On Fri, 18 Feb 2000 15:44:03 -0700 "John W. Burgeson"
<johnburgeson@juno.com> writes:
> Dave wrote: " The price for a changing deity is abandonment of
> omniscience,
> a deity which can be surprised by events, one which may not be able
> to
> keep things from going to smash."
>
> Why does positing a God who fits the above bother some people so
> much?
>
> Seems to me that God WAS surprised a number of times as events
> unfolded
> as described in the Old Testament.
>
> If I am unable to "surprise" God (by doing something bizarre, for
> instance), then I must conclude I am without free will and hence a
> robot
> made of meat.
>
> I think not.
>
> Burgy
>
This is a common belief, but it confuses the characteristics of the
infinite with finite existence. An analogy is the very different results
of arithmetic functions in connection with real, imaginary and even
modular numbers and as applied to the transfinite numbers. The most
straightforward discussion of the matter that I know is Dorothy Sayers,
_The Mind of the Maker_. MacKay also dealt with aspects of the matter,
but I do not recall where, and I did not think his treatment as
perspicuous.
Dave
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