Can God know a Potentially Infinite Future?

[Linusthe2nd]

First of all this is theology and scripture you are presenting. Where is your solid philosophical base? And please don’t couple me in with others in your bizarre conspiracy theory. This is a philosophical discussion. I understand that God is omniscient and I am not arguing that God does not know all things. I am stating that there are logical problems involved in the idea that God knows a potentially infinite future and i am presenting my argument as to why. You can assert that i am wrong but that is all it will ever be, an insecure assertion. I really don’t care if the logical implications involved make you feel uncomfortable. All i can say is have faith.

Secondly are you implying that i am in some way attempting to either deceive or mislead people?

If you don’t like the discussion or the implications involved you are free not to participate in the thread. Or perhaps you should protest to the forum administration to shut the philosophy forum down.

The trouble is that your argument isn’t logical, as I and others have shown. No logic can contradict Divine Revelation or the teaching of the Church. Read Psalm 138 again. Notice how many times God ( the Infinite, the Eternal, One ) is credited for knowing future events as factual, which are at present only potential.

And while you are complaining about a failure on the force of opposing philosophical arguments it seems to indicate you are unfamiliar with either Aristotle or St. Thomas. Thomas stresses often that God, who is eternal, knows all potential things, acts, and events, both those which will happen and those which will not happen. This is based on both his Omniscience and Omnipotence.



Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Huh, why don’t you quote what I said so we can start a discussion?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ChainBreaker View Post
Premise 1: God’s Knowledge is pure actuality insofar as God’s knowledge is identical with his being.
An actual knowledge must manifest itself into existence hence future and past should exist which problematic because they cannot be realized together.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ChainBreaker View Post
Premise 2: There is no potency in God’s knowledge, and thus God cannot know more than what he already knows.
Hence, God is perfect and no change is possible. Yet, we observe changes hence the former is wrong.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ChainBreaker View Post
Premise 3: A potentially infinite future is a process or a string of events that continues on forever.
There does only exist potentially immediate future otherwise future is fixed.

=================================================================

O.K. this is part of the discussion you had with Chainbreaker. I disagree with your answers and with his comments as well. The errors in the arguments of you both are really too numerous to deal with.

I quoted Psalm 138 to show how you both are wrong. And as I told Chainbreaker, a philosophical analysis of the nature of God, as found many places in Thomas Aquinas shows you are both wrong. All you have to do is start reading - which no one ever does. They would rather post a continuous flood of meaningless posts.

Linus2nd .

 

[Bahman]

Originally Posted by ChainBreaker View Post
Premise 1: God’s Knowledge is pure actuality insofar as God’s knowledge is identical with his being.
An actual knowledge must manifest itself into existence hence future and past should exist which problematic because they cannot be realized together.

Why this is wrong? Your God is pure act, hence whatever comes to his mind should manifest itself into existence, hence past and future. On the contrary, we know well that future and past cannot exist at the same point, hence either there exist something which intervene between God and creation, or your picture of God is completely distorted.

Originally Posted by ChainBreaker View Post
Premise 2: There is no potency in God’s knowledge, and thus God cannot know more than what he already knows.
Hence, God is perfect and no change is possible. Yet, we observe changes hence the former is wrong.

Why this is wrong? I think I was very clear.

Originally Posted by ChainBreaker View Post
Premise 3: A potentially infinite future is a process or a string of events that continues on forever.
There does only exist potentially immediate future otherwise future is fixed.

Why this is wrong? How we could then intervene in changes if there existed a potentially infinite future?

 

[ChainBreaker]

I quoted Psalm 138 to show how you both are wrong. And as I told Chainbreaker, a philosophical analysis of the nature of God, as found many places in Thomas Aquinas shows you are both wrong.

Linus2nd .

If that were true, you would be able to present the information and explain in your own words why the information refutes the OP.

You don’t know how to, because you don’t know what talking about. And neither do you really understand the problem being discussed in the OP.

 

[ChainBreaker]

The trouble is that your argument isn’t logical, as I and others have shown. No logic can contradict Divine Revelation or the teaching of the Church. Read Psalm 138 again. Notice how many times God ( the Infinite, the Eternal, One ) is credited for knowing future events as factual, which are at present only potential.

And while you are complaining about a failure on the force of opposing philosophical arguments it seems to indicate you are unfamiliar with either Aristotle or St. Thomas. Thomas stresses often that God, who is eternal, knows all potential things, acts, and events, both those which will happen and those which will not happen. This is based on both his Omniscience and Omnipotence.



