Does foreknowledge mean predestination?
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Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
There is really no foreknowledge with God because He lives in the ever present "now."
God, being both infinite and eternal, is not bound by either space or time, as we are. This principle has long been understood within Calvinist circles. William Ames (1576-1655) was one of the foremost of Reformed thinkers, often known as "the Learned Doctor Ames" because of his great intellectual stature among Puritans, said the following:
"There is properly only one act of the will in God because in Him all things are simultaneous and there is nothing before or after. So there is only decree about the end and means, but for the manner of understanding we say that, so far as intention is concerned, God wills the end before the means" [emphasis mine](William Ames, The Marrow of Theology, translation and introduction by John, Dystra, Eudsen, [Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1968], 153-154).
According to Ames all things in the eternal state are "simultaneous and there is nothing before or after." This idea that all things are "simultaneous" with God was expressed by another prominent Calvinist author, Loraine Boettner:
"Much of the difficulty in regard to the doctrine of Predestination is due to the finite character of our mind, which can grasp only a few details at a time, and which understands only a part of the relations between these. We are creatures of time, and often fail to take into consideration the fact that God is not limited as we are. That which appears to us as 'past,' 'present,' and 'future,' is all 'present' to His mind. It is an eternal 'now'...Just as He sees at one glance a road leading from New York to San Francisco, while we see only a small portion of it as we pass over it, so He sees all events in history, past, present, and future at one glance" (Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination [Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932]).
Therefore, since God does not actually look into the future because with Him all things are happening simultaneously then the future in regard to human choices are not limited in anyway.
blackbirdking
New member
Everything God knows is fact, truth. God's truth can never be untruth, for then it wouldn't have ever been truth.
Neither you nor I can change God's truth; if God knows it, it's a done deal. It was a done deal whenever it existed in his knowledge; and, apparently His 'sovereign foreknowledge' never began, so your destiny always was in existence. So, if you believe God knows your destiny, you kissed your 'free will' good-bye. You're not 'free' to do anything; you're just a 'puppet on a string'.
You've heard all this before, so why the thread?
blackbirdking
New member
It sounds like a good way of saying nothing. If all things are "happening simultaneously", then there is no future; everything is happening now. The future is only an imaginary human concept; please explain how "human choices are not limited in anyway". According to your current explanation, choices are only part of human imagination, and not choices at all because they already existed in God's "ever present 'now'".
2 Samuel 11:25 And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.
I wonder, was the LORD displeased before "the thing that David had done"... or after? According to you, it was before David even existed as a physical being. How was his choice not limited by "God's ever present now"?
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
All things are happening simultaneously to the LORD, not to man. He exists outside of time and is not constrained by time as man is.
I understand what you are trying to convey jerry, But to say that God exists outside of time is to say that God does not exist in time, and that is a fallacy. I know what my parents had done according to their own free will, because what they did was in my past.
The Son of Man, who is the MOST HIGH in the creation, according to our concept of one direction linear time, is still currently developing within the body of mankind. Just as man, had developed within the proto-human animal species.
But when born, HE, is not constrained by time and is able to descend along the slender genetic thread of life that binds him to the very beginning, and we are able to receive a visitation from him, who according to our concept of time, does not yet even exist, and He knows everything that you have done or will ever do according to your own free will, because they are all recorded in his memory of past events.
Come travel with me on a journey through time
Not in some capsule, but in our minds
To the Inner Most Sanctuary will we descend
To that single cell from which your body began
In the Holy of Holies where all is one
Where all of space and time is joined
We’ll mingle there with other minds
From other lands, in other times
Minds of the past, who seem dead and gone
And minds of the future who are yet unborn
For they in their time, whether here on this world
Or some distant planet to which they’ve been lured
Will enter their inner most sanctuary too
And there perhaps they’ll merge with you
Ah! To travel through space in the wink of an eye
One with your child on some world way on high
And if this is but madness, then madness it be
But come my mad brothers, come fly with me.....By S-word.
blackbirdking
New member
Then mankind is simply living out God's ever present now, without a choice.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
As men we are constrined by time. We cannot know if a person is going to believe the gospel in the future, much less know if that same person will even be alive tomorrow.
On the other hand, the LORD is not constrained by time because He knows who in our future will believe:
"And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48).
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
The LORD created the universe and then set the things in motion and then sits back and observes His creation in action. From time to time He enters into His creation to help it along but nothing which He does interferes with a man's free will. You might say that He is on the outside looking in.
