Prior to coming to this forum, I was unfamiliar with open theism, and my understanding of it is incomplete at best. From what I have read, however, the idea that the future does not exist and, therefore, God cannot know the future is central to the doctrine.
I wanted to put forth a few points that, to me, seem to cast doubt on this idea, even if the future, in fact, does not exist.
The basic fact that causes problems, I think, is that the outcome of deterministic processes is knowable, even if the outcome has not yet occured. For example, if I have a pot of water at room temperature, I can predict that the water will start to boil once I raise it to a given temperature for a certain amount of time. If I start to raise the temperature of the water, I can predict its future, even though it does not as yet exist.
Boiling water, of course, is a simple process. Matters such as human behavior are seemingly much more complex. However, the complexity of the matter does not alter its predictability if the causal processes are known. I don't think that any Christian, would argue that God does not know the causal processes that drive human behavior, or the processes that drive any phenomenon that occurs in the world, the universe, etc. Our inability to predict the future with certainty is due to our imperfect or even erroneous knowledge of causal mechanisms. This is not a limitation of God.
The alternative would be that human behavior and other phenomenon are simply random processes, predictable within some given level of precision, but definitely not predictable with certainty. This is a possibility, but we don't have any reason to believe it is true. Chaos theory tells us, for example, that even simple deterministic processes can manifest themselves as random. And if phenomenon are random, they are only random in a bounded way. It would be foolish to argue that deterministic processes do not exist. If some processes contain a random element, this limits the ability to predict with accuracy but the limitation to accuracy depends on the magnitude of the random element. And, it is possible, that random (or stochastic) processes do not actually exist.
So, this being the case, the argument that God does not know the future, or only knows it in a contingent way, seems problematic. If God does know the future, then the ideas that God changes his mind, does not act until He sees what people will do, etc. seem to lose credibility.
Just interested in your thoughts.
I wanted to put forth a few points that, to me, seem to cast doubt on this idea, even if the future, in fact, does not exist.
The basic fact that causes problems, I think, is that the outcome of deterministic processes is knowable, even if the outcome has not yet occured. For example, if I have a pot of water at room temperature, I can predict that the water will start to boil once I raise it to a given temperature for a certain amount of time. If I start to raise the temperature of the water, I can predict its future, even though it does not as yet exist.
Boiling water, of course, is a simple process. Matters such as human behavior are seemingly much more complex. However, the complexity of the matter does not alter its predictability if the causal processes are known. I don't think that any Christian, would argue that God does not know the causal processes that drive human behavior, or the processes that drive any phenomenon that occurs in the world, the universe, etc. Our inability to predict the future with certainty is due to our imperfect or even erroneous knowledge of causal mechanisms. This is not a limitation of God.
The alternative would be that human behavior and other phenomenon are simply random processes, predictable within some given level of precision, but definitely not predictable with certainty. This is a possibility, but we don't have any reason to believe it is true. Chaos theory tells us, for example, that even simple deterministic processes can manifest themselves as random. And if phenomenon are random, they are only random in a bounded way. It would be foolish to argue that deterministic processes do not exist. If some processes contain a random element, this limits the ability to predict with accuracy but the limitation to accuracy depends on the magnitude of the random element. And, it is possible, that random (or stochastic) processes do not actually exist.
So, this being the case, the argument that God does not know the future, or only knows it in a contingent way, seems problematic. If God does know the future, then the ideas that God changes his mind, does not act until He sees what people will do, etc. seem to lose credibility.
Just interested in your thoughts.
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It changed Pauls choices considerably. 