Does God know the future?

[godrulz]

Agreed. I told you I wouldn't argue cause and effect. No worries. Whenever I see the 'future' by being in a different time rate its no the future, its my present. The point being if God exists in multiple time frames then He experiences time at different rates. Cause and effect isn't changed but my future is His past in certain time frames.

:noway:​

If this happened in everyday science it would be beyond comprehension to physics...but it doesn't. We can't experience multiple time frames because we are not omnipresent. God is ....He can do things we can't do. Like being in multiple time frames (if you accept omnipresence then you must accept this). If we could do that we could watch tomorrow's news today.

Fact is your philosophy is behind the times. Much like those in medieval europe who put the world at the centre of the solar system. Science has overtaken you. Not God, but you.

You are confusing time with space and assuming God is in multiple time frames, whatever that means. The future is not a place nor is it spatial anymore than the past is. Time is more fundamental than space. There is a connection in that our events are associated with a certain place and date. God sees the present exhaustively because He is in more than one place in His awareness. He can watch the news unfold in real time as things happen. The past becomes fixed in His memory, but it is not a place He goes to in a different time frame to actually experience in reality. It is past, not present. Likewise, He cannot go into the future to actually see and experience it in a different time frame because the distant future is simply not yet. It is not spatial, so one cannot go there to visit or know it. When it becomes actual for us and God, then and only then, is it knowable as a certainty vs possibility.

 

[eccl3_6]

Whatever time dilatation is, it does not make future non-existent events real/actual trillions of years before they happen. It also does not make 400 B.C. concurrent or subsequent to 2000 A.D. for some observers. Time is unidirectional moving from the potential future into the fixed past through the present. Fanciful GPS theories do not negate the obvious.

You're out of your depth.

No it doesn't make things happen before they happen - nobody is suggesting that. You can see them once they have happened though. And things happen sooner for some than for others (time frames). You don't have to see God as a spaceman, the timeframe for a photon here on earth is the equivalent to near lightspeed travel.

Fanicful GPS theories? Its not faniciful...I have Satellite Navigation in my car!

400BC subsequent to to 2000AD.....cause and effect...nobody is going to argue with you on this.....I told you I'm not going to bite, its not the argument.

400BC concurrent to 2000AD....Ah well Omnipresent God in 400AD in another time frame as well could be in 2000AD too. Not in the physical world...we can't. We're not God. But an omnipresent God is everywhere and that implies (through different time frames) in all time future and past to us.

You're not grasping this are you but it doesn't stop you from arguing. Just like the Church did gainst Gallileo.....

 

[eccl3_6]

You are confusing time with space and assuming God is in multiple time frames, whatever that means.

CONFUSING TIME WITH SPACE???

Its called General Relativity. Gravity is space-time curvature. Gravity being the footprint of mass.


You're really starting to clutch at straws now....

 

[godrulz]

CONFUSING TIME WITH SPACE???

Its called General Relativity. Gravity is space-time curvature. Gravity being the footprint of mass.


You're really starting to clutch at straws now....

I do not understand relativity or time frames.

I do know that time is not identical to space. I think you are begging the question and assuming what you are trying to prove. If your foundation is relativity theories without common sense, then I think you are going beyond their intended application. Being dogmatic does not make either of us right. You are putting too much weight on theories and misapplications of them (?) and not enough on God's revelation of how He experiences reality.

Clete?

 

[Johnny]

If you perceive injustice on the part of God, you either misunderstand what is happening or you misunderstand justice or both.

Exactly.

If she feel that God is unjust then she is foolish and guilty of blasphemy, just as you are.

I would not venture to say that she is foolish or blaspheming unless her feelings continue long after rationality should take hold again. One could argue that during irrationality one is being foolish and perhaps blasphemous, but I think that's largely irrelevant to the point. The point is that most of us, Christian or not Christian, will experience a situation in which God seems completely unfair. I've experienced them. I'm sure I will experience more. But we're only human, and we're wrong. God is just. That doesn't change, even though my emotions and understandings will.

If you deny that the present day doesn't exist then you're idiotic beyond description.

Eh, that's not one of the things that must exist according to you.

Oh nice. So now you’ve just rendered justice meaningless as well. Justice is word with real meaning Johnny. If you don’t understand what it means I suggest you find out but I can guarantee you that you don’t have a clue what sort of person God is based on what you’ve said in these recent posts.

