I am responding to this response to one of my articles from Thibodaux, again:

https://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/innate-vs-self-imposed-dependencies/

Does God depend upon anything in creation? Everyone agrees that God has no need of things like food, water, shelter, rest, etc. We often refer to this as God’s aseity –His independence of His creation.

I suppose that his readers blindly accept his view on the issue of aseity. I’m sure that his dictionary definition is compelling but the topic is a proper philosophical understanding of aseity. Aseity is broader than God being independent of creation. If Thibodaux was correct, then God could be dependent upon many things. I use to speak to an individual that believed Satan was a second God and Yahweh had made a deal with him because he was an equal force to him. But most would regard that as a problem for aseity because aseity should be taken that God is the ultimate source of human predication. Which would mean either Satan is dependent upon Yahweh for his rationality or Yahweh is dependent upon his.

Or suppose that we were Christian platonist. We would believe that God is dependent upon transcendent forms. Brian Leftow stated:

(1) Abstract objects exist. [platonism] (2) If abstract objects exist, then they are dependent on God. [from AD] (3) If abstract objects exist, then they are independent of God. [platonist assumption] …

But, if claim (2) is rejected, the platonic theist runs into another problem, call it the ultimacy problem. Consider one kind of abstract object, property. If properties exist independently of God, and God has properties essentially, then God’s nature is explained by some other entity, and God is not ultimate.6 But, as Leftow states, “theists want all explanations to trace back to God, rather than through God to some more ultimate context” (1990, 587; cf. Plantinga 1980, 31–3). The same problem surfaces when considering other platonic entities as well. On the platonic story (for example), possible worlds exist independently of God and God’s existence is necessary because in each possible world, God exists. But then “this threatens to make God’s existence derive from items independent from Him: The worlds are there independently, that He is in all of them entails God’s existence” (Leftow 2009, 27). It seems that the platonic theist must bite a bullet and admit that God is not ultimate in explanation or existence if claim (2) is denied, yet this thesis appears to be a core intuition of the theist’s conception of God.

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2018/12/01/meals-on-wheels/

This notion of God being the ultimate explanation of all things is essential to aseity. If he is dependent on some further greater context, then we have to ask what that is and why don’t we worship that? So, this goes to show that aseity has to deal with more than God not being merely dependent upon the created domain. Many philosophers posit uncreated realities that would be more ultimate than God.

It is ironic that he appealed to John Frame on the issue of God’s relationship to time but ignored his articles and chapters on the notion of aseity. For example, it seems silly to think that aseity and God’s necessary existence are separate.  Dr. Frame goes lays out a case for a broader understanding of aseity in his paper and in his works. I wish to quote some of what he has written in regards to the implications of aseity and simplicity:

 God’s attributes are not abstract qualities that God happens to exemplify. They are, rather identical to God himself. That is sometimes called the doctrine of divine simplicity. For example, God’s goodness is not a standard above him, to which he conforms. Rather, his goodness is everything he is and does. It is God himself who serves as the standard of goodness for himself and for the world. He is, therefore, his own goodness. But he is also his own being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, and truth. These attributes, therefore, are concrete, not abstract, personal, not impersonal. Each describes the whole nature of God.[3] So to talk of God’s attributes is simply to talk about God himself, from various perspectives.[4]

God’s attributes, therefore, apply to one another: God’s justice is holy, and his holiness just. His goodness is eternal, and his eternality is not an abstract concept, but rather the eternal life of a good person. So God’s aseity, too, is the aseity of a person, one who is infinite, eternal, unchangeable, etc. And all of God’s attributes are a se. His infinity, goodness, wisdom, and justice are all self-existent and self-sufficient. …

  The second service that the doctrine of divine aseity renders to apologetics is that it determines what sort of knowledge we may have of God, or, indeed, of anything else. I noted earlier that Van Til uses terms like “self-interpreting” and “self-referential” in apposition to “self-contained,” and that he regards God as self-contained, not only in his being, but also in his “knowledge and will.”[23] For Van Til, then, God’s aseity has definite epistemological implications.

