GPLindsey

Christians say God is eternal, all-powerful, and all-knowing. They also say he "has a Plan" for each of us, or that this whole story of Man and his redemption is one Great Plan he came up with.

However, something cannot be both created and to have existed eternally. If God is all-knowing, and he has been forever, then he has always known what he was going to do. Therefore there was never a point where he "thought up" the plan or created it after some period of deliberation (how tall should Adam be? Create water first or the stars?). If there was a point where he did not know what the plan would be, then he could not have been all-knowing at that point.

Ultimately, we arrive at the conclusion that an eternal, all-knowing God DOES NOT THINK--he cannot be the creator of his own thoughts. His thoughts have existed eternally, therefore had no point of creation. Surely everyone must agree?!!

Also, isn't the thought of God spending eons in an empty void musing about when to begin the Creation horrifying? Wouldn't that be Hell for any intelligent being??

Kenny

Admittedly, this is a hit and run, but since I just dealt with very similar issues <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000009" target="_blank">on this thread</a>, I wanted to add a few comments.

True, with the following caveat; “his redemption is one Great Plan he came up with” might be more precisely formulated, according to classic Christian theology, with, “his redemption is one Great Plan which has existed eternally in God‘s mind.”

Most Christian theologians would not maintain that God’s plan is something that God “created,” but would affirm that it is something which has always existed in the mind of God. God’s plan follows immediately as a logical consequence of God’s own eternally perfect self knowledge which includes both a perfect knowledge of all that is within God’s power to create as well as a perfect knowledge of all the goals and aims which God desires to accomplish and the best way to accomplish them.

Correct.

This does not follow. It is true that God’s thoughts reside eternally in God’s mind, and it is probably correct to say that God is not the “creator” of His own thoughts. However, this does not mean that God’s thoughts do not flow out of God’s self, that they do not follow logically as a consequence of God’s own perfect self-awareness, and thus depend on God for their existence. BTW, I’m not sure that it is even technically correct to say that we are the creator of our own thoughts. Our thoughts are not something we “think up” (beware the infinite regress), but merely that which follows as an immediate consequence of the operations of our minds in conjunction with the types of circumstances our minds find themselves in.

This is exactly the question dealt with on the thread I linked to. I suggest you take a look there if you are interested in further articulation the responses I have made here.

God Bless,
Kenny

{eddited for speling}

[ January 19, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

pug846

Kenny said:

Given that this grand plan has existed eternally, doesn’t that necessarily make it arbitrary? There is no reason for it and it has no explanation – it just is. It could have just as arbitrarily been something else. Would you agree to this?

You probably won’t have time to answer this…but how does a perfect God desire anything?

How does an immaterial being have “thoughts” in his “mind?”

Kenny

Hello Pug,

Since I have a moment. I will address your comments, I hope you will forgive me if I am unable to do so in the future.

I do not believe the fact that God’s plan is eternal means that it is arbitrary. God’s plan follows as an immediate consequence of God’s own perfect self knowledge of all that is in His power to do in conjunction with God’s desires and the His knowledge of the best way to accomplish them. As to the question as to where God’s desires come from, they arise from within God Himself -- they are grounded in His nature, and, as such, are not arbitrary.

You’re right, I don’t have time to fully address this issue, but the implicit assumption behind this question seems to be that desire can only arise out of impoverishment -- out of the want to fulfill some need. The truth of this assumption is not obvious to me. Might perfect love, for instance, by its very nature, be something which desires to overflow and direct itself toward something else? Even in human relationships, do all desires arise from impoverishment? Are there any acts of pure self-giving and desire on the part of humans to perform such acts? Though rare, perhaps, I believe that there are.

The implicit assumption here is that consciousness is something material or perhaps something that arises out of material processes in such a way that it could not exist without them. I do not believe that such is the case. It seems obvious to me that things like thoughts and minds are immaterial. Whether or not mind is something which arises from material processes is, of course, a larger question. Obviously, there are correlations between brain states and mental states for human beings, and there is some sort of interaction between those types of states (whether uni-directional or bi-directional), but it does not follow from that that consciousness reduces to physical processes or that it could not exist without them.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ January 19, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

rainbow walking

Hi GP,
Rather than deal with all the assumptives you've utilized to create this straw man I would prefer to examine this:

However, something cannot be both created and to have existed eternally.

Those last four words are curious. to have existed eternally. Isn't that past tense? So am I correct in assuming you are standing on the threshhold between now and tomorrow looking back into what you percieve to be eternity to make this call?

