Chronology

[RabbiKnife]

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Wait a minute....

Are you suggesting for even a picosecond that perfect Eve's perfect armpits were odiferous and needed a wash?

 

[RandyPNW]

I don't understand the logic behind "God obviously did not know because He gave us choices."

Maybe it's just me, but I'm having trouble understanding how giving man a free will means that God obviously doesn't know something... Or if that were true, how that would be true for some things but not for others.

Or how that keeps God from, in some aspects, being consistent with a Deistic clockmaker... wind it up and let it go..

Don't mean to be rude or obtuse, but I don't think that free will is determinative of omniscience.

I don't have a problem with your view as an "opinion." Obviously, your view of Deity is a simplistic, "God knows everything." In reality, we don't know what He knows. That's just how we define Him, as originator of everything, and therefore unsurprised by anything He does.

[RabbiKnife]

My view of God is far from simplistic as the intersection of foreknowledge and free will is perhaps as complex as the concept of the hypostatic union or the Trinity.

[RandyPNW]

I'm not sure I understand how my, or RK's view limits God, could you clarify where you see the limit? My view, to be clear, is that God possesses middle knowledge, so He knows the outcome of every possible choice, and also, that humanity is genuinely free to make choices.

You group your position together with RK's position? From this post, it doesn't sound like they are in the same category?

The way you're describing your view as "middle knowledge" would agree with my position. I understood that you were describing that earlier--I just didn't know that you were taking that position!

My statement that you'd be limiting God by saying He knows every human choice before they happen is based on the idea that there can only be one choice anybody can make, namely the one foreknown by God.

This "limits" God by saying that He can't impose more than a single choice on anybody, ie cannot impose the possibility of two different choices man may make, both of which God "foreknows" and the specific choice being not completely foreknown in the sense of requiring only one choice.

So, I think there are a few issues with this:

1) God can create a scenario in which there are only two possible outcomes, but there's at least one further option, and that's inaction. So I guess God is aware of that and has three contingencies available to him. But maybe Eve, while talking to the snake, gets bored and decides to go wash her underarms instead. Well, I that's four contingencies now.

I was using two choices as an example, not to determine that there can *only* be two choices! Obviously, there's lots of space for elements of timing, degree of action, inaction, or hybrid decisions, etc.

Or maybe there's another problem lurking here, and that is: how has God set up the circumstance such that Eve arrives at the choice God desires her to make? Is God now arranging contingencies for the hundreds, or thousands, of possible permutations of her possible acts? Does he also arrange these for Adam, and the snake?

Yes, God is like the environment of water. He is all-encompassing, like the ocean. Whatever falls into the ocean has a predictable result. Since God is consistent in His nature, and always tells the truth, whatever falls within His orbit is predictable as a reaction stemming from the nature of His Divinity.

All choices produce a predictable divine result. If we disobey His word, there will be certain consequences. If we obey His word there will be predictable divine consequences. Whether we delay or speed up the process, the result will be predictable--it will be God reacting according to His nature.

2) This seems, then, to challenge God's omniscience and his foreknowledge. How can be that God knows some choices, by which the individual is foreordained, but not other choices, which God allows freedom for by determining possible outcomes? Does this not produce the very issue trying to be avoided, namely, that there are choices that aren't at all choices because they were foreknown?

Not really. The choices that God has determined, such as in Predestination, are designed to show that people who have chosen to live in concert with God will *always* choose to live in accord with the divine nature. We will *always* choose to please God in our choices, and be pure in whatever we choose, because in choosing for immortality in fellowship with God we have obtained an eternal nature like God has, and will predictably always choose to do things with the right spirit.

This doesn't mean that God even foreknows what choices we will make when acting in concert with His Spirit. But it does mean He is able to foreknow that we will choose to live by His Spirit.

Even before we've obtained our immortal nature, we are making choices both predictable and unpredictable. I won't go into the problem of Predestination right now, if you don't mind?

