I suppose the only plausible answer to this is that it would defeat the purpose of God making us in the first place.
Seems to me, either you have an odd definition of “progressive,” or I must wonder what argument you are talking about. It is usually the fundies who believe more in the Christian version of determinism called predestination and thus argue against any necessity of free will. And I can hardly imagine any Christians employing a “problem of evil” type argument like the one you were leading us into.
Not everyone is the same with regards to what they can wrap their heads around. And not everyone is as willing to sweep things under some cannot-be-understood-maloney rug.
For example, special relativity and the twin paradox is not an exception to the linearity of time, but an example of how such a Euclidean understanding of space-time is wrong. The Euclidean picture sees space-time as being like a movie film – as a sequences instances. But that is just not how space-time is structured.
Instead space-time is locally divided by a two-sided cone defined by the speed of light, with a past cone and a future cone. Everything inside the past cone is the past with respect to the center, everything inside the future cone is the future of the center, and everything else is equally the present instant of the point of space-time at the center. There is no exception to the ordering of time in this. It is just that the ordering of time doesn’t apply to events which are more greatly separated from each other in space. So, the problem with “linearity of time” is that it is an overly simplistic understanding of time - with time independent of space.
Even when we can wrap our heads around special relativity we may still be unwilling to believe in a God incapable (for whatever reason) of a real relationship with beings who can surprise Him. I don’t see the point of believing in such a thing.
But a good father is NOT in control. This sounds more to me like a God who is a non-person… praising something like the weather.
Just because something takes forever doesn’t mean it is undoable. Such is the way in a relationship with an infinite God. It is not that God is unknowable but only that He cannot be known.
I was watching this TV show today, in which a character concluded from special relativity that there was no such thing as the present. Not quite correct. The correct conclusion is that the present isn’t a 3d snapshot of the universe. There certainly is a present in the here and now. It is only, how you extend this idea of a present to the rest of the universe which is less clear.
I meant that Progressive Christians I.e. politically, theologically and socially liberal ones tend to also question Gods wisdom in creating free will when the reality of the world is brought up.
I guess you are talking about cultural Christians. Being a convert and as far away from being a cultural Christian as you can get, it is a bit hard for me to fathom how one can believe in God at all if one buys into an argument like that. For me it would seem to be the first thing you have to dispense with before you can believe in God.
But I guess it changes a lot of things when you start with that belief. Does this mean anyone who asks any serious question about the Christian ideology in which they were raised is a “progressive Christian” by your way of thinking?
Not instantly. But Ive observed that a good amount turn out that way. Then again, I could be wrong or only seeing what I want to. Come to think of it, a good amount of christians who now identify with progressivism have been raised with the predestination you previously mentioned. So I guess it makes sense that they would entertain an argument like this?
The point that is not being understood from where I sit is that the word ‘predestination’ (or any other tensed word that doesn’t really apply to God’s relationship to us) isn’t really a problem when we are ready to confess that there is a wonderful mystery in how God, being immune from the constraints of sequential time (and I contend, omnitemporal), relates dynamically with us who are so bound. I would again point to the abundant evidence of his providences where what is preternatural is not the violation of any natural laws, but his sovereignty over timing and placing (and all the necessary precursors! ←note the pre- prefix ).
Judas had free will but it would have been better for him not to have been born. Maybe that should be terrifying and perhaps compel some to want to be or to be sure they are adopted or newly birthed (or any of several other God-ordained metaphors) into family and brotherhood with Jesus. That confidence can be had or else Paul would not have talked about it some several times.
And yet … nearly all nontheists (and theists) - at least all that I have ever met well enough to get a sense of them - somehow they manage to not buy into or promote solipsism. So I guess even if one’s theologies or lack thereof aren’t ‘up to your snuff’, it remains easy enough reject on a host of other grounds good enough for the person on the street.
That confidence is mostly about the heart and the heart’s desires. Secondarily it is about our minds and our minds’ behaviors and self-talk. Lastly it is about our physical behaviors including our words (where I fall short most frequently and obviously – please refrain from the loud 'Amen’s… but I can hear some already ; - ).
All of those can be tested against the laws of love both in the OT and in the New – Jesus and the epistlers expand upon them significantly. We are also told to test ourselves in several places and in all three categories, and the latter ones implicate the previous. Of course the last one others can help us with (too readily sometimes) …or curse us with.
External providences revealing the Father’s care are sweet and certainly confidence building, but not necessary as the basis of confidence.
Does it? From what I understand it says that local determinism cannot be true but “superdeterminism” still can.
I don’t understand it 100% but I think it’s that all things, scientists doing experiments included are decided by universe, and because measurerer is a part of equation, you can still have determinism, locality and realism.
The indeterminism in QM and the Bell’s inequality has NOTHING to do with a choice of experiment. That is only involved in some of the more complicated experiments which some consider even more “spooky.” But I have only referenced them to established a completely different point, that observation is all about measuring devices and nothing to do with consciousness (which BTW superdeterminism does not alter).
Besides, it sounds to me like it is still an example of going outside the basic premises of the scientific worldview. And the supposition behind superdeterminism is as unfalsifiable as the existence of God.
Remember that the conclusions of science are not about proof, but only what is reasonable to believe. At most this superdeterminism idea shows that this conclusion is not proof but if you read Bell’s objections you find that it doesn’t alter the reasonable conclusion aspect of this.
It looks like Bro. Grudem is wrong on other things besides the Trinity, Time is a succession of events. Of course, God knows time, because God created time.
Supposedly, quantum physics makes determinism impossible because it means that the output is slightly different from the input, so there is an element of chance introduced. Because we live in a finite world, there is always an element of chance involved. That is the way God created it.
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