Why bother to pray? God's Will Paradox

[BlaineTog]

God is not outside of “all time” he has a timeline of his own. He maybe able to intercede throughout all of time in all dimensions but he would have a timeline of his own. Time is relative, its just a concept to explain the passage that we feel. For god not to have time would mean he would be static, he could not do anything, in a dimension with no time nothing occurs.

No, God actually is atemporal. Just because the human mind cannot comprehend quite what that means doesn’t mean it isn’t true. A useful metaphor is of the earth as a novel with God as the author.

*This actually brings forth a VERY interesting side point. For god revelation has therefore already come, IF god is outside our timeline or as you say “all time” then he is already in the future and already in the past. THEREFORE the future IS determined, because god is there he knows it. *

This doesn’t mean you don’t have free will. Let’s say you decide to drive to your friend’s house, and once you arrive there, you switch on the TV and see that a number of traffic accidents and road work areas made it such that every turn between your house and your friend’s was blocked except the ones you too. Does this mean you didn’t freely choose to go to your friend’s house?

Just because I know what you’re going to do doesn’t mean you aren’t free to do it. I could predict with absolute certainty that you will have two pieces of buttered toast with coffee, two creams no sugar, for breakfast tomorrow, and yet there’s no reason at all why you couldn’t decide to pick oatmeal instead. There is no causal connection between knowing what someone is going to do and their doing it, none whatsoever.

If Padre prays in the future and god KNOWS with a shadow of a doubt god knows Pardre Pio is going to pray in the future that means again we don’t really have free will. We just think were choosing a decision but were not really because god alreayd knows the decision were going to make which means that the universe is Pre determined…

The universe is determined, but this doesn’t mean we don’t have free will. If you were to ask the question of predestination vs free will to the ancient jews, they would have smiled and said, “Both!”

Well St Padre Pio should have already known that it was gods will for his father to die

But not God’s will that his father would not be saved, and it’s for his father’s salvation that he prayed.

 

[fhansen]

I totally disagree with you here. I believe we pray thy will be done as a demonstration of our assent, our acceptance of God’s sovereignty.

I think the phrase, “thy will be done” is both a statement of assent and a request for help in assenting. Like in Mark 9:24 where the father of a possessed boy says, “I believe, help me in my unbelief.” To be one in will with God is the ideal but obviously not the way the world, or ourselves in all matters, works. Your brothers’ assent was an act of great faith and obedience. My mother died of ALS, an awful disease, but through the course of it and even during the worst of it she would often shrug her shoulders and say, or write since she could no longer talk, “It’s Gods’ will”. But in either case these people could’ve hardened their hearts and cursed God instead. Anyway, whether my take on the meaning of that phrase is right or wrong, the main point of my post was that somehow God allows our free will to play a part in our destinies-and that our great worth and dignity as well as the seeds for our destruction lie in that freedom.
He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent. – Saint Augustine

 

[ErikaA]

Fhansen, I may have misunderstood your comment. I agree with you that our free will is a part of the divine plan. Sorry if I misread.

 

[fhansen]

But again, I may be alone in this struggle. If not, I’d love to hear how others overcome it.

God already knows what we need before we ask-He knows, better than us, just how MUCH we are in need. He also knows that none of us are 100% righteous. Righteousness, for humans is a relative term. How can we call out to Him for anything if we think He won’t listen? Remember that Jesus entered a sinful world to save us. “He saves us in our sins and transgressions.” His sacrifice opens the door for us so the Father will listen in spite of our unrighteousness. The first most righteous act a person can do is to admit they are unrighteous and call out to God, Abba, Father, please help me. That’s what He is waiting to hear and that is humility. So we’re already acting righteous, or at least “more righteous”, just by praying rather than not.

As for the paradox, how do you know if anything you pray for is actually good for you? We spend so much of our time pursuing false goods, what makes us certain we do not pray from similar ignorance?

