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jhodgeiii
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Date Joined Mar 2002
Total Posts : 7
| Posted 6/19/2002 12:01 PM (GMT -6) |   | If God knows the future and is outside of time, would that mean that relative to God absolutely NOTHING has happened in a sequence, nor ever will happen in sequential fashion?
I find this rather bazaar, though I'm sure one could answer, "with God all things are possible."
Any thoughts on this anyone?
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/19/2002 1:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Welcome to this site, jhodgeiii
I'm someone who often comes at things from a right angle. But to put it simply, I think of God and time this way: Don't trap God IN time; and don't leave God out of time.
So I wish to ask this: For people to say "God ... is outside of time" doesn't that develop a habit of thinking of TIME as going-on-under-its-own-power.
But, since God made and sustains all things, then DON'T WE HAVE TO say that God works IN time?
And as for me, I ALSO consider God to be OUTSIDE of time.
That last one is very poorly said. Maybe it is better to say "not IN time."
I can buy something Doc says for a "sequence" fo a certain sort in the Trinity -- maybe. But I FIRMLY acknowledge that use of the concept of "sequence" within the Trinity, besides where pertaining to the economy of salvation (the "economic Trinity") there are HUGE problems that follow as a result. I agree with those who proctice the discipline of outlining where is the point where we JUST CAN'T KNOW. And where trying to know DISTORTS the truth, due to our limitations.
Can we firmly and joyously declaire that GOD ACTS WITHIN CREATION IN A SEQUENTIAL FASHION? I hope so. (Would that change what you have above?)
Welcome to this site!
PotOnWheel
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/19/2002 6:04:35 PM
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/20/2002 3:25:02 P
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Questioning
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 37
| Posted 6/19/2002 4:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Jhodgeiii,
I cannot aruge with you when it comes to the idea of God and time. This is something that I am currently discussing with a few friends. When I ask for scripture that God is outside of time they stare at me with glazed over eyes! They wonder how I can even question something as well known as God being outside of time.
Everything I read indicates that God is in time. Time is concept for measuring the duration of sequences. Man is affected by time. God is not affected by time.
If I am missing something I would really like someone to state it. Any thougths?
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jhodgeiii
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Date Joined Mar 2002
Total Posts : 7
| Posted 6/19/2002 7:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for the responses and for the warm welcome to the group POW.
POW, you kinda lost me about the "economic Trinity." Excuse my ignorance, but I have NO idea what that means or why you went there.
kcy1998, I looked up the definition of time. Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines time pretty close to the way you describe it:
"a period during which something (as an action, process, or condition) exists or continues."
So your reply makes the most sense to me, that God, being eternal, is not affected by time, but men are. In either case, time just does not appear to be something created by God, yet it seems more a concept created by man in order to keep track of events. Just like how good and evil are not created things, time is not a created thing.
I just can't see how God residing outside of time makes any sense! And like kcy1998 said, the Bible certainly never states that God is outside of time. Furthermore, we know that there is time in heaven according to the Revelations (1/2 hour of silence in heaven, I believe).
If I'm wrong about this time issue, thank God for the covenant of grace!
jhodgeiii
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markus
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 100
| Posted 6/20/2002 12:20 AM (GMT -6) | | For my penny-worth.
I do not understand the terms "timeless" or "outside time". For me, these are just titles of something without substance - words that exist purely for the letters thay are made up of and with no real meaning behind them.
But I guess that is just a measure of my own inadequacy. Simply put, as soon as something exists, time starts. As soon as it is here, then it already was. God created the universe, therefore He existed before the universe, therefore there is time. For anything to change, it must have a past, present and future. God was there for the Creation - and will be there for the Judgement - one comes before the other. To me that is time.
To be timeless is surely to be non-existent. How can a God listen to prayers if He hears neither start nor finish? How can God's will be carried out if His will has to exist before its execution? How could God warn Adam and Eve before they ate and then punish them afterwards, if God is immobilized through the non-existence of time?
However, I do feel there is such as thing as relative time. That our time can be on a different "frequency" to others. In one of C.S. Lewis' books (was it the "Dark Tower" fragment?) he talks of timelines being at angles to each other. In this sense I could imagine our life "time" being at an angle to God's timeline. In otherwords, we branch off at, say, close to 90 degrees to God's timeline and return after our own "70" years to a point only a minute further along God's line.