I said God defines justice. You said the same thing.

Bull! You made the point that if God were just (presumable according to your own understanding of justice) that God would not have allowed Hitler to do what he did or for children to die of starvation in Africa or any number of other injustices that God permits. This is proof that you don't have a clue what God is doing, you don't know who God is and you don't know what justice is.

No Clete. I said God is just. Just because it doesn't seem just to us does not mean it's not just. Yes, human understanding of justice is flawed.

If God is inconsistent with a current description of His Character then He would not continue to be holy...Consistency is a litmus test for righteousness.

But you've already said the description of His character (i.e. loving) was defined by Him.

You cannot meaningfully say that God loves us and believe that the future is closed without contradicting yourself because love must be a choice. If one cannot do or do otherwise choice is impossible and therefore love is impossible because love is a choice.

Which part of love has to be a choice by definition? None of it. And that's assuming that a closed theology system doesn't permit free will.

Finally, I think you're a bit arrogant in assuming that you completely understand love and justice in a divine sense of the words. You claim that anyone who doesn't see God's love or justice in any situation is "blasphemous" and "foolish", yet I would contend that you have either experienced this or will experience this. I truly question your honesty if you claim never to have encountered such a situation, or never to have questioned by looking around you. That does not mean that you won't say "God is just". It means that you will say "God is just, but I don't understand it right now". It happens. I can't explain why millions are dying in Africa of starvation. I can't explain why God lets children while famine and war sweeps through the countries. I can't explain how a loving God sees it just to condemn someone who doesn't have a choice. After all, we were chosen by Him, not by anything we did.

The bottom line is that Open Theism is a theology designed to help fit God into your box. By restricting God to human definitions and human understandings of the words "just", "loving", and "merciful", open theists have had to invent all sorts of imaginative ways to circumvent a message which is quite clear in scripture: God knows the future. It is painfully obvious to anyone observing an Open Theist arguing that all sorts of concessions, both logical and theological, have been made in order to satisfy a fundemental desire to understand and comprehend God. Complete understanding and complete comprehension of God's virtues is impossible as a human. We are blinded by our own sin, our own bias, and our own preconceived notions of what is and what isn't. Thus, it is my strong belief that it is best to let God handle Himself acting justly and lovingly. He is quite capable without us rewriting scripture to satisfy our own intellectual persuits.

 

[eccl3_6]

I do not understand relativity or time frames.

I do know that time is not identical to space. I think you are begging the question and assuming what you are trying to prove. If your foundation is relativity theories without common sense, then I think you are going beyond their intended application. Being dogmatic does not make either of us right. You are putting too much weight on theories and misapplications of them (?) and not enough on God's revelation of how He experiences reality.

Clete?

Clete's understanding of physics is just as poor...he won't be able to help other than to confirm ignorance.

Relativity explains the inseperable nature of progressive space and time. If you don't understand it like you say you don't you won't appreciate that time can 'shift' at different rates for different bodies with different physical properties. Time is diluted even at the top of a mountain compared to someone at a bottom of it. Minutely because of the relatively weak force of Gravity and the relative small distance between the top and bottom of a mountain when compared to the grandeur of the cosmos but a different time frame exists none the less.

God is omnipresent and omniscient.

He knows everything at any one moment in time.

He exists in multiple time frames, this is because He is omnipresent.

If you consider God to have been in a time frame yesterday, to us, whose time rate is very much diluted compared to ours we have only lived a day. But for God witnessing that other rate of time in the time that we have aged a day He has witnessed millenia. He is omniscient so He knows everything that has happened in that millenia. He is omnipresent so He is both in that time frame that has seen the millenia and in ours that has only aged a day. He both experiences our time and knows what tomorrow's time brings even though we have not yet decided it with our free will, which we still have.

Cause and effect as you understand it has not been compromised.

Open Theism has.


How can I be putting too much weight into a theory of science when the technology we use only works because of the way we understand time. This isn't just theory....we're passed that. We've done it, we've applied it. Its like denying the sun is at the centre of the solar system when we are showing you satellite footage of just that.

You may as well deny the ground beneath your feet. In fact you are denying God's universe as He created it​

 

[godrulz]

:wave: :car:

You are talking about the physical universe. God is distinct from creation. His eternal spirit is not affected by physical phenomenon. God is not 'in' time frames unless you wrongly assume time is space and space is time. They are not identical.