            First, God knows himself and the world, both by knowing himself. He knows himself intuitively and perfectly. He knows the world also by knowing himself: He knows what is possible in the world by knowing his own powers; and he knows what is actual in the world (at all times) by knowing his own eternal plan, as well as by his perfect awareness of the temporal accomplishment of that plan. In other words, he does not depend on the creation for his knowledge even of the creation. His knowledge is exhaustive and perfect, because it is a se. Van Til says,

God is absolute rationality. He was and is the only self-contained whole, the system of absolute truth. God’s knowledge is, therefore, exclusively analytic, that is, self-dependent. There never were any facts existing independent of God which he had to investigate. God is the one and only ultimate Fact. In him, i.e., with respect to his own Being, apart from the world, fact and interpretation of fact are coterminous.[24]

This view of God has implications for human knowledge. Van Til says that only on the presupposition of the self-contained God “can man know himself or anything else.”[25] First, “from the Christian point of view, it is impossible to think of the non-existence of God.”[26] If God alone provides the rational structure of all reality, then we cannot understand anything without presupposing him, even though we may verbally deny his existence. So all people know God, as Paul says in Rom 1:21, though apart from grace they repress this knowledge.

https://thirdmill.org/magazine/article.asp?link=http:%5E%5Ethirdmill.org

The first argument is that if we understand God as being simple then it follows that these attributes all are applicable to God’s entire nature. So, this undermines the notion that God’s foreknowledge is caused by the things God creates. Why? It would leave God with modes of being a se and not a se. The conflict would make God contradictory. The other problem is that God’s plan is necessary for having a proper interpretation of the world. If we posit that God’s plan is merely one that by chance be correct, then we have an issue of subjectivism. It may come to pass where humans would act contrary to his plan or interpretation(because they possess LFW). That means anyone’s interpretation of the facts if reality could by chance be equally valid to God’s interpretation of the facts. So, the true Arminian is a relativist. In fact, he condemns unbelievers unfairly, for the unbeliever maybe just stuck in an epistemic rut. He would’ve believed in God if so many other interpretations weren’t viable. I’ve discussed this elsewhere:

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2018/11/12/murder-on-apologetics-row/

By positing another notion where God isn’t self-contained but is explained by something other than himself, you are thus stating God isn’t ultimate in your worldview. He just so happens to be the being you believe exists. You posit some abstract impersonal thing like the notion of chance in place of God being ultimate because even God is explained by chance. God happens to know these certain things because it just happens to be how free creatures would choose.  Either you have an infinite regress of explanations, no explanation, mystery, or you have an ultimate explanation.

Well, nobody can posit an infinite amount of explanations except by verbal fiat. This is for two reasons. The very notion of explanation will need to have an explanation of what unifies these many instances of explanations. So, what constitutes an explanation? The other issue is that you would simply never know if you had an infinite chain of justification or whether you had merely some fabrications. The idea that we need no explanation is irrational on the face of it. I may reject the idea for no reason and thus we are still in the same cycle. To state that it is mysterious is to posit some abstract principle beyond is the ultimate ground. Some impersonal mysterious principle will be irrational. It’s so transcendent that it ends up explaining nothing. The only solution is to find our ultimate explanation in God himself.

So God has no innate need of these things, and is utterly self-sufficient. But can God take on a need in some sense? God the Son certainly did in a way when He walked the earth, but let’s go a little deeper than even that. Reading in Genesis and beyond, we see God making promises to people.

Since God cannot lie (Heb 6:18), then it follows that He must fulfill the covenants He has made. In terms of His independence, something has changed: He is no longer completely independent of creation. God cannot fail (not that He would want to anyway, but bear with me) in His good promises towards His faithful. That produces something of a two-way dependency relationship between God and creation. We have need of God to sustain us, and God needs to sustain us to be faithful to His covenants.

How does Thibodaux cash these statements out without contradicting himself? God is completely independent of the world that he can become utterly dependent upon the world? I don’t think God’s promises entail that he becomes ontologically dependent upon the world or that the world in some way explains God’s nature. If Thibodaux is arguing for that, then he is ultimately a pantheist. That is because the world and God share characteristics but if the world has divine qualities then the world is divine.

