have libertarian free will, and you also understand from Scripture that God has knowledge of counterfactual human decisions, then one of these understandings is false.
And I would give away God’s knowledge of counterfactuals before I gave away free will, the scriptural support of the later far exceeds the former. Not that I think I have to as explained in my previous post.
In terms of your list of passages, that is worth me reviewing at some stage. For your consideration however, note that many on the verses are in the context of judgment, this can not be underestimated.
If we have free will (for the sake of argument), and we are sinners, and we will be judged—the hardening of an already condemned man can be consistent with that.
(Note that I am not using condemned as synonymous with the fallen state, rather the situation when a person has rejected all God’s appeals to repent and God has determined their eternal dwelling (within a free will paradigm)).
December 19, 2007 at 10:26 am
_Star_wind_
(I continue to borrow Jamsco’s email and now have altered my screen name in an effort to get this final post past the forum filter problems, and there is an earlier post that Jamesco has yet to release.)
Bnonn:
By even the most shallow definition of exegesis, I have cited scripture, explicated the definition of the Greek in question, the context and language usage, and then almost word-by-word applied that scripture to your stated viewpoint. Not once have you done anything minimally comparable. And yet you incredulously concede you have no interest in exegesis, as if your perference for extrabiblical philosophizing absolves you of any necessity or obligation for exegesis.
Nowhere have I argued “it impossible for God to have knowledge of counterfactuals”. Rather, in my post at December 15, 2007 at 2:17 pm I quoted you and “Agreed” with “Ie, God’s knowledge is not limited to factuals, but extends to counterfactuals.” Further, I (not you) *twice* exegeted Mat 11:21 to demonstrate God’s foreknowledge of counterfactuals, while you (not I) argued against God’s knowledge of counterfactuals at December 16, 2007 at 5:01 pm:
and you (not I) reverse yourself in the very next paragraph, admitting my view was correct and your was “imprecise”:
And yet, here you are again blindly, erroneously asserting that you maintain God’s knowledge of counterfactuals in opposition to me!!!
The mind truly boggles at such studied obtuseness.
You are willing to work through the implications of “your argument” only after resolving “your argument”. That is your a priori bias operating, that “your argument” is resolvable independent of (conflciting) implications. That would indeed be true only in the case of your argument being correct. But an incorrect argument is defeated on its face by the demonstrated conflicts, and for you to pretend you need not harmonize nor reconcile the demonstrated conflicts with scripture is mere denial.
As for the “hodge-podge series of accusatory biblical citations”, 2 Tim 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness – and that would include even the hodge podge, wouldn’t it. That your delicate sensibilities were unsettled by my “ultimatums and invective” is just more of your drama and seeking refuge from dealing with your scriptural conflicts and your own inconsistenies.
Otherwise, Bethayada is entirely correct. I would add I have a low tolerance for hypocrisy, and my technical posting problems add to my impatience.
December 19, 2007 at 10:40 am
Starwind
Jamesco, I have sumitted two posts which seem held in your filters. I have emailed you about them.
I assume if you’d had problems with my posts, you’d simply say so, wouldn’t you? I’d honor your request.
December 19, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
(Ok, maybe this will be my last post – lol)
This is a partially false or incomplete premise. As I’ve stated before at December 16, 2007 at 8:27 pm:
“God doesn’t know them only logically. He also foreknows them atemporally and He also knows the “counterfactuals” (to borrow your term). And as I’ve pointed out, He knew the miracles *not* performed in Tyre and Sidon and the repentance in sack cloth and ashes that would have occurred – i.e. He does know human decisions which will never occur (e.g. the repentance that never occurred in Tyre and Sidon). Your “simple matter of definition” is unarguably wrong on the face of this passage alone. (good grief, open your eyes)
Entirely false and a non-sequitur. For God to know what humans will do, does not preclude Him likewise knowing what humans won’t or can’t do. God’s ability is not the contingency but the rather the logically true facts. God’s knowledge, foreknowledge and ability are more comprehensive than your partial premise.
God is able to know and foreknow either human action (a specific act) or inaction (all other possible and impossible acts). When God knows or foreknows a specific act, His knowledge is true, factual and accurately, commensurately reflects what humans actually did – it is not false or inaccurate knowledge. God’s knowledge or foreknowledge correctly reflects human action (or inaction). This “logical contingency” however is not limiting on God. God’s abilities go further.
God further knows or foreknows what actions were *not* chosen or were *impossible* or even *unknown* to humans. In this, the “logical contingency” extends beyond what humans can know or decide. This “logical contingency” is a further reflection of true, factual knowing of extended categories. God’s knowledge thereof is not logically false, it is logically correct on the facts (both facts knowable to humans and facts unknowable to humans). The “logical contingency” is God being correct.
For God to incorrectly know an outcome or non-outcome, would be an illogical non-contingency, i.e. would mean God does not know the results or possible results. But because God knows and foreknows occuring, non-occuring, and impossible outcomes (all contingencies reflecting true facts knowable by God), and because God correctly knows and foreknows which outcomes were caused, not caused, or will never be caused (God logically correlates causes to effects, or non-causes to non-effects) thus God’s knowing and foreknowing is “logically contingent” on truth as opposed to illogically non-contingent on falsehood.
Just like God has a logical contingency on never lying (i.e. what God says is “logically contingent” on Him telling the truth), God likewise has a “logical contingency” on knowing the truth, God can not be wrong or ignorant – God’s knowledge is never illogical and never non-contingent on truth.
Even if, hypothetically, God’s knowledge is predicated on His actions (an anthropomorphism that misleads you), His knowledge would still be “logically contingent” on His actions. God’s knowledge of actions will always be “logically contingent”, regardless of whose actions (or inaction) give rise to the “contigency”. But more over, His knowledge is also atempoal relative to humans, a premise you repeatedly ignore.
Agreed, but an incomplete premise in that God also has foreknowledge of human actions which will never occur.
God not only knows and foreknows what will never occur, He also foreknows what hasn’t occurred yet; a distinction between “not yet” and “never” based on mere future versus eternity between which only God can distinguish.
A non-sequitur, as P1, P2, and P3 were all partially false, and C4 is non-biblical as demonstrated by passages previously cited, as well as empirical experience.
December 19, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Starwind
Test
of paragraphand break tags
December 20, 2007 at 10:49 am
Starwind
Bethyada writes:
Bethyada has a gift for clarity in few words what I struggle to convey in too many. Following his lead, I have somewhat condensed my meaning of God’s omniscience and foreknowledge being “logically contingent”.
The “logical contingency” is not a sovereign dependency. God’s authority or ability to act or intervene is in no way limited or precluded – it remains fully independent in that God can renew, redirect, harden, soften, prevent, provide or persevere however He sees fit with or without regard to what He knows. But He knows completely and atemporally, whether He acts or not, and His knowing is neither causative of nor predicated on His acting. His knowing is passive, not active.
