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"It was inning five of game three of the 1932 World Series, and Babe Ruth was up to bat.

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Originally posted by Lee Merrill

Hi Sahid,

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Sahid: I think God could know that Peter would keep denying him. And I think God could make a rooster crow to remind him at just the right time.

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Yes, that's one event. If that was all that was involved, then we could be fairly confident of the outcome. But there were lots of events involved in this prediction! You can't just pick one of them, and say "this was probable, therefore the whole prediction was probable." That's just not true.

Again, if 100 critical events had to happen for Peter to deny Christ, then this is not a probable event at all, on any reasonable assumptions. Even given unreasonable assumptions, such as 99% probability of success for each event, and that there's only 100 of them.

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Once again I would say you’re not perhaps catching the import of something here. It could have went a different way. If it made sense to say that to Peter that he would be crucified because of the law of probability made sense that Christians would be crucified then what about John? Was he crucified? No. So making a guess by the law of probability doesn’t make sense and would violate the wisdom of God to do so. What would be at stake in being wrong would have been mind staggering to even consider. No. God must have known the future not by a strange guess but by having the future become known to him…..by time travel…..that’s the only thing also which would guarantee freedom of will….the only thing. [Bobber]

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God had different plans for John. John and God were working together. I don't understand what the problem is. God knew Peter and knew what he planned to do with Peter. God knew John and knew what he planned to do something else with John. I don't think anyone said that God couldn't distinguish between Peter and John. You're assuming we think God is very stupid. We don't. God can tell people apart. [Sahid]

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Right! Who would guess that the Roman empire would be intolerant of a religion that claimed Caesar wasn't a god. And who could have guessed that they would crucify that religion's members.

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So Babe Ruth:

1. Had the power to predetermine all history?
2. Had exhaustive knowlege of a future that had already happened?
3. Had the ability to carry out his prediction?

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I predict that I will wear white socks tomorrow. That's proof I know the future? [Sister Of Cain]

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Originally posted by Bobber

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Once again I would say you’re not perhaps catching the import of something here. It could have went a different way. If it made sense to say that to Peter that he would be crucified because of the law of probability made sense that Christians would be crucified then what about John? Was he crucified? No. So making a guess by the law of probability doesn’t make sense and would violate the wisdom of God to do so. What would be at stake in being wrong would have been mind staggering to even consider. No. God must have known the future not by a strange guess but by having the future become known to him…..by time travel…..that’s the only thing also which would guarantee freedom of will….the only thing. [Bobber]

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God had different plans for John. John and God were working together. I don't understand what the problem is. God knew Peter and knew what he planned to do with Peter. God knew John and knew what he planned to do something else with John. I don't think anyone said that God couldn't distinguish between Peter and John. You're assuming we think God is very stupid. We don't. God can tell people apart. [Sahid]

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No offence Sahid but you switched gears here and went a different direction. So now you’re suggesting Jesus knew Peter’s future by the law of probability he would be killed by the Romans for you said prior....

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Right! Who would guess that the Roman empire would be intolerant of a religion that claimed Caesar wasn't a god. And who could have guessed that they would crucify that religion's members.

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So you now declare that it was say the will of God for John meet a different fate but Peter's end result was to be crucified [as he was] but all that was based on the law of probability. So God had an end result will in his plan for John but not Peter? Or to put it another way you’re saying God broke in and had a different destiny then John not based on the law of probability for you say the law of probability would have had the Romans crucify all Christians. But somehow John escaped the logical law of probability?

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Originally posted by Bobber

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So Babe Ruth:

1. Had the power to predetermine all history?
2. Had exhaustive knowlege of a future that had already happened?
3. Had the ability to carry out his prediction?

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Babe Ruth could have been wrong

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I'm honestly not offended by people lying about what I've said. It just makes me sad that people would distort the truth just to be "right". Trust me, I'm pliable. I can be convinced. Just not by people who make up things about me.

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Who would guess that the Roman empire would be intolerant of a religion that claimed Caesar wasn't a god. And who could have guessed that they would crucify that religion's members. The Roman empire didn't crucify many people.

