Trintarian Warfare theodicy

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='Dec 7 2005, 03:25 AM']all i can say is we dont believe in time..

fluff, he is using big words and "philosophy" and "physics" im gonna tag u again.

I honestly dont understand how any of this is an objection to TwT
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Catholic dogma believes in time. It is dogma that time had a beginning and that God transcends time. It is also dogma that God knows the future entirely including our free acts. And it is also dogma that we have real and efficacious free-will. A theology that understands these realities as contradictory is necessarily incorrect.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='Dec 7 2005, 03:35 AM']btw L_D, dear older brother type poster...

If the church is always right and for certain(*which I agree) but can "reform" things with a better understanding than does not all reforms happen by someone mentioning an Idea with a better understanding?
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But the reformed understanding that you propose would involve jettisoning and undermining not only a central stream of Christian belief from the beginning, but would have the same effect on dogma. This coupled with what so far has been a weak and vague critique of that tradition and doctrine, leads me to conclude that if one or the other is wrong, it is open theism that is likely the side in error.

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[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='Dec 7 2005, 04:45 AM']Catholic dogma believes in time. It is dogma that time had a beginning and that God transcends time. [right][snapback]814775[/snapback][/right]
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explain the view on time..I admit when I say "time doesnt exist" I mean in the sense we speak of as a dimension.

L_D

how does free will and determinism work? How does God relate and experience? Is everything settled you believe?

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douyble

Edited December 7, 2005 by Revprodeji

[Laudate_Dominum]

I like this statement of St. Gregory Nanzianzen, which summarizes the historical, and I'd say authentic Christian viewpoint:

"God was always, is, and will always be: or rather, He is always; for 'was', and 'will be', are divisions of our time and our nature which is in constant flow. But He is the Constant Being; and thus He called Himself, when He answered Moses on the mountain. He holds sealed off in Himself the whole fullness of being, which has neither a beginning nor an end, like an endless and boundless ocean of being, transcending every notion of time and created nature."

The revealed truth about God is that He is eternal. And the classic definition of this reality in the Christian tradition is, "eternity is the perfect and simultaneous total possession of interminable life."

The statement that God is eternal is dogma. The meaning of this dogma is specific; it declares that God is in Essence without beginning or end and without succession in a constant undivided now. This is affirmed by Lateran IV and Vatican I.
This is also the clear affirmation of the fathers, and in fact the explicit affirmations of this doctrine among the fathers were often in response to heretics who sought to subjugate God to being and time.

And it is also dogma that God's knowledge is infinite (intellectus infinitus), the sense of this is that God's knowledge is not successive or discursive. To insist otherwise you must jettison divine simplicity and ultimately transcendence.

It is also dogmatically decreed that God knows all possibilities (which open theism affirms), but the same dogmatic decree affirms that God knows all real things, past, present and future. And that God knows all future free acts with infallible certitude. The basis of these statements is God's transcendence of being and time. To quote Vatican I, "all things are naked and open to His eyes, even those things that will happen through the free action of creatures."

All such decrees are expositions of the deposit of Faith as contained in Scripture and Sacred Tradition. For example John 6:64, "Jesus knew from the beginning who those were that did not believe, and who it was that should betray him.", Psalm 139:4, "Even before a word is on my tongue, lo, O Lord thou knowest it altogether. Thou dost beset me behind and before, and layest thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain it." etc..
The Fathers typically appeal to prophecy to indicate God's supreme knowledge of all things, past, present and future. I am also convinced, from my knowledge of ancient semitic thought, that the Biblical Jews knew nothing of open theism or its concept of time. The eisegesis of the open theists strikes me as unfounded and novel interpretation. Quite often anthropomorphic and unappreciative of the semitic mentality and worldview.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='Dec 7 2005, 03:52 AM']explain the view on time..I admit when I say "time doesn’t exist" I mean in the sense we speak of as a dimension.
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I suppose there is not one single metaphysical understanding of time that is dogmatic. But a concept of time must affirm that time is an actual and meaningful metaphysical reality. That there is temporal succession. The concepts of past, present and future are meaningful. But specifics regarding the nature and status of time such as developed in modern philosophy and physics, need not be rejected outright if a particular theory or philosophy does not by necessity undermine or render meaningless these essential categories of the Christian world view.
It was revealed that God created the cosmos with a beginning and out of nothing pre-existing (which is contrary to the teaching of Aristotle for example). This doctrine alone implies the radical transcendence of the Divine Essence. This does not mean that God is wholly other. God is love and is a God of communion, He is a personal God. Thus we know and experience God in his tri-hypostatic activities. The enhypostatic, energetic enactment of His wholly transcendent Essence.

