More on God and Change
Yesterday I posted about wondering about Augustine’s ideas on God. This morning I read a post at Prosblogion about the impossibility of God being changeless and creating the world out of free will. Alan Rhoda frames the argument as follows: Can a Timeless God Freely Create?
1. God is absolutely immutable.
2. God has freely created.
3. A free act proceeds from a free decision from among several mutually exclusive possibilities.
4. Therefore, God made a free decision to create from among several mutually exclusive possibilities. (2,3)
5. A free decision from among several mutually exclusive possibilities involves a change of ‘intentional stance’ from regarding something as indeterminate (as one of several possibilities) to regarding it as determinate (as the chosen course of action).
6. Therefore, in freely created God undergoes a change in his intentional stance. (4,5)
7. Therefore, God has changed in some respect. (6)
8. Therefore, God is not absolutely immutable. (7)
The lynch-pin of the argument and one of critisms of a perfect and unchangeable God is number six. In excersizing free will, one is changed, whether or not that one is a person or God. Further more, I like what Rhoda hints at towards the end of the post, where he implies that does not employ mere logic in His excersie in free will. This point was first brought to my attention by Carmen Price, a philosophy doctoral student at Washinton University in her capstone paper at Columbia College: “The Necessity of Considering Motivations”“.
What are religions and philosophys that hold both one and two to do? Logically, I think that Rhodes has excluded the posibility of holding to both, so it seems to follow that one of them must be dumped or modified as to allow for the other. Which one takes priority over the other? I think that two takes the priority. Without it, one’s God is reduced to a being without free will, something along the lines of Aristotle’s Prime mover. Since the big three monotheistic faiths, Christianity, Islam, and Judeaism, all hold to a God that is active to varring degrees within It’s creation, this conclusion (Aristolte’s God) must be rejected. Instead it is better to either accept that God undergoes some sort of change in His interaction within time.
Cross posted at Unsound Argument.
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Comments
Something else to consider. I have been reading my favorite expositor of Scripture, Jonathan Edwards, and his book Freedom of the Will and he has made a really good point. He defines a choice as the chosing of the greatest preceived good at any point in time. In other words a choice is made based on what the mind preceives as the greatest good at the moment.
If this is true, then all decisions are free choices but are determined by circumstances: long-term and short-term goals, background of the person are just some of the influences. If God changes because he makes free choices, does that mean that God’s views of good change? If that is true, then what does that say about Scripture? Can we then trust it if God changes and if what he defines as good changes?
He defines a choice as the chosing of the greatest preceived good at any point in time.
Are you saying that every person’s choice is like this? I choose once to hit my little sister when I was yonger. I could have choosen to forgive her for hitting me. That would have clearly been the better thing to do and I knew it. Yet I decided against the greatest percieved good at the time and hit her.
Perhaps you are meaning that JE was talking about God’s choices exclusively?
Back to the rest of your points, I don’t think His view of Good would change despite His choices. Why do you think what I have said would lead to that?
When it is said that Jesus is the same today, tommorow, and yesterday, we must assume that while it does not mean that He doesn’t change, it must attest to his character, essense, ect… To use an analogy, consider Jesus walking. The body of Jesus stays the same even though it is changing postitions.
But that is my answer. What is yours? Do you deny the logic? Do you deny the premises? If you are going to deny the conclusion you must also address one of the those as the reason that I am wrong.
I choose once to hit my little sister when I was yonger. I could have choosen to forgive her for hitting me. That would have clearly been the better thing to do and I knew it. Yet I decided against the greatest percieved good at the time and hit her.
But the reason that you hit her was because you perceived it as the greatest good, whether it really was or not is a different issue.
I don’t like framing it that way. It seems circular to me. It is “perceived most good” because it is that which I choose.
So that means that one can never pick out what is the greatest good and then decide against doing that?
