Dead Heroes Don't Save

In the 4th century through the medieval period, Christian thinkers critically applied the metaphysical models of Plato and Aristotle to explore and articulate core Christian doctrines. That brought with it solutions to important theological questions while inviting new philosophical challenges We should not be afraid of critically exploring and articulating central Christian doctrine under different metaphysical models while preserving the essential Christian claims

the patristic and conciliar periods were times of theological turmoil, terminological confusion, and changing metaphysical backgrounds - Garrett J DeWeese

Given the following - God does not meticulously decree all events - God has exhaustive FK - Knowing an event does not cause it - God desires every person to be reconciled - Every person has libertarian freedom The problem: God eternally knew a particular person would never freely respond to His love, would never enter into reconciliation with Him, and would ultimately experience eternal separation Why did God create someone whose rejection He already knew with certainty? This is a relatively common challenge that is brought up. Let's start by noting that this is a question worth considering. But we should also note that it is not the same problem under other frameworks (as is often claimed) On to some thoughts 1) the real question is what/how does God create someone. In creating volitional agents with LFW and giving them "dominion" does that include God enabling creation to "be fruitful and multiply" such that He allows children to be conceived. That doesn't remove His power to open & close wombs nor deny an active power in allowing and sustaining the people and the process. But is God intentionally giving space for LFW agents to act 2) Many might wonder if this is the "best" possible world given God creates volitional creatures with LFW. There may be no world containing free creatures in which every free creature freely responds to God 3) Nothing requires God to govern creation like the Minority Report. Whether the "future" decision of an agent is accepting Christ or commiting evil, part of allowing a world of volitional agents (LFW/agent causation) is to allow them the space to choose The question now shifts from "why did God deliberately create this individual who rejects" but "why did God actualize (and continue to sustain) a world of volitionally free agents that are permitted to generate free agents who will reject" The space required for libertarian agency is precisely the space in which some agents will use that agency to refuse God (or commit evil)

Augustine famously says time is hard to define and it has been variously understood Artistotle is generally understood to have argued time had no beginning or end, was associated with motion/change and involves a past, present and future Without arguing that he is correct or even that all agreed with him, that seems to be a reasonable and ancient view of "time" "But also in time the distinction of ‘before’ and ‘after’ must hold, for time and movement always correspond with each other. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ in motion is identical in substratum with motion yet differs from it in definition, and is not identical with motion. ... When we think of the extremes as different from the middle and the mind pronounces that the ‘nows’ are two, one before and one after, it is then that we say that there is time" - Physics 4.11 "Further, there is the same time everywhere at once, but not the same time before and after, for while the present change is one, the change which has happened and that which will happen are different. Time is not number with which we count, but the number of things which are counted, and this according as it occurs before or after is always different, for the 'nows' are different." - Physics 4.12 Augustine sees time (referring to what we now think of as space,-time) as created rather than beginningless: "You have made all time; and before all times You are, nor in any time was there not time. At no time, therefore, had Thou not made anything, because You had made time itself." - Confessions 11.13-14 And grapples with past, present and future in what is seemingly A theory "past times, which now are not, or future times, which as yet are not, who can measure them? ... Who is there who can say to me that there are not three times (as we learned when boys, and as we have taught boys), the past, present, and future, but only present, because these two are not? " - Confessions 11.16-17 The relative timeless view of God seems to take the overall notion that succession and change require some notion of time such that there is a past, present and future. An eternal God possesses an everlasting divine duration giving us a metaphysical time without beginning or end. This grounds a divine life where there is a genuine past, present, and future from God’s own perspective He is also the Creator of space-time. This has a beginning. God is outside of it and is its ground. God is "relatively timeless" with respect to the cosmos yet is not "absolutely timeless" as in classical theism

God has already shown Himself in the best possible way — by becoming a man in Jesus Christ, performing public miracles, dying, and rising again. If God appeared in overwhelming, undeniable power, belief would be forced, not free. God wants genuine love and relationship, not coerced intellectual assent (demons already “believe” and tremble). Even when God did dramatic miracles, many still rejected Him. The real barrier is not lack of evidence but the human heart who chooses to suppresses the truth (Romans 1). More signs wouldn’t change a will that doesn’t want God. God has provided sufficient light. Those who seek find Him.