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You've reached the shared blog of Michael Mckay and Todd Frederick. Two friends who have worked together in ministry and labored in similar educational endeavors. Please join us as we consider the interaction of Christianity with modern culture...

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Did God Learn Something?

Troubling verses are the biblical scholar's bread and butter. And it is amazing to me how a single verse or even a single word in the verse can be used (or maybe exploited) in opening up whole new vistas in thinking.

Here is one that I have been chewing on for the last few years: Genesis 22:12. Here is the scene: Abraham is obeying God on Mt. Moriah and offering up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. God tells Abraham to stop and provides a substitute ram. God comments on Abraham's obedience by saying, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God..." What?!? Now God knows that Abraham fears? This little, normal, common, everyday word, "now", causes the reader to pause and ask a question: did God learn something that day?

So how should we understand this verse? If God learned something that day, then we need to factor that into our traditional theologies which state that God is omniscient. This also impacts our views on whether God is "in" time or "outside" of time. It also impacts our views on whether God has direct, causal control over every detail in the universe. Here are three options for understanding this verse that I have considered.
1) One Option - Perhaps God did learn something that day and we should reevaluate our theologies on God's foreknowledge (as Open Theists do), God's sovereignty versus human free will, and also God's relationship with time. This has enormous ramifications.
2) Another Option - Perhaps God is using anthropomorphic language. In other words, God is communicating using human colloquialisms, and we should not read more into the word "now" then is needed. This opinion glosses over the word "now" and basically begs the reader to ignore it.
3) Another Option - Perhaps there is some literary purpose behind God/Moses inserting the word "now" in this place. Maybe if we were to read the preceding Abrahamic narratives and the remaining Abrahamic narratives, we would see that this word "now" functions to link segments together or to provide some rhetorical element. Perhaps someone who has spent some time in Hebrew narrative could shed some light on this (Coney, this is your open door :) )

I am a firm believer in hearing the voice(s) of the community of believers in regards to understanding a verse. So here is the question for readers of this blog: In what ways can this verse be legitimately understood? You are welcome to give your view and defend it, but I am also looking for legitimate options to understanding this verse. I have listed three ways to understand this verse above. Feel free to beat up on them or tweak them. I should also point out that in the Hebrew there is nothing fishy going on here. The word for "know" and "now" are common words that any first year Hebrew student would "know" "now" (sorry for the terrible word play).

35 comments:

  1. Here's a quote from a Hebrew scholar with little elaboration, but at least maybe a different option...

    "Then in verse 12, Abraham received some new instructions regarding the sparing of Isaac: Lay not your hand upon the lad, neither do you anything unto him. Then God gave the reason: For now I know that you fear God. God already knew this, but now it is known by experience. The evidence was: seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. Therefore, Abraham’s faith has been vindicated by his works; his act of faith was the evidence of salvation he was already declared to have had in 15:6. This same point is made in James 2:22-24." -Arnold Fruchtenbaum, newer +700 page commentary on Genesis ($9 PDF ariel.org, over)

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  2. Hey Tom, Thanks for bringing Dr. Fruchtenbaum into the discussion. I enjoy reading what he puts together. Here though, it seems as if the good Dr. is falling into option #2, "gloss over the word". Notice the internal contradiction in his quote, "Then God gave the reason: For now I know that you fear God. God already knew this..." One half of the sentence states the Scripture that God now knows and the other flatly denies it, "God already knew." Not good IMO.
    Even if I grant Fruchtenbaum's claim that God's new knowledge is not knowledge but experience, it still creates a similar problem: Did God experience something new? Normally a traditional theology states that God experiences time all at once and not linearly, so how can God experience something new?
    Furthermore, Fruchtenbaum introduces a red herring. Does Abraham's works validating his faith (supposedly James 2) really have anything to do with whether or not God learned something new on that day? It seems like a distraction from the issue more than a help.
    Just some thoughts...

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  3. I studied Open Theism for a long time (I think I even asked you Michael if you knew of any good literature on the topic).

