A puzzling thing about traditional religion

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27"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. 34And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. 35But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

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I'm sorry i misinterperted you.------------------
saved by grace

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John:
We must choose the one God has forseen ( or God is not omniscient, and theologians start jumping out of windows ) This is predestination.
[/B][/QUOTE]Okay, I don't completely understand this reasoning here. Just because He has foreknowledge of what someone is going to do its the same as though He's forcing you to make the decision? I don't get that.Divine foreknowledge should not be confused with fatalism or determinism. God's necessary knowledge of himself is distinguished from his free knowledge of creatures. His speculative or contemplative knowlege is distinguished from his practical or active knowledge. His knowledge of possiblity if distinguished from his knowledge of actuality. His approving knowledge of good is distinguished from his disapproving knowledge of evil. All things are not known to God in the same way.

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Originally posted by Chara:
Okay, I don't completely understand this reasoning here. Just because He has foreknowledge of what someone is going to do its the same as though He's forcing you to make the decision? I don't get that.

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Think about it this way. God, at the beginning of time, looks out and sees all of his creation in his divine mind's eye. Because God can't be wrong, everything he sees at that moment will happen.If something he sees does not happen then God is fallible. He was wrong. He is not omniscient. If something happens he does not see, the same applies. God is fallible.Free-will means we have a choice. But if God cannot be wrong and has seen everything from day one, we are bound to what he saw in his mind's eye.The trick to the argument is that you start to contradict your premises. ( This is the valid form of a reductio ad absurdum argument, not to be confused with the fallacy of the same name. )

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Divine foreknowledge should not be confused with fatalism or determinism.

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Why not? It has been a haunting problem in theology for thousands of years. And I think I've made a decent case for it.

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God's necessary knowledge of himself is distinguished from his free knowledge of creatures. His speculative or contemplative knowlege is distinguished from his practical or active knowledge. His knowledge of possiblity if distinguished from his knowledge of actuality. His approving knowledge of good is distinguished from his disapproving knowledge of evil. All things are not known to God in the same way.

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I see the need for pages and pages of clarification before I can tackle that paragraph. You've got about twenty terms that need defining. ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Think about it this way. God, at the beginning of time, looks out and sees all of his creation in his divine mind's eye. Because God can't be wrong, everything he sees at that moment will happen.

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There's your problem. God does not exist within time but outside of it. He sees things happening as they happen, not "in advance". All of time is as "now" to God.

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Originally posted by Karl:

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Think about it this way. God, at the beginning of time, looks out and sees all of his creation in his divine mind's eye. Because God can't be wrong, everything he sees at that moment will happen.

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There's your problem. God does not exist within time but outside of it. He sees things happening as they happen, not "in advance". All of time is as "now" to God.

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just so i'm clear on what you're saying here, is it your contention that (given the existence of God before creation) he didn't actually think or plan his creation? are you saying that he didn't "see" what both could and would happen once he said "let it be?" or are you saying that once he created he *forgot* all he thought about? that he no longer knew to be true that which he knew to be true?

No, and I'm not sure where you're getting that from. I'm suggesting that for God there is no "before" and "after", no past, present or future. It's all the same to God. He is not bound to the flow of time as we are.

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:

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Originally posted by John:

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Originally posted by graedek:

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What does this mean?

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It's the newest philosophy containing the meaning of life .. pretty hard to wrap your mind around hey.

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LOLOLOL .... then i'll christen it "the invisible koan" (does "hey" mean "EH?")

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Originally posted by Karl:
No, and I'm not sure where you're getting that from. I'm suggesting that for God there is no "before" and "after", no past, present or future. It's all the same to God. He is not bound to the flow of time as we are.

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yeah but you said that because of his eternal, timeless nature he can't know what will happen *in* time, even tho he created that time, even tho he planned that creatio

No; you misunderstand me. When I said He doesn't see things "before" they happen, I mean that for God "before" doesn't mean anything. Get it clear; God sees everything, because from the Eternal viewpoint it is never a particular year or time.

