A Calvinist argument I don't understand...

[Guest]

OK, here's my two-cents. Call me crazy if you want.

The church we attend has a prayer chain where people are called on to pray for people, sometimes in emergency situations. If we are not home, we may have a message left for a prayer need.

Let us say a call goes out Saturday morning at 9 AM regarding a life or death situation. We are not home and a message is left detailing the prayer need. The person in need of prayer will undergo surgery at 11 AM in an attempt to save his life. The surgery is over by noon, and the outcome of the surgery has been determined. At 2 PM I call home to hear my messages on the answering machine, and hear the message regarding the prayer need. We immediately pray for the success of the surgery. God hears our prayer and responds to it in the same way, with the same effect, as those who prayed prior to the surgery; our prayer was "heard", by Him, and known by Him, prior to the surgery, for He is not bound by time. And we prayed of our own free will.

OK, prove me wrong from the scriptures. Logic carries little (or no) weight to me in this matter.

God bless, Homer

[Guest]

Hoever, if God knows in advance every choice which evey person makes, then how could any person do otherwise? For the future would be settled --- not that God's foreknowledge caused anyone's choice, but that absolute knowledge of a future choice implies that statements about future choices have present truth value, and that, in turn, makes freedom of choice impossible. For example, if it had been true yesterday that I was going to write this post today, how could I have done otherwise.

(my underline).

I've also read some of the past discussions on this topic, and I also am really baffled at this conclusion - it doesn't seem logical to me at all.

I chose to write this post today.
God knew about it yesterday.
If He had wished, He could have revealed this to someone (as absolute fact, not a probability), and it would have truth value.
But it's my free choice.
If I didn't write this post today, God would have known, and if He wanted to, could have revealed that to someone . It would have truth value.
But I had freedom of choice in both instances. God is merely showing that He had foreknowledge of MY FREE CHOICE.

So to answer the question:
"if it had been true yesterday that I was going to write this post today, how could I have done otherwise."
You could not have done otherwise, but that does not take away your free choice not to write the post. If you had chosen not to write, then that is what God would have known yesterday.

It really does seem clear and simple to me!

[Guest]

We must start with what God has known yesterday (that you would write this post). Therefore your writing of the post today was an established fact yesterday. Therefore you cannot refrain from writing the post today.

It won't do to start with today and say that you can choose not to write the post, and then God would have known that choice. For yesterday comes before today. What was known yesterday is over and done. It cannot be changed by your choice today. Such knowledge (if it existed yesterday) implies that you will write the post today! There goes your ability to choose! There's no way out of this conundrum except to recognize the impossibility of absolute knowledge (quite different from effective prediction) of future events.

[Guest]

We must start with what God has known yesterday (that you would write this post). Therefore your writing of the post today was an established fact yesterday. Therefore you cannot refrain from writing the post today.

It won't do to start with today and say that you can choose not to write the post, and then God would have known that choice. For yesterday comes before today. What was known yesterday is over and done. It cannot be changed by your choice today. Such knowledge (if it existed yesterday) implies that you will write the post today! There goes your ability to choose! There's no way out of this conundrum except to recognize the impossibility of absolute knowledge (quite different from effective prediction) of future events.

You still have not showed one logical contradiction that goes against God knowing the choices of his creation, whom He gave free will.

I have a question for you Paidion, you don't feel it slightly awkward saying that "God does not know something?" When God presented His case before Job, and asked him all them mind baffling questions, do you think Job came away with the conclusion that God is somehow limited in His knowledge?

Job 38-41

[Guest]

Brody wrote:

You still have not showed one logical contradiction that goes against God knowing the choices of his creation, whom He gave free will.

The way I (and others) have tried to get around this problem is to say that God is not in our time stream; i.e., as CS Lewis says, he can see our tomorrows as they happen, because a time continuum has no relevance to him because he is outside time. In other words, he doesnt "peer into the future" to see what I will do 10 years from now, he simply sees me doing it. the year 1812 and 3022 is simply "now" to God.

