3(E) Blessed be(F) the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing(G) in the heavenly places, 4(H) even as he(I) chose us in him(J) before the foundation of the world, that we should be(K) holy and blameless before him. In love 5(L) he predestined us for(M) adoption as sons through Jesus Christ,(N) according to the purpose of his will, 6(O) to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in§ the Beloved. 7(Q) In him we have® redemption(S) through his blood,(T) the forgiveness of our trespasses,(U) according to the riches of his grace, 8which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ** 9(V) making known[c] to us the mystery of his will,(W)** according to his purpose, which he(X) set forth in Christ 10as a plan for(Y) the fullness of time,(Z) to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.**
EPHESIANS 1:3-10 ESV
So, I just wanted to add that the idea of cooperate election is supported within the text itself, especially vs. 9&10. The idea that God began with the end in mind. This whole section is Christ-centered exposition about this “mystery” that Paul refers to here (and elsewhere). The gist of the “mystery” seems to be (but probably not limited to) that God had it in his game plan to bring Jew and Gentile together into one covenant family** in Christ**, with an eschatological outlook toward the whole creation (vs 10). So, if you are a Gentile and you’re wondering what Israel’s Messiah has to do with you, Paul is showing you that your inclusion into the promise(s) given to Israel have found their way to you, in and through Christ (Messiah), and that this vision had it’s beginning long before Israel and now extends far beyond the borders of Israel.**
Tom,
I don’t get this middle knowledge - counterfactuals stuff. It seems to me that (from what you explain of counterfactuals - that LFW is part of the actualized world) when God actualized the world based on their LFW choices, they have no other choice but to do what they would do. LFW as I understand it defines that people can ALWAYS do either A or B at any specific time. So trying to say LFW was part of God actualizing the world and thus our choices are free seems dubious to me. Calminians usually offer such a pradigm by saying - God predestined us to do EXACTLY what he knew we would choose to do - which to me is hardly an explanation of why things are the way they are. So the Calminian (as I understand it) is arguing GOD DETERMINES (FORCES) US TO DO WHAT WE WILL CHOOSE TO DO. Thus they have a virus protection that if the Calvinist is right that God determines before time who will burn in hell forever, it’s because he determined it based upon their free choices. But this only leaves on possible explanation: DETERMINISM. People are doing what GOD MAKES them do but God is justified because he’s forcing us to do what we want - thus some people are just good and some people are just bad.
If a Libertarian should say well you can do A or B then I would assume that God is actualizing a world as it goes (possibly Open Theism) or shall I say, he is forming it as it goes towards the outcome of his choice (the Grand Master Chess Player).
I agree. If it’s true that we’re free in the libertarian sense, then the future really may go either way, and God’s knowledge ought to reflect this openness. I say this because I think ‘knowledge of the world’ and the ‘actual state of the world’ go hand in hand. God knows the truth about the world (it’s past, present, future) based on the reality OF the world (it’s past, present, and future). So I’m going to argue that God’s knowlege FOLLOWS from the reality of the world.
Molinists don’t bring God’s knowledge and the actual state of the world together like this. They believe we really can freely do either A or B but that the TRUTH about which we do eternally precedes us and that this creates no problems. For me it does create problems, which is why I can’t buy into Molinism.
Easy. Christianity solves that with the Trinity: the Father is transcendent and knows all of the future while the Son is imminent and does not know all things (for instance, the timing of His return) except through revelation from His Father.
@TGB Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:48 am
Thanks for the early morning ideas. I’ve read a little about the corporate election interpretation. I find it fair but unconvincing. Perhaps one day you’ll write a book or thesis about it.
We both agree that God “overknows” but in my view God in his transcendence also definitely foresees all the future.
We also both agree that Scripture teaches that “God doesn’t always get what God wants.” But my view is that God definitely foresees the rebellion regardless. Likewise, Arminian agreement that God doesn’t always get what he wants in itself doesn’t necessitate open theism. John Sanders strongly disagrees with me, but I need to work on this more.
