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Rating: 
Summary: Solid
Review: Although written beforehand, if you liked his essay in "Openness" than you love this is the extended and more thorough version of it. Hasker has risen to the fore of the foreknowledge debate and represents the best philosophical defense of it. The remarkable thing about this debate is that it has produced multiple views that are fascinating and plausible philosophically. While I was not convinced by his argument it was a delight to read. He is so lucid a thinker that even people who are approaching the issue from a very different position will be able to 'see through his eyes' to at least a limited degree through this work of philosophy. This is unfortunately not been the case in the theological dimension of this debate. Receive it highly recommended. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Hasker on God's Knowledge and Temporality
Review: Hasker's work is lucid, philosophically precise and well-written. He provides a nice overview of the debate concerning future contingents, and he brings up a number of original arguments that make us question the notion of God's atemporality. Hasker asks whether a timeless God can directly know His creatures. It does not seem that He can. Hasker therefore seems to opt for a God that actually changes in a relational sense. This God is the God of the OT and NT. Buy Hasker's work. Its well worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: Philosopher and Writer
Review: Here is a book that truly taught me a great deal, not only about the issue, but also about writing books. Hasker is a gifted writer with an ability to catch his readers and make dry subjects interesting. Hasker belongs to the free-will theism camp. He is one of the writers of the pivotal "The Openness of God" book. Here he writes more in-depth about God and Time. He presents all of the alternatives, criticizes them and then presents his view, though without declaring it the final answer. That is something which is commendable about Hasker: He is NOT a lobbyist trying to convince his audience without questioning his own beliefs (see Geisler's Creating God in the Image of Man for a sample of that kind of book). He is a Truth seeker who shares what he has found out so far. He invites the reader to seek with him, rather then charging the poor victim. This is a philosophical book, which means that that at least basic knowledge in Philosophy is needed to read it. Even then, I sometimes had difficulties understanding. It was a challenge, but a rewarding such.
Rating:
Summary: Hasker on God's Knowledge and Temporality
Review: This book, God,Time,Knowledge seems to assume human philosophy as magisterial keeping Bibliosophy ministerial. This effort is another exercise in taking finite reasoning to its predictibly finite limits. The following Biblical/'Logosophical concepts are conveniently unaddressed (or at best inadequately/superficially): 1)It is not demonstrated that God actually 'comes to know' any knowable reality vs. just 'non-perceptually knowing' true states of affairs 2)Omniscience, Omnipresence, non-internal change, Omnipathy, Omni-eternity, Omni-infinity, Omni-immanence/transcendence are all logically, Biblically, metaphysically, philosophically intertwined and interdependent: modifying/tweaking one modifies/tweaks all 3)God can possibly be Omni-immanent while Omni-transcendent and if so, does not need to possess sequential/successive thought processing as if an Infinite God would need to 'process' data 4)Though God is Omnipathic, He retains a non-changing internal character (changes only external in relation to free beings) 5)'God changes as it becomes virtuous to change' sounds nice and prima facie reasonable, but an Omniperfect God would see no reason to EVER change (internally/character-wise), since virtue is inherent in being Omni-aware, Omni-unimprovable, Omni-uninformable ('dependent' on finite beings for relationship, not improvement/information/increased knowledge,thus change) 6)If God 'comes to know'of certain possibilities of which He was previously unaware, He could not previously have been Omniscient 7)God as Knower of all events knows them 'intuitively' (not having sensory organs or sequential/attenuated 'perception') without having 'come to know' them 8)An Omni-infinite, Omni-immanent-while-transcendent Knower's foreknowledge of events expresses a temporal/mortal/finite knower's recognition that certain events were known timelessly before this time.(This need not be merely analogical or anthropological, but literally knowable knowledge, literally foreknowable foreknowledge yet not 'foreknowledge' for God as Omni-infinite,Omni-eternal,Theochronic Knower) 9)Our 'now' may be regarded as an indexical reference to the finite knower, not to God as Omni-infinite Knower. That is, to say that God Infinitely/Eternally/Theochronically knows 'now' does not entail that what He knows is likewise sequentially/serially indexed. What God Theochronically/Eternally knows are true states of affairs which are not exclusively about either our future, our present, our past, although we might need to express them as such on our finite space/time plane or dimension of reality. 10)The usefulness of ascribing time/space to an Omni-infinite, Omni-eternal, Omni-immanent-while-transcendent God reflects the inevitable fact that we who speak about these matters are trapped in space/time, but does not reflect a correspondent fact that God Himself is so 'trapped', demarcated, definitized thereby. That is, our ideation of God being primarily tensed and spatialized does not warrant/prove that the Omni-eternal, Omni-infinite God is also tensed or spatialized, being Omnipresent as well (Omni-where/when, Omni-there/then, Omni-here/now) 11)Granted that it is possible for God to be instantaneously or simultaneously or theochronically outside/beyond time/space while inside/within time/space in relation to free beings, then the Bible would describe Him as accomodating Himself (as Christ did in the Incarnation) to human time/space-bound modes of communication and relation without Himself being bound thereby. After all, Incarnation of Second Person of the Trinity was not the cancelling/suspending/reduction/subtraction of Deity, but the addition of humanity to His Person (not the Father's Person or the Holy Spirit's Person). I would welcome a new Hasker volume addressing these concepts and their interdependent relationships to 'Christosophy'.
