God and Possibility

[Charlemagne_III]

The thing about God’s Omniscience that might seem even more impossible than God being Omniscient is that we are not “puppets on a string” following a preconceived script.

A preconceived script? No, I think we are not actors in a play who have to learn and read our lines or be fired.

But anyone is free to imagine the possible fate of any character on the stage after the final curtain has closed. Perhaps God’s power is vastly more omnipotent than we can imagine. Perhaps God sees a future for any of us that never actually unfolded. I sometimes imagine what life I would have lived had I made seriously different choices earlier in life. I think that considering my options at that time, I would now be a very different person than the one I am now content to be.

 

[oldcelt]

What do you see in what I wrote as being “critical of God’s Omniscience”?

Omniscience is also be about knowing all of the possibilities that could ever be done but the “all-knowing” of a “person’s life” is what they did, not what they could have done but did not do.

If you do A, B and C in your life but not D, E and F, how would anyone knowing D, E and/or F know anything about what you did in your life?

Talking in circles does not do much more than get someone elected to office, it does not make a truth.

Many here have a terrible time with omniscience, because it creates a number of problems for their specific version of belief. God knowing a created individual’s life in advance is a sticky wicket.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Many here have a terrible time with omniscience, because it creates a number of problems for their specific version of belief. God knowing a created individual’s life in advance is a sticky wicket.

That is a sticky wicket.

I’m not sure what version of belief that would make a stickier wicket than most.

 

[Tomdstone]

There’s another problem. Under your scheme, an aborted fetus will get sent to hell for what she might have done had she lived to age 70.

Good point.
The possibility scenario and scheme of the OP is untenable as your example and as the following example shows:
A Catholic man lives a good Christian life, obeying all the commandments, being faithful to his wife and family, and dying with the prayers and last rites of the Church.
He dies in the year 1950. You would think that he would go to heaven. However, if God sees that if he had lived, then ten years down the line after he had died, in 1960, he would have been at a Boston Red Sox baseball game and knowingly eaten a hot dog on a day of abstinence in Lent, and then had a heart attack and without repenting, died suddenly due to the excitement of the game, he would go to hell. So should he go to heaven because he led a good and exemplary life on earth and died in a state of sanctifying grace in 1950, or should he go to hell because God sees what would have happened in 1960 had he lived to that point in 1960?
So IMHO, you are not judged on what would have happened, or what could have happened if you had lived in some hypothetical future time or unreal possible situation which does not exist. You are judged on your life as it was in reality and as it existed in real time.
In the example given, the man is judged on his life from birth to 1950. What would have happened, or what was possible to have occurred beyond the date of his death does not count. The fact that God sees that in 1960, he might have been at a Red Sox baseball game and committed a mortal sin against the law of abstinence does not count against him, because it really never happened.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Many here have a terrible time with omniscience, because it creates a number of problems for their specific version of belief. God knowing a created individual’s life in advance is a sticky wicket.

As far as, “God knowing a created individual’s life in advance is a sticky wicket”.

I agree very much so and I believe that it is the simple definition of “Omniscience”, seeing as there is no such thing as “partial” Omniscience.

I also believe that according to this “definition” of Omniscience since God “knows” absolutely everything about absolutely everyone that has ever been, is or will be and has always “known”, even before creation itself, that this “knowledge” was used in God forming God’s Plan for ALL.

I believe that God’s Plan was formed in its entirety before absolutely anything of creation came about.

Many seem to think/believe that it is IMPOSSIBLE for God to have come up with a catholic Plan of Salvation.

I believe that anything less than a catholic Plan could not even come close to being referred to as “The Good News”, the definition of Gospel, since if it were not catholic, it would be “horrific news”.

Small c catholic simply means universal.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I fear you are a little naive sir.There’s another problem. Under your scheme, an aborted fetus will get sent to hell for what she might have done had she lived to age 70. Not exactly grace.

Or might get sent to heaven.

Apparently you haven’t figured out what God does with the soul of the aborted child.

Or are you one of those liberal Baptists?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The fact that God sees that in 1960, he might have been at a Red Sox baseball game and committed a mortal sin against the law of abstinence does not count against him, because it really never happened.

Or if he saw instead someone choking on a hot dog, he might have performed the Heimlich maneuver, saved his life, and earned his own salvation.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Or might get sent to heaven.

Apparently you haven’t figured out what God does with the soul of the aborted child.

Or are you one of those liberal Baptists?

If anyone believes in God and believes in heaven how could they possibly believe/think that an “aborted child” goes anywhere except to be with God in heaven?

