Nations University call

[Thorne]

"Not if it is theologically sound."

if it were theologically sound, it wouldn't be saying the opposite of what the Bible says on the topic, surely?

"What I said would be accepted by new-age Christianity"

The Moonies teach that Jesus was sent to the world to save all of humanity, and failed. They accept that but you could hardly say its theologically sound from a Christian point of view

I get that you think you're right and they should show your more respect but that really is a separate issue from them granting you a degree for saying the exact opposite of what they're teaching

The argument is based on the Bible and is presented with Biblical evidence. I didn't assert anything that wasn't Biblically sound, nor did I contradict what the Bible puts forth.

I got the idea one night when asking some questions and getting contradictory answers. The core of my argument came from those questions, which I then researched and confirmed over the next three months. The "epiphany" I had was this:
If God is omniscient, then He possesses maximal and certain knowledge of everything. This means that God is incapable of not knowing something with certainty. If God is omnipotent, then He can do anything at any time as he so chooses, with no limitations or restraints.

If God is omniscient, therefore, He must know His exact and precise course of action by which all things will progress for all of eternity and is incapable of deviating from this precise course of action even in and of himself. This means that God has no freewill. In other words, God knew all the horrible things that would happen to mankind, all the people who would die and burn in Hell for eternity, and all the problems humans would have, yet was incapable of changing that course of action. If God is incapable of something, he is, quite simply, not omnipotent, as he lacks the ability to do anything at any time that he so chooses.

If God is omnipotent, then He cannot know what will happen in all cases with absolute certainty, because He has the authority to deviate from what he knows will happen to change the course, and course-correction would be impossible for a being that knew everything he would do with certainty.

To prove that God does not have unlimited power or unlimited knowledge only requires a single verse for each. A bold assertion that someone possesses "all" of the cherries on Earth can be disproven by showing a single person with a single cherry that does not belong to the man with "all" the cherries.
1. Hebrews 6:18 asserts that it is "impossible for God to lie." which literally means that God is incapable of lying. A truly omnipotent being could refuse to lie (therefore, "God won't lie," or "God does not lie.") but could not be limited in power and authority such that he could not lie.
2. Genesis 18:20-21 states, "Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.” This means that God was unaware of the magnitude of their sin, yet an omniscient (all-knowing) being surely would have known the true magnitude of their sin without having to "go down and see" to verify what he already knew.

A forum is not a good medium to share the entire thing, and the paper goes much deeper into the topic than this cursory glance. I took inspiration from Plato and covered virtually every argument that could be levied against my position with every detail I could think of. The conclusion I reached is that God knows all possibilities of what could happen, but does not know precisely which of those possibilities will happen at any given point or instance with certainty, and that God has the absolute authority to do anything within his creation if he chooses, but cannot exercise this absolute authority over every aspect of himself (cannot lie, cannot contradict Himself, cannot change His character, etc).

[rlw74]

Thorne, All these points are covered in Erickson's Systematic Theology textbook which is used for M3. I would contact the school and see if they can forward your questions to the M3 professor to see if these are things you could address in your papers for the course. The textbook can explain it better than I can but you'll be exposed to others who have arrived at the same conclusion and those who have countered those arguments. The course really challenges one to ask these kinds of questions and then study them in light of the historical context, religious movements, and the effects of philosophy, science etc. I'm not saying the school will agree or disagree but I don't think the professors aren't used to being challenged. Some of the student forums have quite a few interesting ideas. It wouldn't hurt to ask about it anyway.

[Thorne]

--snip--

I'll consider asking around again. At least those professors and/or student forums would offer a challenge, as opposed of ignoring it for arbitrary reasons. At this point, it's a Word document sitting in a folder that I haven't touched in six months. Even taking the most advantageous position (that all of Christendom could be convinced that my ideas are correct), I won't significantly benefit (or harm, but benefit is preferred) the belief system. Taking the worst position, I waste a lot more time for an idea that is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things which will never be accepted anyway.

TL;DR: Counter argument that I wrote without thinking about whether it was necessary, but didn't want to delete because I don't see harm in leaving it.

However, I've read the book, and the main argument Erickson makes which comes closest to standing against my argument is that process theology (which I do not assert to be correct, as I disagree with most tenets of their position) is invalidated by the nature of transcendence. Erickson asserts that man does not have any part in determining the future (which I have about 40 verses proving the contrary), but provides only a claim devoid of proof.

Erickson posits that all of time has already been mapped out, that God knows precisely what will happen (absolute omniscience). If God does possess true omniscience, then there is a reasonable position to hold that God is unjust - especially when combining it with the perspective of absolute transcendence (as Erickson does).

The Bible regularly states that God became angry with people for things they had done, and punished people for those things. Here's the problem: an omniscient God already knew those people would absolutely act in those ways with absolute certainty, meaning that they were incapable of choosing not to do those things, yet were still punished for actions which they were destined to perform and were incapable of avoiding. This necessitates that God is unjust (punishing people for something they couldn't prevent themselves from doing in any circumstance) and perhaps even cruel.