Rating: 
Summary: Paul Helm's Eternal God is Superior
Review: This book, God,Time,Knowledge seems to assume human philosophy as magisterial keeping Bibliosophy ministerial. This effort is another exercise in taking finite reasoning to its predictibly finite limits. The following Biblical/'Logosophical concepts are conveniently unaddressed (or at best inadequately/superficially): 1)It is not demonstrated that God actually 'comes to know' any knowable reality vs. just 'non-perceptually knowing' true states of affairs 2)Omniscience, Omnipresence, non-internal change, Omnipathy, Omni-eternity, Omni-infinity, Omni-immanence/transcendence are all logically, Biblically, metaphysically, philosophically intertwined and interdependent: modifying/tweaking one modifies/tweaks all 3)God can possibly be Omni-immanent while Omni-transcendent and if so, does not need to possess sequential/successive thought processing as if an Infinite God would need to 'process' data 4)Though God is Omnipathic, He retains a non-changing internal character (changes only external in relation to free beings) 5)'God changes as it becomes virtuous to change' sounds nice and prima facie reasonable, but an Omniperfect God would see no reason to EVER change (internally/character-wise), since virtue is inherent in being Omni-aware, Omni-unimprovable, Omni-uninformable ('dependent' on finite beings for relationship, not improvement/information/increased knowledge,thus change) 6)If God 'comes to know'of certain possibilities of which He was previously unaware, He could not previously have been Omniscient 7)God as Knower of all events knows them 'intuitively' (not having sensory organs or sequential/attenuated 'perception') without having 'come to know' them 8)An Omni-infinite, Omni-immanent-while-transcendent Knower's foreknowledge of events expresses a temporal/mortal/finite knower's recognition that certain events were known timelessly before this time.(This need not be merely analogical or anthropological, but literally knowable knowledge, literally foreknowable foreknowledge yet not 'foreknowledge' for God as Omni-infinite,Omni-eternal,Theochronic Knower) 9)Our 'now' may be regarded as an indexical reference to the finite knower, not to God as Omni-infinite Knower. That is, to say that God Infinitely/Eternally/Theochronically knows 'now' does not entail that what He knows is likewise sequentially/serially indexed. What God Theochronically/Eternally knows are true states of affairs which are not exclusively about either our future, our present, our past, although we might need to express them as such on our finite space/time plane or dimension of reality. 10)The usefulness of ascribing time/space to an Omni-infinite, Omni-eternal, Omni-immanent-while-transcendent God reflects the inevitable fact that we who speak about these matters are trapped in space/time, but does not reflect a correspondent fact that God Himself is so 'trapped', demarcated, definitized thereby. That is, our ideation of God being primarily tensed and spatialized does not warrant/prove that the Omni-eternal, Omni-infinite God is also tensed or spatialized, being Omnipresent as well (Omni-where/when, Omni-there/then, Omni-here/now) 11)Granted that it is possible for God to be instantaneously or simultaneously or theochronically outside/beyond time/space while inside/within time/space in relation to free beings, then the Bible would describe Him as accomodating Himself (as Christ did in the Incarnation) to human time/space-bound modes of communication and relation without Himself being bound thereby. After all, Incarnation of Second Person of the Trinity was not the cancelling/suspending/reduction/subtraction of Deity, but the addition of humanity to His Person (not the Father's Person or the Holy Spirit's Person). I would welcome a new Hasker volume addressing these concepts and their interdependent relationships to 'Christosophy'.
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