Re: God and Time

At 08:36 PM 3/30/2006, Randy Isaac wrote:

>"...After the discussion, I heard some attendees worry that Craig's
>view would put us on the slippery slope to process theology. I can
>see why they might worry but it doesn't seem to me as if that is a
>necessary consequence. Others worried about the role of free will
>in the premise of God being "the cause of things' coming to be" but
>I don't see that Craig's view puts any new twist or any particular
>concern on that well-worn issue.
>
>I did get a copy of Craig's 2001 book, "God, Time, and Eternity"
>where he discusses all this in detail and deals with all the
>proposed arguments against it, but it's not a book for quick
>reading! Was it reviewed in our journal? I couldn't find a review
>but I only did a cursory search.
>
>I found his ideas very stimulating and thought-provoking but I'll
>have to read a lot more and think about it before buying it
>wholeheartedly. Thoughts? ~ Randy

@ Here is an excerpt of an interesting exchange that you might find
of interest:

[snip]

William Lane Craig is a Molinist and has taken a dissenting view
against Open Theism and in favor of divine timelessness in several
books. I don't see how any open theistic view that asserts
(post-creative) divine timelessness can be logically coherent. It
certainly would be noteworthy if any of the OT leaders (Sanders,
Pinnock, Boyd, Hasker) had backed off this position. I am afraid if
they did they would no longer be considered open theists. See
<http://www.opentheism.info/>http://www.opentheism.info/ for more information.

Posted By: Mark Butler | August 09, 2005 06:27 PM

I prematurely characterized William Lane Craig's views regarding
divine temporality. I think it is safe to say he is no Open Theist, however.

Posted By: Brandon | August 09, 2005 07:09 PM

You're right that Craig isn't an open theist; but I've heard open
theists give Craig-based accounts. (Presumably such people would
follow Boyd's proposal of regarding open theism as a modified
Molinism.) The issue of middle knowledge only pertains to the
question of foreknowledge; divine atemporality is a different issue.
Strictly speaking, all open theism requires is post-creative
temporality; there is nothing in open theism that is inconsistent
with pre-creative timelessness, although most brands of open theism
would reject such a view. The difficulties arise with connecting the two.

Clark & Michael: The reason you can't have an infinite regress of
movers is that the transitive dependence involved in a chain of
movers generates logical contradictions if regressed to infinity; the
proof of it isn't difficult, and Aquinas formulates it quite nicely
and straightforwardly in Summa Contra Gentiles. It is logically
incoherent to have an infinite regress of movers. I had thought,
though, that the issue was a different one, namely the nature of the
original mover, which is, I think, a much stronger objection. That
would be the Bertrand Russell sort of question: why can't you turn
this alleged argument for God's necessary existence into an argument
for the world's necessary existence?

Posted By: Mark Butler | August 09, 2005 09:09 PM

Source: http://www.libertypages.com/clark/10577.html

~ Janice
Received on Sat Apr 1 14:16:04 2006