Had an interesting converstation with a friend on Facebook today (thanks Keith). He was prodding me for my thoughts again on a subject we've discussed before. Here's the transcript (edited, of course):12:54pmKeith
I have a theological question for you. Explain what your justification is for God's ability to only know every thing that has happened and not everything future included
12:58pmAndy
Let me ask you this first: Does God know God's own future?
12:59pmAndy
If not, then how can He know our future (aside from bringing about the fulfillment of His will and design) in any specific detail?
1:00pmKeith
hmmm.....I don't think so. Otherwise how then would you explain him changing his mind when Moses asked him to spare lives?
1:01pmAndy
You would have to say He knew He would change His mind.
1:01pmKeith
right....and that doesn't make sense.
1:02pmAndy
And if that's the case, then how does He know our future without it impinging on our freedom AND without our future being little more than a ruse?
1:03pmKeith
agreed.....so .....prophecy
1:08pmAndy
Forthtelling aside, I see in prophecy not so much prediction as predetermination. As I'm sure I said to you before, if I tell Oscar that he will be punished if he lies to me, and then he lies and is punished, that's similar to God saying Israel will suffer punishment for its sins. Or you could say that prophecies concerning Jesus' birth are simply God bringing it about in a way He has forordained. You could also argue from the perspecitve that the writers of the Gospels picked and chose which prophecies they saw Jesus as the fulfillment of. In other words, there are many "prophecies" that did NOT refer to Jesus but perhaps could have . . . had He done something to fulfill them.
1:10pmKeith
Is that a slippery slope to saying that Christ was not the chosen one, rather he was just fulfilling prophecy that was written about someone else?
1:12pmAndy
Well, it's commonly accepted that the Suffering Servant referred to a person (or nation, i.e. Israel) contemporary with Isaiah but we also believe it refers to Jesus as well . . . so, is that a slippery slope?
Jesus said I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. If that's the case, then even if the law (or prophecies) referred to someone else originally, Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of all that God had revealed to the Nation ofIsrael.
1:13pmKeith
i accept that :-)
1:17pmAndy
Back to the future . . .
1:18pmAndy
If when God created us, time, as we know it began, and as time bound beings with personal freedom we are able to make free choices and those choices have real influence over future events, then how can we say that God knows the future when it does not yet exist? Is it really limiting to God to say that He doesn't know something that can't be known or doesn't exist in His creation? I don't think it is. Although we may feel worried about limiting God, it doesn't seem that He's worried about it because He's already done it by creating us with autonomy and more especially through His own Incarnation in Jesus Christ.
So, what do you think? Does God know the future?
4 comments:
This is a great discussion, and I believe that God does not know the future. This does not negate anything we know about God; God knows all that can be known.
I think the best way that I've come up with to address this issue is that God knows in a definite way all that can be known as such. Further, God knows all possible futures - that is, he knows the future in an indefinite way.
For example, when God called me to be a minister ten years ago, I don't believe he had definite foreknowledge that I would accept that call. Rather, I believe that God foreknew the consequences of either choice.
To add another point of view to the discussion...
Perhaps where we make a mistake is in attempting to ascribe to God a mode of thinking/knowing that is restricted to our own mode of thinking/knowing. When we say that, if God has exhaustive definite foreknowledge, that must necessarily impinge upon (indeed, do away with altogether) the notion of free will, we are applying our own human understanding of knowledge and of free will. Perhaps in doing so we are excessively anthropomorphizing God - making God in our own image.
Is it not possible that there is a mode of knowing/thinking that transcends our limited human capacities? A mode of knowing/thinking that somehow allows for exhaustive definite foreknowledge and free will? After all, Isaiah 55 says:
"Your thoughts are not my thoughts
Neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD,
"As high as the heavens are above the earth
so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts and my ways than your ways."
This kind of paradox is not uncommon in Christian faith - the idea of the Trinity is in an of itself such a paradox, encompassing community and individuality in a way that transcends the human capacity for understanding.
Joseph...those are some very good observations. I try to remain humble about what I figure to be speculative theology. We don't/can't know for certain the answers to these questions so we have to speculate about them.
I have to go with what I know about God and then try to formulate something that I can understand. I know that God is love, He is faithful, He is just, and He is holy. If it turns out that He has everything laid out and predestined or that He doesn't...then I believe that it will not interrupt His being God and "doing the right thing."
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