[Edgar]
>Sure, Paul and his buddies were free to swim or free
>to not swim. Nevertheless, God could know what these
>human souls would do without "peeking" into the future
>or knowing their actions eternally.
Okay, we have to distinguish our points of view
here, since you're viewing God as temporal (not having
to "peek" into the future). But assuming your view, how
could God's "knowledge" of what these passengers
would do once their ship wrecked and they sunk into
the water be called anything more than a supremely
"well-educated guess"? How could he have "known"
(without "peeking") that this or that passenger wouldn't
panic and freak out, or that those who couldn't swim
would encounter a piece of floating timber at just the
opportune moment, or that a freak wave wouldn't smash
the mast down upon the heads of two swimmers and
instantly kill them? I just don't see how this could be
called "knowlege" at all, even in what Hume would call
the relatively "weak" epistemic sense with which we
declare ourselves to "know" that the sun will rise tomor-
row!
[Edgar]
>God knew what the
>sons of Israel would do [in the wilderness] by reading their collective
>hearts. He infallibly knew what Esau would do before
>birth, probably based on His knowledge of the human
>embryo.
Say WHAT? This sounds something like reading
tea leaves! How could knowledge of Esau's embryo
in the present furnish God with all the variables (of time,
place, relation, quality, and circumstance) necessary for
Him to know that Jacob would happen to be making an
appealing "mess of pottage" at the precise moment when
Esau would come in starving hungry from an unsuccessful
hunting trip?
[Edgar]
>My point is that God is capable of knowing the
>future without necessarily "foreknowing" the future. That is, God
>can predict [or foretell] with certainty what will happen based on
>one's track record or one's present desires and thoughts, etc.
I don't think this can work, because even
omniscient knowledge of a "track record" doesn't
account for the infinite number of variables involving
conditions of chance (future contingencies of weather,
earthquakes, famine, circumstance, and human choices)
that, on your view, God can't know before they are actual-ized.
>And, FWIW, I do not deny God's foreknowledge or foreordination.
Except when you do.
>Only timeless theists say that God does not literally foresee or foreordain events.
Not necessarily: we speak of God "foreknowing"
events just as the Bible does and as you and I, long
after the Copernican Revolution, continue to reasonably
speak of "sunrises." We just don't take such language
without due philosophical qualification when theorizing.
Hi Edgar,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your sharp insights again. So you've been going about this divine foreknowledge thing for at least twelve years huh? I should have seen that coming (excuse the pun).
The points that your colleague raised make perfect sense to me, if and only if one first presupposes a tenselessly propositional view of omniscience. But why think we must presuppose such a view in the first place? Surely it isn't because it's the only way to understand the Scriptural accounts that were cited. It seems to me that the case of Paul's shipwreck actually represents a plausible counter-example to the approach your friend chose in trying to understand God's foreknowledge vis-à-vis the maritime-mayhem at Malta. For instance, instead of reading a classical view of omniscience into the text why not first consider the context of events and the era(s) in which these were first expressed:
* We know that prior to the events in question, Jehovah had ordained the first century to be a time of prophecy and miraculous attestation to the Christian message (cf. Acts 2:17-20).
* We know that prior to even the first century, Jehovah was searching Israel to show his strength in behalf of those who would present a complete heart before him (2 Chron. 16:9).
* We know that prior to even the time Israel, God was judging and suspending judgement on sinful humanity for the sake of his name and for the sake of revealing his will on the imputation of righteousness (cf. Gen 18:23ff; Deut. 9:19; Rom. 5:18).
It's no mystery that within each of these periods God acted providentially in the world, not simply through the exercise of foreknowledge, but with real power and with real consequence. For how could God enable a miracle unless he acted? Or how could God demonstrate his strength unless he acted? Or how could God exercise justice unless he acted? It seems clear that the Scriptures are laden with cases of God acting in behalf of himself or acting on behalf of others. With all of this in mind then, let me propose a possible alternative to the view that your colleague maintained. (I know you know this already, so please indulge me with your patience):
Jehovah knew contingently that a powerful storm would erupt and inevitably destroy the vessel that Paul was being held captive on. As the first century was ordained to be a time of miraculous attestation, God therefore chose to act upon the world in order to deliver Paul and imputed his righteousness to the soldiers, sailors, and scallywags for the sake of the good news and for the sake of his contingent knowledge of the population on Malta.
Now, while I admit that this is just a theory, I do think that given God's history of ordinations and deliverances a plausible case can be made to show that the events that led up to Malta, far from requiring a classical or reformed understanding of omniscience, actually fit well within the character of a God who both knows the future contingently and acts upon the world.
Yb,
Nathan
Hi Nathan,
ReplyDeleteYou do supply a proper and reasonable alternative to the timelessly propositional view, and that's all these kind of discussions require at the minimum level of discourse.