Does God know the future? Yes. He correctly knows it as unsettled, open, possible, or probable. The aspects He knows as settled are things He purposes to bring to pass (Is. 46; 48). i.e. two motifs in Scripture.

Pinnock: "Aspects of the future, being unsettled, are not yet wholly known even to God. It does not mean that God is ignorant of something He ought to know, but that many things in the future are only possible and not yet actual. Therefore, He knows them correctly as possible and not actual."

God sees things as they are and correctly differentiates past, present, and future.

Two main theories on time:

A (process)* common sense view (like we live by) the past is gone, the future is not yet, only the present now exists.

B (static/Augustinian) all of time exists simultaneously

Exhaustive foreknowledge of future free will contingencies is illogical/absurd:

If an act be free, it must be contingent (equal possibility of being or not being). If contingent, it may or may not happen, or it may be one of many possibles. And if it may be one of many possibles, it must be uncertain; and if uncertain, it must be unknowable.

I would put your physical theories through the screen of self-evident principles, not vice versa. Your view leads to determinism in the end.

How can it dishonor Him to know things as they really are?

Timelessness? Endless time!

 

[eccl3_6]

You are talking about the physical universe. God is distinct from creation. His eternal spirit is not affected by physical phenomenon. God is not 'in' time frames unless you wrongly assume time is space and space is time. They are not identical.

Physics is the physical universe. Thats what physics means in Greek - Nature. This has already been stated. I have accepted God as being the creator and outside nature as well you know, I'm agnostic not an atheist. You are just trying to cover your tracks to protect Open Theism even though you have started to accept that it does not hold true.

Does God know the future? Yes. He correctly knows it as unsettled, open, possible, or probable. The aspects He knows as settled are things He purposes to bring to pass (Is. 46; 48). i.e. two motifs in Scripture.

Pinnock: "Aspects of the future, being unsettled, are not yet wholly known even to God. It does not mean that God is ignorant of something He ought to know, but that many things in the future are only possible and not yet actual. Therefore, He knows them correctly as possible and not actual."

Semantics. 'Does God know the future' as in does He know what is going to happen in the future. You answer "Yes....Correctly as possible but not actual" which is a conditional 'No'. This is contradictory to an omnipresent God for reasons already stated. Sorry but there it is. This is you covering your tracks.

God sees things as they are and correctly differentiates past, present, and future.

Past, present and future to whom. If you accept an omnipresent God and time dilation then you accept different time frames and what is past, present and future to you may be different to me. To God everything is past, everything is present, everything is future because He can be in anyone time frame which fits these things. He can do it by being outside physics.

On the contrary it is you who is trying to contain God by saying He experiences time as we do.​

You did not realise when you stated your claims of Open Theism that different bodies in different states witness time dilation relative to our own.​

Two main theories on time:

A (process)* common sense view (like we live by) the past is gone, the future is not yet, only the present now exists.

B (static/Augustinian) all of time exists simultaneously

Exhaustive foreknowledge of future free will contingencies is illogical/absurd:

Metaphysics against a physical argument....sorry it doesn't apply, you've been confusing the two for a long time now. I am not going to be drawn into such a metaphysical argument because I don't need to in order to refute open theism.

If an act be free, it must be contingent (equal possibility of being or not being). If contingent, it may or may not happen, or it may be one of many possibles. And if it may be one of many possibles, it must be uncertain; and if uncertain, it must be unknowable.

Cause and effect argument....again not going to get drawn into it as its not relevant. Keep on topic. If God is omnipresent and time dilation exists then God knows our future if for no other reason than it can be seen as past to Him.

If you dispute time dilation then the practical application of the science can be shown to you just like if you didn't believe in flight I could show you a plane flying.

If you dispute the omnipresence of God then that is your call. I'll throw the argument over to the regular Christians.

If you accept both omnipresence and time dilation then Open-Theism crumbles.​

I would put your physical theories through the screen of self-evident principles, not vice versa.

We have, thats why we observe the theory. We observed the theory and made practical uses for it. SatNav for one. On the contrary if you apply open theism to logic and the scientific nature of the universe that we have observed then open theism if found to be lacking.

Your view leads to determinism in the end.

No it doesn't. This is the start of another cause and effect argument and I'm not biting because I don't need to go near cause and effect to refute open theism.