 

[Tom_Baum]

Or if he saw instead someone choking on a hot dog, he might have performed the Heimlich maneuver, saved his life, and earned his own salvation.

This would seem to go against all teachings since it is taught that no one “earns” their salvation.

Could be one of the reasons that Salvation is based on God’s Plan of Salvation rather than someone’s hypothetical life.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

This would seem to go against all teachings since it is taught that no one “earns” their salvation.

Could be one of the reasons that Salvation is based on God’s Plan of Salvation rather than someone’s hypothetical life.

This is one of the weirdest quotes from a Catholic I have heard in this forum.

If you don’t earn your salvation, is it thrust upon you without your cooperation?

I’m not talking about earning money. I’m obviously talking about earning salvation by cooperating with the Holy Spirit. It is a two way street. You do get that, don’t you?

I am not talking about or proposing the existence of a hypothetical life.

I’m talking about a real life that would have been lived if tragedy had not struck. To you that would seem hypothetical. Maybe to God, not so hypothetical because God can see what we would have been even if we can’t.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

If anyone believes in God and believes in heaven how could they possibly believe/think that an “aborted child” goes anywhere except to be with God in heaven?/QUOT

Not to be flippant, but is there a special mansion in God’s heaven where you go if you have done nothing by which to be judged worthy or unworthy?

 

[tonyrey]

Many here have a terrible time with omniscience, because it creates a number of problems for their specific version of belief. God knowing a created individual’s life in advance is a sticky wicket.

Does your knowledge of what you are going to do prevent you from doing it?

 

[inocente]

Apparently you haven’t figured out what God does with the soul of the aborted child.

Or are you one of those liberal Baptists?

Apparently you’ve not heard of Grace.

This is one of the weirdest quotes from a Catholic I have heard in this forum.

If you don’t earn your salvation, is it thrust upon you without your cooperation?

This is the nail in the coffin of your hypothesis. You may have expressed yourself badly but I think the reason you’re confused by our responses is you misunderstand salvation.

I’ll make the following claim and challenge you to prove me wrong: The Church teaches that good works are necessary for salvation, but first and foremost it depends on the grace of God.

I think all Christian denominations, while perhaps differing on the role of works, will say the same. You cannot earn salvation, since that would put God in debt to you. Christ died for you, salvation is a gift freely given by God.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

This may seem to others a weird thread. I don’t necessarily expect it to last very long. But I’m very interested in any thoughts about this question.

We are told that God is omniscient. Would it follow that if an innocent person died due to a violent act against him, he would be judged according to the state of his soul at that moment?

Or is it possible that God, being omniscient, knows what the state of his soul would have been at the natural end of his life had he lived to his natural end, and he would be judged based on the state of his soul at that time rather than at the time of his actual death?

God being omniscient would know that innocent person was going to die a violent death, and would be judged at that point.

However he’d be judged on the whole of his life - not just the state of his soul at that moment.

Obviously the killer will also be judged at the end of his life, and if he hasn’t repented, he’s almost certainly doomed, whereas his victim may well be in heaven by that time.

This reminds me of a story given in a sermon where an American Negro was given a reprieve from death row, with his sentence commuted to life (or possibly even released - I’m not sure).

He was being interviewed by a reported about how it felt to be reprieved from death row.

He replied, “Boss, we’re all on death row!”

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I’ll make the following claim and challenge you to prove me wrong: The Church teaches that good works are necessary for salvation, but first and foremost it depends on the grace of God.

I think all Christian denominations, while perhaps differing on the role of works, will say the same. You cannot earn salvation, since that would put God in debt to you. Christ died for you, salvation is a gift freely given by God.

I think you are just interested in playing the old game of semantics. I think your description of the Catholic view of salvation is spot on. Our works are necessary, and if we do not perform works we do not earn our salvation.

Why is the word “earn” so detestable? Yes salvation is a gift, but we have to be worthy of the gift of salvation, and we only earn it by cooperating with God’s grace and by performing works that prove our love.

What bothers you about what I have just said?

 

[Tom_Baum]

This is one of the weirdest quotes from a Catholic I have heard in this forum.

If you don’t earn your salvation, is it thrust upon you without your cooperation?

I’m not talking about earning money. I’m obviously talking about earning salvation by cooperating with the Holy Spirit. It is a two way street. You do get that, don’t you?

I am not talking about or proposing the existence of a hypothetical life.

I’m talking about a real life that would have been lived if tragedy had not struck. To you that would seem hypothetical. Maybe to God, not so hypothetical because God can see what we would have been even if we can’t.

