The man that shall not be named wrote a little response to me. I found the time and the will to torture myself through another one of his bitter sad attempts to undermine what I’ve said.
Not much left from our dearest objector. All he’s got now is a parting shot on how the Arminian view of free will is kind of like Open Theism (gasp!) -as long as you discount the central difference of whether God can know our choices beforehand.
Well, that’s because they both are indeterminist. There is no significant difference between them regarding the issue of the human will. Peter Van Inwagen is a famous libertarian that is also an Open Theist. Secondly, when he appeals to “foreknowledge” or knowing “beforehand” he is just pulling your leg. He doesn’t believe God has foreknowledge. That’s pretty much is his solution to the problem of future tensed propositions and God’s foreknowledge. He seems to present this idea in his article:
Before I get into TNP itself, I’ll let Zagzebski outline the position that many Christians have historically taken in response to objections to God’s foreknowledge of free will choices (typically called The Boethian Solution):
This solution probably originated with the 6th century philosopher Boethius, who maintained that God is not in time and has no temporal properties, so God does not have beliefs at a time. It is therefore a mistake to say God had beliefs yesterday, or has beliefs today, or will have beliefs tomorrow. It is also a mistake to say God had a belief on a certain date, such as June 1, 2004. The way Boethius describes God’s cognitive grasp of temporal reality, all temporal events are before the mind of God at once. To say “at once” or “simultaneously” is to use a temporal metaphor, but Boethius is clear that it does not make sense to think of the whole of temporal reality as being before God’s mind in a single temporal present. It is an atemporal present in which God has a single complete grasp of all events in the entire span of time
The idea is simple enough, God doesn’t have beliefs at any time and therefore doesn’t know anything “before” it happens. The further issue is that he maintains God does have temporal properties. But if God is temporal then he can have foreknowledge. So, his solution to the issue contradicts his own position.
Ah yes, Guilt by Association: you know, kind of like how Christianity teaches that there’s a God, which makes it exactly like Islam if you ignore that whole Jesus being God’s Son detail. Or the way that dog owners are like Hitler (who also owned dogs); they’re totally alike if you can look past the being a Nazi aspect of it.
The obvious reason this is silly is that having a dog doesn’t make you a Christian or a Nazi. That’s because possessing a dog is irrelevant to those two things. But having Libertarian freedom is relevant to being an Arminian/Open Theist.
I wish to credit my friend Justin Gardner for finding a picture of these two positions lined up next to each other:
This I wish to credit to all the other sightings of his perspective and OT:
Here was his response:
Lacking any evidence for a decent case, he decides to manufacture some:
@He doesn’t believe God has foreknowledge. That’s pretty much is his solution to the problem of future tensed propositions and God’s foreknowledge. He seems to present this idea in his article: https://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2019/09/17/the-transfer-of-nonsense-principle-concise-version
Actually, I don’t entirely agree with the Boethian solution as articulated by Zagzebski (specifically, God not having any temporal properties), nor do I voice total agreement. The scope of my article was whether human choices can have any effect with regards to timeless properties.
The point of the article was to undermine the transference of necessity principle. It isn’t my fault that he wasn’t clear in the original article to say he wasn’t affirming the Boethian solution. He tries undermining this point of modal logic by stating that foreknowledge isn’t causal and is more reflective. I already raised my concerns about that:
http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2019/09/18/mirrored-reality/
On his being caught committing association fallacy,
@Well, that’s because they both are indeterminist. There is no significant difference between them regarding the issue of the human will.
And?
Since my statement is true, then we should note that you should’ve just agreed with that statement from the beginning. But I have argued that you are inconsistent with rejecting Open Theist ideas.
@The obvious reason this is silly is that having a dog doesn’t make you a Christian or a Nazi.
And his reasoning is just as obviously silly, since believing in free will doesn’t make one an Open Theist any more than believing in God makes one a Muslim (as I pointed out above). Still association fallacy.
Does Peter Van Inwagen/Dale Tuggy/Richard Swinburne/ Peter Geach/ William Hasker/ Thomas J. Oord find this silly? These are famous philosophers that make these connections. So, it is bold and blind for him to state that they are silly. While believing in libertarian freedom doesn’t make one an Open Theist, it for one is the most popular reason for why people are Open Theist. Secondly, it is where your position logically leads.
The Council 