    Although I agree with a lot of what Open Theists teach and how they interpret these difficult passages it was hard for me to buy into the theology as a whole. Possibly because it is such a relatively new area of theology and as such it isn't well formed yet.

    Also I found that if you discuss this topic openly (no pun intended) with evangelicals you get labeled as a heretic very quickly; almost as quickly as if you admit that you don't believe in a Pre-trib rapture...which I know all about first hand :)

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  4. You make good points about the Frucht's statements. I was surprised at how little elaboration was given considering it is a commentary. Overall, it is a good commentary, though.

    We'll have to see who else can weigh in. I'm no Hebrew scholar.

    (P.S. I almost didn't include the James 2 portion of the quote, but I did just for you)

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  6. This post is from Chris Fennell:

    Tom's quote from Fruchtenbaum is a good response to your question. The "now" may refer to experiential knowledge but i'm afraid if i agree with it i will open a door i am not willing to open. God knowing something through experience implies that he as gained knowledge and in doing so I believe it limits His omniscience. Open Theist's posit that God's interaction with us allow for him to not know everything because our interactions/petitions can influence his response. Now I don't really consider myself a theologian in the academic sense because i am not up to speed on the current discussions of open theism nor am i familiar with authorities on the issue but i would think that limiting God's knowledge just so we can attempt to understand God is a scary place to be. (Just to be clear. I am not saying that Fruchtenbaum is an open theist). I believe God's knowledge to be immense and in some sense unknowable other than what He has told us through scripture. So now that i have explained what i think it is not i will attempt to explain what i think it is.

    Out of the options given i obviously reject the first. The third option seems appealing but the second is where i would have to land. My reasoning is that Narrative genre is difficult for us to understand because our culture is so specific on taking things literally. Every person who has studied a different language will tell you the challenges in translating things literally. Since i am unfamiliar with hebrew i can offer little of an opinion and only operate under assumption that "now" is referring to the definition of "as matters stand or under the present circumstances" ie "I see now what you meant". So if we were to look at the verse with this definition: He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for under the present circumstances I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." We still get the impression that God learned something but i believe it shows that even though God knew Abraham would not kill his son He related to us in language that we would understand. To illustrate let me break down the following into sections: Understanding --> Action --> Event --> Understanding.

    Understanding - God knew already that Abraham wouldnt kill Issac
    Action - Abraham about to kill Issac
    Event - God Intervenes and stops Abraham.
    Understanding - God knew already that Abraham wouldnt kill Issac

    THe "now" is more in reference to the present time and not the inference of a changed mind. The Understanding that Abraham would not kill his son existed before and after the event. God stating that "now i know you fear God" is not infering that Abraham did not fear God before but rather that the post-event understanding is proven. I know this might seem a bit of a stretch as i am sure there could be logical inconsistencies but this is how i have rationalized this issue so as to keep my understanding of God's omniscience intact.

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  7. I think the question behind the question of God's knowledge may be more important: how is God sovereign? Very few argue that God has no control over His creation. Many debate about the meticulous sovereignty of God and whether or not it allows human freedom and whether or not that freedom is compatible or incompatible with sovereignty.
    The debate gets (ponderously) more detailed. I think the open theist asks good questions about how God is sovereign. Worth thinking about for the next several years before my untimely demise and I learn the answer. If there is one.

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  8. Here's my two cents. FIrst of all, I don't have a lot to say about the narrative features here, except that there are parallels between this story and 21:17, where the Angel intervenes to help Hagar and Ishmael. In both cases, (as Robert Alter points out), Abe's son is threatened with death in the wilderness in the presence of a parent, the angel speaks at the critical moment, refers to the son as "lad" (a term of fondness). Abe is told to not "reach out his hand..." and Hagar is told to "hold her hand." In each case the son is saved and promised a great posterity.

    However, I don't see how this is germane to the point at hand.

    I will have to conclude, until I am persuaded otherwise, that God is experiencing something new. I reject the idea that God exists completely outside of time, that he doesn't experience succession of events. He certainly knows the future and all contingencies, but this does not mean that he has experienced all things. Jesus "learned obedience" (Heb. 5:8). I sometimes hear that this is just speaking of Jesus' human nature, however this idea violates the injunction that we are not to separate the person of Christ - what can be said of Christ can be said of God and can be said of man. God learned obedience.