While the Scriptures don't tell us all the details about how divine foreknowledge works--really, the Bible usually does not concern itself with how Jehovah did X or Y--what you're saying can't be easily discounted. Historically, perfect being theology has largely been influenced by Platonism and Aristotelianism. People (a priori) imagine what a perfect being/deity might be like, then reason from there to "that than which a greater cannot be conceived."
To an extent, that's fine and good in one respect; but from another perspective, this approach is limited and may lead us to affirm things about God that either fail to harmonize with the Bible or which do less than full justice to Jehovah's omni-properties. Hence, we find omniscience being defined in such a way that God exhaustively knows everything (simpliciter) or He completely foreknows all things. But the Bible doesn't clearly spell out either one of these ideas, as you demonstrated.
A major theme in this dialogue is whether God’s foreknowledge is absolute (classical view) or contingent, as suggested by the “modified” view of divine omniscience. The classical theistic tradition, represented by thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, and Boethius, holds that God possesses perfect and complete knowledge of all things—past, present, and future—in one timeless, eternal "now." This does not mean God "peeks" into the future but that God knows all things because He is outside of time and sees every moment in human history simultaneously.
ReplyDeleteThe example of Paul’s shipwreck is discussed in terms of God’s foreknowledge. If we hold to the classical view, God does not "predict" what will happen based on a probabilistic understanding of human actions or events; rather, God eternally knows all things because He transcends time. In the case of Paul’s shipwreck (Acts 27), God's foreknowledge includes not only the storm and the behavior of the passengers but also Paul’s free response to the situation. God’s knowledge encompasses all human actions without infringing upon human free will.
The objection raised—that God’s knowledge would be no more than a "well-educated guess" if He did not foreknow the exact details of human actions—misunderstands the classical view. God’s knowledge is not contingent or based on guesswork; He knows everything perfectly and eternally. Human actions, such as Paul’s decisions during the shipwreck, remain free, but God’s eternal knowledge includes them without causing them.
The dialogue touches on a common challenge in discussions of divine omniscience: how can God know future free actions without determining them? You suggest that if God knows the future with certainty, then human actions are not truly free. However, this is a misunderstanding of how foreknowledge operates within classical theology.
In the Catholic understanding, based on Aquinas and others, God's knowledge is timeless. God is not bound by time, so He knows all events (including future free actions) from His eternal perspective. God’s knowledge of future actions does not cause them to happen. Aquinas makes a helpful distinction between:
1. Simple necessity: something that must happen by its nature (e.g., the sun rising).
2. Conditional necessity: something that happens freely, but once it happens, it is necessary that it did happen.
Human actions fall under conditional necessity. God knows what we will freely choose, but His knowledge does not impose necessity on our choices. This resolves the tension between foreknowledge and free will: God knows free actions because they occur in time, but His knowing them does not make them unfree.
The reference to Esau’s story (Genesis 25) in this dialogue presents a flawed view of how God’s foreknowledge operates. The suggestion that God based His knowledge of Esau’s future actions on the “human embryo” is not consistent with biblical or theological teachings. In Catholic thought, God’s foreknowledge is not tied to physical conditions or probabilities. He knows all things because He is the source of all being.
Esau's actions—selling his birthright and his other decisions—were freely made, but God, in His eternal knowledge, foresaw them without determining them. The Bible speaks anthropomorphically at times to convey the relationship between God and humanity, but these descriptions should not be taken to mean that God is bound by human limitations of knowledge or time.
Nathan's suggestion that God’s knowledge is contingent upon future events and His actions is problematic from a theological standpoint. If God’s knowledge were contingent upon future events, He would not be omniscient in the classical sense. The idea that God could only know certain events "contingently" or based on how events unfold introduces change and limitation into God’s nature, which contradicts the Catholic understanding of God’s immutability (unchangeability).
ReplyDeleteGod’s knowledge is not dependent on temporal events; rather, He knows all things eternally and immutably. This does not mean that God is distant or uninvolved in the world. On the contrary, God’s providence and foreknowledge work together to uphold both His sovereignty and human freedom.
One final point to address is the notion that God "selectively" chooses not to know certain things, as Jehovah’s Witnesses argue. This view suggests that God could refrain from knowing certain future events, which implies a limitation on God’s omniscience. Catholic theology firmly rejects this view. God’s knowledge is all-encompassing; He does not need to limit His knowledge to “respect” human freedom. Instead, God’s eternal knowledge coexists with human free will, as He knows our free choices without determining them.
The classical view of God's foreknowledge, as articulated by Augustine, Aquinas, and Boethius, remains the most coherent explanation for how God can know all things while respecting human freedom. God's knowledge is not contingent or probabilistic; it is perfect and eternal. While humans act freely within time, God knows these actions because He sees all time in His eternal "now." This view upholds both God's omniscience and human free will, resolving the tension that your dialogue partner raised. Therefore, modifying God's omniscience to fit a contingent model, as suggested in the dialogue, introduces unnecessary limitations on God’s nature and fails to account for the depth of the classical theological tradition.