@kkj Wed Feb 09, 2011 9:32 am
I’m sorry but I don’t know what you mean by “cooperative election.” Could you please define that for me?
@auggybendoggy Wed Feb 09, 2011 11:26 am
I’m evidently also not too good at understanding middle knowledge, per my first reply to TGB. I’m revising my proposal to God always had “natural knowledge” (knowledge of all possibilities in all possible worlds) and exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF) of creation.
@TGB Wed Feb 09, 2011 1:13 pm
“If it’s true that we’re free in the libertarian sense, then the future really may go either way, and God’s knowledge ought to reflect this openness.”
This is tricky because of definitions. For example, the philosophical term libertarian freedom technically implies incompatibilism, which by definition means that God cannot definitely foreknow the outcome of libertarian choices.
Also, philosophy defines that any view of definite divine foreknowledge is termed theological fatalism, while I resent that term. My view is that the future is open to everybody immanent in the universe but definitely foreknown to God in his transcendence. Also, God’s [definite] foreknowledge in no way results in “causal determinism.” In my case, I propose that divine causal determinism would by definition be incompatible with genuine free will while EDF [of genuine free will] isn’t divine causal determinism. We are in no way constrained by what God sees timelessly. I suppose this could be called “theological compatibilism” if I develop a strong enough argument.
Morever, my earlier question to you botched the techinical meaning of terms. I needed to ask:
*What I don’t understand is why you reject that God in his transcendence cannot definitely foresee the outcome of future contingencies such as [uncoerced free will] choices and probabilistic events? I suppose that everybody knows that this is impossible for finite creatures, but why is this impossible for God? *
I agree with multitudes of Christians that all three members of the Trinity are both transcendent to and immanent in the spacetime universe. But that in itself isn’t enough for a convincing philosophical defense for the compatibility of both dynamic time and static time.
I haven’t run into that, Jim. There are a lot of folks (traditional Arminians in fact) who believe in libertarian freedom but who believe God knows how future free choices will turn out. And there are a LOT of philosophers who are libertarian when it comes to freedom but compatibilists when it comes to LFW and EDF. I mean, whether EDF is compatible with LFW isn’t part of the definition of LFW as much as it is a separate argument about how LFW and EDF relate.
This is pretty much Craig’s (and Molinism’s) view, except that where you posit the ground of EDF in divine transcendence of the temporal world, Molinism grounds EDF in God’s apprehension of would-counterfactuals that describe what we “would” and “would not” freely do. But you both are aiming to defend the same thing—the compatability of EDF and LFW.
Tough question. It’s always hard to say with confidence what is impossible for God. But maybe this is a good place to talk about how transcendence fits into theological method, because you’re arguing that since God transcends the world and its time God therefore knows all our future free choices. I’d like to see how you get us there, because when I think of transcendence I think more of qualifying our theological statements apophatically.
Basically, I think of X’s transcending Y as meaning the X-Y relation does not exhaustively define X. God transcends the world (I take it) in the sense that the world does not exhaustively define God, i.e., there’s more to the infinite God than what God reveals of himself and more than we can possibly experience or comprehend. (Side note: If X is God and Y is the world, then though the X-Y relation does not exhaustively define X, it DOES exhaustively define Y; that is, the God-World relation does exhaustively define the world [you can’t say anthing about the world that does not at least imply God] though it does not exhaustively define God [we cannot speak of the infinite first-cause without conceding that there is more to God than God’s relating to the world, though we cannot say exactly what that more is]. Hence, God transcends the world but the world does not transcend God.)
But saying this doesn’t get you positive statements about how God does in fact relate to the world outside the boundaries of what we can observe and experience. In other words, the fact that God transcends the world (or is not exhaustively defined by the world) doesn’t itself (methodologically speaking) justify the claim that God timelessly sees all our free choices spanning the entire history of creation. He may transcend the world and NOT timelessly see all our free choices. What has God’s not being exhaustively defined by the world got to do with timeless knowledge of a dynamic-temporal world?