Like with all human education some of this involves a learning process. “Prosperity Movement” people think God wants them to have a fancy car or big house, etc. but these are obviously human wants, resulting from what the Church calls concupiscence. God may actually take such things away in order to humble us enough to get our priorities straight-and start asking for the right things.
Who could be wrong in asking for such things as the gifts of the spirit, salvation, deliverance from sin, discernment in what to ask for, an increase in faith or love, healing-the list of things which God has revealed through Jesus to be His will?

Matthew 7:7-11
7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

 

[Abbadon]

First note, I am not Catholic yet, but may be converting soon. Long before I ever contemplated Catholicism, however, after I had become a Christian, a verse in the Bible struck me: Proverbs 15:29 states, “The LORD is far from the wicked: but he hears the prayer of the righteous.” A similar sentiment is expressed in Isa 59:2 and Ps 145:18-19. I read that and wondered, but who is righteous? Not I, I concluded (and of course St. Paul agrees). Naturally, the next thought is, so why would God hear my prayers? I still ask this question. It’s why I’ve begun to ask for the intercession of the Saints. I know I should pray to God and yet this difficulty gnaws at me. How do you overcome it and reconcile your own fallenness with God’s infinite perfection? How does a sinner humbly and sincerely approach that which is Good? If you say that through Jesus’ righteousness, I am able to approach the Father, I have to take issue with the assumption that Christ’s righteousness blankets my own iniquity, imparting to me a false, superficial righteousness. That is completely disingenuous to me and certainly not the type of deception I would credit to God. Perhaps the Sacraments would help me overcome this obstacle. I don’t know. But again, I may be alone in this struggle. If not, I’d love to hear how others overcome it.

As for the paradox, how do you know if anything you pray for is actually good for you? We spend so much of our time pursuing false goods, what makes us certain we do not pray from similar ignorance?

Well actually i don’t pray anymore, and when i did my prayers were “answered” exactly the same as my thoughts hopes and dreams are now. There is no dicernable difference…

I’m a bit confused are you saying you pray to saints because you can’t stand to pray in the perfection of god? That kinda makes sense and would be a good reason to pray to saints. But according to belief god would still hear that prayer anyway as well…

 

[Abbadon]

God could’ve prevented me from smoking or stopped me from it at any point after I started just like He could’ve prevented Adam from sinning or delivered him from sin afterwards. God did not will the evil of the fall itself or the evil which followed from it. But he allowed it to happen for His own purposes.
God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist. – Saint Augustine
God is wanting our wills to coincide with His, without forcing them, because He wants His creation, in the form of us, to freely choose “the right” rather then the wrong. There would be no reason to pray “thy will be done” unless there is the option of it not being done. The option is ours. God wants His creation to freely order itself around His will. We are the only part of that creation, at least that we know of, that can choose whether or not to go along with the plan. He’ll help us, due to and through the merits of Jesus’ sacrifice, to become obedient, but won’t force obedience. That’s His will.

But god would not stop you smoking. He could “help” you stop i guess, but the free-will decision comes down to your own decision. Unless god alters your will to stop. I have to ask how did god help you stop smoking?

But things beyond freewill things that god supposedly alters. Like say your death, that will be in his will, no matte how much you pray god will kill you when he wills it and your time on earth will end when he wills it. Whether you are saved or not. Or saying falling ill, apparently god controls that and things like natural disasters, these are in his will and even if you stood infront of the tsunami, no if everyone effected by the tsunami got unto the beach and prayed to god to stop the tsunami he would not because it is his will that the tsunami come for whatever reason it maybe. I’m sure it was good intentioned ans the world seemed to promptly come together…

 

[Abbadon]

No, God actually is atemporal. Just because the human mind cannot comprehend quite what that means doesn’t mean it isn’t true. A useful metaphor is of the earth as a novel with God as the author.

