Two argument against foreknowledge

[Tom_Baum]

Some of us now that God is Existence, and that says it all. When we speak of God we must look at it existentially, that He is, and not what He is.

You wrote, “Some of us now that God is Existence, and that says it all”, I take it that “now” is “know” and as far as “that says it all”, saying that “God is Existence” might say it all to you but to me, it says absolutely nothing and means absolutely nothing, just what do you mean by this? Also, how do you know this?

You also wrote, “When we speak of God we must look at it existentially, that He is, and not what He is”, seems to me that you are saying that you know nothing about God but pick things out of thin air and state them, I am not saying that you should or shouldn’t do this but you should state it as an opinion or a belief or something to that effect, not as knowledge unless you know it as knowledge.

I was taught that “God is Love” and when I met Who is referred to as God the Father, I realized, instantaneously, that the statement “God Is Love” is quite literal, until then I had no idea that this statement was, or even could be, literal.

When speaking about God we can state our opinion, we can state our belief/s, we can state our knowledge if God has given us any knowledge concerning God, there might be other ways of speaking about God but I believe, that we should state whether what we are saying is opinion, belief and/or knowledge, all three words have different meanings.

 

[ynotzap]

You wrote, “Some of us now that God is Existence, and that says it all”, I take it that “now” is “know” and as far as “that says it all”, saying that “God is Existence” might say it all to you but to me, it says absolutely nothing and means absolutely nothing, just what do you mean by this? Also, how do you know this?

You also wrote, “When we speak of God we must look at it existentially, that He is, and not what He is”, seems to me that you are saying that you know nothing about God but pick things out of thin air and state them, I am not saying that you should or shouldn’t do this but you should state it as an opinion or a belief or something to that effect, not as knowledge unless you know it as knowledge.

I was taught that “God is Love” and when I met Who is referred to as God the Father, I realized, instantaneously, that the statement “God Is Love” is quite literal, until then I had no idea that this statement was, or even could be, literal.

When speaking about God we can state our opinion, we can state our belief/s, we can state our knowledge if God has given us any knowledge concerning God, there might be other ways of speaking about God but I believe, that we should state whether what we are saying is opinion, belief and/or knowledge, all three words have different meanings.

I know this is a philosophy forum, and I resort to what can be known by the light of human reason. What puzzles me about some of your statements should be very obvious to you. You claim your are Catholic. In reading of Scripture I assume that you are familiar with the scene of Moses before the burning bush. Moses ask God what shall I call you, and God said “IAm who Am” Again in the New Testament Jesus identified Himself with the " I Am" what do you think that means? Also haven’t you been following some of my posts? I find that I have to do a lot of repeating. I do have knowledge is that surprising? I can answer you questions,(hopefully without mistakes) and they are not opinions but verified by the Church. You don’t have to believe this that is your choice I know that I am not infallible but if I am consistent with the Church’s teachings, I share in passive infallibility as others do. It seems that your knowledge of metaphysics is limited otherwise you wouldn’t have made some of the statements you made. I think I had a discussion with you once before, but I don’t remember the nature of the discussion without making an extensive review of all my posts. I believe it was about God being Existence, I may be wrong, it also involved Love, and I had to explain that God was more than love?

 

[Bahman]

You and I and everybody are changeable creatures, we have the freedom to choose . and we do live in the world of time. God knows all of our decisions, He gives us the power to make them even the wrong ones.

I agree.

If He reveals to us that we will do something,by HIs Omniscience, Then we try to oppose His revelation by choosing something else, and that will determine God’s Omniscience and make Him wrong in His Omniscience, is a contradiction. That is saying God is not Omniscient, and that the prophesy we regard as prophesy is not really prophesy also is saying we don’t understand God in HIs attributes, and God is His attributes WE LOGICALLY CONTRADICT OURSELVES.

We are creatures of time, and are definitely changeable it’s in our nature. We have free will. If we didn’t then all the evil in the world is God’s fault, even when we know that He doesn’t want us to commit evil, He contradicts Himself, and that is impossible. He does not determine our free will, if He did, we couldn’t make the choices that we do because they are apposed to His will,.If we had no free will we would be robots, or sophisticated biological computers, we would not be, autonomous, intelligent, free thinking beings and this is contrary to our human experience, the criterion of all our knowledge.

