Question of fate?

[fhansen]

First you didn’t answer my second question " Why we should suffer for our final destiny that is known and possibly could be damned!?"

Because its not known to us and in any case God gives everyone a perfectly fair chance-because His justice is perfect and His mercy infinite.

Second, how we could make any relationship with such a God? I mean before, now and after have a clear meaning for us as without that everything would be static from our point of view, there would be not any action, neither any changes. The main question is then how God who is in state of timeless could possibly observe any changes in the creation and possibly interact with us. I mean I am here now and will be at other place sometimes later. You could easily observe me and have a understanding from my situation. But God is the sate of timeless, no before, no after… how it could possibly distinguish between those two cases since one of them occurs after another one.

Time, itself, is presumably created, a “pause in eternity”, perhaps. In any case, because God is superior to everything He creates, as we are in relation to our own creations, He can certainly comprehend and relate to it, while from our perspective relationship with Him is necessarily a matter of grace due to that same superiority.

BTW, the only reason I’m up at this hour (2am) is because we’re harvesting wine-grapes this morning. What’s your excuse, if you don’t mind my asking? Or is it daytime in your location?

 

[Bahman]

Because its not known to us and in any case God gives everyone a perfectly fair chance-because His justice is perfect and His mercy infinite.

What do you mean with the fair chance. Things has already been known. In fact it is against God mercy to await us in this state of suffering for something that it is already been known.

Time, itself, is presumably created, a “pause in eternity”, perhaps. In any case, because God is superior to everything He creates, as we are in relation to our own creations, He can certainly comprehend and relate to it, while from our perspective relationship with Him is necessarily a matter of grace due to that same superiority.

Could you please tell me what was wrong with my statement? Also please ready post #40.

BTW, the only reason I’m up at this hour (2am) is because we’re harvesting wine-grapes this morning. What’s your excuse, if you don’t mind my asking? Or is it daytime in your location?

It is day time in my time zone.

 

[fhansen]

What do you mean with the fair chance. Things has already been known. In fact it is against God mercy to await us in this state of suffering for something that it is already been known.

Could you please tell me what was wrong with my statement? Also please ready post #40.

I don’t know-I can’t speak from an eternal perspective-or adequately wrap my head around the concept. I can’t fully wrap my head around the concept of time, either, for that matter. But it seems to me that whether we’re looking at it from the perspective of eternity, or from the perspective of time after an occurrence has taken place, the occurrence could not have been-or could no longer be-otherwise. So does that negate the possibility of free will either way? Cannot God, viewing from His eternal perspective as well as from our limited temporal perspective-fully cognizant of our time-constrained experiences here-know our “future”, as future for us, without causing that future? Is free will necessarily negated simply because He has a non-time constrained awareness? Couldn’t a being of His “caliber” set up the playing field so He can peek in and out of time without influencing our decisions?

BTW, it seems to me that the only alternative is that either time or eternity cannot both exist; only one or the other is possible-but reality without both isn’t any easier to conceive.

 

[Bahman]

I don’t know-I can’t speak from an eternal perspective-or adequately wrap my head around the concept. I can’t fully wrap my head around the concept of time, either, for that matter. But it seems to me that whether we’re looking at it from the perspective of eternity, or from the perspective of time after an occurrence has taken place, the occurrence could not have been-or could no longer be-otherwise. So does that negate the possibility of free will either way? Cannot God, viewing from His eternal perspective as well as from our limited temporal perspective-fully cognizant of our time-constrained experiences here-know our “future”, as future for us, without causing that future?
Is free will necessarily negated simply because He has a non-time constrained awareness?

This cannot resolve the paradox since that is omniscience of God that has conflict with free will. A God in timeless framework in fact cannot observe any changes in the creation since any motion in the creation follows with a notion of before and after that is meaningless in that framework.

Couldn’t a being of His “caliber” set up the playing field so He can peek in and out of time without influencing our decisions?

The main question is why God should need such a knowledge and whether this knowledge has any conflict with our free will as we discuss it in former posts.

BTW, it seems to me that the only alternative is that either time or eternity cannot both exist; only one or the other is possible-but reality without both isn’t any easier to conceive.