God’s omniscience and foreknowledge is “contingent” in that it commensurately corresponds with what is true and never what is false. It is never arbitrary, random or chaotic. It is also “logical” in that it is passive, atemporal and correct.
A phrase connoting comparable meaning to “logically contingent” would be “correctly reflects”.
There is no limiting dependency other than God can not be misinformed or uninformed. God not being able to lie is a similar “limitation” or “dependency”.
December 20, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
I’m sorry, but until you are able to read and understand the basic argument I am forwarding, without either mistaking my premises for a position which I myself hold, or denying them on the basis of Scripture despite that your position necessarily implies them, I don’t think further discussion will be fruitful. If I may suggest, I think that it would benefit you to take a more systematic and dispassionate approach to evaluating these issues. You come across as being very excitable and impulsive, jumping all over the place as your passions dictate, rather than confining your thoughts to a single topic and working it through carefully.
bethyada—
Could you elaborate on what precisely you think the flaw is in my premises? It seems that you suspect an error in (P1), but I have reviewed it extensively and can find no such error myself. I am indeed suggesting that God’s foreknowledge of our actions is based on our doing them (in your paradigm of course). If that were not the case, it would be based on his own action. There are only two possibilities: either God is entirely active in relationship to his creation, as I affirm; or he is in some way passive, which puts his creation on at least an equal metaphysical standing with him in some way. Either his foreknowledge is logically contingent upon what he knows he will bring about, or it is logically contingent on what he chronologically foreknows we will do. As I have elaborated, the latter position is problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is God’s immutability and simplicity, and the fact that knowledge is not extrinsic, but intrinsic to him.
Additionally, it might be interesting (if you feel it would not divert the discussion too significantly) if you could offer some support for your belief that libertarian free will is so strongly affirmed in Scripture that you would be willing to give up God’s knowledge of counterfactuals for the sake of retaining it in your theology. I think it would be helpful to understand where you find this doctrine in Scripture, as it would provide some insight to your basic presuppositions as we proceed. (I presume when we speak of “free” will, we mean free from God.)
Regards,
Bnonn
December 21, 2007 at 12:37 am
bethyada
P1. If human beings have libertarian free will, and God has definite knowledge of human actions, then it is necessary that God’s knowledge of those actions is logically contingent upon them.
P2. If God’s definite knowledge of human actions is logically contingent upon them, then God cannot have definite knowledge of human actions which will never occur.
P3. But God does have definite knowledge of human actions which will never occur.
C4. Therefore, human beings do not have libertarian free will.
P1 is in error. Try:
P1. If human beings have (libertarian) free will, and God has definite (fore)knowledge of human actions, then it is necessary that God’s knowledge of those actions is logically dependent on knowing what humans will do.
Here is an example.
I know my daughters well (not as well as God knows me). I know what she will choose in many situations. Let’s think about food choices.
Daughter 1, for your snack you can have blue cheese on crackers or avocado on crackers. (And I offer her this, a factual)
I know which she will choose before she chooses it.
Daughter 2, you can have the same choice (but she is not home so it is a hypothetical example, a counterfactual).
I know which she would choose if she were here to choose it.
By the way, the answer is different for my 2 daughters, one would choose avocado and the other blue cheese.
Now God knows us better than I know my children so God always knows what our choice will/ would be.
You may claim that if that is the case then the knowledge of God comes from himself, not us and therefore is not contingent on our choices. Perhaps, but you are implying that therefore God actually makes those choices for us, but as we can see in my example that I do not make the choices for my children.
Now you may claim that I know my daughters from experience and therefore my knowledge is contingent on their previous choices, thus your original premise 1. However that does not lead to premise 2 because I still can know counterfactuals. And I claim that God knows us so well that he need not have the experiences I need to gain knowledge.
December 21, 2007 at 12:59 am
bethyada
Bnonn Additionally, it might be interesting (if you feel it would not divert the discussion too significantly) if you could offer some support for your belief that libertarian free will is so strongly affirmed in Scripture that you would be willing to give up God’s knowledge of counterfactuals for the sake of retaining it in your theology. I think it would be helpful to understand where you find this doctrine in Scripture, as it would provide some insight to your basic presuppositions as we proceed. (I presume when we speak of “free” will, we mean free from God.)
It is not a diversion, it is foundational to the topic. With Starwind, I do not think one can start with premises to agree on then refute free will, Scripture must be used (at least some of the time) as our reasoning (while possible) fallen. Further, one could start with free will as a premise and reason to God’s knowledge of factuals and counterfactuals.
I could give you some passages, but they are very easy to find. Every time in the Bible where a person (or nation) is given the choice to obey God or disobey God (or anyone else for that matter) is an example of free will.
Do not eat from the tree of knowledge-of-good-and-evil. Choice to obey or disobey.
Build an ark. Choice to obey or disobey.
Put blood over your door posts that I may pass over your dwelling. Choice, that has consequences, those you did not lost their firstborn male.
Choose this day whom you will serve.
Just a few off the top of my head, but you get the point. Free will is seen by non-Calvinists to possibly be the most repeated, fundamental and important doctrine—in terms of whether we obey or disobey.
Things like the omnipotence, omniscience, simplicity, immutability of God, while present, are not nearly so repeated. It seems that God is more interested in telling us to obey him than he is in giving us exhaustive knowledge of his character.
To me, the idea of God knowing counterfactuals is minor in comparison. I am not saying that he doesn’t, I think he does, but if it can be proven logically that counterfactual knowledge and free will are incompatible, then holding on to the teaching that is repeated in scripture from Adam to Christ is more rational than the teaching that seems to be apparent in a couple of verses.
Now what I mean by free will is the ability to choose God’s way or not, to obey or disobey, that God can offer us a choice and we can accept it or reject it.
And this is of ourselves. As part of God’s image we have the ability (which God created) to make decisions of our own, we can choose that which God wishes we did not.
I do not think that love or obedience means anything if that is not the case.
Now I do not think we are therefore capable of everything. There are things that God may forbid us. There may be ideas we will never have. And God is able to override our actions if he sees fit. God may even be able to cause us to forget a thought we were going to act on. It is not that God is unable to micromanage some things, rather that he does not micromanage everything.
December 21, 2007 at 10:40 am
Starwind
Bnonn:
I obviously understood it well enough to extract a concession from you on one of your errors, didn’t I. (lol)
Well, we certainly can’t be denying your premises on the basis of scripture, now can we. Nor does my position imply your premises. Your premises have been repeatedly refuted and shown to be false, from scripture. As for my premises, they are simpy what scripture declares (as previously cited); that’s what an argument from scripture is, as opposed to an argument from anthropomorphic philosophy.
My passions dictate? Surely you mean as God’s passions dictate, don’t you? We are just puppets, right?
However, lacking a preview feature here (and some posts being held up), I don’t catch some of my mistakes until after I see them reformatted, but at least I acknowledge and correct them. I’d even acknowledge and apologize for others, should they be precisely reproduced and substantiated (repetitious empty claims will not suffice).
