Phil-you asked
First, how is Christian salvation possible without God's knowledge of the future? If the world's end is not set, then the events detailed and revealed in the scriptures are not necessarily all that is needed because something unaccounted for could yet arise. That would mean that all the God-given prophesies are just "best guesses." It would also mean that Christ's sacrifice on the cross was not the last, all-powerful, all-forgiving act needed to save the world from sin and the evil forces could still out-trump Him somehow.
God does not predestine
individuals to salvation, but groups. Such as in the nation of Israel and the Body of Christ. Once you become a member of the Body of Christ, you are pre-destined to become holy and sanctified. As far as evil
out trumping God somehow… that won’t happen, because God
isall-powerful, (so long as you allow the biblical interpretation of what all powerful means, rather than what many Christians
think it means). As for the cross saving the world, remember that it makes a way for salvation for those who
would believe, not for the rest of the world. At the end of the battle, Christ will come down and the enemy will be
destroyed not saved by the cross. God makes this prophesy just as He makes others, by stating that
He will make it happen, not that He foreknew or foresaw that it would happen.
So if God does not know the future, what is biblical prophecy? It is just God's educated guess, isn't it? The OV view still claims that God knows all that is and was, right? So prophecies would be God's extrapolation of future possibilities based on probable directions that things could take. And since God knows more than anyone, including Satan about all that is and was, God's extrapolation of future events would be much more accurate than Satan's and make it extremely likely that His plan of salvation through Jesus will work. I see a big problem in this. It relies on probabilities. It leaves a chance, though extremely small, that God's plan could fail.
Well, I partially answered this above, but let’s take it a bit further. The proof of this is in the numerous prophesies that were not fulfilled, as well as the numerous statements made by God that He would do one thing, but then decided against it because of repentance or because He was talked out of it by someone that He loved.
Is there a chance that God will
fail, no. But there is a chance that the prophesies in the Book of Revelation will not come out exactly as stated. For instance, if every Jew in the world were to join the Body of Christ, the time of Jacob’s trouble would no longer be needed. Would God be upset about this? No way. He would be elated, because the Jews would be saved. Is there a chance, that Satan will
win in the end? No. Because God is all powerful (meaning that He can do all that is possible for Him to do), and Satan is not. But notice that even in the Revelation, the majority of the people on the earth refuse God and are destroyed.
I believe that time is an element of creation. I believe that on the first day, God created the 4 dimensions to contain existence: 3D space and time. Therefore God exists outside of time. Whether you believe that God created time directly or that time is a by-product of the existence which God created, the creation ultimately leads back to Him and puts Him outside of time.
The key thing to look at here, is in your first line. “I believe…” Yes you do, but it is not based on any biblical support. God states that in the beginning, He created, matter, energy and life.
Gen. 1:1-3 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth(matter). The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light” (energy); and there was light…
Gen. 1:20-21 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, life with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Nowhere does God state that He created time. Just as He did not
create love, or hate. These are not things. They are not matter, or energy or life. They are concepts. Just as time is not a “thing”, but rather just the normal procession from one event to the next.
If God exists outside of time, then He has seen the nothingness when time didn't exist. It is tempting to use phrases like "before time" and "when time didn't exist" but that is fallacious since those are comparative measurements based on time. There would simply be two phases: existence and non-existence.
Please listen to the ridiculousness of your own argument.
When did God see this
nothingness before time? Was it before He created time? Of course not, because the term itself refutes that possibility stating there was a before, before time was created. It is a contradiction, and God is not a contradiction, just as His power and His knowledge is also not a contradiction. That is why God is not powerful enough to make a rock so big He can’t move it, and He cannot know events in an as yet untold future, other than the events He will make happen. Because He is real and not a magic contradiction.
I believe that God knows the future. He has seen it, has always seen it, and is seeing it right now. It is all contained within the same big picture of existence. How else would He be able to know how to save humanity from our sin? How else would He know His plan would work?
Once again, you state this with no biblical support but rather from your
gut feeling. And that is understandable because it is hard for Christians (who love and honor God) to say something that seems to make Him less than all-powerful or all knowing. But we are not saying anything like that. We know that He is all-powerful and all knowing, but we accept the terms of what these things mean from the biblical passages that explain them to us.
One last example of what I am talking about. Most Christians
think that faith means the blind belief that a child has. That is the standard explanation the vast majority of Christians today would state is what their faith is. But that is not what the bible says faith is. The bible states in Hebrews that it is anything but that, telling us clearly that faith is:
Heb. 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hope this helps with our position.
