A New Problem for Open Theists?

As many of you are well aware, perhaps my favorite theological topics are the problems of divine foreknowledge/providence and human freedom/future contingents, especially as they pertain to free will and God's status as a morally perfect being.  For those of you unfamiliar with these problems, I'm sorry, but I simply lack the time or space here to explicate them.  A good summary can be found here if you're interested.  In the interest of full disclosure, I consider myself to be a Molinist (which I've written about a little before: here), but if I were to be persuaded of its falsehood I'd default Open Theism.  I can't even imagine a world in which Calvinism, Thomism, or any other Augustinian-style view is correct, for many reasons, which I won't go through here.

Lets get to the subject of this blog post.  I've been reading through a book by Thomas Flint called, "Divine Providence: The Molinist Account".  While I was reading a section on the inadequacies of the Open view with respect to prophecy I was hit with what I think may be an original thought.  I'm as skeptical about its originality as you are, don't worry.  I tend to think that truly original thoughts are exceedingly rare and, in any case, when they do occur their occurrence is not in my brain.  That being said, I have at least never heard (nor read) the following thoughts from anyone else.  I wanted to get the thought out in the open while I still remember it and so I may be told by someone reading if (a) the thought isn't actually original or if (b) it's stupid.  And with that, let me set the table for my argument contra Open Theism.

On Open Theism, God lacks complete, definite foreknowledge of the future.  If He had it, our actions would

Even though I'm no Open Theist, I might really want this shirt

not be truly free.  Obviously it would be unjust of God to punish us for actions we had no choice but to perform, and God is just, therefore we must be free and He must lack foreknowledge.  Now, the Christian Open Theist has some work to do to square this view with scripture.  It's easy enough to square the view of free will.  D.A. Carson, for instance, lists no less than nine categories of scriptures that imply significant free will.  Those with a traditional view of providence, however, have pointed out that the Open view of providence is much more difficult to square with scripture.  God, for instance, gives prophecies about how the future will turn out.  The writers of the texts seem to think we should be impressed by this ability of God's to tell us the future.  But the Open Theist views these as more like very well-educated guesses - something I suspect is far less impressive than what the biblical writers had in mind.  I think in general the Open Theists come out behind on these arguments, but I don't find the case to be absolutely slam-dunk.  Anyway, I won't rehash all those arguments here.  I want to add my own.

This can be viewed as an offshoot of the "prophecy doesn't square with Open Theism" argument, but with a philosophical/ethical twist that I think may make it more persuasive than the straight-scripture versions mentioned above.  Here goes:

Throughout scripture, both in the Old and New Testaments, warnings are given against falsely prophesying.  Deut. 18 lists the punishment for falsely prophesying as death.  A prophecy's non-fulfillment is listed as a sign that the prophet is false (v.22).  The New Testament, too, is riddled with warnings against false teachers and prophets.  We see Paul cursing one and the false prophet subsequently being blinded.  Jesus calls them "evildoers".  I'm not going to turn this into a Bible study on false prophecy because I think the following facts will be generally accepted by all parties involved: (a) the Bible is univocal in speaking ill of false prophets; (b) prophesying about an event that does not come to pass qualifies one as a false prophet; (c) some sort of punishment of false prophets is prescribed to those who recognize the false prophet; (d) false prophecy is seen as a morally wrong action (i.e. one is sinning when one is falsely prophesying).

Ok, now back to the Open response to the issue of prophecy.  Richard Rice, in his discussion of the biblical issues surrounding Open Theism in the book, "The Openness of God," gives three ways the Openist may interpret prophecy in order to to make it compatible.  (1) "A prophecy may express God's intention to do something in the future irrespective of creaturely decision." (2) "A prophecy may...express God's knowledge that something will happen because the necessary conditions for it have been fulfilled and nothing could conceivably prevent it." (3) "A prophecy may...express what God intends to do if certain conditions obtain."  

It is prophecies of the first type above that concern me.  True, God may intend to take one action or another irrespective of creaturely decision, but what creatures will be doing, where, when, and why will all be guesswork for God when planning his future actions.  It seems to me that it would be very difficult for God to plan such things so far ahead of time if the creatures are free with respect to their actions between the time the prophecy is made and when God performs his prophesied act.  William Hasker, a renowned Open Theist himself, admits there is guesswork involved when he says that these types of prophecy are judgments based on current trends and tendencies.  In fact, many Open Theists would eschew the picture painted by Rice of a God who would NEVER give a false prophecy because they view God as a risk-taker (John Sanders even wrote a book called, "The God Who Risks") and see this as a positive trait in Him.  For there to be no possibility of false prophecy would fly in the face of the idea of a risk-taking God.