[sanantone]

--snip--

I'll consider asking around again. At least those professors and/or student forums would offer a challenge, as opposed of ignoring it for arbitrary reasons. At this point, it's a Word document sitting in a folder that I haven't touched in six months. Even taking the most advantageous position (that all of Christendom could be convinced that my ideas are correct), I won't significantly benefit (or harm, but benefit is preferred) the belief system. Taking the worst position, I waste a lot more time for an idea that is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things which will never be accepted anyway.

TL;DR: Counter argument that I wrote without thinking about whether it was necessary, but didn't want to delete because I don't see harm in leaving it.

However, I've read the book, and the main argument Erickson makes which comes closest to standing against my argument is that process theology (which I do not assert to be correct, as I disagree with most tenets of their position) is invalidated by the nature of transcendence. Erickson asserts that man does not have any part in determining the future (which I have about 40 verses proving the contrary), but provides only a claim devoid of proof.

Erickson posits that all of time has already been mapped out, that God knows precisely what will happen (absolute omniscience). If God does possess true omniscience, then there is a reasonable position to hold that God is unjust - especially when combining it with the perspective of absolute transcendence (as Erickson does).

The Bible regularly states that God became angry with people for things they had done, and punished people for those things. Here's the problem: an omniscient God already knew those people would absolutely act in those ways with absolute certainty, meaning that they were incapable of choosing not to do those things, yet were still punished for actions which they were destined to perform and were incapable of avoiding. This necessitates that God is unjust (punishing people for something they couldn't prevent themselves from doing in any circumstance) and perhaps even cruel.

My understanding was not that the people were predestined to do certain things, but God already knew who would choose to sin. But, the Puritans took that idea to the extreme and believed that God chose people for condemnation at birth and there was no such thing as free will.

[Thorne]

My understanding was not that the people were predestined to do certain things, but God already knew who would choose to sin. But, the Puritans took that idea to the extreme and believed that God chose people for condemnation at birth and there was no such thing as free will.

This still invalidates the concept of choice or free will. Whether God predestined everything or simply knew what would happen with certainty, humans have no freedom to choose anything, but will instead act in an already-certain way on a macro scale.

Say that I know you will get into a car accident tomorrow morning, and this is the path that will happen no matter what, since I've seen it with certainty from the perspective that it has already happened. Telling you not to drive tomorrow, therefore, will not have any effect on you, since you will certainly drive and certainly get into an accident tomorrow.

Is it then reasonable for me to say that you chose to drive and are responsible for your choice if you were going to drive no matter what anyone said or did? From your perspective, you would say that you chose to drive. From my perspective, as I already knew what you would do with certainty, your "choice" was predestined, even though I was not the one to define that destiny.

If God is omniscient, He possesses all knowledge. This is all-encompassing, meaning that God also knows the future*. If God knows that you will murder someone tomorrow, and knows it with certainty, then nothing He does or says to you will change the fact that you will, with certainty, murder someone tomorrow. Did you still choose to murder someone?

What if God really wanted to stop you, thereby changing the future events He already knows? If He then exercises His ability and prevents this event from occurring, He either (1) did not know with certainty that He would change the future, meaning he is not omniscient, or (2) already knew He would change the future with certainty and therefore had to change the future and could not choose otherwise, meaning he is not omnipotent.

If humans have free choice, God can not know precisely what we will do, which means that God is not omniscient. If humans do not have free choice, but only the illusion of choice from our limited perspective, and God does know precisely what we will do, then God is either (1) not omnipotent, as he was necessitated to create us by His perfect foreknowledge (see prior post) and was incapable of deciding to not create us, or (2) cruel, since he willingly created all of those who would suffer (and created a place for those to suffer in) despite knowing precisely who would suffer because of actions they were certain to take with no chance to deviate.

My attempt to reconcile this is as such:
God knows all possible permutations of every possible event that could ever happen in any timeline that is currently unfolding, has unfolded, or will unfold. He knows every choice you could possibly make, and every consequence of these choices, but does not know which choice you will make in the case until it happens. Think of it like a branching timeline. In such a case, God would be able to see every ending of every possible timeline, and can witness all possible timelines from His 'location' outside of these timelines, but you can freely choose to act of your own accord and freewill at any point without violating His knowledge.

In this sense, by standing at the end of the timeline, He would see every version of every ending as real and actualized, and is thus incapable of knowing precisely which ending will be the actual end until it happens, though he can make predictions as to what will happen (think Game Theory at a level beyond anything we can imagine) and can affect the various timelines as he wishes with supreme authority to act within a given timeline.

It is a bit wacky, and it is a completely separate argument to that posited in my first paper, but it's a working hypothesis.

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* There is one caveat here that would render my argument against omniscience moot. Omniscience literally means "all knowledge," so if the concept of knowledge itself is limited (perhaps the future cannot be precisely known, because the knowledge does not exist) then God would be omniscient by simply possessing all possible knowledge, as opposed to knowing everything. However, no one whom I have debated on this matter has yet been willing to take that position, since it seems to limit God by an external factor.