Does God know the future?
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JCAtheist
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In actual fact, I wonder if God knew that you would make that mistake, and that I would find it. And that it would show that you are indeed not 'perfect'.. unless we want to claim that the mind of Christ makes mistakes that are un-righteous 
Of course, it was a simple mistake.. very human, and very un-elect. Hopefully, God see's repentence in your future too
Although that is in jest, I hope you can see some truth in it.
IN Love and Peace
JCAtheist
PS - If eccl3_6 and Clete ARE one in the same, my sincerest apologies.
Of course, it was a simple mistake.. very human, and very un-elect. Hopefully, God see's repentence in your future too
Although that is in jest, I hope you can see some truth in it.
IN Love and Peace
JCAtheist
PS - If eccl3_6 and Clete ARE one in the same, my sincerest apologies.
eccl3_6 said:
He knows possibilities as such, and certainties/actualities as such. The possible future only becomes actual when the potential future becomes the fixed past through the real present. This is not putting limits on God anymore than the absurd question of whether God can make a rock too heavy to lift. The issue is a logical contradiction or absurdity, not a limit on God. The future is not there to see. It is simply not there yet. Probability becomes more refined as the content of past and present knowledge, which God knows perfectly, becomes more apparent. The more contingent, proximal choices made, the more predictable something becomes. Remote knowledge from eternity past is more limited, unless it is things God purposes to bring to pass no matter what (the creation of the world, etc.). Foresight is only as strong as control. The more contingency and freedom, the more unpredictability. God is not a control-freak. Love introduced an element of unsettledness to His experience (see "The God who Risks" by John Sanders...I have not read it).
This must be how Fred Flintstone felt...
So says you. You cannot prove this.eccl3_6 said:
Rarely? How often do you see it from more than one perspective?
Exactly my point. If God was "outside of time" He couldn't do anything.
No it has not.
This is not so. You CANNOT convert mass to energy or vise versa.
Here is just one of probably thousands off shoots of Einstein's theories. All of which make completely different predictions about what happens and why at Relativistic speeds. Einstien's theories are brilliant but they are not proof that time is any more than a frame of reference by which events are kept track of.
http://www.tardyon.de/index.htm
This is just outright false. Not even Einstein's therories have anything to do with quantifing time. The closest thing you get to that is a theory I personally came up with in high school based on Zeno's paradox. But I'm sure you couldn't care less about that.
Again, saying it doesn't make it so. This concept is not Biblical and you have no way of even formulating a testable hypothisis by which such a statement could be verified in the slightest degree and so it isn't scientific either.
Resting in Him,
Clete
Z Man
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You must choose to love??? That's a bunch of BS.Clete said:
In your first paragraph, you stated that it would be possible for God to make a universe where everything is predetermined, but 'such a universe would be incompatible with a God of love who had created creatures who are able to love Him back'. And then you said, 'It is love that kills all closed view theistic belief systems.' But this conclusion is false. No one who believes in the 'closed view' believes that people are not able to love God. They just believe that they will not do it of their own will while enslaved to sin. You beleive that if people cannot choose God, then it's not really love. This is bologna. In fact, considering the depravity of people and how they hate God and reject all His ways, yet for Him to save us despite our rebellion, is truly amazing love. For while we were still sinners, Christ died for us! That's love. No one asked God to die for our sins; He did it to save us, even though we rejected God and didn't want anything to do with Him. Even while we were sinners, God loved us and had a plan for us the whole time. He knew that in our sinful state, we didn't want anything to do with Him, or would ever 'choose' Him. But He saves us anyways! That's amazing grace.
You still think that you can't love without choice? Well, let me illustrate my point for ya:
- There are two guys out at a bar one night (let's name them John and Joe). Joe gets ridiculously drunk and decides to go home. He grabs his keys and stumbles across the room towards the door, when John comes over and asks for Joe's keys. But the drunk would have nothing to do with John. He shoved John away, and even took a swing at him. Joe rejected John's offer to take him home, and continued outside towards his car. But John wouldn't give up on the drunk. Knowing that if Joe got in his car and drove in the condition he was in he would kill himself, John snatched the keys from the drunk, and forced him into the passenger seat of the car, despite Joe's attempt to fight back and refusal to cooperate. Eventually, John reached Joe's house, and got him into bed, safe and sound, where Joe passed out and went to sleep. The next morning, to his surprise, Joe was still alive in his bed. Realizing that he had really messed up last night, he was extremely grateful that someone forced him home. Joe found out who the stranger was who forced him home safely, and to this day, theyare still great friends.
Now, how much greater love shall we have for God, who has saved us from eternal damnation!!!! Thank God He 'forced' us to see His worth, because if He didn't, we'd still be lost, and eventually would die forever! Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!!!
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Clete said:
This is a great point, Clete. Would we want to be loved because somebody was made to love us? Could we even consider that love? If this is love, I don't want it. I'd feel robbed, like something was missing. Why is this kind of "love" not ok with us yet God doesn't mind it? If we desire true love because somebody wants to love us, then I can't see the Creator wanting anything less from His creation.
I've been thinking about the whole idea of God being "in time", and there are some inherent logical problems that I'd like to address.
Consider the following:
A) God has always existed.
B) God exists in time.
C) From A and B, an infite amount of time must have passed before the present time. An infinite amount of time cannot be transversed, thus premise A or premise B must be rejected.
Consider the following:
A) God has always existed.
B) God exists in time.
C) From A and B, an infite amount of time must have passed before the present time. An infinite amount of time cannot be transversed, thus premise A or premise B must be rejected.
Z Man said:Well that's a news flash for me. Since when did Open Theism deny that God exists in time?
Sorry. The spatial analogy threw me. Timeless eternity people refer to a timeline (2D) that we inhabit, but God is supposedly above it seeing it all at once or experiencing it in an 'eternal now' moment. Time is not a place or space. I do not think saying God is 'in time' (preposition/location) is accurate. How about saying that time is an aspect or experience of any personal being, including God.
We agree on A. I would reword B. C is also weak logically/philosophically (is this the poster who goes on about infinite regression which I still do not see the point of)? Everlasting to everlasting is descriptive vs timelessness or eternal now.
JCAtheist
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Z Man said:
Bolded by me..
Already done for jew and gentile.
Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
Heb 10:16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
Love and Peace
JCAtheist
Well of course they don't believe that. I didn't say they believed it but my logic is sound and shows a serious flaw in closed theistism logic. Closed theism generally has effectively been falsified by this line of reasoning and as a result so has Calvinism.Z Man said:
This is self contradictory Z Man. You cannot be made to love someone. If people do not love God of their own free will, they do not love Him at all. That's just the way love works.
This is not "my belief" so much as it is simply the definition of what it means to love. It would still be true if Clete Pfeiffer didn't exist.
Hate is also impossible without free will.
Now this much I agree with you on.
Would you agree that this was God's free will choice?
The problem with you little story here is that Joe would still not be able to love John because he has (according to your theology) no ability to do otherwise, even after he sobers up.
It seems you agree that God has free will and so there is no disagreement between us about his ability to love us. But you are far from showing that love is even remotely possible without volition. If I cannot reject you and cannot love you. Whatever it is I would do, if you called it love, it would be meaningless. So again, I'm not saying that the vast majority of Christians don't beleive that we can love God but as a result of their belief in a closed future where we have not ability to do or to do otherwise, they render their so called love meaningless.
Resting in Him,
Clete