There is of course a contradiction. The problem is that this contradiction is not resolvable within given theory unless you accept that one of the axioms is wrong. What are the axioms? 1) God has foreknowledge, 2) We have free will, 3) Prophecy is possible. Which one do you want to remove to resolve the problem?

 

[ynotzap]

None of them God is Omniscient, We have free will, and Prophesy is possible

 

[Tom_Baum]

I know this is a philosophy forum, and I resort to what can be known by the light of human reason. What puzzles me about some of your statements should be very obvious to you. You claim your are Catholic. In reading of Scripture I assume that you are familiar with the scene of Moses before the burning bush. Moses ask God what shall I call you, and God said “IAm who Am” Again in the New Testament Jesus identified Himself with the " I Am" what do you think that means? Also haven’t you been following some of my posts? I find that I have to do a lot of repeating. I do have knowledge is that surprising? I can answer you questions,(hopefully without mistakes) and they are not opinions but verified by the Church. You don’t have to believe this that is your choice I know that I am not infallible but if I am consistent with the Church’s teachings, I share in passive infallibility as others do. It seems that your knowledge of metaphysics is limited otherwise you wouldn’t have made some of the statements you made. I think I had a discussion with you once before, but I don’t remember the nature of the discussion without making an extensive review of all my posts. I believe it was about God being Existence, I may be wrong, it also involved Love, and I had to explain that God was more than love?

You wrote, " I do have knowledge is that surprising? I can answer you questions,(hopefully without mistakes) and they are not opinions but verified by the Church.".

I would not call this “knowledge”, I would call it belief, there is a difference between the meanings of the words “know and believe”.

You also wrote, “It seems that your knowledge of metaphysics is limited otherwise you wouldn’t have made some of the statements you made.”

I base at least some of what I write not on my “knowledge of metaphysics” but on meeting Who Is referred to as God the Father and Who is referred to as the Holy Spirit, among other things that I have experienced.

As far as “I believe it was about God being Existence, I may be wrong, it also involved Love, and I had to explain that God was more than love?”

I have written many times that Love is NOT an attribute of God but is God’s Very Being and I came to this realization when I met Who is referred to as God the Father.

Concerning, “Moses ask God what shall I call you, and God said “IAm who Am” Again in the New Testament Jesus identified Himself with the " I Am” what do you think that means?"

I think Jesus saying, “I AM” was/is one of Jesus’s ways of telling us that He Is God.

As far as God telling my namesake that His Name Is “I AM WHO AM” could be construed as God saying that He always was and there was no one responsible for God being.

 

[Bahman]

None of them God is Omniscient, We have free will, and Prophesy is possible

That was you who said that this leads to contradiction!? Now you are saying that all of them as axioms are possible!?

 

[ynotzap]

What he is saying is that if a person has informed to foreknowledge through prophecy and s/he was informed that s/he will do X. The question is whether person can do the opposite of X considering that s/he has free will? The answer is either yes or no. In first case foreknowledge is subject to change which is contrary to definition of foreknowledge since there is only one foreknowledge and it cannot be subject to change and in second case the person has no free will.

I’ll try again to make it as clear as I can: It seems you are not getting it.

A prophesy wouldn’t be a prophesy if it didn’t happen
You by your free will apposed it, PROVING YOU HAVE FREE WILL
And you accepted the prophesy as TRUE
Proving the person HAS FREE WILL
yYour decisions can not affect God’s foreknowledge, His foreknowledge is due to His Omniscience, and exists in eternity, not in time. Your decisions exist in time, and because they do are subject to change because it in your nature to change, Potency to Act, a capacity to become, to actually becoming, in short, you can change, in this case change your mind, and God knows you will. God is Pure Act, no change, He is Pure Being.

The prophesy was accepted as true, and some time it was fulfilled you acted on the prophesy.
You had free will to oppose, proving you had free will
The error was in your judgement to think that your decision concerning the prophesy could alter God’s foreknowledge, and that’s impossible.
If your decision could alter God’s Omniscience, then the prophesy wouldn’t be true, and if it weren’t true it wouldn’t be a prophesy…AND THATS A CONTRADICTION IN LOGICAL THINKING I can not make it any clearer. If you can’t accept this and come up with another problem concerning Foreknowledge and free will, and a tension exists between them, when I see no tension, then I can’t help you.

 

[Sparkythedog]

I’ll try again to make it as clear as I can: It seems you are not getting it.