Afterall, kind of fits with what the Bible says about God days being different from our own:
"But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2Pe 3:8)
But, this is a topic way over my simple head!
Markus
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markus
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 100
| Posted 6/20/2002 12:41 AM (GMT -6) | | But regarding God knowing the future, I see this as God being the ultimate, faultless extrapolator of all things.
In the same way that, if we give our child some money whilst standing outside a sweet shop and tell him to spend it how he likes, we "know" he will turn round and enter the shop.
If a world chessmaster knows two other players so well, he can predict the outcome of the two players playing each other as soon as the first move is made.
The only difference is that God knows everything, including every facet of our natures, and can predict with absolute accuracy what will be. That does not destroy our free-will, it only means that God knows as well as we ourselves what we are going to decide in each situation. Since He knows all situations, all people, He can extrapolate literally everything.
The Book of Life could therefore exist even before the start of the world. God knows every hair on everyone's head. Prophecy could be published with great accuracy.
For example, the treachery of Judas Iscariot was not pre-destination (and therefore blameless), it was his own decision, but God knew already long ago what he would decide to do.
Forecasting and prediction are everyday tools in our world. The only difference is that God's forecasting is as foolproof as fact.
At least, that is how I see it, and I find great comfort in that. It does not diminish one bit my own free-will or responsibility. It does not remove my own choice of whether to believe or not. How I choose to run my life is still in my own hands. But it DOES reassure that what God promises will actually be, and that it is good - otherwise we wouldn't be here, would we?
Markus
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GregBoyd
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Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 6/20/2002 5:20 AM (GMT -6) | | POW: I can buy something Doc says for a "sequence" fo a certain sort in the Trinity -- maybe. But I FIRMLY acknowledge that use of the concept of "sequence" within the Trinity, besides where pertaining to the economy of salvation (the "economic Trinity") there are HUGE problems that follow as a result.
Doc: Could you spell out what these HUGE problems are?
Markus: I do not understand the terms "timeless" or "outside time". For me, these are just titles of something without substance - words that exist purely for the letters thay are made up of and with no real meaning behind them.
Doc: Think of mathematical or logical truths. They are timeless, and yet are real. But I agree with your assessment that the idea of a PERSONAL BEING existing outside of time while interacting with personal beings in time is hard to give content to.
Markus: If a world chessmaster knows two other players so well, he can predict the outcome of the two players playing each other as soon as the first move is made.
Doc: Perhaps so. But could he predict every move leading up to this outcome?
Markus: The only difference is that God knows everything, including every facet of our natures, and can predict with absolute accuracy what will be. That does not destroy our free-will, it only means that God knows as well as we ourselves what we are going to decide in each situation. Since He knows all situations, all people, He can extrapolate literally everything.
Doc: If God infers our future moves on the basis of his exhaustive knowledge of reality, then our future moves must in fact be inferrable from reality that precedes our existence. Given all previous states of affairs, all my future decisions are certain. But then the question is, how can I be selfdetermining? How can I be FREE if all I shall ever do is inferrable given the moment of the big bang? I would argue, Markus, that if humans (and angels) are SELF-determining at all, then the reality that God exhaustively knows must include possibilities – possibilities which we actualize with our self-determination.
Markus: For example, the treachery of Judas Iscariot was not pre-destination (and therefore blameless), it was his own decision, but God knew already long ago what he would decide to do.
Doc: Jesus did say that Judas was "a son of perdition" or "destined for destruction", but he doesn’t say that he was this from all eternity.
Markus: Forecasting and prediction are everyday tools in our world. The only difference is that God's forecasting is as foolproof as fact.
Doc: And yet numerous times God changes plans AFTER he gave prophecies. And other prophecies don’t come to pass, or come to pass in ways slightly different from the way they were prophecied (e.g. Jere 18:1-12; Acts 22, the Agabus prophecy).
Markus: At least, that is how I see it, and I find great comfort in that.
Doc: Its seems that one could only get MORE comfort in believing God knows what will in fact take place than in believing God knows what may take place if they believed God’s intelligence is limited, like ours. If God is unlimited in intelligence, he doesn’t have to "spread his intelligence thin" over various possibilities. He can anticipate possibilties with the same confidence he would anticipate certainties. Think about it.
Keep up the thinking!
Doc
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 6/20/2002 5:37 AM (GMT -6) | | Just finished Terrance Tiessen's Providence & Prayer. Great tool. Lays the relevant views out there quite faily I thought. Why can't everybody be so gentlemanly? (Well, at least the guys. The gals could be, eh, womanly? gentlewomanly? lady-like? Oh well).