Let me just say that as born again believers we now make predictable choices when we cooperate with our new nature. The choices we make are foreknown by God, because we are acting in concert with His Spirit. They are foreknown to be good choices, but they are not always foreknown what particular decision we will make.

Sometimes God knows *exactly* what we will choose because sometimes He determines that those who are cooperating with Him *must* accomplish certain self-made goals that belong to God. He may, for example, determine that Jerusalem is to be built, and therefore that Moses, who has already chosen to obey God, will supervise the blueprints.

God may predetermine a Gentile king like Cyrus, who has already chosen a certain disposition, to have the temple rebuilt for Him. God foreknew this, ie the particular choice Cyrus would make, simply because this event was of critical importance to God, and knew how Cyrus would want to choose. He cannot choose out of any nature than what he has been given.

Many choices are less important, and not determined as such. But it is always a human choice, whether determined or not. By the nature of our character God is able to determine a definitive result.

But we may choose to backslide or act out of accord with God's Spirit. This is not foreknown by God, and is part of God's imposed neutrality with respect to human choices. God has a consequence to whatever action a person takes in this regard. Nothing will take place outside of God predetermined nature and will, as a result of what we choose.

3) But if God still doesn't know the outcome of the choice, then even if He prepares for every possible eventuality, He would indeed be "taken by surprise" by virtue of the fact that He genuinely doesn't know how the choice will go.

I would refer you back to your own position, that God foreknows any choice we may make in the sense of being *prepared* for it and not actually knowing in advance what particular choice we may make.

What I'd suggest is that God's foreknowledge doesn't make any choice necessary, since His foreknowledge is dependent on our actions. If we act differently, then God knows differently. God knows the choice we make dependent on our choosing.

I think the fundamental error is to consider foreknowledge to be determinative.

By definition, "foreknowledge" is determinative. I believe God has predetermined that His foreknowledge of a free agent's actions must be contingent on how they choose to respond to the choices He gives them.

[RabbiKnife]

By definition, "foreknowledge" is simply knowing in advance without any necessity for causation or determinativeness.  Determinativeness is related to causation; knowing is not.

I think Athanasius and I are in sync on this issue; your idea of "God is prepared for any exigency but doesn't know which ones He'll have to address" is not middle knowledge but a variant of open theism.

[IMINXTC]

From the vantage point of timelessness - seeing the end from the beginning - foreknowledge is simply that: knowing all things at all times. In this light, omniscient God knows how each person will respond to each circumstance and what consequences will ensue.This in no way implies that men's actions are predetermined, and He does not tempt men to sin.


EDIT: Well, not to embellish on what others have laid down here.

[Athanasius]

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Wait a minute....

Are you suggesting for even a picosecond that perfect Eve's perfect armpits were odiferous and needed a wash?

 

Smell like flowers she may, the stench over time it lingers...

[Athanasius]

You group your position together with RK's position? From this post, it doesn't sound like they are in the same category?

Yes, RK and I think similarly on the subject, having talked about this between ourselves fairly extensively.

The way you're describing your view as "middle knowledge" would agree with my position. I understood that you were describing that earlier--I just didn't know that you were taking that position!

Oh, I think you've misunderstood. I think that God knows the outcome of every choice, meaning that He knows what choice will be made, the outcome of that choice, as well as the outcomes of every choice not made. He has full knowledge of the world as it actually is, and the many worlds of potential that never are.

Said another way, I don't think that God is merely aware of all possibilities and then acts thusly depending on which potential is actualised. He knows all those possibilities, as well as what actually happens.

I think was being serious with my Anselm comment earlier, as well. If I, an... unomniscient? or merely... scient? being can imagine a hypothetical based on how I might act, then surely God, who is omniscient, can know with certainty what I can only imagine hypothetically. The principle here is that my ability to know is a limited version of one of God's attributes, so if we take my ability to know and grow it to its logical end, then we arrive in a situation where I know what I had only previous suspected.

