ReasonableDoubt

I understand that. I meant that this different view of God's nature might have made more sense as far as the logicality of the existence of God. For those who don't believe a god exists based on the argument from evil, openness theology turns it around somewhat by making the property "omniscience" mean something different.

Biff the unclean

For those who don't believe a god exists based on the argument from evil, openness theology turns it around somewhat by making the property "omniscience" mean something different.

I was thinking about this just the other day. We Atheists have been clouding the issue. Sorry, let me try to clear it up a little.
When we point out such things as "the argument from evil," to Theists we at pointing to the lack of evidence for one particular god. That the God of 21st century Christianity attributes are contradicted by the state of the world.
Evil doesn't rule out every god, in fact it speaks quite well of Aries and Hades. We don't bother with them because they are out of style.
Changing the attributes of 21st century God is a standard ploy of Theists, I'm afraid. If you go through the various threads you will find many Xians telling Atheists that they know nothing about God while at the same time reinterpreting God into something unique unto themselves. I call this antic "throwing out the baby Jesus with the bath water." Changing the attributes changes the God into another god.
If we discarded the more pedestrian theology and considered your "new" idea in Christian theology we are still left with the question "where did you get this new idea from?" Did you do testing, experiments? Can we reproduce them? Did you get this new idea through field observations of God in his natural habitat?
Or did it just seem like a good idea to you.
You can see that if it is the latter it isn't a convincing argument.
Claiming that a being has this or that specific attribute carries little weight if you can't even produce the being.
Atheists don't lack a belief in god because he's naughty or nice or indifferent. We lack it because there is no evidence to suggest a god exists at all.

ReasonableDoubt

To be clear- I myself do NOT believe in this theology. I, like you, think that this new theology is just trying to redefine God in order to get around some of the problems that the argument from evil has pointed out. And I guess i was talking about the logical argument, that if God has those attributes that theists have attributed to him for eons, it is fundamentally incompatible with the existence of evil in the world.

ex-xian

Sorry to butt in again, but . . .

. . . I do tend to hold to this type of theology. For me it's either this or athiesm (or Kantian agnosticm). God as understood by classical theology is self-contradictory. Having a concept of God that strives for logical consistency does not, in my opinion, mean that I'm redefining a new theology to just for the sake of trying to save a dying theory. If God is seen to have been proved to exist or even postulated to exist, then a logically consistent God is naturally superior to a logically inconsistent God. Whitehead and Hartshorne's process theology is a radically different conception of God. Basically considered heresy by the classical theists.
But Whitehead, with his background in mathematics and logic, wanted a better conception of God.

Just for the record, Boyd holds that God is omniscient, but doesn't know the future because it doesn't exist yet. God cannot know the future actions or decisions of free agents until those decision/actions are actualized. God does know the infinite potentialities that may be actualized, however. Sort of like an "infinitely intelligent chess player" (although, the practical difference in an infinitely intelligent chess player and an omniscient being is lost to me). Further, God has the choose to intervene in this world whenever s/he wants according to God's omnipotence. Thus insuring the predictive prophectic ability of God's prophets. As far as Xian theologies go, it's my favorite.

Process theology, on the other hand defines God differently. God exists polarly. That is, the traditional dichotomies between infinite/finite, actual/potential, many/one, etc, are discarded altogether. Rather, God "exists" in "one" pole as infinite, etc, and in the "other" as finite.

Ontolgoically, God is "all that there is, and them some." God's existence permeates creation, but also is more that creation. The being inside the universe act as free moral agents, as part of God's finite pole. A good analogy is that God is the ocean, and the universe is the "stuff" in the ocean.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

ps (I just tried to type 2 cents using a "cents" symbol, like $ = dollars. But there isn't one! I didn't realize that standard qwerty keyboards lack a cents key. That's wierd :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: )

Biff the unclean

The problem with this aquatic analogy of the attributes of God is simply "how did you come by this information?"
Because you really have no way of knowing any of this stuff.
As fun as it might be to ponder the minutia of God and all the cool things he can do; until you get past "What God? I don't see any God and neither do you!" then you can't really speculate on the details.
If you can't even prove that there is a God how can you possibly know what his hobbies are?

malpensante

the openness theology assumes that god is both omniscient and non-omniscient, both omnipotent and non-omnipotent, both omnibenevolent and non-omnibenevolent.

there's a theology by hans jonas that says that god contracted himself from his omni powers in order to enrichen his life with suffering, and that it is our moral imperative to restore his omni powers thru faith.

isaac ben solomon luria says that god in the beginning occupied the whole of the universe, and in order to create beings who are not gods, had to diminish himself, by an act of "tzimtzum", leaving a new empty space where humans could thrive.

scott addams says that god's ultimate challenge was dicovering what would happen if he destroyed himself. when he commited suicide, the universe took place, and we are god's debris, evolving into god again.

ex-xian

Quote:

the openness theology assumes that god is both omniscient and non-omniscient, both omnipotent and non-omnipotent, both omnibenevolent and non-omnibenevolent.

Didn't I just say that?

Biff the unclean

It also assumes that your audience is a cretin.

ex-xian

So anyone who believes in any type of God is a cretin? Newton, Einstien (maybe), Kant, Descartes, doctors, engineers, scientists, philosophers, Kepler, Reimann, .....

Biff the unclean

When did any of that lot sign on for self contradictory "openness theology'? Before you get on your high horse check which horse you are getting on.

Einstien was an Atheist by the way. His intentionally vague god remarks were the idea of his wife. That was the McCarthy era after all