You and I seem to agree that God’s experience of the world is limited/conditioned by the constraints of the world, right? This is why you and I believe God cannot determine creaturely choice AND creatures be morally responsible for those choices. Our categories won’t permit it. We (well, a lot of us!) can’t meaningfully describe the God-World relation in this way given our categories and experience. But if transcendence means we can attribute to God properties and actions we have no reason for concluding other than that God transcends the world, then why not say God transcends our categories of determinism and responsibility and freedom and everything else we say about God? But you and I don’t do that. We’ve insisted—based on our experience of God (and I’m including reading Scripture in that)—that God can’t determine our choices AND hold us accountable for them. In other words, Jim, what would prevent a Calvnist from using divine transcendence to ground his determinism the same way you use it to ground your view?
Using ‘divine transcendence’ is a tricky matter, and I’m certainly no expert. But it seems a bit simplistic, methodologically speaking, to conclude that since God transcends the world and its time, God must timelessly apprehend all the world’s events in a single act of apprehension. It seems more true to transcendence to say that if God transcends us and the temporal world, then strictly speaking we haven’t a clue as to what that means for God.
My feeling is that God’s experience OF the world is conditioned by the nature OF that world. If God’s going to talk to us, he’s got to speak our language. If he’s going to incarnate as a human being, it has to be in terms of THAT being. If he’s going to KNOW the world, then his knoweldge will be conditioned in part by THAT world’s nature (contingent and temporal)—since God gets his knowledge of the actual world FROM the world IN ITS ACTUALITY. So if the actual world is a dynamic world of temporal becoming, then God’s apprehension of it would share the world’s contingency and temporal progression. But to say the world is dynamic but God knows it also as if it were static would require more in its defense than just the fact that God transcends the world. I mean, couldn’t I argue that since God transcends the world open theism isn’t hampered by any of the objections leveled against it? If an objector says, “But God can’t…” I could simply reply, “But God transcends…”
Too often ‘transcendence’ becomes a kind of dumping grounds for theological claims that we have no way of otherwise grounding meaningfully. I’m not saying you’re doing this, Jim. I just tend to be suspicious. So I argue that the job of theology is to decide what can be meaningfully said about God and the experience of God, that’s it. God is always more than he reveals himself to be, yes. But he is never less than he reveals himself to be. And we are not in a position to say what God’s transcending us and our experience means for God (or for God’s apprehension of the world). That would undermine the very transcendence we want to maintain. I think the most we can manage now (and the Orthodox got it right on this) is to stand speechless and offer ourselves to God as a doxology.
In short, I’d have to see how God’s transcendence of the world and his apprehension of its entire freely-determined history can be meaningfully articulated in order to even consider it. But I don’t see how the fact that God transcends the temporal world entails God’s timelessly apprehending the world’s history in a single, atemporal act of perception.
Consider a point made by Sanders about the providential uselessness of atemporal/timeless (or simple) foreknowledge (the kind of timeless apprehension of the world that I think you’re arguing for).
If God timelessly knows all of history in the sense argued by advocates of timeless (fore)knowledge, then he knows his own as well as our choices, and he knows them in one single, timeless snapshot, so to speak. He does not acquire this knowledge in stages; he timelessly possesses it as an attribute. In this case, timeless (fore)knowledge provides God no providential advantage in governing the universe for the simple reason that God cannot intervene into the story line of history on the basis of such knowledge or access such knowledge in an attempt to determine what his own actions are to be. This includes attempting to prevent undesired events or to bring about what he does desire, warning and guiding people, and prophesying future events.
What is foreknown, according to this view, is what actually happens and by definition is already the result of whatever has or has not been done to influence it. Such knowledge cannot then also be the basis of such interaction for the simple reason that this knowledge comes to God too late (logically speaking) for God to use in influencing outcomes.
For example, let us say God timelessly knows that Susan will be in a fatal car accident on her 21st birthday. Granted, this knowledge does not cause her death or determine her choice to go driving with her friends. We’re only talking here about whether or not timelessly definite foreknowledge provides God a basis upon which he is able to act providentially. Can God use his knowledge of Susan’s death to warn Susan not to go driving? Can God act in a miraculous way to prevent this accident? In fact, can God do anything on the basis of his knowledge that Susan will die to prevent her from dying? The answer to these questions is, of course, is no; God cannot intervene on the basis of timeless knowledge in order to prevent this event from happening.