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='Dec 7 2005, 03:52 AM']how does free will and determinism work? How does God relate and experience? Is everything settled you believe?
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Actually argent_paladin and I were supposed to have a debate/discussion concerning the subject of free-will/determinism. I believe he was going to articulate the Thomist position, and I was going to take a somewhat molinist but actually scattered and eclectic Laudate_Dominist perspective. hehe
I'll PM him and see if he's still up for it rather than start spewing here and now. It's not a definitively settled matter at least. There have been authoritative interpretations of Scripture regarding predestination and free-will, and dogmatic statements that apply, but there is still a degree of room for Theological speculation. But one must still be careful to stay within the bounds of orthodoxy. It's a very delicate subject and its all too easy to stray off to a path of error (which none of us are immune to unfortunately, but I guess that's why I can be doctrinally scrupulous at times).

Oh, and I don't believe that everything is settled. Just because God's inner reality transcends being, doesn't mean that we don’t' have efficacious free-will. Our acts are free and aren't determined by causal necessity. God's all embracing knowledge is not equal to causal necessity because this essential knowledge originates outside of the diastemic order. God is not by nature "within being".
God is energetically and enhypostatically in time and active in all creation. In fact everything that exists is held in existence by God's sovereign will. He is dynamically present in all of being, but not in an Essential mode, but as efficient, exemplary and final cause. There is more to it than that obviously, but I'm not sure where to begin and I feel I've been rambling enough as it is.. I don't want to torture anyone with my babble.

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honestly,

reading thru those posts I would assume you were an open theist

[quote]"God was always, is, and will always be: or rather, He is always; for 'was', and 'will be', are divisions of our time and our nature which is in constant flow. But He is the Constant Being; and thus He called Himself, when He answered Moses on the mountain. He holds sealed off in Himself the whole fullness of being, which has neither a beginning nor an end, like an endless and boundless ocean of being, transcending every notion of time and created nature."[/quote]

ok

[quote]The revealed truth about God is that He is eternal. And the classic definition of this reality in the Christian tradition is, "eternity is the perfect and simultaneous total possession of interminable life."[/quote]

ok again

[quote]The statement that God is eternal is dogma. The meaning of this dogma is specific; it declares that God is in Essence without beginning or end and without succession in a constant undivided now. This is affirmed by Lateran IV and Vatican I.[/quote]

No problem here

[quote]This is also the clear affirmation of the fathers, and in fact the explicit affirmations of this doctrine among the fathers were often in response to heretics who sought to subjugate God to being and time.[/quote]

No problem here again..

[quote]And it is also dogma that God's knowledge is infinite (intellectus infinitus), the sense of this is that God's knowledge is not successive or discursive. To insist otherwise you must jettison divine simplicity and ultimately transcendence.[/quote]

ok

[quote]It is also dogmatically decreed that God knows all possibilities (which open theism affirms), but the same dogmatic decree affirms that God knows all real things, past, present and future. And that God knows all future free acts with infallible certitude. The basis of these statements is God's transcendence of being and time. To quote Vatican I, "all things are naked and open to His eyes, even those things that will happen through the free action of creatures."[/quote]

ok, but

1.)whats the point of possibilities if God knows "exactly" what will happen. Then, there really is no possibilities. I believe God knows all that will happen, just that he knows them as possibilities unless he has settled them. I dont see how a utter settled future can work with free will.

[quote]The Fathers typically appeal to prophecy to indicate God's supreme knowledge of all things, past, present and future. I am also convinced, from my knowledge of ancient semitic thought, that the Biblical Jews knew nothing of open theism or its concept of time. The eisegesis of the open theists strikes me as unfounded and novel interpretation. Quite often anthropomorphic and unappreciative of the semitic mentality and worldview.[/quote]

well, Boyd is baptist so blame it on him. I and him have both gave logical answers to the concept of prophecy..