Paidion, I believe, does not buy that God is "outside time." He may be right- i am not sure. But if he is correct, it becomes much more difficult to deal with this sticky problem.

TK

[Guest]

You still have not showed one logical contradiction that goes against God knowing the choices of his creation, whom He gave free will.

Ahhh... but I have! I will state it again, as succinctly as possible.

Pre-amble: It doesn't have to be God. Anyone knowing in advance what a free will agent will choose constitutes a logical contradiction.

1. At time T, person X knows that person Y will perform action A at time T+1.

Therefore:
2. Y does perform action A at time T+1.

3. At time T+1, Y, who has the ability to choose, decides not to perform A.

Therefore:
4. Y does not perform action A at tme T+1.

#2 and #4 logically contradict each other.

I have a question for you Paidion, you don't feel it slightly awkward saying that "God does not know something?"

Not when there's nothing to know.

When God presented His case before Job, and asked him all them mind baffling questions, do you think Job came away with the conclusion that God is somehow limited in His knowledge?

No. Nor have I at any time suggested that God is limited in His knowledge.

[Guest]

You still have not showed one logical contradiction that goes against God knowing the choices of his creation, whom He gave free will.

Ahhh... but I have! I will state it again, as succinctly as possible.

Sorry Brother, you have not. And I do see the point you are trying to make, but it does not hold up when one considers prophecies in the scripture, in which God said that certain things would happen, and lo and behold they did.

Pre-amble: It doesn't have to be God. Anyone knowing in advance what a free will agent will choose constitutes a logical contradiction.

Maybe I am dense, but I do not see any contradiction. God knows the choices of his creation, this is not rocket science, nor is there any contradictions inherent in it. I have another question for you, can God choose to know the choices of His creation? If not, why not? If God can "call those things that were not, as though they were", can He not know what his creation will choose?

1. At time T, person X knows that person Y will perform action A at time T+1.

Therefore:
2. Y does perform action A at time T+1.

3. At time T+1, Y, who has the ability to choose, decides not to perform A.

Therefore:
4. Y does not perform action A at tme T+1.

#2 and #4 logically contradict each other.

I have a question for you Paidion, you don't feel it slightly awkward saying that "God does not know something?"

Umm...You lost me on that one(I am dense, lol)

No. Nor have I at any time suggested that God is limited in His knowledge.

If God is looking out in the future and learning stuff, He is limited in His knowledge of the future, and can not know at this moment what anybody is going to do.

[Guest]

Sorry Brother, you have not[shown a contradiction]. And I do see the point you are trying to make, but it does not hold up when one considers prophecies in the scripture, in which God said that certain things would happen, and lo and behold they did.

It isn't necessary to claim that God can know the unknowable (the future) in order to account for the fact that His prophecies (predictions) indicate that certain things would happen, and they did. It is only necessary to understand that God has complete knowledge of the thoughts and intents of the hearts of all people, and that He has complete knowledge of the intricasies of millions of chains of causal factors.

If God does know every future event, then there should be no instance in the Bible where He spoke through a prophet that a certain thing was going to happen, and it didn't. However, there are several such instances.

I have a question for you Paidion, you don't feel it slightly awkward saying that "God does not know something?"

Umm...You lost me on that one(I am dense, lol)

I'm not sure where you got lost. Do you mean my answer to this question "Not when there's nothing to know"? I simply meant that God knows all reality, but the future is not a present reality, and so there is nothing to know. Another way of saying this is that no one can know the future since it doesn't exist.

Nor have I at any time suggested that God is limited in His knowledge.

If God is looking out in the future and learning stuff, He is limited in His knowledge of the future, and can not know at this moment what anybody is going to do.

Can we "look out in the future and learning stuff"? Even a little bit? No, because there is no future into which to look out. The future doesn't exist. The word "future" is used to describe people's intentions, or their predictions (usually based on knowldege of the past and present, as well as causal factors).

