I have a question on God's Omnisciense

[JamesCaruso]

This is one of the most puzzling questions you ask.

I am afraid we will have to wait to die to get the answer.

I always refer myself back to Psalm 145:3 which places the nature of God beyond our understanding.

Your dog does not understand you, does not understand you are leaving for work etc, infinitely more we cannot understand God fully either. If you asked your dog what God sounded like he would mimmick a can opener.

Interestingly, The chair of the philosophy dept when I went to college, who went to Notre Dame and was a former seminarian- I asked him the same question. His answer was that he did not believe God could see into the future because God chose not too.

That is a bewildering answer! You would think that knowing the future would put God in a better position to help mankind.

I do agree with you that we can no more understand God than our dog can understand us. Still, I want to extend our understanding as far as our capacity for reason and logic will allow. I guess the trick is knowing where and when to draw the line.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Sorry, I don’t mean to unduly drag out a discussion that is going nowhere. My point about observing the night sky is not merely that we are looking at the past. It is that we are seeing a huge number of ‘pasts’ simultaneously. Those variety of pasts are simultaneous to us in our observation. For another observer in a different galaxy they are not simultaneous; a different set of pasts appear simultaneous to them.

There is no such thing as simultaneity for humans. Past, present, and future, depend on one’s observational standpoint. There is only simultaneity for God. For him all things are simultaneous.

It is not correct to think of God existing in eternity, then deciding to create, then creating a universe at a specific time and then sitting back to see what happens. That places God directly in the midst of time! He doesn’t take himself out of eternity and make himself extended in time by the act of creation! The instant of creation is the same instant to God as the universe at Tzero +16 billion years, and the same instant as the death of the universe.

Just because we have an extension in time and space, we tend to think of God in the same way. But he is not like us.

The philosopher is wrong. God cannot chose to limit his omniscience, any more than he can chose to not know what is in the next room.

What we and other observers are seeing is the light from those distant pasts, but the observer is not “present” to those pasts. If, for instance, we could capture the light from our own prehistoric earth, the dinosaurs we might see are obviously long since dead. We are present only to the light record, not to the past itself.

When you say that the instant of the creation and the death of the universe are the same instant to God, I challenge that assumption. Just because God is outside of time does not mean that the future and the past are the same in His viewing. First, we cannot imagine with finite minds what it means to be outside of time. But we do have some clues, One clue is that God is always in the present, since there is no past or future for God. We also know that man, though finite, is only conscious in his present existence. He can remember what he thought in the past, or imagine what he might think in the future, but he cannot actually think except in the present. So like God, man is tied inextricably to the present, the former never changing, the latter, man, in continual change. Listen to this carefully: God is not “in” time, but he sees time related to His creation as it unfolds. He did not set the universe in motion and destroy it in the same breath. Even the scriptures say that he “took time” to create the universe (six days), and that he “rested” when it was completed. Apparently, while He is not “in time”, He can do things in time as He so chooses. Because the universe is always in the present, and because God is always in the present, God is only present to the universe in the present, never in the future, and never in the past. The trick about time is that the material universe is an endless continuum of “presents” but these “presents” do not exist simultaneously. Until they come into existence, God is not present to them, the obvious reason being that they don’t exist. We can’t have our cake and eat it, too. We can’t put Him outside of time, then reinsert Him into time by making Him present to our future. Time is not a subset of infinity that makes God present to both past and future simultaneously. Time, like creation, is apart from God. God is always present to the universe and the universe is always in the present. Like us, He must wait as the universe evolves, changes, matures, regresses, etc,. etc., not because He is powerless, but because that’s the way He created it to be-- it’s the nature of His creation.

Yeah, I know this topic gets wordy. The trouble is that it is difficult to put into words what I am trying to say. But I do sense it with all my being even if my words are inadequate to convey it. It is simply too meaningless to state that because God is outside of time, he must then be present to both past and future. That’s a very spatial way of trying to envision it, but it just doesn’t make sense. Not even God can be present to the nonexistent future. It does not exist.