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Originally posted by Bobber
See you come on here defending a concept that Jesus guessed how it would all take place

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Matt 12:25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them,....

Luke 5:22 Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, "Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?

Luke 6:8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Get up and stand in front of everyone."

Luke 11:17 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: "Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall...

John 2:24-25 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.

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He wasn't wrong. Was it:
1. Had the power to predetermine all history?
2. Had exhaustive knowlege of a future that had already happened?
3. Had the ability to carry out his prediction?

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Hey bobber, how about it? How does infinite data (all knowlege into infinite eternity) simultaneously transmit through a finite universe?

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Didn't they cover it on that episode of Star Trek?

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Originally posted by Bobber

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Hey bobber, how about it? How does infinite data (all knowlege into infinite eternity) simultaneously transmit through a finite universe?

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You don't need infinite data for the time travel of revelation back to the past to be true.

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Originally posted by Bobber
[IN one of their movies, called, "Generations" there was a realm or place called the Nexus. IN this realm or place time had no meaning. You could go back and see your children born or go ahead and see your grandchildren. They actually got that from the physics books of what would actually be the case above the speed of light. Its not really that you could go to the future but the end result of the matter, going above the speed of light with retrograde time, that end result of the matter is that you would have the image or picture of going back to see your children born or going ahead to see your grandchildren....sound familiar?

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The speed of light is finite. How does data from infinite eternity ever get here if it's limited to the finite speed of light?

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Originally posted by Bobber

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The speed of light is finite. How does data from infinite eternity ever get here if it's limited to the finite speed of light?

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Define what you mean by infinite eternity?

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Originally posted by Bobber
....the faster you go time slows down...and stops at the speed of light....it goes retrograde [backwards] if you're above it....

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Murray Gell-Mann and James Hartle recently extended this idea to the whole Universe. They argued that if, as many cosmologists believe likely, the Universe was born in a Big Bang, will expand out for a finite time and then recollapse into a Big Crunch, the time-neutral quantum theory could describe time running backwards in the contracting half of its life.

Unfortunately, Laflamme has now shown that this will not work. He has proved that if there are only small inhomogeneities present in the Big Bang, then they must get larger throughout the lifetime of the Universe, in both the expanding and the contracting phases. "A low entropy Universe at the Big Bang cannot come back to low entropy at the Big Crunch" (Classical and Quantum Gravity, vol 10 p L79). He has found time-asymmetric solutions to the equations -- but only if both Big Bang and Big Crunch are highly disordered, with the Universe more ordered in the middle of its life.

Observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation show that the Universe emerged from the Big Bang in a very smooth and uniform state. This rules out the time-symmetric solutions. The implication is that even if the present expansion of the Universe does reverse, time will not run backwards and broken cups will not start re- assembling themselves.

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Originally posted by GregBoyd

I have recently had several discussions with several people who are into cosmology and with two who specialize in relativity theory. I learned, among other things, that my presentation of Relativity Theology in God of the Possible was over-simplified to the point of being wrong. I depict it as merely an epistemological phenomenon (e.g. information reaching us at the speed of light) and THAT is mistaken. I agree. I recant. BUT I also walked away from the discussion MORE convinced that Relativity Theory does NOT imply that there is no absolute sequence in the cosmos.

Here's what relativity theory states: WHEN an event occurs (not just when information about an event ARRIVES) is dependent on the location and speed of the observer of the event. SO, (here's an analogy)

picture a man watching a train traveling close to the speed of light. An observer watching the train go by sees a lightening bolt strike the front end and the back end of the train simultaneously. Yet an observer in the middle of the train sees the front lightening bolt hitting before the second. THIS ISN'T just because the light from the back of the train had to travel farther, since the train had moved forward since it's being hit. No. If you had two atomic clocks placed at the front and the back of the train which registered WHEN the lightening struck, THEY WOULD GIVE DIFFERENT TIMES. Yet, to the stationary observer watching the whole scenario, the lightening struck simultaneously.

