God knows what will happen in the future, correct?

[Bookcat]

Bookcat,
re: "It is reasonable to assume that someone living today will freely choose the self-exclusion of hell.

Does -]the/-]-] supreme being/-] God have any (name removed by moderator)ut into the creation of that person, and if so, does He know before He creates that person that -]He will eventually be casting /-]-]that the person into the lake of fire/-] the person will choose to self-exclude themselves from true life and choose hell?

BTW, shouldn’t that be self-inclusion of going to ‘hell’ (actually, the lake of fire) and not self-exclusion?

To the last question: no. It is the self-exclusion of hell. Or if you like it is self exclusion from beatitude - and the choice of hell.

To the former: God is the creator so yes God knows all that is involved with that person.

For God all that is past or present or future for us - is “present”. It is all seen at once by God.

God sees it all at once -at the moment of that persons creation - that yes they are choosing this or that in their last moment (not that they will but that they are…all moments of time are equally present to God).

God does not create persons for hell. Persons choose freely to self -exclude themselves from the love of God -they freely choose hell.

 

[tonyrey]

I don’t believe God guesses! “foreknowledge” is also inaccurate because God transcends time and exists in the “eternal present”.

What is the correct wording? Can I say that God sees?

Of course but we have to remember that all words describing God are allegorical.

It is logically possible to exist in another universe but our fate would be the same. We alone determine our fate regardless of our circumstances. It depends on whether we choose to love ourselves more than others…

I think it is more about decision that love, but anyhow. If you accept that we make our fates by our own decision then the knowledge of God is contingent in our existence since there is no knowledge related to nonexistence. This is however contrary to the very concept of changeless God.

Ultimately we decide to love God or ourselves. Life is a question of who we put first. God’s love for us doesn’t change
even if we reject Him. His love isn’t contingent on our love neither is His knowledge contingent on our existence. How can it be when He created us?

God doesn’t change but He causes change. He is not static but dynamic: He is the Creator of change. We are made in His image and we don’t change when we make decisions and cause things to change. Unlike God we can change what type of person we are but like God we cannot change our identity. We shall always be the same persons regardless of what we do or decide. We cannot possibly become another person…

 

[onenow1]

Can we assume that there is someone living today that will eventually be cast into the lake of fire by the supreme being or one of His staff?

You know what they say about assumptions. Staff Remember that Jesus said he only does the will of the Father.I believe God’s justice is tempered by His profound mercy for us.
Who can know the mind of God ?

God Bless

 

[Aloysium]

can we assume that there is someone living today that will eventually be cast into the lake of fire by the supreme being or one of his staff?

View attachment 21526

 

[MarcoPolo]

God is free to create but the content of creation is what God knows and what we do freely but we follow our fates.

I do not understand this sentence, could you phrase it differently? When you say “follow our fates,” do you mean we make the free decisions of which God is aware?

In post #4, you said “this leads to fatalism.” Was that a criticism? A denial? An agreement?

I was asking whether is possible that God could create another universe that we have different fates? What is your answer to this?

I’m sure He could do it, but have not seen evidence to indicate such a theory.

 

[Partinobodycula]

To those claiming that God is a timeless being:

I’ve been following this discussion with some interest, in the hopes that someone could formulate a clear rebuttal to Bahman’s argument, but so far the efforts have been far from adequate. Which is a shame because this is a problem that I have great difficulty wrapping my head around, and so I could definitely use some fresh perspectives on it. How can God not experience time, or if He doesn’t, how can such a God be reconciled with the God of the bible. I can understand how God could be outside of our time, and thus able to see both the beginning and the end at the same time. After all, time as they say, is relative. It isn’t an invariable constant. But what I can’t comprehend is how an unchanging, timeless God could be anything more than an impersonal element of the natural world, incapable of thinking, or feeling, or creating. It seems rather self-evident that sentient beings must experience time, even if it’s not the same time that we experience.

At least to me, the claim that God is a timeless being cannot be left to stand unchallenged. If someone wants to make this claim then they need to explain how an unchanging God can have the capacity to do anything. You need to explain how a sentient, thinking, feeling being can function without time. Until you can reconcile the God of the bible with such a timeless being, I simply can’t accept it. I can believe in God, but I won’t set aside reason to do so.

I can accept the idea of a God, it’s the claims made in His name that I can’t accept.

 

[Bahman]

We do not.

We have free choice not fate.

We have fate since it is the content of what God sees and this was decided upon act creation.

 

[Bahman]

Huh, it will not help us what, avoid a fate we choose? Why would we want to do that?

The key question is that God knows the content of creation since the time of creation. He either chose the content of creation or not. In former case we have a fate and in latter case the act creation is impossible.