L_D..give me your address I will mail you some books on open theism. cause right now when I am reading your posts I would consider you more of an open theist than against it

[Paphnutius]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='Dec 7 2005, 01:37 AM']the premise here is that if God "knew" then it was for sure, or determined, if it is determined before we did it than something else determined it. Thus we didnt decide our own actions and we dont have free will
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Edit: Sorry. I didnt realize you had a whole conversation before I posted.

I would still like to hear how you interpret the two Scripture verses I posted, however.

Edited December 7, 2005 by Paphnutius

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no problem sir/ma'am, let me find them and get to them..

Id like to hear how any view would cover it..

[Paphnutius]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='Dec 7 2005, 06:19 AM']no problem sir/ma'am,  let me find them and get to them..

Id like to hear how any view would cover it..
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Np. I realize that when somone is engaged with another intesnly, it is easy to miss posts by others. Take your time we are not in any rush (it is on page 5).

Also, why would you say God knowing something neccesitates it being determined? If I know what my son will throw a waterballoon at my daughter before he does it, does that make it determined? I do not think so. My son acted out of his own free will when he chose to peg his sister with the balloon. My foreknowledge of the event comes from my previous experience of how he manifests and uses his free will and thus the certainty of my foreknowledge corrpesponds directly with my knowledge of his past. Could we not say that since God knows each of us perfectly that He knows with certainty how we will use our free will? Perhaps it would help if you could explain why you think foreknowledge with certainty prevents us from exercising free will.

I have used an approach that does not hinge upon the ontological difference between Creator and created (ie: the difference in temporality and being in time), but I still find that to be the strongest.

BTW it is sir

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you are only assuming your son will throw it, you really dont "know" rather you know a few of the possiblities and prepare for it. God knows all the possibilities completly.

for him to "know" something means it will happen. For your son to not throw it just shocks you, for us to go against what God "knows" is heresy.

im sleeping now..ttyl friend

also, if God "knows" all of us enough and only that knowledge is enough to determine our actions than we dont really have free will rather we are either pre-programed or influenced enough that our free will is not responsable. We cant suprise God, he knows all the options, but free will is an x-factor.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='Dec 7 2005, 04:55 AM']1.)whats the point of possibilities if God knows "exactly" what will happen. Then, there really is no possibilities. I believe God knows all that will happen, just that he knows them as possibilities unless he has settled them. I don’t see how a utter settled future can work with free will.
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God is fundamentally mysterious because He transcends being and since we are limited, finite, contingent and diastemic beings we can never comprehend God. This is actually dogma as well and a clear teaching of Scripture and the Fathers.

This should be kept in mind and is something that often comes to mind for me when I see a theological theory that does not give God His due transcendence.

Even in theories of physics (which by nature cannot transcend being) there are hypothetical realities that transcend our time and space. Possible other universes with radically different laws, etc.. Certainly God is infinitely beyond these as well. Our "idea" of God cannot be big enough and ought always end in the apophatic threshold of mystery or else it is not pointing us to God, but to a structure of ideas based on and limited to being.

If you want to philosophize about science, there is no absolute "now" in the sense of the temporality that we experience.
Our language and conceptual capacity is diastemic and we are limited to epinoetic constructs and formulations based upon the active manifestations or energeia of beings. Even limited, diastemic beings essentially transcend our capacity to know in any absolute sense. God's inner reality is adiastemic and is all the more incommunicable.

I must quote Nyssa briefly: "The whole created order is unable to get out of itself through a comprehensive vision, but remains continually enclosed within itself, and whatever it beholds, it is looking at itself. And even if it somehow thinks it is looking at something beyond itself, that which it sees outside itself has no being. One may struggle to surpass or transcend diastemic conception by the understanding of the created universe, but he does not transcend. For in every object it conceptually discovers, it always comprehends the diastema inherent in the being of the apprehended object, for diastema is nothing other than creation itself."