Not even God can act in order to change what he infallibly knows will come to pass. Simple-foreknowledge, if it existed, would be useless to God in preventing foreknown evil and other undesired events. The same thing applies to God’s acting to bring about some event he wishes should happen. Why? Because by the time God foreknows what will happen, it’s logically too late to make use of this knowledge in order to bring about this event. The foreknown event is already the result of whatever divine influence contributed to bringing it about. It cannot also be the basis of that influence. On the simple-foreknowledge view, everything that God knows he knows timelessly. He doesn’t gain his knowledge of the future in stages. Therefore, if God were to timelessly possess exhaustively definite knowledge of past, present, and future, such knowledge could not provide him a basis upon which to determine how to act in ways not also timelessly foreknown by him. Thus, there is nothing a God who possesses simple-foreknowledge can do that a God who does not possess such foreknowledge cannot also do. In truth, whatever might be the reciprocal nature of the relationship between God’s actions and ours within the foreknowledge of God, the simpleforeknowledge model offers us no help whatsoever in understanding it.
Well I agree that all of them necessarily share both characteristics, but I suppose what I meant is that the Father and Son have their own native “habitats” or states of being. I mean, it would certainly fall in line with the Son being the image of the invisible God (an image needing to be more limited than what it represents), and also explain why the YHWH that the Israelites interacted with (the “Word” or later “Memra” of God) was reactive much like Jesus was later, making decisions based upon further developments of knowledge (such as deciding not to destroy the Israelites after Moses stepped up as interceder, and asking one of the divine council who would go to be a lying spirit in the mouths of the prophets as per Micaiah’s statement). Of course, He could’ve just held back His understanding in order to produce a reaction in the people/beings He spoke to… regardless, any of this sort of tangible interaction seems to necessitate some form of natural (though self-imposed) limitation. This limitation would, of course, be His subjection to the Father.
I hope all of that made sense. Perhaps I’m merely working within a limited, arbitrary paradigm. If so I’d like some further insight. Thanks.
Tom: I haven’t run into that, Jim. There are a lot of folks (traditional Arminians in fact) who believe in libertarian freedom but who believe God knows how future free choices will turn out. And there are a LOT of philosophers who are libertarian when it comes to freedom but compatibilists when it comes to LFW and EDF. I mean, whether EDF is compatible with LFW isn’t part of the definition of LFW as much as it is a separate argument about how LFW and EDF relate.
Me: Thanks. I suppose I jumped to a conclusion about that or only one person put it to me that way. That’s why I need to talk about this with somebody who knows something about this.
Tom: Tough question. It’s always hard to say with confidence what is impossible for God. But maybe this is a good place to talk about how transcendence fits into theological method, because you’re arguing that since God transcends the world and its time God therefore knows all our future free choices. I’d like to see how you get us there, because when I think of transcendence I think more of qualifying our theological statements apophatically.
Me: I could never prove it. When I first got saved in 1984 and Christians told me that God foreknew the outcome of all events, I didn’t believe it. But I saw (1) the Bible teaching something along the lines of compatibilist Arminianism and (2) physics hypotheses about a time indicating that such compatibilism could work, then I got hooked on the traditional Christian view and relished in the belief that God definitely foreknew and anticipated me since the beginning of creation. I suppose that it’s wrapped up in how God created the relativity of time such as my compatibilist AB-theory of time. By the way, I agree that God’s transcendence of our relative spacetime continuum in itself might not necessitate that EDF is compatible with contingencies in the spacetime continuum, but EDF of such contigencies would have to do with how God created time.
Tom: Jim, what would prevent a Calvnist from using divine transcendence to ground his determinism the same way you use it to ground your view?
Me: Perhaps nothing at all, but I hope that my book on conditional prophecy might help.