A prophesy wouldn’t be a prophesy if it didn’t happen
You by your free will apposed it, PROVING YOU HAVE FREE WILL
And you accepted the prophesy as TRUE
Proving the person HAS FREE WILL
yYour decisions can not affect God’s foreknowledge, His foreknowledge is due to His Omniscience, and exists in eternity, not in time. Your decisions exist in time, and because they do are subject to change because it in your nature to change, Potency to Act, a capacity to become, to actually becoming, in short, you can change, in this case change your mind, and God knows you will. God is Pure Act, no change, He is Pure Being.

The prophesy was accepted as true, and some time it was fulfilled you acted on the prophesy.
You had free will to oppose, proving you had free will
The error was in your judgement to think that your decision concerning the prophesy could alter God’s foreknowledge, and that’s impossible.
If your decision could alter God’s Omniscience, then the prophesy wouldn’t be true, and if it weren’t true it wouldn’t be a prophesy…AND THATS A CONTRADICTION IN LOGICAL THINKING I can not make it any clearer. If you can’t accept this and come up with another problem concerning Foreknowledge and free will, and a tension exists between them, when I see no tension, then I can’t help you.

So let me see if I get what you’re saying. Here’s an example:

God tells me directly that I will go outside tomorrow at exactly noon and see an orange cat on the corner 5th and Jefferson St.

I can try to not go out at noon to that corner and avoid seeing the cat. This attempted opposition constitutes free will. But, in the end, I will be out on the corner of 5th and Jefferson tomorrow at noon, looking at an orange cat, because God cannot be proven wrong.

Does that sound correct?

 

[ynotzap]

Y

You wrote, " I do have knowledge is that surprising? I can answer you questions,(hopefully without mistakes) and they are not opinions but verified by the Church.".

I would not call this “knowledge”, I would call it belief, there is a difference between the meanings of the words “know and believe”.

You also wrote, “It seems that your knowledge of metaphysics is limited otherwise you wouldn’t have made some of the statements you made.”

I base at least some of what I write not on my “knowledge of metaphysics” but on meeting Who Is referred to as God the Father and Who is referred to as the Holy Spirit, among other things that I have experienced.

As far as “I believe it was about God being Existence, I may be wrong, it also involved Love, and I had to explain that God was more than love?”

I have written many times that Love is NOT an attribute of God but is God’s Very Being and I came to this realization when I met Who is referred to as God the Father.

Concerning, “Moses ask God what shall I call you, and God said “IAm who Am” Again in the New Testament Jesus identified Himself with the " I Am” what do you think that means?"

I think Jesus saying, “I AM” was/is one of Jesus’s ways of telling us that He Is God.

As far as God telling my namesake that His Name Is “I AM WHO AM” could be construed as God saying that He always was and there was no one responsible for God being.

Knowing, and believing" knowing; comprehending, understanding ; believing, accepting as true. We can know something as true, or we can believe some thing is true, there is a difference. We can’t say we know something as true, if it isn’t But we can believe something that isn’t true, as being true. I am not dealing with belief but with my limited mind with knowledge that is true.

You stated that you based some of your knowledge on your belief and some experience and not on metaphysics (I’m paraphrasing the best I can as I have to remember what you stated and I am not that adept at using the computer, so don’t hold me to the exact translations unless I make some critical mistake)

God is His attributes, God is Love, God is Goodness, God is beauty, God is Omniscient, God is Omnipotent, God is Prime MOver, God is infallible, God is Pure Act, God is Truth
God is Eternal, God is Infinite, God is Pure Being, and God is Existence which gives being to all His attributes. Thats why I say “God is Existence says it all” for God is all in all God has no parts, this in not something I believe, this is something I know, even though it is contained in my belief, I should say this is something I know, and believe. That is why the philosophy forum is concerned with finding the truth by the use of the light of human reason. Even St.Paul said that we can know about God by the use of our reason.(Rom. l;20)

When Jesus said “I am” and in the old testament He said to Moses (meaning My Name is) I Am, Who Am. I Am=I Exist, Who Am= I Am Existence Metaphysically we say that God’s Essence is HIs Existence, He is Pure Being, Pure Act, Subsistent, no beginning, no end, eternal, infinite It is not construed and contained in our faith, and reason.Yes He was telling us that He was God, and that says it all. For nothing would exist if He didn’t create it. You can check this out with the teachings of St.Thomas Aquinas who is one of the Teachers in the Church

 

[rinnie]

How do you know Peter could have chosen differently. The story is at least consistent with a lack of free will, is it not? What makes you “pretty sure”.