So I think the honest Open Theist will admit of at least the possibility of a divinely-generated false prophecy (in the case of a probabilistic prophecy where the probabilities don't work out).  And here's where the problem comes in.  Say God gives a person a prophecy.  One would say, certainly with the example of Jonah in mind, that the person given the prophecy has a serious moral responsibility to let the words from God be heard (lest she disobey and end up eaten by a fish).  Further suppose this prophecy was a "risk" on God's part (a prophecy of the 1st variety above - made on the basis of high probabilities, trends, and tendencies).  Perhaps this prophecy comes to pass at a 99% rate for God.  What if this time is the 1%?  Certainly God cannot condemn her for falsely prophesying, so she cannot be said to have done anything morally wrong.

However, those who heard her are commanded to pass judgment on her.  They are commanded to test what she said and declare her a false prophet if the prophecy did not come to pass.  If she lived in the BCE time period, her punishment would be death.  CE?  Who knows...people will scowl at her?  Perhaps she'll be excommunicated, depending on the church.  I suppose in some eras CE she may have been put to death as well.  At the very least she will be perceived by others as having sinned (and rightfully so, since they are commanded to test her on this).  This result, I think can be seen as an evil - something that is actually bad.  After all, she will undoubtedly feel hurt emotionally by the scowls (not to mention the possible death).  She will begin to doubt her sensitivity to the voice of God and believe that perhaps she made it up.  Her relationship with God and her church will likely suffer.  Who's to blame for this pain/evil?  The prophet?  Surely not - she did exactly as God commanded.  The church who condemned her?  Surely not - they did exactly as scripture commanded.  The only party left to blame is God.

By conceiving of prophecy in a way that would have God giving probabilistic prophecies to people who are at risk of being judged a false prophet, Open Theists have put God in a position to be blamed for evils experienced by true prophets who will inevitably be judged false in this inevitable scenario described above.  Of course, making God the "author of evil" is one of the horrors Open Theists are trying to escape by claiming His lack of foreknowledge.  I think the only escape available is for the Open Theist to claim that no probabilistic prophecies actually exist and all are of either the (2) or (3) variety above.  This, of course, will be much harder to square with scripture given how many prophecies either (a) predict so far ahead that there's no possible way all the necessary conditions could already be met, or (b) don't seem to have any conditional elements to them.

I'm interested to hear if anyone has heard an argument similar to this presented anywhere.  Do you think it's good at all?  I'm sure it could be refined quite a lot, but I'm not going to take too much time doing that.  I think the point is clear enough.  As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts!  Thanks for reading.

On Retroactive Impetratory Prayer

As I was driving today I began thinking again on a theological topic that has crossed my mind before, but that I've never actually put to much proper consideration.  When it comes to the problem of divine foreknowledge, I'm generally in the Molinist camp.  For those of you not familiar with what Molinism is, I recommend that you follow that little blue link prior to reading below.  Or you can just read on and try your best.  Or you can (as I suspect most people will choose to do) just stop reading.

Ok, so here is the question: If today I choose to pray that event E that happened yesterday would not have happened, (a) is it possible that God answer this prayer and (b) is it plausible that God would answer this prayer.  I'm calling this "Retroactive Impetratory Prayer" (hereafter, RIP).

I've come to the conclusion that (a) depends on which theological view to you hold to with regard to divine providence.  Let's start there.

Suppose I am an Open Theist approaching this question.  The Open Theist almost certainly has to answer in the negative.  On Open Theism, God does not have complete, definite foreknowledge.  He can be 99.999% certain of most things and even 100% certain of some things, but most things are probably in the "extremely well-informed guess" category rather than the "absolute certainty" category.  If this is the case, then there is no way that God could really justify answering a prayer that He doesn't know with absolute certainty will be prayed.  There's no way, then, that He actually would answer a prayer prior to its being prayed since it's still possible that the prayer won't be prayed.  This could change once all the necessary and sufficient conditions are met for a given prayer's being prayed.  Once that happens, I would think that answering the prayer prior to its instantiation would be fair game for God on Open Theism as well.

The Augustinian/Calvinist (A/C) (determinism or compatibilism, take your pick) view would also have to answer in the negative.  Strictly speaking, the past happened the way it did because God intentionally caused it to be that way in every case.  For God to answer a prayer prior to its being prayed, God would have to essentially admit that His plan was flawed to start with and then change it.  Of course, some of you A/C folks out there may disagree with my interpretation here, and if so I'd appreciate hearing about it.  One reason you may want to disagree is that this exact same reasoning can be used against the possibility of impetratory prayer of any kind on the A/C view, which is something I bet a lot of folks will want to avoid.  And, incidentally, this is yet another great reason not to hold the A/C view.  Just sayin'.

