Divine intervention?

[YosefYosep]

God is outside of time and he is changeless, but how does he intervene within the context of time? Is it possible for a God, who sees all the links in the chain of events at once, to engage in an act of divine intervention which requires time? I hope you all can understand my question, because it’s difficult to get it into words.

 

[allhers]

God is outside of time and he is changeless, but how does he intervene within the context of time? Is it possible for a God, who sees all the links in the chain of events at once, to engage in an act of divine intervention which requires time? I hope you all can understand my question, because it’s difficult to get it into words.

Of course, with God, all things are possible!

In reverse, I once read (perhaps on EWTN’s) question and answers, that someone asked one of the Priest there about a situation like this:
They were watching a television program (I believe it was a movie about world war I or world war ll ) or something of that nature, and they found themselves praying for those involved (in real life) for what those had gone through during that war. They asked if it were alright to do that. The priest responded yes it was, as God even knows that years later, after hearing of such an event, that our prayers are effective, as He knew in advance that they would be prayed and applied them to the people.
Does that help?

 

[YosefYosep]

Of course, with God, all things are possible!

In reverse, I once read (perhaps on EWTN’s) question and answers, that someone asked one of the Priest there about a situation like this:
They were watching a television program (I believe it was a movie about world war I or world war ll ) or something of that nature, and they found themselves praying for those involved (in real life) for what those had gone through during that war. They asked if it were alright to do that. The priest responded yes it was, as God even knows that years later, after hearing of such an event, that our prayers are effective, as He knew in advance that they would be prayed and applied them to the people.
Does that help?

Hmmm yes it does help somewhat.

 

[Least]

This is an easy one.

The only limit to THE LORD is in your mind. The only reason that GOD allows HIMSELF to be limited in that way, is so that you can know HIM at all.

In the beginning was chaos (not just ‘great disorder’ but the complete ‘absence of measure’ - TERMS, J.M. Thomas R.). GOD created in that environment.

because HE IS

AWESOME

 

[Rete]

God is outside of time and he is changeless, but how does he intervene within the context of time? Is it possible for a God, who sees all the links in the chain of events at once, to engage in an act of divine intervention which requires time? I hope you all can understand my question, because it’s difficult to get it into words.

I think you can approach it in two different ways.

The first way is to note that God is eternal, and he therefore interacts with all of creation in the same eternal moment. So, for him, creation is more like a sculpture. You can’t experience at a static thing because you must live within the framework of sequentiality (time).

The second way is to not that God possesses an infinite capacity to reason. So he can conceive of every possible counterfactual scenario for any given intervention in time. Think of it as chess. We can implement search algorithms which will search out most of the probable chain of moves in any given chess configuration. But that algorithm expends time and resources searching them out one at a time. Our algorithm is limited by time and resources, so it can never find the idea solution. But God, having no such limitations (not even temporal sequentiality), conceives of every possible chess configuration and already knows the ideal path to take in every given chess configuration. To him, it’s not really even a search. He simply knows.

So when God intervenes in time, I assume he does so with the intention to maximize his goals given the free choices of his created agencies. He might not be able to effect the ideal outcome without abridging free will of those agencies, but he can maximize the eternal outcome in accordance with those goals.

 

[ngill09]

I like the analogy C. S. Lewis uses, that God is like the author of a book. He can flip to any point in the story, and change anything He wants anywhere in that story. He does not exist within the chronology of the book, but entirely independent of it.

 

[RedFox0456]

I once thought about this from a dimensional point of view.

Let’s take a line. One simply line. That is one-dimensional.
Now let’s take a circle. Two-dimensions. If we look at a circle from just one dimension, we would see a line. We could not comprehend a circle. We see only this fragment.

Not let’s take a sphere. If we look at it two-dimensionally we are left with only a circle. Like before, we can’t comprehend a sphere. If we move around, we still are left with a circle - never perceiving the sphere as it truly is.

We often consider time to be the fourth dimension (and if you’ve done phase-plane analysis this might become even more interesting!) What do we see when we look around? We see nothing but three dimensional objects. Moving, yes, but only because our reference in time is moving. Our relationship with time is much different than God’s. Not only would he be able to see everything we are doing, he could see it all simultaneously. Can’t quite wrap your head around that? Neither can I. We are those two-dimensional objects looking at a sphere.

What’s more important is not just that he can see everything simultaneously (omniscience), but he can actually interact with it. He can make changes, and will immediately see how those changes will take place.

I am sure the complexities go much farther than all of this. And it might be totally wrong. But it makes sense to me and it was a very fun night as I sat considering the notion of all of this. I eventually went into the possibility of even more dimensions that we just don’t realize we are perceiving, but that got pretty messy!

 

[Nimzovik]

Hmmmmmm…

When an author is writing a book, can not the author do as he wishes with his characters? With the ‘world’ in which (H)his characters reside?

Is not the ‘Author’ outside of the ‘Time and Space’ that is experienced by (H)his characters in the story? Is the (A)author not all knowing? Knowing of all that which is to befall (H)his characters?

Is the Author not possesing simultaneoulsy the qualities of Transcendance and Immanence?

Hmmmmm…

Great. Now I will never write a book! The ramifications of the potential extrapolations is staggering.