The affirmations of God's simplicity and necessary being, etc.. are properly understood, I believe, as being apophatic in character. To assume that such statements give a positive knowledge is to be deluding oneself. The things that some theologians have "affirmed" about God's nature, by nature lead the mind into the realm of the apophatic. They are mysterious and can't actually be understood cataphatically of God's Essence, but rather are negative statements or they refer to God's tri-hypostatic reality or Trinitarian dynamism as the energetic enactment of that Essence. This ties in with why I understand being as hypostatic not natural.

But anyway, I should address your question before I forget what it was. hehe
We exist in an intrinsically limited mode of being, otherwise we would be Divine. Our being and experience is diastemic, dimensional, discrete, contingent and finite.
It is true that man will live forever, but he is not infinite. Creation is created, it has beginning, and is not eternal of itself. Man is heteroessential to God. Epektasis involves the infinite extension of the diastema but not the transcending of it.
Only God is adiastemic because to be adiastemic is to be essentially uncreated. In theosis man becomes energetically uncreated, not essentially so. Our mode of being will be theandric, so our activities / energeia will be human and Divine.

God has predestined both being and everlasting being. The creation of the diastemic order and its eternal extension. We are all predestined for eternity. But man's state in the eternal diastema is determined by his own actions in synergy with God's energetic activity. Participation in the Divine Life is achieved through the Mystery of the Incarnate Word by which human nature attains a theandric mode of being.

Alright.. I'm getting really tired, but I'll try to make my point.
As limited beings in diastema we necessarily experience finite expressions of reality. We do not experience being on an essential level or in totalities. We are capable of grasping being in discrete quantities, as it were. Thus the reality of the temporal is a natural aspect and expression of our created, dimensional existence. God transcends all of this. Yet, creation exists in relation to God and is inseparable from God, but not on an essential level for creation is not the uncreated, the hyper-ousia or the adiastemic.
So, regarding the question of possibilities and foreknowledge that you've framed the issue is time. Because God is adiastemic He grasps the diastemic order as a totality, not in parts or discrete quantities. God grasps the diastemic order essentially, as He is the sole uncreated principle of all that is. Thus while being is actual, and ordained such that creatures with free-will participate in a limited way in its determination, God's omniscience does not negate the efficacy of free-will. The basis of this problem is the conception of God as essentially diastemic.
The problems relating to providence and predestination are perhaps more solvable when certain attributions of the Divine are understood as hypostatic and/or energetic, not essential or natural. God is transcendent essentially, and immanent energetically. And we attain union with Him through synergy in the uncreated light of glory.

Something like that anyway.. I'm wicked tired.

I'll elaborate more later if you think it would be beneficial. God bless.

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Right now we have finals, but here is something for anyone to read for now.


by Dr. Gregory A Boyd

[quote]This debate, it should be noted, has a long tradition and has throughout Church history generated a number of novel positions. For example, in the seventeenth century Luis de Molina argued the view that reality consisted not only of what is and what shall be but also of what could possibly be. He thus held that the omniscient God possesses "Middle Knowledge." Others argued that such possibilities don't exist, so God of course doesn't know them. The issue has been hotly debated ever since.

My view is in essence a modification of Molina's view. I agree with him that God knows all possibilities. I disagree that what shall be is in all respects settled from all eternity. And the debate goes on. [/quote]

----

Here are some links for you readers

[url="http://www.biblical-theology.com/omniscience2/possible.htm"]God of the Possible[/url]

[url="http://twtministries.com/articles/9_openness/open.html"]Bible and Open view[/url]

[url="http://www.biblical-theology.com/omniscience2/view%20of%20future.htm"]Open view[/url]

[url="http://twtministries.com/articles/9_openness/piper.html"]Response to Piper(*objections)[/url]

Edited December 8, 2005 by Revprodeji

[Aloysius]

woah, I was unaware of that aspect of Molinism...

I abandoned molinism for thomism quite a bit ago anyway though.

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[quote name='Aloysius' date='Dec 8 2005, 04:06 AM']woah, I was unaware of that aspect of Molinism...

I abandoned molinism for thomism quite a bit ago anyway though.
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thats beside the point..(*they have doctors for it im sure) the point is that molinism is acceptable within the magistrium and twt(*open theism) should be within those guidlines..