Because Peter had free will to do so. Where did you see that someone was holding a gun to Peter’s head.

Jesus said Peter you will deny me 3 times. Peter said I never will do that.

Peter denied Jesus 3 times. If Peter had no free will how did he deny Christ 3 times?

After Peter denied Christ the 3rd time he remember the crow and how God told him he would deny him.

Just because God knows what you are going to do before you do it, has nothing to do with free will.

Its like saying you read the last page of the book, you know the outcome, but if you didn’t read the last page the book would have ended differently. It makes no sense.

Because Jesus knows how the book ended does not mean he wrote it.

 

[rinnie]

How I could change my mind if I am determined to do the opposite of what God reveals? Moreover, any God’s intervention to guide our decision accordingly is not allowed.

Do you believe that St. Peter did just that.

God told him you will deny me, Peter said No I won’t. Peter denied God.

How could Peter change his mind? He did! Because he is human. And being human at times makes you do thing’s that you know are a lie, are wrong, etc.

Sometimes its because of fear, sometimes its because of self-gain, sometimes anger, bitterness, jealousy. Tons of reasons.

But God knows all of these things also.

After Peter denied Jesus THREE times he asked Peter if he loved him THREE times.

Many people in life do thing’s they swear they will never do, and even know when they are doing them that its wrong. But they still have free will to do right or wrong. Even when the wrong goes against every being in your body.

As in the case of Peter. After he denied Christ, Christ looked straight into his eyes. Peter ran and cried, he cried so hard. Why? Because he was ashamed of what he did. He was said to cried so hard he had welts and scars on his face from the tears he shed.

But as shown God knows everything you do, will do, have done, and how it will all end.

Not because he wrote the book, you did, but lets say he already read the last page.

 

[ynotzap]

Are you equating attempting to opposing? If you indeed opposed, how in the world can you say you don’t have free will? Did God make you oppose, if He did then you would not have free will, and why in the world would He tell you something will happen, and have you oppose it, is He contradicting Himself and misleading you? Is your concept of God right?

 

[ynotzap]

So let me see if I get what you’re saying. Here’s an example:

God tells me directly that I will go outside tomorrow at exactly noon and see an orange cat on the corner 5th and Jefferson St.

I can try to not go out at noon to that corner and avoid seeing the cat. This attempted opposition constitutes free will. But, in the end, I will be out on the corner of 5th and Jefferson tomorrow at noon, looking at an orange cat, because God cannot be proven wrong.

Does that sound correct?

The answer above applies to this post, sorry

 

[ynotzap]

So let me see if I get what you’re saying. Here’s an example:

God tells me directly that I will go outside tomorrow at exactly noon and see an orange cat on the corner 5th and Jefferson St.

I can try to not go out at noon to that corner and avoid seeing the cat. This attempted opposition constitutes free will. But, in the end, I will be out on the corner of 5th and Jefferson tomorrow at noon, looking at an orange cat, because God cannot be proven wrong.

Does that sound correct?

God can not be wrong, some people think they can prove God is wrong. You will be at that corner because you will freely choose to be at that corner, and it will take place in time, and with our abilitiy to change our minds at any time it will happen. God’s Omniscience is outside of time, it is in eternity. Part of our nature is Potency and Act meaning “change” as I said before we are fickle creatures changeable. If God said it, it will happen and with your free will. You choose and determine your choice. Can you appose God. you are free to do so. Would God want you to oppose Him? A lot of people do, did God make them do that. The answer is obvious.

 

[seagal]

God can not be wrong, some people think they can prove God is wrong. You will be at that corner because you will freely choose to be at that corner, and it will take place in time, and with our abilitiy to change our minds at any time it will happen. God’s Omniscience is outside of time, it is in eternity. Part of our nature is Potency and Act meaning “change” as I said before we are fickle creatures changeable. If God said it, it will happen and with your free will. You choose and determine your choice. Can you appose God. you are free to do so. Would God want you to oppose Him? A lot of people do, did God make them do that. The answer is obvious.