 

[Bahman]

I do not understand this sentence, could you phrase it differently? When you say “follow our fates,” do you mean we make the free decisions of which God is aware?

First we should note that God foresee implements that creation has a content which is changeless since God is changeless. This is what I call it fate and it is decided upon the very act of creation. We are free to act within universe but we cannot escape our fate which is written by the very act of creation.

In post #4, you said “this leads to fatalism.” Was that a criticism? A denial? An agreement?

A criticism. We of course free to decide. Our decisions are indeterminable hence future is indeterminable as well.

I’m sure He could do it, but have not seen evidence to indicate such a theory.

So we could have very different fate in that universe. The question is why we should have fate at all. Creation has to have some content to start working yet everything is fixed once a universe is related to a changeless God meaning that we have fixed fate.

 

[Bookcat]

We have fate since it is the content of what God sees and this was decided upon act creation.

Nope.

We have free will. God allows us to make our choices. Freely. Tis not fate.

Unless one wishes to stretch the word “fate” and mean “It is my “fate” that I am given free will, free choice…that I must make use of such freedom daily and especially in the most important question and choice of the way of death or the way of life”.

 

[Bahman]

Nope.

We have free will. God allows us to make our choices. Freely. Tis not fate.

Unless one wishes to stretch the word “fate” and mean “It is my “fate” that I am given free will, free choice…that I must make use of such freedom daily and especially in the most important question and choice of the way of death or the way of life”.

But that is not the normal meaning of the word.

So you mean that God didn’t know the content of creation at the very point of creation act? I have never that we are not free. I just said that we do thing exactly as God knows hence we have fate. The problem is that your fate is fixed upon the act of creation.

 

[Bahman]

To those claiming that God is a timeless being:

I’ve been following this discussion with some interest, in the hopes that someone could formulate a clear rebuttal to Bahman’s argument, but so far the efforts have been far from adequate. Which is a shame because this is a problem that I have great difficulty wrapping my head around, and so I could definitely use some fresh perspectives on it. How can God not experience time, or if He doesn’t, how can such a God be reconciled with the God of the bible. I can understand how God could be outside of our time, and thus able to see both the beginning and the end at the same time. After all, time as they say, is relative. It isn’t an invariable constant. But what I can’t comprehend is how an unchanging, timeless God could be anything more than an impersonal element of the natural world, incapable of thinking, or feeling, or creating. It seems rather self-evident that sentient beings must experience time, even if it’s not the same time that we experience.

At least to me, the claim that God is a timeless being cannot be left to stand unchallenged. If someone wants to make this claim then they need to explain how an unchanging God can have the capacity to do anything. You need to explain how a sentient, thinking, feeling being can function without time. Until you can reconcile the God of the bible with such a timeless being, I simply can’t accept it. I can believe in God, but I won’t set aside reason to do so.

I can accept the idea of a God, it’s the claims made in His name that I can’t accept.

Thanks God, finally one person realized that there is problem somewhere.

 

[Bookcat]

So you mean that God didn’t know the content of creation at the very point of creation act? I have never that we are not free. I just said that we do thing exactly as God knows hence we have fate. The problem is that your fate is fixed upon the act of creation.

Again your looking how to drive a car by looking for the bike peddles…

God is outside of time…not in some divine time before time.

God sees it “at the moment of that choice” and knows it intimately from the inside even (not just some outside vision).

Your still trying to make God “forsee”. Tis not about “foreseeing the future”.

 

[onenow1]

To those claiming that God is a timeless being:

I’ve been following this discussion with some interest, in the hopes that someone could formulate a clear rebuttal to Bahman’s argument, but so far the efforts have been far from adequate. Which is a shame because this is a problem that I have great difficulty wrapping my head around, and so I could definitely use some fresh perspectives on it. How can God not experience time, or if He doesn’t, how can such a God be reconciled with the God of the bible. I can understand how God could be outside of our time, and thus able to see both the beginning and the end at the same time. After all, time as they say, is relative. It isn’t an invariable constant. But what I can’t comprehend is how an unchanging, timeless God could be anything more than an impersonal element of the natural world, incapable of thinking, or feeling, or creating. It seems rather self-evident that sentient beings must experience time, even if it’s not the same time that we experience.

At least to me, the claim that God is a timeless being cannot be left to stand unchallenged. If someone wants to make this claim then they need to explain how an unchanging God can have the capacity to do anything. You need to explain how a sentient, thinking, feeling being can function without time. Until you can reconcile the God of the bible with such a timeless being, I simply can’t accept it. I can believe in God, but I won’t set aside reason to do so.

I can accept the idea of a God, it’s the claims made in His name that I can’t accept.

I think it has been explained quite often. I think why you need more explanation is some of us try to put ourselves on the same level with God; And that would make us His equal.

