The possibility of Omniscience and Free Will

[mattrose]

I think Jesus was saying in effect, "Before tomorrow dawns, you will deny me." This was a prediction, a prediction which turned out to be reality.

You may be more right than you even realize.

I remember reading a sermon from Chuck Swindoll quite a few years ago in which he suggested/argued that the 'cock crowing' was not a reference to a literal rooster... but to a certain time of night. They used an instrument (which sounded similar to and was therefore nicknamed) a cock crowing to change the guard. If the cock crowed once that meant it was this midnight (for instance). If twice it was 3am (perhaps... I'm just doing this from memory). If true, Jesus wasn't making a specific claim about how many times a particular rooster would crow just before Peter denied Christ. He was saying, in essence... "Peter, you're going to deny me before morning." I don't think there's necessarily anything about that prediction that proves it was an absolute guarantee based a known future.

[kenblogton]

Reply to steve
Where are you reading of this other realm called "eternity"? Is this a place outside the physical world? Where is it? How do you know about its existence and its properties (e.g., that all possible choices are real there)? I am just curious, because you are making fairly confident statements, and, since I know of no biblical information on the subject, I wondered where you are getting your information.
There are 86 references to eternal, eternally, and eternity in the Bible.
Ecclesiastes 12:5 tells us where we end up after death."Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets."
Daniel 4:3, 34 tell us God's kingdom and dominion are eternal.
In Luke 18:18-30, Jesus deals with the question of eternal life.
2 Corinthians 5:1 tells us we have an eternal home in heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us God has put the knowledge of Eternity in our hearts.
Psalms 93:2 tells us God's existence is from eternity.
John 4:24 tells us God is Spirit, so we know Eternity is a spiritual realm and not a physical realm, like Planet Earth.
kenblogton

[kenblogton]

Reply to mattrose
Again, you keep switching back and forth in your use of language!
Here you are saying the "Possibilities" are real in God's mind. I agree. They are real possibilities!
Before you were making it sound like they are actualities.
I suspect this back and forth will continue forever if I continue
Let me try one more time. I'm saying your moral choice possibilities are actual in eternity and one of them becomes actual in the physical world when you make your choice. In the physical world, the choices you didn't make remain as past possibilities, never real.
kenblogton

[Paidion]

Ken, Steve asked you:

Where are you reading of this other realm called "eternity"?

None of the scriptural references that you offered describe such a realm.

[kenblogton]

Reply to Paidion
Ken, Steve asked you:
Where are you reading of this other realm called "eternity"?
None of the scriptural references that you offered describe such a realm.
Our home in Eternity is heaven or hell. There are over 600 heaven references and 14 hell references in the Bible. In general, hell is described as a place of eternal torment and heaven as a place of eternal ecstasy.
First Corinthians 15:42-44 speaks of our transformation from physical to spiritual "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."
kenblogton

[mattrose]

Let me try one more time. I'm saying your moral choice possibilities are actual in eternity and one of them becomes actual in the physical world when you make your choice. In the physical world, the choices you didn't make remain as past possibilities, never real.
kenblogton

Just as I suspected. You've retreated, once again, into seeming nonsense. It's not so much that I don't understand what you keep coming back to. It's that I don't understand why you keep coming back to it! There's no good reason to believe that there are multiple non-physical realities existing in God's mind. Why even conjure up such a notion when there are far simpler and efficient ways to protect the doctrines of God's omniscience and man's free will?

[mattrose]

Reply to Paidion
Ken, Steve asked you:
Where are you reading of this other realm called "eternity"?
None of the scriptural references that you offered describe such a realm.
Our home in Eternity is heaven or hell. There are over 600 heaven references and 14 hell references in the Bible. In general, hell is described as a place of eternal torment and heaven as a place of eternal ecstasy.
First Corinthians 15:42-44 speaks of our transformation from physical to spiritual "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."
kenblogton

Actually, our home for eternity will be the New Earth. 1 Cor. 15 speaks about Jesus' resurrection BODY. The word RESURRECTION itself implies a body. Paul's statement is that it will be raised a spiritual BODY. The adjective (spiritual) does not delete the noun (body), it describes it. It will still have physicality, just as Jesus did.

[kenblogton]

Reply to mattrose
Just as I suspected. You've retreated, once again, into seeming nonsense. It's not so much that I don't understand what you keep coming back to. It's that I don't understand why you keep coming back to it! There's no good reason to believe that there are multiple non-physical realities existing in God's mind. Why even conjure up such a notion when there are far simpler and efficient ways to protect the doctrines of God's omniscience and man's free will?
To say that there is only one reality in God's Mind in Eternity, a reality that foresees all physical world human choice possibilities forever, is truth. To say otherwise is nonsense. I can't figure out why you would reject it.
If the possibilities are not all real, we do not have free will. To say that God does not know all the possibilities means He is not omniscient.
Open Theism preserves man's free will at the cost of God's omniscience, immutability, impassability and immanence, as I previously explained in Assessing the Necessity of Open Theism 1 & 2.
If you don't accept this, let's just agree to disagree.
kenblogton

[kenblogton]

Reply to mattrose
Actually, our home for eternity will be the New Earth. 1 Cor. 15 speaks about Jesus' resurrection BODY. The word RESURRECTION itself implies a body. Paul's statement is that it will be raised a spiritual BODY. The adjective (spiritual) does not delete the noun (body), it describes it. It will still have physicality, just as Jesus did.
Before Creation, in Eternity, there is no physical reality, there is only the spiritual. At the end of the world, we'll revert back to the same. The physical is temporary. The issue is not one of grammar. Your notion of our having a physical body in Eternity is anthropomorphic - an explanatory fiction to help people better relate to the concept of life in Eternity. Mark 12:25 tells us "When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." Matthew 22:30 and Luke 20:35-36 say the same thing. Angels are spirit beings, not physical beings; Psalms 104:4 in the NKJV tells us that God "makes His angels spirits" Ephesians 3:10 and Job 4:15-18 in the NKJV support the same conception of angels as invisible spirits.
kenblogton

[mattrose]

To say that there is only one reality in God's Mind in Eternity, a reality that foresees all physical world human choice possibilities forever, is truth. To say otherwise is nonsense. I can't figure out why you would reject it.
If the possibilities are not all real, we do not have free will. To say that God does not know all the possibilities means He is not omniscient.
Open Theism preserves man's free will at the cost of God's omniscience, immutability, impassability and immanence, as I previously explained in Assessing the Necessity of Open Theism 1 & 2.
If you don't accept this, let's just agree to disagree.
kenblogton

I don't know if you are being purposefully stubborn at this point.

I do believe that God foresees all physical world human choice possibilities. I am not saying otherwise.

I do believe the possibilities are real possibilities. I believe in free will.

I have never once said that God does not know all the possibilities (I have repeated stated the opposite!)

As for agreeing to disagree... that is the incredibly odd thing about this whole discussion. You are completely agreeing with open theism in half of your posts and then believing something very close to it but (as far as I can tell) completely unique the other half of the time. It's not 'agree to disagree' in this case. We actually disagree on whether we agree.

But like I said, I assume the problem is that you and I (and you and Paidion... and you and Steve...) just have a hard time communicating.