Does God know the future?

Nathon Detroit

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Z Man said:
My purpose in life is not to convince you of anything. If God wants you to know, you'll know.
Precisely my point.

According to your theology nothing can happen without God's ordination therefore EVERYTHING is ordained and therefore if I (or anyone else) is in error there isn't a single thing that can be done about it! God ordained me to be an open theist.

God ordained that I call your theology wicked and perverse.

God ordained that I offend you.

Even so, I ponder how you and others can really believe that God does not know the future when the Bible says otherwise. It's heresy if you ask me. You deliberately forsake the teachings of the Bible to uphold your ridiculus 'we-must-have-freewill' doctrine. To you, it's all about us and not about God. You believe in freewill so much that it blinds you from the obvious truth found in Scripture.
We have no choice Z Man!!!

God ordained that we be heretics!

Who are you frustrated with me or God?

Do I have a choice to NOT be an open theist?
 

Z Man

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death2impiety said:
Choice is important because it is our demonstration of free will: The choice to choose God or deny Him.
Yes, I know what 'choice' is, but why is it important to you. You said choice is important because it allows freewill; the option to choose God or deny Him. But, why is that important?
Alright, I'll conceed that this is a bad example :eek: thanks for pointing it out so I can stop using it :dunce:. But lets go back the previous analogy of a football game. Lets just say God is interested in a particular football game. His knowing the outcome and all the steps that lead up to the eventual outcome illustrate that the actions are done and accounted for or predetermined. There is no freedom in improv when a miracle script is supplied to the viewers. The best you can say here is that God knew all the myriad of possible outcomes at every specific instant of that game. When God knows the future it would follow that he must know all the choices that we may be presented with or contemplate making. If it also followed that God knew which choice we were to make, the choice has been made already and gone, the future is set in the mind of God and free will is gone. Its a paradox in your view that you don't seem to grasp. The only way to alleviate said paradox is to say that God has "the best guess" as to which road we will walk down, leaving Him able to make "predictions" as to where we will end up, unknowing which one we will take for certain.
You lost me here. :confused:
 

Z Man

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Knight said:
Precisely my point.

According to your theology nothing can happen without God's ordination therefore EVERYTHING is ordained and therefore if I (or anyone else) is in error there isn't a single thing that can be done about it! God ordained me to be an open theist.

God ordained that I call your theology wicked and perverse.

God ordained that I offend you.
Ha!

Just because God ordains doesn't mean you are elliviated from responsibility.
We have no choice Z Man!!!

God ordained that we be heretics!

Who are you frustrated with me or God?

Do I have a choice to NOT be an open theist?
You've been shown the Scriptures, and you've heard my opinion. Do what you will with them. Again, just because God ordain's doesn't mean that you are no longer responsible for your actions.
 

Poly

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Z Man said:
You've been shown the Scriptures, and you've heard my opinion. Do what you will with them. Again, just because God ordain's doesn't mean that you are no longer responsible for your actions.


I think somebody brought this up the other day but this reminds me of when I was a kid, fighting with my siblings. One of us would grab the other's hands, hitting them in the face with their own hands, yelling, "stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself". :freak:
 

Nathon Detroit

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Z Man said:
Ha!

Just because God ordains doesn't mean you are elliviated from responsibility.
Why?

How can I be responsible for something I have no control over?

Z Man . . . YES or NO, am I (as a heretic Open Theist) fulfilling God's perfect plan for me that He created a millennia ago?
 

death2impiety

Maximeee's Husband
nancy said:
death2, it is not a tautology. An example would be a similarity to the internet. You send something through the internet and it could take a million different paths, but in general because God draws us towards Him as the ultimate good and desirable, God's goals will be fufilled.


You're talking about two different things here. The goals of God and His knowing the future are not one in the same. For example, His eventual goal is to cast unbelievers to hell. His goal is not a reflection of His prescience but simply an act that He has said He will carry out. If I tell you that I'm going to take you to the movies next week it doesnt imply foresight. I'm just acting on what I said I would do. He may attempt to use us to move toward His goal but He can't force us to cooperate. This would allude to the idea that He doesn't know if we would anyway. As for the internet, sure that message could take any given path, but of all the paths that message could take, you're talking about knowing the path before hand at every single one of the million instants, intersections and turns (they are all in the future are they not?). you can't know an undefined path of someting that you let move foward of its of volition or there is no point its path being undefined. I'm not limiting God here, I believe He could know if He wanted to. As I think Knight said earlier (or maybe not...) God sacrificed this knowledge for our free will.
 

death2impiety

Maximeee's Husband
I'll leave this to Knight. He's way more feisty. Whats more, I don't seem very effective at getting my points across. I will learn in time!

In Christ,
B
 

Nathon Detroit

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death2impiety said:
I'll leave this to Knight. He's way more feisty. Whats more, I don't seem very effective at getting my points across. I will learn in time!