God’s knowledge is not gained like ours, by proceeding step by step from things known to those unknown. By knowing Himself perfectly, God knows from eternity all things past, present, and future, and even all things possible. Every creature, in its actions, depends entirely on God, and any goodness in creatures is but an imperfect reflection of God’s perfection. Through His infinitely perfect knowledge God knows the extent to which creatures share His perfections. God’s knowledge of the future does not take away our freedom, but leaves our wills free to act or not to act. If we wish to use fate, it certainly can be true, that God lets humanity create their own fate, without interference; the bottom line is He knows all possibilities something we cannot know.

God Bless

 

[Gorgias]

We have fate since it is the content of what God sees and this was decided upon act creation.

No – it actualizes at the time that it occurs. God simply has ‘foreknowledge’ of it. Even that is a misnomer, because it is only ‘foreknowledge’ from our perspective; from God’s, it’s not knowledge ‘before’ or ‘after’, but merely, His knowledge in the eternal Now.

 

[Gorgias]

Bahman thinks that Partinobodycula articulates the issues he’s grappling with. I’m not sure I agree; P’s objections, I think, stem from certain misunderstandings and anthropomorphisms…

what I can’t comprehend is how an unchanging, timeless God could be anything more than an impersonal element of the natural world, incapable of thinking, or feeling, or creating.

God is not an “element of the natural world”; He’s outside of it. Therefore, an appeal to the nature of God that presumes that He has the same characteristics as created beings is doomed to failure from this invalid premise…

It seems rather self-evident that sentient beings must experience time, even if it’s not the same time that we experience.

How so? If it’s self-evident, then there’s a natural, obvious explanation. Can you provide such an explanation? Remember – you’re talking about “sentient beings”, not humans, so your answer can’t be bound up in human experience (or even, in the experience of a created being)!

At least to me, the claim that God is a timeless being cannot be left to stand unchallenged. If someone wants to make this claim then they need to explain how an unchanging God can have the capacity to do anything.

Aquinas would counter that, in a certain sense, you’re absolutely correct! God doesn’t have capacity – or ‘potential’, as he’d phrase it. Rather, God is pure act. There is no potential that God has not actualized. He is fully actualized potential. Therefore, since He is fully act, there is neither change in God nor capacity to do elsewise. (Now, what we perceive as God’s unfolding acts – that is, potentiality becoming active – is a perception that’s based on the fact that we experience reality in a temporal framework. God isn’t within this framework, however, so our perception doesn’t fully reflect His reality, but rather, simply how we perceive Him and His actions.)

You need to explain how a sentient, thinking, feeling being can function without time.

God doesn’t ‘think’, either – or, at least, He doesn’t ‘ratiocinate’ (that is, He doesn’t have linear chains of thought in the way that humans do). This isn’t a new idea – it’s all there in Aquinas’ writing, if you wish to immerse yourself in his thought. A number of contemporary authors have done a great job of making Aquinas’ arguments more accessible to a modern audience – Feser is one of them.

(And, also, God doesn’t ‘feel’ in the way that humans do, either. Again, your objections stem from a certain anthropomorphism of the notion of ‘being’, and project our experience as humans onto what you expect all beings to experience. )

Reading your objections, P, it appears to me that you are extrapolating from human experience and expecting God to share in that experience in the way that we do. It seems that you perceive God as acting in the same modes as humans do. This doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, and therefore, I think that you need to consider that God is fundamentally different from humans, and proceed with your questions from that perspective…

 

[Bahman]

Again your looking how to drive a car by looking for the bike peddles…

Well.

God is outside of time…not in some divine time before time.

Hence God can only see what we call future but he cannot perform any act since any act is related to a change in state of existence. In simple word, any change differentiates between before and after of an act hence you need to be in state of time to perform any act.

God sees it “at the moment of that choice” and knows it intimately from the inside even (not just some outside vision).

This is at best very ambiguous. My very inside is simply me. It also makes the very knowledge of God contingent to existence of creation which is logical and illogical at the same time.

Your still trying to make God “forsee”. Tis not about “foreseeing the future”.

Well.

 

[Bookcat]

Hence God can only see what we call future but he cannot perform any act since any act is related to a change in state of existence. In simple word, any change differentiates between before and after of an act hence you need to be in state of time to perform any act.

Again …looking for bike peddles…

No you would be incorrect.

God does not know as we know.

Nor is God a creature…

 

[Bookcat]

It also makes the very knowledge of God contingent to existence of creation which is logical and illogical at the same time.

.

Nope.

Cause your trying to make God into a creature.

God does not know in the same way we know.

an appeal to the nature of God that presumes that He has the same characteristics as created beings is doomed to failure from this invalid premise…

 

[onenow1]

Nope.

Cause your trying to make God into a creature…

“AH” ! The paradox.

God Bless