In this thread I am hoping people don’t turn to Molinism or Calvinism or Hume;s ideas because these aren’t ideas that are satisfying me. My problem is with free will affecting prophecy. God drops a prophecy on us, and the next day someone uses their free will in passing it on, then the next day someone else does the same. Everything after the “drop” is free willed, so how can it be certain that the prophecy will come true. God knows everything but we live in a continuous world of cause and effect, and free will, and linear time.What if Anti-Christ reads the prophecy through the hands of free will passer-onners and decides not to be the Anti-Christ? See my problem? What theory of time can help illuminate this mystery?
I may as well rehash a couple of my personal experiences, as I think they’re pertinent to this debate.
First of all, I’ve said ad infinitum that the night my father died, he appeared in my room. The end was pretty grim, finishing with a scream of absolute terror on his part, followed by his abrupt disappearance. However during the proceedings he said at one point, “You’ll meet a pastor. You’ll think he’s great, but all he’ll do is to discourage you even more!”
That was January 1979, and I was an atheist at the time. I became a Christian circa October 1982. I also met a pastor by the name of Rev. Robert Missenden in the Presbyterian Church I was attending at the time. I learnt a lot from him, and developed a great deal of respect for him.
However not that long before he died himself, he said to me in his own office, “I owe you an apology… You needed encouragement, but all I’ve done is to discourage you even more!”
I pointed out to him that he had just repeated my father’s prediction about himslef almost word for word, and he blurted out “You really did see your father that night!”
So that was one personal “prophecy” by my father that came true. However Rev. Missenden was also “prophetic” and I found that if he said he thought something would happen, it invariably did, even if it took time. This uncanny “prophetic” gift he had was one of the reasons I developed so much respect for him.
There were a number of things he predicted which have happened, but the most unexpected was “I think you’ll be doing a cleaning job for a short time. You won’t like it much, and you won’t be doing it for long, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost.” There was a bit more, but at the time I thought it was somewhat ridiculous.
Now he probably said that circa 1990 or 1991, as he died himself in January 1992. But in 2006, I did a cleaning job for a short time (about four months), didn’t like it much, and “heard about a ghost” (former manager in an old store who hanged himself downstairs in the 1960’s, if staff were correct). It eventually involved an Australian priest I chanced upon on Catholic Answers Forums, and while it hasn’t led to any concrete action to date, it’s sure featured events way beyond the chances of sheer coincidence.
So… here were a couple of personal “prophecies” which came true, and which angels and the devil were just as much privy to as I was, since they can quite freely listen into our conversations. Yet they still took place.
What did they share in common? Well, first of all I didn’t set out to meet the pastor, nor did I take a cleaning job thinking I might meet a ghost. I wasn’t even thinking about it at the time, and it wasn’t till the young bloke showing me the cleaning round for the first time remarked “This place is haunted” that I started to recall the pastor’s prediction.
Another feature - they took
years to occur. My father died in January 1979, and it was over 10 years later before the pastor apologised for “discouraging” me. The pastor made the prediction about the ghost circa 1990/91, but I didn’t do the short term cleaning job till 2006, 15 years later. It was another four years before I chanced up the Australian priest on CAF, and got a mass said (as he just “happened” to be located at the very same parish where the “haunted” store was located). It took another five years before I had another email contact with the same priest due to another “coincidence”, and I still haven’t met him personally to this day.
But I assume there’ll be a reason as the pastor stated “I think the LORD will just want you to hear about a ghost.”
When Christ made the prediction about the destruction of the Temple, it took
40 years to occur. By that time, the only ones who would have remembered it would have been his disciples or other close followers, if they were still alive. His enemies would have ignored it, and probably forgotten it, so they’d have done nothing to stop it.
And their attention would have been on the threat of the Roman armies, rather than the prediction of the Temple destruction.
As a rule then, “Prophecies” tend to be forgotten, until events bring them to pass. Then those who have a memory or tradition of the prophecy in their personal or national consciousness think “Hang on, that’s right, that’s what Joe Blog siad would happen!” So we generally only recognise “prophecy” in hindsight. Consequently we don’t set out to bring the “prophecies” to pass.
But God does, and despite all our alleged “Free Will” choices, He still brings to pass those things He said will happen. How He does this is a moot point, and I for one haven’t got a clue how He does it. But it happens all right. It’s just that by the time it happens, we’ve been pretty much on the point of forgetting about it.