Tom
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/20/2002 11:54 AM (GMT -6) | | jhodgeii: POW, you kinda lost me about the "economic Trinity." Excuse my ignorance, but I have NO idea what that means or why you went there.
PoW: Guess now I have to do two things: (1) define "economic Trinity"; and (2) say why I "went there." Fair enough.
The term "economic Trinity" was a new one to me too. As new, but more friendly is the phrase: "economy of salvation." A few quotes off the web can illustrate. This first one is from an Anglican site:
quote:
By the “economic” Trinity I mean the Trinity in relation to the "oikonomia"; or the sending by the Father of the Son (our Lord Jesus Christ) into the world for our salvation and of the sending of the Holy Ghost (also the Spirit of Christ) to the Church for its sanctification and empowering.
Everything mentioned has to do with salvation and our life with God. it all has to do with what God reveals to us; and what we can participate in by Grace. "Economic” Trinity is then contrased with “immanent” Trinity. (Sometimes also called: "essential" and "transcendent".) The same Anglican site:
quote:
By the “immanent” Trinity I mean the Trinity remaining within itself; that is, God as God is unto himself; or the Three Persons as they are unto themselves within the Unity of the Godhead. Here God is considered in total isolation apart from both creation and the divine plan of salvation, the oikonomia. (It is important that we do not confuse the doctrine of the immanence of God in creation with the doctrine of the “immanent” Trinity. The former speaks of God, who is transcendent, being present in and through his creation, while the latter speaks of God as God is in and unto and for himself in his own being, infinity and eternity.)
The Anglican writer also says this, "The “economic” Trinity is not to be equated with the biblical doctrine(s) of the Trinity for the former is logically dependent upon the concept of the “immanent” Trinity." (Augustine and Aquinas founded their trinitarian conception on substance and articulated a trinity of persons who are enclosed upon one another... (from a review of the theology of Catherine Mowry LaCugna))
The Anglican writer also speaks from the perspective of those who grew out of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, who's perspective sought to have God fit inside what they could understand.
quote:
Augustine recognized neither the distinction between the transcendent and economic Trinity; nor, indeed, between Essence and Energies in God. He saw in these distinctions a violation of the divine simplicity. For this very reason, he developed his peculiar triadology --- “relation of opposites” (V. Lossky, “The Procession of the Holy Spirit in the Orthodox Triadology,” The Eastern Churches Quarterly VII, 2 [1948], 31-53).
THIS IS A LOT OF QUOTES, BUT I'M ACTUALLY JUMPING AHEAD TO ANSWER THE SECOND QUESTION!!!
This divine simplicy mentioned above, that Augustine and Aquinas wanted to preserve... That was "KIND OF" a form of what all religions with a supreme God try to do -- and the NeoPlatonic tendency of keeping "God out of time" is a form of it. Pagan religions often have a Supreme-diety (Often of the sun) and then lots of little dieties, who often are identified with various virtues. That way if there was sin (absence of say, the force of the god 'Justice'"), it was not the fault of the Supreme-diety. Thomist Christianity does NOT do that. (I only said "KIND OF.") Thomas Quinas taught that the Essence and Energies of God were one: hence, "divine simplicy." He didn't think it proper for God to be directly involved with sloppy things. So various instances of Grace in the OT were then 'created' and phased in-and-out of being.
The paragraph above describes two separate systems, each attempting to represent an image of the Supreme-diety. The first keeps the Supreme-diety well away from what we live in as "reality." The second does something similar. It no longer divides God up into an supreme-abstraction separate from ethical virtues; but it still keeps God separate from our messy stuff. There is a third view.
The view that Augustine didn't have, as it says in the quote above, is one that does not try to protect God from supposed dangers to his "simplicity." From early days of the Church there has been the recognition that what we know of God we know personally, and we know it because He reveals Himself to us. Also from early on has been the reverential awe and recognition of points beyond which definition begins to distort the truth rather than add to revelation. The early Church recognized that what they knew of God, personally, was actually God -- His divine energy." They knew God-loving-them; not through intermediaries, but directly and personally.
God creates and acts within Creation and salvation by his divine energies. That is the WHY of why I mentioned it. By his energies he created, and by His energies he sustains.
