Posted on 11/21/2002 8:14:40 PM PST by FreetheSouth!
LOL!
To me those questions are somewhat academic exercises. I have a hard time, like you, believing that predestination is what Calvin thought it was. I think God predestines us at the moment of salvation to heaven, but that he doesn't micromanage our lives, - which is different from saying he doesn't KNOW beforehand about each detail of our lives. But if I am predestined, who am I to argue with a being so far beyond me as to have created all this *for* *us*?
As it regards predestination what matters is looking at our perception of time as compared to God's perception of time.
I think CS Lewis said it well in _Mere Christianity_ :
Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty—and every other moment from the beginning of the world—is always the Present for Him. If you like to put it that way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.
That is difficult, I know. Let me try to give something, not the same, but a bit like it. Suppose: I am writing a novel. I write "Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door!" For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is no interval between putting down the work and hearing the knock. But I, who am Mary's maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as long as I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary's time (the time inside the story) at all.
This is not a perfect illustration, of course. But it may give just a glimpse of what I believe to be the truth. God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his own novel. He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.
The way in which my illustration breaks down is this. In it the author gets out of one Time-series (that of the novel) only by going into another Time-series (the real one). But God, I believe, does not live in a Time-series at all. His life is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is, so to speak, still 1920 and already 1960. For His life is Himself.
If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all.
....
Another difficulty we get if we believe God to be in time is this. Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call "tomorrow" is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call "today." All the days are "Now" for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not "foresee" you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never suppose that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way—because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already "Now" for Him.
LOL watch it there! ;-)
No, I'm not a Calvinist!
Ahah, here comes stuartcr weilding the socratic method like a club again!
how can you know this?
A little bird told me.
No but the Bible does..and if you do not read the Bible all you have is your opinion..which is worth?????
You are predestined before you were born..Is micro managing knowing how many hairs will be on your hair brush tomorrow? :>)))
Interesting discussion Terri
Analog == Digital. Any distinction made in engineering is essentially artificial, as both formats can interchangeably be treated like the other. "Analog" and "Digital" are merely descriptive names for encoding formats that humans invented. The universe doesn't make this distinction -- it just has "information".
The only time Analog is not equivalent to Digital is when you get into the realm of the impossible, like infinitely large signal-to-noise ratios.
Yes, he is, because his logic is perfect... because he not only knows the truth, he *is* truth. We have some of that capability, but it is corrupted. That does not mean that we cannot think logically in spurts. Some people more than others.
How do we know when we are being logical and when we are not? That is something that has to be experienced, much like the relationship with him you demanded I prove.
The truth is, I cannot prove God to you in the way you demand. None of us can and we admit that. Only God himself can soften your heart to the point that you can choose him.
We have all seen stories where the man loves the woman but she will not believe it and continually rejects him. We on the outside can see plainly that he loves her, she cannot accept it because it doesn't look exactly like she has previously decided love would look like. Now, hopefully we have a happy ending and the man's love is finally requited. But we don't know the end of the story yet, for each individual. I hope that someday you will requite God's immeasurable love for you, stuartcr.
OOOOOOH. Kinky!
(and people say geeks have no fun!)
Ummm... God really isn't beyond our logic, which isn't really bound by science or the universe. Or at least, if you accept that God is beyond our logic than you pretty much have to accept a whole suitcase of other things that you probably would rather not. Math isn't beyond question, but if you break it, you essentially break a lot of other things and the consequences are ugly for you and I. Very messy.
oooh... that gave me goosebumps.
I wonder, wwfb, did you mean to include all of Christianity/humanity in the "other simple minded folks"? :-) Cuz then I'd tend to agree with you!
This is semantically null. What the heck is "perfect logic"? I think you are misusing the word "logic", because any logic that God could use, humans could use also (with all the usual caveats). What you are saying essentially amounts to saying that mathematics isn't "scalable". Even if not technically wrong as a hypothesis, you seem to be saying that your lack of understanding justifies using unsupported assertions. Kind of like the fallacy of making an argument from incredulity.
This isn't meant to be a flame. More like a "Huh?".
Logic isn't hard. If God is logic then it doesn't have to be asserted, it can be explained. Otherwise it is essentially a baseless assertion, and baseless assertions are NEVER justified. I strongly doubt that God would dabble in baseless assertions if God is even remotely what he is cracked up to be.
Ok, I think I see what you're saying. OK then I will say that our logic (as long as we exercise it) is the same as God's. But that we lack the will to use it quite frequently.
In addition, since we cannot know everything, our perspective and application of logic is faulty because we cannot take into account all facts.
Yeah... I definitely see the flaw in that. Logic is just... logic.
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