Necessary Implications of Omnipotence vs Open Theism

[makesends]

This thread is intended to continue a tangent to the Open Theism thread in the Heresies and Cults Forum. I have included it here because, to my mind, it has everything to do with the Doctrine of God --Who He is, and What He is. Necessary facts, since he is God. I post it here, then try to answer it next. This was a post by @Tambora here: https://christcentered.community.forum/threads/open-theism.2482/page-2#post-107366

You still don't get it.

Or you don't get what I am saying.

Truth be known, both of us "don't get it" when it comes to all that God is.
But we both try to imagine.

God doesn't need to work within fact, to make fact.

I can say that God didn't invent time because any time that He had a thought or moved or did anything at all was in time.
Because "time" is not a thing, it is simply a conceptual measurement between events.
God told us ways to measure time (such as day, hour, season, now, before, after, etc.) and created things that we could measure time by (such as sun, moon, stars, etc.) but time is not a thing created.

It's not a question of what he can or can't do, or what he has to do or doesn't have to do.

And yet we hear people telling others things God can or cannot do, or what He has to do or doesn't have to.
I bet you've done it yourself.

He simply does, and so everything that is, is, as a result.

That would basically mean that God is time since there was no time God was not.
I could live with saying that but cannot live with saying God created time since there was no time God was not.

You keep making him accommodate himself to what you apparently suppose is base fact. But there is no base fact but God. Everything else results FROM God.

You are also claiming base facts about God.

Reality itself, is God's 'invention'.

God wasn't a reality before He invented it?
That doesn't sound right.

But hey, it's been nice contemplating such things with you.

 

[makesends]

Or you don't get what I am saying.

Truth be known, both of us "don't get it" when it comes to all that God is.
But we both try to imagine.

Not carelessly, I hope. Nor by supposing our imaginations to be of any substance. Logic, yes, and Scripture, for sure.

I can say that God didn't invent time because any time that He had a thought or moved or did anything at all was in time.
Because "time" is not a thing, it is simply a conceptual measurement between events.
God told us ways to measure time (such as day, hour, season, now, before, after, etc.) and created things that we could measure time by (such as sun, moon, stars, etc.) but time is not a thing created.

Sounds like you are letting human words jump even HUMAN concepts. You are playing with the word, "time," as we think of it ('passage of time'), to be the same as "occasion". You say, "I can say that God didn't invent time because any time that He had a thought or moved or did anything at all was in time."

Understand, here, that you have no way to assert that God "had a thought", "moved", and "did anything" is not like our experiences of how these things happen. We talk that way, but it is only us trying to figure out how it goes with God. So, no, it was not in time, though we see results of it in time.

But Time is a thing --a principle. And you have rather nicely described it. What you haven't done is show that God, nor anything that does not depend on this temporal existence we are currently tied to, is bound by it or even operates according to it.

There is a lot of Scripture and Reason to show that God operates 'outside of' time.

And yet we hear people telling others things God can or cannot do, or what He has to do or doesn't have to.

I bet you've done it yourself.

What has what people tell others got to do with this? Of course I talk that way sometimes too! That is just common to how people think, since we don't very much experience extra-temporal facts. We are time-dependent. God is not.

But our views and expressions of the matter are irrelevant to the facts.

That would basically mean that God is time since there was no time God was not.

Maybe you can explain the logic there. I can't follow it.

I could live with saying that but cannot live with saying God created time since there was no time God was not

Play on words again. Letting concepts attached to human words throw your mind around. I almost feel like pursuing the wooden math your construction, there, proposes.

Let me throw this at you. "Events" does not equal "Facts". "Becomes" does not equal "Is".

It would be closer to reasonable to say that God is existence, since nothing exists but for God's making it so. But that's silly, because we don't even know what existence is or how God does it. Time is much simpler. And it governs us, not God.

You are also claiming base facts about God.

Of course. They are logical --not exhaustive.

God wasn't a reality before He invented it?
That doesn't sound right.