    God certainly knew what Abraham would do. However, he wanted to experience it. He also wanted Abe to experience it and for all of us to hear of it, and probably had a host of other reasons for asking this of Abraham.

    God wants to experience new things. This means that there are states that he wants to exist and events that he wants to happen which do not now exist and have not yet happened. God wants to experience more worship than he currently has. He wants the angels to glorify him more than they do now. He wants a redeemed and perfect humanity to worship him.

    God, being omnipotent, could certainly create these states out of nothing, however, he does not do so. He chooses to use intermediary means to achieve them. This means that he not only wishes to have these states exist, but that he wants to use processes to achieve them. He prefers to use a succession of causes rather than creating ex nihilo. From this I conclude that he enjoys to experience new things. We are made in his image, after all, and that's how we like things (excepting our lazy desire to simply wave a wand to avoid work).

    This should motivate us to please him by more devotion, obedience and intimacy. God doesn't live outside of time. He isn't still enjoying that great devotional time that you had three years ago, although he probably remembers it with fondness.

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  9. Stephen, I am glad you had some time to post. I guess the narrative solution (#3) doesn't have a lot to contribute. I also agree that Scripture seems to portray God as being "in" time. So unless God is sandbagging on us because of our inability to conceptualize that part of Him (and he may be doing just that), we are limited by what He has revealed concerning himself and time.

    Personally, I lean to option #1 above, although I am not ready to commit to Open Theism as a system. Perhaps what Dennis said is motivating me as well. There seems to be a lot of "heretic" labeling that goes on without substantial dialogue. I am ready to reevaluate God's relationship with time and knowledge. I do believe that some of Greek philosophy has crept into our systematic theologies from Plato and Aristotle. I know some think that this card gets overplayed, but in this case Plato's concept of the forms is that they are unchanging, immutable, perfect (not a moral designation) and completely cut off from the world of the senses. It seems that often God is discussed in these same terms and yet we sprinkle on a little, "God loves you and wants to have a relationship with you", which helps us bring two contrary options together. Just to be clear, the contrary options are 1) God is unchanging and unable to be changed, and 2) God wants to have a real relationship with his creation. Relationships involve interaction, dialogue, emotion and are usually messy. It is almost like saying we can have a relationship with a rock.

    Anyway, it seems to me that God learned something about Abraham in Genesis 22. Or perhaps we can say one of the options that God new could happen were confirmed by Abraham's response. I do believe that God knows all possibilities and yet do those possibilities really exist until someone chooses one or the other? Or do they just remain part of God's grand imagination/creativity/thinking?

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  10. In my opinion, this is much more than mere "editorial error". Mike, you are right to delineate between "now" and "know". God "now knowing" something, or having "come to know" something can be troubling, sure, especially if your a hard-core Calvinist or literalist, but what about viewing it as a narrative/story [i.e. narrative theology] (i.e. "this movie is based upon true events" ect ect), rather than a literal history book of sorts, albeit all while trusting that the events could have actually happened still. Also, this must've been a "retelling" passed down from generation to generation (i.e. oral tradition), and subject to the writers pen/understanding as is the case with all written material. This is much easier to grasp if you don't hold the bible as literally God penned, yet still "Spirit influenced" of course. If a "literal penning" was case, then good luck on dealing with the other thousands of instances where issues like this arise in throughout the scriptures. Need proof, simply do a word study/comparison study on the encompassing word "all" in both the OT and NT and you'd be amazed at the issues you'd unearth. Needless to say, I would contend that God is the point of reference (or direct object marker) here in the Hebrew language, and not Abraham. So, yes, the text states that "...now God knows" as if to imply that God did not know. There are several similar instances with Jesus as coming across oblivious (cp. Mk. 5:30; 13:32, and Mtt.8:10/Lk7:9). These are all troubling paradoxes indeed, especially if one holds that God is "all knowing" and that Jesus was God. Wow, this is a lot to digest. Lastly, I would hold that genre may be telling here (i.e. maybe its meant to be read as a myth, epic, tragedy, comedy, etc), and that maybe the texts author was "projecting" his human experience and/or understanding into the narrative, hence God seen as having certain limitation, while being supposedly "limitless" in other texts. It is all so fascinating.

