TomD wrote:

I have read a wide range of authors on this point, and I see a lot of good ideas, but I think more could be said.

No doubt. And I encourage you to start saying some of it.

TomD wrote:

And taking a look at the links, I do think there are some good points in there regarding God's freedom. However, even the portion on divine freedom admits:
"The point with which we are here occupied is one of the most mysterious in the whole of Natural Theology."

I see you're not exactly taking to heart my advice to regard Joyce as the first word, not the last.
At any rate, "mysterious" in this context means "difficult to understand," not "unintelligible to reason." (Indeed, even if we took it to mean "mysterious in the same sense as the revealed mysteries," that would mean only that it wasn't possible for us to understand it completely, not that we couldn't even get started. Such mysteries aren't unintelligible; they're inexhaustibly intelligible.) So I'm not sure what significance you take Joyce's "admission" to have.

Anyway, as for the subject at hand: In this most recent post, John West has quoted you a passage that says pretty much what Joyce says in the link I gave you. When you want to be even a little specific about what "more" you think "could be said" about it, do please let us know.

(EDIT: I see you've replied to John while I was writing this. I'll have a look to see whether there's anything new in your reply.)

Last edited by Scott (7/10/2015 3:37 pm)

Scott wrote:

But you are saying that God's will, and therefore God, differs between the cases God wills X and God does not will X. The sources to which we're directing you are relevant to that claim, whether or not you're thinking of God actually changing from one to another. One of their reasons is that God('s will) doesn't differ "before" and "after" Creation.

I would add (somewhat redundantly), the relation you're supposing between God's will and creation doesn't exist.

Scott wrote:

TomD wrote:

I am not saying anything about God's will changing. 

But you are saying that God's will, and therefore God, differs between the cases God wills X and God does not will X. The sources to which we're directing you are relevant to that claim, whether or not you're thinking of God actually changing from one to the other. One of their reasons for denying that Creation involves any change in God('s will) is that God('s will) doesn't differ "before" and "after" Creation.

(That will be all from me for a while again.TTYL, gang.)

We may be using the term "change" differently. So to clear up some confusion, when I say "change," I mean specifically differ across times. Something could differ in different hypothetical situations (possible worlds) and not change (on my definition). 

In any case, I am saying it is difficult to understand how in the following three situations, God's will is identical: God wills X, God wills Y, God does not will X or Y. Of course, God necessarily wills His own goodness as the primary object of His will and in that sense, it remains the same. However, X, and Y, and not X and Y can be secondary objects of His will and the problem seems to still arise. Because, while as Davies argues, agency doesn't seem to necessarily involve change; will does seem to necessarily involve being specified by what is willed in particular.

Also, of course God's will doesn't differ before and after creation though, this follows from His eternity. God eternally wills creation. The reason creation isn't eternal is because God eternally wills to create a world with finite temporal dimensions (at least in the one direction, i.e. it has a first moment). But it doesn't follow then that God, if He had willed otherwise, wouldn't have been different. I'd even add that since God is eternal, there is no time at which God did not create. For God, all time is equally real and present in God's eternity.