Of course it doesn't sound right. The statement is made from human conceptions. Further, as I have said elsewhere, I use the word, 'invent', there, for lack of a better human word to describe how God operates. You use the word, "before", there to locate God's existence at some point relative to an event (when he invented something). It is we humans who must think this way, but it is not substantive. Logic only demands that God's existence is not like ours, and doesn't fit in the reality we experience. The whole matter is by God's doing. Not by natural fact, or any premise and certainly not by our reasoning.

 

[Tambora]

You say, "I can say that God didn't invent time because any time that He had a thought or moved or did anything at all was in time."

Understand, here, that you have no way to assert that God "had a thought", "moved", and "did anything"

I understand that you can't assert He didn't.

However, I believe logic tells me I can say it because we know that God is love.
I don't figure that can be true without a recipient, and I figure it's because there are recipients within a triune God, and I don't think love was created but has always been (due to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit having always loved each other).

And of course we have scripture saying things were planned by them before the creation.
Therefore, it would also be hard for me to think of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirt having no communication with each other in some way before the creation of the universe.

So, logic draws me to the conclusion that God did do something before creation.
Since I firmly believe God has always existed and has always reciprocated love, and that the very word "always" denotes time, I stand by my conclusion that time was not created.

But I don't mind if others think differently because I have already expressed that God can predict future events because God has the power and know-how to make it come to fruition without a creation of time.

 

[makesends]

I understand that you can't assert He didn't.

However, I believe logic tells me I can say it because we know that God is love.
I don't figure that can be true without a recipient, and I figure it's because there are recipients within a triune God, and I don't think love was created but has always been (due to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit having always loved each other).

And of course we have scripture saying things were planned by them before the creation.
Therefore, it would also be hard for me to think of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirt having no communication with each other in some way before the creation of the universe.

So, logic draws me to the conclusion that God did do something before creation.
Since I firmly believe God has always existed and has always reciprocated love, and that the very word "always" denotes time, I stand by my conclusion that time was not created.

But I don't mind if others think differently because I have already expressed that God can predict future events because God has the power and know-how to make it come to fruition without a creation of time.

Well, unless anyone else wants to contribute here, I see this is going nowhere. You cannot see past the logic that assumes substance to human words. You think that God must think like we do. You probably think that he must decide between options, but you can't show how those options even exist without his causing them to exist. Do you really think he would invent options, and then choose from them. NOTHING happens except by his having caused it to happen. And he knows every detail, and need not learn anything.

Do you think he did not know what Joseph's brothers were going to do --even before they knew it? Was Redemption plan B, resulting from Adam sinning? Or was the whole matter plan A, after all?

Last, but not least, admit the possibility that cause and effect is not the same phenomenon as temporal sequence of events. Modern day, physicists are beginning to see that possibility even in this current universe. The problem we have with it is that we don't know how to think that way.

 

[CrowCross]

That would basically mean that God is time since there was no time God was not.

Edit here: [ @Tambora said:] I could live with saying that but cannot live with saying God created time since there was no time God was not.

I see it as "time" is something that God can enter into anywhere...past, present as well as future...as they all exist at the same time for God.

 

[makesends]

I see it as "time" is something that God can enter into anywhere...past, present as well as future...as they all exist at the same time for God.

Agreed. I think of it more like, that all facts, all principles, all forces, all material things, and any other things (even events) of creation are complete fact, as far as God is concerned. Neither static nor continuing, but for the sake of our temporal minds stated anthropomorphically.

That is not well stated, as it could imply certain things that are not so, specially in the minds of those who assume that cause-and-effect is necessarily temporal. But I'm not sure how else to say it.

It is constantly ironic to me, that we find ourselves trusting our words, though they turn on themselves so; as in that last paragraph, some will say that since I find it insufficient that it must be because the concept is bogus that the words to describe it turn on themselves. While sometimes that it true, that isn't all there is to it.

 

[Josheb]

Imma deconstruct that....

Makesends: You still don't get it.
Or you don't get what I am saying. Truth be known, both of us "don't get it" when it comes to all that God is. But we both try to imagine.​

Ad hominem is never rational. It is always fallacious. A poster can and should speak only for him/herself about him/herself and never about the other posters. Statements like, "You don't get....." are petty, too; not just logically fallacious. The exception to this rule occurs only when a poster has made prior statement acknowledging some lack of knowledge or understanding.