The first law of thermodynamics is the same as the first law of conservation and that is, that energy can neither be created or destroyed. So it would seem that if energy cannot be created, then it always was, and If it can never be destroyed, it always will be. Therefore, according to this law, energy must be eternal, having neither beginning or end. Energy can be and is converted to matter. In fact, this material universe at the time of the Big Bang was pure energy which has been converted to matter only to be reconverted to its original form as energy during the phase of the Big Crunch. If you believe that a universe of mindless matter has produced beings with intrinsic ends, [in Kantian terminology, an end-in-itself] self- replication capabilities, and “coded chemistry”? Then you must accept that it is the eternal energy which has neither beginning or end, that has become this material universe and has developed a mind that is capable of comprehending mind.
This is the condensed account of creation as recorded in Genesis’.....…”In the beginning God created the universe=heavens, and earth was formless and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and God’s active force was moving on the face of the waters.* Then God said let there be light.”
Here is the scientific theory of creation........In the beginning, there was the “BIG BANG” which spatially separated the infinitely dense, infinitely hot, infinitesimally small singularity, which event spewed out a liquid like soup of electromagnetic energy in the trillions of degrees, it was from the quantum of that liquid like electromagnetic energy (Waters) that the earth and all the heavenly bodies would be created, and although, all that the earth was created from, was already there in the beginning, the earth at that time had neither shape, which meant it was formless, nor mass=void, and no suns had yet come into existence to light up the darkness of the expanding space.
But there was momentum within that ever cooling cosmic cloud of wave particles which are the quantum of that liquid like electromagnetic energy, which wave particles are not really particles at all, having zero mass and no electric charge, yet they carry angular and linear momentum.*One would expect, that those wave particles which are the quantum of the liquid like electromagnetic energy, would have continued to expand further and further away from each other in the expansion of the universal building material.
But with the angular momentum of those waves they collided with each other in nuclear fusion in the creation of the first basic molecules. As the universal temperature dropped to some billions of degrees, the dark energy which was the expansion’s acceleration force, began to form into dark matter, hydrogen and helium, with trace quantities of lithium, beryllium, and boron. As the universe expanded and cooled, more hydrogen molecules were formed, and from these, after some thirty million years of attraction, came the formation of the first gigantic stars, from which the galaxies would later be created.*
And God said, “Let there be light.” Which was not the light of our sun within this minor solar system within this Milky Way galaxy, which solar system would not be created for some nine billion years after those first massive stars that lit up the darkness of the bottomless pit.
Was the earth created before our minor sun, as is revealed in the Bible? And did life begin to evolve on earth before our sun burst into life? And could the complexity of life as seen on the earth today, have evolved over the comparatively short period of a mere 14 billion years?
The age of our present physical universe gives too little time for these theories of biogenesis to get the job done. The philosophical question that has not been answered in origin-of-life studies is this: How can a universe of mindless matter produce beings with intrinsic ends, self- replication capabilities, and “coded chemistry”? Here we are not dealing with biology, but an entirely different category of problems.”
Our ancient ancestors expressed the belief that our scientists of today are just beginning to come to terms with, and that is, that following each “Big Bang” there comes the “Big Crunch,” when this universe is condensed once again, into the infinitely dense, infinitely hot, infinitesimally small singularity from which it originated.
There is no way whatsoever that the world as it has evolved to today, did so in the short 14 billion years since the last BIG BANG.*
Only when we come to the realisation that this generation of the universe, has evolved from a series of parental universal bodies that have preceded this one, will science begin to realise the time scale involved in the evolution of man from mindless matter, which was created from the eternal energy.
Our ancient ancestors believed in an eternal oscillating universe.
“Universe after universe is like an interminable succession of wheels forever coming into view, forever rolling onwards, disappearing and reappearing; forever passing from being to non being, and again from non being to being. In short, the constant revolving of the wheel of life in one eternal cycle, according to fixed and immutable laws, is perhaps after all the sum and substance of the philosophy of Buddhism. And this eternal wheel has so to speak, six spokes representing six forms of existence.” ---- Mon. Williams, Buddhism, pp. 229, 122.*
The days and nights of Brahma are called Manvantara, or the cycle of manifestation, ‘The Great Day,’ which is a period of universal activity, that is preceded, and also followed by ‘Pralaya,’ a dark period, which to our finite minds seems as an eternity. ‘Manvantara,’ is a creative day as seen in the six days of creation in Genesis, ‘Pralaya,’ is the evening that proceeds the next creative day. The six periods of Creation and the seventh day of rest in which we now exist are referred to in the book of Genesis as the “GENERATIONS OF THE UNIVERSE.”*
The English word “Generation,” is translated from the Hebrew “toledoth” which is used in the Old Testament in every instance as ‘births,’ or ‘descendants,’ such as “These are the generations of Adam,” or “these are the generations of Abraham, and Genesis 2: 4; These are the generations of the Universe or the heavens and earth, etc. And the ‘Great Day’ in which the seven generations of the universe are eternally repeated, is the eternal cosmic period, or the eighth eternal day in which those who attain to perfection are allowed to enter, where they shall be surrounded by great light and they shall experience eternal peace, while those who do not attain to perfection are cast back into the refining fires of the seven physical cycles that perpetually revolve within the eighth eternal cosmic cycle.*
A series of worlds following one upon the other,-- each world rising a step higher than the previous world, so that every later world brings to ripeness the seeds that were imbedded in the former, and itself then prepares the seed for the universe that will follow it.