Still the author has his own timeline, so that metaphor just backs what i’m trying to say.Even if he can take his own consciousness within his own timeline and put it anywhere he STILL has a timeline. If cause something (the plagues on Egypt)

This doesn’t mean you don’t have free will. Let’s say you decide to drive to your friend’s house, and once you arrive there, you switch on the TV and see that a number of traffic accidents and road work areas made it such that every turn between your house and your friend’s was blocked except the ones you too. Does this mean you didn’t freely choose to go to your friend’s house?

Just because I know what you’re going to do doesn’t mean you aren’t free to do it. I could predict with absolute certainty that you will have two pieces of buttered toast with coffee, two creams no sugar, for breakfast tomorrow, and yet there’s no reason at all why you couldn’t decide to pick oatmeal instead. There is no causal connection between knowing what someone is going to do and their doing it, none whatsoever.

The universe is determined, but this doesn’t mean we don’t have free will. If you were to ask the question of predestination vs free will to the ancient jews, they would have smiled and said, “Both!”

But not God’s will that his father would not be saved, and it’s for his father’s salvation that he prayed.

Determinism means that the universe is already decided, the future is decided, we have “free-will”, but not really, simply the illusion of free-will. Unless the universe is NOT determined and is forever in fluxuating chaos dependednt on our and other things that have will there is no real “free-will”.

There is only the illusion of free-will. I’m fine with this illusion… And i understand how you mean “both” but it’s really. God already knows every decision you will make, it knows who is damned before they are even born. Hell already had Richard Dawkins namecard before he was born, assuming he continues with his ascertion that their is no god. What part of that is free?

Even without god i still think that determinsim is real, it makes sense, every aspect of who i am is determined by something therefore every decision I make is a result of past experience, my DNA, my parents etc… Therefore my decsion to write this and to be apart of this forum is all based on past traceable events, based on aspects of my personality that are a result of something. Given enough data another person could predict what i would do. However if they told me what i would do that would be new data that would have to be added in to determine what i would do, which could be changed.

That was a rather long talk about determinisum, how this thread has flown, but that was the natural direction. For in a discusion about gods will and the will of man, free-will always comes into play

 

[fhansen]

But god would not stop you smoking. He could “help” you stop i guess, but the free-will decision comes down to your own decision. Unless god alters your will to stop. I have to ask how did god help you stop smoking?

Look, I could never prove that God was involved in my quitting and I don’t expect anyone to necessarily believe it. That is one of many such experiences which all contributed to increasing my faith. A person excercises their faith in a variety of ways-one way is to get on their knees and ask for help-and God responds-not because He has to but because He decided to do things that way. All I knew at the time was I had a huge habit-I don’t even like to admit to how much I smoked and I don’t like to admit that I lacked the willpower to quit but that is the way it was and Jesus said He came to heal the sick so why not? I had tried everything I knew to stop and, like other people have experienced when it comes to addictions, the harder I tried the worse the addiction became until I would throw the cigarettes away and be back down at the store within an hour to buy more. I was destroying myself and knew it and when i finally admitted to myself my helpless condition i got on my knees and called out to God with probably the first sincere prayer in my life and I quit-I didn’t pick up a cigarette and then didn’t pick up another and then another and so on until after one week I looked back in amazement at what had transpired and that was many years ago. Would God bother to help a person quit smoking? Of course He would-He knows every hair on our heads and if we ask for a fish He won’t give us a snake. It was pride that kept me from asking sooner. Does He change or alter our will? Yes, I believe so, as it’s our wills which are the problem. Adam freely chose rebellion and died. We must freely choose obedience in order to gain life again but we cannot do it on our own according to Catholic theology. We are not totally depraved but our wills need help and that is where grace comes in. Anyway, I knew what had happened to me and it was one of many “proofs” of Gods’ existence and goodness that helped lead me to greater things. Since then I’ve had 3-D visions and other profound experiences, all for specific purposes, along with not-so-profound ones and all I’m saying is don’t stop asking, seeking, knocking because God will answer to your satisfaction. It just takes the smallest measure of faith.

