it must suck to be god then, he lives outside of time, he knows whats going to happen before it happens so theres no surprises or any real reason to do anything.
nah, hes got his fucked up little earth with its wars and natural disasters and what not to watch, kinda like a child playing Sim City.
you're misunderstanding the concept. if someone is outside of time, there is no time to be surprised, do do anything, there just is. it's a difficult concept for us, who live within time. the idea here is that god exists in the infinite moment, the burst of instantaneous life, where it is either yes or no to his doctrine. think it over. peace, sophia
Interesting quote, Huck. Well, with the sun analogy, if that is how it is with God (he knows the outcome because he sees it) then it isn't foreknowledge, it's just knowledge in the present. God is presumably everywhere and aware of all things, so of course he'd know what's happening as it happens. All knowing in a sense, but only as far as the past and the present go, right? Or is this guy saying that my entire life already exists, and it's like watching a movie, where I'm living through it? That every moment exists simultaneously, and "time" is just our way of experiencing it? But that god is above time and can experience them all at once? That's deep... But in a sense that implies (given that god knows them because they exist, and not the other way around) that we create reality, not god, and it's god who is watching the movie...I'll have to think this last bit over a while, so don't spear me for it just yet
i'm a quote fiend, it seems. it's just that this idea really interests me, and as i'm reading your comments, it brings to mind previous things i've read, and i want to share them. to cite vonnegut again, there is a passage in slaughterhouse 5 which details the manner in which earthlings observe time's passage, as opposed to a tralfamadorian. the earthling was strapped to a steel lattice which was bolted to a flatcar on rails, his head encased in a steel sphere, about his face a 6-foot long pipe, and there was no way he could turn his head or touch the pipe. the far end of the pipe rested on a bi-pad which was also bolted to the flatcar. all billy could see was the little dot at the end of the pipe. he didn’t know he was on a flatcar, didn’t even know there was anything peculiar about his situation. the flatcar sometimes crept, sometimes went extremely fast, often stopped – went uphill, downhill, around curves, along straightaways. whatever poor billy saw through the pipe, he had no choice but to say to himself, 'that’s life'." [not a direct quote, i can't seem to find my book..] meanwhile, outside of his experience is a huge range of mountains, an entire world existing at once, but he only observes it bit by bit, oblivious to his situation. it's an interesting analogy of how we experience time. peace, sophia
i understand the "infinite moment" in which God exists, but this still doesnt clear up how the universe came to being. He had to create it at one point or another.
hm... i don't know. i need time to ponder now! i can feel myself getting sort of tangled up with ideas... you're right, if there is a god, and he exists beyond time, in an infinite moment, then what is creation? okay, let us ponder. peace, sophia
As posited in the William Lane Craig article I cited, it is possible that God transcends time but also experiences it. Of course, we shouldn't expect to be able to wrap our finite minds around such concepts. It says that uprooting the weeds would destroy the garden. That implies to me that the growth of the wheat and that of the weeds are interdependent. I don't see that at all. The "sower" is well aware of the presence of the weeds. Everything God created is good. Humans and angels are the apex of God's creation, and their increased capacity for good is inseperable from their free will, which includes the capacity for evil. We have to remember that the universe exists for God's glory, and he is glorified even by his creatures that rebel against him. He is glorified by their created potential for good, but he is also glorified by thwarting their evil intentions and sovereignly using their evil deeds to accomplish his purposes. We see this clearly in the account of Joseph (Gen. 50:20), Pharoah (Ex. 9:16), and the crucifixion of Christ (Acts 4:23-30). Again, I don't see this anywhere in the passage. Well, here's another article that ponders this question: http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/middle2.html
Angels were neither created nor do they have free will--i wonder how Satan rebeled against God then. hmmm
You are wrong about angels not being created and having no free will. Wherever you got these ideas, it wasn't from the Bible.
well since free will was God's gift to man, and man can never become angel, then free will wouldnt necessarily apply to angels. i dont know about not being created though.