 

[JamesCaruso]

This statement is true for the physical world and for us, who experience change. We can remember the changes we have directly experienced, or read about others experiencing, and refer to that as “the past”. We can ponder the possible changes yet to come and refer to that as “the future”. Both past and future do not exist per se. There is only the present.

There is also only the present for God. But look at what you just said in what I quoted. You said, “There is no example in the physical world of seeing the future…” God is not physical, but pure spirit. On top of that, we are finite beings while God is infinite. Space and time do not confine an infinite being, because both space and time are finite. Think about the implications of that. C.S. Lewis described it this way in Mere Christianity: “If you picture time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn.” At whatever point is the present for us, we can remember what came before and anticipate what comes later. But we always are and will always be a single point along that line, even though the location of that point changes forward at a steady rate as time progresses. Just as the page contains every single point of the line simultaneously, God likewise contains every single point of time simultaneously. To not contain all of time would limit the limitless God.

The reason we can say that God is unchanging is because there’s never a point in time where God doesn’t know something and then later knows it. If that was actually the case, then God would neither be omnipotent nor perfect. If God doesn’t know the future, he’s not perfect. He would lack something. But as God surrounds and permeates all of time just as the piece of paper surrounds and permeates all of the model of time we draw upon it, God’s eternal present contains all of our past, present, and future. And it’s still not filled because he’s infinite. No matter how far into the future the timeline goes, the same God that was there for our yesterday and is there for our today will be there for our tomorrow because he’s not limited by time. It’s all one great big present to him.

It’s a completely different way of seeing reality from us. Such is the nature of an infinite being.

Part of your confusion may stem from the fact that you seem to view free will as “random” will. It’s not random. The will is designed to seek out the good. A free will simply means that nothing forces us to decide that God (or anything else for that matter) is good. I submit for your consideration my drive to work every morning. When I get to the first major highway, I can turn left, turn right, go straight, turn around, sit there in traffic idle, get out of my car and dance around it singing Freezepop songs, ram into other cars, or whatever the heck I want. There’s nothing physically stopping me. But when I’m driving to work, I always turn right because that’s the best way to get to work and I view getting to work promptly as good. So I voluntarily choose to do what I perceive will bring about that good.

Far from being random, free will is actually pretty predictable. All you have to do is know what a person perceives as good. Whatever they perceive as the greatest good in any situation, that’s what they will do. Guaranteed. The same holds true for God. Whatever is the greatest possible good, that’s what God will always do. And he will do it freely.

Not knowing the future is no more an imperfection for God than not being able to tell a lie.

It is true, as you say, that we only have the present.

And it is true that God has no future or past but is always in the present.

What is not true is to assume that because God is always in the present that he is present to the future. Time in not a part of infinity that makes God present to past, present and future simultaneously. There is no future in infinity and therefore, no room for God to be present to the future.

Time and infinity are separate. The material universe as you say is only in the present. God is present to each and every instance of the material universe as it comes into existence, but not before, for the simple reason that it does not exist, not for man, and not for God.

Until I tell a lie, I am not guilty of breaking a commandment, God cannot be present to my lie before I tell it. He may know it’s coming, but he cannot be present to what does not exist. This much is discernible by ordinary human intelligence-- it is not delving into the mysteries of God. .

 

[Alindawyl]

Until I tell a lie, I am not guilty of breaking a commandment, God cannot be present to my lie before I tell it. He may know it’s coming, but he cannot be present to what does not exist. This much is discernible by ordinary human intelligence-- it is not delving into the mysteries of God. .

It is a logical contradiction to say that God cannot be present to what does not exist while possessing knowledge of what does not exist. If a thing does not exist, then it cannot be known. God knows our future because our future exists to him. Our future, like our past and present, is all God’s present.

To experience past, present, and future as we do within time is to experience change. Time is a measure of change, after all. I was once a child but am now an adult. The Roman Empire used to exist but exists no longer. My wife and I will celebrate our 20th anniversary in 2014, but not today. The present is what exists. The past is change that has already happened, and the future is change that has not yet happened.

