DAVID GREEN AND ED HASSERTT’S BRIEF THOUGHTS ON THE ILLOGICAL “LOGIC” OF TALBOT AND FROST’S INFINITY “ARGUMENTS” IN ATTEMPTING TO REFURE FULL PRETERISM
http://thereignofchrist.com/infinity-a-reformed-perspective/
[David Green]
Dr. Talbot spent most of his article arguing that God is “qualitatively infinite” (i.e., absolutely perfect in every way). Of course, nobody denies that. After Dr. Talbot finished explaining in great detail this universally-agreed-upon doctrine, he went on to make the following argument:
God cannot fully know a “quantitative infinite.” Therefore it is impossible that there is anything about God that is “quantitatively infinite.” If there is anything about God that is “quantitatively infinite,” then God cannot have “an exhaustive knowledge of . . . himself . . . because he cannot know the depth of His own being.”
However, while in the midst of asserting that doctrine, Dr. Talbot mentions in passing that “God is without beginning or end.” Quoting Berkhof, Charnock and Webster, Dr. Talbot actually says that God’s “duration” continues through “endless” ages, past and future!
Of course, Dr. Talbot here unwittingly has acknowledged that God has a quantitatively infinite “duration” (Talbot’s word). God’s “duration” is beginning-less and “endless.” According to Dr. Talbot’s own reasoning then, God cannot fully grasp His own “duration” because God cannot know anything that is quantitatively infinite (without beginning, and “endless”). 🙂
So much for Dr. Talbot’s verbose defense. It falls under the feather weight of a single word.
Not surprisingly, after the end of the article, Sam boasts that his own paper, Full Preterism and the Problem of Infinity, “has become widely read.” :) Sam further claims that “Talbot has answered thoroughly, exegetically, philosophically, logically, and theologically (and historically),” and has put the whole matter “to rest.” 🙂
“Exegetically” here means that Dr. Talbot quoted a hundred Bible verses that more or less demonstrate that God is “qualitatively infinite” –a thing that nobody denies. 🙂
But how many verses did Dr. Talbot present that “exegetically” demonstrate that God is incapable of either possessing, or creating, or comprehending a “quantitative infinite” (such as God’s beginning-less and “endless” “duration”)?
Zero (0).
In a sense then Dr. Talbot’s article has indeed “put the matter to rest.” It has proven for the umpteenth time that they have no exegetical basis for turning the God of Israel into Mega-Zeus. They have no exegetical basis for making God incapable of grasping His own infinite “duration.” And they have no exegetical basis for making God incapable of grasping the ever-increasing number of His works, i.e., the endless and numberless expressions of His love throughout all eternity.
Dave 🙂
[Ed Hassertt]
It’s disgusting to me how they provide no proof and no scriptural support for their absurd claims that God cannot know an infinite series.
So Talbot and Frost, when does god’s knowledge of positive integers stop?
When does God’s knowledge of our lives in eternity stop?
When does God’s knowledge of our thought in eternity stop?
Still, lots of rhetoric, blind assertion, bad scholarship, and cheap shots, but not yet a single scriptural proof that God cannot know a qualitative infinity!
They still refuse to answer how God can know our existence forever, if he cannot know an infinite series! Their absurd and ridiculous sounding repetition theory fails because, again the 100th time you do something is still different than the 50th times, unless they now are also claiming God is so limited he cannot even know it is the 100th time it has been experienced!
All this is man trying to make himself look smart by placing limits on God that scripture does not place!
We now have ABSOLUTE PROOF that this doctrine is not from scripture and is made up in the mind of these two so-called scholars!
This is hilarious, DR. Talbot condemned theology unorthodox when it uses “Such irrational thought (by logical necessity), define God in terms of temporal or finite limitations wherein God reflects the image of finite man.” And that “ Historic orthodoxy in opposition to unorthodox systems, maintain that the being of God must be free from any and all limitations in terms of His nature. “
He then proceeds to claim that logic demands we put limitations on God’s nature and make God a reflection of finite man’s ability to know and reason! Hilarious hypocrisy!
But we can see where Sam and the PretBlah crowd get thei r philosophical riots and rejection of the cellar teaching of scripture, straight from their faux-seminary president’s pen!
[Sam Frost wrote:]
. . . But, since Talbot is wrong, then all of the theologians he has
quoted here are “stupid” “hilarious” and believe in the god of
Zeus. . . . rofl…….
[My (David Green’s) response:]
1. I don’t remember Ed using the word “stupid.” But maybe I missed it? 🙂
2. Ed used the word “hilarious” to describe the intellectual hypocrisy of saying on the one hand that we can’t put “finite limitations” on God, and then saying on the other hand that God is incapable of comprehending the infinite number of events that His people will experience throughout eternity.
3. I didn’t say that Dr. Talbot or anyone else “believes in the god of Zeus.” 🙂
4. Regarding “all of the theologians” that Dr. Talbot quoted: Precious few of them agree with Dr. Talbot that God is incapable of comprehending the infinite number of events that His people will experience throughout eternity.
Dave 🙂
[Ed H.]
The fact that most of the theologians quoted would not agree with their claims about infinity really doesn’t matter…
I guess Sam throwing around accusations just represent his normal attempt to distract from the utter bankruptcy of his claims and the complete and utter absence of scriptural exegesis to support his conclusions. The bait and switch doesn’t work anymore Sam.
[Dave G.]
Yes, his characterization of our response to Dr. Talbot’s article was almost completely “inaccurate.” There was no “name calling.” Nobody called Talbot “stupid.” Nobody called Talbot “hilarious” (You called his contradiction hilarious). And nobody said that Talbot believes in “the god Zeus.” By means of those “inaccuracies,” Sam avoided the entire substance of what we wrote in response to Dr. Talbot’s article. It’s incredible that Sam has been doing this for over a year now. The long list of biblical and logical arguments that nullify his doctrine, he simply ignores in perpetuity.
[Ed H.]
This is a great case of declaring victory while your ships are all sinking out of site in balls of flame!
One again a great philosophical jumble is provided to prove that God is really Zeus and limited by man’s ability to reason and subject to the same limitations on His knowledge that man is!
And still not a single word explaining how God cannot know the ev ents of our eternal lives since they will be infinite in number! They keep ignoring that elephant in the room!
[Dave G.]
“God can understand infinity, not because he operates on the basis of some kind of heavenly logic system, but because he himself is infinite. He has an infinite perspective.” (R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God, page 47)
This quote from R.C. Sproul has helped me to see that there is no “contradiction” in saying that God can comprehend actual infinity.
We shouldn’t look at “God and infinity” this way:
God knows that one.
But there’s always one more.
And He knows that one.
But there’s always one more.
etc., as though God would have to “keep learning” an infinite series.
We should look at “God and infinity” more like this:
And there’s one more.
And God is already there, and He already knew it.
And there’s one more.
And God is already there and already knew it.
etc. The infinite series has to “keep learning” God.
Instead of it being: “God keeping up with an infinite series,” it’s the other way around. It’s: “An infinite series is always an infinite number of steps behind God.” No matter how far an “infinite series” can go, God is already there and already knows each and every finite particular in the set –because, in the words of R. C. Sproul, “He has an infinite perspective.”
What a great God we have.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PretCosmos/message/25579