luvluv

But K, that does not mean that the people did not make their own decisions freely. It has nothing to do with the question at all.

You seem to assume that because God sees what you will do that you could not have done anything else. That is false. You could have, you just didn't.

Mageth

Christians (some of us) believe that God knows our future actions because He can see the future, not because He has written it or pre-determined it. To be able to see one making a choice in the future is not to force one to make that choice in the future. Omniscience does not equal predestination.

So god knows I'm going to eat a hamburger for lunch tomorrow. I decide I want pizza. Can I have pizza? Nooo, god already knows I'm having a hamburger!

I'm sorry, luvluv, but if god knew what I was going to do BEFORE he created me, then he created me AND what I was going to do. Your explanation is weak at best.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

luvluv

God sees the actual future. He can only have knowledge of what you actually do. Therefore, your first statement is incorrect. If you, tommorow, are going to eat a hamburger, that is what God sees/is seeing/has seen. (Tenses get screwed up when discussing this subject). The situation you have outlined really has no merit, because given a God who can see the future, it is impossible.

Is not.

Mageth

The situation you have outlined really has no merit, because given a God who can see the future, it is impossible.

Exactly. It's impossible for me to choose to eat pizza for lunch tomorrow. I'm constrained by god's foreknowledge to eat a hamburger. I have no choice in the matter - it's hamburgers all the way down.

Thanks for illustrating my point so nicely.

PandaJoe

Actually, if God knows everything we will do in the future, then that does automatically mean everything we do is predestined. For God to see what we do tommorow, there can only be one thing we do, not multiple choices. If God knows we will eat a hamburger tommorow, then we are predestined to eat that hamburger.

sandlewood

You’ve eroded the meaning of the word “choice”. What does it mean to have a choice when the outcome is already set in stone? By the typical definition of “choice”, how can you say a person really had a choice? According to your reasoning, I made all my choices before I even existed.

I think you are maintaining a contradiction in your head.

Mageth

To choose means that I have two or more options available, e.g. A and B, and that it is possible for me to do A or B. If god knows "from the beginning" I'm going to do A, it's not possible for me to do B. Not in the past, present, or future.

luvluv

Not quite what I'm saying. I'm saying it is impossible for God to know you are going to eat a pizza tommorow unless you really are going to eat pizza tommorow. Again, you've got the whole thing backwards. He knows because you do, you do not do because He knows. It is your action which informs His knowledge, not His knowledge that informs your actions. He sees THE future, the ONE AND ONLY future that will actually occur. It is therefore mistaken to think that God could ever see you doing something that you did not do: if you didn't do it He wouldn't see it.

Panda Joe:

There were multiple choices, but God sees the choice you actually made. It does not mean you COULD not have made another choice, it just means you DID not.

Ultimately, folks, there is only going to be one future. That does not mean that no one had a choice in their actions in that future.

sandlewood:

No, you didn't make all your choices before you were born, but Christians define God as a being who is not bound by time. He can see all times, past, present, and future, at the same time. Just like a being in flatland would find it impossible to contemplate what is above him or below him, so we confined to one dimension of time have trouble conceiving of a being who can see what is in the future or in the past. God can certainly SEE what you are going to do in the future, but that is because He is already in the future seeing you do it. However, it is still you making all the decisions.

The outcome is not set in stone, in the sense that you had no choice, it is simply known to God what you will actually do with your choice.

Lets say out of all the possible futures there is only one future that will actually occur. Do we agree this is the case?

If we do, then given that there is only one future that will actually occur, how is our freedom reduced by someone knowing that one future? Let's say God didn't know the future. If only one future will actually occur (even though many were possible) would you be anymore free if God simply happened to be unaware of this future? You were still going to eat the hamburger, whether God knew it or not. His knowledge doesn't have anything to do with your freedom.

I think you folks beef is really with the nature of time. Something either happens or it doesn't, and once it happens that's the way it happens.

luvluv

It is possible, you just didn't do it. If you choose to do something, and God sees you in the future doing it, then He will see what you do. You can only do ONE thing, that's the nature of the beast, and that's what He sees you do, but that doesn't mean that you could not have done something else. If you were going to choose to do something else, that's what God would see.

Amos

Or, "if the cross of eternal salvation is for sinners only sin must be good if salvation is desired."