Hebrews 8:13 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Psalm 102:25-28 tells us that the heavens and the earth will one day perish and wear out like an old garment, that they will change, but that God is always the same. James 1:17 tells us that all good comes from God, who has no alteration or shadow caused by change. The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes the Fourth Lateran Council in telling us: “We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal, infinite (immensus) and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty, and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple.”

If God does not change, then since time is a measure of change it logically follows that God does not experience time. There cannot be a past, present, or future to a being without change. There can only be an eternal, unchanging present. What has not yet happened from our perspective is only the future because we are limited. It’s the present to God because he’s not limited like us. The same is true of the past. The past no longer exists to us, but it’s still the present to God. We are compartmentalized due to our limited, finite nature. God is all-encompassing because he is not limited and not finite. As Thomas Aquinas said, the divine intellect of God is mensurans non mensurata (measures but is not measured). We cannot measure God according to our own intellect, but must conform ourselves to God.

Like JimG, I also believe that this discussion is going nowhere. So should you wish to continue holding to it, I shall leave you to your error.

 

[CrossBro]

That is a bewildering answer! You would think that knowing the future would put God in a better position to help mankind.

I do agree with you that we can no more understand God than our dog can understand us. Still, I want to extend our understanding as far as our capacity for reason and logic will allow. I guess the trick is knowing where and when to draw the line.

I agree that in regards to moral thinking and moral actions learning about God is prudent and necessary. But metaphysical questions are another ball game. It reminds me of the passage in the Bible where it is asked “Where were you when I made the universe…”

That reminds me, if you have never seen the movie, “The Tree of Life” with Brad Pitt I recommend you see it.

 

[JamesCaruso]

It is a logical contradiction to say that God cannot be present to what does not exist while possessing knowledge of what does not exist. If a thing does not exist, then it cannot be known. God knows our future because our future exists to him. Our future, like our past and present, is all God’s present.

Cause and effect. God knows all the factors in the present that lead to a certain result in the future. This is not a contradiction. Perhaps we are using different connotations of the word “know.” He does not “know” as in “experiencing”, but He does “know” as in calculating or foreseeing. Free agency may be a different case.

 

[JamesCaruso]

If God does not change, then since time is a measure of change it logically follows that God does not experience time.

God does not experience time. That is not to say that He does not “see” it. To not see it would make Him ignorant of it. Clearly the All Knowing God sees it.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Like JimG, I also believe that this discussion is going nowhere. So should you wish to continue holding to it, I shall leave you to your error.

Thank you for your gallant effort to save me from my error, but if God is present to my future as-yet-uncommitted sin, it appears to be a lot like “determinism” which the Church clearly opposes. Knowing future sins and being present to them are two different things. So far you have said nothing that persuades me that God is present to the future. He may see it, but I still hold that He is not present to it. If He is, what’s the sense in striving for a different result? I have no doubt that I may be wrong. I am simply asking those who may know the correct answer to step forward and explain their answer with convincing logic. Not to diminish you in any way, you have not succeeded in convincing me of my error, if it exists. I think maybe you just hold your opinion as a belief and not a logical conclusion. And maybe that’s the only answer possible, that is, we hold different beliefs, but neither side can prove its position. That being the case, perhaps we should leave each other, not in the other’s error, but holding to our disparate beliefs.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I agree that in regards to moral thinking and moral actions learning about God is prudent and necessary. But metaphysical questions are another ball game. It reminds me of the passage in the Bible where it is asked “Where were you when I made the universe…”

That reminds me, if you have never seen the movie, “The Tree of Life” with Brad Pitt I recommend you see it.

I’ll look for it [the movie]…

It does seem to have become a game of dubious logic, so I must agree with your appeal to Scriptures. Funny, how on this question, so many are of such firm belief. Perhaps I shall see the light before the cock crows twice.

 

[JimG]

Jesus became man and sacrificed himself to save us from sin—original sin as well as every actual sin every committed by any human person.