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  11. @ Mike: "I do believe that some of Greek philosophy has crept into our systematic theologies from Plato and Aristotle." I could not agree more!

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  12. One last thing. The last lengthy post was not directed at any person, I am simply thinking to myself aloud. This was a really good thought provoking blog entry Mike. Thank you!

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  13. Heretic. God is impassible. This is the cornerstone of theology.

    ;)

    That's the first emoticon I've ever typed.

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  14. Here are some articles related to the question. You'll have to register in order to read them, but they are interesting.
    http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=scholarly_articles_divine_eternity

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  15. Michael,
    Great question you bring up in this post. I'm intrigued that you lean toward #1 and some sort of quasi-Open Theism.
    For this passage, I have to say I throw my hat in with Stephen, even with his severe lack of emoticon usage in the modern age.
    I believe that there is a substantial difference between different types of "knowing" (e.g. Moses used the word "know" in reference to Adam and Eve while clearly not referring to their thought life), and presumably "experiential" knowledge is something that God could only "learn" if it is there in reality to experience. As Coney pointed out, He may know all contingencies, but most certainly He does not experience all contingencies. If He does not experience all contingencies, then He experiences our reality; if He only experiences what indeed happens in our reality, then if something doesn't happen God would not "know" it "experientially".
    Whether He experiences our reality all at once or not is rather a distraction (though a tempting one, I admit) from solving the problem. He couldn't have experienced Abraham's sacrifice in His "instant" experience of "entire history" if Abraham wasn't going to sacrifice his son, so this issue really just pushes the problem back to whenever God experiences our reality -- but whether He experienced everything "long ago" (to us), or is currently experiencing it alongside us (which I seriously doubt), it makes no difference. And I'm almost sure that He wasn't trying to comment on that with this passage. :)
    In answer to your questions to Tom's response:
    ("Did God experience something new? Normally a traditional theology states that God experiences time all at once and not linearly, so how can God experience something new?")
    Yes, God experienced something new (again, "when" He experienced something new is a distraction from the present question, not a problem with it). In our human space-time, God didn't experience Abraham's sacrifice before Abraham sacrificed. He couldn't, for there would be nothing to experience (there would only be foreknowledge, which is presumably different). That allows #2 to be a better option, no?
    Again, great question on a great topic.

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  16. @ Anonymous: Glad you have enjoyed the post and thanks for interacting. You have definitely uncovered an assumption of mine by presenting a fourth option. I am viewing the passage as being divinely inspired not only in broad themes but also in individual words. I am not quite sure how you are defining "Spirit influenced" and "literally God penned" to know which category you might consider my opinion. I don't see a necessary dichotomy between God inspiring every word and authors having creative choice in syntax and semantics. The attempt at genre study and narrative theology was what option 3 was all about. IMO sub-narrative categories like myth, legend, and epic may be anachronistic to the original Hebrew's way of writing historiography. Anyway, I don't see how these categories or narrative theology generally provides much help here (If I have missed something, feel free to point it out).

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  17. Thanks for your kind considerations Mike:

    "Spirit influenced" as much as the Spirit influences you and I on a daily basis. (cp. If I wrote you a letter of encouragement "in the Spirit") Also, "God penned" as having to do with those who hold to a "literal sort of dictate (God through the writers hand, despite the writer [i.e. God supposedly talked through a donkey that didn't know english after all]) verses an influencing personal diction of sorts (option2?)". I can explain unpack this further if need be.

    Personally, I like Options 2 & 3 (i.e. the narrative approach), or at least lean more toward 2, but I still struggle, in that, there are plenty other verses that support an all-knowing, and "impassable" (thnkx Coney) God. This would seemingly contradict Option1, but then again, this passage in Genesis (along with my aforementioned plugs concerning Christ's "knowing") would support this option. SO, what are we left with? All three? Both/and?

