Also, if God did foreknow what a person would freely choose and then not create that person based on that knowledge, God would falsify His own foreknowledge by not creating that person. God would essentially make Himself wrong by making something He foreknew happening as not happening, or making a person He foreknew as existing, never to exist. Since God cannot be wrong, He cannot not create someone based on what He knows this 'person' (who will actually never exist) would do or choose. Do you see the problem?
http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/some-quick-comments-regarding-free-agency-and-foreknowledge/
So the future is necessary. God's hands are tied. What will be will be. Sounds pretty fatalistic to me. Indeed, it's more deterministic than Calvinism.
I'm not the only one who sees the dilemma that Ben has created for himself. As a fellow Arminian observes:
Don’t you think God was free to create other people than He has chosen to, or do you think He was constrained in some way to create people He has created?...Well speaking of different ways things could be is simply speaking of different worlds. Possible world lingo simply makes it more convenient, unless this is the only possible world. But then you’d be a determinist.
http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/some-quick-comments-regarding-free-agency-and-foreknowledge/#comment-4969
Ben said, "Since God cannot be wrong, He cannot not create someone based on what He knows this 'person' (who will actually never exist) would do or choose."
ReplyDeleteWouldn't this void the Molinist position? For, if God foreknows all possible worlds and their outcome He could not then choose to not create those possible worlds.
He asks? Do you see the problem?"
ReplyDeleteYes.
The Apostle Paul answers that question far better than me so in honor of the Bible and the wisdom God gave Paul, here would be my Biblical answer:
1Ti 6:20 O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge,"
1Ti 6:21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.
2Ti 2:16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness,...."
"Avoid irreverent babble"!
Ok, I will.
And so Arminianism breaks apart on the rocky grounds of God's knowledge.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a dilemma.
ReplyDelete