How can it dishonor Him to know things as they really are?

:BRAVO:​

Exactly, time dilation works, it can be observed so why are you opposed to it. Why does it dishonor Him to understand 'how the world works' a.k.a. science.

If you are an open theist you either dispute that God is omnipresent or the theory behind time dilation.
I can show you time dilation as surely as I can show you flight by taking you to the airport.​

Isn't it easier to not be an open thiest than it is to believe that God isn't everywhere​

 

[eccl3_6]

Thsi shouldn't be here!:doh:

 

[Delmar]

Exactly, time dilation works, it can be observed so why are you opposed to it. Why does it dishonor Him to understand 'how the world works' a.k.a. science.

If you are an open theist you either dispute that God is omnipresent or the theory behind time dilation.
I can show you time dilation as surely as I can show you flight by taking you to the airport.​

Isn't it easier to not be an open thiest than it is to believe that God isn't everywhere​

Let's grant, for the sake of argument that time dilation is exactly as you say. (I have not had the time to look at it) and revisit the twins experiment with a twist. Let’s say God being all powerful and not limited by the physical universe opens a dimensional portal between the twins so that they can see each other in real time even as the one travels a distance light years away from the other. One watches the others life flies past, watches his kids grow up and sees his brother age very quickly. The other watches his brothers life seem to stand still and witnesses the fact that his brother, while he is aging, is aging very much slower than himself. Which twin would, in this experiment, see a single event of his brothers life one second before it actually happened? If they would not then how could time dilation possibly show that God could see the future be for it happens?

 

[eccl3_6]

Let's grant, for the sake of argument that time dilation is exactly as you say. (I have not had the time to look at it) and revisit the twins experiment with a twist. Let’s say God being all powerful and not limited by the physical universe opens a dimensional portal between the twins so that they can see each other in real time even as the one travels a distance light years away from the other. One watches the others life flies past, watches his kids grow up and sees his brother age very quickly. The other watches his brothers life seem to stand still and witnesses the fact that his brother, while he is aging, is aging very much slower than himself. Which twin would, in this experiment, see a single event of his brothers life one second before it actually happened? If they would not then how could time dilation possibly show that God could see the future be for it happens?

Neither twin would see it before it actually happened. The twin on the rocket over ten minutes would see his other twin's life in 'fast forward'. The 'fast forward' twin experiences life as normal because to him time is normal, normal cause and effect, everything. He has an understanding of his twins entire life in just ten minutes. God exists in both frames. If you believe God is omniscient and omnipresent He is both twins. He is with the rocket twin and knows what he knows i.e. in seeing the other twin die, whilst still being with the other twin who stays on earth.

Now Open-theism believes in an equal passage of time; ten minutes is ten minutes regardless. This then means that God experiences both time frames as just ten minutes and this would mean that God knows the future which open-theism is opposed to.

From this contradiction we now know that one of these three statements is false.

(i) Open theism is right
(ii) Time dilation works
(iii) God is omnipresent

We can see time dilation work, we can see it happening, we don't need a rocket to witness these effects. We've done it here on earth, we use it in our technology.

So either (i) or (iii) is false. Somebody else can make the choice.

 

[Delmar]

Neither twin would see it before it actually happened. The twin on the rocket over ten minutes would see his other twin's life in 'fast forward'. The 'fast forward' twin experiences life as normal because to him time is normal, normal cause and effect, everything. He has an understanding of his twins entire life in just ten minutes. God exists in both frames. If you believe God is omniscient and omnipresent He is both twins. He is with the rocket twin and knows what he knows i.e. in seeing the other twin die, whilst still being with the other twin who stays on earth.

Now Open-theism believes in an equal passage of time; ten minutes is ten minutes regardless. This then means that God experiences both time frames as just ten minutes and this would mean that God knows the future which open-theism is opposed to.

No open theism says that God perceives time as it really is! If in fact time for the one twin did in reality speed up so that the other saw his brothers entire life lived out in 10 min I would assume that God would see that in reality the one twin did live much longer than the other. Even though their lives seemed to be a normal life span to themselves.

From this contradiction we now know that one of these three statements is false.

(i) Open theism is right
(ii) Time dilation works
(iii) God is omnipresent

We can see time dilation work, we can see it happening, we don't need a rocket to witness these effects. We've done it here on earth, we use it in our technology.