Your assertions and premises are “all over the place”, but such scope is concomitant with your omniderigent argument. You argue God’s knowledge is predicated only on His actions, that He did not create man with free will, and that God can be the cause of sin without being responsible. Refutations necessarily follow suit. Not surprisingly however, you’ve double standards that characterize your thought as focused on a “single topic” while any point-by-point scriptural refutation and explication is “all over the place”, and characterize your unexegeted cites as “systematic” while exegeted contradictory passages are labeled a “hodge podge”.
In spite of your belief to the contrary, you are in fact free to think of me what you like, go mute as you like, but that hasn’t salvaged your non-sequiturs one wit. Your excuses to evade engaging the refutations and harmonizing your argument with contradicting passages bespeaks a bankrupt argument.
December 21, 2007 at 11:08 am
Starwind
Bnonn:
As you have an aversion to engaging scripture, here’s a thought experiment for you (I don’t anticpate your reply):
Prior to “in the beginning”, prior to God acting in any capacity whatsoever, would God be ignorant? If God never acts, does God never know? When there was only God, did God know only Himself?
If all knowledge is transcendent and resides only in God and is not known to God without God’s acting, how could God plan to create what God has not acted upon? Which was first: God’s knowledge of creation or God’s act of creation? Was knowledge of creation contained within “Himself” without God having acted to create?
Or are God’s knowledge and action simultaneous? If simultaneous, then what of God’s knowledge being predicated on His actions? How can God foreknow anything without simultaneously acting? Foreordaining is not acting. To foreordain is to atemporally determine, or plan to cause, but the action or effect remains temporal. What God foreordains doesn’t happen at the point of God’s determination but rather later at its appointed time. Further, if God’s knowledege and action are simultaneous, then God could not prophesy in advance. He could not “declare the end from the beginning, things which have not been done” because they would all happen simultaneously, and nothing would be not done.
If God knows all counterfactuals, and if God’s knowledge is predicated on His actions, then why haven’t all counterfactuals happened? Even we know partially what hasn’t happened, and if our partial knowledge is only God’s transcendant knowledge, then God knows as well what partially hasn’t happened, and if God’s knowledge is predicated on His acting then how can He (and we) know something (even partially) that He hasn’t acted upon?
The consistent reconcilation of what would otherwise be paradoxically unanswerable is simply that God’s knowledge is neither causative nor predicated on His actions, and knowledge per se is not transcendent only.
January 7, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Bethyada—
My apologies for not responding for so long. The Christmas period was somewhat out of kilter for me, and I had little time to devote to my normal online pursuits.
You have suggested that God’s knowledge is not logically contingent upon human actions, but rather that it is logically contingent upon itself. That in itself seems a problematic statement, but I’m not sure you really meant it, since you explicated this situation by likening God’s knowledge to a superlative form of the knowledge that you yourself possess of your daughters and the choices they will make in a given situation. However, two obvious problems arise:
Firstly: here you are denying that God’s foreknowledge of our actions is logically consequent to them. You say, rather, that it is an anticipative foreknowledge based in his perfect knowledge of our own characters. This being the case, though, either God’s foreknowledge is not perfect and definite (in which case you have taken the consistent libertarian approach and moved into open view theology); or libertarian free will is destroyed. Since libertarian free will, by definition, entails two or more actually possible situations—that is, the ability to really choose either option—it is clearly incompatible with the situation you have presented. A situation in which God knows ahead of time, based only on the nature of our characters, that we will choose A instead of B, is a situation in which we cannot choose B—unless God’s foreknowledge is not perfect or definite.
Secondly, you have evaded the problem of God’s foreknowledge being logically contingent upon human actions only by shifting that contingency; not removing it. In your revised position, God’s foreknowledge is logically contingent upon our characters. And, since in your view libertarian free will permits us to develop our characters in a way not entirely brought about by God, it remains that his knowledge is contingent upon his creation. In line with the problem I raised above, we may then reasonably ask how God has foreknowledge of our characters. Either his foreknowledge is not perfect or definite, or libertarian free will is false. So my original problem remains also; plus this new one.
I could not disagree more. It is true that we sometimes reason fallaciously—but reason, by merit of being inherent to God, rather than us, is of such a nature that we can recognize and correct such errors. If we agree that premises are sound, and that the inference from them is valid, then the conclusion is sound as well. It must be true. That is how logic works. If you wish to deny that logic is infallible, then we may as well stop this discussion now, since you have refuted yourself already.
If you would like to try to validate your claim that “one could start with free will as a premise and reason to God’s knowledge of factuals and counterfactuals”, then by all means, please do so! In light of our discussion so far, surely you see this is nonsense?
How does this prove libertarian free will? It proves that human beings make choices, certainly; and no Reformed theologian denies this. No one who affirms what is commonly, though rather poorly called compatibilistic free will denies that we make choices. No one who affirms the omniderigence of God denies that we make choices. You have simply assumed that a choice must entail libertarian free will, which is precisely the fallacy of begging the question to which I referred before, if you recall.
And what of passages which teach the contrary? For example, with regards to salvation? Scripture teaches plainly that we cannot have faith “of ourselves”, as you put it—”and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8; or, “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14). This is why it teaches that “God made us alive” (Eph 2:5), having “chosen” and “predestined” us (Eph 1:4,5); that he “gives” us to Jesus, who will “lose nothing of what he has given” (John 6:37-40). None of this permits libertarian free will, at least in regards to the choice to belief unto salvation. Yet we are commanded to repent and believe (Acts 17:30). Yet you have assumed that any instance of an imperative implies an indicative. Why? As Martin Luther very aptly put it—
In order for the passages you cite to be used as defenses of libertarian free will, libertarian free will must first be proved! There is nothing inherent in a command, or a choice, which demonstrates libertarianism. If you are reading the Bible as if there is, then you are simply begging the question. You have imported libertarianism from elsewhere—you haven’t gleaned it from Scripture at all.
Very interesting; why not? Do you think that Jesus and the Spirit can choose to hate the Father and disobey him? In your view, would that not be a necessary state of affairs if their love and obedience are to mean anything? Do you think that the involuntary love of a mother for her child is meaningless, since it is not chosen? It seems to me that the more one loves, the more meaningful the love, the less choice one tends to have. How do you justify this idea that love must entail choice to be meaningful? How are you even defining “meaningful”?
Regards,
Bnonn
January 10, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
Seriously, this is blatantly uninformed, at best.
Here are scriptural passages which provably declare free will:
To support your view, you’ll need to demonstrate that Thayer’s definition is wrong, that “voluntary” actually means compelled by God, and then you’ll need to demonstrate within context that Paul was mistaken to presume that Philemon had any “consent” to give and further that Philemon’s consent could be given “voluntarily”. You’ll also need to reconcile God’s permissive and perfect wills again being mutually opposed against themselves; was God (through Paul) in fact “ordering” Philemon to return Onesimus to Paul’s service or was God (through Paul) pleading with Philemon to voluntarily consent to return Onesimus to Paul’s service?
