Theology Club: Is the Future Open?
- Thread starter Jerry Shugart
- Start date
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
Aren't you the clever one!
You revert to your old habits. When you cannot answer the message you attack the messenger.
Saved.One.by.Grace
New member
I previously played Chess against a man much better than me, just short of a master rating. He was book smart with respect to openings and defense. I eventually won nearly half our games. Why, because I was unconventional.
You ask the same question over and over again. You want a different response from me because you cannot respond to God's word the way you want. If you want to play games, find someone else. If you want a frank and open discussion of God's word, stop playing games. It's up to you.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
What does that have to do with the subject of this thread?
As usual you are in a state of confusion.
It is you who runs and hides from questions which you do not want to answer. It is you who is playing games, not me.
journey
New member
We live our lives according to our own choices and decisions. God's FOREKNOWLEDGE of all does not suggest that He forces us to do anything. In other words, God's FOREKNOWLEDGE of all doesn't effect me, especially considering that I don't know what God knows. I don't know the future but God does.
What Scripture tells you the future is settled?
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
Good question!
Saved.One.by.Grace
New member
As usual, Jerry devoid of answers backed by the bible, resorts to personal attacks. How sad.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
What is sad is the fact that you were asked a question and instead of answering it you attack me.
Saved.One.by.Grace
New member
Jesus Himself said He Is the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Prophesy tells me the future is settled too. God's Sovereignty tells me the future is settled. I see nothing in scripture that opens the door. It'd be like God asking Himself, I wonder what's going to happen next? It's absurd to think of the future any other way.
I came to this understanding based on the Philosophical arguments for the existence of God by Thomas Aquinas.
It's obviously not settled from our perspective. We are created beings.
God is not limited to creation knowledge, He can know the future which makes it settled from His perspective and His knowing is His planning.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
Aquinas' position on God and "time" is in agreement with what I believe. He writes:
"And although contingent things become actual successively, nevertheless God knows contingent things not successively as they are in their own being (as we do) but simultaneously.The reason is because His knowledge is measured by eternity, as is also His being; and eternity being simultaneously whole comprises all time ."
http://summatheologiae.blogspot.mx/2006/04/q14-a13-whether-knowledge-of-god-is-of.html
http://summatheologiae.blogspot.mx/2006/04/q14-a13-whether-knowledge-of-god-is-of.html
That thought is shared by William Ames:
"Thereis properly only one act of the will in God because in Him all things are simultaneous and there is nothing before or after. So there is only decree about the end and means, but for the manner of understanding we say that, so far as intention is concerned, God wills the end before the means" [emphasis mine](William Ames, The Marrow of Theology, translation and introduction by John, Dystra, Eudsen, [Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1968], 153-154).
Since with God all things are simultaneous and there is nothing before or after then common sense dictates when the "foreknowledge of God" is referred to it can only be understood in a figurative sense.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
If the future is settled from God's perspective that means it is settled for us.
But God knows that those who believe in the settled view are idiots!
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
God is laughing at you now because you said what I said here is foolish:
If the future is settled from God's perspective that means it is settled for us.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
You are looking in the wrong place for the foolishness since it was you who said what is foolish:
What you said there is what is foolish. And that is why I corrected you by saying the following:
If the future is settled from God's perspective that means it is settled for us.
God knows who is confused and who is not and it is obviously you who is confused.