 

[Abbadon]

Look, I could never prove that God was involved in my quitting and I don’t expect anyone to necessarily believe it. That is one of many such experiences which all contributed to increasing my faith. A person excercises their faith in a variety of ways-one way is to get on their knees and ask for help-and God responds-not because He has to but because He decided to do things that way. All I knew at the time was I had a huge habit-I don’t even like to admit to how much I smoked and I don’t like to admit that I lacked the willpower to quit but that is the way it was and Jesus said He came to heal the sick so why not? I had tried everything I knew to stop and, like other people have experienced when it comes to addictions, the harder I tried the worse the addiction became until I would throw the cigarettes away and be back down at the store within an hour to buy more. I was destroying myself and knew it and when i finally admitted to myself my helpless condition i got on my knees and called out to God with probably the first sincere prayer in my life and I quit-I didn’t pick up a cigarette and then didn’t pick up another and then another and so on until after one week I looked back in amazement at what had transpired and that was many years ago. Would God bother to help a person quit smoking? Of course He would-He knows every hair on our heads and if we ask for a fish He won’t give us a snake. It was pride that kept me from asking sooner. Does He change or alter our will? Yes, I believe so, as it’s our wills which are the problem. Adam freely chose rebellion and died. We must freely choose obedience in order to gain life again but we cannot do it on our own according to Catholic theology. We are not totally depraved but our wills need help and that is where grace comes in. Anyway, I knew what had happened to me and it was one of many “proofs” of Gods’ existence and goodness that helped lead me to greater things. Since then I’ve had 3-D visions and other profound experiences, all for specific purposes, along with not-so-profound ones and all I’m saying is don’t stop asking, seeking, knocking because God will answer to your satisfaction. It just takes the smallest measure of faith.

Hold on a sec what your saying is God does change your free will? i thought god didn’t effect free will… Or is it he does if u let him? that makes alot of sense to what your saing…

 

[fhansen]

Hold on a sec what your saying is God does change your free will? i thought god didn’t effect free will… Or is it he does if u let him? that makes alot of sense to what your saing…

I don’t pretend to understand the mystery of how grace works. The Church has a whole theology on the matter but keep in mind that in simple terms grace is a gift-it is Gods’ help to weakened human beings-Gods’ love in action. The NT tells us that all are given a measure of faith but what we do with it determines our destiny. The parable of the talents of silver speaks of this principle in Matthew 25.
God seeks to elicit a response from us. “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." “We love Him because He first loved us.” These and other verses speak about the way that grace begins to work in us. But the response still has to come from us-it’s a two-way street. And as we grow or mature in faith, knowledge, love, the response becomes freer and less dependent on help but then God expects more of us. Our wills and our freedom are limited, modeled after Gods’ but not perfect or infinite like His. He wants to divinize all of our faculties. He wants to gently stretch and squeeze and mold us into beings who will choose correctly-freely assenting to a willing obedience. The freer our love for God is, the closer we are to perfection. God is the boss and His will will be done but not without our cooperation because that’s the way He wants it.
I still love this one:
“He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.” – Saint Augustine

 

[BlaineTog]

Still the author has his own timeline, so that metaphor just backs what i’m trying to say.Even if he can take his own consciousness within his own timeline and put it anywhere he STILL has a timeline. If cause something (the plagues on Egypt)

I am aware of this limitation. All metaphors about God and Heaven are defective in some way. The point of this metaphor is that the way God works is outside of the world’s time so completely and so differently that we are incapable of understanding it. All human thought imposes time upon its object, necessarily. It is impossible to have a mental representation of atemporality as it really is. But the human mind does not limit reality.

Determinism means that the universe is already decided, the future is decided, we have “free-will”, but not really, simply the illusion of free-will.