How can you deny the plain meaning of Paul’s words, and further deny the contradiction in God’s two wills – did God (through Paul) acknowledge Philemon’s voluntarily consent and if not, then what in Philemon did God likewise acknowledge (through Paul again) might necessitate being compelled instead?
Paul teaches:
Free in her choice, her wishes, to marry whomever, restricted only that she be equally yoked again to another believer in Christ, but otherwise her “wish”, her will, is perfectly free: unrestrained, not bound by an obligation.
Paul also writes:
Here Paul makes a declarative statement about every person who gives, whenever they give – their heartfelt motive is to “choose for one’s self before another, to prefer”. Paul in no way implies that God is determining or compelling their “purpose”.
Free will is also a human trait previously acknowledged by God in the Old Testament “free will” offerings:
Here are Israelite’s who brought materials with “an attitude of heart which consents or agrees (often readily and cheerfully)” then further brought sacrifices “willingly, freely, spontaneously, voluntarily”.
To deny this is a declaration of “free will”, you’ll need to disprove the BDB definitions, and further prove that the freewill offerings were neither voluntary nor did they please the Lord. And you’ll need to do that in context, that while the Lord was not pleased with the dutiful guilt and sin offerings of bulls and goats, He never once said He was disatisfied with freewill offerings, but rather acknowledged them repeatedly throughout the Old Testament and at the Feast of Weeks, specifying they too needed to be unblemished, first fruit and brought to the temple.
Lastly, I would point out that of your list of verses alledging Scripture teaches plainly that we do not have libertarian free will., as Bethyada previously noted, most are in a judgement context (judgement consequent to disobedience, in which God’s judgement is imposed over whatever the offender had previously been choosing) and are not declarative of God always in everyway making man’s choices for him, or otherwise teaching that man never has any free will. Further, some of your passages relate to election which is not the opposite of freewill, and several of your selections actually imply free will:
The burden of proof that “libertarian free will doesn’t exist in scripture” is on you. To make your case, you’ll need much more than unscriptural philosophizing. You’ll need to do the exegesis and reconcilation of contradictory passages you’ve been avoiding.
To make your case you will have to demonstrate that “free” doesn’t really mean “free”, that “voluntary” and “willingly” really mean “compelled”, that a “choice” is really a reflex response, that “if” really means “regardless” and “Know” really means “act”. You will, in brief, need to stand Hebrew, Greek and English on their respective heads and torture scripture into saying what you want it to say.
Because without choice, Jesus will have sacrificed Himself for a bride of Stepford wives programmed by God the Father – surely the Lord of our redemption is worth more than His father’s programmed Stepford wives. No?
January 10, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
Just to reiterate that I will respond more fully to you when you present a cogent question or argument. I regret that you typed a great deal above for no cause, since it relies entirely upon the category errors of conflating God’s primary causation, and human beings’ secondary causation; and of conflating ethical and metaphysical freedom; and of conflating volantary ability with voluntary ability uncaused by God (a form of the first error mentioned).
To deny that your various passages prove libertarian free will does not require me to deny the definitions of the words. It simply requires me, again, to deny the presuppositions by which you are interpreting the definitions themselves. For example, the translation “free will” in Philemon 1: one must presuppose libertarian free will to make any argument from this. What is the freedom Paul is talking about relative to? To Paul himself, obviously—he did not want to force Philemon against his will. He wanted the decision to be voluntary. The issue he is addressing has nothing whatsoever to do with metaphysics; to do with a freedom relative to God. And, as I have repeatedly stated, Reformed believers in no way deny that human beings have a will, and that they make voluntary decisions. The same applies in the other verses. Your arguments are fallacious in their construction, and in their direction! 1 Cor 7:39 is an even more painful example of your reading your conclusion into the verse, since you are assuming that because the widow’s will is “perfectly free” ethically (that is, free from obligation), she must necessarily be perfectly free metaphysically (that is, free in terms of cause and effect). But the freedom relationship here is to her own inclination, and from laws restraining her or human beings enforcing such laws. How does this imply anything about the freedom relationship with regards to God’s sovereignty? Similarly in 2 Cor 9:7. In fact, none of the verses you cite actually engage with the issue at hand whatsoever—least of all the Old Testament ones. Proverbs 16, despite your contention, can only make sense if determinism is true and libertarianism is false. And, as Vincent Cheung says, the citation of freewill offerings is “one of the strangest objections against the denial of free will […] so silly that I feel embarrassed to even mention it, and to take it seriously enough to write about it.” You might benefit from reading the full, quite short article, ‘Freewill Offerings and Human Freedom”, because I agree with him that it is embarrassing to argue like this, and would like to see such argumentation swiftly ended.
Again, when you present an argument which does not rely on numerous category errors, question-begging, and strawmen, I will be happy to respond.
Regards,
Bnonn
January 12, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
Then I anticipate you’ll continue to accept standard definitions and not deny them in the future.
Hardly. "free will" means "free will" unless you now deny the definitions of words. Both the passage and the context plainly state Philemon has free will. Your omniderigent argument on this thread has been (phrased to bethyada as a false postulate):
Your unbiblical qualifier “libertarian” changes nothing (unless you intend to argue "libertarian" denies the definitions of the words). The plain text is irrefutable. Philemon’s "free will" was neither constrained nor imposed by God nor is there any suggestion of Philemon’s consent being under God’s judgment for sin – it was Philemon’s will, and it was voluntary, and it was not disobedient to God. Regardless of Philemon’s “freedom” relative to God, God didn’t impose His will on Philemon; regardless of Philemon’s freedom relative to Paul, Philemon was free to consent or not; regardless of Philemon’s libertarian, absolute, relative, or metaphysical freedom (however you care to label it), Philemon had it and God permitted it – relabeling it changes nothing, least of all your argument.
Actually, you denied it earlier. That is the “omniderigent” argument you have been defending – that man’s decisions are not freely his own, that they are foreknown by God and as such must be predicated upon God’s exhaustive, moment by moment upholding actions, and that all knowledge (including man’s decisions) is transcendent in God alone and never exists initially in man. Your exact words were:
But in your concession that "Reformed believers in no way deny that human beings have a will, and that they make voluntary decisions" you attempt to nuance your argument and succumb to the "Popular Calvinist confusion" which Cheung laments:
Using the standard definitions of words which you do not deny, was Philemon’s "free will" his own and voluntary as you now assert Reformed believers do not deny, or was it completely controlled by God? Which is it Bnonn?
Recognizing the obvious difficulties, Cheung also equivocates: "even though his [God’s] will is never forced against his [man’s] desire". Cheung implies that man’s will is "free" so long as God’s ‘immediate exhaustive and direct control’ surreptitiously conforms man’s will with man’s desires. There is the hyper-Calvinist denial of the plain meaning of words like free and voluntary; "free" really means immediately, exhaustively and directly controlled by God without man being able to distinguish it from his own desires. Unanswered however, are how is it that God immediately, exhaustively and directly controls man’s will but does not likewise immediately, exhaustively and directly control man’s desires as well.