My statement that you'd be limiting God by saying He knows every human choice before they happen is based on the idea that there can only be one choice anybody can make, namely the one foreknown by God.

Right, I think this is an incorrect understanding of foreknowledge. For God to foreknow how I will act, I need to first act.

Imagine that you woke up tomorrow with foreknowledge of everything your wife(?) was going to say that day (all approx. 20,000 words). Before she says a single word you know exactly what's going to be said, and how others are going to respond. But you didn't determine what your wife would say simply by knowing. You knew because she first spoke, and if she had said something different, then you would have known differently.

William Lane Craig gets at this distinction in the video below:

This "limits" God by saying that He can't impose more than a single choice on anybody, ie cannot impose the possibility of two different choices man may make, both of which God "foreknows" and the specific choice being not completely foreknown in the sense of requiring only one choice.

So, following on the above, I don't think there's any such limit involved, because God isn't imposing any choices. This issue isn't resolved, either, by positing that God creates multiple choices. Those choices are still foreordained, which isn't quite the foreknowledge we're talking about.

I was using two choices as an example, not to determine that there can *only* be two choices! Obviously, there's lots of space for elements of timing, degree of action, inaction, or hybrid decisions, etc.

Quite. My point is that this scenario turns God into a programmer, effectively.

Yes, God is like the environment of water. He is all-encompassing, like the ocean. Whatever falls into the ocean has a predictable result. Since God is consistent in His nature, and always tells the truth, whatever falls within His orbit is predictable as a reaction stemming from the nature of His Divinity.

You seem to be saying that God is a master of prediction, but that is all: He predicted, but He cannot know the outcome of a choice unless that choice is preordained?

Not really. The choices that God has determined, such as in Predestination, are designed to show that people who have chosen to live in concert with God will *always* choose to live in accord with the divine nature. We will *always* choose to please God in our choices, and be pure in whatever we choose, because in choosing for immortality in fellowship with God we have obtained an eternal nature like God has, and will predictably always choose to do things with the right spirit.

This doesn't mean that God even foreknows what choices we will make when acting in concert with His Spirit. But it does mean He is able to foreknow that we will choose to live by His Spirit.

Even before we've obtained our immortal nature, we are making choices both predictable and unpredictable. I won't go into the problem of Predestination right now, if you don't mind?

Let me just say that as born again believers we now make predictable choices when we cooperate with our new nature. The choices we make are foreknown by God, because we are acting in concert with His Spirit. They are foreknown to be good choices, but they are not always foreknown what particular decision we will make.

Sometimes God knows *exactly* what we will choose because sometimes He determines that those who are cooperating with Him *must* accomplish certain self-made goals that belong to God. He may, for example, determine that Jerusalem is to be built, and therefore that Moses, who has already chosen to obey God, will supervise the blueprints.


God may predetermine a Gentile king like Cyrus, who has already chosen a certain disposition, to have the temple rebuilt for Him. God foreknew this, ie the particular choice Cyrus would make, simply because this event was of critical importance to God, and knew how Cyrus would want to choose. He cannot choose out of any nature than what he has been given.

Many choices are less important, and not determined as such. But it is always a human choice, whether determined or not. By the nature of our character God is able to determine a definitive result.

You seem to be saying, then, that God doesn't possess foreknowledge at all. Is that right?

But we may choose to backslide or act out of accord with God's Spirit. This is not foreknown by God, and is part of God's imposed neutrality with respect to human choices. God has a consequence to whatever action a person takes in this regard. Nothing will take place outside of God predetermined nature and will, as a result of what we choose.

Why is it out of the question for God to determine such a series of events? And, why are you suggesting that God has an 'imposed neutrality' with respect to human choices, despite providing examples above of God foreordaining human choices?

I would refer you back to your own position, that God foreknows any choice we may make in the sense of being *prepared* for it and not actually knowing in advance what particular choice we may make.

