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Paul M. Blackmore
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 53
| Posted 1/9/2009 10:55 PM (GMT -6) |   | I tire now when I hear people speak about God being outside of time. The whole concept is just Sooooooooo ridiculous!
If God were able to go to the future, what could He possibly see there? Certainly not us! WE can't go to the future. If we allow that God can go to the future a la "atemporality", then we must also allow for such a condition for ourselves. Yes?
How does God see our future actions unless we have some means by which to project those actions into the future for God to see them and know what they are?
Granting the concept of atemporality to God requires granting ourselves more or less the same thing. Few people understand this point.
If we have some way of OWNING OUR OWN DEEDS before we even exist then we are remarkable, god-like creatures indeed are we not? What rubbish. If we own our own deeds, then the clear vision and knowledge of those deeds can only be known on or about the time that we DO THE DEEDS. To go beyond this is folly and madness IMO, regardless how timehonoured the traditions are which would tell us otherwise.
Also, if God fully knows ALL future events in 100% clarity (including His own actions in those future events), then how does He differ from a slave and a puppet to that very immutable, fully formulated future? It would be worse by far than Bill Murray's "groundhog day". At least Bill Murray could do different things HIMSELF in the day that just kept repeating itself over and over again in the movie. God could have no variation whatsoever if His foreknowledge is said to be exhaustive. What a TRAP! God would become completely POWERLESS in such a system to effect a change of any kind in the course of human history, would He not? What then of prayer? What then of meaningful ANYTHING? The "puppet show" would bind us all under its decree, even God. Why would He want that? What Bible teaches such non-sensical notions?
No Bible teaches such things. Christians need to WAKE UP to the truth that hope yet remains for this world and the people in it. All is not fully decided yet. At least not the particular details of what is to come. There is hope for all the living!
Blessings in Christ
Paul
Psalms 119
96I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad.
97O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Post Edited (Paul M. Blackmore) : 1/9/2009 10:00:27 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/10/2009 4:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Yeah, I hear ya Paul. Atemporal existence makes less and less sense to me.
T | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/10/2009 4:33 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 1/12/2009 4:56 PM (GMT -6) | | This is why I wrote my book, "Where The Future Meets Reality; the open view from the perspective of life."
Formal logic and philosophy aside, a purely practical perspective eliminates the idea of God knowing the future with exhaustively settled foreknowledge. The simple fact of the matter is that it is impossible for God to know everything we will ever think, say or do. To prove that He doensn't know this, simply ask God to show and tell you what you will think, say and do in, say, the next thirty minutes. No matter what God shows and tells you (with the exceptions of those things you cannot control), you would simply be able to do differently than what you heard and saw. Maybe you couldn't change everything, but you'd be able to change some things. This means, then, that God would never be so foolish as to claim that He has this knowledge because no matter what He would put in front of you as suposedly being from exhaustively settled future, you would always be able to change something, thus proving that not every aspect of your future can be exhaustively foreknown and, thus, settled.
This is so simple, so practical and so the-way-we-do-life, that it runs right below the noses (and above the heads) of even some of the smartest people out there. It's simply the way things are, the truth, that life does not, and cannot, demonstrate both freewill and exhaustively settled future coexisting in the same room at the same time. It's a no-no, one that God Himself built into this universe.
Again, the proof is simple. Any attempt God makes to reveal exhaustively settled foreknowledge ahead of time falls falt on its face; freewill makes it impossible for us to be boxed into any arrangement of that kind.
Starkman
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 1/13/2009 11:34 AM (GMT -6) | | Starkman said...
Simply ask God to show and tell you what you will think, say and do in, say, the next thirty minutes. No matter what God shows and tells you (with the exceptions of those things you cannot control), you would simply be able to do differently than what you heard and saw.
I like this, Starkman. It's a variant on a standard objection to Ockhamist and Boethian responses to the foreknowledge dilemma. The Ockhamist says that God believed (past tense) what he believed about the future only because that's the way things eventually turn out. The Boethian says that God timelessly believes what he believes about what we call the future only because that's the way things turn out. The objection asks whether God could have revealed this knowledge to someone in (what we call) the past. Presumably, both Ockhamists and Boethians will say 'yes'. But then it's hard to avoid the impression that that (past) revelation (imagine that God inspired a prophet to carve in into granite) is a hard fact, pace Ockhamism. In addition, contrary to Boethianism it's hard to avoid the impression that that revelation cannot be causally consequent upon events in (what we call) the future because it is temporally prior to those events. The Boethian might be able to avoid this by embracing backwards causation, but that seems a rather desperate expedient.
A further difficulty for Ockhamists and Boethians has to do with divine providence. If God's knowledge of (what we call) the future is consequent upon the actual occurrence of those events, then it comes too late for God to do anything about it. To avoid this, the non-open theist has to embrace Molinism, with all of its attendant problems.
Alan
PS. I've ordered a copy of your book. Thanks for writing it. | | Back to Top | | |
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Paul M. Blackmore
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 53
| Posted 1/13/2009 7:55 PM (GMT -6) | | |
By my reckoning, nobody is "outside of time". Such an option simply does not exist for anyone, Divine or mortal. I understand time to mean the logical, orderly flow from past to present to future. I allow for different experiences of the rate of that flow, but nobody can slip the bounds of time itself. (ie: waiting for future events to unfold before knowing with 100% clarity and certainty, the precise shape and colour of those events)
The Bible abounds with references to God waiting for things, searching out things, reacting to things, planning for contingincies of one sort or another, etc. etc. These recorded Biblical instances deny any such notion of God somehow being "outside of time". It is a completely unworkable notion.
BTW, here is a Biblical reference to Divine foreknowledge which was disclosed, and which having been taken into account and acted upon, caused the thing NOT TO COME TO PASS after all. Interesting! 
1st Samuel 23:
8And Saul called all the people together to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.
9And David knew that Saul secretly practised mischief against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, Bring hither the ephod.
10Then said David, O LORD God of Israel, thy servant hath certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah, to destroy the city for my sake.
11Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O LORD God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the LORD said, He will come down.
12Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the LORD said, They will deliver thee up.
13Then David and his men, which were about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah; and he forbare to go forth.
Blessings in Christ
Paul
Foreknowledge in this case, ended up allowing a bad situation to be avoided by David. The future was changed for the better for David because he KNEW that the future was by no means settled in every detail. Where there is room to alter future outcomes for the better, it is incumbent upon those with this Divine foreknowledge in hand, to act wisely and prudently with that knowledge!
Psalms 119
96I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad.
97O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. | | Back to Top | | |
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Duigan MacBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 24
| Posted 1/14/2009 8:37 AM (GMT -6) | |
Paul M. Blackmore said...
By my reckoning, nobody is "outside of time". "Outside of time" is invalid because it's a mixed metaphor or a paralogical metaphor.
Sequences don't have spacial dimensions.
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