That is not true. Eternity (timeless as we could agree upon) and time could both exist but they could not coexist in the same framework. Eternity/God could comprehend time in timeless framework but it could not experience time since experience of time requires changes.

 

[tonyrey]

No, I am saying that God omniscience in the way that you define it causes a paradox. You tell me if whether God knew the exact time and location at which Satan rebel against time? I know that your answer to this question is yes. Satan reaches to that specific location and has to make a decision about rebelling against God.

It is incorrect to say “God knew” because God is not a creature in time and space. That is the flaw in your argument.

He has two choices:

1. Satan decide to rebel against God (no inconstancy with omniscience of God).
2. Satan decide to does not rebel against God. My question from you is that whether this choice was feasible option at all. You answer is no since it oppose omniscience of God. Now remove the second choice and go back ward through my statement to see where would you reach. Satan has only one feasible option: to rebel against God.

You are begging the question again. Omniscience is not the same as coercion or compulsion.

Apply this example to every action takes places in our life and see what would you conclude: all our actions are known by God and we have no feasible option to do otherwise since otherwise it contradict God omniscience.

**Knowledge alone has no effect on anything. **If I know what you are going to do it doesn’t mean you have no choice.

 

[Bahman]

It is incorrect to say “God knew” because God is not a creature in time and space. That is the flaw in your argument.

You are begging the question again. Omniscience is not the same as coercion or compulsion.

**Knowledge alone has no effect on anything. **If I know what you are going to do it doesn’t mean you have no choice.

Let me correct myself and say knows instead of knew.

My questions from you is that could how God comprehend action and at the same time be in state of timeless?

I mean, lets see if we could agree that this is the picture that God has from a creature: The person does action X1 at time T1, action X2 at time T2, etc. This define a timeline at which the action of the person is defined at each time interval. God omniscience means knowing this timeline unless you have another opinion which I would be glad to know it.

Now, I raise this question: Does God know what the person do right now? This requires the knowledge of time which is not knowable from God point of view since it is in state of timeless. Why it is unknowable, because knowledge of time requires seeing changes and changes cannot happen in that framework. Such a God, not only cannot know what a creature does at the moment, it cannot interact with its creature as well so the concept relationship is lost. The only thing that this God knows is a static picture of timeline without knowing where exactly the creature is since that type of question is irrelevant from that framework.

 

[paseo]

Let me correct myself and say knows instead of knew.

My questions from you is that could how God comprehend action and at the same time be in state of timeless?

I mean, lets see if we could agree that this is the picture that God has from a creature: The person does action X1 at time T1, action X2 at time T2, etc. This define a timeline at which the action of the person is defined at each time interval. God omniscience means knowing this timeline unless you have another opinion which I would be glad to know it.

I’m going to take a shot at putting in my 2 cents here. I may very well miss the mark by an inch or even be completely way off base but I’m thinking I should chime in because I would like to know myself if I really am off base or at least still somewhere in the field.

So, here goes.
To echo a few other posters: God does not “exist” in time.
Time (and space) is experienced only by us humans due to our limitations and finite way of thinking.
We perceive time in a linear (or timeline, like you mentioned above); i.e. past → present → future. Like right now, it is 8:10 pm on Sunday where I am and I’m here typing this post. Earlier today, at 8:30 am this morning I was attending mass. Tomorrow, I plan to jog around 4:30 pm.

God however, doesn’t experience, this timeline, this changing of time. To Him, there is no such thing as past, present and future. He is not restricted by our limitations as human beings. Why?
Because He created us, just as He created this world. Which brings us to the question you pointed out:

Now, I raise this question: Does God know what the person do right now? This requires the knowledge of time which is not knowable from God point of view since it is in state of timeless. Why it is unknowable, because knowledge of time requires seeing changes and changes cannot happen in that framework. Such a God, not only cannot know what a creature does at the moment, it cannot interact with its creature as well so the concept relationship is lost. The only thing that this God knows is a static picture of timeline without knowing where exactly the creature is since that type of question is irrelevant from that framework.

First of all, as God created the world and everything in it - it would be false to state that God has no knowledge of time - because God created the thing that we call “time”. He created the moon and stars for night and He created the sun for day. The “knowledge of time” came from Him.

