Does an Omniscient Creator Lead to Fatalism?

[Mountain Man]

Well, Sparkles and I were talking about Molinism, so that only goes to show you have not been reading the thread.

Sorry, I didn't realize your mind was so narrow that you could only debate one thing at a time.

[Adrift]

I more or less described this earlier. I just didn't know it had a name.

This is not accurate. Open Theists do, in fact, deny God's full omniscience as 37818 suggests. While they accept God's perfect omniscience of the past and present, they believe that God can't actually see the future, but can only make very educated guesses about it. So, in that fashion, they really do believe that God can occasionally be surprised, and that he really does occasionally change his mind about some things as new situations arise. It's a very controversial view in Protestant Evangelical circles, and typically it seems more popular among relatively liberal Christian pastors and theologians. Gregory Boyd is probably the most well known current defender of it. Critics of it include people like William Lane Craig, John Piper, Douglas Moo, Alister Mcgrath, Os Guinness, and the like.

I'm surprised you weren't previously familiar with this view. It used to get discussed quite a bit some years before the crash. As far as I know Littlejoe was one of the very few supporters of it on this forum.

[Mountain Man]

This is not accurate. Open Theists do, in fact, deny God's full omniscience as 37818 suggests. While they accept God's perfect omniscience of the past and present, they believe that God can't actually see the future, but can only make very educated guesses about it. So, in that fashion, they really do believe that God can occasionally be surprised, and that he really does occasionally change his mind about some things as new situations arise. It's a very controversial view in Protestant Evangelical circles, and typically it seems more popular among relatively liberal Christian pastors and theologians. Gregory Boyd is probably the most well known current defender of it. Critics of it include people like William Lane Craig, John Piper, Douglas Moo, Alister Mcgrath, Os Guinness, and the like.

I'm surprised you weren't previously familiar with this view. It used to get discussed quite a bit some years before the crash. As far as I know Littlejoe was one of the very few supporters of it on this forum.

To be honest, it's not a topic I've spent a great deal of time debating. I know I have freewill (sort an "I think, therefore I am" sort of thing), and I know that God is omniscient, and that these things are not contradictory, and that's has always been good enough for me.

Is there such a thing as a modified open theist, or is that basically a molinist?

[Adrift]

To be honest, it's not a topic I've spent a great deal of time debating. I know I have freewill (sort an "I think, therefore I am" sort of thing), and I know that God is omniscient, and that these things are not contradictory, and that's has always been good enough for me.

Is there such a thing as a modified open theist, or is that basically a molinist?

I think you might want to stick with molinism which teaches that God has foreknowledge of our free will choices (including all true counterfactuals), and plans accordingly.

[Mountain Man]

I think you might want to stick with molinism which teaches that God has foreknowledge of our free will choices, and plans accordingly.

Yes, but his foreknowledge is dependent on us having the freewill to make those choices.

[carpedm9587]

I'll start with two assumptions that I think most Christians can agree with.

1. God is Omniscient.He is all knowing of all things through all time. He is able to see ever chain of cause and effect through to its end.
2. God created the universe. My point doesn't depend on the mechanism of creation simply that God initiated it.

If these two assumptions hold then prior to God creating the universe he was able to know what would happen if he were to create that universe. He has able to see every global event, and every personal event that would occur if he were to go through with creating that particular universe. He would also have been able to consider other universes that he could have created. Ones with different fundamental laws of physics, ones where DNA strands operate differently, ones where the nature of peoples hearts are different, even ones where everything is identical to the current universe except that instead of having coffee this morning you had tea. An omniscient and omnipotent God had all of these options before him and yet he chose to create the universe we live in. Seeing as how he knew exactly what would happen if he were to create the world, and he had other options for worlds he could create wouldn't that make life one big simulation.

Doesn't this break the idea of free will. I am familiar with and am comfortable with many of the explanations of how there can be free will with an omniscient God (ie. knowing that someone will do something doesn't take away their choice to do that thing). However none of these explanations (that I can find) address the issue that if you know what someone will do if you create them, and you could also create them differently knowing what they would do in that case as well, then how does this creation have any choice in what they do. They are just the result of you picking to create that particular instance.

I am really struggling to resolve this idea in my head, and have been praying that I will come to peace with it, but I just can't let go of it.