As you argued man’s knowledge of his own desires must of necessity originate in God’s transcendent knowledge, predicated on God’s actions, how is it then that God’s exhaustive, moment by moment upholding actions control man’s will but fails to control man’s desires? How is it that man can have his own desires when all else that man might think or will is exhaustively, moment by moment directly controlled God? You and Cheung both fail to perceive the inconsistency in your own arguments, let alone reconcile them.
I will remark further on Cheung’s other errors and then return to your argument. The core premise of Cheung’s argument is:
Firstly, Cheung never substantiates "the biblical teaching is that God exercises constant and comprehensive control over all of man’s thoughts and actions" though perhaps it is similar to the list of verses previously asserted by Bnonn (Scripture teaches plainly that we do not have libertarian free will), the very same list refuted in the preceding post and again below, and hence the basis for Cheung’s "necessary conclusion is that man has no free will" is neither substantiated nor demonstrated, merely asserted.
Second, that Cheung early on conflates the very issues he purports to distinguish and morph’s them into a strawman argument, that being that because man is not always free from God’s control, thus God never permits man any freedom. No one on this thread has argued that God does not or can not exercise control over man. God hardening Pharaoh’s heart and the other passages wherein God exercises His "judgment" over disobedience and sin, give ample evidence that man is always subject to God’s sovereignty. That has never been denied. In fact the refutation repeatedly made is that man is responsible to God for man’s own choices and that God’s judgment reflects the unavoidable consequences of man’s choices. No one has argued man is free from God’s judgment or sovereignty, rather the refutation has been that man’s will (his capacity to voluntarily choose) is free in God, i.e. God delegates to man (with every choice presented, every command to obey or disobey) the freedom to make his own decisions, albeit man remains subject to the consequences of his choices. Man is free to choose where God delegates, but man’s choices are not free from consequence or judgment.
Third, arguing that freedom is relative only has merit if God makes the same distinction, but nowhere does God distinguish relative freedom, e.g. all sin is sin against God, all authority flows from God, and as previously noted, God makes no distinction regarding responsibility for indirect or remote causation of someone’s actions. Everyone is always ultimately answerable to God (every knee will bow and tongue confess).
And then Cheung’s false conclusion against his strawman: If God has the sovereignty to exercise complete control, then it [falsely] follows that God does in fact always exercise such control [contrary to those biblical passages wherein God has said man is to choose], and thus man has no free will. However, Cheung himself admits:
Cheung’s application of his "relative/metaphysical freedom" argument to the freewill offering fails to actually address the freedom inherent in the people’s decision.
Cheung concedes to freedom in a "legal or ceremonial perspective" but not a "metaphysical perspective", but Cheung never substantiates his "metaphysical" distinction (it remains an empty assertion) or otherwise demonstrate that God is imputing His will or holding (non)participants in judgment for sin. Irrefutably, the people are free to offer or not, in whatever amount they wish and nowhere does God admonish any consequence for failure to participate, i.e. nowhere does God imply Cheung’s "metaphysical freedom" doesn’t likewise exist. Cheung further admits the verses in question do not address his metaphysical perspective, but that doesn’t preclude Cheung arguing from silence anyway.
Cheung attempts to resurrect his strawman by recasting the context from the biblical to the metaphysical: "we are talking about whether we are free from God" but, no, we are *not* talking about being free from God, free from the consequences of our decisions or free from God’s judgment. No believer of scripture argues such a shallow strawman. The passages cited, however, clearly do argue in plain text and meaning, freedom in God, freedom delegated by God under His sovereignty, for people to freely choose to offer or not, in whatever amount, without the axe of judgment hovering over their heads. The freewill offerings explicitly, biblically demonstrate one instance of many in which man has unqualified free will, as permitted him (delegated) by God, and consequently refutes the view that God exercises constant and comprehensive control over all of man’s thoughts and actions.
Cheung erroneously applies his unsubstantiated strawman against Philemon 1:14:
Cheung again concedes the verse says "nothing about the metaphysical relationship between God and Philemon", but again argues from silence anyway. Unless you will deny the plain meaning of the words "freewill", "consent" and "compulsion", the verse irrefutably demonstrates Philemon had freewill in God (not freedom of consequence from God), nor does the verse or context demonstrate that God was in Philemon "exercising constant and comprehensive control" Relative to Paul or not, Philemon’s freewill unarguably existed, was his own, and was permitted by God.
God is sovereign and can exercise complete control anytime and in anyway He chooses; no one is free from God. What remains unproven, however, is that God actually does exercise such control always in every way and God never permits man any freedom of his own will. Freedom to decide is not the same as freedom from consequences, but you and Cheung both conflate these. Man is free to decide and is also expected to decide rightly (but because man doesn’t decide rightly God has offered forgiveness from the consequences in Christ).
Returning now to Bnonn’s argument:
To the contrary, the plain meaning of the word is "free, exempt, unrestrained, not bound by an obligation" and ethically "free from the yoke of the Mosaic Law". I have simply quoted the verse verbatim and the meaning of "free" verbatim. It is you who has read your conclusion into the verse; it is you who has assumed "free" is qualified by some limitation (or will you now renege on your acceptance of the plain definitions of words). It is you who argues from silence that a "metaphysical freedom" must be established.
It is you who again conflates a lack of freedom to choose (unrefuted) with a lack of freedom from consequences (undisputed).
Obviously God (speaking through Paul) has delegated to widows the freedom to choose if or whom to remarry. No more no less. Widows are free to make a choice, ethically and legally. Lack of "metaphysical freedom" however is your euphemism for God remaining sovereign and all mankind remaining in subjection to His judgment; that man bears the responsibility for his decisions. But nowhere does the bible teach that God always imposes His decisions on man (or widows in this instance), and that is the case you need to make. Omniderigent means God is always in every way imposing His will on man and you’ve already admitted the passages cited in fact demonstrate that widows and Philemon have a free (unimpaired) voluntary decision making ability, that they can chose to act as they will. But they remain responsible and accountable for their choices. Their will is free to decide as they wish, but those decisions have consequences, including God’s judgment.
Well certainly not the issue you’d prefer to engage, that being unbiblical metaphysical philosophy, as opposed to what scripture actually says and what words actually mean.
You equivocate on meaning and phrasing. You argue that absent "metaphysical freedom" relative to God man does not have "libertarian free will", yet you simultaneously concede that man has a voluntary will with which to make decisions. It is that conceded ability of man to make voluntary, willful decisions that the choices God puts to men (Old Testament and New) demonstrates free will inherent in obeying or disobeying a command or how a choice is made, precisely what you argued against. Like Cheung you seek refuge in arguing God exhaustively and directly controls man’s will but does not likewise immediately exhaustively and directly control man’s desires as well. And in your analysis of Proverbs 16, you extend that non-sequitur to include God’s control of man’s tongue and steps but not man’s plans or thoughts. Is your God omniderigent or not? Where is the consistency in your hermeneutic?