Secondly, the statement above implies that God is limited, which He is not. He is infinite. He cannot be contained in time and space. He “saw, sees and will see” that right now I’m typing while watching a rerun of Three’s Company. The concepts of past tense, present tense and future tense only applies to us, not to God. It is due to our limitations that we cannot fully comprehend a God who transcends through time (and space). He “has seen, can see and always sees” what we’re doing at any specific time in our life.

Now, maybe someone else has a better analogy that could better grasp the concept of God’s infiniteness, but this is the only one I’ve been able to come up with that I know is in itself very limited and doesn’t even come close to expressing God’s infiniteness. Take for instance a casino surveillance room (yeah, I know, bad example ) with say 100 video recordings and displays. You can play, pause, rewind, fast forward any one of those videos any time you like, you can see that the guy at one black jack table is cheating, while at the same time see a brawl breaking up by the slot machines. You can rewind to see what caused the brawl in the first place, while at the same time checking out the lady who’s having a winning streak at the big roller’s poker table. Again, this doesn’t even touch God’s infiniteness - but just think, if we, His creations, with our limited brains, can come up with something like this, it’d be highly arrogant of us to think that our Creator doesn’t have a way more advanced “surveillance technique”

So that’s my :twocents: and I really hope someone would correct me if anything I’ve said is wrong, or worse, against any church teachings

---

Disclaimer: I’m just rediscovering my Catholic faith so I’m still learning and have much to learn, so I apologize if I might write some things that are results of my misunderstanding and please kindly point out if anything might be incorrect so I can learn from it

 

[tonyrey]

Let me correct myself and say knows instead of knew.

My questions from you is that could how God comprehend action and at the same time be in state of timeless?

I mean, lets see if we could agree that this is the picture that God has from a creature: The person does action X1 at time T1, action X2 at time T2, etc. This define a timeline at which the action of the person is defined at each time interval. God omniscience means knowing this timeline unless you have another opinion which I would be glad to know it.

Now, I raise this question: Does God know what the person do right now? This requires the knowledge of time which is not knowable from God point of view since it is in state of timeless. Why it is unknowable, because knowledge of time requires seeing changes and changes cannot happen in that framework. Such a God, not only cannot know what a creature does at the moment, it cannot interact with its creature as well so the concept relationship is lost. The only thing that this God knows is a static picture of timeline without knowing where exactly the creature is since that type of question is irrelevant from that framework.

What gives you the power to understand what God knows?

Can you explain how knowledge** controls** persons and things?

 

[tonyrey]

I’m going to take a shot at putting in my 2 cents here. I may very well miss the mark by an inch or even be completely way off base but I’m thinking I should chime in because I would like to know myself if I really am off base or at least still somewhere in the field.

So, here goes.
To echo a few other posters: God does not “exist” in time.
Time (and space) is experienced only by us humans due to our limitations and finite way of thinking.
We perceive time in a linear (or timeline, like you mentioned above); i.e. past → present → future. Like right now, it is 8:10 pm on Sunday where I am and I’m here typing this post. Earlier today, at 8:30 am this morning I was attending mass. Tomorrow, I plan to jog around 4:30 pm.

God however, doesn’t experience, this timeline, this changing of time. To Him, there is no such thing as past, present and future. He is not restricted by our limitations as human beings. Why?
Because He created us, just as He created this world. Which brings us to the question you pointed out:

First of all, as God created the world and everything in it - it would be false to state that God has no knowledge of time - because God created the thing that we call “time”. He created the moon and stars for night and He created the sun for day. The “knowledge of time” came from Him.

Secondly, the statement above implies that God is limited, which He is not. He is infinite. He cannot be contained in time and space. He “saw, sees and will see” that right now I’m typing while watching a rerun of Three’s Company. The concepts of past tense, present tense and future tense only applies to us, not to God. It is due to our limitations that we cannot fully comprehend a God who transcends through time (and space). He “has seen, can see and always sees” what we’re doing at any specific time in our life.

