The Narrow Path Ministries

crgfstr1 wrote:I believe still that the weight of the evidence in very specific statements of God being all knowing (stated many different ways) out weighs some thing that may merely be a figure of speech or lost in translation.

Hi, crgfstr1. I just want you to know that I, also, believe that God is omniscient (all-knowing). He knows every thought of every person on earth. He knows all that is possible to know. But knowing in advance what a free-will agent will choose is impossible to know. For that choice has not yet been made, and so there is nothing to know.

Let's say that someone (it doesn't have to be God) knows that you will eat steak tomorrow. This implies that you will eat steak tomorrow, and that the sentence "crgfstr1 will eat steak tomorrow" is now true. But in that case, it would be impossible for you to refrain from eating steak tomorrow. For if you chose to refrain, then that sentence would be false. But if it is impossible for you to refrain from eating steak tomorrow, then you don't have free will.

I don't think it is necessary to dismiss those passages as figures of speech unless you cannot accept the impossibility of knowing in advance what a free-will agent will choose.

Paidion wrote: Let's say that someone (it doesn't have to be God) knows that you will eat steak tomorrow. This implies that you will eat steak tomorrow, and that the sentence "crgfstr1 will eat steak tomorrow" is now true. But in that case, it would be impossible for you to refrain from eating steak tomorrow. For if you chose to refrain, then that sentence would be false. But if it is impossible for you to refrain from eating steak tomorrow, then you don't have free will.

You realize this logic is true under any scenario, because you cannot both eat and not eat steak tomorrow? Since you will only do one of those two, whatever you do (under this logic) is the only thing you could have done, because that is the one thing that did. You simply cannot do both options, that is not a possibility.

crgfstr1 wrote:I believe still that the weight of the evidence in very specific statements of God being all knowing (stated many different ways) out weighs some thing that may merely be a figure of speech or lost in translation.

Logically, you can expect something you know won't happen; that's not a logical impossibility so I don't see a problem with harmonization.

I know my wife. I know my wife doesn't like steak. I know my wife wont eat a steak tomorrow because I know her. This doesn't take away her free will to do so. I am human. I only know my wife so well. There is still a chance she will eat a steak tomorrow but highly unlikely. If someone put a gun to her head she and ordered her to eat the steak she would likely eat it.

God is omniscient. He knows me. He knows me so well he knows what I will do in any circumstance. He knows everyone else. He knows if they will put a gun to my head and order me to eat a steak (if I didn't like it). He knows whether I would do it.

In addition to knowing all he is everywhere (in time as well). The bible doesn't say "I was the alpha and will be the omega". It says "I am the alpha and the omega". God the father is presently (for Him) experiencing the beginning of time as well as the end of it. The is why God often speaks of himself in what would be otherwise the wrong tense. "I am". When ever it is "I was" or "I will" it relates to a person because for them it is a "was" or "will" but for got it is an "is".

Either omniscient or omnipresence alone make it so God knows the future. Both together even more so. How else would the Bible predict future events?

Paidion wrote:Hi, crgfstr1. I just want you to know that I, also, believe that God is omniscient (all-knowing).

I believe that your "all" and my "all" are drastically different. To me "all" means literally all. He knows not only my present thoughts as part of that all but my future thoughts too. He knows what would cause me to change those thoughts. He know what is good for me not just what is most likely good for me. This is how he uses both my sins and the sins of others for his glory even though they are an abomination.

I don't understand why it is hard for some to accept an extremely broad definition of "all' and denying that is part of God's power when there are so many things that God clearly knows that we don't. He spoke the world into existence in 6 days and rested on the 7th. His creation as far as we know is both infinitely big as it is infinitely small. Anytime we think we find the limit to big or small we find out we were wrong. Atoms aren't the smallest thing there is as I am taught as a child. "Simple" single cells are more complex and efficient then anything we have ever made. Yet God not only knows all about it, He made it up too.

Hi, crgfstr1, you wrote: To me "all" means literally all.