So either (i) or (iii) is false. Somebody else can make the choice.

 

[eccl3_6]

So you are saying time dilation is acceptable to open-theism!!!

YES OR NO???

 

[godrulz]

I affirm God's omniscience, omnipresence, and the basic assumptions of open theism (metaphysics arguments you blow off). If there is truth to time dilation, it must mean you are extrapolating beyond the evidence or misapplying it. If it is as solid as you say, it will not contradict Scripture nor philosophical/logical arguments. I still say you are confusing spatial issues (God is time frames) with simple, fundamental duration/sequence/succession= time (eternity= endless time vs timelessness).

You might want to move on to someone more open minded whose brains risk falling out. I am sure someone more informed could find holes with your application of scientific theories that do not apply to the infinite God (they may apply subjectively to theoretical humans that would die in speed of light ships).

Galileo, here I come.

 

[godrulz]

So you are saying time dilation is acceptable to open-theism!!!

YES OR NO???

Properly understood and applied, it must be (or the theory is specious, perhaps).

 

[Delmar]

So you are saying time dilation is acceptable to open-theism!!!

YES OR NO???

If it is true it is, but I don't know that it is true.

 

[Agape4Robin]

Right!!!!! :hammer:

That's it?

:chuckle:

 

[justchristian]

Besides the agrument of time dilation placing God in the future, it shows that time is relative to speed. If time in the universe is relative to speed then it must be seperate from the time God experienced prior to the universe (where there was no speed). Time is not simple duration/succession as godrulz suggests. It is created and extrinsic to God.

 

[eccl3_6]

The point is that if Open Theism refuses time dilation then it rejects that which is there for everybody to witness. If it accepts it then it has to wrestle itself and come to terms with multiple time frames and God not experiencing time simply 'just as we do'.

Open Theists need to either:
a) rethink their position and accept time dilation OR
b) denounce nature as it has been created.

 

[Clete]

This time dilation nonsense is wearing thin. This whole thread has become one giant question begging party. Time dilation has not been proven, and it has not been observed. The slowing down of clocks is not proof that time is slowing down. A clock is not time, it is simply a standardized set of events by which other events are compared. All you time dilation gurus are simply talking about one sort of clock or another but not about time. The spinning of the Earth is a clock, the Earth's orbit around the sun is a clock, the chronometer on the Star Ship Enterprise is a clock, the life span of a muon is a clock, etc, etc, etc. You cannot speak about time dilation without referencing clocks of one sort or another and that's where the flaw (or one of them) is in your logic and in the so-called science that claims to have observed time dilation.
The example was given about one guy who's gone to bed once (or only a very few times) while those on the Earth went to bed 365 times (i.e. the going to bed clock). What happens if you introduce an observer from a 3rd perspective? Let's introduce Mr. Motionless, an observer who happens to be truly motionless (even though he can't be sure himself that he is in fact perfectly motionless, we'll assume that he is). Mr. M here is able to see both those who have gone to bed 365 times and Mr. Kirk who has only gone to bed once (Mr. M is an android who doesn't sleep). Let's further complicate things by assuming that Mr. Kirk happens to have assumed a course for his Starship that negates a vector that the Earth had already been on without being aware of it and so relative to Mr. Motionless, Mr. Kirk and the Enterprise crew are at near total rest and it is the Earth which is going really, really fast. (Which if that occurred, neither Mr. Kirk nor those on the Earth would be able to tell).

The question I'd like for everyone to consider is this...

Would Mr. Motionless be able to snap a hypothetical photograph of a moment in time at which both Mr. Kirk and an observer on Earth where awake at the same time?

The answer to that question is "yes"!
So what, you ask?
Well that puts the Mr. Kirk, the observer on Earth and Mr. Motionless all three in the same "time frame". They all three exist at the same time. One may be experiencing some odd effects because of the speed at which he is (or isn't) traveling which he can't even tell are happening and everyone but him may be moving at a really fast pace (compared to him) but that does not mean that time has been changed, it doesn't mean time has been dilated, it doesn't even mean that time exists. All it means is that motion affects the frequency at which events unfold. That's all that has been observed, that's all that is happening that anyone can prove. Time dilation is a hypothesis used to explain this observed phenomenon but it has not been nor do I believe that there is any way in which it ever could be proven.

Resting in Him,
Clete