But I'm saying that God knows and you're saying that God predicts, or maybe, anticipates. My position is that God has knowledge, while your position is that there are things God has no knowledge of, like human choices. The best God can to is make supremely educated guesses. Those guesses can be accurate to the nth to the trillionth power degree, but it's still not knowledge.

By definition, "foreknowledge" is determinative. I believe God has predetermined that His foreknowledge of a free agent's actions must be contingent on how they choose to respond to the choices He gives them.

The definition of foreknowledge is to know something before it happens (I will add: from our human temporal perspective). There's nothing determinative about that necessarily. But, then you go on to say this:

"His foreknowledge of a free agent's actions must be contingent on how they choose to respond to the choices He gives them."

Which is correct, so I'm not sure why you then add on the unnecessary qualification that God doesn't know how free agents will act, and thus, doesn't possess foreknowledge.

[Athanasius]

Obviously, your view of Deity is a simplistic, "God knows everything."

This sort of comment isn't called for. It's a meritless sentence that could be used to write anyone off. And, something similar could be said of the preceding sentence in relation to the scare quoted 'opinion'.

If a view, like the one RK and myself are advocating for, is coming across as 'simplistic' then I would suggest rethinking whether that's the case, or if it's actually the case that the argument hasn't quite been grasped. Omniscience is anything but simplistic, and anyway, no one is saying that 'God knows everything' and leaving it at that.

[RandyPNW]

Obviously, your view of Deity is a simplistic, "God knows everything."

This sort of comment isn't called for. It's a meritless sentence that could be used to write anyone off. And, something similar could be said of the preceding sentence in relation to the scare quoted 'opinion'.

If a view, like the one RK and myself are advocating for, is coming across as 'simplistic' then I would suggest rethinking whether that's the case, or if it's actually the case that the argument hasn't quite been grasped. Omniscience is anything but simplistic, and anyway, no one is saying that 'God knows everything' and leaving it at that.

You're judging by appearances brother. That's my honest assessment, whether you like the words I used or not. The point is, is God all-knowing in the sense that "God can do anything," which I see as "simplistic." Or, is there more to knowing what God knows than meets the eye?

I've argued this for many years, and there's no other way that I know how to say it. People most often use the argument, "God knows everything, including the choices we will make." They don't want to think any deeper than, "God knows everything--after all, He's God."

This isn't the same thing as saying you or RK are simpletons. For lack of better words, it is an "overly-simple" argument.

This is in fact a legitimate approach to the subject, to state that "God knows everything." It is, I think, an over-simplification. But it does render things more simple than I wish to state them.

In many cases we would all argue that "the simplest solution is the most likely solution." But that isn't calling one "simple-minded," is it?

Again, I'm saying that it isn't enough to just say God by definition knows everything. I'm saying I don't wish to argue that kind of approach, which I think is "simplistic," whether you are making that argument or not. I'm saying I need more of an argument than that.

[RabbiKnife]

No one is falling back on that “simple” argument as the argument of middle knowledge is very sophisticated and quite complex

Saying it is “simple” is simply not accurate

[Athanasius]

You're judging by appearances brother. That's my honest assessment, whether you like the words I used or not. The point is, is God all-knowing in the sense that "God can do anything," which I see as "simplistic." Or, is there more to knowing what God knows than meets the eye?

I don't doubt that it's your honest assessment (and assessments can be wrong), but what I'm judging is the content of the written message.

It's not obvious that RK's view of God is simplistic, and it's not obvious that the proposition "God knows everything" is simplistic, either. As honest as your sentiment may be, this assessment does not give adequate respect to the complexity of the view RK holds, namely, Molinism, which is the view that God possesses middle knowledge, that is, counter-factual knowledge. This is a view that is anything but simplistic, and it's a view that betrays anything but a simplistic conception of God.

More than that, you've gone a step further. It's not just that RK's view of God vis-a-vis his view of omniscience that is simplistic; according to what you've written, his view of God Himself is simplistic, lacking in sophistication, thought, consideration, and so on.

