God's omniscience and the existence of the future

[Isearch]

I have been wondering about this: If God’s omniscience meant that He sees the past, present, and the future in the same instance, does the future, in some way, exist now? If this isn’t so, how can He see and know the future that doesn’t exist yet?

 

[twf]

God is outside of time, so yes, for God, the future is now.
All of time, from the Big Bang to the Second Coming, is before God. God is immutable. God doesn’t change. There is no start or finish for God.

Are the saints in glory (hopefully including you and me) already resurrected and in eternity with God? Not from our perspective…but for God? I suppose so…yes, the future, from our perspective, does already exist for God, as does the past.

We are limited finite creatures so pondering this too deeply could drive one mad…
Honestly, Doctor Who has helped me wrap my mind around it to a certain extent. (I see that as a great example of Tolkien’s “On Faerie Stories” where he explains that Faerie Stories can point to the deeper mysteries of the faith).

 

[otjm]

As God is outside of time, to say “does the future exist now” is to put God back into time, There is no time with God; all is present at once.

We live in time, and the future does not exist now, by its very definition. and we will never “get to the future” as we are always in the “now”.

 

[Gorgias]

I have been wondering about this: If God’s omniscience meant that He sees the past, present, and the future in the same instance, does the future, in some way, exist now? If this isn’t so, how can He see and know the future that doesn’t exist yet?

The problem, I think, is with the metaphor you’re using.

Strictly speaking, God doesn’t see anything! I’m not just talking about the fact that God is spirit (and therefore, doesn’t have eyes). The metaphor of seeing is a metaphor of experience – when we, as humans, see something, we’re having a sensory experience and we’re learning from it.

On the other hand, God doesn’t learn anything. So, He doesn’t have to ‘see’ the future; rather, He simply knows everything that (from our perspective) ‘was’, ‘is’, and ‘will be’.

So, I think my answer to your question is that no, God’s omniscience doesn’t imply that our future already exists in some way. It just means that God knows how our future will unfold. He doesn’t ‘see’ it or experience it – He just knows it.

(Of course, in turn, that changes your question to “how can God know the future that doesn’t yet exist?” But… isn’t that the very definition of ‘omniscience’ – knowing everything?)

Not sure that this helps, but that’s how it seems to me…

 

[Isearch]

But can we say that the future exists but not in this present? Because as far as I understand the responses, the word ‘future’ is somewhat similar with the word ‘there’ and that these words describe our perspectives of time and place.

 

[Wesrock]

Gorgias:

So, I think my answer to your question is that no, God’s omniscience doesn’t imply that our future already exists in some way. It just means that God knows how our future will unfold. He doesn’t ‘see’ it or experience it – He just knows it.

There’s a major problem with this argument, and it has to do with free will. If the future doesn’t actually exist, but rather God, by virtue of his omniscience, simply knows what it will be, then the state of reality in the future must be knowable from the state of reality now. This can only be true if reality, and the future, is deterministic. Specifically it means that what will be true tomorrow, is discernible from what’s true now, making reality deterministic, and if reality is deterministic, then there’s no such thing as free will.

This would seem to imply that if God truly does know the future, and we truly do have free will, then this can only be true if the future actually exists.

If we have free will, and the future is indeterminate, but God knows what it is, then this can only be true if we have already made our free will choices, and God can “see” what those choices were. And yes, I’m using “see” in this instance metaphorically.

Depends on what you mean by free will, really. Most traditional, Catholic definitions wouldn’t be contradicted by a deterministic reality.

Though another approach understands that God does not exist in a way in which he has sequential moments. He doesn’t know something before it happens, he knows it as it happens. But for God everything that happens is eternally present to his eternal knowledge, in which terms like “before” and “after” have no meaning. As in, God doesn’t have a past self or a future self. The future is not actual yet, but when it is actual to us it is present in God’s eternal knowledge, which isn’t dimensional or on a timeline.

 

[Wesrock]

If it’s the latter, that He can predict what it will be, then it must be deterministic, and from many people’s perspective that contradicts the notion of free will.

I’m taking it out of order, but I wanted to touch on this first. What’s essential for the Catholic notion of free will is that a human’s choice is made by intrinsic principles, her acting under her own intellect and will. This can still happen even if the intellect and will are deterministically predictable. I’m not saying it absolutely is deterministic, just that determinism is not a problem with this conception. The contrast would be like we are just selfless puppets with no life being moved about entirely by external movers.

