Expelled: Why are Americans allowed to care so much about freedom?, and other thoughts

—–Denyse: “The film’s strongest point is that Stein is way too smart to waste a second on “theistic” evolution - the idea that we know that God exists by faith alone. On that view, God’s actions in the world around us are supposedly indistinguishable from chance events, so design is an illusion and faith means taking a leap without evidence.”

In the spirit of, “You might be a redneck.” (If your family tree doesn’t fork)

You might be a theistic evolutionist if:

If you believe that God can do the selecting and, at the same time, nature can do the selecting, you might be a TE.

If you believe that evolutionary process can be both conscious and intentional and unconscious and unintentional, you might be a TE.

If you believe that a process can be both guided and unguided, you may be a TE.

If you believe that design can produce evolution and that evolution can produce design, you might be a TE.

If you believe that contingency is objective when doing your science and subjective when doing your theology, you might be a TE.

If you believe that a purposeful, mindful creator would use a purposeless, mindless process, you might be a TE.

If you believe that any given plan can provide for many possible outcomes and only one possible outcome, you might be a TE.

If you use the language of teleology while arguing on behalf of non-teleology, you might be a TE.

If you think God revealed himself in Scripture and hid himself in nature, you might be a TE.

If you unjustly accuse ID scientists of having religious motives, while, ironically, falling back on the theological objection of “bad design,” you might be a TE.

If you insist that there is “no conflict between religion and science,” while embracing methodological naturalism, which depends on a conflict between religion and science, you might be a TE.

If you believe that evolution, which cannot be seen, is empirically detectable, while intelligent design, which can be seen, is empirically undetectable, you might be a TE.

If, when asked how an empirically based design inference could possibly be a faith based presupposition, you answer, “because Judge Jones said so,” you might be a TE.

If you appeal to Mr. Design, St.Thomas Aquinas, to argue against intelligent design, you might be a TE.

If you believe that a proposition can be true and false at the same time and under the same formal circumstances, you might be a TE.

If your atheist friends insist that you are a “devout” Christian, you might be a TE.

If you deny that these formulations are fair, or if you claim to have no idea what I am talking about, you are definitely a TE.

Nice post, Denyse, except for the part about open theism.

Despite what you may have been told or inferred, there are no essential connections between open theism and theistic evolution. Open theism is committed to three things: (1) Theism, of a broadly classical sort; (2) future contingency; and (3) the idea that future contingency is incompatible with the future’s being epistemically settled for God. (For elaboration, I invite you to read my essay “Generic Open Theism and Some Varieties Thereof” recently published in the academic journal Religious Studies 44 (2008): 225–234.) That’s it. Hence, while open theism is compatible with TE, it’s also compatible with YEC and everything in between (including ID).

Finally, your dismissal of open theism as an “atheist heresy” is simply ridiculous. It reflects considerable ignorance not only of open theism but also of a number of complex and heavily discussed philosophical and theological issues, such as the relation of God and time.

Keep up your good work promoting ID, Denyse, but please don’t drag in issues like open theism that you are ill-prepared to comment on. Thanks.

Just to throw in something along with Alan Fox’s objection - I believe Vox Day (who wrote the fantastic The Irrational Atheist) also subscribes to a version of open theism, though frankly he’s got very unique views on Christianity and religion in general.

I’d feel no more comfortable accusing open theists of atheism than I would of accusing mormons of same. I believe in an omniscient, omnipotent God, but I think there is a vast gulf between open theists and atheists.

Mike Behe and I should be called theistic evolutionists - we accept conventional dating methods and common descent of living things

Denyse, I am rather surprised by this admission given your tendency to talk about “goo to zoo to you” in a disparaging manner.

—–Alan Rhoda….”while open theism is compatible with TE, it’s also compatible with YEC and everything in between (including ID).”

The point is that open theism is incompatible with the Bible just as TE is incompatible with the Bible except for different reasons. The Christian God is a perfect being and consequently immutable. To be in need change or to be changing is to be imperfect by definition and, therefore to be something other than God.

—-”Open theism is committed to three things: (1) Theism, of a broadly classical sort; (2) future contingency; and (3) the idea that future contingency is incompatible with the future’s being epistemically settled for God.”

That is an unfortunate position to hold. God’s omnipotence and omniscience are not in conflict with man’s free will. God knows if and when the stock market is going to crash, but that does not mean he causes it to happen.

Denyse wrote:

“Given the many recent discoveries that challenge Darwinism and materialism, a thirteen-part TV series on the real arguments for and against design is needed.”

I couldn’t agree more. Additionally, there is much that can be gained by informing the public on just what goes on inside the cell. Right now Darwin’s black box is really modern society’s black box.

A multi-part elucidation on sub cellular mechanics with appropriate commentary of the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary thinking, side by side with clear instruction on design thinking (absent all the pejoratives and motive mongering that accompanies most other commentary) would go along way toward educating the public. I tend to think there would be interest here, perhaps more than anticipated.