This is the true resurrection in which all from the previous cycle of universal activity, who still have the judgmental war raging within them, are born again into the eternal cycles of rebirths in the physical manifestation.
Another universe may have preceded ours, study finds. May 14th, 2006. Courtesy Penn State University and World Science staff.*
Three physicists say they have done calculations suggesting that before the birth of our universe, which is expanding, there was an earlier universe that was shrinking.*
To arrive at their pre-existing universe finding, Ashtekar’s group used loop quantum gravity, a theory that seeks to reconcile General relativity with quantum physics.
These two seemingly fundamental theories are otherwise contradictory in some ways.*Loop quantum gravity, which was pioneered at Ashtekar’s institute, proposes that spacetime has a discrete “atomic” structure, as opposed to being a continuous sheet, as Einstein, along with most us, assumed.*In loop quantum gravity, space is thought of as woven from one-dimensional “threads.” The continuum picture remains mostly valid as an approximation. But near the Big Bang, this fabric is violently torn so that it’s discrete, or quantum, nature becomes important. One outcome of this is that gravity becomes repulsive instead of attractive, Ashetkar argued; the result is the Big Bounce.*
Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, a cosmologist who has explored some related concepts, wrote in an email that the new research “Supports, in a general way, the idea that the Big Bang need not be the beginning of space and time.”*The universe “may have undergone one or more bangs in its past history,” he added.*Steinhardt and colleagues have also proposed a bounce of sorts, but it’s different. It could turn out that the two scenarios are equivalent at some deep level, but that’s not known, he added. Steinhardt‘s scenario makes use of string theory, another attempt to reconcile General Relativity with quantum physics.*Some versions of string theory portray our visible universe as a three -dimensional space embedded in an invisible space having more dimensions.
Our zone, called a braneworld [the word comes from its similarity to a sort of membrane] could periodically bounce into another, parallel braneworld.*Such an event might look to us, stuck in a few dimensions as we are, as a Big Bang. “I don’t know if Ashetkar’s case translates into a bounce between braneworlds like we are describing,” Steinhardt wrote. But by his estimate, this cataclysm won’t take place for another roughly 300 billion years—so there is hopefully plenty of time to answer the question.*
Just as the Big Bang theory has been evolving over the years and is continuing to evolve as new data
becomes available, these big Crunch theories that are just beginning to emerge are still in their infancy.
Because three dimensional time as we know it, does not exist prior to the Big Bang: from the return of the universe to the infinitely hot, infinitely dense and infinitesimally small singularity of origin to the next Big Bang when three dimensional space and time would begin, time does not exist, thus [As I believe] the erroneous Big Bounce theory. The universe appears to disappear as the contraction ceases, then it appears to instantaneously expand outward again and time and three dimensional space begin.
I would rather a theory which states that there are many galactic clusters out there within the eternal and boundless cosmos, each cluster=universe in its own position in Space-time, consisting of billions of Galaxies falling inward toward a Great Abyss, Black Hole, or Bottomless Pit, where it is torn to pieces Molecule by molecule, atom by atom, sub-atomic particle by sub-atomic particle, and reconverted into the electromagnetic energy from which they were created and accelerated along the dark worm hole to speeds far, far in excess of the speed of light, where that liquid like Electromagnetic energy is locked in the fourth dimension where time as we know it does not exist, until it is spewed out in the trillions of degrees, somewhere far beyond the visible horizon of the eternal and boundless cosmos, where, from the cooling quantum of that electromagnetic energy a new universe is created, or rather, the old universe is resurrected, to continue on in its eternal process of evolution.
The eternal energy that can neither be created nor destroyed, has become this entire universe and everything within it. All the life forms that the eternal energy has become, are information receivers that feed into the eternal evolving mind that is God, who is all that exists.
The term, "THE WORD OF GOD," pertains to the sense that is identical to the term “LOGOS” or the mold. The mold by which the whole sense of a thing is given. In other words, the very plan from the outset. In Sanskrit the similar meaning is given in the use of the word 'vach.' Vach means word. But in Sanskrit teachings of the Sanatana Dharma, vach has many levels. Including where the word is first considered as being in the mind as a thought, not as the spoken word or speech.
We humans, may express in our spoken words, all the information that has been gathered through the senses of our bodies in the creation of the invisible minds=spirits that are “WE”. Our word is the expression of “Who we are.” Your words are the expression of the spirit that is “YOU” the mind.
