God CAN know the future in an open framework, but not in the exhaustively settled sense but rather in the category of possibilities and potentiality

@@IdolKiller What's the reason in that framework that God can't know a settled truth?

@@methodministries "True freedom of the will" would be the reason according to the Open Theist. If humans have true freedom, than there is at least a level of unpredictability introduced. I'm not an Open Theist, but I think that would be the answer.

@MethodMinistries God knows reality accurately. As the future doesn't exist as a settled reality, but rather of potentiality, God knows it as it is. Admitted this begs the question for OT, but the argument isn't intended to prove OT just demonstrate how God knows the future in an open framework.

@Brando not only freedom of the agent, but the fact that the agent and its actions are not neccesary or eternal. Imagine there's a possible world where you are a one-legged communist and vegetarian who married a girl from China who is also a paraplegic... that version of you doesn't exist outside the imagination... so must God eternally know him as a settled and existing agent in order to know I would conceptualize him? I argue no.

Gen 12:11-13 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” Abraham has knowledge of counterfactuals. Does this mean he has middle knowledge and knows with absolute certainty what each person would do in any given situation to the finest details? The passage you cited suggests that there were two possibilities: either they surrender or not. There are no possibilities on molinism because the future is settled.

Molinism is convoluted sophistry and ends up being deterministic in the end. See William Hacker critique.

I would say the Scriptures are clear: God knows the future.

@@methodministries OT has 2 motifs with God predestining and knowing some of the future (cf. Calvinism verses) as determinate, closed, settled. The other set of verses that EDF must make figurative (without warrant) show that other aspects of the future are indeterminate, open, unsettled. OT does not say all of the future is open, but some of it is. Calvinism says all of the future is closed, but that is only one vs two sets of biblical evidence. William Hasker, Gregory Boyd, Zimmerman, Rhoda, etc. have technically demonstrated that EDF is not logically possible with LFW. The emotional barrier is that people think denying EDF is a denial of omniscience. Creation reality is dynamic and consists of possibilities, so omniscience is dynamic and God knows this reality as it is. He is not ignorant of anything knowable. Omnipotence is qualified by the doable (cannot make rocks too heavy to lift; cannot make squared circles or married bachelors) and omniscience should be qualified by the knowable (the future is inherently not knowable if there is LFW; God does not know where Yoda actually is; He does not know that Satan is eternal).

​@@methodministries By what mechanism? Are you personally Calvinistic, Arminian, Molinist, Open Theist, or Process Thought (or some novel new idea you made up)? I think OT is the most robust, explanatory, least problematic, most biblical, most coherent option with refutations available for the other views (I will give my thought why your view may be deficient). I am a rank amateur who has studied much, a student, not a scholar like Ryan or ? you. It sounds like you are SFK/Arminian (comment below). Do you also hold to eternal now divine simultaneity to try to justify a mechanism for SFK (C. S. Lewis timeline analogy of seeing past, present, future all at once. He was wrong on this, a radio preacher, not a theologian-philosopher). The potential, anticipatory future (not yet; does not exist to know or have something ground the FK) becomes the fixed past (no longer, simply a fixed memory; no retrocausation or time travel either) through the actual present (real; A theory presentism vs B theory eternalism). ?Checkmate?

@@godrulz37 I hold to Simple Foreknowledge. It is "simple" because it need not be explained. God simply "is" omniscient. One does not need to know how. For example, how is God all powerful? We all agree that God is omnipotent. Yet, there is no mechanism that can explain this. Human ignorance isn't an argument for objective fact, and that's what we are talking about: God is omniscient.

@@methodministries Need not be explained? It is the glory of a king to search out a matter. The skeptics or thinkers will not be happy with that. This is like saying God is sovereign. Well, is that meticulous control? Is He still God if it was providential control (Calvinists might say no). OT is a more biblical, coherent model than SFK, IMHO. You had a debate about Molinism and we are supposed to go fideistic and default to SFK without explanation or possible mechanism? God is omnipotent and we can say things about that. Process Thought denies a robust view of it and we should challenge that. We should also qualify it with the doable. If EDF is impossible with LFW, then your view needs to challenge that. God is God. Well, is He Allah or the trinity?

Yes, he did affirm it. But he wasn't a Molinist. Maybe he would have went there, but he passed away before that could have happened...at least what we know of.

@methodminisrty um why is our friend here nails painted?

@@thebark_barx6231 You'll have to ask him!

@@thebark_barx6231 Metal scene music, not gender issues.

@@godrulz37 ok, interesting. Thanks for informing me.

Because he is a goth philosopher lol

@@brando3342 It is not a gay/transgender issue, but metal scene. God sees the heart. His wife must be OK with it. I am not a fan except on females, but he is godly and brilliant, so...

Metal head is why.

@@smax1500 his cat is cool. In one of his videos it was up on his shoulders showing the world his family jewels.

Did the knowing in His mind include the events surrounding us that produce these counterfactuals? For example, what car Lucas Curcio will buy?

