Does God know the future?

[nancy]

Potentiality, is the principle of change. Something must have the potential of becoming something else in order for change to occur.

Potentiality has to be realized by something already in actuality. If God had any potentiality, He would need something existing before him to realize that potentiality within Himself.

To say God does not know the future perfectly is to say God has potential of learning the future. By relating this potential to God, you would destroy the whole concept of God as the eternal, infinite First Cause that has no potential but is pure act.

 

[Clete]

Potentiality, is the principle of change. Something must have the potential of becoming something else in order for change to occur.

Potentiality has to be realized by something proceeding it. If God had any potentiality, He would need something proceeding him to realize that potentiality within Himself.

To say God does not know the future perfectly is to say God has potential of learning the future. By relating this potential to God, you would destroy the whole concept of God as the eternal, infinite First Cause that has no potential but is pure act.

Sounds fine to me.

 

[nancy]

"Sounds fine to me." - Clete

All right, so you can see from my argument, God must know the future perfectly. Otherwise you are implying God has potential to change. (By the way this is the same argument for why God is immutable).

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Otherwise you are implying God has potential to change.

:shut:

 

[drbrumley]

Why is it most folks have a hard time comprehending that GOD CHANGES and is moved by our actions?

Good grief.

 

[godrulz]

Potentiality, is the principle of change. Something must have the potential of becoming something else in order for change to occur.

Potentiality has to be realized by something already in actuality. If God had any potentiality, He would need something existing before him to realize that potentiality within Himself.

To say God does not know the future perfectly is to say God has potential of learning the future. By relating this potential to God, you would destroy the whole concept of God as the eternal, infinite First Cause that has no potential but is pure act.

Huh?

 

[godrulz]

"Sounds fine to me." - Clete

All right, so you can see from my argument, God must know the future perfectly. Otherwise you are implying God has potential to change. (By the way this is the same argument for why God is immutable).

Strong immutability is a pagan Greek concept on the wrong assumption that change must mean for the better or worse (perfect). God does not change in His attributes and character. God does change in His thoughts, actions, emotions, and relationships/experiences. This is perfection in contrast to a stone god. Many theologians have moved away from the wrong concept of a static God to the biblical God who is responsive and dynamic in His creativity. His knowledge also changes as the potential future becomes actual/certain. He correctly distinguishes past, present, future, potential, and actual.

 

[nancy]

drumbly, because it would destroy our whole idea of God.

Godrulz, motion I am talking about simply means the transition from what is potential to actual. It is based on what we observe. It is not based on worse or better.

I have just demonstrated that it is impossible for God not to have perfect knowledge of the future. Clete even agreed with it.

There is no point of accusing it of "Pagan Greek" concepts. our modern science and thinking all stems from these pagan Greek concepts including logic.

Modern theologians are obvioulsy in error if they are arguing God is in time, changing etc. as they are undermining the whole idea of God.

This whole open theism is trying to confront the old Thomistic views and the open theists don't even understand the basic metaphysical principles.

 

[Clete]

Nancy,

You missed my admittedly criptic point.

I was saying that if it means God has potentiality, as you call it, if Open Theism is true then so be it.

You are far from having made your case. At best you've made an openning argument. You need to flesh it out before anyone here is even going to know what the heck you're talking about.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[drbrumley]

because it would destroy our whole idea of God.

Exactly. MOST have bought hook, line and sinker the comcept God Cannot change. And they did it by not by looking at scripture. They read what our early christian fathers said and took it for granted they were right. If you have such a fragile view of God, then I'm sorry.

 

[kmoney]

Why not?

Because we wouldn't have a chance to live in those new scenarios so He wouldn't know how we would react. God could predict how we would react, but He couldn't know because we aren't living in it.

 

[Johnny]

This is a really good discussion, I wish I had seen it earlier. I don't think there is a conflict between omniscience and free will because God isn't "in time". Time is a property of this universe, and thus any creator of this universe is not bound by time. An omnipotent and omniscient God's existence does not consist of moments following one another. If you picture time as a straight line along which we travel, God would be akin to the page that the line is drawn. We have to travel along the line from one point to the next. We can look behind us and see in front of us. God, from above or outside or all around, contains the whole line and sees it all. The difficulty with free will arises when we imagine that God is progressing along through time as we are; except that he can see what we will do and we cannot. But God. outside of time, is not foreseeing acts. All of times are as "now" for Him as this instant is "now" for you. He would not "remember" you doing things in the past, because for Him there would be no past. You have lost yesterday, he Has not. He would not "foresee" you doing things tomorrow, He simply sees you doing them because although tomorrow is not here for you yet, it is for Him. In a sense, I would argue that His omniscience arises not as a natural characteristic of his existence as a supernatural entity, but as a characteristic of his existence outside of our time.