But the question becomes, how does God know what will be true tomorrow, is it because from His perspective it already exists, or is it because His omniscience allows Him to predict what it will be?

There are two main Catholic chools of thought: Molinism and Thomism. I’m going to use a modern analogy for Molinism. Imagine that you could simulate a reality on a computer, and even that you could give some of the agents in the program free will. Then you run an infinite number of simulations such that you know how each one plays out. Then you pick one and choose to make that a true reality. Now imagine that instead of having to spend time running or thinking about simulations, you just know. That’s pretty much Molinism. God knows how you would react under your own free will under all circumstances, and knows that for everyone and everything, and chose to create the reality he chose to create.

Thomism puts even more in God’s hands, in which everyone’s will is pre-motioned towards certain ends. But you can’t really divorce a person’s will from a person. It’s not a part, but who he is. So the will is still an intrinsic principle to the person as a whole. God, being the cause of everything at every moment, and also knowing Himself perfectly and so knowing his actions perfectly, and so the effects of his actions permanently, knows how things play out. Note that Thomists don’t see persons or living things as just inanimate parts, though. Causality is not simply a physics problem with a bunch of parts bouncing around based on force applied by external factors. If it’s in the nature of some things to have intrinsic and voluntary motion, such things can still be caused to exist according to that nature.

 

[Wesrock]

Of course this raises another question…who’s perspective is correct? If in God’s perspective the future already exists, but in our perspective it doesn’t…who’s perspective is correct?

Does the future already exist. Does God “see” the future any differently than He “sees” the present?

Both are correct. I think the error is still trying to conceive God as enduring through time, moment to moment, or of being a higher dimensional being. In my own words, I think it better to say he is dimensionless. Time is real. The past no longer exists. The future doesn’t yet exist. But when it did, as it does, and as it will… the present of each moment belongs to God’s eternal present. Imagine if a thousand years for you was experienced in one day for God. That’s not accurate, so imagine if a thousand years for you existed in one second for God. That’s not accurate either, even though it’s easy for us to accept or conceive such am arrangement, for even a thousand years in a millisecond still involves a sequence of experience, just experienced faster. What is the mathematical limit of this “function” we’ve gone over, where 1,000 years for us is experienced in shorter and shorter increments? It would be 0. And I guess I’d say that God is at that limit. Hard to conceive such an experience, but I hope that at least helps clarify what I’m getting at. And to be clear I’m not trying to boil down God to simple math, but am simply looking for analogies to convey certain ideas.

Let me say, though, that there are different conceptions of omniscience among monotheists and even among Catholics, so I can’t represent them all. Some agree that God knows all possibilities, others that God only knows what is (then, now, and will be) actual. Some that only the present is actual, others that past, present, and future are a worldblock.

Or is the answer something completely different. In quantum mechanics something can be in two different states at the same time. Metaphorically, a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time.

Is it possible that God sees reality from just such a perspective, in which the future isn’t merely this or that, but rather this and that. Is it only we who are forced to choose. We experience just one possible future, but perhaps God experiences them all. Thus God can know the future, and we can have free will, both at the same time.

Catholics can’t accept the quantum possibility example you posted. It would imply that God’s knowledge changes from knowing what is only possible to what is actual when it happens. If God knows all possibilities, he would still eternally know which one is actual and which one’s aren’t. And I think that is demonstrably true, too, if one followed through on the conclusions of the cosmological arguments.

 

[Gorgias]

If the future doesn’t actually exist, but rather God, by virtue of his omniscience, simply knows what it will be, then the state of reality in the future must be knowable from the state of reality now.

Invalid premise. God doesn’t know “from the state of reality now”, He simply knows. He doesn’t glean it from any other information – after all, that would mean that He learns, rather than knows.

(Your assertion, then, might merely be talking about what is known within the framework of the universe. It doesn’t follow, though, that what happens at some time ti+d must be able to be derived merely from the state at some prior time ti.)

So, no… your assertion doesn’t uncover a “major problem”. It just starts from a bad premise.

But can we say that the future exists but not in this present?

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Some philosophers posit that the future actually does exist (but we just can’t perceive it until ‘our’ time catches up with it), and others claim that it doesn’t exist until it ‘happens’.

 

[Gorgias]

Actually, it’s not an invalid premise.

It really is.

The fact that you reject this premise doesn’t make it invalid.