    Also, what did you mean, by a "fourth way"?

    Lastly, plz disregard my quip "i.e. narrative theology" ~ it was a brain fart, I simply meant to agree that there may be ways, narrative wise, to manage understanding the text, and I am aware that "narrative theology" is something entirely different. I was tired when I wrote this last night.

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  18. Not being a Hebrew scholar, I'm not sure how qualified I am to make the statement I'm about to make but as I continue to teach through the OT I notice that often the writer will "invite the reader" to see something that one of the characters is seeing (this often gets translated as "lo" or "behold" in our translations). It seems to be a literary way of "putting us in the shoes" of the people in the story. The example I'm think of specifically is when pharaohs daughter goes to the river to bathe and "behold!" there was baby Moses.

    If you lean toward option #2 this could possibly be what is going on in Genesis 22. We are being invited to view the situation from God's vantage point. If that is the case than this would be the only way Moses could write the narrative and have it make sense.

    I am personally under the assumption that God does experience things in time right along with us; as was said earlier, God is not still experiencing our devotional time from 3 years ago. If God really did experience all things at the same time then it would get confusing when you understand that Jesus and the Father are one but also, at the same time, God is continually experiencing rejecting Jesus as he dies on the cross.

    It's only reasonable to assume that God does experience and "learn" new things. How this plays into God's omniscience is anyone's guess; which would explain why Moses was limited in his vocabulary to explain how God could "now know" something.

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  19. @Schaffner: Glad you could join as well. I thought my post was throwing my opinion alongside Coney's as well (although I see I never stated that :)). Perhaps you see a distinction between option one and Coney's view that I am not aware of? I believe God sees all contingencies, but I wonder how sure we can be that he knows exactly which contingency I will choose (that may be different from Coney's opinion). Are all contingencies metaphysical realities? In other words, just because God knows all the possible/potential options does that make them really real? If they are not really real then they only exist as imaginations in God's mind and not as parallel dimensions (sorry to go all sci-fi on everyone). For the record I lean to the opinion that God knows all contingencies including the one we will choose, but I do have questions about that.
    I also think the "God in time" question is much more important than a distraction. The verse says "now" which is a time word that we have to wrestle with.
    One last thought. What does experiential knowledge mean? For Adam and Eve the word "know" is a euphemism for sexual relationship. So the word YaDaH can mean knowledge or be figurative for sexual intercourse. I don't know if this allows us to open up the semantic range to "experience". I need more argument to see a benefit from distinguishing "experiential" knowledge from other knowledge. Especially if you take the "God is outside of time view", then you can never have God experiencing anything new because He is always experiencing it. Perhaps you could clarify. For the record, I think that there is a difference between having the knowledge of how to ride a bike and experiencing the actual riding of the bike. I just want help clarifying the difference and I question whether the difference is found in different types of "knowing".