Now, many many people conclude from this that IT IS MEANINGLESS TO TALK ABOUT A "NOW" TO THE COSMOS AS A WHOLE. They assume that it means that for God THERE IS NO SEQUENCE. THE BEGINNING, MIDDLE AND END of the cosmos must be experienced simultaneously. Relativity theory is thus used to "prove" the classic view of God's timelessness. Hence people who hold that God faces a partly open future are viewed as a) limiting God and b) being ignorant of relativity theory (as a recent letter to the editor of Christianity today charged). I have seen this objection to the Open View in print at least fifty or sixty times and heard it expressed in other venues at least a hundred times (but whose counting?).

Though my presentation in The God of the Possible was far too simplified (e.g. incorrect) I stand by my claim that Relativity Theory does not AT ALL suggest that the there is no "Now" to the cosmos. It merely specifies that only AN OMNIPRESENT OBSERVER would know when the "now" was. Please consider my subsequent argument carefully and give me feedback (esp. if you are knowledgable in this area).

Consider that everything Relativity Theory says about the relativity of time is said about THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FINITE EVENTS AND OBSERVERS. There is no absolute "time" when the lightening bolt strikes if we are speaking about the perceptions of the observer on the train or observer watching the train. BUT there IS an absolute "when" if we are talking about (say) the CLOCKSor OBSERVERS themselves. The woman on the train had a BEFORE and AFTER when she experienced the various lightening bolt, as did the man watching the train go by, as did the clocks that registered the hit.

Relativity Theory simply tells us why we can never coordinate these "befores" and 'afters." And the REASON (drum role please) is because WE OURSELVES ARE FINITE OBSERVERS. We can never transcend the limited, speed conditioned, location dependent perspective. FOR BEINGS SUCH AS US, there is no hope. We can't talk of an absolute NOW.

NOT SO FOR AN OMNIPRESENT BEING]

Suppose, just for the sake of argument there is a God who can be INSIDE the clock at the front of the train, INSIDE the clock at the back of the Train, INSIDE the head of the observer on the train, and INSIDE the head of the observer watching the train (as well as inside the lightening bolts, etc.). Now, the "before" and "after" of each event and observer is experienced by God. And this means that God's experience has a 'before" and "after" that encompasses all 'befores" and "afters." It means there is a past, present and future for God and all things God knows. .

Let me argue it this way. The cosmos as a whole is constituted by the set of all its constitutents. Let's simplify things a bit by saying there are four things that comprise the universe.
clock 1 (c1)
clock2 (c2)
observer1 (o1)
observer2 (o2)

Now, we know there IS a "before" "now" and "after" for each constitutent (c1,c2,01,02.), even though NONE OF THEM can perfectlycorrelate their "before" "now" and "after" with anyone elses "before," "now" and "after." BUT God is present ON THE INSIDE of all four .He is perfectly contemporaneous with all four. In knowing all four, therefore, God knows the "before" "now" and "after" of each constitutent. And his experience coordinates the "before" "now" and "after" of each constituent.

Indeed, if each constitutent has a 'before" "now" and after," the universe as a whole MUST have a "before" "now" and after", for the universe is nothing over and above the four consitituents. Hence God, who knows the cosmos perfectly and experiences it "from the inside," must know and experience an absolute "before" "now" and "after." Think of it this way.

c1 (past) c1(now) c1 (future)
c2 (past) c2(now) c2 (future)
o1 (past) o1(now) o1 (future)
02 (past) o2(now) o2 (future)


Noe of the consistuents can experience each others past, now or future just as the other consistutent does. BUT God encompasses all of them, simultaneously. Hence, the "now" of each is HIS now and is coordinated with the "now" of every other constitutent.