 

[Clete]

This is a really good discussion, I wish I had seen it earlier. I don't think there is a conflict between omniscience and free will because God isn't "in time". Time is a property of this universe, and thus any creator of this universe is not bound by time.

This is not Biblical and not possible. Time is not a thing or a location; it cannot be existed within or outside of. The whole concept is irrational.

An omnipotent and omniscient God's existence does not consist of moments following one another.

Again, irrational and totally unbiblical.

If you picture time as a straight line along which we travel, God would be akin to the page that the line is drawn. We have to travel along the line from one point to the next. We can look behind us and see in front of us. God, from above or outside or all around, contains the whole line and sees it all.

Aristotle and Plato would be proud of you but once again, this line of thinking is not Biblical.

The difficulty with free will arises when we imagine that God is progressing along through time as we are; except that he can see what we will do and we cannot. But God. outside of time, is not foreseeing acts. All of times are as "now" for Him as this instant is "now" for you. He would not "remember" you doing things in the past, because for Him there would be no past. You have lost yesterday, he Has not. He would not "foresee" you doing things tomorrow, He simply sees you doing them because although tomorrow is not here for you yet, it is for Him.

So if God has not lost yesterday or the day before or the day before that, is God still dead in the grave? Is He still in agony on the cross? Is He still in Mary's womb? Or is He all of these at once?
Do you see that your position is irrational? Even if it weren't, you couldn't establish a word of this Biblically. You'd have to go to the Greeks to get this sort of thing.

In a sense, I would argue that His omniscience arises not as a natural characteristic of his existence as a supernatural entity, but as a characteristic of his existence outside of our time.

As though there would be a difference. I can assure you that if anything could live outside of time it would be supernatural.

What you've proposed here in your post (in a quite articulate manner I might add), is good old fashioned pagan Greek philosophy. Aristotle and Plato thought this stuff up originally and it was brought into the church by Augustine who practically worshipped Aristotle as a young man. Augustine refused to accept the teachings of the Bible until his bishop (Ambrose I think was his name) told him that one must interpret the Scripture in the light of Plato. Augustine bought it, got saved and started writing. The rest is history and now practically every Christian in the world believes this stuff in spite of the fact that it just flat out is not in the Bible at all.

The Catholics' love affair with tradition is at least partly to blame for its almost universal acceptance up until the Reformation and it's continued since then primarily because Luther (an Augustinian monk) still believed all of this and Calvin really solidified it's place in the modern church through his writings. It has been said many times that Calvinism is simply revived Augustinianism; that Calvin got his Calvinism from Augustine, and that is surely the truth.

At any rate, if you think that you can establish any of this Biblically, I invite you to try but I know from experience, it's a lost cause. I recommend starting over and asking God to help you get an understanding of Him that is strictly Biblical. The best place in the world to start is Genesis. Just read it like you would any other book and pay attention to the number of things you would have to explain away if what you've said in this post is true. You'll be astonished; I guarantee it.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Clete]

Potentiality, is the principle of change. Something must have the potential of becoming something else in order for change to occur.

Potentiality has to be realized by something already in actuality. If God had any potentiality, He would need something existing before him to realize that potentiality within Himself.

To say God does not know the future perfectly is to say God has potential of learning the future. By relating this potential to God, you would destroy the whole concept of God as the eternal, infinite First Cause that has no potential but is pure act.

Nancy,

I don't want for you to abandon this argument. It's really the first hard core philosophical argument that's been presented in opposition to those of us arguing against foreknowledge. And since we are using philosophical argument (i.e. arguments based on logic) then you've brought the fight to our own back yard sort of speak, which is really good! So don't disapear on us with this, okay!

When I say you need to flesh this out what I mean is that you need to define terms and walk through the arguement step by step, establishing each point (at least partially) as you go. Otherwise, this will continue to sound like just so much jibberish except to those who might have read some pretty thick books in Bible College.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Johnny]

This is not Biblical and not possible. Time is not a thing or a location; it cannot be existed within or outside of. The whole concept is irrational.