In Christ,
B
The best way to learn how to get your points across effectively is to practice! I have been battling this topic since 1996 on TOL!

If you bow out you will lose an opportunity to sharpen your sword. :)
 

Poly

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Knight said:
The best way to learn how to get your points across effectively is to practice! I have been battling this topic since 1996 on TOL!
Wow, TOL's almost 10 years old.
 

godrulz

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nancy said:
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.


Measures of time may vary, but duration/succession/sequence (time) is fundamental to the triune God in His everlasting experience/relations.
 

godrulz

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Z Man said:
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.


The debate is not about God's omniscience, but about the nature of the future (open or closed). Whether God knows exhaustively, or correctly distinguishes past/present/future/possible/certain/probable, He is still God. Why not believe biblically, rather than philosophically?

Is. 46 is a favorite text of Open Theists. It does not say God knows the future exhaustively. The most we can say, from the context, is that He knows some of the future. It is not based on presience or simple foreknowledge, but based on His ability to bring certain things to pass. There is no reason to extrapolate from a specific example of knowing something He will bring to pass, to the general knowledge of future free will contingencies (problematic logically).
 

godrulz

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Z Man said:
How can YOU trust in YOUR God?!


God is omnicompetent. He is all-powerful, all-knowing (knows all that is knowable and knows possibilities/actualities as they really are), omnipresent, faithful, wise, just, etc. It is an inferior coach or chess player who has to know every contingency before the fact to win the game. It is a greater God who can bring His purposes to pass despite other free moral agents and trillions of contingencies. He is providentially responsive, not an insecure, meticulous control-freak. Ability, not foreknowledge, is why we can trust OUR God.
 

nancy

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God cannot be in time for the same reason as God would have to know the future perfectly.

Time is full of potential. You can potentially divide time into cylces with beginnings and ends such as hours, months, days etc. God cannot have any potential but is wholey actual.
 

godrulz

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Z Man said:
This does nothing to help your argument that God cannot know all of the future.

Again, if God's prophecies and 'predictions' and promises and so forth can be thwarted by the will of man, how can you trust in Him to come through with what He has said will be done?


Many prophecies are conditional or forth-telling. Conditional prophecies are often warnings and may or may not come to pass depending on man's response. In others, God has the ability to bring to pass what He declares (coming of the Messiah). Other prophecies are general and could be fulfilled in a variety of ways in regards to irrelevant details (e.g. Revelation judgments).
 

godrulz

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Z Man said:
My purpose in life is not to convince you of anything. If God wants you to know, you'll know.

However, God is not magically going to change your mind without any 'evidence', or facts, or beliefs to conform your mind around. In other words, you won't change your mind for nothing. That's where I come in. :D

Even so, I ponder how you and others can really believe that God does not know the future when the Bible says otherwise. It's heresy if you ask me. You deliberately forsake the teachings of the Bible to uphold your ridiculus 'we-must-have-freewill' doctrine. To you, it's all about us and not about God. You believe in freewill so much that it blinds you from the obvious truth found in Scripture.


Free will part of being in the image of God (spiritual, personal, moral). There is no need to pit free will vs God. Your problem is a wrong view of sovereignty (meticulous vs providential control). We do not say God does not know the future. We say, with the Bible, that God knows some of the future as settled, while He knows other aspects of the future as open/unsettled/contingent/possible/probable. Both our views affirm the omniscience of God, but differ as to what is a possible object of God's knowledge.
 

godrulz

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Z Man said:
Yes, I know what 'choice' is, but why is it important to you. You said choice is important because it allows freewill; the option to choose God or deny Him. But, why is that important?

You lost me here. :confused:


Free will is self-evident. It is not a dirty word, unless you are a hyper-Calvinist. Without free will/choice, you could not drive a car, procreate, etc. Without free will, there is no accountability/responsibility. God becomes responsible for heinous evil, contrary to His character.
 

godrulz

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nancy said:
God cannot be in time for the same reason as God would have to know the future perfectly.

Time is full of potential. You can potentially divide time into cylces with beginnings and ends such as hours, months, days etc. God cannot have any potential but is wholey actual.


Barth? Bultmann? Anselm? Kierkegaard? (potential/actual= philosophical vs explicit biblical).
 

godrulz

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nancy said:
Godrulz, death2 I have still to see you get around my potentiality/actuality argument.


That is probably because we do not know what you are talking about. We need to understand what you mean to affirm or refute it. I think you are borrowing from philosophy, which is not bad in itself. This is outside a strictly biblical argument, which is also not bad in itself. Which philosopher's ideas are you promoting/buying into (I doubt you have systematic Bible verses to reveal the argument)?

Sometimes when people get esoteric like you and freelight, one moves on to more straightforward arguments. We cannot have expertise in every area of learning.
 

nancy

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Godrulz, the argument is crystal clear as I presented it. Your avoidance of confronting the argument proves you cannot refute it.
 
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