The Molinist, it seems to me, is the only one who can really entertain the possibility of RIP being able to work on any consistent basis.  First, on Molinism prayer definitely has the potential to impetrate.  That is, God's decisions in the world are definitely affected by prayer.  Second, God knows prior to the creation of the world exactly what prayers will be prayed at what time and by whom.  Third, it seems to me to be possible, if not probable, that God would be willing to take those future prayers into account when guiding events prior to the prayer.  So I think that the RIP issue is one that Molinists are (mostly) unique in having to address.  So there is my answer to (a).  (Brief aside: I'm not really sure if it's possible that a Molinist hold to a B-theory of time.  Haven't thought about it too much.  If one were to do so,  there may be some issues there as well...which I haven't bothered considering.  For now, though, I'm going to assume an A-theory of time and move on.) 

Now, if a Molinist answers affirmatively to (a), then what of (b)?  Well, I think first we need to recognize that on the Molinist account of prayer, God makes the decision of whether or not to answer a prayer prior to the creation of the world, so strictly speaking the time at which a prayer is prayed shouldn't affect His ability or willingness to answer it.  The problems really come when we conceptualize the prayer.  Say E happened yesterday and it displeased me.  Now let's say that I choose today to pray that E never happened.  Well, if I know I pray the prayer in the first place I already know that it went unanswered.  If there is but one timeline (and I think it's pretty reasonable to think this is the case, especially on the Christian worldview), it follows that events I have already experienced cannot be changed.  Those events would have never have been able to take place were my prayer answered retroactively (i.e. prior to my prayer having been prayed).  So, then, if I believe in the possibility of RIP, it follows that if I attempt a retroactive prayer I'm already guaranteed that the prayer was not answered.

But this is not the end of the issue!  Far from it.  No, no.  This is right where it gets interesting.  See, the mere fact that my praying for retroactive answers guarantees that those retroactive answers didn't happen does not mean that such prayers are completely superfluous!  God may actually answer some retroactive prayers, it's just that the believer who would have done the praying would never know it.  However, in order for there to be the possibility of such a prayer being prayed, the believer must actually get in the habit of praying such prayers.  Example:

Suppose there are two separate and unrelated events E1 & E2.  Believer B dislikes both and will pray that both did not happen in the past (these prayers will be P1 & P2, respectively).  God decides logically prior to creation whether or not he will answer either prayer.  Say God decides to answer P2 but not P1, so that E2 would not have happened, but E1 still would.  B would still have to have a mindset that may cause her to pray both P1 & P2 in order for P2 to be answered.  Likely, then, prayers of the P1 variety would still have to be prayed (even though B knows the prayers are superfluous) in order to guarantee that prayers of the P2 variety would also have been prayed (and thus not have taken place).  Otherwise there is no possibility that God know via middle knowledge that P2 would be prayed (since it would not, in fact, be prayed), and thus He would not prevent E2 from obtaining.

So the answer to (b) above would be: no. It is impossible that God answer the retroactive request you are currently praying for.  However, the Molinist can (and maybe even should) believe that such prayers may nevertheless be necessary in order for God to answer other retroactive prayers that she will never actually pray.

I really look forward to some thoughts on this from any of you theology dabblers out there!

**Update**

In a discussion I had on this last night with my roommate, I found that framing the issue in more explicitly Molinist terms was helpful.

Molinism, roughly, is the belief that God obtains His foreknowledge from the combination of three logical moments.  Moment 1: natural knowledge (knowledge of all necessary truths).  Moment 2: middle knowledge (knowledge of the truth value of all counterfactuals).  Next comes the decision to create the world.  Knowledge from moments 1 and 2 are then combined with the knowledge of which world was created, which gives God moment 3: Free knowledge (complete, definite foreknowledge of all circumstances that will obtain in the world and all free choices that will be made by creatures in those circumstances).

Consider the example I gave above in Molinist terms:

Prior to creation, God is presented with 2 counterfactuals:

C1. Given E1, B would freely choose P1.
C2. Given E2, B would freely choose P2.

Assuming both counterfactuals are true, God then weighs whether or not He plans to answer either P1 or P2 (or both) and chooses (still prior to creation) to answer P2, but not P1.

E2 now will never obtain.  B will only ever pray P1 and B will have no idea that E2 (and thus P2) was ever even a possibility.  B will certainly have no idea that God answered P2 without it ever happening.

However, the truth value of counterfactuals is determined by the free creature.  So, the truth values of both C1 and of C2 are in the hands of B.  It just so happens that God knows what B would choose given each circumstance.  So if B does not freely choose to pray retroactive prayers sometimes (already knowing that the prayer will not be answered), then it is a virtual guarantee that the truth values of both C1 and C2 would be false, causing God to not answer P2.