This is basically the point which Milic Capek makes (as esteemed an authority in this field as anyone) when he argues:

It is true that there are no objective "Now" lines [in relativity theory]; yet it is not the whole truth, and this is precisely what makes the conclusion [that relativity theory requires a determinate future] wrong. Even a superficial inspection of relativistic time-space clearly shows that the past is separated form the future even more effectively than in classical physics: the whole four-dimensional region called "Elsewhere" (which could equally well be called "Elsewhen") is interposed between the causal past and causal future. It is this region which is differently divided by different observers and in which the "Now" lines do not coincide. But no "Now" line of mine can ever cut my own causal past nor my own causal future….The apparently mysterious character of Einstein’s universe disappears when we realize that this denial of absolute "Now" is [only] a denial of instantaneous actions and of instantaneous space…

From this Capeck concludes:

Although there is no absolute "Now," [he didn't need to, and shouldn't have, conceded this] there is such a thing as an absolute future. This is quite obvious for my own "Here-Now," which I actually experience; I can never perceive my own future event, since there are no backward causal actions, no effects preceding their causes. But more than that: my own causal future cannot be perceived by any other conceivable observer…. By the very definition of "Elsewhere," no causal actions from my own "Now"—a fortiori from my own future—can reach the observer unless they move with a velocity greater than that of light, which is excluded by relativity. Conversely, for the same reason, no event from the causal future of any observer located in the "Elsewhere" region can reach my own "Here-Now." Consequently, future events are intrinsically unobservable… M. Capeck, "The Unreality and Indeterminacy of the Future in the Light of Contemporary Physics," in Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time, pp. 306-07. See idem., The Concepts of Space and Time. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 22 (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1976). Take a look at Coveney and Highfield, Arrow of Time, ch.3, "How Time Defeated Einstein," pp. 70-107, who argue that there is a flaw in Einstein’s formulation because he did not factor in the unidirectional flow of time. Another who argues against the "block universe" implications of Einstein’s theory are R. Gale, The Language of Time (New York: Humanities Press, 1968)


I rest my case
I think.

What do you ya'll think? come back at me.
I in particular wanted to issue a challenge to my collegue and good friend Dr. Paul EDDY to respond to this, since his main reason for resisting the open view has been his unwillingness to let go of what he mistakenly thinks is an implication of Einstein's theory of Relativity. Step up Ol Boy!!!! Lets play chess!!!!

Blessings to all

Doc

"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul

Edited by - GregBoyd on 10/05/2001 09:26:55 AM

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If God knows the future, He knows it from creation up until eternity. But eternity is infinite. So all knowlege of eternity is infinite. This is not hard to understand. [Swan]

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And I would stress again there is no demand that all the future needs to be even known...all God has given us record of is up until after the 1000 year of Christ rule, depending on what your end time theology is...the Bible also says that the universe of the physical is wearing out... [Bobber]

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Originally posted by Bobber

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If God knows the future, He knows it from creation up until eternity. But eternity is infinite. So all knowlege of eternity is infinite. This is not hard to understand. [Swan]

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Nor is it hard to understand what I stated in my prior post.

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Observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation show that the Universe emerged from the Big Bang in a very smooth and uniform state. This rules out the time-symmetric solutions. The implication is that even if the present expansion of the Universe does reverse, time will not run backwards and broken cups will not start re- assembling themselves.

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So you now declare that it was say the will of God for John meet a different fate but Peter's end result was to be crucified [as he was] but all that was based on the law of probability. So God had an end result will in his plan for John but not Peter? Or to put it another way you’re saying God broke in and had a different destiny then John not based on the law of probability for you say the law of probability would have had the Romans crucify all Christians. But somehow John escaped the logical law of probability?

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Lying about you? I think you better go back and do a recheck. YOu very clearly implied that Jesus was able to guess the outcome of Peter, that is how he would die by the law of probablity that because the Romans crucified the greatest number of people that was a safe bet on how Peter would die so he made a prophecy concerning it? Here were you're exact words: quote:
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Who would guess that the Roman empire would be intolerant of a religion that claimed Caesar wasn't a god. And who could have guessed that they would crucify that religion's members. The Roman empire didn't crucify many people.
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They measure distances in the universe using "light years". If the value of duration reaches 0 at "light speed", then their measurements of "light years" would be meaningless (multiply some value by 0, you get 0).

"above time", "outside time" are worthless phrases. Time is the measurement of the ordered succession of events of creation. All of scripture portrays God's experience with ordered events the same as us.

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