In one sense we can be said to look into the future. But we are not really doing so. We are predicting what is likely to happen, and conduct ourselves accordingly. For example, if we find that jobs are likely to be available in a particular city, we might go to that city to apply for a job. But no one can actually look into the future. That would be contradictory. Nor can one "travel" into the future (time travel). That concept is filled with contradictions.

...and can not know at this moment what anybody is going to do.

Again, the fact that God cannot know at this moment what anybody is going to do does not constitute a limitation on God's knowledge. Because nobody has done anything in the future yet. There's nothing to know.

[Guest]

Paidion,

Again, the fact that God cannot know at this moment what anybody is going to do does not constitute a limitation on God's knowledge. Because nobody has done anything in the future yet. There's nothing to know.

That is quite an interesting point of view - it would be great if you had scriptural support for it.

(Acts 15:18 KJV) Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

(Isa 46:9-10 KJV) Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, {10} Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

If this were not true then there would be no need for God to intervene in the affairs of men. He needn't know what we are going to do before we do it, because He sees what we actually are doing and where it will lead if so allowed. I do see your point that what we have not yet done therefore does not exist so there is nothing "to see".

But if He knows our heart (and we know He does) then His "assumptions" about what the outcome would be would be more than a mere guess on His part. Rather scripture is clear that God is working history according to His plan despite what we might have in our sights. If we even have the ability to make predictions/ presumptions based upon accumulated knowledge; it would seem God must possess this ability to an even greater degree.

What we ought to know is that fatalistic deterrminism is not a biblical concept. Which is my biggest complaint with Calvinism.

[Guest]

That is quite an interesting point of view - it would be great if you had scriptural support for it.

There is plenty of Scriptural support for the fact that the future choices of man are unknowable to God.

1. In Genesis we read that God, when He saw how evil man had become, was sorry He had created man. Why would He regret that He had created man, if He knew man was going to be evil. Wouldn't He rather have said, "Man has become very wicked. I knew this was going to happen!" If a person regrets his actions, does this not mean that that action had ramifications which he did not anticipate?

2. God prophesied through Jonah that Ninevah would be destroyed in 40 days. When the Ninevites repented, God changed His mind and didn't destroy Ninevah. If God had known that the Ninevites would repent, then He must have lied when He made that prophetic announcement through Jonah. This prophecy was given as an unconditional prophecy. This fact is evident from the following:

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God was sorry about the evil which he had said he would do to them; and he did not do it. Jonah 3:10

If the prophecy had been meant as a conditional prophecy, that is, "Ninevah will be destroyed in 40 days if the Ninevites do not repent", then God would not have regretted having said what He did.

3. Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, "Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. "I thought, ‘After she has done all these things she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
Jeremiah 3:6,7 NASB

If the LORD knew that Israel would not return to Him, how could He have thought that they would? Or even if the word translated "thought" should be translated as "said" (as it usually is), the problem remains. If God knew that Israel would not return to Him, then surely He would not have said, "After she has done all these things she will return to Me." That would have been a lie.

Now I realize that the King James and related translations turn God's words into a command, "Return to me", this is a mistranslation. For the verb is not in the imperative mode.

The Jewish Study Bible, translated by a number of Hebrew scholars well-acquainted with the Hebrew language, translate the passage almost identical to that of the NRSV.

(Acts 15:18 KJV) Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

Yes, God knows every aspect of his works. This is no way contradicts the thesis that future choices of people can be known in advance.

(Isa 46:9-10 KJV) Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, {10} Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

Yes, God has declared the end from the beginning of His plan. (See context). But unfortunately, some people use this statement as if it meant that He has declared the whole history of every human act from beginning to end.

Even in the portion you quoted, God says, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure". Certainly, God will carry out His great plans. In no way does this Scripture indicate that God knows the logically unknowable, --- that is, the total content of the future.