Now, maybe someone else has a better analogy that could better grasp the concept of God’s infiniteness, but this is the only one I’ve been able to come up with that I know is in itself very limited and doesn’t even come close to expressing God’s infiniteness. Take for instance a casino surveillance room (yeah, I know, bad example ) with say 100 video recordings and displays. You can play, pause, rewind, fast forward any one of those videos any time you like, you can see that the guy at one black jack table is cheating, while at the same time see a brawl breaking up by the slot machines. You can rewind to see what caused the brawl in the first place, while at the same time checking out the lady who’s having a winning streak at the big roller’s poker table. Again, this doesn’t even touch God’s infiniteness - but just think, if we, His creations, with our limited brains, can come up with something like this, it’d be highly arrogant of us to think that our Creator doesn’t have a way more advanced “surveillance technique”

So that’s my :twocents: and I really hope someone would correct me if anything I’ve said is wrong, or worse, against any church teachings

---

Disclaimer: I’m just rediscovering my Catholic faith so I’m still learning and have much to learn, so I apologize if I might write some things that are results of my misunderstanding and please kindly point out if anything might be incorrect so I can learn from it

You are too modest! Your post is excellent.

 

[paseo]

You are too modest! Your post is excellent.

Thank you tonyrey It’s a relief to know that my understanding is not far off!

 

[Bahman]

I’m going to take a shot at putting in my 2 cents here. I may very well miss the mark by an inch or even be completely way off base but I’m thinking I should chime in because I would like to know myself if I really am off base or at least still somewhere in the field.

So, here goes.
To echo a few other posters: God does not “exist” in time.
Time (and space) is experienced only by us humans due to our limitations and finite way of thinking.
We perceive time in a linear (or timeline, like you mentioned above); i.e. past → present → future. Like right now, it is 8:10 pm on Sunday where I am and I’m here typing this post. Earlier today, at 8:30 am this morning I was attending mass. Tomorrow, I plan to jog around 4:30 pm.

God however, doesn’t experience, this timeline, this changing of time. To Him, there is no such thing as past, present and future. He is not restricted by our limitations as human beings. Why?
Because He created us, just as He created this world. Which brings us to the question you pointed out:

First of all, as God created the world and everything in it - it would be false to state that God has no knowledge of time - because God created the thing that we call “time”. He created the moon and stars for night and He created the sun for day. The “knowledge of time” came from Him.

Secondly, the statement above implies that God is limited, which He is not. He is infinite. He cannot be contained in time and space. He “saw, sees and will see” that right now I’m typing while watching a rerun of Three’s Company. The concepts of past tense, present tense and future tense only applies to us, not to God. It is due to our limitations that we cannot fully comprehend a God who transcends through time (and space). He “has seen, can see and always sees” what we’re doing at any specific time in our life.

Now, maybe someone else has a better analogy that could better grasp the concept of God’s infiniteness, but this is the only one I’ve been able to come up with that I know is in itself very limited and doesn’t even come close to expressing God’s infiniteness. Take for instance a casino surveillance room (yeah, I know, bad example ) with say 100 video recordings and displays. You can play, pause, rewind, fast forward any one of those videos any time you like, you can see that the guy at one black jack table is cheating, while at the same time see a brawl breaking up by the slot machines. You can rewind to see what caused the brawl in the first place, while at the same time checking out the lady who’s having a winning streak at the big roller’s poker table. Again, this doesn’t even touch God’s infiniteness - but just think, if we, His creations, with our limited brains, can come up with something like this, it’d be highly arrogant of us to think that our Creator doesn’t have a way more advanced “surveillance technique”

So that’s my :twocents: and I really hope someone would correct me if anything I’ve said is wrong, or worse, against any church teachings

---

Disclaimer: I’m just rediscovering my Catholic faith so I’m still learning and have much to learn, so I apologize if I might write some things that are results of my misunderstanding and please kindly point out if anything might be incorrect so I can learn from it

Thank you very much for your post.

First, I already explain a paradox in which it shows that the phrase “God, then, God and creation” is logically wrong since it put God in state of temporal. Please read further discussion in separate threat: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=821327

Second, the phrase “God and creation only at time T1, then, God and creation only at time T2” is also logically wrong following the previous argument since again puts God in state of temporal if we assume there is a relationship with God (in state of timeless) and creation (in state of time).

 

[Bahman]

What gives you the power to understand what God knows?

