Comments on: Hermeneutical Assumptions and Open Theism

By: Todd Wood

Todd Wood — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 17:32:30 +0000

Thanks.

One of these days, I am going to bite the bullet and obtain the first two volumes in your series. I am sure that is only fair in seeking to fully engage you on your systematic theology. When did you say your third volume will be in print? And is this the last in the series?

And will there be a special deal for all three? :)

By: Blake

Blake — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:08:07 +0000

Todd: I suppose that Isaiah 5 could be read that way since the vineyard didn’t flourish as the husbandman had expected. Yet the genre is parable and poetry and I think we can conclude that one need not speak with exactness and can include matters one doesn’t really adopt for dramatic effect in presenting the parable. So I wouldn’t use it as a text supporting open theism but at least consistent in outlook with open theism.

By: Todd Wood

Todd Wood — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 22:49:58 +0000

William B., I have been mulling over the song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7. This could be the flipside of Blake’s original look in Exo. and Jonah (God’s declaration of judgment but the people repenting).

Now, we have God’s expectation of good, but the people not matching up – wild grapes.

Blake, would you use Isaiah 5 in defense of open theism? The actual demonstration of a winepress in the vineyard?

By: William B

William B — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 17:05:16 +0000

God does not require determinism in order to foreknow anymore than He needs pre-existing matter in order to create.

By: William B

William B — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 17:04:23 +0000

Open Theism is motivated by the presupposition (stolen from Hellenic metaphysics) that since God is a being his *knowing* that X will happen makes X’s happening *necessary.* Why does free will require the possible falsification of God’s foreknowledge? Why not simply deny that divine foreknowledge is opposed to human freedom in the first place? The assumption that it does has some intuitive appeal but no theological or Christological basis. God cannot sin but that does mean that He is good out of necessity rather than free choice.

A bigger and more obvious problem in Western theology is libertarian freedom in the eschaton; both Catholics and Protestant deny that the saints in the eschaton have libertarian freedom or freedom with alternative possibilities. There is only one object of choice for them: God. This has three flaws: first, it implies that Christ’s human will in the Garden was sinful or evil; secondly, it makes it impossible to explain the fall of Adam or Satan, and thrirdly, it makes it impossible to explain why God would allow the possibility of evil in the first place if we end up right where we started.

By: Matt W.

Matt W. — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:26:46 +0000

Geoff: I know that’s how you fill, I am just saying that for me, that’s a pretty large misunderstanding. It is reasonably preferrable for me* to go with a combination of the possibilities 2 and 3 I’ve previously stated, with perhaps a sprikle of limited foreknowledge.

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* Your reasoning may of course bring you different results.

By: Geoff J

Geoff J — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:53:48 +0000

Matt,

I would call the passages implying exhaustive foreknowledge a permissible misunderstanding on the part of the 1828 Joseph. I agree with Blake that the revelation was filtered through Joseph and thus reflects (subtly in most cases) Joseph’s theological assumptions at the time.

By: Matt W.

Matt W. — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:30:14 +0000

that is the way it was given to him and he understood the text.

If the text was given to him showing God’s foreknowledge in such a powerful fashion, then Why?

Geoff wants to go with “Divinely approved false doctrine”. I have a problem with that.

By: Blake

Blake — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:49:29 +0000

Jacob: No, I see it explained as an expansion inherent in the nature of the translation through revelation. Joseph Smith didn’t consciously expand; that is the way it was given to him and he understood the text. However, the original text would not be as explicit.

By: Jacob J

Jacob J — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:13:36 +0000

Blake,

That is obviously a very important point you make. I have been sloppy because the two have been referred to here as equivalent, but I have been trying to refer to redaction when I meant redaction, and expansion when I meant expansion. I have not been as careful or accurate as I should have been, so I appreciate your comment and pledge to do better.

If I understand you correctly, your suggestion that prophecies are actualized according to later knowledge is an instance of redaction, rather than expansion. That said, I still don’t think you’ve addressed the question I’ve been trying to ask in #90, #113, #118 about whether you see this language as reasonably explained by a later redactor(s).