Last time I discussed Blake's approach to the problem of prayer. However I left for an other time the problem of foreknowledge and prayer. This is roughly the problem that if God already knows what he'll do in the future it is pointless to pray since my prayers can't change the future. Blake's discussion gets going from a quote of William Alston on page 61. This is a slightly more sophisticated form of the foreknowledge objection in terms of relationships. "Since h/she can know in advance how the other will react to any move h/she makes, h/she is in a position to decide in advance how h/she will react to any of these reactions. There is no need to wait until the other actually make a move to construct a response. But then no real shaping of response, in light of the activity of the other, would take place at each stage."
While this claim makes sense in most Christian theologies of God it doesn't necessarily follow if God is a temporal being. While God may well be in position to decide there is no reason to assume this decision is determined in a permanent fashion. Put simply, for any set of facts, there may be many equally good choices God could take. Which one he takes may depend upon factors not fixed until God acts. (Of course, given foreknowledge God will know what he will eventually decide - but that's a different issue - merely that what he'd intend at time t1 and what he'd intend at t2 aren't the same) Since God's choice may be based upon an emotional or other non-rational effects to say that God's action doesn't need a real relationship is false. The act of experiencing a relationship with the Other through prayer is different from knowing it in a propositional form.
This is simply the objection that experience is richer than knowledge. I note that in many of these kinds of discussions, as is the bias of philosophy, the focus seems to be purely on reason and knowledge to the exclusion of things such as mood, emotion, and so forth. All of which we recognize in our own decision making processes but which are rather unwilling to accord to God for some reason. (Doubly odd if the basis for discussion is real relationships which seem to demand these extra-rational factors to move from pure economical consideration into real I-thou relations.)
I should note that Blake is reacting against Alston's position. I just wanted to make the above so as to illustrate the problem I see in the entire discourse. I think Alston's quote brings it out. There is the privileging to the exclusion of all else, the rational.
The next problem Blake presents on page 63.
But if God "sees" his responses to prayer as a basis for his responses, then God can not respond at all, for the response is already (in the logical sense of priority) included in his knowledge of the world.
Blake's problem is that he demands that response entail a change from "not-yet-having-been-decided" to the "having-already-decided" with the logical order being what is important. Blake's reasoning for this premise isn't quite clear to me. He appeals to an order of logical priority. But this seems to conflate "having-already-been-decided" in the sense of there being a truth above the state with "having-already-decided" in the sense of God engaging in the cognitive process of forming an intent that doesn't change. (With change here not being the truth condition of the intent's fulfillment but merely the agent holding the intent) We touched upon this last time.
To me this is a big error since God might well know he will choose to act in a certain way but, especially due to extra-rational process in decision making, not yet have formed the intent. To claim that because I'll know I'll do something entails that I've decided I'll do it simply doesn't follow. To say that God's decision might be causally connected to knowledge of this future event just doesn't seem to entail that it isn't a real response.
Now perhaps Blake might argue that the word "respond" entails a logical structure such that the logical ordering follows a temporal order. (Page 63 might be read in this fashion) I think that he needs to engage in some justification for this semantic argument though beyond what is presented. But beyond this, let's say Blake is right and our word has this semantic extension of demanding this logical structure. So what? So our language isn't quite up to the task of dealing with beings with foreknowledge or backwards causality. We shouldn't be surprised since our language developed based upon human experience which simply doesn't include such matters. What language should be used instead? And does that change of language really change things that much? I don't think it does. I think it is far too easy to get caught up in semantic games that merely rest upon the fact that most human experience is of a certain sort.
It's a subtle circular argument. Our words develop their meaning based upon common human experience. We use words to describe some being. Since our words are based upon these experiences clearly any being we describe is simply like us. We privilege our language far too much.
Responses to other chapters in Blake Ostler's The Problems With Theism and the Love of God can be found in our reading club page.
Clark says: To me this is a big error since God might well know he will choose to act in a certain way but, especially due to extra-rational process in decision making, not yet have formed the intent."
Here is the problem Clark -- you make God positively irrational. He knows he will do X, but due to irrationality (you call it extra-rationality, whatever that is) believes somehow that he could do Y instead. I just don't see what sense can be made of that claim.
So I will include my prior comments at NCT: "The phenomena of intending to bring about X while also knowing that I will bring about Y instead is an instance of self-deception. It is an instance of double-mindedness of the kind James says is the essence of sin. I maintain that such a possibility exists for a being who in fact engages in self-deception and is subject to being unaware at some level of what one knows on another level. However, the notion that an omniscient being could hide the truth from himself is absurd. Inherent in the notion of omniscience is that God is not unaware at some level. He cannot hide the truth from himself. So it is just a conceptual impossiblity.