@@methodministries Of course. Before He created the Heavens and the Earth, God possessed perfect knowledge of every Possible World, down to the very last detail. And that includes every possible person He could create, and what kind of car they would buy under any possible set of circumstances. And with this perfect Knowledge of all Possible Worlds, He chose to create _this_ World, so as to bring about the Salvation of all those who would freely choose to believe in His Son, and trust Him for their Salvation. That they may know Him, and be known by Him, and partake of everlasting life that is true relationship with Him.

@@beowulf.reborn Gotcha. Thanks for explaining. How would you respond to the truth maker theory, or do you hold to that or disagree with that?

@@methodministries I don't really worry myself with "truthmakers" all that much. That being said, I find that God _is_ the ground of all truth. A statement like, "If God wanted to, He could extinguish every star." Is true, by virtue of God's *Omnipotence.* Likewise, a statement such as, "If God were to create a creature endowed with libertarian free will, He would know what that creature would freely choose to do in any possible set of circumstances that it could find itself in." Is true, by virtue of God's *Omniscience.* All truth is _ultimately_ "grounded" in God, who _is_ the Truth.

@@beowulf.reborn Are you a Molinist?

I would add, that I agree with Ryan in that I do not like the use of "Timeless" in describing God, because it conjures an image of being frozen static in time (which is ironic, because how can you be frozen in time if there is no time?). I simply reject the usage of the term "Temporal" as well. Rather, I think we should just use the language of Scripture. God is Eternal. And then let the Bible define what this Eternal nature of God looks like. And as I hope I've shown, God in His Eternal Nature, exists before Time, He is simultaneously the Beginning and End of Time, Time itself "hold[s] together" in Him. To God the eons are but moments, and moments last for eons, and even a thousand years are already past like yesterday to God. EDIT: Also, I want to object strongly to Ryan's interpretation of Revelation 4:8, as saying that God had a past, is present, and has a future, and is therefore temporal like us. Rather, all that Rev 4:8 is saying, is that as far back as you can go in the past, God is. And as far as you can go in the future, God is. And right here, right now, God is. He was, He is, He is to come. He always has been, and He always will be. It's not saying He's a temporal Being, bound by time, like we are (otherwise the same could be said of any of us, we were, we are, and we are to come... in some very limited temporal sense... but this is not at all what the Scripture means, when referring to God).

What Ryan seems to be getting at is time is a B-theory, so God experiences the present. He also believes time is an attribute of God. His recent talk with William Lane Craig helps clarify. I don’t hold to this, I’m just trying to articulate his position.

@@methodministries I think Ryan is A/presentism? He said a Molinist could be A or B?

A day like 1000 years is a simile figure of speech. God who has endless years (Ps.) would perceive a 1000 years as a drop in the everlasting bucket, but for us, it is countless life times. The context is the supposed slowness of the promised Second Coming, NOT a metaphysical statement on time vs eternity?! The potential, anticipatory, not yet future (known as possible vs actual) becomes the fixed past (memory; no longer exists; cannot travel to past or future) through the actual present (A presentism vs B eternalism theory is biblical, coherent leading to Open Theism and denial of EDF with LFW....time is unidirectional). I agree with Ryan that the Bible does not teach timelessness. That is Platonic/neo-Platonic adopted by syncretistic Augustine, Aquinas (Aristotle), Boethius, etc. I like Nicholas Wolterstorff's unqualified divine temporality with William Lane Craig's timeless sans creation and temporal post-creation as half right (the latter half). Rev. 1:4; 4:8 is a temporal statement, not a timeless one. Genesis is not the creation of time, but the creation of unique measures of time (sun, moon, stars, clocks). Ryan distinguished watchmaker from time maker (new book coming out). I AM is a title of eternality. Alpha and Omega is uncreated with no beginning and no end, not a lack of duration (time is a philosophical concept of duration, succession, sequence). Eternal is everlasting time (Hebraic view), not timeless (Greek pagan view from Plato to avoid change from perfection for better or worse....clocks that do not change are only right twice a day; a human growing or the incarnation of Christ are profound changes that are perfection vs imperfection).

@@godrulz37 "A day like 1000 years is a simile figure of speech. God who has endless years (Ps.) would perceive a 1000 years as a drop in the everlasting bucket, but for us, it is countless life times. The context is the supposed slowness of the promised Second Coming, NOT a metaphysical statement on time vs eternity?!" In Peter's Epistle "A day is like a thousand years" is only one of the ways that God is shown to relate to time. The reverse is also said to be true of God, that a day is like a thousand years. So on one hand a thousand years can zoom by for God like it's a mere day, but on the other hand a day can slow down so as to seem like it lasts a thousand years. And in both these cases a thousand years simply means a very long period of time. It would be equally true to say a day is like 10,000 years, or even a million years. The point being not just that long periods of time are perceived as a blink of the eye to God, but that itself completely relative to Him. He has complete control over it. And then we get this very interesting variation of the phrase "A day is like a thousand years," in the Psalms, where Moses tells us that, "a thousand years in [God's] sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night." Showing that not only can a thousand years seem to speed up, or pass by, as if it's a mere day, but God can perceive the future as if it is already the past.