Puppets, Popoli & The Open Theism Debate

~ fundyreformed

I’m sure my astute readers are all up to speed on the open theism debate. Then again, some of you probably aren’t. And I haven’t really ever debated the issue, so I had to do some homework too.

The Issue

Open Theism is the belief that God is in a sense bound by time. He knows as much as can be known, but not absolutely all things in the traditional sense of “omniscience”. He can’t know the free decisions of humans before those decisions occur, otherwise they wouldn’t be completely free.

This is obviously not a Calvinistic idea, but even most Arminians would repudiate the idea as just plain wrong. Yet the open theists have some verses they will marshal, verses showing that God changes his mind, repents, is surprised by things, and gives contingent prophecies. They also have some logical arguments at their disposal. It can sound plausible, and even helps make Christianity more palatable for the post-modern atheists of today. And– surprise, suprise– open theism is gaining in popularity among evangelicals today.

Puppets & Popoli?

I mention all of this because my friend “jamsco” runs a blog named “The Responsible Puppet“. His title stems from his adherence to what he dubs “hyper-compatibleism”: God is the puppetmaster, yet we are totally responsible for our actions. He is still working out his position which is not quite 5 point Calvinism, he tells me.

Jamsco links to Vox Popoli (with the “read at your own risk” warning, for Vox’s sometimes-edgy views & speech), who he knew personally in college, largely because he takes issue with Vox’s adherence to OT. Vox does a great job of tearing down popular atheistic arguments, yet he often employs OT in his efforts to disarm his opponents. Jamsco wants to defend a compatibleist view and I’m sure wishes he could convince Vox of the error of his ways.

So Vox for most of this year has had Jamsco on his blogroll under the section “target-rich environments”. And he has promised to interact on the issue.

Round 1

So round 1 of the debate has begun. Vox has responded to Jamsco’s “A Defense of the Omniderigence of God” (where Jamsco had interacted with some of Vox’s views). In his characteristic witty style, Vox does a good job advancing his argument (and answering Jamsco). Jamsco has yet to respond, but its easy to get lost in the hundreds of comments Vox’s posts generate.

Now Vox mentions me in the post, since I had commented under Jamsco’s original post. I stand corrected, yet I did follow up with some comments of my own on the issue. I look forward to Jamsco’s response, and Vox’s promised follow up of Scriptural proof for his view. It will be good to be aware of what kind of arguments are out there on this, and gain an education on this issue.

Recommendations

In doing my homework for my comment under Vox’s post, I came across some excellent articles I should recommend here. A couple are fairly short and yet give a good overview of a conservative response to OT. They are worth reading at some point.

5 thoughts on “Puppets, Popoli & The Open Theism Debate”

  1. He can’t know the free decisions of humans before those decisions occur, otherwise they wouldn’t be completely free.

    This view seems to me to be fundamentally philosophically confused. Why can’t free decisions be known prior to being made? What is the actual reason? As far as I can, the reason seems to be “because that makes things easier on us for theodicy,” which is a pretty lame ad hoc justification for such a bizarre principle.

    What people seem to be implying is that these decisions are not caused by anything and do not come from anywhere. But that makes them “free” only in the sense of fundamentally “random.” It at the same time prevents them from really being decisions.

    Consider: if you know me tangentially, then you can maybe guess what choice I’ll make in a certain situation. If you know me well, then your guess is likely to be even better. In fact, if you know me down to the neuron, then you can know what choice I’m making even before I do (as has been shown experimentally: the brain fires before we have conscious experience of choosing to act). So it seems that, contrary to the idea that choices are not part of causal chains, we see evidence of exactly the opposite the more we look at the question.

    And the philosophical reason for this is that the choices you are guessing at are not random and unpredictable: they are choices made by a PARTICULAR person: me! Were someone else making them, they would make different choices. The open theism position basically seems to treat human beings as if they were random number generators: which totally destroys concepts like moral responsibility, people’s particular character being good or bad, and so on. It also seems remarkably inaccurate based on pretty much everything we know about human beings.

    Vox does this a lot: he takes a position that he has no real intention of justifying or explaining the basis of, and then simply attacks other people for not holding it: claiming there are all sorts of weaknesses in their positions. There may well be: philosophy ain’t easy, and most things about human beings, choice, and so on are a mystery.

    But Vox’s “answer” to this mystery is a complete black hole: it doesn’t explain anything, doesn’t even attempt to explain anything, about how or why particular people come to make particular choices. Heck, even the very idea of explaining these things seems fatal to his position.

    He seems to hold to his position not because there is any evidence for it in its own right, not because he can even explain in any positive sense what it even is, but because it happens to be convenient to his chosen theology.

  2. Bad [idea],

    Thanks for interacting here. Of course I side with you on this. I must say it does seem a convenient doctrine for Vox, although I admit I don’t follow his blog much at all (except for a couple months a while back).

    Blessings in Christ,

    Bob Hayton

  3. Bad:

    You are correct. Libertarian free will does turn people into random number generators, but without the benefit of being able to explain the cause of the actual random number generation itself.

    That being said, open theists accept libertarian free will; and the reason they reject God’s foreknowledge of human choices is simple. Libertarian free will is defined by the ability to choose otherwise. If God has perfect, definite foreknowledge of your choices, then they will come to pass inevitably and inexorably in the way that he foreknows. Therefore, since they are inevitable and inexorable, no ability exists on our part to choose the alternative. Thus, libertarian free will is destroyed.

    In order for libertarian free will to be possible in this particular instance, the future must be indeterminate as regards our choices. Not even God could know them in advance. Therefore, some heretics who cling to the false doctrine of the autonomy of man—who are so enamored with their own desire for personal sovereignty in their attempts to remain logically consistent—will conclude that God does not have perfect, definite foreknowledge.

    Bob: I honestly don’t see how Vox has responded to J at all. All he has offered is some vague speculation. To be fair, J himself did not forward any particularly strong arguments so much as point out the inconsistencies and flaws in Vox’s original post. Hopefully I don’t sound overly critical, but all in all I must confess that if this is a debate, it has failed from the start. A clear moot should be established, and some opening statements with rigorous exegesis and argumentation should be forwarded.

    Regards,
    Bnonn

  5. Thanks Bnonn & Seth for the interaction here. Sorry I’ve been late responding.

    Bnonn, it sounds like Jamsco wants to have a more substative debate, but I’m not sure Vox is up for that.

    Seth,

    Thanks for the good links. I need to get back to the Atonement debate.

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