Sunday, July 22, 2018

Thoughts on the impossibility of Open-theism

Recently I was thinking about Open-theism and was wondering if it could even be coherent as an idea if God exists outside of time and yet is capable of intervening in time? Think about it. If God exists outside of time, but is able to interact with us in time than would He know future choices infallibly? Of course He would. 

If a being was truly timeless, even if finite like us, which of course I do not believe with regards to God, by being able to move anywhere at any moment he would be for all practical purposes omnipresent, being able to bring his now of consciousness to bear on every circumstance at any moment. If such a being was truly timeless and could thus go back and forth in time, he would have infallible knowledge of the future merely by observation. If such a being had power to interact with the world in time then of course any plan he chose to implement could be brought about even if the method was through multiple experimentation to see which human agents would affect the desired outcome, and ensuring that those agents were then in position to do it. Thus even a finite timeless being would easily be able to influence and know human decisions and choices and bring about any cosmic plan he chose, all that would be required would be the will to do it.

Since both I and an Open-theist would agree that God is not a finite being, and is much greater however His actual perception and knowledge work, an Open-theist must argue that God does not foreknow free will choices of individuals because He has no such desire. That is something which is hard to believe if He loves the individual and has any sort of plan for either an individual or the world as a whole. Since Scripture clearly indicates that God loves individuals and has plans both for certain individuals and the world as a whole, it follows that if He is able He would desire to know their future choices. If even a finite being who is truly timeless would be able to know future choices and then through going back in time be able to bring about his plans, having God unable to know future contingent choices seems irrational to me.

  

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