Determinism means only and solely that things are determined, as in “already decided.” Whether or not this obliterates free will is a synthetic judgment, not part of the essential definition. I’ve made my arguments, and I stand by “predestination and free will are completely compatible with each other.” If you don’t belief in free will, then we cannot discuss this further, since my persuasive abilities aren’t nearly enough to convince you of free will. Free will is a coherent belief, as its disbelief. It is something of a base concept, and it’s almost completely impossible to argue about those at all.

Hell already had Richard Dawkins namecard before he was born, assuming he continues with his ascertion that their is no god.

It isn’t nearly that cut-and-dry. Atheism won’t necessarily land you in hell.

 

[Abbadon]

I am aware of this limitation. All metaphors about God and Heaven are defective in some way. The point of this metaphor is that the way God works is outside of the world’s time so completely and so differently that we are incapable of understanding it. All human thought imposes time upon its object, necessarily. It is impossible to have a mental representation of atemporality as it really is. But the human mind does not limit reality.

I guess since “god can do anything” he can be temporally static yet still act and create cause and effect. But I think the “god can do anything” especially when we don’t understand how, is a real cop out. I mean i accept alot of, oh thats possible, the trinity is possible, subspace energy, star trek but i cannot believe that something like that. Any conciousness would have it’s own subjective timeline, even if its just its conciousness and not it’s body. Actually wait i think you kind of can. If god exists in an instantanious moment and all events and everything of every reality exists in around that instantanious moment. Then god does not have any time and has done everything in that moment, thought everything and knows everything in that moment. It’s really wierd and highly imporbable and there is no proof of this thoery. But it’s a logical theory… I think… Thanks you’ve helped me create something very intresting…

Determinism means only and solely that things are determined, as in “already decided.” Whether or not this obliterates free will is a synthetic judgment, not part of the essential definition. I’ve made my arguments, and I stand by “predestination and free will are completely compatible with each other.” If you don’t belief in free will, then we cannot discuss this further, since my persuasive abilities aren’t nearly enough to convince you of free will. Free will is a coherent belief, as its disbelief. It is something of a base concept, and it’s almost completely impossible to argue about those at all.

This is more of a compatibilism versus incompatibilism. We both agree on determinism.

I believe in the illusion of freewill not in the reality of it… We willingly choose toast in the morning but we would choose it no matter what, that choice has been determined. It is not free, to me freedom of will is randomness. We have will it’s just not free, it is caged in determinism.

“I could predict with absolute certainty that you will have two pieces of buttered toast with coffee, two creams no sugar, for breakfast tomorrow, and yet there’s no reason at all why you couldn’t decide to pick oatmeal instead. There is no causal connection between knowing what someone is going to do and their doing it, none whatsoever.”

Can you explain this to me better I would like to understand your point of view but I can’t grasp it. How is this not connected? Because you know what they are going to do and they ARE going to do it…Despite disagreeing with you i would like to understand you. I have never heard of compatibilism untill today. Not even in our year 12 exploration of Oedipus.

It isn’t nearly that cut-and-dry. Atheism won’t necessarily land you in hell.

I thought you had to believe and take Jesus as your Saviour or you go to hell. I think i had some quotes somewhere…

 

[BlaineTog]

I guess since “god can do anything” he can be temporally static yet still act and create cause and effect. …Thanks you’ve helped me create something very intresting…

You’re welcome… I think… I’m not sure how much I had to do with it, but thanks anyway.

I believe in the illusion of freewill not in the reality of it… We willingly choose toast in the morning but we would choose it no matter what, that choice has been determined. It is not free, to me freedom of will is randomness. We have will it’s just not free, it is caged in determinism.

The world is more than mere matter, however, and humans most of all (or least of all; I’m not sure of the correct grammar). Every human being represents a point of connection between the finite and the infinite, the cohabitation of body, which is part of the world, and the soul, a luminous transcendent spirit. While the world more or less ticks away as per the Enlightenment concept of it as clockwork, the soul pierces through it like a spike made of crystals and light.