People tend to respect their teachers, and thus have regard for their opinions and the reasons behind them. If a strong pro-design and pro-science educational multimedia video series were produced, it would do wonders for people’s perception of ID, as well as help inform constructively about what really goes on in that little glob of protoplasm.

I agree that Expelled fell short of the mark here. It certainly didn’t meet my expectations, although I enjoyed watching it. It was priceless seeing Ruse invoke natural selection as an explanation for the first living organism. It was also enlightening seeing Provine confess that science is “boring” if design is true (after all, the pursuit of many materialists in science is to prove that all this god bother is sheer nonsense, and completely unnecessary). I would have liked to see more material on just what Intelligent Design is (and isn’t) and why there really is a controversy over naturalistic explanations for the origins and diversity of life, and less about the ties between Darwinism and Nazism.

But I can’t think who would show the series.

It certainly wouldn’t be a small task to get it onto cable or broadcast television. I wouldn’t expect PBS to show it, but stranger things may have happened. I can say this however. I bought the DVD Unlocking the Mysteries of Life from a Calvary Chapel bookstore when I was investigating material on design versus evolution, and it was a real eye opener. I was (and still am) enamored with the representations of the processes taking place inside the cell, and to see it represented in such a visually rich manner helped immeasurably in providing a peek into systems that are self-evidently a product of surpassingly genius design.

@StephenB, brilliantly funny list!

Why aren’t ID movies, DVDs and videos legally free on the Internet?

For the same reason that Richard Dawkins doesn’t put the entire text of “The God Delusion” on the internet for free.

Google Video would host a “thirteen-part TV series on the real arguments for and against design”.

It’s difficult to understand the allure of TE given the lack of predictive power of current evolutionary theory. For example, a recent study of birds is causing extensive revision to their tree of life.

Field Museum (2008, June 27). Huge Genome-scale Phylogenetic Study Of Birds Rewrites Evolutionary Tree-of-life. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 28, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/06/080626141117.htm

The authors go as far to say that:
Shorebirds are not a basal evolutionary group, which refutes the widely held view that shorebirds gave rise to all modern birds.

Also….
“With this study, we learned two major things,” said Sushma Reddy, another lead author and Bucksbaum Postdoctoral Fellow at The Field Museum. “First, appearances can be deceiving. Birds that look or act similar are not necessarily related. Second, much of bird classification and conventional wisdom on the evolutionary relationships of birds is wrong.”

With so many surprises resulting from fundamental research at the genomic level, isn’t it time for a new and more accurate theory and narrative for the origin and evolution of species.

“A god who does not know the future and therefore learns the future (for the first time!) as it unfolds does seem to be an evolving god (we might say “an epistemically evolving god”). ”

This would also be true of any finite time-bound being who does not know the future, including me. But I am not an epistemically evolving human being. I am a human being who remains identical to himself over time while changing. It does not seem accurate to refer to my acquisition of knowledge that happens as I move through time as “evolution.”

I am certainly no fan of open theism. But it does not seem to entail theistic evolution or vice versa. Certainly, an argument can be made that process theism is congenial to an evolutionary understanding. Perhaps Denyse is confusing process theism with open theism, which is, by the way, not uncommon mistake for those outside of theology.

Alan is a former of student mine at UNLV, who wrote his honors thesis on the design argument (which I directed). He will be joining me next year at the University of Notre Dame. Alan will be a junior fellow in the Center for Philosophy of Religion while I will be the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in the Center for Ethics & Culture.

I do think that Alan is completely wrong about open theism. But he’s a good man and a good philosopher.

Hi Bill,

You’re right that open theism is committed to an epistemically changing God, a God who “experiences succession”, we might say. But that’s not so clearly a liability as Denyse seems to think. The argument from divine perfection that she alludes to depends on the questionable assumption that all that change must be either for the better or for the worse.

As for God’s knowledge of the future, the key issue here is the nature of “the future”. According to non-open theists, of the many causally possible futures–complete sequences of events subsequent to the present–there is exactly one that is the “actual” future. According to (most) open theists, on the other hand, there is no such thing as “the future” in that sense for God or anyone to know. Instead, open theists conceive of “the future” as the whole branching array of possible futures. Given these respective understandings of “the future”, both open and non-open theists can affirm that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future; both can affirm that God believes all truths.

There is parity between the two positions here. If non-open theists are right about the nature of the future, then open theists have to deny that God is strictly omniscient. Conversely, if open theists are right about the nature of the future, then it is the non-open theists who compromise God’s omniscience by imputing to Him false beliefs (i.e., beliefs to the effect that there is an “actual” future, when there isn’t one).

Bill you say

Moreover, Augustine says that any being that does not know the future is not God. So, by Augustine’s lights, open theists, in denying the existence of any being that knows the future, deny the existence of God.

We agree on the main point but wasnt it Maimonides who is credited with the greatest advancement of negative theology?