Makesends: God doesn't need to work within fact, to make fact.
I can say that God didn't invent time because any time that He had a thought or moved or did anything at all was in time. Because "time" is not a thing, it is simply a conceptual measurement between events. God told us ways to measure time (such as day, hour, season, now, before, after, etc.) and created things that we could measure time by (such as sun, moon, stars, etc.) but time is not a thing created.​

Not sure what was intended with the "God doesn't need..." comment but the concept of divine aseity always precludes any poster from declaring what God needs or doesn't need. God has no needs because He is eternally self-existent and self-sufficient.

Furthermore, His eternal existence makes Him extra-temporal so, therefore, any discussion of time relevant or applicable to the Creator outside of creation must avoid the concepts of before, during, and after, or past, present, and future. The creator of time is simultaneously all of that and more. And @makesends, grammatically speaking, that should read, "...because any occasion that He had a thought...' That wording avoids the problem of ambiguity (one word with multiple meanings), although as stated it is a clever turn of the word . Time is a thing; it's just not a tangible thing. Time is, as @makesends alluded, a measure of cause and effect or a measurement between events. The moment (no pun intended) the measurement is quantified it ceases to be conceptual, or at least solely conceptual. Because of the eternal, extra-temporal nature of God, all events outside of creation lack fixed temporal measurement.

And the failure to correctly apprehend or apply the above is one of the places where I think Open Theism (OT) errs.

Lastly, returning to the matter of aseity, there is no need for creation. There's no need on God's part that creation ever exist. That does not preclude creation having purpose. It is, therefore, important to maintain distinctions between need and purpose with the need end of our efforts to comprehend Theology Proper (the nature of God) always being zero. No need on the part of the self-existent God. This necessitates another fundamental truth, which is the Creator is the sole assigned of purpose for the creation He created, and that purpose is absent-need.

As far as OT goes, the minute any purpose is acknowledged the "openness" of creation is compromised. Regardless of what may or may not happen, all events occurring after the point of creation conclude with the single point of purpose. Even if God created with multiple purposes, all events following the single point of creation all conclude with the purposes of God and, in turn, with God as the sole Agent of creation. Therefore, any discussion of omniscience, knowledge, foreknowledge, any kind of knowing, all occur within the fact of a single point of creation and a single point of purpose assigned by a single God.

Those two facts (beginning and purposeful end) are dependent upon God's knowledge, not the other way around. They are built on the additional fact of divine aseity with is extra-knowing, and the fact of eternal existence which is extra-temporal. These conditions have determinative consequences for temporal conditions inside of creation, specifically those related to the doctrines of theology.


I'll pick up the rest of the op in a separate post.

 

[Josheb]

Hmmm...

It's not a question of what he can or can't do, or what he has to do or doesn't have to do.

And yet we hear people telling others things God can or cannot do, or what He has to do or doesn't have to.
I bet you've done it yourself.

If what God can and cannot do, does and does not do were not a question then every Christian doctrine would be unnecessary and would not exist. Century-long debates exist over what God does and does not do Christologically, Pneumatologically, soteriologically, ecclesiologically, eschatologically, etc. I doubt there exists a single thread in any of the doctrine boards void of that reality.

All of which occur in the aforementioned inescapable contexts of aseity, eternity, creation, and purpose.

Just saying

The matter of what "He has to do..." is always dubious because we think in finite human-centric and finite terms. We have no knowledge or understand what are the "musts" for a Creator creating creation. Such exercises are worthy, but they are also exercises in human limitations and futility. Less than 100 years ago we thought the atom was the smallest element in the universe and then some nut split one open and found a huge pile of stuff inside. It was once thought it is impossible for any two objects to occupy the same space at the same time but then some wackjob discovered subatomic particles do that kind of thing all the time! Nowadays we're thinking nearly 70% of the universe is invisible to us (dark matter) so who knows what's smallest, what must be and why? Yet we presume to declare what the Creator of the ittybitty particles we can't see that simultaneous occupy time and space has to do.