it would seem that the fall of satan indicates that angels do have free will. well, here's something i found at another site: "Angels are a Judeo-Christian-Muslim mythological creature. Both Christianity and Islam rose from the foundations of Judaism, and Judaic scripture does not maintain that angels have free will, but rather that they are the messengers of God. Christians interpret Isaiah 14:12 as the fall of Lucifer, the Angel of Light, becoming Satan. However, Jews strongly maintain that this passage refers directly to Babylon and King Nebuchadnessar, as 14:4 directly names Babylon as the subject of prophecy: "you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon." I am not sure why Christians interpret this as the fall of Lucifer and other angels. Satan, meaning "adversary," was the angel of death and temptation. He could only act in accordance with God's will, just as all angels did. Angels in the OT were not all about helping people out- they were also messengers of things people didn't want to hear. Satan tested people's moral fabric." so jews and muslims maintain that angels don't have free will, and christians that they do. I don't know... *shrug*... seems like there's a lot of stuff out there having to do with angels having or not having free will. if angels do have free will, then how are they different from humans? we humans rebel at an alarming rate, it seems; is heaven in the same predicament? peace, sophia
i just read somewhere that 1/3 of the angles in heaven revolted against God (obviously has potential to be myth) but this does say something about heaven and God. =p
I see it as a reference both to Babylon and the spiritual power behind it. We see in Revelation that Babylon symbolizes all worldly systems aligned with Satan in rebellion against God. Yes, as I said before, even the forces of evil are ultimately under God's control and used to accomplish his purposes. This doesn't negate their free will, though. It just shows that we are all "tools" in God's hand. The only question is whether we become willing servants or remain unwitting pawns. (See 2 Tim. 2:20-21). Here's an interesting quote on the subject from John of Damascus (8th century): When therefore He had furnished his nature with free-will, He imposed a law on him, not to taste of the tree of knowledge. Concerning this tree, we have said as much as is necessary in the chapter about Paradise, at least as much as it was in our power to say. And with this command He gave the promise that, if he should preserve the dignity of the soul by giving the victory to reason, and acknowledging his Creator and observing His command, he should share eternal blessedness and live to all eternity, proving mightier than death: but if forsooth he should subject the soul to the body, and prefer the delights of the body, comparing himself in ignorance of his true dignity to the senseless beasts, and shaking off His Creator’s yoke, and neglecting His divine injunction, he will be liable to death and corruption, and will be compelled to labor throughout a miserable life. For it was no profit to man to obtain incorruption while still untried and unproved, lest he should fall into pride and under the judgment of the devil. For through his incorruption the devil, when he had fallen as the result of his own free choice, was firmly established in wickedness, so that there was no room for repentance and no hope of change: just as, moreover, the angels also, when they had made free choice of virtue became through grace immovably rooted in goodness. It was necessary, therefore, that man should first be put to the test (for man untried and unproved would be worth nothing), and being made perfect by the trial through the observance of the command should thus receive incorruption as the prize of his virtue. For being intermediate between God and matter he was destined, if he kept the command, to be delivered from his natural relation to existing things and to be made one with God’s estate, and to be immovably established in goodness, but, if he transgressed and inclined the rather to what was material, and tore his mind from the Author of his being, I mean God, his fate was to be corruption, and he was to become subject to passion instead of passionless, and mortal instead of immortal, and dependent on connection and unsettled generation. And in his desire for life he would cling to pleasures as though they were necessary to maintain it, and would fearlessly abhor those who sought to deprive him of these, and transfer his desire from God to matter, and his anger from the real enemy of his salvation to his own brethren. The envy of the devil then was the reason of man’s fall. For that same demon, so full of envy and with such a hatred of good, would not suffer us to enjoy the pleasures of heaven, when he himself was kept below on account of his arrogance, and hence the false one tempts miserable man with the hope of Godhead, and leading him up to as great a height of arrogance as himself, he hurls him down into a pit of destruction just as deep. - http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/exact_freewill.aspx