To quote from WIKI-

“Maimonides was led by his admiration for the neo-Platonic commentators to maintain many doctrines which the Scholastics could not accept. For instance, Maimonides was an adherent of “negative theology” (also known as “Apophatic theology”.) In this theology, one attempts to describe God through negative attributes. For instance, one should not say that God exists in the usual sense of the term; all we can safely say is that God is not non-existent. We should not say that “God is wise”; but we can say that “God is not ignorant,” i.e. in some way, God has some properties of knowledge. We should not say that “God is One,” but we can state that “there is no multiplicity in God’s being.” In brief, the attempt is to gain and express knowledge of God by describing what God is not; rather than by describing what God “is.”

The Scholastics agreed with him that no predicate is adequate to express the nature of God; but they did not go so far as to say that no term can be applied to God in the affirmative sense. They admitted that while “eternal,” “omnipotent,” etc., as we apply them to God, are inadequate, at the same time we may say “God is eternal” etc., and need not stop, as Moses did, with the negative “God is not not-eternal,” etc. In essence what Maimonides wanted to express is that when people give God anthropomorphic qualities they do not do justice to His greatness.”

For the record St Augistine’s contribution certainly did come before Maimonides’.

By the way Bill, how do you feel about the negative theological perspective?

Dembski wrote:

“Moreover, Augustine says that any being that does not know the future is not God. So, by Augustine’s lights, open theists, in denying the existence of any being that knows the future, deny the existence of God.”

In light of the Christian God as portrayed in the Book of Genesis, shouldn’t “God” (who has the prowess to foresee future events) be responsible for the creation of sin and the elimination of free will?

Also Bill I hate to challenge you logic here but you statement here has a loop hole-

“Moreover, Augustine says that any being that does not know the future is not God. So, by Augustine’s lights, open theists, in denying the existence of any being that knows the future, deny the existence of God.

Augustine saying “any being that does not know the future is not God”
is not a statement about what God “IS” but what God is not, therefore, it seems to me, that God’s relationship to “positive” knowledge of the future, remains to be accurately defined and at least understood -

Your point seems to maintain that…

“one in denying the existence of any being that knows the future, denies the existence of God.”

Yet, one can still logically deny the existence of any being “knowing the future” and simultaneously hold the “negative” perspective that “any being that does not know the future is not God”

“IF” one takes the position that God cannot be understood “as a being.”

A position that I myself hold as I am persuaded by transcendentalist intuitions about God.

*Continued from my previous comment.*

I think “God” in accordance with the ability to “know the future” is averse to a kind and loving God as depicted within biblical doctrine. With that ability, the “evil” (i.e., death and suffering) of this world is the end result of God’s planning and forthought…

And to advocate such a belief is to hinder the benevolence of God and the logic of Christianity.

^that is that time may not actually exist-

Hi Denyse,

Respectfully, I must say that your follow-up response to me betrays profound confusion regarding what open theism is.

You seem to think that the “god” of open theism is simply “a being much greater than ourselves”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Open theists are first and foremost monotheists. We believe that God is the greatest possible being. He is an eternal, metaphysically necessary, transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, personal being who created the world ex nihilo, sustains it in being, and can unilaterally intervene in it as He pleases. Clearly, no self-consistent atheist could be an open theist.

Furthermore, it is a misrepresentation of open theism to say that, according to it, God doesn’t know the future or that the future is “beyond [G]od” and “greater than [G]od”. On the contrary, open theists believe that God knows the future exhaustively. Where we differ from non-open theists is on how we think about the nature of the future. The point has sometimes been put by saying that, for open theism, God does not have “exhaustively definite foreknowledge”. This does not mean that He doesn’t have exhaustive foreknowledge. He does. It means, rather, that His exhaustive foreknowledge is of a future that is not, it itself, wholly definite. Rather, the future consists in part of unresolved possibilities or might-and-might-nots.

Frank,

Thanks for the introduction. I definitely look forward to chatting with you and your wife at Notre Dame.

I hope we’ll get a chance there to discuss your objections to open theism in detail, as that is the focus of the project I’ll be working on at ND.

In my view the two biggest challenges to open theism are (1) Biblical prophecy and (2) the fact that its view of God’s foreknowledge is non-traditional. Other popular objections, ones to the effect that God of open theism is a “diminished” or finite “god” are, I think, pretty much worthless straw men.

Open theists confuse God’s actions with God’s attributes. Normal Geisler has taken this kind of flawed thinking apart and has successfully refuted its erroneous conclusions.

HI Alan - thanks for the articulate explanation of open theism, especially in regards to the nature of the future and therefore the unfolding of histories of all sorts.

I’m assuming, although the purpose of this post is to check this understanding, that open theism would accept an evolutionary explanation of the history of life as opposed to rejecting it because of the role contingent events play in such an explanation.

Would you be willing to comment on this?

