Newcomb's Paradox and Time

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Paidion
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Re: Newcomb's Paradox and Time

Post by Paidion » Sat Nov 14, 2020 12:37 pm

You still haven't explained why God would have intended to destroy that nation if He had known in advance that the nation would turn from its evil?

Would you have the intention of punishing your son for stealing money from your wallet, if you had known all along that he didn't do so?
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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steve7150
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Re: Newcomb's Paradox and Time

Post by steve7150 » Sun Nov 15, 2020 10:04 am

You still haven't explained why God would have intended to destroy that nation if He had known in advance that the nation would turn from its evil?








God is simply communicating to his people the consequences of different choices because they do not share God's foreknowledge therefore they have free will apart from the fact that God may know the outcome.
Anytime anyone does not have foreknowledge they can have free will apart from God's foreknowledge.

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Paidion
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Re: Newcomb's Paradox and Time

Post by Paidion » Sun Nov 15, 2020 4:03 pm

You seem to be saying, that although God knew in advance that the nation would turn from its evil, He intended to destroy it, just in case that they would choose not to do so? Is that what you mean? I don't think that idea is consistent.

In my opinion, if God knew in advance what their free-will choice would be, it makes no sense for Him to have intended to destroy the nation. However, God DID intend to destroy that nation. Conclusion: God didn't know in advance what that nation would choose.
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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Homer
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Re: Newcomb's Paradox and Time

Post by Homer » Sun Nov 15, 2020 10:11 pm

Paidion,

Consider two Greek words for time, chronos and kairos. Theologian Paul Tillich wrote that kairos describes:
"that feeling that the time is ripe, prepared, mature." It is a Greek word which, again, witnesses to the richness of the Greek language and the poverty of modern languages in comparison with it . We have only the one word "time". The Greeks had two words chronos (still used in "chronology", "chronometer", etc.): it is clock time which is measured. Then there is the word kairos which is not the quantitative time of the watch, but is the qualitative time of the occasion: the "right" time. "It is not yet kairos," the hour; the hour has not yet come. (Cf. in the Gospel stories....) There are things in which the right time, the kairos , has not yet come. Kairos is the time which indicates that something has happened which makes an action possible or impossible. We all have in our lives moments in which we feel that now is the right time for something: now I am mature enough for this, now everything around me is prepared for this, now I can make the decision, etc.: this is kairos. In this sense Paul and the early church spoke of the "right time" for the coming of Christ. The early Church, and Paul to a certain extent, tried to show why this time in which the Christ appeared was the right time, why it is the providential constellation of factors which makes His appearance possible.
We presently live in chronos time; clock time, and are bound by it. Chronological time began, I believe, "In the beginning", the "big bang", or however you believe it. That marked the beginning of time and space. But God is atemporal, outside His creation, no bound by chronological time.

You asked for an explanation regarding this scripture:

If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. (Jeremiah 18:7,8)

I believe God was speaking through Jeremiah to mankind in the only way we can understand. At the point in chronological time the nation or kingdom was in rebellion to God it was (chronologically) under judgement for destruction, as we are when we are in rebellion to God. I was not yet kairos time. But this judgement is conditional. The nation may hear the warning, as we may, and escape judgement; otherwise why the warning? Are the warnings in the scriptures powerless to produce change?

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