Tuesday, March 16, 2021

The Logical Fallacy of Absolute Omniscience/Foreknowledge

I maintain that God has limited omniscience by his own choice and design. God knows everything except the outcome of free will choices. This is due to absolute free will given to the one He created in the image of God.

But most theologians who have not explored the logic of openness theology maintain that such belief limits the sovereignty of God. REALLY?

Let's follow the logic of what their traditional view of absolute omniscience really says:

  1. God has absolute foreknowledge
  2. God knows the outcome of all future decisions of man as if he has seen it in the past.
  3. God is sovereign and God is love
  4. BUT: 
    1. Since God has absolute foreknowledge, then
    2. He CANNOT change the future, 
    3. OTHERWISE, his absolute foreknowledge fails because it changed.
    4. On the other hand, If God knows absolutely that he will change the future of an event which he already absolutely knew should happen (and therefore cannot change) because he has seen it in the past, does he fail in foreknowledge because he saw the outcome before he changed it? or does he SIMPLY CONTRADICT himself by changing what he has seen should happen?
    5. I know I lost you. Don't worry, even God would be lost with this absolute sovereignty logic. Don't worry, absolute foreknowledge is a false concept of God. It is a man-made concept not at all in Scripture. That is why it just confuses.
  5. BOTTOM LINE: Based on the logic of absolute foreknowledge, God is TOTALLY HELPLESS to change something that he already absolutely knows would happen. Since God is seen to be helpless here, he is not as sovereign as classical theologians think he should be.
  6. So, who really LIMITS the sovereignty of God????? The theologians do!
Now, the Openness view, at least the one I espouse, maintains that God does not need to know or control everything to be victorious over anything. That is the "doctrine" of the Omni-Competence of God and I believe, no Scripture passage can contradict this concept, it supports absolute free will, a will that is so free that even God cannot tamper with it by neither predestination nor foreknowledge. Actually the two may mean different things but the effect is the same.

So let's apply this to Abraham's ordeal with Isaac. If God absolutely knew that Abraham would actually obey God to kill his only son, Isaac, then the following logical conclusions apply.
  1. Abraham has no free will. Whether he likes it or not, he has no say in the matter. He will pass the test because God absolutely saw it as if it were in the past. Free will means Abraham can change his mind, but he can't based on absolute foreknowledge, because if Abraham changed his mind and did not pass the test, then God comes out as a false prophet himself. Since neither Abraham nor God can change what God already absolutely knew, then God is totally helpless to change the outcome (and is therefore, not sovereign after all) and Abraham had no free will (both ANTI-biblical concepts)
  2. If the above is true, then Augustine, Luther and Calvin are correct in ascertaining that everything is predestined. The Apostolic fathers are wrong because they believed the opposite.
  3. Evangelism is useless because God already absolutely knows who will choose him and persevere and those who won't choose him or won't persevere.
  4. Prayer is useless because it does not change the outcome of what God already knows and God is helpless to answer prayer because he already knows the outcome and cannot change it. Otherwise, he was wrong on the outcome and therefore, has no absolute foreknowledge.
  5. The Bible is useless because it talks about choices which are more theoretical than real. Hence the Bible itself is theoretical and has no practical value.
  6. Believing God is useless for those whom God already foreknew would be saved.
Yes, you will say my argument does not make sense. But I declare to you, it is all because of the false teaching that God has absolute foreknowledge, even of free will outcomes.

A God who relents (Heb: "nacham", change of mind (NRSV), LXX, "change of heart" OSB) CANNOT have absolute omniscience nor absolute foreknowledge. How could he foresee that he would relent or how would he relent on what he foresaw??? If he changes what he foresaw, then what he foresaw turns out to be wrong in the first place. God relents ALWAYS in case of free will choices. Now, based on the LXX, God REPENTS, the same Greek word in the New Testament "metanoeo"(example, Acts 2:38). Joel 2:13 LXX, Jonah 3:10 LXX, Genesis 6:7 LXX (the whole passage shows how SORRY God was for creating man, something that only a person "who made a mistake" will do. This is not theology, this is plain Bible interpretation.

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