But God is also unknowable in his Essence. What we know of God is what he does with respect to man and creation. But of "the immanent Trinity and the intradivine relationships between the persons." (review of the theology of Catherine Mowry LaCugna) we can't know.
We can get a bit of a handle on this if we look at the various person's of the Trinity: during the OT the Son was not well known; and even for Paul the term "trinity" was unknown. What we know of the persons of the trinity have been unfolded for us within history. The SAME God who is ONE IN ESSENCE is revealed all the way from the pillar of fire on Sinai up to and past the tongues of fire or the cloud, voice and dove-like presence at Jordan. In the Bible we see witness to the ONE God. Christ reveals the Father to us--who otherwise wouldn't be known; and the Spirit given by Christ remains without a name and only witnesses to the others. In both the testemony of scripture and in our own experiences with God we know a DIFFERENCE between the ENERGIES/ACTIONS of God and the UNKNOWABLE EXXENCE of god.
(Maybe that has held together!)
Well, to close this I'll just say this. With respect to God and time, God acts in time, and time does not exist without God's acts. To take the literal meaning of "God is outside of time" is rediculous!!! Time "isn't" without God in it. And I don't like to hear people talking about "God slipping in and out of time" either. It is sheer fun to imagine it--it can help, given out limitations. But it is just a "SKETCH." The Orthodox have an iconostatis wall where they illustrate as a play the reality of what is participation in communion with God: They bring as bread, wine and water (representing the world, their lives/themselves) and having asked blessing process from the space of the congregation into the space representing heaven, where God receives it, blesses it by His Spirit and sends it back as Christ's body and blood. The congregation then receives it and partakes of the Head as His Body, as indeed they are. As a sketch this is wonderful. Momentarily the present and eternity are symbolized together. Its like a StarTrek transporter beam making time and space disolve and then reappear. And what it represents is real: we participate in what Christ has already accomplished; even though we still life with these "bodies of death."
All of us here on this board are created by God's Energies; and redeemed by Christ, we are God's children by the illuminating energies of His Grace. Christ is God's son in Essence. But God is not limited by some WALL that Augustine or Aquinas wanted as protection for God. God does not need our protection. God who is holy in Essence, yet created the whole world by His Energies and continues to be IN the world and time by His energies ('panentheism') is not reduced by any of that. Not even death on the cross.
But remember. I'm not saying "God outside of time." That elevates time to something on-paar with God, or preexisting God. But I think it is helpful to think of God in His essence as being: uninvolved with time, "not in time", etc.
A side issue, but very real, is that presently we are all in a for of time that is "fallen." The meaning of time changed with the fall. Everything about time now is a rush towards death. But Christ redeemed time, and healed it. Christ conquered death and coruption. And someday will come the full reality of that redemption. Some day the last enemy -- death, corruption -- will die. It is that "meaning" of time as death that God also has not part in in his essence. But he personally took it on on the cross.
(This is far long enough.)
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/20/2002 12:22 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc wanted to know:
quote:
POW: I can buy something Doc says for a "sequence" fo a certain sort in the Trinity -- maybe. But I FIRMLY acknowledge that use of the concept of "sequence" within the Trinity, besides where pertaining to the economy of salvation (the "economic Trinity") there are HUGE problems that follow as a result.
Doc: Could you spell out what these HUGE problems are?
Yessiree! I want to give a long answer; but a "short" one now is better than waiting.
If "sequence" introduces a before-after into the relationship of hypostasis and essence, THEN there is a 'huge problem."
What follows are two very well balanced statements, which together bring even more stability.
quote:
If personal diversity in God presents itself as a primordial fact, not to be deduced from any other principle or based on any other idea, that does not mean that the essential identity of the Three is ontologically posterior to their hypostatic diversity. Orthodox triadology is not a counter-blast to Filioquism; it does not run to the other extreme. As we already have said, relations of origin signify the personal diversity of the Three, but they indicate no less their essential identity. In that the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from the Father, we venerate three Persons; in that they are one with Him, we confess their consubstantiality. Thus the monarchy of the Father maintains the perfect equilibrium between the nature and the persons, without coming down too heavily on either side. There is neither an impersonal substance nor non-consubstantial persons. The one nature and the three hypostases are presented simultaneously to our understanding, with neither prior to the other. (Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, (Chapter 4: The Procession of the Holy Spirit, Section 4), pp. 80-83
quote:
from Christos Yannaras, "The Freedom of Morality"), SVS Press, NY
Ethos of trinitarian communion
In the life of the Church, God reveals Himself as the hypostasis of being, the personal hypostasis of eternal life, exhaustive expression of the truth of being. It is not the essence of the energy of God which constitutes being, But His personal mode of existence: God as person is the hypostasis and life: God is not a vague supreme being, and impersonal essence which may be approached only through the intellect or the emotions. Nor is He a "prime mover," a blind energy which sets in motion the mechanism of the world; not yet an image of man exalted into an absolute, and infinite magnification of the individual characteristics and psychological demands of the human being. The God of whom the Church has experience is the God who reveals Himself in history as personal existence, as distinctiveness and freedom. God is person, and He speaks with man "face to grace, as a man speaketh unto his friend" (Ex 33:11).