Tom: What is foreknown, according to this view, is what actually happens and by definition is already the result of whatever has or has not been done to influence it. Such knowledge cannot then also be the basis of such interaction for the simple reason that this knowledge comes to God too late (logically speaking) for God to use in influencing outcomes.
Me: I agree with Sanders on this. My main concern is my perceived value in believing and teaching that God began to create the universe while definitely anticipating us instead of our particular existence being highly unlikely. I probably wouldn’t care at all about open omniscience versus traditional omniscience if it weren’t for that one thing, belief that God definitely anticipated each human since the beginning of creation.
Thanks Jim! That helped clarify things. I totally appreciate the feeling or sense of being loved and contemplated that comes from believing God has eternally known us each in all our individuality. But (a very rough analogy) having had kids, and having loved and anticipated them in the womb before they were born and before I knew if I was getting a boy or a girl, I think I can say I truly loved in anticipation. I can’t imagine my kids (or myself, to apply the analogy to me as a child to my parents) feeling less ‘planned for’ or ‘loved’ or simply because I didn’t have a picture of their full/mature adulthood clearly in mind when they were in the womb.
In fact, if God overknows the future, then the specific me that exists today has been in God’s mind for all eternity, along with all the other ways I could have turned out–each of them loved and planned for equally. So I really do feel specifically planned for and anticipated in spite of believing that God knew my arriving on the scene was contingent (and knew it as contingent).
But I agree that how this is experienced is a very personal thing that strikes people differently.
I think you’ll finish your book before I finish anything! Pass it along. I’d love to read it.
Hey Tom, I started another thread with a creed that I suppose is consistent with both evangelicalism and open futurism. I’d appreciate it of you would take a look at it and let me know your thoughts on it:
[I Believe)
Tom, being untrained, I’ll say that it sounds odd when molinists speak in terms of God loving what you might have been. I’ve been listening to a 20 part series of Bill Craigs views on creation and he speaks in these terms as well. But I’ve been wondering if that’s so then perhaps God knows what the world would be like if he was not God. What would it be like if Jesus did not die or if evil triumped in the end. In such a world does God love TGB? in that world where God loses did God have limited knowledge.
I’m just saying all this “God knows what might have been” and thus “God loves even in those “might have been” thoughts” seems abstract and even possibly unlikely.
For all I know, maybe he doesn’t know in other worlds what you might and might not do. And how in the world does that square with open theism if does not know what you will choose? Certainly if he does not know what I’ll choose then theres no reason for me to believe what other possiblilites might result. Seems like since he can’t know our choice then he is even blinder in the big picture - in other words - he doesn’t know how the world will end because he doens’t know what we’ll choose. OUUUCH! My headache is bigger now thanks to you!
It does get pretty anal and abstract doesn’t it? I don’t know how to avoid that sometimes. But when I think of “loving X” I think the nature of the love depends upon the nature of X. If X is “what might be” then what we’re loving (or valuing and pursuing) is some possibility we’d LOVE to see become actuality. We can imagine how wonderful and great things would be IF certain possibilities became reality. That’s a manner of loving, so to speak. But it’s not the same (I don’t think) as loving the actual world that is.
Does God foreknow possible worlds and “feel” or have “affections” toward them in a manner appropriate to both God and the object known? I suppose so. WE certainly do it. But it does get mind-boggling when you try to unpack the concepts!
I don’t think we do that. My speculating something hardly seems to me to be a possible world. I doubt God does that as well. Sure God knows what would happen in this actual world if Moses would have walked away, but does that mean there was some other possible world. I doubt it. It’s simply a different variation of the same world which is actualized.
For example, if I say God loves KIibbledrabbers from the planet Caramba and claim it’s possible they might exist (because I speculated they might) then it must follow that God loves them in some possible universe (world). Seems silly to me.
There are no Kibbledrabbers so why argue as if God hypothetically love them? Does God foreknow a possible world where he’s the biggest sinner of them all? Or is that an impossible world?
I don’t think I understand this line of thinking because other smart men argue from it. So my guess is I’m just not undestanding the argument.
Auggy: My speculating something hardly seems to me to be a possible world.