This is a very old discussion, with a long history. There do not seem to be a lot of options. The ones I know of (that seem logically credible) are:

1) Redefine omniscience to "knows all that is knowable" and exclude the future from that list. For many, this places a bound on god they are not comfortable with.
2) Redefine omniscience to "knows all that is knowable" and exclude free will choices from that list. (only subtly different from #1)
3) Abandon one of the "alls." The problem comes with the juxtaposition of all knowing, all powerful, and all good. If you redefine or eliminate any of the three, the problem goes away. (this also solves another old favorite - the "problem of evil.")
4) Adopt a determinisitic view of the universe (not satisfactory to most people)
5) Become an atheist

I think the modern tendency for theists is to head in the direction of #1 - and I think there is a name for it - I'm just not remembering it right now.

Obviously - I went for #5. This was only one in a long line of things that just did not hang together for me, leading me to that option as the most reasonable one.

[Adrift]

Yes, but his foreknowledge is dependent on us having the freewill to make those choices.

Correct, that's standard Molinism, not Open Theism.

[Adrift]

This is a very old discussion, with a long history. There do not seem to be a lot of options. The ones I know of (that seem logically credible) are:

1) Redefine omniscience to "knows all that is knowable" and exclude the future from that list. For many, this places a bound on god they are not comfortable with.
2) Redefine omniscience to "knows all that is knowable" and exclude free will choices from that list. (only subtly different from #1)
3) Abandon one of the "alls." The problem comes with the juxtaposition of all knowing, all powerful, and all good. If you redefine or eliminate any of the three, the problem goes away. (this also solves another old favorite - the "problem of evil."
4) Adopt a determinisitic view of the universe (not satisfactory to most people)
5) Become an atheist

Or one can simply reject all of these options and say that, no, it doesn't make life one big simulation, and no this idea does not break the idea of free will. There's no reason why a Molinist would ever need to say such a thing. That God so fashioned the world in such a way to take the greatest advantage of our future free will choices is no different than if he did the same with past free will choices. That doesn't make the concept of free will not free will.

I think the modern tendency for theists is to head in the direction of #1 - and I think there is a name for it - I'm just not remembering it right now.

Yeah, we've just been discussing that. It's called Open Theism. I don't feel it's a tendency for theists to go in that direction so much, as it doesn't seem much more popular than it did a decade ago (at least, as far as I can tell).

[carpedm9587]

Or one can simply reject all of these options and say that, no, it doesn't make life one big simulation, and no this idea does not break the idea of free will. There's no reason why a Molinist would ever need to say such a thing. That God so fashioned the world in such a way to take the greatest advantage of our future free will choices is no different than if he did the same with past free will choices. That doesn't make the concept of free will not free will.

The sleight-of-hand that has to happen to get someone to accept foreknowledge AND free will just doesn't work for me. When pushed, it just seems to fall apart. I know others disagree, but I just cannot bring myself to go there. I have to compromise too much.

Yeah, we've just been discussing that. It's called Open Theism. I don't feel it's a tendency for theists to go in that direction so much, as it doesn't seem much more popular than it did a decade ago (at least, as far as I can tell).

THAT's it! Thanks!

[Mountain Man]

Correct, that's standard Molinism, not Open Theism.

OK, so I have the right idea, just the wrong name.

[Adrift]

OK, so I have the right idea, just the wrong name.

Correct. Well...whether or not you have the right idea depends, I suppose. I think you do.

[Tassman]

From a finite view of God that is not possible. But God is truly infinite. And all that was created was created by way of His agent (John 1:1-3; Ephesians 3:9). His agent always shared the infinite attributes and was also finite in an immeasurable way (John 1:2).

But the three persons of the Holy Trinity are coeternal, and coequal.

https://www.ccel.org/creeds/athanasian.creed.html

[Mountain Man]

Correct. Well...whether or not you have the right idea depends, I suppose. I think you do.

I'll just create a new branch of theology called Mountain Manism which encompasses everything I believe. That way, I can never be wrong.

That's how it works, right?

[37818]

It depends on what you mean by "full omniscience". Omniscience simply means knowing everything that it is logically possible to know. For instance, God in his "full omniscience" can't know what a square circle looks like, or what it's like to possess tea and no tea at the same time and in the same sense (bonus points if you get that obscure reference). Similarly, it is logically impossible for God to know what a freewill agent will choose prior to his choosing it.

Yeah, it would seem that you believe in a limited finite god. And where in your Bible does it speak of "free will?"

[Adrift]

I'll just create a new branch of theology called Mountain Manism which encompasses everything I believe. That way, I can never be wrong.

That's how it works, right?

I think that's not actually so far off with some scholars and theologians sometimes, and not just in Biblical scholarship, but in academia at large.