It is precisely as personal existence, as distinctiveness and freedom from any predetermination by essence or nature, that God constitutes being and is the hypostasis of being. When Moses asks the identity of the God whose will he is to proclaim to the Israelites, the answer is "I am He who is" (Ex 3:14. God identifies the truth of existence, the reality of being, with His personal hypostasis. This means that the divine essence or nature is not an ontological reality prior to God's personal existence and determining it: God's being is not an ontological datum, anterior to the distinctiveness and freedom of the divine person. Rather, it is the personal expression of His being. :And when speaking to Moses, God did not say, 'I am essence; but, 'I am He who is': for He who is,, is not from the essence, but the essence is from Him who is. He who is has comprehended within Himself all being."(1)
(1--Gregory Palamas, In Defense of the Holy Hesychasts; 3, 2-12)
The identification of being with the personal existence of God -- as identification with vital consequences for the truth of man and human morality -- explains the revelation of the God of the Church, who is one and at the same time trinitarian. The one God is not one divine nature of essence, but primarily one person: the one person of God the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) constitutes His essence or being, making it into "hypsostasis": freely and from love He begets the Son and causes the Holy Spirit to proceed.(2) Consequently, being stems not from the essence, which would make it an ontological necessity, but from the person and the freedom of its love which "hypostasizes" being into a personal and trinitarian communion, God the Father's mode of being constitutes existence and life as a fact of love and personal communion.
(2--"God the Father, moved outside time and in love, proceeded to a distinction in hypsostasis, remaining without division or diminution) in the wholeness proper to Him, supremely unifies and supremely simple": Maxiums the Confessor, Scholia on the Divine Names, PG 4, 221A.)
The identification of being with the freedom of love -- of that love which forms being into hypostases -- reveals that the truth of the ethos or morality is equivalent to the truth of being. When we speak of the unity and communion of the three divine persons, we are referring to God's mode of being, which is the ethos of divine life. And the ethos of God is identical with this being. When the Christian revelation declares that "God is love" (1 Jn 4:16), it is not referring to one among many properties of God's "behavior," but to what God is as the fullness of trinitarian and personal communion.
Thus love is singled out as the ontological category par excellence, the only possibility for existence, since it is through love that God gives substance to His essence, and constitutes His being. Any other definition of God's ethos with evaluative content is ontologically unfounded: it applies a priori conventional predicates, taken from philosophical thought or social experience, to the mode of divine existence, which is nothing other than personal distinctiveness and the freedom of love. If we accept evaluative definitions of the Godhead, we make the personal distinctives of divine love subordinate to them, and consequently do away with it. Evaluative categories could refer only to nature or essence, but then personal distinctiveness would be subordinated to the necessity imposed by natural definitions, and consequently, once again, it would be non-existant or substantially curtailed.. In that case, the person of God would "undergo" whatever happened to the nature. The "accidents" of the nature would be "passions" of the person -- things undergone passively. This is why St. Maximus the Confessor affirms of the Godhead: "It is neither beautiful nor good: for these are as it were passions, and conditions and accidents." (3)
(3--Scholia on the Divine Names, PG 4, 412BC. Cf also Dionysius the Areopagite, On Mystical Theology 5, PG 3, 1045D-1048AB.)
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I also don't like to see people saying that the intertrinitarian relationship changes when the Son became incarnate. (1Way on Bob's site.), or even that the Son's nature changed. (1Way again.)
PotOnWheel
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Matthew Timothy Short
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Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635
| Posted 6/24/2002 2:02 AM (GMT -6) | | markus: For my penny-worth… & But regarding God knowing the future…
TIM: I like both of your post; I never understood Lewis’ timeline until this point. I do not disagree wholly with what your saying, and this is somewhat over my head also, I would like to add something though, to what you are saying…Later, got to run now.