Now, I should do some hmwk and not post 150 times tonight. So read the links and pray for me.

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L_D

(*my "[color=red]quote"[/color]function isnt working, so I put ur writing in red.

I sent this to Boyd, so he will give a more proper response later, let me address this now with my limited philosophical understanding.


[QUOTE][color=red]God is fundamentally mysterious because He transcends being and since we are limited, finite, contingent and diastemic beings we can never comprehend God. This is actually dogma as well and a clear teaching of Scripture and the Fathers[/color].[/QUOTE]

-If what you are saying is that we can never truly know God cause we are finte and he is infinte than I would stake that the principles in open theism are crossing this line only as much as the principles that you are sharing right now. The goal of theology is to learn about God, for in love we must have a yearning to know. While I admit there is no way we can completely know God, I dont believe this gives monopoly to one theory and not to another.

[QUOTE][color=red]This should be kept in mind and is something that often comes to mind for me when I see a theological theory that does not give God His due transcendence.[/[/color]QUOTE]

-open theism DOES NOT deny God's trancendence or immutability

[QUOTE][color=red]Even in theories of physics (which by nature cannot transcend being) there are hypothetical realities that transcend our time and space. Possible other universes with radically different laws, etc.. Certainly God is infinitely beyond these as well. Our "idea" of God cannot be big enough and ought always end in the apophatic threshold of mystery or else it is not pointing us to God, but to a structure of ideas based on and limited to being.[/color] [/QUOTE]

-The physics stuff is not about God, it is about time and it is a proof to the study of time the same that you are using Platonic thought as a function of time. This debate is more about time than about God. As we use modern physics and understanding it is just a better understanding of a commonly accepted platonic system. We are equally guilty here brother if there is fault here.

[color=red][QUOTE][color=blue]If you want to philosophize about science, there is no absolute "now" in the sense of the temporality that we experience.
Our language and conceptual capacity is diastemic and we are limited to epinoetic constructs and formulations based upon the active manifestations or energeia of beings. Even limited, diastemic beings essentially transcend our capacity to know in any absolute sense. God's inner reality is adiastemic and is all the more incommunicable[/color].[/QUOTE][/color]

-wanna use english and avoid the greek bro.. (*diastemic, epinoetic)
so, based on an educated idea of what you are saying
"the eternal now idea is stupid, then u justify it, then you say we cant know anything for certain around us truly, thus double for God"

-I would answer that by accepting any model of time you can allow the acceptance of a new understanding. In open theism we are accepting a model of time that is different than the one you have. This is not a violation of any code of knowledge, for if anything it is a violation not to adapt a scientific principle when givin more understanding. Thus, if our view of time violates something about our knowledge of God, than so does yours.

[QUOTE]I[color=red] must quote Nyssa briefly: "The whole created order is unable to get out of itself through a comprehensive vision, but remains continually enclosed within itself, and whatever it beholds, it is looking at itself. And even if it somehow thinks it is looking at something beyond itself, that which it sees outside itself has no being. One may struggle to surpass or transcend diastemic conception by the understanding of the created universe, but he does not transcend. For in every object it conceptually discovers, it always comprehends the diastema inherent in the being of the apprehended object, for diastema is nothing other than creation itself."[/[/color]QUOTE]

-kant? Once again I beg to say, if open theism is wrong for trying to put an understanding of God than so is the system you are subscribing to. As humans we pursue understanding, and in Love for God we pursue all the more. That is not a sin. You are already doing this by making any assuptions about the relationship between God and time. The question is how is Open theism a threating view? It does not harm our understanding of God, if anything it allows us to understand theodicy, it allows us an understanding of our free will. it gives us a perspective on God that is relational in our lives.