Linus2nd

I did not argue that God is not Omnipotent or Omnipresent. I argued that God cannot know an unending sequence of change because God is Omnipotent or Omnipresent .

 

[ChainBreaker]

I continue to assert that you do not understand how an actual infinite and a potential infinite relate to each other. You continue to conceptualize an actual infinite as limited, which is a contradiction in terms. If change is unlimited, and a finite thing may change endlessly, then all change that the finite thing may undergo has already been realized in God, because God, being infinite in every coherent respect, is present to the whole of the infinity of change already, regardless of whether the finite thing ever has the possibility of arriving at infinity. Actually infinite is actually infinite. If the infinite series of change were not already a subset of the actual infinite, then it isn’t actually infinite to begin with.

In the context of change, you argument would require a potentially infinite number to be a fully actualized unending sequence of events in the eternal now since all potency is actual in the eternal now. All potency would have to be actual from the perspective of the eternal now; but a potentially infinite number of changes cannot in principle be fully actualized; to say otherwise would be a contradiction. That is why you are wrong.

 

[belorg]

In the context of change, you argument would require a potentially infinite number to be a fully actualized unending sequence of events in the eternal now since all potency is actual in the eternal now. All potency would have to be actual from the perspective of the eternal now; but a potentially infinite number of changes cannot in principle be fully actualized; to say otherwise would be a contradiction. That is why you are wrong.

If you are correct, God cannot perfectly know the future if the future is infinite.
But according to classical theism, the future is infinite and God has perfect knowledge of the future, which means you reject classical theism.

 

[ChainBreaker]

If you are correct, God cannot perfectly know the future if the future is infinite.
But according to classical theism, the future is infinite and God has perfect knowledge of the future, which means you reject classical theism.

I am not aware that classical theism includes the idea that the future is an unending chain of potency and act. I am only aware that we will exists for all eternity (to me eternity is not by definition an unending chain of potency and act, but rather is an unchanging fulfilled state of existence). But if thats the case then i admit that i am having difficulty accepting the idea that the existence of an unending chain of potency and act is logically consistent with God’s omnipotence or omnipresence as classically represented.

 

[belorg]

I am not aware that classical theism includes the idea that the future is an unending chain of potency and act. I am only aware that we will exists for all eternity (to me eternity is not by definition an unending chain of potency and act, but rather is an unchanging fulfilled state of existence). But if thats the case then i admit that i am having difficulty accepting the idea that the existence of an unending chain of potency and act is logically consistent with God’s omnipotence or omnipresence as classically represented.

To classical theism, the only being that has an unchanging fulfilled state of existence is God. It is impossible for other beings to ever reach this state.

 

[ChainBreaker]

To classical theism, the only being that has an unchanging fulfilled state of existence is God.

The only being by nature. This is true. But if we exist by and through the act of God, and man is in potency to the act of God, perhaps we can be fulfilled by and through the act of God.

I am in agreement with the idea that in the eternal now all potency is fully actual.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I did not argue that God is not Omnipotent or Omnipresent. I argued that God cannot know an unending sequence of change because God is Omnipotent or Omnipresent .

And I explained why that is wrong. If there is an unending sequence God will know it by his Omniscience.

Read Thomas Aquinas on God’s Knowledge and Power.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

If that were true, you would be able to present the information and explain in your own words why the information refutes the OP.

You don’t know how to, because you don’t know what talking about. And neither do you really understand the problem being discussed in the OP.

If I thought it would do some good I would but you refuse any help. So you can read it for yourself. I think it is you who does not understand what the O.P. is about.

Linus2nd

 

[ChainBreaker]

If I thought it would do some good I would but you refuse any help. So you can read it for yourself. I think it is you who does not understand what the O.P. is about.

Linus2nd

I have read it. I see no reason to think of your post as being anything other than a compilation of empty words posing as knowledgeable.

A pointless display of bravado.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Why this is wrong? Your God is pure act, hence whatever comes to his mind should manifest itself into existence, hence past and future. On the contrary, we know well that future and past cannot exist at the same point, hence either there exist something which intervene between God and creation, or your picture of God is completely distorted.

Why this is wrong? I think I was very clear.

Why this is wrong? How we could then intervene in changes if there existed a potentially infinite future?

Well Bahman, as I told you before, read the material I have referenced and you will see. If you would prefer to keep posting endlessly, you will learn nothing, because some things are just too difficult to explain in a single post or even two. This format does not lend itself to the kind of explanation required.