You wrote, “I am not talking about or proposing the existence of a hypothetical life.”

To me, that is exactly what you are speaking of, “a hypthetical life”.

What could have been if one did not die is fiction.

What actually did happen until one dies is non-fiction.

A human’s physical life is, at least the way I see it, when they are physically alive.

You also wrote, “Maybe to God, not so hypothetical because God can see what we would have been even if we can’t.”

God could probably see what we “could have been” if we would have made other decisions in life also but that does not make it any more than a “hypothetical”.

Concerning, “It is a two way street. You do get that, don’t you?”

After we accept, not earn, our salvation, our “cooperating with the Holy Spirit”, could be the “work” that Jesus said “needed to be done” which, as I have said somewhere else, could be us being “liaisons” between others and Jesus as Jesus is our “liaison” between us and the Father.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Tom Baum;12401572:

If anyone believes in God and believes in heaven how could they possibly believe/think that an “aborted child” goes anywhere except to be with God in heaven?[/QUOT

Not to be flippant, but is there a special mansion in God’s heaven where you go if you have done nothing by which to be judged worthy or unworthy?

Don’t know anything about any “special mansion in God’s heaven” but anyone who thinks/believes “that an “aborted child” goes anywhere except to be with God in heaven”, in my opinion, has a pretty sick “conception” of God.

Do you think/believe that a baptized child who dies goes to be with God as some, if not most or even all, do?

What has a baptized baby done “by which to be judged worthy or unworthy”?

[/quote]

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Don’t know anything about any “special mansion in God’s heaven” but anyone who thinks/believes “that an “aborted child” goes anywhere except to be with God in heaven”, in my opinion, has a pretty sick “conception” of God.

You might want to rethink that.

St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas all agree that, while the unbaptized innocents (children) do not deserve perdition, they also do not merit heaven which is the Beatific Vision of God. The traditional theology of the Church (which still is not settled doctrine I think) is that the innocents (including children aborted) would go to a middle place called Limbo, where there is no suffering, but also where there is no supernatural vision of God.

Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia website where the matter is discussed.

newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You wrote, “I am not talking about or proposing the existence of a hypothetical life.”

To me, that is exactly what you are speaking of, “a hypthetical life”.

What could have been if one did not die is fiction.

What actually did happen until one dies is non-fiction.

A human’s physical life is, at least the way I see it, when they are physically alive.

You also wrote, “Maybe to God, not so hypothetical because God can see what we would have been even if we can’t.”

God could probably see what we “could have been” if we would have made other decisions in life also but that does not make it any more than a “hypothetical”.

Concerning, “It is a two way street. You do get that, don’t you?”

After we accept, not earn, our salvation, our “cooperating with the Holy Spirit”, could be the “work” that Jesus said “needed to be done” which, as I have said somewhere else, could be us being “liaisons” between others and Jesus as Jesus is our “liaison” between us and the Father.

I see that you are not open to the possibility that God’s omniscience extends to seeing how we would have lived our lives had we been able to live them without their being cut short by fire, flood, disease, crime, or abortion.

I don’t know that you can prove God cannot see a life not lived as it might have been lived, and I know I cannot prove God does see such a life.

 

[Tom_Baum]

You might want to rethink that.

St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas all agree that, while the unbaptized innocents (children) do not deserve perdition, they also do not merit heaven which is the Beatific Vision of God. The traditional theology of the Church (which still is not settled doctrine I think) is that the innocents (including children aborted) would go to a middle place called Limbo, where there is no suffering, but also where there is no supernatural vision of God.

Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia website where the matter is discussed.

newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm

My whole post that this in reply too, rather than just the ‘part’ that you copied, said:

""Don’t know anything about any “special mansion in God’s heaven” but anyone who thinks/believes “that an “aborted child” goes anywhere except to be with God in heaven”, in my opinion, has a pretty sick “conception” of God.

Do you think/believe that a baptized child who dies goes to be with God as some, if not most or even all, do?

What has a baptized baby done “by which to be judged worthy or unworthy”?""

By the way “if you have done nothing by which to be judged worthy or unworthy”, are your words.

You conviently did NOT answer the two questions that were part of the post, would you like to answer them?

As far as in reply to your “You might want to rethink that.”

You might refuse to have your own thoughts on the subject by bringing up what “St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas” thoughts might have been but my thoughts stand that anyone who thinks that a “baptized baby” and an “unbaptized baby”, whether aborted or not, do not all go to be with God, have a pretty “sick” conception of God.

Do you have an opinion and if you do, do you wish to reveal it?