I never said that the reason that it’s invalid is that I say it is. (Thanks, though, for considering that I have that kind of authority. )

It’s entirely possible that God could know the future simply by the state of the present.

It’s not. What you’re saying here is that God’s knowledge is contingent – that is, that it depends on something (namely “knowledge of the state of the present”). God’s knowledge is not contingent – it does not depend on anything else. It is simple, and necessary. God simply knows. He doesn’t ‘learn’, He doesn’t ‘glean’, He doesn’t ‘discover’. He simply knows.

 

[Gorgias]

But what if they’re all equally actual to God? For us, only one actually occurs, but what if from God’s perspective they all occur?

In such a case I would still get to choose which one I experience, but from God’s perspective, He would perceive them all as being equally real.

So… quantum theory doesn’t mean “you get to choose what happens”. You choose your course of action, sure, but that doesn’t mean that you’re picking from a menu of possible futures. You make your choice, and the ‘future’ just ‘happens’.

More to the point, what you’re suggesting is that what we experience isn’t, in fact, reality. In other words, you’re positing that humans never know the past or the present, but only one of the possible pasts or presents (all of which truly exist).

It’s a cute thought – and could probably spawn an interesting sci-fi novel – but it doesn’t really stand up to philosophical scrutiny, don’t you think?

 

[Gorgias]

You’re adding a verb where none is necessary.

Actually, you are. Let’s look at what you’re saying you’re suggesting:

I’m not suggesting that God gleans, or deduces, or surmises what the future will be, but rather that God could “KNOW” eternally the end from the beginning, based solely upon the initial conditions.

See? I’m not “adding a verb”! Rather, you’re adding a dependency for God!

God’s knowledge is not based on anything external to Him. You’re positing that it is based on something else.

It’s a subtle point that you’re uncovering here, and a valuable one – when we say that God is omniscient, we’re not only talking about the scope of His knowledge… but also its source – Him and Him alone.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Catholics can’t accept the quantum possibility example you posted. It would imply that God’s knowledge changes from knowing what is only possible to what is actual when it happens. If God knows all possibilities, he would still eternally know which one is actual and which one’s aren’t.

Now you’re making an assumption, that only one of them becomes actual. But what if they’re all equally actual to God? For us, only one actually occurs, but what if from God’s perspective they all occur?

In such a case I would still get to choose which one I experience, but from God’s perspective, He would perceive them all as being equally real.

That all reality includes every possible outcome? Every subreality, if you will? Or maybe a subsubreality. Seems like we could catch ourselves in a pickle of contradictions, because would all reality necessarily need to include a subreality in which only two subsubrealities are real AND a subreality in which only three subsubrealities are real? Mutually exclusive subsets?

I don’t mean to poke fun, though I am speaking a little lightly. But we seem to have moved on beyond the question of God’s omniscience.

 

[Wesrock]

Isearch:

I have been wondering about this: If God’s omniscience meant that He sees the past, present, and the future in the same instance, does the future, in some way, exist now? If this isn’t so, how can He see and know the future that doesn’t exist yet?

There is one thing missing here, the definition of “knowledge”. Knowledge is information about something. If that “something” does not exist, there cannot be “information” about it. Of course anyone with some level of imagination can fantasize about it, but fantasy and knowledge are totally different concepts.

From this it logically follows that the “event” is always primary and “knowledge” is always secondary. Which means that God’s knowledge is contingent upon the event to be “known”.

Ah, but all the effects are depedent upon and secondary to God’s act, which he knows perfectly. God is not like a human observer.

 

[Gorgias]

The word “knows” is same no matter who the entity is who “knows” something.

Actually, it isn’t. Ask yourself, “how does a human know anything?” Then, ask yourself, “how does an angel know anything?”

You’ll get two different answers.

Of course the word “act” immediately refutes the concept that God is “static” and is outside of time.

Again, you’re conflating God’s act (which is eternal) and human acts (which are time-bound).

Just think: “if God knows everything , then he knows the nonexistent objects or never happening events, too”.

Actually, philosophers disagree on the proposition that God’s omniscience includes counter-factuals. So, you can’t really use that claim to disprove God’s omniscience.

Concepts need to be defined before they can be used.

Indeed. Pot… kettle?

 

[Gorgias]

Well let’s get back to the topic of this thread…from God’s perspective, does the future exist or not?

