Does God know the future?
- Thread starter intro2faith
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intro2faith
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drbrumley said:
Yeah, that was a good point as far as I can see.
Z Man
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Ha! Morons is 'G'-rated compared to Clete's posts!drbrumley said:
Anyways, done and over with. Moving on....
OV'ers believe God is limited by time, as humans are. Therefore, He cannot know the future. But we reach a dilemma in the life of Christ. Here we see God actually living amongst us, in our world, during our time. According to Einstein's theory of relativity and time, if God was limited by our time, then there is no way Jesus could of existed at the same time. But, Clete's rebuttal is that God isn't made up of anything - He just is, or something.. Anyways, my question, then, is this.
If God is limited by time just as we are, and He came to earth as Jesus, who raised Him from the dead?
Mr. Coffee
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Might as well sleep. We'll be debating this until the sun explodes.
JCAtheist
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intro2faith said:Z Man wasn't saying that the Word wasn't true until it was revealed to him. He was just saying it WAS revealed to him.
I wasn't saying he was.. like he asked me a series of questions, I am doing the same
I also have a reason for asking.Love and Peace
JCAtheist
JCAtheist
New member
Z Man said:
Sure.. had to get a last little word in though huh
And all Calvanists think they are apostles.
Any more inane remarks you want to make?
I can't believe this thread deteriorated the way it did. But then, after reading answers like this, and seeing people get way over emotional about it all, I'm not surprised.
I came back to see if a question I posted had been answered - and that was 4 pages back - only to have to read through a bunch of so called Christians act like 8 year olds in grade school. Now pardon me for blanketing everyone with that statement, but it seems that broad and overly encompassing statements are the flavor of the day.. which is why I added mine too.
Howver, the difference is, I don't believe the statement I make in the first line of my post.. I think anyone who makes such sweeping statements is un-righteous, and can in no way have the Mind of Christ or be in 'perfection', and certainly not one of the 'elect'. How ignorantly blissfull you have to be to make such a comment.
Now I've had some tea and have relaxed a bit. I still think the last 3 pages are not worthy of Christians.
Instead, I'm going to post an additional analogy to the COMPASS Anology I have posted before. Maybe this will help understand how I feel God can both know and not know the future, without it interferring with Salvation, and without any great jumping through hoops.. IMHO.
The Fly In The Room Analogy
Let us say that I build a small hut. There is no door, nor are there any windows.. but I have a nifty little camera set up so I can see everything that happens within this 'room'.
Inside the room, on the North Wall, I have placed a special box with all kinds of good sugary confections etc.. and on the South Wall I have placed a Fly Zapper. It's a special one that doesn't kill instantly, but glues the flies feet to it and then slowly roasts it alive.
And now I introduce a fly into the room via a small resealable hole. It's a young fly.. and according to most people will live for about a day.. a mere fraction of MY life. So I have plenty of time to examine the fly while in the room.. a couple of hours to me probably feels like years to something with such a short lifespan.. but hey, time is subjective as well as an objective fact. In other words, what counts as a 'lifetime' does not have a specific length of time for all, and the entity(s) experiencing it may act differently depending on their perception of how time passes. What may be a minute to us, is days for the fly.
Anyway, without too much worry about the time issue, as overall, to the experiment, HOW tmie flows in the room is irrelevent. All that is important is the Fly and the Room.
NOW, as the builder of this room, I know it rather intimately.. I know what material is in the walls, I know the balance of oxygen, what the floor looks and feels like, the ceiling etc.. I'm pretty well versed on most every point of space in the room, and what can happen in any given part of it.
And here's the thing, I want the fly to come to the food, and NOT fly into the Fly Zapper. To help this, I understand flies, and know what 'attracts' them.. hence the sugary substances at the North Wall. But I also know that certain colored lights attract them as well, and I can only hope that the fly manages to avoid this.
So here's the deal.. the fly is flying about in the room.. I can watch go to and fro and fly about.. I know if it flies over to the West Wall, it will rest on oak wood, and the air in that area has a tad more oxygen. I also happen to know that the East Wall is concrete and a little colder, and the air around it holds a little more carbon and is cooler.
I don't need to know FOR sure that the fly will fly to the West Wall, but I KNOW what will happen if it does. Same for any spot within the room. I do not ned to direct the fly, nor do I know which direction the fly will fly in next.. BUT, I do know what will happen no matter WHERE it goes, and can quite easily formulate a possible future by the options the fly has.. If it is over on the West Wall, I know it can only head in so many directions. I am quite capable of figuring out the future position of the fly, and how it might get there. I am even capable of making more than a single possible future based upon the available directions the fly can fly in.
