FINE TUNING, MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE & GROUNDING OBJECTION

If God fine tuned the initial conditions of the universe perfectly in order to support intelligent life, then God necessarily had knowledge of what every possible combination of the values of those factors would result in – even ones that God never actually selected to realize.

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03:05 This also entails that god would possess perfect counter factual knowledge not grounded in anything that actually exists or has existed or even that will exist.

05:40 If you believe that this universe by all accounts is finely tuned for life, God either knew that and then knew where not to turn the cosmological constants a hairsbreadth, because who knows what would happen? Either God knows what would happen or God’s not omniscient. And there’s nothing to ground those universes because they’re possible worlds but they’re not actual worlds, so they don’t exist. He knows what would have happened because, given a world, you’re given a sequence of contingent events that follow.

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53:40 So here’s a here’s a syllogism. Five steps.

Premise one: If the Grounding Objection passes then God does not possess knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (CCFs) logically prior to His creative decree and Molinism is false.

Two: If God does not possess knowledge of CCFs logically prior to His creative decree, then either Exhaustive Divine Determinism is true or Open Theism is true.

Three: If Exhaustive Divine Determinism is true then one is not free to engage in the process of rationality to infer and affirm the best explanation. Rationally affirmed knowledge is impossible.

Therefore / Four: If one affirms that one has rationally inferred that Exhaustive Divine Determinism is the best explanation or that is probably true and they believe that the Grounding Objection passes, then Exhaustive Divine Determinism is false.

Five: Therefore, if one thinks the Grounding Objection passes and shows that Molinism is false, then Open Theism is the only live option left to rationally affirm.

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55:00 I just want to say that all the Calvinists out there who are appealing to the Grounding Objection in order to keep your Calvinism, that’s going to blow up in your face. And now you’re going to have to affirm Open Theism, or affirm that you’re irrational, you have no rational basis to believe what you believe.

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56:20 Here’s my a simple equation: Theism + The Grounding Objection + Rationality = Open Theism. Since I don’t think Open Theism’s true, I’ve got to either reject Theism, the Grounding objection or rationality. Well guess what, of those three I’m going to affirm Theism and Rationality. You’ve got to!

IS MICHAEL A NAME FOR THE PRE-INCARNATE CHRIST?

Today this position is most commonly associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses (they believe that Michael, a created being, became Jesus in Mary’s womb).

However, various Trinitarian Christians through the ages have also argued that Michael is indeed the pre-Incarnate God the Son – while simultaneously affirming that Jesus is God; some link Michael to ‘The Angel of the LORD’ who is clearly divine and identified as YHWH Himself (see some reasons for the divinity of this Angel at https://scottthong.wordpress.com/2020/07/01/why-the-angel-of-the-lord-is-jesus-and-why-both-are-god/).

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JOHN CALVIN:

Daniel therefore represented Michael as the guardian of the Church, and God had enjoined this duty upon Christ, as we learn from the 10th chapter of John, (John 10:28, 29.) As we stated yesterday, Michael may mean an angel; but I embrace the opinion of those who refer this to the person of Christ, because it suits the subject best to represent him as standing forward for the defense of his elect people.

REF: https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/calvin/cc25/cc25006.htm under LECTURE SIXTY-FIVE

COMPARE: Calvin’s deductions about ‘The Angel of the LORD’ being God: http://www.romans45.org/calvin/bk1ch13.html#ten.htm

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PHILIP MELANCHTHON:

The prince, Michael, whom here and below is called the prince of the people of God, was present wth the good angel. I understand him to be the very Son of God, the Logos, as he is named by John. … Jacob said, “The angel, who redeemed me from all evil, bless these boys” (Gen 48:16). These words refer to the Son of God, who truly delivers from all evil, especially from sin, from the wrath of God, from eternal death and from the treachery of the devil. Not without reason he specifically says “from all evil”. This glory is not able to be attributed to the ministry of angels, who, although the protect the bodies of believers, nevertheless are not able to deliver from sin or eternal death.

REF: https://books.google.com.my/books?id=gSMDd60ohdkC&pg=PA385&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

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GENEVA STUDY BIBLE 1560AD:

(i) Even though God could by one angel destroy all the world, yet to assure his children of his love he sends forth double power, even Michael, that is, Christ Jesus the head of angels.

REF: https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/geneva-study-bible/daniel/daniel-10.html (under 10:13)

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JOHN WESLEY:

Michael here is commonly supposed to mean Christ.

REF: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/wes/daniel/10.htm (under Daniel 10:13)

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Some arguments in favour:

1) Daniel 10:21 calls Michael ‘your prince’, seeming to indicate that Michael is ruler or in authority over Daniel and his fellow Israelites, who belong to God as opposed to the other nations who are delegated to the Bene Elohim (Deuteronomy 32:8 ESV).

2) 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says that Jesus will descend from heaven ‘with the voice of an archangel’, and Jude 9 calls Michael the archangel. These are the only two places in the New Testament that the word archaggelos https://biblehub.com/greek/743.htm is used. This is the most common starting argument I’ve seen from Jehovah’s Witnesses.

3) Jude 9 describes a scene that seems parallel to Zechariah 3:2 where ‘The Angel of the LORD’ says to Satan “The LORD rebuke you!”.

4) There seem to be similarities between Michael as a warrior and ‘The Prince/Commander of the LORD’s Army’ of Joshua 5. The same word https://biblehub.com/hebrew/8269.htm is used in Joshua 5:14 as in Daniel 10:21.

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Some arguments against:

1) Jude 9 mentions Michael, but elsewhere in the epistle Jude also mentions Jesus by name several times, including verse 5 which harkens back to an Old Testament (pre-Incarnation) action of Jesus. Hence it would seem that Jude distinguishes the two.

2) Similarly, Revelation 12:7 onwards has Michael leading the fight against the dragon, but the author of Revelation uses the names Jesus and Christ multiple other times including nearby in Rev 12:17. Interpreting the War in Heaven to take place in ages past (where Jesus would pre-Incarnation be known as Michael) does solve this dilemma somewhat, but IMHO that is an erroneous view since the preceding vv1-7 are about Jesus’ birth and ascension.

3) Daniel 10:13 mentions that Michael is ONE OF the chief princes (one among many equals), whereas the person worshiped sandal-less by Joshua seems to be a unique position that outranks any others in the heavenly host. This is Dr Michael Heiser’s main argument against Michael = Jesus.

GOD DECREES RAPE, SO WHAT?

You know what, I just realized that it doesn’t matter to Calvinists if they respond to the problem of evil by boasting that God decrees evil for His glory.

They think God chooses who to irresistibly make believe in Him, so what does it matter if they present the most unappealing apologetic of God’s character possible?