On Wed, 28 Nov 2001 10:08:17 -0500 "Howard J. Van Till"
<hvantill@novagate.com> writes:
> >From: gordon brown <gbrown@euclid.Colorado.EDU>
>
> > On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Howard J. Van Till wrote:
> >
> >> In regard to events in our future, unpredictable
> >> options abound. Until these events in our future actually happen,
> they are
> >> not knowable, not even, I believe, by God (unless God exercises
> all such
> >> options by divine pre-determination).
> >
>
> > Such a view places the Creator in subjection to part of His
> creation
> > (time).
>
> Hmmm.... I'm not sure of all of the connections here. Let me try to
> sort
> some of the issues out.
>
>
> Strategy A:
>
> 1. Suppose we say that God knows all that is knowable about the
> creation.
>
> 2. Suppose we also say that there is authentic contingency in the
> flow of
> events in the creation. That is, there is no way whatsoever (given
> all that
> is in principle knowable to creatures about the present state and
> about the
> way things work) for creatures to predict all events in the
> creation's
> future. The only way for creatures to know the future is for them
> to
> experience it happening (which includes the experience of their
> making
> meaningful choices). Stated more strongly, the future is made "on
> the fly"
> as particular contingencies are actualized.
This confuses creaturely contingency with limitations on what God can
know. However, my view, which is necessarily temporal, is not God's view.
>
> 3. Does God know the creation's future, the future that from the
> vantage
> point of its creatures has not yet been actualized? I have said,
> No. Why?
> Because, it seems to me, that if God knows the future, then that
> future --
> in all detail -- is a certainty. And if it is a certainty, then
> authentic
> contingency is no longer conceivable. The actualizations that took
> place
> were not of authentic contingencies, but only of apparent
> contingencies.
> Divine foreknowledge acts something like a "hidden variable" that
> determines
> the outcome of events that have only a superficial appearance of
> contingency.
This confuses knowledge with causation. While I, a creature, can use my
knowledge to cause (essentially as a precipitating cause) certain
effects, I may also know without causing. Why must God be more
restricted? Of course, he is the creator of all things. Why can he not
build contingency into them. Indeed, I recently heard a report that M
theory, which I understand is the most advanced approach to encompassing
all physical phenomena in a single package, will not work unless a
certain number of parameters are left open, that is, are contingent.
However, what is necessarily contingent to the creature is a certainty to
the Eternal. Otherwise Paul could not have penned Romans 8:29f' Ephesians
1:4-6, 11; II Timothy 1:9. I know for a certainty that I have not yet
been glorified, but Paul puts it in a past tense (aorist) as done before
the universe began.
>
> 4. Hence it looks like authentic contingency and divine
> foreknowledge are
> mutually exclusive.
So this is totally mistaken, having confused "know" with "cause" and God
with creature.
>
>
> Strategy B:
>
> 1. From the human point of view, a complete knowledge of the future
> is
> undesirable. Suppose, for example, you had foreknowledge of an
> extremely
> painful experience in your life, or the life of a loved one. Would
> that be a
> pleasant thing to know?
>
> 2. From the human point of view, the lack of foreknowledge is
> essential to
> the (often very pleasant) experience of surprise. Who of us would
> want to
> life a life devoid of pleasant surprises?
>
> 3. If we would wish to preserve the possibility of surprise in our
> own life,
> why would we wish to deny that experience to God?
In other words, one cannot consider the Creator except as a larger or
greater version of us. Why, when he is eternal and we are temporal?
>
>
> Strategy C:
>
> 1. Suppose that God knows everything that is knowable about the
> creation.
>
> 2. Suppose that not everything about the creation's future is
> knowable.
The only way this is possible is if God is placed in time, if the eternal
is temporal. I consider this process theology drivel, a god in the image
of man.
>
> 3. How does that place God "in subjection to part of His creation"?
>
> 4. If "in subjection" means "having opportunity to respond
> spontaneously and
> creatively to something that could not be foreknown," is that
> necessarily
> problematic?
>
>
>
> Strategy D:
>
> 1. From the human point of view, a complete knowledge of the future
> is
> impossible because our future actions are influenced by our past
> experience.
> Given foreknowledge, how could our future be unaffected by that
> foreknowledge? Is there any future course of events for us that is
> stable in
> the presence of complete foreknowledge?
Why will the sequence not be stable? What seems implicit in the question
is the probabilistic nature of my current anticipation--which now
contains some misinformation as well. Would the course be different if
the anticipation were total and strictly true? Of course. So? Perhaps
there is the hint of human cussedness: you tell me what I'm going to do
and I'll likely say, "I won't!" But the prediction that produced the
revolt cannot be subsumed under knowledge.
>
> 2. Try that line of thought from God's point of view. Does it make
> sense to
> envision God's interaction with any creature as being unaffected by
> God's
> foreknowledge -- both of the creation's future and of God's
> "future"
> interactions with it? Is every aspect of God's own action then part
> of God's
> foreknowledge?
This tacitly assumes that God is temporally restricted, like us.
Foreknowledge is a human label. With God there is simply knowledge,
timeless and total. The tenses are all human.
>
> Howard Van Till
>
Sorry, Howard, but your questions box God into human patterns. This is
why the older philosophers recognized that the only way to approach the
deity is through the via negativa. The Christian way, of course, is to
see the Father in the Son, the only way to truly know him.
Dave
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