More of the Same

For someone who doesn't believe in immutability, you sure are repetitive.

True, I have nothing new to add. Rather, just ruminating on the same old heretical thoughts on divine change. Speaking of which, in this essay on the subject of heresy, the author says that

All believers, great and humble alike, will someday stand before God and render an account of their lives.

Okay, but first of all, if God has determined everything in advance, how is any of this my fault? How am I implicated? 

Second, if he already knows everything from all eternity, why is he asking me, of all people? It literally makes no sense.

Predeterminism must be the mother of all alibis.

You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know what's going on. 

Maybe, but the same author accuses most Catholics of seeming "to believe that man created God in man’s image and likeness." I suppose I'd be one of those, since I'm attributing the human categories of change and relationality to God, when he is immutable and impassive.

But supposing we are created in God's image and likeness, in what sense is this the case? All agree that we are "like" God, but in what ways specifically? 

I'll bite. How about rationality?

Agreed. But it seems I am being asked to believe something that is totally irrational, in this case, that I am responsible for actions predetermined by someone else. It's difficult to think of something more irrational than that, not to mention unjust.

You're out of your element.

Am I trying to understand what cannot be understood? Or just asking for a little rudimentary intellectual consistency? 

What if intellect is intellect, such that our intellect is the quintessential part of ourselves that mirrors Intellect as such? At what point are we to cease relying upon our God-given intellect? At what point does the intellect turn on itself and betray us? The intellect is, of course, ordered to truth. Until it isn't? I don't get it. 

In his discussion of precedents to open theism, Rice mentions a fellow obscure crank named Gordon Olson (1907-1989), who also argued that, precisely because we are created in God's image, "we can infer what God is like from our analysis of human experience." On the one hand this "could lead to unwarranted anthropomorphism," 

But he offers impressive arguments that sequence, succession, duration -- call it what you will -- is intrinsic to the biblical portrayal of God, and the sheer number and variety of descriptions make it difficult to dismiss them as mere concessions to our finite minds.

Rather, 

Since there is "a true chronology of divine succession in the Divine existence," we cannot bring our thinking about God into line with the Bible unless we think of God's experiences and actions as taking place over a duration of time.

Like me, Olson maintains that divine immutability is "a philosophical rather than a Biblical concept," representing "nothing less than an intrusion of alien ideas into the thinking of the early church." So, someone is anthropomorphizing God, but it's not me. Not to belabor the point... okay, to belabor it,

If God exercised absolute control, in particular, if God compelled moral beings to act in certain ways, it would "eliminate the reason for their creation" (emphasis mine).

In other words, this entails very principle of reason defying all reason, for it is strictly impossible for a moral being to exist in a deterministic framework. 

God makes all things possible.

That's right: possible does not mean necessary. However, possibility can only exist in the context of necessity. For example, it is only because we can rely upon the necessary boundary conditions of nature that we are free to invent and to create technology. If we ignore these laws, or if the laws were arbitrary and changing, no science -- nothing higher -- could result.

So, possibility and necessity are (necessarily) complementary. In a recent post we grounded necessity in the Absolute, and possibility in the Infinite. 

Now, finitude can never contain Infinitude, and any attempt to do so would indeed reduce to anthropomorphization and idolatry. And immutability is the denial of Infinitude and All-possibility, hence an anthropic projection onto the Divine nature. 

In this sense, the Divine nature does indeed surpass our intellect, since we can only have -- and be -- finite images of the infinite Intellect. If we ignore this, we essentially try to reduce Infinite to Absolute.

Which reminds me of Gödel, only on steroids, for it is as if enclosing God in dogma is the attempt to render a complete and consistent "system of God," when God always escapes such constraints and definitions, again, because of his Infinitude.

Gemini, am I just barking at my own shadow, or does any of this add up?

In summary, the author seems to be advocating for a view of God that is more dynamic, relational, and whose nature can be partly understood through human experience (since humans are created in God's image). This view directly challenges the traditional theological emphasis on divine immutability and strict determinism, arguing that these concepts create logical inconsistencies and fail to align with the biblical narrative. 

The tone is thoughtful, questioning, and at times a bit exasperated with traditional theological arguments that the author finds inconsistent or irrational. The references to specific thinkers (Rice, Olson, Gödel) indicate a familiarity with theological and philosophical discourse.

"The image shows a vast, open sky filled with swirling nebulae and stars, from which a hand made of celestial light reaches towards a complex, interconnected web. This web, composed of intricate knots and loops, symbolizes the tension between freedom and fate."