Our selves are embedded in state of nature and time, to experience things most importantly our selves. Whether this experience could lead to understand the concept of Self (God) or our selves is subject of discussion. But for sure we could construct higher state of knowledge/concepts by getting proper examples from nature and using our creativity. We first learn things by looking at nature trying to fit it in deterministic manner (nature is not deterministic intrinsically at all in my opinion). Event A is followed by event B and through repeatability we construct the knowledge that A always is followed by B. This becomes a part of our logic then. The process at which we construct the knowledge is a property of self. The creativity (which is a property of self) which is the power of imagination on substrate of knowledge allows us to go beyond the the former substrate building and putting another corner stone upon former substrate. This allows us to see farther but unfortunately our state of knowledge would be never be anomaly free since our selves and the state of nature which is the reflection of Self (God) would be anomalous at least from our perspective unless we understand what our selves and Self is.

Can you explain how knowledge** controls** persons and things?

This is again mysterious since either things are moved by Self or selves.
First, I cannot possibly draw a line between where our free will and God will are. But lets say that in an instant we have the desire to move our arm from one place to other place. If we accept that the state of nature is only a reflection of Self then that means our arm that is part of nature is moved toward that direction by Self as our wish was the first cause for that move.

 

[fhansen]

Our selves are embedded in state of nature and time, to experience things most importantly our selves. Whether this experience could lead to understand the concept of Self (God) or our selves is subject of discussion. But for sure we could construct higher state of knowledge/concepts by getting proper examples from nature and using our creativity. We first learn things by looking at nature trying to fit it in deterministic manner (nature is not deterministic intrinsically at all in my opinion). Event A is followed by event B and through repeatability we construct the knowledge that A always is followed by B. This becomes a part of our logic then. The process at which we construct the knowledge is a property of self. The creativity (which is a property of self) which is the power of imagination on substrate of knowledge allows us to go beyond the the former substrate building and putting another corner stone upon former substrate. This allows us to see farther but unfortunately our state of knowledge would be never be anomaly free since our selves and the state of nature which is the reflection of Self (God) would be anomalous at least from our perspective unless we understand what our selves and Self is.

This is again mysterious since either things are moved by Self or selves.
First, I cannot possibly draw a line between where our free will and God will are. But lets say that in an instant we have the desire to move our arm from one place to other place. If we accept that the state of nature is only a reflection of Self then that means our arm that is part of nature is moved toward that direction by Self as our wish was the first cause for that move.

Scripture tells us that “In Him we live, and move, and have our being”. Every act performed, every evil committed, is possible only because God not merely allows it but enables it; He participates in it. And yet that is exactly where the difference also lies because free will consists in God allowing us to make the choice of which act will be done and which won’t, even if our will opposes His will, and even though He could obviously stop our will from being done.

 

[tonyrey]

What gives you the power to understand what God knows?

Our knowledge is analogous rather than anomalous.

Can you explain how knowledge** controls**

• persons and things?

This is again mysterious since either things are moved by Self or selves.

First, I cannot possibly draw a line between where our free will and God will are. But lets say that in an instant we have the desire to move our arm from one place to other place. If we accept that the state of nature is only a reflection of Self then that means our arm that is part of nature is moved toward that direction by Self as our wish was the first cause for that move.

In other words you don’t believe God can share His power with us?

 

[Bahman]

In other words you don’t believe God can share His power with us?

Perhaps I was not very clear with the last statement. Our selves could also move things but not all our wishes come true.

 

[tonyrey]

In other words you don’t believe God can share His power with us?

We agree on far more than I thought.

 

[Bahman]

We agree on far more than I thought.

By the way which of the three scenarios (original post) you think is correct?

 

[tonyrey]

By the way which of the three scenarios (original post) you think is correct?

God **knows **our destiny for which we alone are responsible because He has made us capable of self-determination.

 

[Bahman]

God **knows **our destiny for which we alone are responsible because He has made us capable of self-determination.

To me this sentence make more sense.

God **doesn’t know **our destiny for which we alone are responsible because He has made us capable of self-determination.

 

[tonyrey]

To me this sentence make more sense.

God **doesn’t know **our destiny for which we alone are responsible because He has made us capable of self-determination.

You are putting the Creator in the same category as His creatures…