Infinite Intelligence asks:

In light of the Christian God as portrayed in the Book of Genesis, shouldn’t “God” (who has the prowess to foresee future events) be responsible for the creation of sin and the elimination of free will?

To which Dr. Dembski has written a response to this subject in the past:

Christian Theodicy in Light of
Genesis and Modern Science

http://www.designinference.com.....eodicy.pdf

No one has addressed my point about “the definition of being*” where what is being called into question is the objective* reality of time. If time is ideal like Kurt Gödel thought, then the issue of future anything becomes irrelevant.

The point is that if God could not know the future then God could not make promises- but if there was in fact no future to know, that is God knows all things yet is not concerned with the illusion of time, then the question becomes vacuous.

The idea of open theism is about freedom* and man’s and God’s position to allow individuals to fulfill their own destines. So the concern of open and closed theism is a truly significant and real one that has existed ever since religion was first activated- but if there is no objective time in the first place, then the argument is really merely one of semantics and not meaning.

Take for example the relativistic interpretation of time as “a space”- if individual’s “futures” are merely contained within one phenomenological metric of ” space-distance” as opposed to “time-duration” then the issue of “knowing what is going to happen” becomes meaningless. This is like looking at a static picture hanging on the wall and asking things like “how can the man on the left side of that picture coexist with the boat on the right side!?” The answer is because they occupy different positions within the same “space”- that is there is no unforeseen future anyways, not because the outside observer “can see the whole picture” but because time or duration is NONEXISTENT!-

We as human beings however have the disposition of believing that “time” exists as an unfolding process- and ideally* it does! But in reality, that is outside of our intuitive understanding I’m not sure time is anything more than distance between things in a 4 dimensional space- that is events are just characters on ate canvass.

This illuminates one of the foolish mind tricks evolution* loves to exploit agains the design argument- design takes the canvas and sees the picture as it is put together as a design process loaded with intrinsic design all the way through-

- evolution sees the picture as a process within time* that “just happens” (ridiculous chance worship) to look like Design*-

Im not big on objective interpretation of time and so the question of whether God truly can know the future is meaningless to me. The world is a canvass and matter is paint- time is more like a particular character style (i.e. impressionistic) by which God chooses to style his painting.

The last question however is one of ethics, whereby the question about the morality of a God that does not allow man to choose his own destiny- that is if time is merely ideal then what freedom and choice does man really have?

The answer lies within the question. Often people speak of “free will” but John Locke rejected the idea in his Essay Concerning The Human Understanding-

Locke saw freedom as our range within space- and the will as “that which we choose to do.” In other words the concept “free will” is really a coloration of two completely separate concepts synthesized into one corollary. The point being that we do indeed have a will, and we do indeed enjoy varying degrees of freedom but that they are two separate and very different reprehensive concepts of the human condition within physical space/time. If so then God would judge us by the virtue of what we wish* to do, that is the quality of our will or desires (good or evil).

In this interpretation we are spirits floating through a maze of matter- life is a blind test and the holly spirit of God is our guide. The belief that the physical world reflects a place that CAN be benevolent is based upon our faith in the character of God and what he might choose to include in his painting- as best as we can understand God and his abilities and intentions.

That is the coloration between the will and time- that which we “wish” is really a hope for “the future”- but if time is merely “an illusion” then it may serve the purpose of leading us on in a blind direction to see if we will take that leap of faith “into the unknown and going forward.” This is possibly the only way to know the true spiritual intentions of man- by making him think that he has an objective choice he is tempted to do both what is right and what is wrong and his devotion is measured by how he deals with the illusion of this freedom- whether it goes to his head or he keeps it in check for the purpose of preserving and doing that which is united with the will of the ultimate good. That is to say while time may indeed be an illusion the choice to do good and evil is not- yet time is the gate way whereby God leaves the door open to see if we will run away and chose the proverbial narcissistic illusion. This brings up the question “is man drunk on his own freedom?”

I think that a lot of “IDists” become confused between the literal interpretation of God via Biblical scripture and the philosophical one via intuitionist and practical reasoning. In this argument that I have laid out above (which I am not fully convinced of myself, though I do at the current time lean towards) I challenge the first by appealing to the latter.

I have been following the foregoing debate on Open Theism with some interest. Rather than take up too much space on this blog, I would simply like to say that I have put together an interesting collection of philosophical papers on Divine Omniscience, which I have found from trawling the Internet. Some of these papers deal with Open Theism, and the major philosophical and theological objections to it. (The papers include a diverse range of viewpoints.) Readers may also be interested in Robert Taylor’s paper, “Is human free will compatible with divine omniscience?” as well as the response by David Misialowski. Anyway, here is the address of my Web page: http://www.angelfire.com/linux.....mniscience

There’s an introductory preface (which readers are welcome to skip) in which I set forth my own opinions on the subject, but if you scroll down, you will find the collection of essays.

Alan R
“His exhaustive foreknowledge is of a future that is not, in itself, wholly definite. Rather, the future consists in part of unresolved possibilities or might-and-might-nots.”