God’s Love,
Tim
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markus
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Total Posts : 100
| Posted 6/24/2002 4:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Dear Doc,
Thank you very much for taking time to read and even respond to my posting - I appreciate it very much and find it very helpful. The nature of time, and God’s omniscience, are not topics I have spent much time thinking about, and I am sure my rambling thoughts must appear very childish and naive. But, at the risk of boring you, I would like to respond to some of your points.
When I used the term “timeless” I meant in the sense of time being non-existent, not endless. I certainly can accept things such as mathematical or logical truths as being timeless in the sense of “true for ever” – but the very fact that they exist casts doubt on the possibility of something, such as God, co-existing in another parallel dimension where time is non-existent.
But I am also not so sure about accepting the reliability of an assumption of a timeless existence for mathematical and logical “truths”. Are these not entirely constrained within the current borders of our present knowledge and limited deductive powers? For example, there is the classic logical argument that man cannot reach the moon because, in order to do so, he must first cover half the distance. Then he has to cover half the remaining distance, and then again…. As long as there is a distance remaining, he must always cover half before arriving at the destination. This is only possible at infinity. Logical, but untrue.
Another example is the logical argument that 1+1=2. However, even in our own world, a system may comprise a set of subsystems, but when completed, the system as a whole exhibits additional unique characters beyond the mere sum of sub-system characteristics. For this reason, I am always a little reluctant to base belief on logical or mathematical truths.
You ask:
quote:
Markus: If a world chessmaster knows two other players so well, he can predict the outcome of the two players playing each other as soon as the first move is made.
Doc: Perhaps so. But could he predict every move leading up to this outcome?
Yes, that was the point I was making. That in theory, if he knows those players’ game so well, he could extrapolate each player’s response to the other’s prior move and thereby arrive at the outcome before the game is played out. Of course, there are far too many factors for this to actually happen within our human limitations, and I only use this as a (rather poor) example of the principle of “knowing” events beforehand through the process of absolute deduction based on total knowledge of all factors. The point was that maybe God can do perfectly what the chessmaster could only do rather well.
You say:
quote:
If God infers our future moves on the basis of his exhaustive knowledge of reality, then our future moves must in fact be inferrable from reality that precedes our existence. Given all previous states of affairs, all my future decisions are certain. But then the question is, how can I be selfdetermining? How can I be FREE if all I shall ever do is inferrable given the moment of the big bang? I would argue, Markus, that if humans (and angels) are SELF-determining at all, then the reality that God exhaustively knows must include possibilities – possibilities which we actualize with our self-determination.
I do see it, that all our decisions and action ARE inferrable, and have been inferrable by God since the universe began. I do not see the universe unfolding in any way without God’s knowledge of where it is all leading. I do not believe, for example, God created and allows evil in the world purely to add an unknown dimension in order to add a touch of excitement and probability in some grand holy game.
I believe, on the contrary, that the physical world was created for our benefit, not God’s, as a crucial learning place for us. Are we to claim that when God introduced the 10 commandments, He really believed we might obey them? Are we saying that God failed and was surprised by our disobedience? I don’t think so. I believe He knew full well that not one person would obey them until Christ. I believe the lesson was for us to learn. He showed us how incapable and unwilling we are to follow God’s laws. Equally, God flooded the world to destroy evil, saving only the righteous Noah and his family. But sin was not destroyed, it is maybe more prevalent now than ever – do we again say that God failed in His attempt to clean up His world, and is surprised and disappointedwith us? I doubt that. Surely, the lesson from the flood is for us not for God.
I fully agree that “if humans (and angels) are SELF-determining at all, then the reality that God exhaustively knows must include possibilities – possibilities which we actualize with our self-determination.” But I would argue that God knows, not only the external input to our decision-making, but also our internal attitudes. If he knows everything about us to the extent of being able to BE us, then surely He always knows what decisions we will make.
If we accept that God is restricted to just knowing our possibilities without knowing our eventual decision until the time comes, then aren’t we accepting that there are many things that God does not know? Surely, if there is even only one factor or decision that God does not know in advance then we have to conclude that God knows nothing of the future for certain. For example, one decision by one person whether to drive or walk to work has so many impacts on other people’s reactions and decisions, which in turn impact on many others, such that nothing can anymore be determined totally. Let’s say that one decides to drive to work and kills a young girl in an accident. That young girl will not now produce offspring, meaning possibly thousands of future generations will now never happen. How could God prophecy anything if He leaves even one such possibility to our free-will without knowing what we will decide?