Thanks for the response Clete. Obviously you're not going to find a verse that says, "God isn't in time." The closest thing we have is when Peter tells us "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." You just dismissed the whole argument by saying "it's not possible".. Just because it's not possible for you to imagine or not possible for you to understand doesn't mean that it's not possible.

Time is a property that is built in to the fabric of this universe. You cannot separate time from space, they are forever intertwined in a property called space-time. Is God bound by gravity? Is God bound by mass? It is absurd to think that God can't overcome gravity. It is ridiculous to think that God worries about momentum. Why then, if time is a natural property, to we chose to accept that God is bound by time, which is just another property of our universe?

If you believe that God is omniscient, then you must believe that God is in all time frames. Time is a place in our universe just as much as Mars is. The best way to visualize this is to use slices of bread. If I travel back in time (hypothetically), is God still there, or have I eluded him? If I travel forward in time (let's say I fly my spaceship at .99c for a few years), have I eluded God again by jumping time frames? No, God is still there. He is everywhere. He is two-thousand years ago, He is 4000 years from now.

is God still dead in the grave? Is He still in agony on the cross? Is He still in Mary's womb? Or is He all of these at once?

Those are pages in the book, slices of the bread. That was then for us, there is no concept of 'then' or 'now' or 'when' if you're outside of time.

Is the all-powerful God bound by time? If you say "Yes", how do you explain prophecies? Are there prophecies that have been wrong? How did Jesus know Judas would betray Him? What about all the instances in the Bible speaking of the future? How does God know us before He formed us in the womb? Lot's of questions I know, but I suspect one or two principled answers will cover them all.

 

[nancy]

To clarify my point, I will use an example.

Water you pour from your tap is actualized as liquid water. It has the potential of becoming steam but will not become steam until it is heated by an outside source. A heat source that is already actualized in existence.

If God had any potential at all, that potential would have to be realized by a source that is in actuality and precedes God.

To say God doesn't know and hasn't created the future is to say the future is potentiality of God and could not be realized by God. God must be the first mover that is pure act with no potentiality.

Your whole view is that God is stumbling into something that hasn't been created.

This does not effect free will to say God has foreknowledge and has the future already planned. Everything God creates is good. Goodness is a desire towards something and something cannot be desired unless it is objective, that is prior to our minds and independant of our minds.

God wills all men to be saved. That is to follow their nature and all things are good by their nature.

Evil is subjective. It is a relationship we make with our minds between what ought to exist by something's nature and for whatever reason doesn not. It is also incidental meaning secondary to our good nature. God gave us free will to withdraw from God's grace and our actual good nature.

 

[Clete]

Thanks for the response Clete. Obviously you're not going to find a verse that says, "God isn't in time." The closest thing we have is when Peter tells us "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." You just dismissed the whole argument by saying "it's not possible".. Just because it's not possible for you to imagine or not possible for you to understand doesn't mean that it's not possible.

It's impossible not because I can't understand it (it's actually a pretty simple concept) but rather because it is irrational. Time is not a thing. It does not have mass or energy, it cannot be seen, felt, smelt or perceived by any other sense.
Time is an idea. A frame of reference by which we keep track of duration and sequence but it does not have an independent existence as though it were something that could be discovered.

Time is a property that is built in to the fabric of this universe. You cannot separate time from space, they are forever intertwined in a property called space-time.

This is a theory, nothing more. In actuality it's an overstatement of Einstein's theory of General Relativity which combines the three dimensions of space with a fourth dimension which Einstein called time. He never proved that this fourth dimension was actually time nor did he even try to do so. I don't believe it ever occurred to him to try, he and the rest of the Physics world just assumed it was time and went with it.
Further, the theory of relativity predicts things which are logically contradictory when objects approach the speed of light, and so there is major aspects of the theory which are incomplete (i.e. Einstein missed something).

Is God bound by gravity? Is God bound by mass? It is absurd to think that God can't overcome gravity. It is ridiculous to think that God worries about momentum. Why then, if time is a natural property, do we chose to accept that God is bound by time, which is just another property of our universe?

It has not been proven that time is "just another property of our universe", nor do I believe can it be.

If you believe that God is omniscient, then you must believe that God is in all time frames.

This does not follow. But even if it did, the traditional understanding of omniscience is an overstatement of the Biblical truth. God knows what He wants to know of that which is knowable.

Time is a place in our universe just as much as Mars is.