So perhaps my friend you’d rid your description of God of a few “omni-” prefixes, since the universe of matter, dimensions and time that God created operates in a way that He doesn’t fully understand and control. I don’t think I’ve ever read, “Most of the hairs of your head are numbered, rounded off in hundreds.”

When you make God subservient to events of the future you negate omnipresence, which by definition includes all time and all its dimensions, past, present and future. I agree that “eternal” is not an easy concept to grasp, but it certainly means TIMELESS, i.e. no subservience to time, including anything we limited creatures might call “future.”

I think StephanB in 22 has it.

Some 30 years ago I received a silent rebuke that may sufficiently illustrate God’s inscrutable knowledge of the future, and my own “will.”

One morning about 11:00 am I sat by the large open window next to the front door in my apartment living room, reading intently the passage of the Last Supper. There Christ foretold to His disciples that they would deny and abandon Him. Peter protested his fidelity, but Christ told him that before the rooster crows twice he would deny Him thrice.

Though I was rather new in faith, having left naturalism for Theism, by this time I’d nevertheless read the NT a number of times and I knew the passage and the poignant outcome. In my misplaced enthusiasm I started to say silently in my heart, “Boy Lord, if I had been there…” (I wouldn’t have denied You like Peter did). But at that very instant, before I could even finish articulating my thought, a friend of my roommate passed the window heading for the front door. I was shocked! Here I was about to be discovered holding a Bible, the book I’d so long dissed as a book of myths, actually reading it. I slammed the Bible shut and shoved it behind a pillow on the sofa! I answered the door and in a few seconds my roommate left with his friend - and I, like Peter, realized exactly what had happened. At the very instant where I’d read the passage of Christ foretelling His denial by His disciples, the very moment I prayed in my heart to Christ about my fidelity, I too was tested and revealed the very same inability to abide faithful as had the disciples, not only to Christ, but to the Bible. I cried a little about my failure, and laughed a little that God would slap my wrist in such a remarkable way to reveal the truth, by inscrutable knowledge and timing of events.

“All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”

Bill,

I can appreciate your not finding open theism agreeable with your theological convictions, though your characterization of open theism as holding that God “is not sovereign over [the future] and thus can, strictly speaking, offer no guarantees about its unfolding” is a straw man. Those charges would probably stick against process theism, but not open theism. If the future is indeed open in the way that open theists believe that it is, that is only because God has sovereignly decided for it to be open in precisely those ways.

Regarding election, ecclesiology, and God’s making and keeping promises, I don’t see the incoherences you claim. God’s ability to keep promises is guaranteed by His omnipotence, which open theists affirm (unlike process theists). Regarding election and ecclesiology, open theists generally take a “corporate” view, but that’s not a strict entailment of open theism. Indeed, one can, though it’s rather awkward to do so, combine open theism with a Calvinist soteriology. (Greg Boyd held that view for a couple years.) The important thing to keep in mind is that, for open theism, it is God who decides exactly how open the future is. He determines the initial state, He determines the boundary conditions, and He can unilaterally intervene however he wants to in order to keep His program for creation and for the Church on track.

But Alan you have not delt with the power of the argument from the objective nature of time being from the human perspective merely ideal.

That is that time is merely a frame of reference thing (as is supported by moden physics) and that God, where ever he may be, may not be concerned with time at all. Time for God might just be an allusion usedto keep man’s spirit in check and this life being a test of his fortitude.

A God like this knows all and is only concerned with the spiritual decisions of our souls. Which dont exist in space and time and therefore are on God’s prime level and not of this mere physical earth.

Jack (#24),

You asked me about whether open theism is committed to an evolutionary explanation of the history of life. Frankly, I think the answer is no. Some open theists, like Bill Hasker, do find evolutionary explanations congenial to open theism, but even he would admit, I’m sure, that there are no entailments between open theism and any particular view of biological origins.

Frost,

I haven’t dealt with the time issue because it wasn’t at all necessary for my rebuttal of Denyse’s comments.

But since you bring it up, I’ll simply say that open theists are committed to a dynamic theory of time, according to which temporal becoming is a fully objective feature of reality and not merely a matter of human perspective. I know of no successful arguments refuting this view of time.

Thanks for the answer, Alan.

Actually, however, I didn’t ask whether open theism was committed to an evolutionary explanation, but rather merely whether open theism would accept, as oppose to reject, the contingent nature - the role of what at least looks to us like chance and accident - of an evolutionary explanation for the history of life.

Let me be more specific. Many reject evolutionary theory because they see the role of “random mutations” and other contingent events as in opposition to the manifestation of God’s design. Others, the theistic evolutionists who many here feel are not much better than materialists, believe that God acts through natural causes in ways that are beyond our empirically-based comprehension, so that what looks like chance to us is not chance to God. To such TE’s the randomness and contingency we find when we examine the world empirically is not in opposition to the belief that the course of all histories play out as God desires.