Can you explain this to me better I would like to understand your point of view but I can’t grasp it. How is this not connected? Because you know what they are going to do and they ARE going to do it…Despite disagreeing with you i would like to understand you. I have never heard of compatibilism untill today. Not even in our year 12 exploration of Oedipus.

Ok, let’s say I’ve been your roommate for ten years, and every morning for the last ten years, you have the exact same breakfast, two pieces of buttered toast and a coffee with two creams. I can say with absolute certainty that tomorrow, you will most definitely have two pieces of buttered toast and a coffee with two creams for breakfast (ok, so I can’t really say it with “absolute” certainty, but whether the certainty is absolute or not isn’t really relevant to the example; read on). And yet, “that I know this” isn’t why you have those pieces of toast and that coffee. In the sense of causality (ie “I apply pressure to lever A and object B on the other side of the level is raised”). Additionally, “that I know this” doesn’t actually make it impossible for you to have chosen something different; perhaps you can’t because the only breakfast foods you can eat without having an allergic reaction are buttered toast and coffee with cream, but this is a completely different reason from my knowledge.

Let’s use a different example, one that doesn’t rely on mythical absolute knowledge. Let’s say we move in together. I know nothing about you. I guess what breakfast you’re going to eat tomorrow completely at random. I don’t tell you, I don’t act differently because of my guess, I don’t even write it down, I just guess what you’re going to eat ahead of time. If I were to be correct, my correctness would obviously have nothing causal to do with your choice, and not just because I could easily have been wrong. There are literally no connective strands between what I guessed and what you do.

So it is with omniscience.

I thought you had to believe and take Jesus as your Saviour or you go to hell. I think i had some quotes somewhere…

Nope. You need to be baptized, and it is only through Jesus that you can be saved, but there are more forms of baptism than those of water, and you don’t need to know the name of your rescuer for him to drag you out of a burning building. The church recognizes “baptism of desire,” for one thing. Here’s the relevant part of the Catechism:

1260 “Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.”[62] Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

Mind you, “ignorant of the Gospel of Christ” isn’t limited to those who haven’t heard of it; after all, you could, presumably, enter a remote village full of people who had never heard of Jesus, say “Jesus is God,” and then run out of town, and they could hardly be expected to know the Gospel.

 

[bluemug]

I have been thinking a lot about this topic.

I think, there is God’s will ( which is a mighty/supreme will, present in “forever time” eg. past-now-future), and human’s will (which is a limited will, because human is a finite being).
With my free will I can’t make myself to grow a pair of wings to fly to NY, since I am finite/human. But,on my free will, I can go to NY tonite if I buy an airline ticket .
**Somethings are God’s will: natural death, some illness (cancer,motorneurondisease,etc).We don’t have free will to choose our parents,etc…
**Somethings are human’s will: a healthy growing pot plant, a very clean tidy house. It’s our free will to go to mass next Sunday,etc.

Let’s imagine that I’ll have a school exam tomorrow.
If I think that my exam result has been predetermined, then I choose not to study, I might pass or fail, depends on God’s will, whichever it is, there has been a result waiting.
If I think that I have free will, I 'll use all my effort to study, since my will is to pass. After trying my best, I pray to ask for God’s help to fulfill my will.
If I pass the exam, that means God has supported my will.
If I fail, that means God’s will which is higher than my will, has empowered my will, lead me to a different direction which in someway must be the best for my future.

My summing up:
Human have Finite free will, can be good or bad will.
God’s will is Infinite,above our will, and always Good.

 

[fhansen]

In regards to determinism: God knows the future for one reason: because He’s God. He can’t help but know it. But knowing the future doesn’t cause the future. He leaves room for His omniscience and our freedom both-don’t ask me how, it’s something only He could pull off.
In regards to our free will: I think that human freedom lies mainly in the moral sphere. We are radically free to choose between right and wrong. In Adam, we were actually given the freedom to decide *what *was right and wrong, although we were not given the right to operate in this realm and, of course, Adam abused his freedom and the rest is history. In any case I believe our freedom is mainly the choice between obedience and rebellion-with God giving us the information and allowing us the time (this, I believe, is the reason time was created, time being sort of a “pause” in eternity) to come to see, for ourselves, the importance of obedience to Him, to come to know His love and trustworthiness and see our own limitations in comparison-to come to know and love God. What an opportunity! And that’s why it’s all worth it in the end.