The idea of God depending on us in any sense may seem awkward, so I’ll illustrate by example: If God did not sustain us, we would cease to be (for He holds all things together, Col 1:17). God made a covenant with Abraham (His creation), to show him mercy and make him co-heir of all things. Having made such a covenant, He cannot go back on it. God’s faithfulness depends upon Abraham existing and inheriting eternal life. Not that God needs Abraham to feed or clothe Him, but rather, He cannot unmake Abraham or consign him to Hell; He must bless Abraham as He promised for the sake of His faithfulness. God’s faithfulness requires that Abraham live eternally.

God having a requirement or need of some kind? Doesn’t that contradict God’s independence from creation? Not quite: Aseity is God’s innate independence from creation. God never had to create Abraham or make such promises in the first place. It says nothing against the idea of God taking on a sort of self-imposed, indirect dependency through the act of creation or making covenants. This is something that God Himself chose to do.

This is either irrelevant to what I’ve stated or it is incoherent(see above). These acts of faithfulness don’t make God faithful. God’s acts of love don’t make God-loving. These are manifestations of his attributes and not identical to them(unless these acts are just God himself). So, no ontological dependence has been shown by Thibodaux. God’s creation doesn’t make him what he is. So, are Thibodaux’s points about the ontology of God or not? If so, how? If not, then keep eating red herring. What has been stated is that God’s manifestations must reflect who he is or he would be different. So what? Did anyone argue that? No. But the difference is that God’s foreknowledge isn’t a worldly manifestation of the good character of God but deals with the being of God(his omniscience).

In fact, if his position is that God takes on ontological dependencies, then the world is necessary for God to be himself. His position ends up suffering the very position he tries to escape. If God’s goodness(or whatever) become dependent upon reality then he ends up being another fact of reality in need of an explanation. He makes God so immanent in the world that he no longer transcends it and becomes another fact needing an explanation. 

So, he presented an argument against my position because his position is under reconstruction: 

P1 To be truly omniscient requires that one’s beliefs match reality.

P2 Per [high] Calvinism, God innately and immutably believes that creation comes into existence (becomes a reality).

C Therefore, per Calvinism, God innately and immutably requires that creation comes into existence to be truly omniscient.

First, this isn’t directly Calvinism that causes this view. Most Calvinist have a faulty understanding of aseity in the Godhead themselves:

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2019/08/23/eternal-frustration/

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2018/09/29/is-eternal-generation-biblical/

This just shows the anti-Calvinist cult that Thibodaux is a prime member. This is more a Van Tilian vs whatever philosophical persuasion you connect yourself to. Second, I suppose the first premise is a necessary but insufficient criterion for omniscience. But that doesn’t affect the argument much. He may think God-knowledge isn’t innate to him(God consults facts or something) but that seems to concede qualities of God are dependent upon the world. But if God’s qualities are dependent upon the world then it implies the world is necessary as well because God wouldn’t be himself if he hadn’t created. I would state God knows everything because he knows himself and therefore all his actions. It further may also be contentious that God has any beliefs:

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2019/02/19/gods-knowledge/

God does nothing of external coercion and always acts accordingly with his himself(desires, intentions, character). We also have a being by which the very notion of modality has to have to receive its meaning. But this assumes that God’s actions are necessary(supposing the potential solutions like hypothetical necessity). But that doesn’t follow from the syllogism. But that requires extra steps. The ultimate truth of the matter is that Divine Freedom is mysterious. We know God is free in many senses. He is free from coercion and he is free to do as he pleases or desires. To deny God’s knowledge is coterminous with his being leads to a denial of aseity and simplicity. You may reject Divine Simplicity but I would require your alternative.