Remarking now upon your analysis of Proverbs 16, you note that verses 1 and 9 have somewhat a parallel structure which declares man’s plans and God’s actions separated by "but"
No, it is not a unity followed by an explanatory conclusion. What you sought and didn’t find is that the Hebrew word "but" is actually "the Lord" (Strong’s H3068) with the waw-conjunctive, not waw-explicative, wherein the context of the grammar dictates how the waw-conjunctive is translated to "and", "or", "but". What it never translates to is a form of negation or falsification like "regardless" or "except". The grammar dictates that the antecedent phrase ‘man plans’ is not negated, reversed or explained. Its meaning stands and is not changed by "but" (as in most translations) or "and" (as in a few). Most translations use "but" because the context is God doing something in contrast to what man does.
So the verse means what it says: "man plans but God …". The verse teaches that man can formulate plans but whether they’re successful depends additionally on God, i.e., God is sovereign over the execution or fulfillment of mans’ plans (e.g. Jas 4:13-15), but the verse does not teach or imply that God does mans’ planning for him, and that is precisely the omniderigent argument you need to support and which the verse does not make. God does not do man’s planning for him, man’s plans freely, voluntarily, on his own. Whether those plans come to fruition or not depends on if God establishes man’s steps in that plan or other. God did not establish Paul’s steps in taking the gospel into Asia instead redirecting Paul, but regardless Paul had planned (made choices and decisions) otherwise by his own will, free of God’s will (which was in direct opposition to Paul’s will, else Paul wouldn’t have planned to take the gospel to Asia, would he). But while Paul’s will to plan was free, Paul was not ultimately free from God or the the consequences (God stopped him).
And as with the freewill offering’s, Phm 1:14, Cor 7:39, 2 and Cor 9:7, Proverbs 16 1 & 9 demonstrate yet more instances refuting your absolute "uphold everything exhaustively moment to moment (which by definition he cannot if he is not omniderigent and we do have a will which is free from him" or Cheung’s absolute "God’s control over man is so immediate and exhaustive so that he directly controls man’s will and desire". Obviously, there are many instances in which God grants or delegates freewill decision making to men, arguments from silence requiring "metaphysical freedom" notwithstanding.
"Man does it, but God does it"; "man does one thing and God does the same thing"; "Assuming that planning and executing are the same action"? They are not the same or even similar, and you know it. What happened to "does not require me to deny the definitions of the words" Good grief, reconsider how you torture meaning and scripture to make it say what you want.
Isa 55:8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. No, again Pro 16:1 teaches God’s sovereignty, in this case when man struggles to mentally prepare or understand, the correct answer (the right understanding) comes from God. Man’s thoughts were not imputed or induced by God, else they’d have been correct to begin with, but the correct understanding (God’s thought) comes from God. A man could receive God’s corrective thought and subsequently lie, could give a false prophecy, in which case he is not free from God’s judgment and consequences, but regardless man’s errant thoughts were freely his own.
Yes, God has complete control but, no, God does not exercise that control constantly to the point man has zero freedom to decide or choose, nor is man "free from God" in the sense that man’s decisions would be free of the consequences of God’s judgment for how man decided; that is a strawman and nobody has argued such. The point of the passages cited was to demonstrate, explicitly and biblically, that man is truly free to choose whatever choices God has delegated. Man is free to decide, but is expected to decide rightly or bear the consequences from God.
Strawman arguments from silence requiring a ‘relative, metaphysical freedom from God’ notwithstanding, neither you nor Cheung have refuted the applicability of the cited passages that declare "free will" or the plain meanings of the text and words. Nor have you refuted the inapplicability of passages that declare God’s judgment consequent to disobedience, election, nor of proverbs 16 to demonstrate omniderigent exhaustive, moment by moment, immediate and direct control of man’s will and desires.
The burden of proof that “libertarian free will doesn’t exist in scripture” remains on you.
January 13, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
Again you have written a great deal for nothing. You seem to be unaware of the distinction between primary and secondary metaphysical causation. Being thus ignorant of such a major concept in the view which you believe you are refuting, I’m afraid that any argument you bring to bear is simply incoherent to a Reformed Christian. We certainly believe that God causes our thoughts and desires and actions. (I don’t know why you think that desires would be excluded; you even quote Cheung saying it is not.) This does not deny they are still our thoughts and desires and actions. In fact, they are so because God causes them in us. And, as I have already explained, the fact that we are not metaphysically free relative to God in no way precludes us being metaphysically free relative to other people. If you wish your argument above to stand against the Reformed position, it would be interpreted as an assertion that God is just a man, since you deny any distinction between metaphysical categories by saying that if man is free from man, then man must be free from God. I’m afraid your posts are simply becoming more and more unintelligible to someone who is fairly informed regarding the Reformed position, and thus more and more irrelevant. They also fail to justify your own position against the arguments I have already given which refute it.
If I may suggest, you should probably stop wasting both our time with such long posts, and just present a paragraph or two to see if it actually interacts with the position you’re trying to refute.
Regards,
Bnonn
January 13, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
Ok, here’s a short, simple reading comprehension test:
Where did I say “man was free from man“?
Where did I say “man was free from God“?
Copy and paste my exact text and link the post.
January 13, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
In your previous post, you said, “Using the standard definitions of words which you do not deny, was Philemon’s ‘free will’ his own and voluntary as you now assert Reformed believers do not deny, or was it completely controlled by God? Which is it Bnonn?”
Of course, I assert both. You have assumed that one contradicts the other; but it does not, and I have already explained this. You have consistently assumed that when the Bible speaks of voluntary acts and the like, it means that they are not controlled by God. But nothing in the definition of these words entails this unless you deny the distinction between primary and secondary metaphysical categories—which of course, Reformed theologians do not! You seem to think that “voluntary” must mean “without cause”, or possibly “without sufficient external cause”. Now, I can agree with the latter definition if we are confining our discussion to secondary metaphysical categories. A voluntary decision by definition has its sufficient cause in the will of the decision-maker. But that is only speaking in the secondary metaphysical category. It entails nothing whatever regarding ultimate causes, just as saying that a pool cue is the cause of the pool ball moving entails nothing whatever about the ultimate cause of either of these objects, or the relationship between them. Perhaps the sufficient cause of a decision has, itself, no other cause than man. Perhaps the sufficient cause of the pool ball moving has, itself, no other cause than the pool cue. But I have refuted this. Therefore, the sufficient cause itself must have a cause, albeit a cause of a different kind. A cause which is not created, or physical, but which “underlies” the created order.
Regards,
Bnonn
January 13, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
You seem to have difficulty with even short posts. I repeat:
Where did I say “man was free from man“?
Where did I say “man was free from God“?
Copy and paste my exact text and link the post.
I want to see exactly what I said from which you have drawn your assumptions.