To me also "all" means literally all. When I say that God knows all things, I mean "all things", that is all of reality.

I believe that your "all" and my "all" are drastically different.

I also agree with you here. My "all" refers to all of reality. Your "all" seems to refer to intentions and predictions that are outside of reality.

All sentences about the future are neither true nor false NOW, and thus, since the future does not exist, is not part of reality NOW, there is nothing to know.

Even when we speak of the future, though we often put it in the form of a logical statement (a statement which is either true or false), that is not really our meaning.

Examples:
1. The Winnipeg Jets will win the hockey game. (Because it is written in statement form, it appears to be a sentence that is either true or false. But it is neither.)
When I utter this sentence, I actually mean "I predict that the Winnipeg Jets will win the hockey game." And of course if I mean it, THAT sentence is true.

2. Tomorrow I will travel to Saskatchewan. (Again this appears to be a logical statement that has truth value, but it doesn't.)
When I utter that sentence, I actually mean, "I intend to travel to Saskatchewan tomorrow." Again, if I mean it, the sentence is true.k

Dizerner wrote:Logically, you can expect something you know won't happen.

Strange logic!

First of all you cannot know what will or won't happen. For if you know something, then what you know is true. For example, if you know that your wife is now at home, then your wife is now at home. If, in fact, you wife is not at home, then you didn't know she was at home. You only thought she was at home.

Secondly, if you know what will not happen, then how can you expect it to happen? For example if you know that your wife will not eat liver tomorrow or at any other time, how can you expect her to eat liver tomorrow?

Paidion wrote:All sentences about the future are neither true nor false NOW, and thus, since the future does not exist, is not part of reality NOW, there is nothing to know.

I'm puzzled by this. If they either will or will not win the game, the statement corresponding to what happens is true in any time frame. It does not depend on a time frame for its truth. For example: "George Washington at one point in time is president of the USA." This statement is true from any time frame whatsoever. Under your logic the past does not exist either, since you seem to define reality by "now" alone. Thus, since the past does not exist, there is nothing to know about the past. It doesn't exist, literally. You might instinctively object "Ah! But you can't say it never existed!" And here's the problem: you can't say the future never existed either, because what you really mean is "existed up until this point in time." If you say "the future never exists," period, then you've made a claim based on an arbitrary point in time, now, and you've also made a claim about what existence really means. If the past can exist in some way right now, yet not be a part of now, how can we deduce that the future can't either? If the past doesn't exist, then according to your logic, by merely not existing we can know nothing about it. Or you can change your definition to "at one point in time ever existed" but then there is a future point in time were the future was past. Then you will need to change it again to "at one point in time ever existed up until now," then you simply picking one arbitrary point along the timeline (that by the way never lasts more than the shortest unit of time) and saying that all points along time are constantly adjusted and referenced only to it (which it constantly changes).

First of all you cannot know what will or won't happen.

Seems like just an assertion for Open Theism without evidence...

Secondly, if you know what will not happen, then how can you expect it to happen?

Expectation can carry with it the idea of what you desire to happen, or what should happen given the circumstances. Knowing what will happen doesn't change either what you want to happen or what you think should happen. For example if your son tells you he will break up with his girl tomorrow, you now know what will happen tomorrow (to a high degree). You can say "I expect differently from you," even though you actually now know exactly what your son will do. Why do you say that? Because even though you know what he will do you still have a reason to feel he should have done differently. The real question is does expectation require certainty, and that is simply being smuggled in to the definition by motivation of the doctrine of a so-called "open" future.

Steve, you wrote:Paidion,

Just a procedural question here, aside from the main discussion:

I can appreciate your taking Jeremiah seriously when he has God saying that He expected a different outcome than what actually transpired. There are those who believe that this is anthropomorphic language. Why would they think that? Only because their prior theological commitments tell them that God could not have failed to know the future accurately.