My question, which may be more of a point, is that it seems to me that open theism, even more than theistic evolution, would accept that the world looks to us like it follows historical and causal paths full of contingency and chance, and that the presence of such contingency is not in conflict with our understanding of the nature of God.

So my question was not whether you, or open theism in general, accepts an evolutionary explanation. My question was whether open theism accepts or rejects the argument that an evolutionary explanation that includes events which are contingent from our human perspective is somehow irreconciliable with theistic belief.

Wow! How did we go from Ben Stein to Open Theism? Anyway this is a subject that interests me much—though I’m no philosopher (Don’t you agree so readily!). I have to agree with Alan Rhoda and Infinite Intelligence (how could one not!)—they make good points much better than I.

I’ve always been bothered by the God of the theologians—cast as he was from time and thus experience and agency and learning or ever creating anything new. Whenever we try to define God we limit him. God is so great, we say, that he is outside this paltry thing we call time. I call it “theological reductionism”: did God create logic? Yes, they say. Did he create love? Of course, they assert. Well, then, if everything we can abstract about the world was created at some point in the past, then before that God was minus logic and love and everything we can imagine. Maybe ultimate reality is as simple as the reductionists think.

Oh, but time had a beginning. Did it? How do we know? I find that I can neither imagine a past eternity (a la the Kalam) nor imagine no past eternity. Here my sympathy lies not with Augustine but King David (Psalm 139:6), “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.” But don’t get me wrong. I don’t know that we cannot know (a la Chesterton), just that I don’t know.

We can define God however we fancy and then excise all believers who don’t so believe (thankfully not burn them at the stake anymore). But when enough men and women of good will begin to take God and the Scriptures seriously all these questions need to be put back on the table. And it looks like they already are. My best to you, Alan Rhoda!

I’ve always felt that one must be educated (indoctrinated?) to be a compatibilist—I’ve never met an ordinary person of such a persuasion. Einstein’s “Block Time” and cosmos with no place for the present moment and no place for free will—Einstein’s theories cry out for revision! Einsteinianism, let me suggest, is opposed to both ID and Open Theism but just what the TEs ordered. In the long run I suggest that we’ll find Open Theism most proper for ID.

WmAD says, “But a God who ‘can unilaterally intervene however he wants’ seems as complicit and culpable as any God of traditional Christian theism.” Well, me thinks it’s not that God can unilaterally intervene however he wants, it’s that God grants us the freedom to unilaterally intervene however we want (within limits he sets) that causes the problem. In the end there is simply no way to get God off the hook—and God doesn’t try to get off either, as he says (Isaiah 45:7), “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”

Any theodicy must in some way limit God—to pretend otherwise is wrong. God is limited by his ultimate purpose, limited by logic, by his promises and covenants, by granting us free will (where he has to live with the consequences). God cannot have his cake and eat it too, else there would be no suffering.

On open theism and the nature of time I find that both Gregory Boyd and Nicholas Wolterstorff argue mostly from Scripture whereas their antagonists cite the theologians and reason from prior reasoning. But then, Denyse notwithstanding, one day I stumbled upon this—Boyd is an anti-ID TE! Well, it just goes to show that all wisdom is not invested in one person. In order of priority ID is outranks Open Theism, and thankfully ID offers its Big Tent where theological heretics like yours truly feels right at home.

Alan wrote,

“But since you bring it up, I’ll simply say that open theists are committed to a dynamic theory of time, according to which temporal becoming is a fully objective feature of reality and not merely a matter of human perspective. I know of no successful arguments refuting this view of time.”

I gave you some above. Godel’s appeal to idealistic time takes out of the picture the need for a God which is both commited to all things and yet still allowing evil to happen. The reason is because in a world without time things don’t “happen” they change and they are but cannot be understood as temporal.

Godel used Einstein’s relativity theories to reduce objective time to merely a manifestation of mind - or idealism of the intuition.

In this world God is only concerned with the way spirits act and time is not an issue but an illusion. That is ALL events happen in the same metric of space.

Basically since “time” is the real problem being discussed here it is then an obvious solution to just simply eliminate it. Gödel did this and relativity both scientifically and philosophically supports it. However I do concede that Gödel’s theory could be wrong and there could be an actual objective time-

In any case I don’t think open theism has anything remotely reasonable to offer here on this point. So my point was that Bill used Augustine’s negative theism to show how one my eliminate open theism- how ever negative theism does not deal with what IS but only with what isn’t-

Ergo God’s actually relationship with time is not defined that way- so this leaves open the possibility that time is an illusion designed by God to keep man’s spirit in check.

A theory that I do think is reasonable though I do not openly hold as my own.