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  20. Michael,
    My what twisted webs we weave when we're weaving over the "Web"...a blog is certainly a difficult medium to ensure everyone is understanding each other, much less themselves. :)
    We both left important statements out, as it happens: looking back at my post, I should have stated that I hold to both your options #1 and #2. My answer was crafted so as to encourage "glossing over" the word "now", as #2 suggests, even though I think that God did experience something new, as #1 suggests. I thought Coney's reply nicely did both. I think it's rather unremarkable that God states that "now I know...", akin to Him saying after He created everything, "now I know creation is good". Would He have said it before He created everything? Doubtful.
    Can we perhaps agree that "knowledge" and "experience" are just information in different forms (imagination vs sensory data/memory)? If we can, then let me state the following:
    We all agree, I believe, that His act of creation was intended to allow Him to experience something new, as Coney states; and so I don't see a problem with Him ever saying He "knows" or experiences something He did not previously. He created so that He would receive new information in some form. The problem, then, that you seem to be holding out to us is the problem of "when" He received the new information, the problem of the "previously" in the "something He did not previously." Your original post phrased it so as to disguise it in the question of "did God learn something new", but from the conversation so far I believe we all agree that He did indeed at some point receive new information in some form. The question you seem to be wanting to ask, then, is "[When] did God learn something new?" (or possibly/relatedly, "[How] did He learn...") Both of those seem to me to be different questions altogether than your original post.
    Am I a ways off track? :)
    (And just so I'm not accused of not responding to specific points of yours:
    Through prophecy, God seems quite confident of some contingencies that people (individuals and large groups of people) will choose, no? Perhaps you have specific passages in mind debunking that idea? And I can't have contingencies as metaphysical realities. If they are then there are a few different versions of me I'd like to meet.
    Also, "know" could have been a euphemism for sexual relationship because "know" could mean "experience/be intimate", couldn't it? We could say that in a sense God was more intimately involved with the experience of Abraham sacrificing his son because it actually happened. I'm just brainstorming here.
    As a side note, I would be extremely hesitant to make deductions resulting from having "God outside time" view. What "outside time" even means is tricky, let alone defining how a being there would relate to our space-time. I will say that I see no need to limit God to "either inside time or outside time", or to ignore the fact that He could probably be both or even solely outside time except when He chooses to experience it inside. Any argument seems woefully inadequate in that realm.)

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  21. Michael,
    My what twisted webs we weave when we're weaving over the "Web"...a blog is certainly a difficult medium to ensure everyone is understanding each other, much less themselves. :)
    We both left important statements out, as it happens: looking back at my post, I should have stated that your options 1 and 2 are the same to me. My answer was crafted so as to encourage "glossing over" the word "now", as #2 suggests, even though I think that God did experience something new, as #1 suggests. I thought Coney's reply nicely did both. I think it's rather unremarkable that God states that "now I know...", akin to Him saying after He created everything, "now I know creation is good". Would He have said it before He created everything? Doubtful.
    Can we perhaps agree that "knowledge" and "experience" are just information in different forms (imagination vs sensory data/memory)? If we can, then let me state the following:
    We all agree, I believe, that His act of creation was intended to allow Him to experience something new, as Coney states; and so I don't see a problem with Him ever saying He "knows" or experiences something He did not previously. He created so that He would receive new information in some form. The problem, then, that you seem to be holding out to us is the problem of "when" He received the new information, the problem of the "previously" in the "something He did not previously." Your original post phrased it so as to disguise it in the question of "did God learn something new", but from the conversation so far I believe we all agree that He did indeed at some point receive new information in some form. The question you seem to be wanting to ask, then, is "[When] did God learn something new?" (or possibly/relatedly, "[How] did He learn...") Both of those seem to me to be different questions altogether than your original post.
    Am I a ways off track yet? :)

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  22. (And just so I'm not accused of not responding to specific points of yours:
    Through prophecy, God seems quite confident of some contingencies that people (individuals and large groups of people) will choose, and I can't recall any evidence to the contrary; as a result, I have to suggest He indeed knows exactly which contingencies will happen. Perhaps you have specific passages in mind debunking that idea? And I'm quite sure I cannot sign on to contingencies as metaphysical realities. I can't really actively disagree either, except to say that if they are then there are a few different versions of me I'd like to meet.
    Also, "know" could have been a euphemism for sexual relationship because "know" could mean "experience/be intimate", couldn't it? We could say that in a sense God was more intimately involved with the experience of Abraham sacrificing his son because it actually happened. I'm just brainstorming here.
    As a side note, I would be extremely hesitant to make deductions resulting from having "God outside time" view. What "outside time" even means is tricky, let alone defining how a being there would relate to our space-time. I will say that I see no need to limit God to "either inside time or outside time", or to ignore the fact that He could probably be both or even solely outside time except when He chooses to experience it inside. Any argument seems woefully inadequate in that realm.)

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  23. Dear me. Not sure what happened there, Google told me the original post was too large. Many apologies.

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  24. @Anonymous: Thanks for the clarification of the inspiration views. By "fourth way" I meant that it appeared you had found a fourth understanding of the passage from my previous three, but I may have misunderstood.