Still, I want it to come to the food, but I have decided I shall not force it to do so, only let it's 'natural' instincts do the work, as it was created. I leave it with it's own will to get to ANY spot within the room I have created.. I just happen to now EVERY spot it can get to, no matter how or what it does. In the end, it will end up at one of these points. And as it gets closer to the time the fly is ready to die, the less options I have to deal with when figuring out where it will 'land'.
So, to add the final part of the experiment, and have the fly either finally choose the food or the killing light, I have made the room so the West and East Walls move in and the time they come together is upon the flies death. I do know this tactic will cause the fly to fly in one direction or another.. towards the North Wall and food and freedom, or to the South where death is both painful and slow. Once again, it doesn't really matter to me how the fly darts about too and fro within the room as the walls close in.. I KNOW where it can go, and what awaits it at any given point in its flight path.
In the end the fly will make the choice to go one way or the other. And I know the result of both actions. I can also pretty much know what may have led the fly to go in any particular direction as wel.. air currents, a flash of light, a smell of food, the cold of one wall etc. All these things I am able to factor in to my understanding of how and why the fly is moving in certain directions. I can also tell when the tme comes, which direction the fly is heading in, and where that path will eventually lead them. Thankfully, my little fly decides to go for the food, and I knew this from when it was near the middle of the East Wall, and started out in its northerly flight path.. I knew what would be effecting it - air etc. - and factors that might make it change its mind along the way - some of the 'smell' of the food has also been caught in a small pocket of air moving to the south. Still, I didn't interfere and the choice was made that I am happy with.
END.
Now understand, I only thought this up this morning, and I am only on my first cup of tea, so it would need a little work to be a better representation of what I am trying to get at, but hopefully its not too unclear.
Basically, God is a better builder than I am, and have the capacity to know FAR more about the construction, air, gravity etc.. and ALL the factors that can effect the enclosed habitat. Man is also much more than a fly in the respect of being able to understand that food is good, Zapper is bad. To help man along, God even writes things on their hearts and minds, helping them to understand such choices. God has also given of a measure to us a craving for part of what He is - Love. And it is this message that He uses to draw mankind to Him. In my opinion, Love is the calling voice of God, and it is something we all desire.. even though at first we don't understand that the love we crave is actually Gods love. So in that instance, we aren't actually seeking God, only love.. but generally, those that find Love eventually find God too. IMHO, of course.
Putting man in a similar 'room', it also comes to mind that God is FAR better at holding possible futures in His head for examination.. and while I may be able to come up with 10 or 15 scenarios for each choice and change in direction the fly makes, I have no doubt God can handle more. So God, with a man standing in the room, Heaven at one end, and hell at the other, is more than capable of knowing what can effect the man, what can change his direction, what can aid, and a whole host of other things. Because of this intimate knowledge of His creation(s), God can quite easily figure out which paths can be taken from any given point, where they will lead if man so chooses them, and what awaits at the end of each path. God doesn't NEED to direct the man at every step.. in fact, God wants man to come to Him and His love of his own free will.. and so allows man the run of the room, knowing that in the end, he will end up at either the north or the south, and what awaits at either end. Time is not an issue, just the end result.. and God kows EVERY possible end result for that particular man, in that particular room.. even if He doesn't KNOW what choices will be made by the man to get there. They are almost irrelevent in fact, except for the purpose of understanding the man making them. It is the end result, and the intentions of the one who got there, that is important to God.
And so, in this way, God can both know the Future - and one can even say exhaustively if you really want to - as God knows ALL futures of our choices, BUT until WE make a choice, our movements are NOT known. They are only possible futures existing in Gods mind, but so complete in their understanding as to be foreknowldgeable of when He examines our options. As we make a choice, reality is shaped, many possible scenarios drop away, and new ones open up. Either way God knows where each choice leads.
Is any of that making sense yet?