BTW I think that when I bring up Gödel’s views on all of this people think of his insanity and then commit the fallacy by authority throwing out his views based on his personal problems. However he arguably did more for math and philosophy then Einstein, Plato and Kant put together. He found the edge place where ontology and epistemology meet- the limits of mechanical reductionism- by showing the incompleteness of any formal system rich enough to contain arithmetic. Time being a “metric” which is arithmetical, is therefore possibly an incomplete conception.

One might say to pin time on God is to automatically reduce God to the limits of time- therefore one has already “fixed” the debate before it can even take place! That is limiting God to the terms of an incomplete metric.

“Indeed, one can, though it’s rather awkward to do so, combine open theism with a Calvinist soteriology. (Greg Boyd held that view for a couple years.)”

Well, that defeats Open Theism’s whole purpose: to protect libertarian free-will.

There’s another problem: all the names of the elect have been written in the “Book of Life” “from the foundation of the world.” If men have libertarian free-will and God does not know the future, then God would have to over-ride just about everyone’s LFW in order to get us to procreate so that those exact people come into being! [And of course, there are, no doubt, innumerable men and women who will be in the Book of Life who were the result of pre-marital relations. Wouldn't this also make God the author of sin?]

Another problem: Judas Iscariot. Even Gregory Boyd admits that Judas’ betrayal of Christ was not free in the libertarian sense. Yet, Judas is called the “son of Perdition” (John 17:12). The argument from the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) says that one must have LFW in order to be held responsible. Would this not refute the PAP? If PAP is refuted, then there is no reason to hold to Open Theism.

“I call it “theological reductionism”: did God create logic? Yes, they say. Did he create love? Of course, they assert.”

The answer given by most Christian theologians is “no.” Both logic and love were and are both aspects of God’s immutable essence. This goes for his righteousness. Thus, logic, love, and righteousness are neither below God nor above Him. This solves the Euthyphro Dilemma.

When physicists (Einstein et al) dismiss our perception of the present as “subjective time” I’m leery. The present—this moment—is the aperture within which consciousness obtains and agency acts. Saying this is an illusion smacks of materialist bias! Somebody rescue Gödel for me.

WmAD says: “A God who does not know the future is not sovereign over it and thus can, strictly speaking, offer no guarantees about its unfolding.” Why not? The businessman, let us say, who controlled all exigencies could be pretty sure his plans would pan out. How much more God! What if God’s sovereignty comes via agency and authority and oversight more than some infinite crystal ball. What if he’s a hands-on God—the Hebrew God of history as opposed to the ontological God of the philosophers. What if God’s free will is paramount, his power to make the future is what makes him God.

After all, don’t we ID folks focus on agency as opposed to necessity, on design as instantiated by a mind rather than the vision of a clairvoyant?

But this is Bill’s blog and I hope I’m not being too impertinent. Hope the support of a heretic doesn’t distract from the cause, because the front line in the culture war is ID—not, at the moment, Open Theism. Viva ID! Viva WmAD! Viva todos en las líneas del frente!

“Saying this is an illusion smacks of materialist bias!”

No materialism deals with reducing things to “matter”- illusions are non objective perceptions of the mind and in this cause the mind through reasoning is able to see around them from a strickly logical view.

“But this is Bill’s blog and I hope I’m not being too impertinent.”

Don’t worry if Bill wants you gone he wont even tell you. Youll be gone before he even posts his favorite statement

“Rude is no longer with us.”

LOL.

You opened up an excellent convo here Rude. Not the best but certainly a B -.

You also said

“When physicists (Einstein et al) dismiss our perception of the present as “subjective time” I’m leery.”

and you should be. I agree that the idea of time being ideal is a hard line to ride since time is a natural intuition. My point is that the argument still stands. It is perfectly logical and I have not heard any refutation of it except those from Biblical literalcy.

In any event I don’t think time is a problem for God. I do think he knows or does not know what is going to happen because i think God transcends time. That is my position on all of this. Time’s possible ideality is beyond the current reach of science because there is no objective frame of reference where by we can appeal and test from. As I said before though if God has that prime placement in that objective frame of reference then time could objectively exist. But either way, (and I don’t really have a horse in this race) God transcends time. So I don’t think it is an issue for him. However I do not think that if time does objectively exist, that God could not know it. This would be putting limits on God for religious, political or ethical ideological reasons that have no standing within science.

As a theological interpretation I think open theism is very flawed. From a scientific perspective it is not only a non sequitter but “not even wrong.”

So the mind through reasoning is able to see around the illusion that it is now that I exercise my free will. If now is an illusion, what about free will? Einstein did not believe that there was such a thing and in my book that makes him a materialist of some genre.

I don’t mean to belittle anyone’s Theology, and do think that correct understanding of God’s nature is important, but in reading all this, I am very glad that I didn’t have to have a perfect understanding of God to have God come into my life, in a real, tangible, undeniable way, when I, finally, called out to Him in the battered Christian faith that I had received as a small child.

Rude, I adressed free will and Locke above. The point is that every NOW is NOW. And that wich is before and later is only an illusion. When they happen they are nows- and that is all there is- one space- one canvass where all times are one space.