Interesting post Henry, one of the most thought provoking yet. I don’t like the libertarian rambles about “possible worlds” it is too speculative and reduces God’s prescience to a finite level, whereas God is seen in scripture as all knowing (this is why a lot of libertarian free willers have been fratenizing with open theism). So I would pick a bone with 4) of the argument maybe it just needs more clarification, but it seems to put God at decision crossroads He kinda scratches His head and think about which world to create. And even if we presuppose the truth of (4) the conclusion of (5) is not warranted. If we were to say God would have done different acts if He created world A than if He created B that does not warrant the conclusion that upon God creating world B that He has changed since His behaviour in wrold A if it had been created was already mapped out by His prescience.
Paul Copan in his book “That’s Just Your Interpretation” seems to advocate a similar view of the one you lay out but he maintains immutability because by not creating world A God’s acting or prescience has not changed. Copan (erroniously because of his libertarian commitments) says that basically God when looking at the possible worlds looked at the choices of men and created the best possible world creating the best circumstances in which free will of man is maintained resulting in the maximum conversions. I think that’s a bunch of nonesense and makes God subserviant in His actions to the will of man.
Anyway, I agree with HT Jonathan Edwards treatise on the Freedom of the Will is hands down the best, these modern libertarian assertions are just silly when you seriously examine what it means to make a decision.
Oh also I need to ask, what has changed in God in His choosing one possiblity over another? Where does the change lie which makes God mutable?
Oh (sorry I didn’t do this all in one post but good subjects linger and you think more about them after you have written one thing…) also the argument presupposes that there is some sort of division in God’s will, He is vexed between multiple alternatives. This needs to be supported as well considering statement in the bible about God’s omniscience and unchangable plans, I think if we accept presupposiotionally the notion that God does not change it makes sense to say that no such vexation beset God. He is never faced with real alternatives because His knowledge is perfect and He will always choose the greatest of all goods (the advancement of His glory). So this may be a false dichotomy created surrounding God’s will.
Bob,
I think that you are right about the open theism remark. I think that Rhodes intends to use this argument to advance the idea of open theism. He sees it as moving God within the realm of time, a nessesary component of open theism.
If you look at his home page there are some papers on open theism, none of which I have read.
I was really doing a bad job at devil’s advocate. I came to that conclusion as I was driving back to school from home last night. Just disregard my comment on this post. However, I do really recommend JE’s book though its really good.
I don’t think JE’s argument is circular. He is saying that every choice we make has a cause. That cause is what the mind views as the greatest good. THerefore it actively decides to do what is the greatest good. In your example, your mind said that the greatest good was to hit your sister (which one, hehehe?) even though the standard of right is to have not hit her. Your mind preceived something else and so made a decision based on those perceptions. However, JE’s point is that your decision to see hitting your sister required your mind to decide that it was the greatest. TO make that decision the mind had to decide to make that decision. Therefore every coice we make has a cause. We do not make a decision without some cause, whether natural or coerced. You really need to read Edward’s book to get at what he is saying.
My point of contention is with the idea of it being the greatest good. I understand that every choice has a cause, but our minds choose which cause it shall be.
My question to you (and bob and dave) is if a person can choose that which is not the percieved greatest good?
How does one know they choose the greatest good? Because it is what we have choosen.
That deffinitional equating of the two terms strikes me as circular. Instead, I would argue that while each choice has a cause behind it, there are multiple causes behind the multiple choices that we face:
“My question to you (and bob and dave) is if a person can choose that which is not the percieved greatest good?
No, that’s the very definition of percieved good. To say otherwise is like saying can a bachelor also be married. Now a person for example may desire a beer, however they also desire to keep their job and not drink on the job. So there are the choices whichever seems most desirable to the affections is what the will chooses. Now the person may desire the effects of alcohol over the risk of loosing the job and thus start sipping on their beverage. Or a person may desire to not risk loosing their job for the effects of alcohol. The point is that though there are conflicting desires one will always choose according to the percieved greater good.
I would say a few things on that. I’ll try to work them up in a post.
How then would you say that idea squares with Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”?