The notion that god engages in self-deception = this being isn’t God. So I do have huge problems with what you suggest. Moreover, nothing like such an explanation is suggested in the scriptures cited in my post. God simply doesn’t have knowledge of how free people will respond to his threats and apportunity to avert destruction basd on a request to repent.
Who could have faith in such a being? Lacking specific foreknowledge (and yet being morally perfect and omniscient nonetheless) doesn’t challenge faith in any way approach what asserting that God is just self-deceptive from time to time must. Isn’t such a being rather like a person who is often deceptive and clueless about who they are, what they want and what reality is?"
"If you’re going to talk about justified true beliefs, and if God foreknows the future, then he must have some basis for such knowledge. Whatever makes his foreknowledge to be “knowledge” would fix the future so that it can’t change. God cannot see that in the future X occurs at t1, and yet intend to bring about Y at t1. That is just absurd. I join Geoff on this one. I can’t believe you’re defending this position. Moreover, God is emotionally conflicted about the future he has seen so he could then intend to bring about Y at t1 knowing that at t1 X will occur? That too strikes me as just absurd on its face.
What kind of “god” are we talking about here? One whose emotions cloud his judgments so much that even though he foreknows X will occur at t1, he still intends to bring about Y at t1? Who would give $2 for a “god” like that? Where in the scriptures could you support such a view of “god” that his emotional conflicts cloud is ability to judge so much that he is just mistaken about what he can bring about?"
"He knows he will do X, but due to irrationality (you call it extra-rationality, whatever that is) believes somehow that he could do Y instead"
No, desires to do Y or intends to do Y. The hidden premise in your belief is that if someone knows they will do something they can't intend to do something else. I reject that premise. I don't think this is an example of self-deception as you claim. Rather it is based on the fact that our decision making is not perfectly ruled by logical reasons. There are emotions and much else.
Now one can (and most do) claim that God is perfectly rational and deny the emotional aspect to God. What I find most interesting about Mormonism is that it doesn't do this.
As to who could have faith in such a being. Obviously I do... (grin)
Clark: "What I find most interesting about Mormonism is that it doesn't do this." Of course God can feel in LDS thought. Can you show me anything in scripture where God's emotions made it so that he knew X would occur but intended Y would occur instead -- without simply begging the question?
There are a lot of things in LDS thoguht that militate against your rather unique view.
Lecture 3: 22. And again, the idea that he is a God of truth and cannot lie, is equally as necessary to the exercise of faith in him as the idea of his unchangeableness. For without the idea that he was a God of truth and could not lie, the confidence necessary to be placed in his word in order to the exercise of faith in him could not exist. But having the idea that he is not man, that he cannot lie, it gives power to the minds of men to exercise faith in him.
Lecture 4: 16. And lastly, but not less important to the exercise of faith in God, is the idea of the existence of the attribute truth in him; for without the idea of the existence of this attribute the mind of man could have nothing upon which it could rest with certainty—all would be confusion and doubt. But with the idea of the existence of this attribute in the Deity in the mind, all the teachings, instructions, promises, and blessings, become realities, and the mind is enabled to lay hold of them with certainty and confidence, believing that these things, and all that the Lord has said, shall be fulfilled in their time; and that all the cursings, denunciations, and judgments, pronounced upon the heads of the unrighteous, will also be executed in the due time of the Lord: and, by reason of the truth and veracity of him, the mind beholds its deliverance and salvation as being certain.
It seems to me that a god who can be fooled into believing Y will occur because his judgment is clouded by emotions doesn't inspure confidence and faith of the type spoken of in these Lectures.
Let me give a good argument for why I think my view is correct. I'll even do it within the framework you use to approach the issue of prayer (which I think is basically correct)
We want a real relationship with God. But a real relationship isn't just to relate to someone purely logically. That is a human relationship involves more than just reason. To reduce relationships to reason is to reduce them down to a kind of technology or economy where the "right" relationship is determined purely by logic and entailed by the same. A relationship with a person is fundamentally different from a relationship with a computer.
The relationships we value the most are those that are the least captured by economics or pure reason. For a relationship to be a relationship it can't exclude our emotions, our desires, our wants all of which may not fit within what reason proscribes. Thus in my relationship with my wife my mind may say one thing and my heart an other. Now in that relationship we can't let the heart dictate (despite what the romantics might say). However neither can we let the mind dictate. It is a much more complex situation.
To say that this is not true of God. That in his relating with us it is a matter of pure reason is fundamentally to say that we do not have an authentic relationship with God. That our relationship is more akin to that of a computer.
Now to your prooftexts.
First off nothing I outlined even remotely arises to the level of lie. To desire something and to know one will ultimately not act on that desire is not a lie. To characterize it as such is simply erroneous. Recall that I said God intends one thing at time t1 but knows that at t2 he will not intend this. Nothing in that logically entails a lie.
Now clearly you believe it does. (Which I think comes from denying what makes up our intentions) But you'll have to provide an argument for that position.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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