    @Dennis: I do think that all the biblical authors (Moses in this case) are limited by the confines of human language to describe the activity and majesty of God. This is a good point you bring up and worth keeping in mind in the discussion.

    @Schaffner: Thanks for the further thoughts/arguments. Although the blogoshpere is dangerous for miscommunication, it is helping me think through how I communicate via writing. Your observations about the questions which the post is asking are correct. I personally don't see the distinction between "did God learn something new" and "when did God learn something new." They both seemed tied together, hence my focus on the word "now" in the biblical text. The "how" question is not one I had in mind, but is helpful as well. I can see where it is helpful to separate these out for clearer communication. I think we probably have similar views on this topic. As I read you post there is much that I agree with. I tend to see the time issue as important (whereas it seems you don't). I also wonder how helpful it is for God to see all possible contingencies and yet know the one which will be picked. This makes the other contingencies worthless because there was no way they were going to happen. I still agree with you, but I feel tension with my beliefs :)

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  25. @Schaffner: One further point on biblical prophecy. It is possible to read all biblical prophecy as contingent on human obedience/disobedience. A classic example is Jonah. God's message was that Nineveh would be destroyed, but the Ninevites changed their tune and God changed his mind. It seems the prophetic word was conditional although not communicated that way. God's explanation for this type of behavior from him is found in Jer 18:1-12. God says he operates in a conditional manner. An excellent article on unstated conditional prophecy is in the most recent Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society by Robert Chisholm, "When Prophecy Appears to fail, Check Your Hermeneutic." Just for thought.

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  26. Love the food for thought, Michael. Thanks for bringing up the conditional nature of prophecy; I will definitely have to chew on that some more.
    In response to, "This makes the other contingencies worthless because there was no way they were going to happen," I relate wholeheartedly to your conclusion (held to it for many years), but I think it's an invalid one. Every contingency could've happened at some point, else it is not a contingency and we're contradicting ourselves. In my view, foreknowledge is only a description of a "real" event, almost exactly akin to human knowledge of past events. If we roll a die and a 3 pops up, then we don't say, "Ah, nothing else could've been rolled." We don't say that the 3 had a 100% chance of being rolled. (Even if you knew ahead of time that the 3 would be rolled, it wouldn't make the other numbers worthless. At some point the 3 had to be rolled, else you wouldn't have the foreknowledge that the 3 was going to be rolled. Unless you're using a loaded die that always lands on 3, of course.)
    Do you see foreknowledge differently than that?

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  27. This is just an explanatory note on my view of the "time issue":
    I suppose I see "the time issue" as a little more complicated than I am comfortable with while dealing in the realm of pure reasoning. (It is difficult enough to describe different rates of the passage of time in the physical world, say between the space station and sea-level clocks. And that's with formal mathematical relationships already defined, with real measurable results in hand.)
    I have no idea what people mean when they say "inside time" or "outside time", although those are certainly popular phrases for pastors and Christian leaders to throw around. There are way too many unanswered questions in that realm for my liking. (By too many, I mean virtually infinite questions. Mankind knows almost nothing about time -- theologians, philosophers, and scientists alike.)
    Do I think that "the time issue" is important? Not really, but only because I see answering it as a hopeless endeavor. It's my way of cutting my losses and moving on to other questions. :)

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  28. @Mike:

    I said in an earlier post: "..."this movie is based upon true events" ect ect, rather than a literal history book of sorts, albeit all while trusting that the events could have actually happened still."

    Maybe that is the "Fourth Option" that we were talking about/getting at. Maybe it would involve viewing it as an "Oral Epic w/historical significance" (like that of C3P0 telling the Ewoks, while sitting around the campfire, about the"epic battle going down in space" in The Return of the Jedi, or Non-fiction literature "based upon true events", or Bedouin's recalling their very real ancestral past while highlighting those key events that were worth telling/reminding, and there is also the example of African American oral traditions.)