That is, what you've written is a statement that applies not just to a doctrinal position RK holds but extends to RK's view of God as well. His view is no more simplistic than yours, and I would dare to say that it's probably more sophisticated from what I've read in this thread so far.

I've argued this for many years, and there's no other way that I know how to say it. People most often use the argument, "God knows everything, including the choices we will make." They don't want to think any deeper than, "God knows everything--after all, He's God."

No one here is doing that, though. RK's references to Molinas and Open Theism are good clues that there's a deeper level of thinking going on.

This isn't the same thing as saying you or RK are simpletons. For lack of better words, it is an "overly-simple" argument.

You're not saying we're simpletons, no, but consider this: what sort of person would hold a simplistic view of God? We don't mean what Aquinas meant, of course, so I think it's worth thinking about the implications of the statement. Would someone who is sophisticated in her theology hold a simplistic view of God? Or, is it more likely that someone who is simple in his theology holds a simplistic view of God?

We might not get all the way to 'simpleton', but we're heading in that direction.

This is in fact a legitimate approach to the subject, to state that "God knows everything." It is, I think, an over-simplification. But it does render things more simple than I wish to state them.

But neither myself nor RK are merely saying "God knows everything" and leaving the argument at that. The only oversimplification that's happening here is the reduction of our view to "God knows everything", which, again, ignores what's actually being said.

In many cases we would all argue that "the simplest solution is the most likely solution." But that isn't calling one "simple-minded," is it?

Are you then saying that "God knows everything", being the simpler solution, is the most likely? I think probably, this is a misuse of Occam's razor.

Again, I'm saying that it isn't enough to just say God by definition knows everything. I'm saying I don't wish to argue that kind of approach, which I think is "simplistic," whether you are making that argument or not. I'm saying I need more of an argument than that.

And again, no one is saying only that.

[Kingfisher]

I've studied the subject and found that I feel as if my understanding is grasping at the wind.

Middle knowledge does a tremendous job of filling in the blanks between God's foreknowledge and man's free will. Still, the more I dig into it the more questions I find that arise from it. That doesn't frustrate me though. These questions arise from scriptural truths. If I see these truths as contradictory it's the folly of my understanding. Not God's Word.

C.H. Spurgeon went on to say this about the subject...

That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one place that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find in another place that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is my folly that leads me to imagine that two truths can ever contradict each other. These two truths, I do not believe, can ever be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in eternity: they are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring.

[journeyman]

This alone doesn't constitute prophecy, though.

Yes it does, because Christ is how, "Let ys make man in our image", would occur.
As Paul says,

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2Cor.3:18

Okay...

Okay what? Do you agree we are made in the image of God and his Son by his Spirit, or not?

Genesis 3:20
Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

Galatians 4:26
But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.

Okay, how does this evoke Genesis 3:20? The context of v26 is a broader discussion on covenant, Jerusalem, Hagar and Sarah, so why are we inserting Eve?

The church is one body in Christ, so Sarah is no different than Eve. The "free woman" is the woman who knows the Lord. Look at what Paul says about the saved woman,

she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. 1Tim.2:15

Paul isn't teaching that women who have babies will be saved. He's referring to this,

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Gen.3:16

Because converts (children) are born (again) by the gospel, which necessitates suffering. The church is persecuted for preaching the gospel, submitting to the husband (Christ) who rules over us. And,

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; 1Pet.4:1

Yeah but, has anyone suggested here that Paul was a sexist?

Not that I know of, but Paul has been maligned that way.

[RabbiKnife]

I'm sorry, but I'm just not tracking.

"Let us make man in our own image" is not prophetic, its declaratory of what God did in creation, creating man and woman.

Eve is not prophetic or symbolic of the church, and neither is Sarah.

I'm struggling to find the significance.  Certainly possibly due to my own ignorance or blindedness.