[QUOTE][color=red]The affirmations of God's simplicity and necessary being, etc.. are properly understood, I believe, as being apophatic in character. To assume that such statements give a positive knowledge is to be deluding oneself. The things that some theologians have "affirmed" about God's nature, by nature lead the mind into the realm of the apophatic. They are mysterious and can't actually be understood cataphatically of God's Essence, but rather are negative statements or they refer to God's tri-hypostatic reality or Trinitarian dynamism as the energetic enactment of that Essence. This ties in with why I understand being as hypostatic not natural.[/[/color]QUOTE]

-I dunno what you are saying in the first sentence, are you responding to me perhaps?
-it seems you are saying that we cant know what God is, but rather what he isnt. I would say we are on equal ground here with this argument. You are using proof and so are we. We both have a model of time and then we conform to that. So, if open theism is in the wrong so is whatever model you hold.
Now, I would also disagree with you and say we are capable of understanding of certain aspects of God. Of course not to the perfection of what they are, but he allows us the thirst to know him, and he gives us Christ as a revelation of the charicter of who God is. I believe Athanasius speaks of this concept and it is a common evangelical concept as well. Also, we can come to a working understanding of the nature and charicter of God thru scripture and how he is seen relating with us since creation. But, my point is we are equally at fault if there is fault here.


[QUOTE][color=red]But anyway, I should address your question before I forget what it was. hehe We exist in an intrinsically limited mode of being, otherwise we would be Divine. Our being and experience is diastemic, dimensional, discrete, contingent and finite.[/color] [/QUOTE]

-once again, a time argument I just disagree with you alltogether. This is not a biblical view, no a view compatable to the understanding of modern physics. It is based on an ancient platonic system and no longer relevent.

[QUOTE]I[color=red]t is true that man will live forever, but he is not infinite. Creation is created, it has beginning, and is not eternal of itself. Man is heteroessential to God. Epektasis involves the infinite extension of the diastema but not the transcending of it.[/[/color]QUOTE]

-epektasis is not english..
-btw, I agree with the above statement and affirm it holds no problem within open theism.

[QUOTE][color=red]Only God is adiastemic because to be adiastemic is to be essentially uncreated. In theosis man becomes energetically uncreated, not essentially so. Our mode of being will be theandric, so our activities / energeia will be human and Divine[/color].[/QUOTE]

-great..um, hows the weather, have a nice day..I agree. this has no problsm with open theism. Open theism doesnt think God is finite or that man is transendent.

[QUOTE][color=red]God has predestined both being and everlasting being. The creation of the diastemic order and its eternal extension. We are all predestined for eternity. But man's state in the eternal diastema is determined by his own actions in synergy with God's energetic activity. Participation in the Divine Life is achieved through the Mystery of the Incarnate Word by which human nature attains a theandric mode of being.[/color] [/QUOTE]

-this could be the slogan for open theism...if I am understanding it right

[QUOTE]
[color=red]As limited beings in diastema we necessarily experience finite expressions of reality. We do not experience being on an essential level or in totalities. We are capable of grasping being in discrete quantities, as it were. Thus the reality of the temporal is a natural aspect and expression of our created, dimensional existence. God transcends all of this. Yet, creation exists in relation to God and is inseparable from God, but not on an essential level for creation is not the uncreated, the hyper-ousia or the adiastemic.
So, regarding the question of possibilities and foreknowledge that you've framed the issue is time. Because God is adiastemic He grasps the diastemic order as a totality, not in parts or discrete quantities. God grasps the diastemic order essentially, as He is the sole uncreated principle of all that is. Thus while being is actual, and ordained such that creatures with free-will participate in a limited way in its determination, God's omniscience does not negate the efficacy of free-will. The basis of this problem is the conception of God as essentially diastemic.
The problems relating to providence and predestination are perhaps more solvable when certain attributions of the Divine are understood as hypostatic and/or energetic, not essential or natural. God is transcendent essentially, and immanent energetically. And we attain union with Him through synergy in the uncreated light of glory.[/[/color]QUOTE]

-I understood this as a summary of your argument but with bigger words..


My view still stands, you are more of an open theist than you think. But I will enjoy working thru this more with you.

Edited December 8, 2005 by Revprodeji

[Laudate_Dominum]

Please expound upon this erroneous view of "platonic time" that I supposedly have. If this is really the core issue, please actually explain it instead of saying that I hold to "platonic time" and that open theism has some new theory of time that is superior.

From what I can gather, the posts about open theism have implied perhaps something like presentism? Or perhaps something like Parmenides. Do you believe that time and change are illusions?