    So maybe this could've been the fourth option, or a hybrid of the second. In reading it this way God becomes "like human", tangible, approachable, apart of the Jews/our narrative, and in turn allows for us the opportunity to identify with the One in who's image we had been created. Lastly, "God now knowing" could've easily been a human adaptation for appropriations sake, all while pointing to a God that is "beyond comprehension", a God who invites us around campfires.

    This option best fits me, I suppose, but I still would say that it mostly mirrors your "Option #2". I would only add that the reader doesn't have to ignore God as "now knowing", but rather, embrace a God who is "ever present" and "personal", this reading of the text also fits nicely with the Christ narrative also.

    Again, I am still merely thinking aloud. Thanks for the continued conversation.

    ~ anonymous lives in NC, hint hint ;v) ~

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  29. @Anonymous: I told Lee-Ann when you first posted that I think I know who it is. Thanks for the clue to confirm it. :) Your secret is safe with me.

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  30. Thanks for the article on prophecy Michael. Prophecy is one of my favorite topics in the bible and as such this question of apparently failed prophecy is very intriguing to me. I'm perusing the article on my lunch break :)

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  31. Greetings all,
    I'm late to the party, finals week and all that but I do have some thoughts to share:
    The discussion as I see it has become more about systematic theology and less about the text, with the opinions of the various contributors representing old theological friends.

    The stock Calvinist response, wherein God has meticulous sovereignty and causal foreknowledge must interpret this text with either an appeal to anthropomorphic language or a distinction between 'knowing' and 'experiencing.' Option 2 and perhaps option 3.

    The non-Calvinist either opens or closes the door to Open Theism. An open response asks the question as to whether or not God learned something. Option 1. Closing the door requires an appeal to use of language as above.
    Anonymous, as McKay mentions above has to deal with the issue of inspiration and inerrancy. (How are things in the Forest, by the way? It's a guess, let the reader understand.)

    The battle between competing systematic theologies dies a slow, agonizing death by attrition with no clear winner. The solution in my humble opinion has to come from Biblical Theology, wherein the question remains open: "What exactly does it mean that God knows NOW?" And the text, as it stands in Genesis informs the interpreter first about what is happening in Genesis, and then contributes to the theology of God's knowledge.

    What if we started with: I don't know what 'now I know' means. How can I find out? (I started writing some steps, but that's boring.) This opens the door to the discussion of the text, not a comparison of systematic theology.

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  32. Well said, Todd. I believe you've touched on the fundamental problem here: the problem of the meaning of time, especially as it applies to God.
    Kudos, and I certainly hope finals went well for you.

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  33. @Todd: The Forest is alive and well. Sometimes it can get crazy. Lot's of critters reside here. Some intelligible; some not so much. At the moment, I am buried in winter studies unfortunately/fortunately. Have a blessed and wonderful Christmas (you too McKay) ~Cheers Metachoi~

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  34. I really enjoyed this! Thanks to all the contributors...I'm still chewing...Todd I'd be interested in seeing your "boring steps" as I'm sure they would help this layman pursue such questions from a Biblical Theology perspective.

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  35. Man, lots of comments, most of which I still have yet to read. My first-run interpretation of this verse treats it as rather un-controversial- the point is simply that Abraham has proven his fear of God. My initial impression is that maybe the whole thing is more about Abraham learning something than God. But I suppose this does have (secondary) systematic theological ramifications. Whatever it means for our systematic theology, it seems difficult to get around the idea that God does "experience" things. At the very least, that is consistently the way God's interactions with the world are described. Whether that is simply due to the limitations of human language and understanding remains a mystery.

    As for Greek philosophy: there is certainly cause for concern, though it is the ideas, not their origin, that is of utmost importance. So it seems we should spend more time talking about what is a correct philosophy, than pointing fingers at Plato, et al (not saying anyone here is doing this). Plato certainly got some things right and some things wrong, but in neither case are they "his" ideas. Finally, we should accept that the New Testament clearly shows continuity in some points with "Greek thought," in ways that the OT does not. A Hebrew=Good, Greek=Bad dichotomy is neither helpful nor accurate.

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