That is called hubris.

Just saying

He simply does, and so everything that is, is, as a result.

That would basically mean that God is time since there was no time God was not. I could live with saying that but cannot live with saying God created time since there was no time God was not.

Hmmm....

The first part of that needs to be separated so eternity doesn't get conflated with creation. We have no idea what timelessness, or extra-temporal eternity is like..... but we do know that the linear causality of creation, the relativity of creation and its quantum mechanics are all only subsets of a vast creation (the set in which all other subsets exist) that likely has many other subsets we have yet to uncover, much less understand. That "set" of subsets put into a graphic like a Venn diagram would have to completely different images. One would be of a huge (infinite) extra-dimensional domain that couldn't actually be fitted onto any surface and next to it a very small 10- or 11-dimension "object" of very fixed parameters. The other graphic would be a rudimentary moving drawing of the infinitely large sphere (3-dimensional intersecting a much smaller plane (two-dimensional). The first graphic illustrates the complete lack of overlap creation has on the Creator. The second graphic illustrates how God and eternity move through, avoids, and/or encompasses creation in a way that is vastly different (and all-knowing) for the Creator but extremely limited for creatures living in a two-dimensional plane as a (extra-dimensional) sphere passes through it, sometimes appearing as a circle, sometimes appearing as a single point, sometimes not appearing at all because it is either entirely encompassing creation or not touching it at all.

As far as the existence of divine time goes, there's a simple analogy that is of some value: Imagine floating at a place in "outer" space where all the various objects in space are so distant they either cannot be seen or are barely seen by the naked human eye. Let's pretend you get a message in your earpiece that says, "God north." That would be a meaningless command because 1) north is a planetary metric determined by either the magnetic center of a physical body (like a planet) or the arbitrary metric of "up" relative to the body's placement among all the other bodies in space (and you have none of them in visual range). The point being that metrics of direction have no meaning without a fixed reference point external to the person (or object) that is doing the moving. If you had a fixed reference point then you could move north, south, east, west, up, down, or adjacently because there is a reference point by which movement can be measured.

The problem with time is that it is a created condition, and one that is created by the Creator Who is the reference point for everything He created. Time moves relative to Him, not the other way around. God is His own reference point. There is nothing in creation like that. There is nothing in our knowledge or comprehension like that. If the graphic of the sphere moving through the plane is applied, then God moves in and out of time just as much as He moves through space and He does so as His will, whim, and purpose dictates, some occasions merely being a momentarily observable point in time and at other occasions a wholly unobservable all-encompasser of time. God is the vastness in which you, time, are floating without any reference point by which "north" or "up" could ever possibly be determined. There's no means by which cause-and-effect could be conceived, much less measured.

So....


I'll wait a little while before I pick up the rest of the two opening posts while everyone either mops up where their brain has spilled out onto the floor or wipes off the detritus off the walls where their head has exploded .

 

[makesends]

*makes: This was intended to be, in the OP, a quote of @Tambora . She said the following --I didn't. And yet we hear people telling others things God can or cannot do, or what He has to do or doesn't have to.
I bet you've done it yourself.

makesends said:
It's not a question of what he can or can't do, or what he has to do or doesn't have to do.

Hmmm...

If what God can and cannot do, does and does not do were not a question then every Christian doctrine would be unnecessary and would not exist. Century-long debates exist over what God does and does not do Christologically, Pneumatologically, soteriologically, ecclesiologically, eschatologically, etc. I doubt there exists a single thread in any of the doctrine boards void of that reality.

All of which occur in the aforementioned inescapable contexts of aseity, eternity, creation, and purpose.

My comment differentiated between "can and cannot do and has to do" with "does and does not do". I don't see combining them into one statement. What God does, completely trumps any consideration of what he can or cannot do.

Let me go back and put " @Tambora said" in front of her comments...