January 13, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
I just quoted one of the cases where that exact summary was entailed. Another case in the same post is:
No one disputes that widows have the freedom, delegated by God, to choose if or whom to remarry. What is in dispute is the sort of freedom this is. I have said that it is a freedom from coercion by man or law. You have simply assumed that freedom in that sense must also require causal freedom from the control of God. I’m afraid that simply doesn’t follow. The fact that we are causally free from man does not mean we are causally free from God. Neither does the fact that we are free from one thing, such as coercion, imply that we are free from other things, such as causal determination. You appear to want to take freedom of the will as some kind of absolute, as if ethical freedom and metaphysical freedom are identical, and as if they are either from everything or from nothing. In short, you appear to want completely obviate the concept of philosophical categories, so that freedom always means the same thing, and it’s always absolute. I’m afraid that is absurd. Words like “voluntary” just don’t have the philosophical baggage in their definitions which you seem to think they do.
Regards,
Bnonn
January 13, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
Here again is the “exact summary” you attributed to me:
Now, again, from the two “cases” you cited:
Where did I say “man was free from man“?
Where did I say “man was free from God“?
I don’t see those words or phrases from the “exact summary” you attributed to me. Show us exactly where I said what you claim I said.
January 13, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Starwind—
The problem here is that you appear to be unable to read a text without interpolating your own notions into it. This makes accurate reading comprehension on your part impossible; and obviously this makes discussion with you impossible as well, since anything your opponent says will be changed in your own mind to mean something else. The obvious example is your interpolation of libertarian free will into texts which speak only of volition; or your interpolation of metaphysical categories into texts which speak only of ethical ones. However, here you have interpolated the notion of verbatim quoting into what is merely a summary of your previous category error. If you would take the time to read what I said, without adding or removing anything in the process of internalization, you will see very clearly that I never claimed to be quoting you when summarizing your position. By definition, I was summarizing. That was really quite clear, and I don’t think it is normal for someone to make this kind of error so consistently—to see something which is not there, or to not see something which is.
In any case, I have since justified my summary, while you were flinging straw and demanding that I show where you said something which I never said you said. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing what new information you will interpolate into that justification. Since this “interpretive argumentation” approach has turned out to be a consistent pattern with you now, such that it is quite evident that you are unable to actually communicate in a normal way due to your constant reinterpretation of anything anyone says to you, this will be my last response to you. I am not going to waste my time further in what is obviously a fruitless enterprise. If you do not understand the basics of the position being argued after 60 comments, and you still evidence an inability to comprehend what is being written to you, I think it would be quite unreasonable of me to assume that this is going to change in future; and therefore quite unreasonable of me to assume that this discussion has a future.
Regards,
Bnonn
January 13, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Starwind
Bnonn:
No, the problem is you can’t read and you can’t admit your mistakes.
Nowhere did I ever say or summarize that “man must be free from God”. What I did say was:
Three times now you have evaded and twice posted quotes of my mine that contained nothing remotely resembling what you claim I said, when in fact no fewer than eight times I made the exact opposite assertion, that man is not free from God, correcting the strawman the Cheung raised and you stuffed further.
“justified my summary”??? How can you justify something that was never said and in fact eight times the exact opposite was said??? Your free willingness to “justify” from wholecloth something that was neither said exactly nor even proximately but was in fact exactly the opposite (eight times no less) … well, the mind boggles.
“Never said I said”? here again are your exact words:
Honest, accurate, debate is not possible with you. You will say any falsehood to evade scrutiny of your position, “justify” your falsehoods, and evade acknowledging your errors.
And you will no doubt now claim that an omniderigent God made you commit those errors and then lie about it (for His glory no less). A truely stunning defense of reformed theology.
January 18, 2008 at 8:53 am
Starwind
Bnonn, All;
Some concluding thoughts…
And yet James teaches:
and Paul teaches:
The scriptural conflict for Bnonn’s philosophy is at least four fold, arguing that:
Bnonn’s absolute all-inclusive statements that God always causes and controls man’s thoughts, will, desire and actions permits no exceptions and leads to numerous illogical contradictions with scripture, none of which has Bnonn attempted to reconcile or harmonize, such as above and those arising from God ostensibly having both "perfect and permissive wills" (earlier).
Perjoratives like "philosophical baggage" neither change definitions nor defend equivocations. As Bnonn has written variously:
Hmmm… "Because God causes them in us", God’s thoughts, desires and actions become ours.
And yet, God says in Isa 55:8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. So, Bnonn needs to explicate scripture such that upon God’s thoughts, desires and actions being omniderigently transferred into us (like metaphysical nanobots) God subsequently disowns them even though they are His, and voila’, we "voluntarily decide".
Here again is where Bnonn equivocates. Bnonn states "God causes our thoughts and desires and actions" whereas Cheung stakes out the more forthright omniderigent view that God "directly controls man’s will and desire". Bnonn’s equivocation arises from on the one hand only attributing "metaphysical primary cause" to God while arguing on the other hand that cause is so complete as to deny libertarian free will. The subtle equivocation being that mere "cause" is a triggering event which can give rise to accidental, random or contrary results but Bnonn precludes such results, insisting instead that God prevents what libertarian free will might otherwise produce. Bnonn invokes God "controls" and further invokes Cheung’s definition when Bnonn argues against man’s "free will and free desire" but paradoxically Bnonn invokes the (less omniderigent) God "causes" when Bnonn argues for man’s "voluntary decisions". Equivocation pure and simple.
Combining and paraphrasing Bnonn’s statements so as to further demonstrate both the equivocation and contradictions against standard definitions:
Under what standard definitions do humans have a will originating, caused and controlled from without, that produces "voluntary" selections from amongst alternatives within? How can anything originating and controlled externally be declared as voluntary internally? What changes from God’s external cause and control to become internally voluntary?
Bnonn would have us believe the various aspects and nuances of his position have been misunderstood. The factual postings on this thread demonstrate his position is all too well understood and refuted, while Bnonn’s rejoinders usually offer little substance (his analysis of Proverbs 16, albeit flawed, was a welcomed change) and otherwise deflect, equivocate, and evade acknowledging mistakes (e.g. falsely attributing to me that God does not know counterfactuals or that man is free from God). The reader is free to go upthread and count the number of times Bnonn has sought refuge in appeals to his own authority or otherwise excused himself from addressing arguments because they (allegedly) were insufficiently framed or outside the purview Bnonn deigned worthy of his attention, or simply ignored altogether.
Perhaps Bnonn does have legitimate refutations, but his silence does not bode well, especially in light of his other failed rejoinders and mistakes.
No, that "distinction" is the common refuge sought by hyper-Calvinists of which most everyone is aware, it just isn’t getting any sympathy absent biblical support as it has always been an argument from silence since (aside from biblical passages wherein God hardens hearts consequent to prior sin) nowhere does God or the bible make such a distinction. It is mere extra-biblical sand on which Bnonn built his philosophical edifice. Bnonn’s appeal to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart consequent to judgement, the figurative language of Heb 1:3 and nonexistent negative conjunctions in Proverbs 16 were all refuted and have not been rejoined. Further, this philosophical distinction contradicts scriptural citations against such a distinction exegeted earlier, against which Bnonn’s silence is likewise deafening.