I’ve already answered the OP’s question, back in post #6. The assertion “God is omniscient” doesn’t entail “God sees the future”. Moreover, a future that “doesn’t exist yet” in our ability to perceive doesn’t condition God’s ability to know it.

So, I answer in the same way that Pirsig did: mu. Un-ask the question.

 

[Wesrock]

Gorgias:

Actually, it isn’t. Ask yourself, “how does a human know anything?” Then, ask yourself, “how does an angel know anything?”

You’ll get two different answers.

The question is not: HOW do we know something, rather - WHAT is knowledge. And knowledge is information about something, regardless of the “knower”.

I don’t know that I buy your definition of knowledge as stated, but God is fully knowledgeable about everything he is doing and could have possibly done under some definitions or simply about what he has done under others. God’s omniscience is directly related to his self-knowledge, given that all other things are an effect of him.

Gorgias:

Again, you’re conflating God’s act (which is eternal) and human acts (which are time-bound).

I only speak about the philosophical concept of “acting”, which cannot be separated from a “before” and an “after”. Without them there would be no difference between an “act” and a “non-act”.

This is not true. To be in act is to be, and to act is to affect others. No change in God is required, nor even a temporal before or after is required. That’s simply how we’re used to perceiving our own acts and other acts, but not fundamental to act as such.

 

[Gorgias]

The question is not: HOW do we know something, rather - WHAT is knowledge. And knowledge is information about something, regardless of the “knower”.

No… the question being addressed here is “what does it mean to know…?” That isn’t a question of the object of the knowing, it’s a question of the act of knowing.

I only speak about the philosophical concept of “acting”, which cannot be separated from a “before” and an “after”. Without them there would be no difference between an “act” and a “non-act”.

Within the constraints of the framework of the universe? Sure.

There is no ‘before’ or ‘after’ in eternity. So, your attempt to shoehorn “God’s act” into the framework of the temporal dimension is an error of category.

And I am not talking about counterfactuals.

Really? Hmm… let’s take a look…

Just think: “if God knows everything , then he knows the nonexistent objects or never happening events, too”.

To “know” the contents of those books that have never been written, because the authors were never born???

God “knows” the outcome of a game, which has never been invented and therefore was never played???

I suspect that you don’t realize that your assertions are the very definition of ‘counterfactual’…

Sorry if I’m being overly direct, but are you saying specifically that from God’s perspective the future doesn’t exist yet?

No. I’m saying that the question is poorly formed, so it cannot be answered. It’s kind of like the old example of the loaded-question fallacy, “have you stopped beating your wife?” The very question cannot be answered, since any answer entails an untruth.

So, what I’m saying specifically is that the question is poorly-formed, and must be asked differently. Any answer to the question as asked will lead to an untruth.

 

[Gorgias]

Sorry, that makes no sense.

Philosophy is hard to understand.

There is a the concept of “action” and the concept of “non-action”, or “inaction”. What is the difference?

I guess it’s the difference between ‘something’ and ‘nothing’, eh?

The proper way to resolve this question is to discard the meaningless phrase “God acts”.

Erm… if you say so.

The counterfactual is to examine something that “could be otherwise”.

No. In the current context, that’s not what we’re discussing. It’s not merely that it “could be otherwise”; what we’re talking about are things that are not.

The proposition: “something that does not exist, never existed and will never exist” is NOT a counterfactual.

In fact… it is.

How could anyone know the nonexistence ?

That’s the claim of philosophers who assert that God’s omniscience does not include counterfactuals.

 

[Gorgias]

What is the definition of “knowledge” in your opinion?

The question is whether God knows. And the answer is ‘yes’.

And change without a “before” and an “after” is not a change. Simple, everyday words, with simple, everyday meanings.

Except that you’re in a philosophy forum, which means that you’re dealing with words that are used in a particular way, and often, in ways distinct from “simple, everyday” usage.

So, God’s act – which takes place in eternity – doesn’t have a ‘before’ or an ‘after’, because it’s in eternity, not within a temporal framework.

So “omniscience” is NOT “omni-science”. Par for the course.

The question is whether counterfactuals ‘count’ in the definition of all-knowing. It’s an open question.

Of course without a properly accepted definition of “knowledge” there can be NO discussion of “omniscience” - which is supposed to be the “knowledge” of “everything”…

So, (again), the question becomes “are counterfactuals included in ‘omniscience’?” I’m not seeing why the question disturbs you so…