But what about the times when Jeremiah (and other prophets) quote God as saying He is bringing disaster and punishing Israel, or some other nation? You don't credit those words as being reliable. They represent the prophet misunderstanding what they think God is saying. Why do you say such a thing? Because you hold to prior theological commitments that say that God would never do such things.

My question is: If you believe that the majority of the things God is said to have declared in the prophets are subject to such radical error, why do you not assume the same when you read Jeremiah 3:6-7? By what exegetical rule do you trust some things the prophets say while distrusting the majority of their statements?

Hi Steve, I feel certain that you don't want to open up the debate once again concerning Moses and the prophets in their limited understanding of the character of God. So I have been pondering what you are actually asking me here. I think you may be doubting my consistency in the affirmations I have made concerning Moses and the prophets. You appear to think that one must either accept all that they have written as true, or else all that they have written is false. But perhaps I am mistaken. For you ask me, "By what exegetical rule do you trust some things the prophets say while distrusting the majority of their statements?"

I am not sure that I distrust the majority of their statements—unless the majority of their statements affirm that God is hateful, vengeful, and a destroyer of nations, and one who instructs the Israelites to destroy nations, blesses them when they dash babies' heads against a rock, and instructs them to stone to death adulteresses, and rebellious sons, and to cut off the hands of women who try to protect their husbands who are getting the worst of it in a fight by grabbing at his opponents genitals, and emphasizing that such women are to be shown no mercy. Did Jesus follow the instructions that Moses and the prophets gave? If so, He wouldn't have behaved toward the woman caught in adultery as He did. Rather He would have said, "The law is clear. She must be stoned to death!" And He probably would have been the one to cast the first stone. But instead He showed mercy to the woman and did not condemn her to stoning. Rather He simply said, "Go and sin no more."

My exegetical rule is that wherever Moses and the prophets describe the character of God in a way that conflicts with the way that Jesus described Him, that portrayal of God is to be rejected.

Since Jesus is the exact imprint of the Father's essence (Heb 1:3), He is Another exactly like the Father. So He taught us both in his words and in his character what the character of the Father is. The Son of God is the "Logos", the expression of the Father to mankind.

In His words, He taught us the the Father is kind to both ungrateful people and evil people. (Luke 6:35). The apostle Paul, too, after he became a disciple of Christ taught that God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. (Romans 2:4). But Moses and the prophets taught that God was a punishing being who punished wrongdoing and was a destroyer of nations that dared to oppose His people Israel.

Now I know you have quoted to me the following verse to try to show me that Jesus also depicted the Father as one who commanded people to kill those who revile their parents:

For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’(Matthew 15:4)

In response, I quoted the following verse from Mark (who related the same incident) to indicate that Jesus may not have said that God commanded this. Rather He may have said that Moses did:

For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ (Mark 7:10)

Then you attempted to minimize the difference by asseverating that there was no difference, since what Moses said, God said. Of course I disagree, since that is the essence of my position, that some things Moses said that God said, God didn't say.

Since Jesus was another exactly like His Father, then we would expect His character to be like that of His Father. But according to Moses and the prophets God killed people and instructed the Israelites to do the same. Jesus never killed anyone or instructed His disciples to do so. According to Moses and the prophets, God commanded the Israelites to fight against those who oppressed them. Jesus' disciples were oppressed by the Romans, but Jesus never commanded them to rebel against their oppressors, but rather to pay their taxes.

In Matt 5, 6, and 7, Jesus quoted Moses and others as saying one thing, and then said, "but I say to you" something other. The "but" indicates a contrast. He didn't say that God has spoken to them of old time. He didn't even say that Moses said to them of old time. Rather He said only "It was said to you of old time..." as if what was said was not authoritative. It was Jesus' instructions that were authoritative. True, some of His instructions were even harder to obey that what was said of old time. Others were exactly the opposite to what had been said.

In conclusion, Jesus portrayed the Father—expressed the Father, through His life and His teachings. If He hadn't, probably the true character of the Father would never have become known.