 

[ErikaA]

I’m a bit confused are you saying you pray to saints because you can’t stand to pray in the perfection of god? That kinda makes sense and would be a good reason to pray to saints. But according to belief god would still hear that prayer anyway as well…

Abbadon, yes I was confessing that I have difficulty praying to God because I feel unworthy to confront the perfection of God. I sometimes feel that I insult Him if I conclude I have the “right” to approach Him. I know Jesus tells us to pray to the Father and therefore that this unworthy feeling of mine is misdirected. Still, there is God’s perfect justice, His love and His mercy. It is often difficult to reconcile all three and understand how on one hand His justice should prevent Him from listening to rebellious creatures while His love demands it.

 

[bilop]

This is a good reply- not an argument I had heard yet.

The only thing is if he already knows when we are going to pray and is factoring that into his plan, then aren’t we basically pre-destined? How does free will fit into this scenario?

We aren’t pre-destined, b/c the choice is real.

It’s very hard to get our arms around, one of the many mysteries of God.

But imagine that God has a time machine. He can instantly go back and forth among every day in human history. Therefore, He knows every choice you will make, before you make it. If you were to choose the other way, He would know that ahead of time too. Your still choosing, He just knows about it before you do it.

The time machine is a week analogy, but the key is that God having foreknowledge of our choices does not mean He dictates the choices. We operate on a strict linear timeline, He does not not.

God Bless

 

[bilop]

God is not outside of “all time” he has a timeline of his own. He maybe able to intercede throughout all of time in all dimensions but he would have a timeline of his own. Time is relative, its just a concept to explain the passage that we feel. For god not to have time would mean he would be static, he could not do anything, in a dimension with no time nothing occurs.

This actually brings forth a VERY interesting side point. For god revelation has therefore already come, IF god is outside our timeline or as you say “all time” then he is already in the future and already in the past. THEREFORE the future IS determined, because god is there he knows it.

If Padre prays in the future and god KNOWS with a shadow of a doubt god knows Pardre Pio is going to pray in the future that means again we don’t really have free will. We just think were choosing a decision but were not really because god alreayd knows the decision were going to make which means that the universe is Pre determined…

Well St Padre Pio should have already known that it was gods will for his father to die

No. God is in the future and the past. He must be if he is omniscient and omnipotent.

Just because He knows the future, doesn’t mean he forces our decision. Like if we read a history book about Napoleon. We know before we start reading that Napoleon will invade Russia, and lose. Bur he didn’t have to invade, and he didn’t have to lose. Our knowledge doesn’t affect his choices.

Now, imagine God has all encompasing histories of every person who will ever live. Having “read the book” He knows the outcome of everything. He could chose to intervene, and obviously has at times. But generally, God allows our decisions to procede, and man to be saved or damned by our own actions. “Someone else” knowing the outcome doesn’t change our freedom to act.

God Bless

 

[Abbadon]

I will do responses monday night atm i have an assignment 2 do

 

[bogeydogg]

At the risk of stepping deeply into trouble…

God cannot do anything. Omnipotence and omnicompetence are not the same thing.

Omnipotence would be God’s ability to anything within the confines of His own nature, i.e. God cannot lie; God cannot sin.

Omnicompetence would be that God can do anything of which may be conceived, create a square circle.

The Bible makes it perfectly clear that God has a nature and that nature is holy, perfect, sinless and rational. So we cannot say that God can do anything. I may even go so far as to say that God will not violate His own will, after all, Scripture promises that all prophecy will be fulfilled.