I also don’t think God has or could have Libertarian freedom. To apply the absurd to God is no more rational than saying God has a Square-Circle shape. The very notion that God has libertarian freedom entails that God may act contrary to his reason and character. That it is by chance God chooses to create and save us. Secondly, it has also been pointed out that Divine Freedom shows that LFW isn’t truly necessary for one to be a moral agent. Take the following arguments:

31. God always chooses and acts righteously, and lacks the categorical ability to do otherwise than acting righteously. 32. God is morally praiseworthy, that is, he is morally responsible, for his righteous choices and actions. Therefore 33. Moral responsibility does not require the ability to do otherwise.

48. God never chose to have the nature that he has. 49. God never chose the fact that if God has such a nature then he cannot act unrighteously. Therefore 50. God never chose to never act unrighteously (and hence isn’t praiseworthy for that feat).

Bignon, Guillaume. Excusing Sinners and Blaming God: A Calvinist Assessment of Determinism, Moral Responsibility, and Divine Involvement in Evil (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 0) . Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

These argument the Bignon presents are sufficient to see a conflict between the incompatibilist thesis and classical theism. 

The above absurdity isn’t the only reason why God’s knowledge of the world can’t be innate to Himself. The problem of God being the author of evil also makes such a view logically impossible if we accept the testimony of scripture. As I’ve repeatedly argued without substantial challenge, the Bible is very clear that sinful things (lust, pride, etc) do not come from God (1 John 2:16), and that in fact there is no such darkness in Him at all (1 John 1:5).

This takes us to his final paragraph and it simply is him trying to force a conversation the way he wishes. He thinks the issue is Calvinism vs Arminianism. But the topic is Arminianism vs Aseity(or Classical Theism). So, while every conversation regarding Christian theism is relevant this topic isn’t directly relevant. The authorship of evil argument lacks sufficient definition. In some regards, Thibodaux thinks God is the author of evil but not in any morally objectionable sense. So, he’ll have to define what he means and then argue for his conclusions. This ambiguous phraseology remains the issue a bit:

I avoid saying that God “authors” evil, an unclear expression which seems to suggest that God (like the author of a book) not only brings evil about, but approves of it. “Creates” is awkward: evil is a quality, not a thing, and God creates things, not qualities. “Wills” is ambiguous, since it can mean that he approves it or simply that he brings it about. “Incites” suggests that God encourages people to do evil things; Scripture says he does not do this. “Stands behind” can also suggest this. The other terms listed above differ mainly in their connotations. I think any of them are legitimate, depending on the context. I have used all of them, but I tend to prefer plain-English phrases like “brings about” and “makes happen.”

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/interview-with-john-frame-on-problem-of/

For further reflection about the topic I recommend Steve Hays articles about it:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/authorship-of-evil.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/04/is-god-author-of-sin-1.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/04/is-god-author-of-sin-2.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/07/does-calvinism-make-god-author-of-sin.html

He makes further comments about some secondary issues that arise in my article and I’m willing to clarify these things.

Besides the fact that there’s no reason to buy his counter-intuitive assertion in the first place, free will being random (as I point out in the article) would imply that God also chooses ‘by chance’ as well.

The reason we suppose that they are blips of chance is that no explanation other than randomness can explain why one makes a choice at all on such a scheme. I’m assuming that you hold to the principle of alternate possibilities. John Frame in the article I referred you to in this and a previous article concludes the same idea:

On the open theists’ libertarian concept of freedom, human free decisions have no cause: not God, not the natural order, not even their own desires. But if my decision is not caused by my desire, then it is something I don’t want to do. So even I do not cause my free decisions. They are random, arbitrary, irrational events, like the realm of Prime Matter among the Greeks. Not only does this view fail to give a rational account of free choice, it makes any such account impossible.

So, this shows that this idea isn’t necessarily counter-intuitive given the many individuals now and in the past, that has thought that this was the case. I’ve already shown this in a previous response to this website from which errors flow like the greatest river:

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2019/07/02/intuition-and-choices/

From what I saw, this was the only legitimate thing that needed any response. He needs just to think more about God’s relationship to time and the arguments for the position he takes. The rest are just snide comments because he has no real response to the things I’ve said. 

Addendum:

I found some extra time and have written a little response to his questions:

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2019/09/13/thibo-dabble/