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Originally posted by Chara:

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Well, joz you left me in the dust on that one ... suppose you could present it in terms a lowly housewife could understand

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sure he can, right after you fix supper... get my pipe and slippers, will you o lowly one? *grinning and ducking*the thing joz (and john) haven't addressed is how knowing (perfect knowledge) a thing can negate ones freedom to choose... they've simply asserted that you can't have both omniscience and free will, in spite of all arguments to the contrary... then, if someone says we can *know* (albeit far from perfectly) what a person will do given certain circumstances, they say that doesn't count cuz the knowledge isn't perfect..h.g. wells is your neighbor and he just built this spiffy time machine... it's a beta model tho, all you can do is ride around in it and observe things... it won't go into the future yet, but he's working on that, he's relying on you and others to report bugs to him... but it will go in the pastso you hop in one day and go back to the saints/falcons game of a few weeks ago (hey, beats hockey eh?)... it wasn't painful enough seeing the first time, you just *had* to see it again... ruh roh, you remember this play... vick's gonna roll out to the right and run it in with that dang burn 4.1 sec speed of his... you *know* this cause you've already seen it.. does that fact mean the outside 'backer didn't have the choice of dropping off the tight end and cutting the angle to the endzone *at the time*? they say no, the fact that he didn't do that proves he *couldn't* do that... i say that *at the time* he could have freely chosen one course over the other...they're saying, if you know (with no doubt) that something will happen, the very fact that it *must* happen negates free will... i'm saying there's a diff between foreknowledge, however perfect it may be, and freedom to choose... see, the thing sometimes missed is that omniscience means perfect knowledge of events, and even those events which are future (in time/space) are seen by God as having already happened (in eternity)

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Originally posted by Karl:
No; you misunderstand me. When I said He doesn't see things "before" they happen, I mean that for God "before" doesn't mean anything. Get it clear; God sees everything, because from the Eternal viewpoint it is never a particular year or time.

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ok, i'll buy that... more or less ... from the eternal viewpoint, all that God foreknows, in space/time, has already occurred.. hence the bible's "he knows the end from the beginning"

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Originally posted by Karl:
No; you misunderstand me. When I said He doesn't see things "before" they happen, I mean that for God "before" doesn't mean anything. Get it clear; God sees everything, because from the Eternal viewpoint it is never a particular year or time.

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Actually, it is the seeing that collapses the wave form, so I don't see that it matters.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 11-26-2002]

No. God sees the collapse of the waveform as it is "seen" from within space-time. His observation doesn't need to affect it.

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Originally posted by forgiven:
the thing joz (and john) haven't addressed is how knowing (perfect knowledge) a thing can negate ones freedom to choose...

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Actually we have. Joz did so with an argument from quantum physics (and boy, was it a beautiful thing) With the argument that if God cannot be wrong then anything he predicts will happen without fail.

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they've simply asserted that you can't have both omniscience and free will, in spite of all arguments to the contrary...

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Arguments to the contrary?

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so you hop in one day and go back to the saints/falcons game of a few weeks ago (hey, beats hockey eh?)...

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No. A sport where smashing your opponent into the wall is legal move has got my vote. I mean... ice, big sticks, shoes with knives on the bottom, and instead of a ball you have a hard weird thing that rhymes with luck.

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they say no, the fact that he didn't do that proves he *couldn't* do that... i say that *at the time* he could have freely chosen one course over the other...

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Then you go back to your own time. Do you go back to the world where the guy took option A as you remember, or option B as you do not remember? If A then we are ok. If B then your memory is wrong. This option is not allowable in the case of God. God cannot be wrong. You could return to a second universe that ran parallel to the one from which left, so that technically your memory isn't wrong. It just does not apply to the universe you now inhabit. But God would presumably know about all universes, so that doesn't apply to his case.

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they're saying, if you know (with no doubt) that something will happen, the very fact that it *must* happen negates free will...

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It isn't about doubt, but about inffallible knowledge. The argument isn't really meant to prove anything but to show that the assumed premises are incompatible.

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and even those events which are future (in time/space) are seen by God as having already happened (in eternity)

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God has seen everything as if it has already happened. So where in there is any chance of a change, a choice? Everything must happen as per God's memory. The argument works whether God is seeing the future or the past. Where you place God doesn't matter, it is God's Now. Any change makes God wrong.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by John:

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God has seen everything as if it has already happened. So where in there is any chance of a change, a choice? Everything must happen as per God's memory. The argument works whether God is seeing the future or the past. Where you place God doesn't matter, it is God's Now. Any change makes God wrong.

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ok john... i can't explain it any better than i've tried... if you feel a person who knows what you're going to choose is forcing you to so choose, that's all that can be said on the subject... God knows the choices we will make.. yes, he *knows* what i'll choose for lunch tomorrow... he didn't cause me to choose one thing over another... he didn't impose his will on mine, he didn't overrule the ham and cheese in favor of the turkey on rye... he simply knew which i'd choose *of my own free will*... that's all there is to it