Tom: If your speculating doesn’t generate a logical impossibility, then technically speaking, so far as those wacko anal philosophers and theologians are concerend, that’s a “possible world.” Possible world language has its own very cool history. But basically it’s just our way of talking about how the actual world “might or might not have been” or how the world in the future “might or might not be.” We can speculate in logically consistent terms about such things, but of course God knows the TRUTH about how things might have been or might yet be.
Auggy: I doubt God does that as well.
Tom: If alternative possibilities exist, then an omniscient God would know them. That’s really all we mean.
Auggy: Sure God knows what would happen in this actual world if Moses would have walked away…
Tom: I turned the bold on to point out that this is all we generally mean by possible worlds and God’s knowlegde of them. The world might have turn out this or that way instead of the way it is. These different “ways the world might be” are what is meant by “possible worlds.” They could just be a slightly different way THIS world might have turned out (or still might yet turn out) OR they might be entirely different KINDS of worlds or universes God might have created.
Auggy: …but does that mean there was some other possible world. I doubt it. It’s simply a different variation of the same world which is actualized.
Tom: Each different variation is a “possible world.” That’s what is meant by the term. A “possible world” is a logically consistent description of the way things might be. Those “things” might be nothing more than God, alone. That’s a possible world–just the Trinity kicked back and chilin. Or a possible world could be a universe with sentient life only on planet Earth. Another possible world could be a universe populated with sentient creatures throughout the galaxies. Each separate variation is a “way the world could be” or a “possible world.”
Do I think God contemplates or knows all these possibilities? I sure do!
Tom, what do possible worlds do? All I can make out is that we can hope for things and hope not for some things. The actual world is all that matters. So perhaps you can help me to understand what “possible worlds” is even used for in arguing anything about God.
There is a guy who believes in what he calls, Transdimensional Universalism. I think he comes from a Calvinist background and believes that some are chosen for salvation, while some are not but only in this world. He believes that there are multiple worlds, thousands even millions or infinite, in which we exist. These worlds exist simultaneously, which means we exist simultaneously with ourselves in other worlds. I guess for him, in order to believe in universalism, he accepted that in some worlds we remain lost but in others we are saved but since we are the same person in all those worlds we are all saved and since God is all in all, we will have full knowledge of all Creation, for just as He is, so are we.
On a side note, according to most Quantum theorists concerning the quantity of time, all things are quanta and have simultaneously began and end the moment it exists, essentially stating the time is relative only to the point our physical being is aware of it’s existence (even though we have are born and died at the same moment of time you live reading this paragraph). Therefore, if we were not confined to our physical reality, we would know both the end from the beginning even though we still have not perceived the end and we still are determining it by our choices and actions.
Tom: From my point of view they provide a providential advantage to God in planning and decreeing an optimal beginning for the world and for acting providentially in bringing that world to its fulfillment. If I know what might and might not happen, I can THEN plan accordingly. If I don’t know what might and might not happen, I’m at a disadvantage. And “what might and might not happen” is all I mean by ‘possible worlds’ for now.
The providential advantage gained by such knowledge can be worked out in several ways I suppose. A traditional theist, for example, who believes God is timeless, immutable, etc., will want to argue that God’s decrees are at least informed by a consideration of the possibilities.
Non-determinist Arminians and open theists will also agree that God’s providential acts in the world are informed by his knowledge of what the possibilities are. A traditional Arminian will likely argue that God is timelessly informed (so to speak) of all the possibilities and the way things could turn out and in this way God is able to prepare adequate responses to events before they actually happen; thus, the providential advantage.
Open theists will agree that God’s choices to act this or that way are informed by knowing all the possible outcomes, they just don’t see it all timelessly a done deal in God’s head.
Of course, the Bible describes God as knowing and giving consideration to possible worlds, however we may or may not understand them to figure providentially into God’s choices. God talks about the future in terms of what might and might not occur, i.e., in terms of possible worlds.
I’ve read a little about the corporate election interpretation. I find it fair but unconvincing. Perhaps one day you’ll write a book or thesis about it.
