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To: xzins
So am I to assume that someone’s understanding of omniscience is lacking?

Omniscient
having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things.

>> since there are entire groups that believe that God is omniscient and that He can remain that way without knowing every contingency.<<

LOL Then I would say they also have a disconnect of some sort with the understanding of what omniscient means.

451 posted on 01/28/2013 7:58:12 AM PST by CynicalBear
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To: CynicalBear; P-Marlowe; metmom; Alamo-Girl; Gamecock; wmfights
They define it differently, CB, but they still use the word. That's why it's fair to inquire exactly what a person believes in order to get a feel about where they are coming from.

What follows is a letter from Greg Boyd, one of the major proponents of Open Theism. It is found at: http://marcdav.files.wordpress.com/2006/08/gregs-letter1.doc

Just for clarities sake, I am not the addressee of this letter. This is simply a quick exposition of Boyd's open theism that I found on the web. In it, Boyd explains essentially that God perfectly knows all reality, but that possibilities are not yet part of reality, so God doesn't know them yet. But he nonetheless calls that omniscience.

Posted with permission by Greg Boyd:

Hi Marc,

I'm afraid you have misunderstood my open view if you think I'm "denying omniscience." The open view is NOT about the scope or perfection of God's knowledge. I unequivocally affirm God is omniscient. He knows EVERYTHING exactly as it is. The open view is rather about THE NATURE OF THE REALITY GOD PERFECTLY KNOWS. The issue is: Does the reality God perfectly knows include possibilities or not? The open view simply says "yes." The future is in part comprised of possibilities. And since God knows all of reality perfectly -- exactly as it is -- God knows possibilities AS POSSIBILITIES.

The primary reason I hold to the open view is that I simply can't with integrity make sense out of a wealth of scripture unless I suppose that the future somewhat consists of possibilities. (See my book God of the Possible and, more deeply, Satan and the Problem of Evil). For example (off the top of my head):

• God many times speaks and even thinks (e.g. Ex. 13.17) of the future in terms of what might and might not happen. For example, he tells Ezekiel to enact a certain prophecy, promising him that "perhaps" the children of Israel will understand (Ezek. 12.3). Turns out they DIDN'T. If God motivated Ezekiel by telling him that the children of Israel MIGHT understand, while knowing from all eternity they would NOT understand, was he lying?

• God frequently changes his mind, sometimes after specifically declaring he INTENDED to act in a certain way. (If it was eternally certain he wouldn't change his mind, a) what does the Bible mean when it says he DID change his mind and b) was he lying when he INTENDED to do what he ended up not doing.

• God sometimes says he EXPECTED something to happen that ended up not happening. (e.g. Jer.3.7-9, 19 I believe).

• God sometimes REGRETS the way things turn out -- even things he himself did. (e.g. Gen.6.6; I Sam.15.12)

• God is frustrated, trying to accomplish things that don't turn out as he wished (e.g. saving all people). Why try to do something you know can't be accomplished.

• Many other verses imply an open future. (e.g. 2 Pet. 3.12 which tells us to "speed up" the time of the second coming).

Now -- and read this carefully Marc -- many fear that a God who faces a partly open future can't be sovereign. That is, they think that unless God foreknows all that's going to come to pass as a certainty, he can't promise to work all things together for the better (Rom. 8.28). And they think that the open view LIMITS GOD. The truth (read carefully) is that those who think God would gain anything by knowing the future as a certainty rather than partly as a possibility ARE LIMITING GOD.

Think about it. The only reason you and I loose any ability to perfectly anticipate a POSSIBILITY as opposed to a CERTAINTY is because we have LIMITED intelligence. The more possibilities we have to consider, the less perfectly we can anticipate any of them because we have to spread our intelligence thin to cover the possibilities. (Hence, for example, we find chess more stressful than working on an assembly line).

But God has INFINITE INTELLIGENCE. This means that God doesn't have to fraction up his intelligence to cover possibilities. This implies that GOD COULD CONSIDER EACH AND EVERY ONE OF A TRILLION TRILLION POSSIBILITES AS THOUGH EACH ONE WAS THE ONLY POSSIBILITIY.

In other words, if God has unlimited (infinite) intelligence, there is no functional difference between anticipating a possibility and anticipating a certainty. If you're playing God in chess, any move you make he has been anticipating from the beginning of the game AS THOUGH YOU WERE PREDESTINED TO MAKE IT. God's been considering THAT VERY MOVE from the beginning of the game and planning a perfect response to it -- as though you HAD to make it. It's just that God is so smart, you didn't HAVE to move the way you did for God to perfectly anticipate it as though you DID have to make it.

So, an open theist can say, as confidently as one who holds to exhaustively definite foreknowledge, that whatever happens, God has been anticipating that event from the foundation of the world and has a perfect plan in place to bring good out of evil.

I hope you can see that the God of the open view doesn't know "less" than the God of classical theism. He knows MORE. He "over-knows" the future. He has the same anticipatory power as the view of God who foreknows with certainty, its just that he's infinitely smarter, for he doesn't have to know the future exhaustively as a certainty in order to anticipate it AS THOUGH it was a certainty. Chew on it Marc. Read up on it if you are interested.

Blessings on you

Greg


460 posted on 01/28/2013 8:35:56 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! True supporters of our troops pray for their victory!)
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