If eternity means what it says can there truly be a point anywhere along the way? Is not past and future, in an eternal context, meaningless? Can you truly fathom an infinite regress, or an unending future?

There are insects whose life only spans a few hours. Would 70 years not seem like an eternity to such a creature? I have difficulty imagining that some trees in America are thousands of years old. They were around when the walls of Jericho fell. I could actually make contact with a living entity that shared the same days as Aristotle.

It is said that the light from some distant stars took tens of thousands of years to reach earth. This means that the light our eyes decipher tonight was emmitted along the time men were just climbing out of caves. Makes you wonder what kind of shape those stars are in now. I wonder what we'd think if those lights began to extinguish each night? If 9,998 years ago a huge rift appeared in our universe and began gobbling up galaxies we'd have some hard choices to make...but we'd have a few years to make them.

pug846

Kenny said:

This probably deserves a topic of its own, but how is God’s eternal nature (and by extension, anything apart of His nature) not in all respects, arbitrary? The “Goodness” that flows from His Character is arbitrary. It’s not that it just could have been one thing over another, but that there is no reason why it is one thing instead of another (by definition!).

Yes, all desires are “impoverishments.” Once again, by definition, to desire something is to wish or to want something. Given that God is “perfect,” why would God want to do anything? Why would He need to “love” something else. If He in fact needs to love something else, then there is a condition, in this case the condition of loving someone else that is more “perfect” than the condition he is currently in. Once the desire is fulfilled, He is better off than before. I’m not seeing how you are getting yourself out of this one.

I don’t know if consciousness can be reduced to physical processes, but I do believe that having a physical mind is a perquisite for “thoughts.” I see no reason to assume, without evidence, that having “thoughts” is possible without a body. I don’t feel like arguing this point out, so I think I’ll agree to disagree here for now and hope that you address my other points.

glassejaculate

It seems to follow that if (the biblical) God's decisions have and will always existed (from a time-limited being's point of view), then God has no free will---he is motivated to act by his own, eternal, unchosen nature.

Kenny

Pug,

It is not arbitrary because God is necessary being and thus holds all of His attributes necessarily. This is where the ontological argument comes in handy, particularly cotemporary modal versions such as those of <a href="http://www.dnc.net/users/sunsogn/oa.html#Alvin" target="_blank">Alvin Plantinga</a>. Taken as proofs of the existence of God, I do not believe that such arguments are all that powerful (it‘s too easy for the skeptic to deny the premises), but this does not mean they are not theologically useful. What such arguments show is that all of God’s attributes can be subsumed under a single property -- maximal greatness -- and that this property entails that God exists in all possible worlds. If it is even logically possible that God exists, then such arguments show that God could not fail to exist or fail to hold the properties that He does.

I think that the ontological argument is also complimented rather well by the notion that God is the ground of all being. That is, remove all but the minimum conditions for being to be, and there’s God. This means that God’s attributes are tied in with the very nature of being itself, and as such, could not have failed to be as they are and are such that God holds them in all possible worlds.

There is a reason why it is one thing than another -- it is not logically possible that it could have been otherwise.

I disagree.

Sure, no problems there.

Because God is love and love itself is a sufficient motive for action. Love, by its very nature, gives of itself.


He doesn’t “need” to love something else, He just does becuase that is the nature of love. I don’t necessarily “need” to love all the people in my life that I do. In fact, I might be better off (in terms of my own self-interest) if I didn’t love certain people so much. I don’t need to love them, but I do. Love is a motive in and of itself which requires no selfish needs.

I don’t see how the expression of one of God’s perfect attributes (in this case, love) in a particular context makes God more perfect as a result or adds to Him in anyway. If God’s love is given to one person, it is still perfect love. If it is given to 100 persons, to one million, to a billion persons, it doesn’t matter. In all such cases, God’s love is still perfect and it becomes no more or less perfect by virtue of its being manifested to more or less persons external to Himself.

I still don’t see how I’m in it. God isn’t “better off” than before by virtue of loving persons external to Himself. In fact, since God is a perfect being with no selfish needs, the love which He exemplifies is completely an act of self-giving -- that is, it is a perfect selfless love. God does not love to fulfill some sort of need on His part, but simply because it is the nature of love to give of itself.

God Bless,
Kenny

Kenny

Since I define freewill as the ability to act from one's own nature without being coherced by external factors, I see no problems there.

God Bless,
Kenny

glassejaculate

Then free-will has nothing to do with a decision-making process? Do computers have free-will?
Do you believe humans have free will, since they're strongly influenced by external factors?