Please explain what you consider to be my understanding of time (or the general understanding of Christian Theologians prior to the revelation of open theism), and then critique it and present your own theory of time as that which must necessarily be true and thus introduced into Christian metaphysics and natural Theology.

Thanks man.

Oh, and its funny that you mention Kant, because in modern thought it seems more a Kantian and Idealist approach to see time as more an illusion than a reality.

I can admit that a lot of historical Roman Catholic Theology has often assumed an Aristotelian understanding of space and time, but what I don't know is precisely what theory of ontology Boyd's open theism is propounding in opposition to this. Can you name the theory, or at least drop some names in philosophy or physics of people who are sources in this theory?

And please don't pretend that this so far vague and elusive ontology is scripturally derived. Such statements just rob the whole theory of credibility in my eyes. There are different philosophical trends that can be discerned in much of the Bible, but it is quite variable.
I can admit that there is a lot of platonism undergirding some parts of the Bible, and one can also see the influence of things such as stoic philosophy in some parts. But the Bible is beyond philosophy. Once you elaborate your philosophy of space and time in clear terms, you can attempt to argue that this philosophy was that of the ancient Hebrew people, but I don't know if this would be a good move. Many early critics of the Christian religion considered it a new philosophy. I think of the ancient anti-Christian work "Philosophy of Oracles", but if one understands Biblical revelation and Biblical wisdom, it is beyond philosophy.

Also, I recall one open theism article that I recently read in which the author clearly admitted that his philosophy made it necessary to reject many of the formulations and conclusions of the early ecumenical councils, fortunately for him he was an evangelical protestant and wasn't particularly disturbed by this fact, but as a Catholic this would be a very clear sign of being on the wrong track.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Dec 8 2005, 03:06 AM']woah, I was unaware of that aspect of Molinism...

I abandoned molinism for thomism quite a bit ago anyway though.
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Molinism doesn't deny the dogma that God knows the future (including our free acts) with an infallible certitude because He transcends creation and time. So far this dogmatic understanding of God has been denied in numerous statements of the open theists. The future doesn't have any kind of actual existence even in relation to God, and God only knows the future as possibilities, some things being determined and others indeterminate and left to the free agency of creatures. It is a paradigm quite foreign to molinism in many respects.

Unless I've radically misunderstood many plain statements from the open theists, its far from a version of molinism.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I'd say before discussing anything else we should have a thorough discussion on the philosophy of time.

I am still unsure where open theism is coming from with regard to time. Is it asserting the "unreality of time" in accord with McTaggart? If so, I'd say modern physics would pose some problems for that interpretation of time. The main problem would be the relativity of time. The other that comes to mind is the time reversal invariance evidenced in modern physics. I am behind the times (no pun intended), but I remember Feynman's bag and assume it is still a valid viewpoint that should be introduced into a discussion of the proper philosophical interpretation of the phenomena of time.

I also remember mention being made to the second law of thermodynamics with regard to open theism and time. I must say, while I spent many hours as a boy pondering that propsed solution to the problem of the flow of time; it no longer has much merit in my eyes.
I remember as a teenager being at a physics lecture in which a certain Danish physicist came [to FermiLab] to present his latest theories regarding time. The other physicists in the crowd ate him for lunch and I'd say their criticisms of the thermodynamic approach were right on. We can get into it if you like.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Oh, regarding the kantian allusion, I must say that I'm a realist. My understanding of the diastemic order is hardly comparable to an epistemological dichotomy of the noumenal and phenomenal. I think that being (qua hypostasis) is self-communicative and relational, but our capacity to know is by nature finite and incomplete. But I do affirm that the objects of our cognition are real existents, but we know these objects in the activity of their existence, not as static essences. So I suppose the difference is that I'd say we really know the object as it is in itself, but that we are incapable of an exhaustive knowledge of being. My epistemological leanings have more in common with Thomism than Kantianism.

I think it would be ironic if open theism proved to be inherently Kantian or idealist. Would you say that space and/or time is an artifice of the mind that we impose upon the world in our perceptions? McTaggart's denial of the reality of time was quite possibly inspired by the Kantian problem.

I'd be interested in hearing your take before proceeding to critique a straw man.