But the “LOGOS=WORD” who is the gathered universal information=spirit of the aeons, express the information that has been gathered to the universal soul as another universal body, which is in the image and likeness to the previous universe, [The Resurrection] in which the eternal Spirit=mind has and can, continue to evolve.
blackbirdking
New member
If He knows, His knowledge is interference; hence, there is no free will.
You can't have something already exist in the form of knowledge, and then make a choice to bring it into existence.
If God knows, no free will.
blackbirdking
New member
So... after all that, can you tell us what this "eternal evolving mind" knows, and how this relates to predestination?
If what you say is true, there is really no reason to know it.
beloved57
Well-known member
False and invalid comments no found in scripture !
The eternal evolving mind is the LOGOS itself, it is the gathered information of the aeons and it is no respector of man, It sends its blessings of rain and produce etc, on the righteous and wicked alike, and it sends its disasters on the wicked and righteous alike, it is the life within the LOGOS, "THE LIGHT OF MAN" (All the wisdom, knowledge and insight gained by the body of mankind) who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead within the Logos, who warns those who listen to the still inner voice, of impending disasters and guides them into the paths of peace and posterity.
The root to the word “BRAHMAN” originally meant “SPEECH”, much the same as the “LOGOS” is said to mean ‘WORD,’ but our words or our speech, is merely the expression of the thoughts that are stored in the minds that are we. Both Logos/word and Brahman/speech, should be seen as the gathered information of the aeons, that is waiting to be expressed. The two are one and are in fact, the invisible living universal mind, in which is gathered all of the information of every universal body throughout all eternity.
At the close of each period of universal activity, the Most High to have developed within that Period, enters into the cosmic mind, as the supreme personality of Godhead. To the Hindu, it is Krishna the eighth manifestation of Vishnu the saviour, who enters into Brahman as the Supreme personality of Godhead.
To the Biblical believer, it is the glorified Jesus who enters into Logos as the light and life, the Supreme personality of the greater God.
Within the innermost sanctuary behind the veil of the flesh of your body, is all the information that has been gathered by all your ancestors, human and pre-human back to the first organic molecule that developed within the primeval sludge pools of inorganic material, and yet "YOU" the mind, are developing within that body as the controlling godhead to all that great wealth of information, and do not yet know how to access it.
You are body, soul and spirit. Your body is created from the universal elements, and it is activated by the universal soul, which is the animating principle that pervades the entire universal body, activating everything within the universe, from the wave particles to the subatomic particles that make up the atoms which are the building blocks of the molecules from which the universal body is created. It is to the universal soul=LIFE-FORCE, that all information = SPIRIT is gathered.
“YOU” the mind, are spirit. The body in which you, [The mind] are developing as the supreme head and controller of that body, is made up of the universal elements, which is activated by the soul [Animating life force] to which all the spirit [gathered information] of all your ancestors, human and prehuman, has been gathered in its evolution to become who you are, and that parental spirit dwells behind the veil of the flesh to the inner most sanctuary of its earthly tabernacle=tent, which is your body.
If that body in which your parental spirit dwells, were born without the sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, etc, then no information whatsoever could be taken into the brain, and “YOU” who are spirit [Gathered information] could never have begun to develop and the living body, in which the parental spirit dwells, would soon die, never having developed a personality = “CONTROLLING GODHEAD” to that body, which godhead should be an obedient servant to “WHO YOU ARE.”
Then of the Thee in Me who works behind
The veil, I lifted up my hands to find
A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,
As from Without__ “The Me within Thee is blind.”.... By Omar Khayyam.
,
When the body in which you [the mind] are being formed, dies, [This is the first death] and your body: “skin, flesh, muscle, blood, bone, brain matter etc, etc,” has returned to the universal elements from which it was created, all that remains, is a shadow or rather, a facsimile of YOU = the mind=spirit, that has been imprinted into the universal life force=soul, from which it will be resurrected in the next cycle of universal activity.*Unless of course, the information=spirit that is “YOU” is divided from the universal life-force, which is the second death. For the spirit=information that is you, can be divided from the universal soul. Hebrews 4: 12.---------“For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any two edged sword. It cuts all the way through to the division of the soul and spirit.”
blackbirdking
New member
So is one's destiny predetermined?
Epoisses
New member
If there is not foreknowledge then there is no such thing as prophecy. Prophecy is God's foreknowledge written down. You are just a sign-post constantly pointing in the wrong direction.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
No, mere knowledge does not interfere with a person's free will.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
Not if the LORD is seeing everything happen with one glance.
Epoisses
New member
You should just go home and weep for your unbelief.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
As men we are constrined by time. We cannot know if a person is going to believe the gospel in the future, much less know if that same person will even be alive tomorrow.
On the other hand, the LORD is not constrained by time because He knows who in our future will believe:
"And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48).
If you think that the LORD is constrained by time as men are then answer what is said at Acts 13:48.