So good luck. I leave you and your confusion in God’s hands. I have done all I can do.

Linus2nd

 

[ChainBreaker]

And I explained why that is wrong. If there is an unending sequence God will know it by his Omniscience.

Thats a very nice circular argument.

 

[ChainBreaker]

Well Bahman, as I told you before, read the material I have referenced and you will see. If you would prefer to keep posting endlessly, you will learn nothing, because some things are just too difficult to explain in a single post or even two. This format does not lend itself to the kind of explanation required.

So good luck. I leave you and your confusion in God’s hands. I have done all I can do.

Linus2nd

Bye bye.

 

[MrSnaith]

In the context of change, you argument would require a potentially infinite number to be a fully actualized unending sequence of events in the eternal now since all potency is actual in the eternal now.

No. In the context of change, my argument requires an ***actually ***infinite number of change to be a fully actualized infinite sequence of events in the eternal now since all potency is actual in the eternal now.

All potency would have to be actual from the perspective of the eternal now;

Yes.

but a potentially infinite number of changes cannot in principle be fully actualized; to say otherwise would be a contradiction.

Yes.

That is why you are wrong.

You missed the implication of my number line demonstration. The movement from potency to act is a purely finite activity. From God’s perspective all potency is already actualized, and this is true if potency is infinite. All it would imply is that act is also infinite.

Consider the number line again. The number line is actually infinite. In our question, the number line represents either potency or act. In reality it represents both, because the movement from potency to act is just the movement from one state of being to another; from possibility to actuality.

You are absolutely correct that a potentially infinite being, an entity that naturally moves from potency to act, will never arrive at actual infinity of being. But consider: by defining a potential infinite on the number line: 1+n forever, we haven’t defined a state, as such, but a movement. So, when speaking of potential infinites, we’re speaking of a movement from one state to another. In the case of the number line, it is the movement from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, etc. In the case of change, it is the movement from, say, sitting to standing to running to jumping to climbing, etc.

The point is, if change is actually infinite, and it is implied that it must be if one can move through change infinitely, then whether a potential infinite actually arrives at actual infinity or not is an irrelevant point. From God’s standpoint, there is a 1-1 correspondence between the actually infinite quantity of change and God’s actually infinite being. This is because change is the movement from potency to act, and God’s being is pure act. So for every occurrence of change, there is a correspondence with the being of God, namely the actualized potency.

Thus, just as a potentially infinite movement along the actually infinite number line never actually arrives at infinity, so too a finite entity moving along an actually infinite set of change, potentially infinitely, will never actually arrive at infinity. But God, being actually infinite, is already present to the whole set of actually infinite change. And since His knowledge is tied to His presence, His knowledge of all possible actualities is already complete, and at the same time, infinite.

 

[ChainBreaker]

No. In the context of change, my argument requires an ***actually ***infinite number of change to be a fully actualized infinite sequence of events in the eternal now since all potency is actual in the eternal now.

You agreed that an “actually infinite number” cannot exist.

The bottom line is, a never ending number of changes cannot exist in the eternal now because it cannot be in principle fully actual. It cannot be completed and at the same time be as such that it cannot possibly be completed in principle. It’s a contradiction.

 

[MrSnaith]

You agreed that an “actually infinite number” cannot exist.

Where? The closest I think I came to that was agreeing that an actual infinite cannot exist in temporality, in a finite universe. But, that’s a very different thing than “an actually infinite number cannot exist.”

The bottom line is, a never ending number of changes cannot exist in the eternal now because it cannot be in principle fully actual.

True, but I never claimed a “never ending number of changes could exist in the eternal now.” I claimed an actually infinite number of changes could. Big difference.

It cannot be completed and at the same time be as such that it cannot possibly be completed in principle. It’s a contradiction.

This sentence is just a tautology and doesn’t actually say anything. Are you sure you wrote that out correctly?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Thats a very nice circular argument.

Nothing circular about it. God is infinitely perfect in every way. Freedom is a good we cannot deny to God. If we did, we wouldn’t be talking about God. More to the point, love is an act of the will and God’s will is free.

And God knows all ’ possibles ’ which are not self contradictory. Neither God nor ourselves can know the contrdictory because there is no concept of the contradictory and neither we nor God is able to know anything that is intelligible. See S.T., part 1, ques 25, ans 3 ).

Next?

Linus2nd