What everyone is forgetting, (and what I just heard Fr. Mitch Pacwa explain in a sermon on Ephesians), is that God has no time, he is eternal. always in the present. God doesn’t know what was going to happen in the future. If he knew the future that means he has a future. But he is eternal. What we call the future is the present to God. In a sense it’s like Bahman suggested in his post, there is no prophesy, in the sense that God doesn’t predict the future, because he is already there.

 

[Sparkythedog]

God can not be wrong, some people think they can prove God is wrong. You will be at that corner because you will freely choose to be at that corner, and it will take place in time, and with our abilitiy to change our minds at any time it will happen. God’s Omniscience is outside of time, it is in eternity. Part of our nature is Potency and Act meaning “change” as I said before we are fickle creatures changeable. If God said it, it will happen and with your free will. You choose and determine your choice. Can you appose God. you are free to do so. Would God want you to oppose Him? A lot of people do, did God make them do that. The answer is obvious.

Ok I think I see what you are thinking. One final question, just for clarification:

Do you believe that God, who is outside of time, can accurately tell me my future since I am inside of time? Others on here don’t seem to think so.

 

[Bahman]

I’ll try again to make it as clear as I can: It seems you are not getting it.

A prophesy wouldn’t be a prophesy if it didn’t happen
You by your free will apposed it, PROVING YOU HAVE FREE WILL
And you accepted the prophesy as TRUE
Proving the person HAS FREE WILL
yYour decisions can not affect God’s foreknowledge, His foreknowledge is due to His Omniscience, and exists in eternity, not in time. Your decisions exist in time, and because they do are subject to change because it in your nature to change, Potency to Act, a capacity to become, to actually becoming, in short, you can change, in this case change your mind, and God knows you will. God is Pure Act, no change, He is Pure Being.

The prophesy was accepted as true, and some time it was fulfilled you acted on the prophesy.
You had free will to oppose, proving you had free will
The error was in your judgement to think that your decision concerning the prophesy could alter God’s foreknowledge, and that’s impossible.
If your decision could alter God’s Omniscience, then the prophesy wouldn’t be true, and if it weren’t true it wouldn’t be a prophesy…AND THATS A CONTRADICTION IN LOGICAL THINKING I can not make it any clearer. If you can’t accept this and come up with another problem concerning Foreknowledge and free will, and a tension exists between them, when I see no tension, then I can’t help you.

So, you in simple word are saying that I can not do the opposite. But this means that I have no free will.

 

[Bahman]

Are you equating attempting to opposing? If you indeed opposed, how in the world can you say you don’t have free will? Did God make you oppose, if He did then you would not have free will, and why in the world would He tell you something will happen, and have you oppose it, is He contradicting Himself and misleading you? Is your concept of God right?

You are of course free to do the opposite or not. I want to do the opposite for no specific reason. Does that sound you like free will since if I have a reason for doing opposite then I haven’t use my free will in your view?

 

[Bahman]

What everyone is forgetting, (and what I just heard Fr. Mitch Pacwa explain in a sermon on Ephesians), is that God has no time, he is eternal. always in the present. God doesn’t know what was going to happen in the future. If he knew the future that means he has a future. But he is eternal. What we call the future is the present to God. In a sense it’s like Bahman suggested in his post, there is no prophesy, in the sense that God doesn’t predict the future, because he is already there.

There is a tension between these three axioms so we have to drop one of them.

1. God sees future
2. We have free will
3. Prophecy of what God sees future is possible

The fact the we temporal does not change anything.

 

[ynotzap]

Ok I think I see what you are thinking. One final question, just for clarification:

Do you believe that God, who is outside of time, can accurately tell me my future since I am inside of time? Others on here don’t seem to think so.

Absolutely, He is the One who creates your future, and holds it in existence, and God is not subjected to time, every thing is present to Him. He gives every thing existence, and nothing exists that He didn’t create. Time is change, God does not change, He is subsistent, self-sustaining, He is Existence. Look at it this way, Your future lies in your imagination, your past lies in your memory, and all you really have is the present, which is passing while you are reading this post, second by second, we are always changing, God remains the Same because He is not subject to change. Change is one of the ear marks of nature, an earmark of being created, not existing like God, but someone who is GIVEN EXISTENCE, NOT ONE WHO NATURE IS EXISTENCE, " I AM, WHO AM."

We who are not, are because of Him who is. Translation: We who were created out of non-existence came to exist by Him who is Existence Thank you Lord!!