Of course, when Jesus became man, and when he offered his sacrifice, I was not yet born, nor even conceived. If God does not see the future, then did Jesus save me from my sins? Not being able to see the future, he didn’t even know that I would exist, let alone that I would sin. Perhaps he only saved those who came before him?

But that is not correct. God sent his Son to save us from our sins because he already saw (sees) every one of our sins.

To say that God ‘foresees’ the future only through a mental calculation is to place him in a temporal continuum, as well as to limit his intellect. He of course sees the future as ‘now.’ That’s the way God sees everything. He can not see the past only as past or the future only as future. It’s all ‘now’ to him. Eternity, not time, is God’s mode of being.

Seeing the future, the present, and the past, as all ‘now’ is not the same as causing us to sin. It is simply seeing.

“Eternity is the complete possession of boundless perfection, all at once, without beginning, succession, or end, and therefore without any before and after.”

Source

 

[Ed_Silvia]

JamesCaruso; This is all very interesting. This would rule out time travel and anything seen by St John in Revelation wasn’t real but just a representation of what was going to happen.

So Matthew 16: 28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. was just seeing a representation and not real? … Hmmm. I don’t know about that

 

[JamesCaruso]

Jesus became man and sacrificed himself to save us from sin—original sin as well as every actual sin every committed by any human person.

Of course, when Jesus became man, and when he offered his sacrifice, I was not yet born, nor even conceived. If God does not see the future, then did Jesus save me from my sins? Not being able to see the future, he didn’t even know that I would exist, let alone that I would sin. Perhaps he only saved those who came before him?

But that is not correct. God sent his Son to save us from our sins because he already saw (sees) every one of our sins.

To say that God ‘foresees’ the future only through a mental calculation is to place him in a temporal continuum, as well as to limit his intellect. He of course sees the future as ‘now.’ That’s the way God sees everything. He can not see the past only as past or the future only as future. It’s all ‘now’ to him. Eternity, not time, is God’s mode of being.

Seeing the future, the present, and the past, as all ‘now’ is not the same as causing us to sin. It is simply seeing.

“Eternity is the complete possession of boundless perfection, all at once, without beginning, succession, or end, and therefore without any before and after.”

Source

No where do I say that God cannot see the future. I have said that I question whether God can “be present” to the future. I believe there is more than a semantical difference in “seeing” and in “being present to.” One can see what will happen before it happens, but to be present to it means to see it as it is happening. We can see stars from billions of years in the past, but it’s only the light that we see-- we are not present to those stars as they emitted that light.

 

[JamesCaruso]

JamesCaruso; This is all very interesting. This would rule out time travel and anything seen by St John in Revelation wasn’t real but just a representation of what was going to happen.

So Matthew 16: 28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. was just seeing a representation and not real? … Hmmm. I don’t know about that

Besides the fact that Revelations may be understood on more than one level, I believe the parts that relate to the end times are a vision of the future. Not real? First, it’s written in apocalyptic language full of symbolism, which cannot always be taken in a literal sense. Second, it is a vision of what will really happen (if we understand the symbolism used, of course.)

On the verse in Matthew, it is often interpreted to mean that some of those standing there would still be alive after Pentecost as Christ’s Church began to grow in numbers. To my understanding, this is how God’s kingdom is coming in power and glory on earth. I doubt it was a reference to the second coming, since none would be alive at that time.

 

[Ed_Silvia]

The Son of man coming in his kingdom is not Pentecost. St John saw this when he witnessed the conclusion to salvation history before his death.

 

[JamesCaruso]

The Son of man coming in his kingdom is not Pentecost. St John saw this when he witnessed the conclusion to salvation history before his death.

I was commenting on Matt 16:28, not Revelations. Mark 9:1 recounts the same. Most commentators reject the notion that Jesus was talking about His second coming, but either about the Transfiguration, Pentecost and the expanding Christian Church, or the destruction of Jerusalem. None that I have read believe that “some standing here” refers to John and his vision of the second coming. You can believe what you want, but I think it’s a stretch. Peace.