Re: Cross & ID

Janice,

These are interesting and deep questions that you have asked me:

 You reject the belief
that God is entirely omniscient ? For instance would you say that
some imperfect or evil things that happen or that people do are not
the result of His permissive will but take place in spite of His
will? You reject the belief that God knows all about the future or
that He is the ultimate source of all decisions?

Here are my answers:
First, I said that I am "open to open theism," I did not say that I am
necessarily an advocate of open theism myself. It's something that I think
about from time to time, esp when thinking about some passages of scripture
(when God changes God's mind, forgets things, or repents of things) that do
make God sound somewhat "timebound" as we are. Obviously these might be
purely metaphorical--who can show me statements about God that are not at
least somewhat limited by the need to use human language? Or, they might be
intended more literally. I do not think that we can determine from the
scriptures alone, which interpretations are more accurate to the intended
meanings in such cases.

Second, when we speak either of open theism or of classical theism, we are
speaking about human understandings of God, formal philosophical/theological
understandings of God that will necessarily reflect certain assumptions
about what is/what is not appropriate to say about God. The role of such
assumptions is esp important in questions of the very sort you have raised.
The fact is, I am not certain how I would answer the questions you've posed.
 At one time I was certain--I'd have said simply that God knows all things,
before they happen, and that God also determines all things before they
happen. I was also comfortable with double predestination, which is IMO
consistent with and follows naturally from such a fully deterministic view.
I am more inclined to "Arminianism" now, and with it more inclined to be
"open to open theism" than I was at one time.

I now have doubts about double predestination, at least as Calvin and
Luther seemed to have understood it; this is another reason why I am "open
to open theism." You've probably thought about all yourself, Janice, I'd be
interested to hear your own thoughts--on both election/predestination and
open theism.

To a limited extent, traditional answers to questions such as you pose
above might be put into the following proposition:

God knows beforehand the truth value of all logically consistent
statements. Thus, God knows before it happens everything that will happen,
incl the results of free actions by free agents as well as the results of
chance/random events.

I respect that view and *might* hold it myself, but I'm less confident
about it than I used to be. Is that your view, Janice?

Ted

 
Received on Tue Jan 3 13:59:18 2006