If you are claiming (for the sake of argument) that you could have infallible foreknowledge then I agree, but then your foreknowledge would also be a limitation on free will as the individuals could not choose other than you know them to be choosing, and thus they have no real choice but to follow the world time line you already accept infallibly.
No, but infallible knowledge and causation are the same.
We have no scriptural, doctrinal, or even logical reason to assume that God must have established a covenant with us as you describe it. God could do this just as he chose to promise not to destroy the world again by way of a flood. God could also have saved the world in a fashion other than sending His divine son Jesus to suffer and die on the cross. We are given evidence in scripture to support and identify all of God’s covenants with man. We have no scriptural evidence or Christian tradition to support the existence of a covenant limiting God’s knowledge.
No offense, but you are definition-ally challenged. Knowledge is simply not causation. I can know many things but unless I can and do apply my will and power upon them, then I am not causing them to happen.
If you know something and you cannot possibly be wrong about the event you influence that event such that it can only be the way you know it to be. Otherwise you are not infallible. It is the absoluteness of the definition of infallibility that is the issue here so I do not agree with your assessment of me being challenged.
First you do not know all of scripture so you cannot make such a broad claim. That is known as arguing from the basis of an unknowable fact.
Another unknowable fact. The best you can say is that all the covenants we are aware of are given evidence in scripture. It may be that this is a covenant God has not revealed directly to us. Certainly there are many things God has not revealed to us.
Then you are in a small minority which does not see the paradox between free will and omniscience.
And at that instance all that He saw MUST occur precisely as He saw it and it is no longer truly random events.
No, because if He re-ran the game the same exact results would come up.
Yes it would because they would be predetermined and a random event to be truly random cannot be predetermined.
I understand you may not be convinced but that does not mean my argument is not logical. You are not the judge of what is logical and what is not.
No it can also denote lack of action, as in a potential barrier causes an object not to pass through it.
No but absolute infallible knowledge does denote lack of action by limiting our choices which would be consistent with that knowledge.
I agree with this as long as you keep the phrase high degree of certitude, and the phrase virtually infallible - but if that certitude becomes absolute, then there is no lee way for the outcome to come out any other way than you know it to be and that places a restriction on the actual events.
It should be obvious to even you that this example is imperfect since it deals with non-absolute knowledge and so is not applicable to the debate.
Yes, by self limiting His knowledge to less than absolute by choosing not to know, in much the same way he chooses not to destroy the world by flood and yet is still omnipotent.
Perhaps not, but you are not in a position to know what I am aware of and not aware of in scripture.
The answer to this is simple…neither scripture or the Church subscribes to it. We are allowed speculations and are encouraged to think about things that the Church has not defined, but that does not extend into territory that goes against the teaching of the Church and the bible. Both the Church and bible state that God knows all things and that nothing is hidden from him. That should be enough.
I accept the mystery portion…I simply see no logical reason to be forced into a corner, and my reasoning allows for a logical approach and mystery.
This is by definition incorrect. A covenant is an agreement between two parties. A covenant between man and God refers to God’s revelation of himself in the way of a promise or of favor to men. We are aware of God’s covenants to man through scripture. There would be no agreement between the parties if we were unaware and there would be no covenant. It would seem therefore that your speculation is not well supported by what we know of covenants.
Not at all…I am simply comfortable with the level of understanding that I have been given however small that may be.
There is no logical reason to make this assumption unless you are hung up on knowledge equaling the application of will and power upon the object or events.
On the contrary. Run a random computer game/program. The outcome is different every time you run it. That is because it is random. God would simply know the outcome of the newly run game that would be different from the first time.
They are not predetermined.
I’m not so sure about that…the barrier did not happen all by itself.
You have made this claim a number of times, but have not been able to provide a logical proof. Absolute knowledge does not limit the choices. If you only choose one thing out of a hundred, you still had 99 other possibilities. Those are the choices. Advance knowledge does not eliminate those choices. Instead, it merely illuminates the one that you choose. It in no way determines it.
I’m glad we agree here. I have been careful to use this language for a couple of reasons. The first is that we have to use human experience for explanations and for shedding light. I am not rendering a proof about God. What I have done, if you accept what I am saying, is shown definitively that knowledge and causation are not the same thing. They differ greatly from one another. Once this is understood and fully appreciated, it is much easier to see how God can give us free will and still know what we are about to do.
It is applicable to the debate because causation and knowledge are two different things. This is IMHO the crucial portion of the debate.
Please note that the only limitation in the options that you have established concerns whether or not God’s knowledge was correct or incorrect. That is why option 2 and 3 are unacceptable. The choices we have remain the same. We either choose door number one or door number two.
You are quite right…I am only able to discern whether or not something seems to be logical to me unless I expound upon the rules of logic in each and every statement.
/ignore
But you made a comment about all of scripture, and I am in a position to know that you do not know all of what scripture teaches on any subject.
So you claim, but you have not shown that this is contrary to scripture (and all of what scripture subscribes to is not yet known by even the Church) and this is not contrary to anything the Church teaches (or at least no one has shown me that the Church has directly addressed this idea) and the Church has not declared all it dogmas either, so there are things the Church will subscribe to that it does not yet. Your argument would be the end of theologians if it were valid.
They also say that God is all powerful and all I am suggesting is that this choice not to know everything is no different than God’s choice not to destroy the world by flood. There is nothing here that you have shown is contrary to the Bible or the Church.
I can accept you falling back on the statement of it as a mystery, but I seek to understand this because this is a major stumbling block for those not in the faith. A solution to it would be useful in reaching out to those people.
But there are covenants where only one has anything to fulfill. The covenant with Noah was such a covenant. God initiated that covenant and Noah had to do nothing to participate.
It is not an assumption. If He is infallible then it must occur as He saw it occur else He is in error. It is the definition of infallibility.michael_legna:
There is no logical reason to make this assumption unless you are hung up on knowledge equaling the application of will and power upon the object or events.
First a computer cannot produce truly random numbers, they are all based on an algorithm and they will eventually repeat. Second a computer observing a game (by recording its moves) is not the same as an infallible observer viewing the events.michael_legna:
On the contrary. Run a random computer game/program. The outcome is different every time you run it. That is because it is random. God would simply know the outcome of the newly run game that would be different from the first time.
Yes, if you have God look at them prior to the game being run and He cannot be wrong, the game must proceed just as He has seen it. That is deterministic. They are predetermined.michael_legna:
They are not predetermined.
But we choose them based on God’s knowledge - that is the whole point of the correlation between God’s knowledge and our choices. Remember - both of our choices (where God’s knowledge was infallible) matched what God knew, there was an unavoidable direct one to one correspondence between our choice and God’s knowledge. That shows that God’s infallible knowledge causes our choice or our choice causes God’s knowledge, or there is a third force at work here we cannot see. That is the only option in a direct one to one correspondence unless one assumes it is strictly by chance that God’s knowledge matches our choice. I think we can rule our God relying on chance and I think we can rule out the idea that our choice causes God’s knowledge and I am willing to rule out postulating an unknown force. But even without doing so either way free will goes out the window.
And the one to one correlation shows that His knowledge affected our choice. It was a choice, I admit that, the question is - was it a free choice?
Yes the one to one correlation proves it.
But you have not shown that infallible knowledge and causation are not the same thing. You cannot extrapolate from an example to an extreme.
How can this be? We make our choices based on what we know. If we chose based on what God knows we would never choose wrongly. Each of us is ample proof of erroneous choices.
That’s a good point.
Because some people will make the right choice. Each should have an opportunity to prove themselves.