Just saying

The matter of what "He has to do..." is always dubious because we think in finite human-centric and finite terms. We have no knowledge or understand what are the "musts" for a Creator creating creation. Such exercises are worthy, but they are also exercises in human limitations and futility. Less than 100 years ago we thought the atom was the smallest element in the universe and then some nut split one open and found a huge pile of stuff inside. It was once thought it is impossible for any two objects to occupy the same space at the same time but then some wackjob discovered subatomic particles do that kind of thing all the time! Nowadays we're thinking nearly 70% of the universe is invisible to us (dark matter) so who knows what's smallest, what must be and why? Yet we presume to declare what the Creator of the ittybitty particles we can't see that simultaneous occupy time and space has to do.

God is not time and space (not that you said he was), so, as I think you are saying, if we can't be sure what time and space have to do, how can we begin to suppose what the Creator of time and space has to do? But God is a different kind of thing —not just degree of thing— He being the source and essence(?) of very existence. Therefore, it is not a question of 'can' nor 'has to', but a question of what he does. It's not a question of ability, from which we may conjecture our silly constructions of probability, nor a question of obligation on his part, as though he might wish to do otherwise, but simply what he does. WE are the ones who say, for example, that he MUST act according to his nature. But frankly, the statement is silly. He does what he is. No obligation there. No effort to live up to a standard.

That is called hubris.

Well, good, lol (as long as it is @Tambora who wrote what you are commenting on by that! )

Just saying

makesends said:
He simply does, and so everything that is, is, as a result.

@Tambora said: That would basically mean that God is time since there was no time God was not. I could live with saying that but cannot live with saying God created time since there was no time God was not.

Hmmm....

The first part of that needs to be separated so eternity doesn't get conflated with creation. We have no idea what timelessness, or extra-temporal eternity is like..... but we do know that the linear causality of creation, the relativity of creation and its quantum mechanics are all only subsets of a vast creation (the set in which all other subsets exist) that likely has many other subsets we have yet to uncover, much less understand. That "set" of subsets put into a graphic like a Venn diagram would have to completely different images. One would be of a huge (infinite) extra-dimensional domain that couldn't actually be fitted onto any surface and next to it a very small 10- or 11-dimension "object" of very fixed parameters. The other graphic would be a rudimentary moving drawing of the infinitely large sphere (3-dimensional intersecting a much smaller plane (two-dimensional). The first graphic illustrates the complete lack of overlap creation has on the Creator. The second graphic illustrates how God and eternity move through, avoids, and/or encompasses creation in a way that is vastly different (and all-knowing) for the Creator but extremely limited for creatures living in a two-dimensional plane as a (extra-dimensional) sphere passes through it, sometimes appearing as a circle, sometimes appearing as a single point, sometimes not appearing at all because it is either entirely encompassing creation or not touching it at all.

In the same sort of way that Death is swallowed up in Victory, I don't see a Venn diagram juxtaposing what we refer to as the eternal with the temporal. I think the temporal doesn't overlap at all, but is completely absorbed, so to speak. And I think that riddle is sufficiently answered by the idea that the end result is already fact, as far as God is concerned. (Though granted, that isn't the whole story —it being something temporal beings cannot process nor represent completely.

As far as the existence of divine time goes, there's a simple analogy that is of some value: Imagine floating at a place in "outer" space where all the various objects in space are so distant they either cannot be seen or are barely seen by the naked human eye. Let's pretend you get a message in your earpiece that says, "God north." That would be a meaningless command because 1) north is a planetary metric determined by either the magnetic center of a physical body (like a planet) or the arbitrary metric of "up" relative to the body's placement among all the other bodies in space (and you have none of them in visual range). The point being that metrics of direction have no meaning without a fixed reference point external to the person (or object) that is doing the moving. If you had a fixed reference point then you could move north, south, east, west, up, down, or adjacently because there is a reference point by which movement can be measured.