Im not saying I buy this- im saying its a logical argument that stands as another option to object phenomenological time. I’m not the first person to call into question whether time REALLY exists. Yet, I feel like im the only one non biasly useing facts to support it- and accepting it and the classical interpretation both as possibilities.

The truth is that out side or faith, since Einstein, no one really knows.

Bornagain, I agree with you point. We come here to debate and intellectualize- but practicality is the most important thing and I for one agree that man is not judged by the accuracy or quality his knowledge of God by the quality of his spiritual relationship with God.

If you heart and intent is pure God will reveal to you all that you need to know. This is at least the best that we can hope for- because I for one do not think I anyone will ever come close to a perfect understanding of his grace.

I raise the issue above because the time issue has always been a tough one for theology. How can God let bad things happen? But I am just trying to point out a cogent, logical, theological, philosophical and scientific argument that says time is not NECESSARILY the culprit here. It was worth mentioning to me.

I should add that Locke thought time was ideal and not objective as well.

And I should add that of course time exists in some very real and very significant sense.

Well, here’s the problem: any attempt to describe God through intellect leads to a divide between pure negation (Augustine) or pure action (Aquinas). And this is no less true of Open Theism than of the Calvinism that it resists.

The capacity of intellect for judgment is a negative power. When any attempt is made to describe God by totalizing this power, the result is pure negation, as seen in Plato. God becomes impassive, devoid of emotion, changeless, utterly transcendent—in short, God becomes the same thing as pure intellect and its capacity to negate the value of existence.

Now as we know it is possible for the philosophers to overcome this negation by describing God as pure reciprocal action, which is just what Aristotle did. But by negating the negation, the synthetic method always has the net effect of drawing God into being and depriving him of his differential power.

Which seems to be the case with “dynamic omniscience.” God (out of love) enters into a dance, a reciprocal relation, with the creature he created and allows him to shape the very nature of being even as it is coming into being. But God cannot enter into this dance without forfeiting the difference between himself and the creature.

“Dynamic” indicates pure action. “Dynamic omniscience” negates the negation of the value of being seen in Augustine and Calvin in order to facilitate a truly intimate relation with God, but this has the unfortunate effect of entangling God to some degree in his creature’s sinfulness and mortal limitations.

Any effort to restore love to the center of our conversations about God is welcome, but Open Theism only goes half way, continuing to cling to the dividing power of reason and judgment, and thus replaying the same old theological divide.

“What if God’s sovereignty comes via agency and authority and oversight more than some infinite crystal ball. What if he’s a hands-on God—the Hebrew God of history as opposed to the ontological God of the philosophers. What if God’s free will is paramount, his power to make the future is what makes him God.”

Amen. The God of Scripture is never described as “timeless.” Instead, He is always described as “everlasting.”

This would, of course, mean that time is a convention instead of having existence.

Of course, this does not preclude God from knowing every event that will come to pass. That would only be true if man had LFW.

Instead, God knows the future because He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

allanius wrote,

“God becomes the same thing as pure intellect and its capacity to negate the value of existence.”

No by saying that God is greater than the intellect you are not negating anything but expressing positive power that indeed does transcend not only this world, but in refutation of your argument, our intellects as well. IF you say “more” we are pointing as best as we can, away from ourselves. You are negating nthe existence of my argument with your intellect.

To argue that theology cannot be in part an intellectual debate is to refute everything you just said about theology! In that cause the best refutation you can “not” put forward is to sit in silence and not type anything on this subject any longer.

I just our Wittgensteind you!

(teasing BTW)

out* Wittgensteined

“but this has the unfortunate effect of entangling God to some degree in his creature’s sinfulness”

Well, that is what the Bible describes:

Proverbs 16:4
“The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil.”

Isaiah 45:7
“The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.”

Lamentations 3:37-38
“Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth?”

Amos 3:6
“If a trumpet is blown in a city will not the people tremble? If a calamity occurs in a city has not the LORD done it?”

While it is true that God tempts no one, He is still the ultimate (NOT proximate) cause of all things that come to pass, whether good or evil, and they come to pass because He purposed them (Isaiah 46:9-10).

God directly intervenes in human affairs, and in fact died on the cross for us. He is willing to suffer on our behalf; but the Bible never describes a situation where God allows his power to be limited by the nature of human beings.

What is perhaps not well known is that the description of God as intellect comes from the Greeks. It is not found anywhere in the Bible. God may condescend to say, “Come, let us reason together,” but God’s word never says, as did Plato and Aristotle, that God is reason; that he is intellect in his essence.

In fact the clear implication of the Book of Job is that God is not accessible to human intellect. Job found it necessary to get up and walk away from human discourse in order to hear directly from God.

If God is a transcendent being, if God is “good” and undivided in value, then intellect cannot describe him, because intellect is a dividing power. Solomon and the story of the prostitute’s baby is relevant here.

There is anothe