Not even Einstein would have agreed with you on this. Were you aware that there are physicists who are now developing theories which discount the existence of time altogether? You are on extremely thin ground here even scientifically speaking and you have nothing at all to stand on Biblically.

The best way to visualize this is to use slices of bread. If I travel back in time (hypothetically), is God still there, or have I eluded him? If I travel forward in time (let's say I fly my spaceship at .99c for a few years), have I eluded God again by jumping time frames? No, God is still there. He is everywhere. He is two-thousand years ago, He is 4000 years from now. Those are pages in the book, slices of the bread. That was then for us, there is no concept of 'then' or 'now' or 'when' if you're outside of time.

Time travel is not doable. All of existence is now. Both the future and the past do not exist.

Is the all-powerful God bound by time? If you say "Yes", how do you explain prophecies?

Which prophesies, the fulfilled ones, or the unfulfilled ones?

Are there prophecies that have been wrong?

Wrong? No, I wouldn't say wrong, but there are several that did not come to pass.

How did Jesus know Judas would betray Him?

He knew Judas and could not only know what he was thinking but knew what those he was in contact with were thinking. It would not have been difficult for God to know that Judas would betray Him. But Judas could have repented and not betrayed Jesus.

What about all the instances in the Bible speaking of the future?

There are several passages which give information about the future, but not so much that God Himself could not bring such things to pass Himself without having to peak into the future and see them in advance.

How does God know us before He formed us in the womb?

The Psalm you refer to here is not talking about you entire life, it is talking about fetology; about the process of development we all go through in the womb; a process that God laid out in advance. The passage does not say that God knew us before we existed but before we were born. There is lots God could know about us simply by reading our DNA, including what sort of personality we will have, our temperament, our physical appearance, etc.

Lot's of questions I know, but I suspect one or two principled answers will cover them all.

I don't mind questions as long as we don't let the answers side track the main discussion. So far so good! :thumb:

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[godrulz]

Tell 6 million Jews killed by Hitler that evil is subjective. Evil is real and consists of wrong moral choices contrary to the Law of God. If someone picks up a knife and stabs someone in the heart, this is a free will act that makes the individual alone culpable. God has nothing to do with it other than creating us with free moral agency and not immediately supernaturally intervening to stop the choice. There is nothing in the nature of this example to allow for foreknowledge of the murder as an actuality from eternity past.

"Simple foreknowledge" and determinism are equally problematic. If we want to retain free will, we sacrifice the possibility of exhaustive foreknowledge. The latter is not problematic for an omnicompetent God. The former is necessary for the type of creation God chose in line with His nature and wisdom.

 

[Z Man]

I've heard lots of different views on this subject, and I'd love to hear yours!
Here are some starting questions:

Does God know the future?

If He does, how FAR into the future?

There's plenty more, but those are some starters

Of course He does. He wouldn't be God if He didn't. In fact, in Isaiah, He states that the fact that He EXHAUSTIVELY knows the future proves His diety and sets Him apart from false gods:

Isaiah 46:5-13
To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal and compare Me, that we should be alike? They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver on the scales; They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; They prostrate themselves, yes, they worship. They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it and set it in its place, and it stands; From its place it shall not move. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer Nor save him out of his trouble. Remember this, and show yourselves men; Recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, 'My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,' calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it. Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, who are far from righteousness: I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, for Israel My glory.


Psalms 90
A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. You turn man to destruction, And say, "Return, O children of men." For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it is past, And like a watch in the night. You carry them away like a flood; They are like a sleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up: In the morning it flourishes and grows up; In the evening it is cut down and withers.

For we have been consumed by Your anger, And by Your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance. For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; We finish our years like a sigh. The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath.

So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord! How long? And have compassion on Your servants. Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, That we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, The years in which we have seen evil. Let Your work appear to Your servants, And Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, And establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands.


Romans 8:29
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.


Job 28 - (the whole chapter0

Ephesians 1 - (the whole chapter0


The fantasy that God is ignorant of the future is a heresy that must be rejected on scriptural grounds.

 

[nancy]

Godrulz, I explained thoroughly that it is not problem. You just make a sweeping statement that it is a problem without representing a counter argument.

Just because something is subjective does not mean it doesn't represent a true relationship. In fact, truth means when what we subjectively conceive in our mind compliments objective reality.

By the way this is the problem with Clete's time argument. Time is subjective it is arelationship we make in our mind, but it does represnt true relationships in reality. How do we know this? Through applied science.