But the justification for such a distinction, its entire raison d’être, is simply the hyper-Calvinist’s preferred agency to man’s free will, which free will in man God created and permits and delegates commensurate responsibility to choose rightly. Bnonn’s vaunted distinctions between man’s will not being free "metaphysically relative to God" but being only relative to men and creatures are likewise extra-biblical false arguments from silence. These philosophical distinctions rely on ignoring the plain meaning of words like "free" and "voluntary" and further rely on ignorance of scripture itself. To wit, "in the beginning" just after creation when there was only Adam, Eve and the serpent and no other humans (Gen 3), Adam and Eve regardless had the freedom of their own will to disobey God’s command to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There were no other humans to whom Adam & Eve had any relative context, metaphysical or otherwise. However labeled, their freedom of will was clearly in relation to God and they clearly disobeyed God but they clearly were not free from God’s judgment and the consequences thereof, "metaphysically" or otherwise.
Unarguably, irrefutably, the perspective in Gen 3 is the "metaphysical" perspective of obedience or disobedience to God, and the only humans were Adam and Eve, and the only human freedom in view was "metaphysical" human freedom relative to God. And just as unarguably and irrefutably, Adam and Eve were "metaphysically" free to disobey God. "Distinctions between primary and secondary metaphysical causation" can not rationally be argued without reconciling Adam and Eve’s freedom to disobey God as well as proving that all humanity has any different freedom to disobey God, but regardless remained subject to God’s sovereign judgment and the consequences of how they exercised their free will.
Which brings us back to Bnonn’s most recent evasion from scrutiny wherein he falsely attributed to me that ‘man was free from man and thus free from God’ (when rather 8 times I argued man was *not* free from God), then Bnonn equivocated further on meanings, and has now gone mute.
In summary:
God’s knowledge and foreknowledge are neither causative nor predicated on God’s actions. The proof is in God’s foreknowledge of factuals which had not happened as of the foreknowledge being declared (future prophecy) and God’s knowledge of counterfactuals (unrefuted from December 15, 2007 at 2:17 pm) which never happen. In both cases, God has knowledge without predicate action, demonstrably true because in both counterfactuals and future prophecy God reveals knowledge prior to any predicate action having been taken.
God does not distinguish between freedom of will relative to man and freedom of will relative to God. Human will has always been free relative to God. The unrefuted proof is in Gen 3, wherein Adam and Eve were free to rebel against God’s command before there were any other humans, at which time the freedom of will they exercised was Bnonn’s or Cheung’s "freedom relative to God". Additional humans from Abel, Cain, Seth, etc. did not change that human free will remained relative to God. But none of them were free from God in that they all bore the consequences of their freewill decisions; Adam & Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden by God and began to toil and die, the Serpent was cursed by God, Cain was cursed and marked by God for killing Abel, etc.
Man has free will (unrefuted from January 10, 2008 at 1:57 pm) which opposes God’s will as irrefutably declared in Gen 6:3 "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever." Man has free will in God (is permitted by God) but is never free from God (God imposes judgment and contravenes as He sees fit). Neither God’s authority nor sovereignty are diminished or impaired by His having created (in His image) and permitted man to have free will and delegated to man the responsibility to choose rightly and man remains always responsible for the consequences and subject to God’s judgment. Not once has man ever evaded or altered God’s judgment. The unrefuted proof of this is Isa 45:23 and Rom 14:11 (every knee shall bow and every tongue confess), Joh 12:47-48 (whomever rejects Jesus faces judgment) and Rev 20:12 (white throne judgment based on every deed).
God does not author or cause sin nor is God responsible for sin. The proof (above) is in James’ and Paul’s teaching that God does not Himself tempt or otherwise allow temptation beyond what we can endure. The cause of sin is man’s free will choice to disobey or rebel against God. Temptation is a generic solicitation to any kind of sin (rebellion or disobedience against God) and temptation precedes the choice or act of disobedience. God does not tempt or cause temptation to disobey against God and even contravenes to prevent unendurable temptation.
God does not have two wills in opposition to each other. God does not have His own "perfect will" different from or opposed by His "permissive will" in man (rather man’s will is his own free will not a "permissive will" from God), because God cannot be divided against Himself else God’s "house" would fall, as Jesus taught. The proof (unrefuted from December 17, 2007 at 12:58 pm) is in Paul taking the gospel to Asia (ostensibly under God’s "permissive will") being opposed by God’s "perfect will" stopping Paul, and hence God’s will being divided against itself, which can’t be.
God does not distinguish between direct and indirect causes, holding whomever is the primary cause of sin responsible for the consequences (unrefuted from December 18, 2007 at 11:46 am, and see Eze 3:17-21 for yet another example), and God is forthright about whatever He does cause; God does not hide his causation. Examples are judgments and hardening of hearts (a form of judgment consequent to disobedience).
Eliminating disproven, unbiblical philosophical arguments from silence and explicit biblical declarations about what God does not cause, leaves the remaining explicit biblical declarations about what is the cause of sin – free will in man. Since God’s knowledge and foreknowledge are not causative, God only causes what He specifically determines or predetermines to cause and God said He doesn’t (tempt) cause sin but imposes judgments consequent to sin. Nor does God impute an opposing "permissive will" into man or otherwise control man to oppose God’s own "perfect" will. The cause of sin and disobedience (as well as obedience) in man is man’s free will as God has created in him and permits, yet man remains responsible for the consequences of his choices and judgment from God, all consistent with both justice and genuine (unprogrammed) love.
Bnonn is free to dispute that, but he must reconcile his disputations with the cited scripture passages – silence is not an argument.
Lastly, earlier Bnonn wrote:
Bnonn here makes what is his most telling distinction; that citing scripture in and of itself is not a sufficient position. Bnonn requires more than scripture. Bnonn requires (or he will impute) an underlying philosophy. Bnonn’s mistake, however, is that his philosophy actually entails less than scripture in that (regardless of repeated requests and challenges) Bnonn has not reconciled his philosophy with what scripture actually does say, but instead relies mainly on what scripture does not say.
As the summary above demonstrates directly from scripture, there is no need for extra-biblical philosophical argumentation. Scripture alone suffices to understand what God has revealed about Himself, us and our relationship to Him, and scripture alone is the preeminent authority.
Perjoratives not withstanding, my "position" has consistently been that of a Berean, to search scripture to see if what was said is true – no more, no less. Subjecting Bnonn’s philosophical metaphysical argument to rigorous comparison against scripture is all that has been done and, commensurately, Bnonn’s philosophical metaphysical arguments from silence or contradicting scripture have been pointed out – no more, no less.
Scripture trumps philosophy every time.
February 13, 2008 at 11:18 pm
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