Now add in all the other variables in life that can effect us.. other people, location, experience as we move about the 'room' (its cold by the east wall.. warmer by the west etc.), and God can still figure out every possible future for us all! Now how bloody incredible is that!! Billions of souls all moving about interacting with each other, and God can work out every path they can all take, how they all interact, and how this leads them down different paths! Beyond comprehension, I know.. but this is God we are talking about. And at the end of it all.. at the end of every path, there is God. By the North Wall is a happy God for that person.. they came to Him, and will now stand with Him. In fact, one they got within a certain distance of the North Wall, God knew their choices became so limited that they would come to Him from that point on.. these are the 'elect'.. that have realised where and how their own choices have led them, and what they must now do to continue on that path. By the South Wall is the Sad God, and the Judge who will examine your every choice and its intent behind it, to see WHY you have ended up in hell, and will punish you for the sins (intents) that where not of Him. No matter where you end up, God knew before hand that you would get there by His own capabilities and knowledge and ability to predict your future(s) exactly. In this sense, He has foreknowledge of your end. Only YOU have been the one that decided how to get there.
As I said, it's rough right now.. but it one of the only ways I can explain it. It doesn't require a knowledge or understanding of how time works, so remove that stumbling stone. It allows for God to know each and every possible future exhaustively, but still leaves man with a free will to make the choices that will lead to any of those possible futures, and in effect make their own 'reality' with each choice.
The real problem comes in when we try and decide what God actually 'knows'.. as we have no clue
It is the understanding of the word 'know' that seems to cause all the stumbling about on this subject. If I place 5 cards face down on the table that *I* know what they are, and ask you to pick.. if your hand starts towards the far left card, I can know before you even get there that it is the 5 of spades and you lose, but until you actually turn over a card, I can't KNOW which one you would pick.. I can make a good guess.. God makes much better ones.. to the point He 'knows' Okay, my head hurts now
Need more tea.IN Love and Peace
JCAtheist
Z Man,Z Man said:
Do think it is wrong to call some who tells lies a liar?
I don't.
You are a liar Z Man. I want to see these posts where you make arguments that have never been answered by myself or any other Open Theist on this site. I know for a fact that any argument you've ever made to me has been answered at least in principle if not directly.
No one responds to every single point that is ever made, there's not enough time to do that and so there are occasions where one must pick and choose which points seem most important. But I firmly believe that you know that I do not intentionally ignore sound arguments. You must know this or else you are indeed certifiably stupid and since I know for a fact that you are not that stupid, I can only conclude that you have intentionally lied with this post.
Last night’s turn of events had me very strongly considering simply leaving and I may yet decide to do just that. The problem is that I really do actually care about this stuff and if I leave I know that you and other dishonest posters here with you will take the opportunity to declare victory in some shallow way as you already have for having successfully gotten me angry enough to have allowed last night's exchange to happen in the first place.
I do not make decisions quickly however so for now I'm sticking around but what I need to decide is whether or not it's worth it to me any longer. I'm not sure that it is.
Resting in Him,
Clete
Z Man
New member
Well, I just searched this site for some of the classics, but I guess Knight deleted the older threads when he moved the site to here. But the one thread that came to mind was the one that Knight started, saying something about why Calvinism makes him made, or something. Anyways, it was about a story of a woman who attributed to God her sickness, and said that she was sick for a reason, and that God will see her through it, for His glory, or something like that. Knight said it was sick for the woman to say anything like that; to say that God made her sick, or even allowed it. Well, I posted numerous passages from the Bible that gave proof God does indeed afflict people with sickness and disease. I proved him wrong, but it took him nearly the whole thread to eventually 'sorta' agree with me. The whole time though, both he and you did nothing but attack me and say I was stupid and wasn't answering your post, or his. It was silly.Clete said:
Here's a more recent post in which Knight has still not responded to.
I know there are others, but, in all actuality, I wasn't expecting to actually find ALL of them. I tried looking for some, but most of those threads are gone.
Clete, I've had some great debates with you, in which we've both come across things that made us sit back and think for a while. But lately, and ever since that thread Knight started about disease, you've been difficult to debate with. People wholeheartedly try and give a response, but you only refute by calling them 'dumb', or 'stupid', and that they are not reading your posts correctly or responding the way you'd like them to. How can anyone debate with you when you've already dismissed them as 'stupid', or wrong?
Last night did get heated, and was ridiculous. I know you've made an effort to answer my posts. Knight is the main guy who ignores almost every post I make with Scripture references in them. I only said your name because in instances where Knight ignores my posts, you come in to support him and to ridicule me. You also had a bad habit at one time of ignoring my posts, but it turned out that you had 'missed' them. I understand that you're busy, but some of those 'misses' seemed convienent...
Anyways, all in all, your a good debater. You do try and answer everyone's posts, and I realize you're a busy man with your family and your job. But resorting to anger doesn't help anyone out, especially you. We all look forward to hearing what you have to say, when you can say it without belittling your brothers and sisters in Christ.
God bless Clete.