The problem with time is that it is a created condition, and one that is created by the Creator Who is the reference point for everything He created. Time moves relative to Him, not the other way around. God is His own reference point. There is nothing in creation like that. There is nothing in our knowledge or comprehension like that. If the graphic of the sphere moving through the plane is applied, then God moves in and out of time just as much as He moves through space and He does so as His will, whim, and purpose dictates, some occasions merely being a momentarily observable point in time and at other occasions a wholly unobservable all-encompasser of time. God is the vastness in which you, time, are floating without any reference point by which "north" or "up" could ever possibly be determined. There's no means by which cause-and-effect could be conceived, much less measured.

AMEN! And that is so throughout the whole of Theology. All of our representations of what he is and does are for OUR benefit, even those we think to use in worship. WE cannot say, then, that God thinks, decides, considers or anything else, according to what those words mean in OUR experience. God is not like us.

So....


I'll wait a little while before I pick up the rest of the two opening posts while everyone either mops up where their brain has spilled out onto the floor or wipes off the detritus off the walls where their head has exploded .

 

[Josheb]

makesends said:
It's not a question of what he can or can't do, or what he has to do or doesn't have to do.

In that case the matter of His inherent aseity answers the question decisively.

My comment differentiated between "can and cannot do and has to do" with "does and does not do". I don't see combining them into one statement. What God does, completely trumps any consideration of what he can or cannot do.

Acknowledged. I was simply covering the bases and rhetorically noting the irrelevant aspects of what God can (or must) do.

Let me go back and put " @Tambora said" in front of her comments...

God is not time and space (not that you said he was), so, as I think you are saying, if we can't be sure what time and space have to do, how can we begin to suppose what the Creator of time and space has to do? But God is a different kind of thing —not just degree of thing— He being the source and essence(?) of very existence. Therefore, it is not a question of 'can' nor 'has to', but a question of what he does. It's not a question of ability, from which we may conjecture our silly constructions of probability, nor a question of obligation on his part, as though he might wish to do otherwise, but simply what he does. WE are the ones who say, for example, that he MUST act according to his nature. But frankly, the statement is silly. He does what he is. No obligation there. No effort to live up to a standard.

I am suggesting that questions about God's nature and His faculties relevant to time and space are likely to be red herring. God is not time and space but I do not know Christian who thinks He is time and space. We're not pantheists. Perhaps @Tambora meant to say God is not "in" time and space; He is not in that which He created. He exists prior to and external to that which He created. Therefore, when we speak of his actions (as recorded in scripture or observed in nature) we are merely discussing what is intra-creation, not extra-creation. Positions that fail to maintain the categorical distinctions are likely to fail both scripturally and logically.

makesends said:
He simply does, and so everything that is, is, as a result.

I trust that is not intended as an appeal to magical thinking (it just does ).

In the same sort of way that Death is swallowed up in Victory, I don't see a Venn diagram juxtaposing what we refer to as the eternal with the temporal.

Then think about it because the eternal intersects creation constantly.

I think the temporal doesn't overlap at all, but is completely absorbed, so to speak.

So you think past history is lingering around in some Star Trek style quantum flux and can be retrieved when we have the right tools to do so?

And I think that riddle is sufficiently answered by the idea that the end result is already fact, as far as God is concerned.

I completely agree.

AMEN! And that is so throughout the whole of Theology. All of our representations of what he is and does are for OUR benefit, even those we think to use in worship. WE cannot say, then, that God thinks, decides, considers or anything else, according to what those words mean in OUR experience. God is not like us.

 

[fastfredy0]

You say, "I can say that God didn't invent time because any time that He had a thought or moved or did anything at all was in time."

I understand that you can't assert He didn't.

Premise 1: For time to exist there must be both "matter" and "space"
Premise 2: "matter" and "space" did not always exist
Premise 3: God is eternal
Conclusion: God exists even when time does not exist. God is outside of time. God thoughts are not our thoughts. He does not require
time. He doesn't have new thoughts as He does not change and therefore does not 'reason' as we do.

God's thoughts are uncreated and eternal
God knows without the use of organs of perception, or of reason
God knows all things by knowing himself
Our knowledge of God is always only analogical in character and, therefore, only a finite image, a faint likeness and creaturely impression of the perfect knowledge that God has of himself
J. Frame

...not that I know what I am talking about *giggle* ... to know God comprehensively is to be God.