And if that is the case, then none of God’s promises can any longer be considered unconditional, as God could only express intent rather than fact. For example, we each have two possibilities – to accept God or deny God. If God could not tell with absolute certainty, how we will all eventually respond to this possibility how could God have declared in Isaiah that every person will bow before Him and confess Christ? How could God ever be wrong? Are we therefore to assume that acceptance of God will ultimately be forced on any that might choose to deny Him through exercising their own choice, in order to fulfil God’s declaration? Or are we to accept some degree of uncertainty in everything that the Bible tells us to expect due to the unknown input arising from man’s future decision-making that is not determined until the future events actually take place?
I don’t see any need for God to be uncertain about the end-outcome. I believe He already knew in the first place what He wanted and decided on the method through which it would be attained. The only solution for the existence of our world that makes sense to me, is that it provides us with the schooling and training that we will need in the next. We need to learn, appreciate and cherish those human values that are the cornerstone of God’s Kingdom.
I confess I find it hard to deal with the concept of infinite intelligence. Being a person with (very) limited intelligence and possessing only a miniscule view of the whole picture of God’s “world”, I cannot conceive in any practical manner what a state of infinite intelligence would be capable of – except to say, probably anything and everything! In a way I would compare that with trying to explain to a mouse what happened to the WTC and its subsequent global repercussions.
I know that this all sounds extremely naive, but this is why I only feel comfortable leaning my faith and ignorance on belief in God’s all-knowing, all-powerful presence. This is the only way I can read the Bible with confidence and trust in what it tells me – but that is only a recognition and confession of my weakness, not an attempt to convince others  - and thanks once again for encouraging me to crystallise my own thoughts on this more!
Markus
Edited by - markus on 06/24/2002 09:22:55 AM
Edited by - markus on 06/24/2002 09:23:49 AM
Edited by - markus on 06/26/2002 02:10:03 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/24/2002 1:38 PM (GMT -6) | | Markus,
Kristus nousi kuolleista (Kristus Nosee Ouolesta)
Totisesti nousi (Totistestee Nosee)
Wonderful to read your contributions, Markus.
- PotOnWheel (Chicago) | | Back to Top | | |
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markus
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 100
| Posted 6/24/2002 7:08 PM (GMT -6) | | Dear PotOnWheel,
Näin on Miten arvasit missä maassa asun?
I have only been here a short time, following a friend's recommendation, but it seems there are some really thoughtful people on this site. But the best thing of all is the sense of sharing and acceptance of all views. One feels a freedom to write here without fear of ridicule or condemnation - and that is so valuable
Markus
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2002 2:14 AM (GMT -6) | | | (Jeg taler ikke Finnish. Men I vet German og English. ) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2002 3:39 AM (GMT -6) | | Doc:, Since reading Modes' thesis I have tended to accept inter-tinritarian love as "sequence", as sort of an anthropomorphical accomodation.
Reading some more of Lossky on the procession of the Holy Spirit I'd now have to say, that if pushed to be consistant I'd have to view any "sequence" in the essential Trinity as being aligned with Thomism.
Once again (but without the long quotes), any posterior/anterior opposition of the 3 or the 1 is "out" for me. This crops up when...:
"the external qualities of God--intellect, will, or love--are introduced into the interior of the Trinity to designate the relations between the three hypostasis. This line of thought gives rize to a divine indivituality rather than a Trinity of persons--an individuality which in thought is conscious of its own essential content(generation of the Word per modun intellectus) and which, in knowing himself, loves himself(the procession of the Holy Spirit ab utroque, per modum voluntatis ofper modum amoris). We are confronted with a philosophical anthropomorphism having nothing in common with Biblical anthropomorphism; for the Biblical theophanies, while showing us in human guise the acts and manifestations of a personal God in the hisotry of the world, also place us face to face with the mystery of His unknowable Being, which Christians nevertheless dare to venerate and to invoke as the unique Being in Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who live and reign in the inaccessible light of their exxence.
(Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, pp.86-87)
(So... I'm guessing that I would only politely agree with "Trinity and Process" also?)
Your grateful guest.
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/25/2002 09:49:06 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/8/2007 1:28 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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