Let us assume that some person (let’s say, my next-door neighbor) has infallible foreknowledge of the entire future. He knows everything that is going to happen, down to the tiniest detail -- and his knowledge is infallible: it is impossible that he could be wrong.
What use would this knowledge be? It’s easy to think that he could become rich by betting on winning horses at the track or investing in the right stocks. But that is true only if it is compatible with what he already knows about the future. That is to say, he could only do those things if he already knows he is going to do them. If he knows that I am going to wear mismatched socks tomorrow morning, then no matter what anyone tries to do to change that, I am going to wear mismatched socks tomorrow morning. He could tell me about it in the vain hope that the warning might get me to pay attention and wear matching socks, but he already knows that I won't. He could break into my house and burn the contents of my sock drawer, but no matter what he does, if his knowledge is infallible, it will not alter the fact that I will wear mismatched socks.
Even worse, if he knows that a terrible calamity will happen without warning, he will be powerless to warn anyone of it. If he knows that his child will be killed in a hit-and-run accident, it is impossible for him to prevent that from happening -- after all, his knowledge is infallible.
So if my neighbor had this kind of infallible foreknowledge, what good would it do him? And should it make him somehow more admirable than me, with my limited foreknowledge? Would it make his praiseworthy, or worthy of worship? I see no reason why it should, in and of itself. It gives him no power whatever; indeed, it seems to me that it only illustrates his powerlessness to himself.
So why should the idea of infallible foreknowledge be ascribed to God? Its value seems to be limited to a sort of trick or circus act, where we can ooh and aah that he gets it right every time we flip a coin. It seems to me that another view of God has far greater value: the view that God knows what is most likely to happen, given current circumstances, but has the power to influence current circumstances to make something else more likely -- in other words, to prevent something from happening.
Of course, God could only do this if my next-door neighbor infallibly foreknows that he will -- which is why I choose to believe that no one has infallible foreknowledge.
Hmm. Posit with me, if you will, an infallible foreknowledge which accepts the idea that the future isn't immutable. After all, it's not your neighbor's foreknowledge which makes the future immutable; in your scenario, the future is a single option that just IS. If, on the other hand, your neighbor can know with a certainty what the outcome of every action is, he becomes the ONLY wild card -- he knows that, if he goes out of town tonight, you will wear the purple socks, but if he burns your sock drawer, you will then go to Target and buy yourself the gray tube socks that are on 5 pair for $6.99. He can then decide how he wants to influence your behavior, knowing precisely the effect that his actions will have on yours.
ReplyDeletePosted by Nathan
Nathan, does the neighbor in your hypothetical infallibly foreknow what he will do?
ReplyDeletePosted by Grasshopper
And, to further complicate things, suppose my neighbor across the street has the same kind of foreknowledge as the guy next door. Do we have two "wild cards" here?
ReplyDeletePosted by Grasshopper
Your post reminds me of the story of Cassandra, though from a different angle than I'd previously considered. Typically, the depiction of her is the frustration she experiences when no one believes any of her prophecies. But from the perspective you present, perhaps it's not a lack of belief, but a lack of ability to act differently than she prophecies.
ReplyDeletePosted by greenfrog
Grasshopper: I suppose if we posit two absolute foreknowledges, we run into all sorts of problems -- but I tend to think that two people two absolute foreknowledge may be even more of a logical impossibility than what you consider foreknowledge itself to be.
ReplyDeleteYou made the example be about your neighbor, but I think we're all talking about God and you were mostly trying to distance yourself from the "He's God, He can do anything!" sort of rebuttal. Fair enough. But frankly, I don't think your neighbor could have absolute foreknowledge without absolute current knowledge and absolute postknowledge -- in other words, a fully divine comprehension of all things, which even Jesus disclaimed for himself.
In other words, I think the question of two foreknowledgeable neighbors becomes nonsensical, because I think that there can be AT MOST a single being with that kind of fundamental and all-encompassing knowledge of His creation.
Posted by Nathan
How about my question about whether he infallibly foreknows his own actions?
ReplyDeletePosted by Grasshopper
Also, I'm not sure why you consider the idea of two beings with absolute foreknowledge nonsensical. Absolute foreknowledge (not just middle knowledge as your first comment described) requires a fixed future. If the future is fixed, then I think there is no problem with multiple beings having absolute foreknowledge. You seem to be saying, rather, that two beings could not have middle knowledge (knowledge of future contingencies). Why not -- from a logical perspective?
ReplyDeleteI do think my question raises some problematic issues for middle knowledge, but I'm not sure it's nonsensical.
Posted by Grasshopper
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAnd apologies for the double post.
ReplyDeletePosted by Nathan
Nathan,
ReplyDeleteWhile it may be that foreknowledge and a fixed future have implications for free will, I deliberately did not make any reference to it in my post, because it's a separate issue from the usefulness of absolute foreknowledge.
And if our perspective is as distorted as you describe, can we have a meaningful concept of a single being having absolute foreknowledge in the first place? If we can't, then it seems meaningless to assert it of God or anyone else. If we can, then it does not seem a stretch to me to postulate a second being with the same characteristic, even if you admit that you personally are unable to honestly formulate such a thought.
Posted by Grasshopper
Grasshopper,
ReplyDeleteI think you are right about absolute foreknowledge. It requires a fixed future to be absolute so having it means that your neighbor (or God) would be powerless to change it anyway. If he could change it then it was never fixed to begin with. And if he knew what would happen then he would never change anything... It just doesn't work.
Nathan is mixing assumptions when he says God knows all possible outcomes of his actions. If He absolutely knows the future already then there are no contingencies that would cause him to ever change his plans.
I'm reading Blake Ostler's book right now where he contends that God is in fact temporal and doesn't have exact foreknowledge. It is a heresy to our NeoPlatonic Christian world (according to Blake) to say such things, but I think he may be right...
Posted by Geoff Johnston
GH:
ReplyDeleteWhat i mean to assert via the fishbowl is not that we cannot claim absolute foreknowledge for God, but that we cannot from that postulate other logical conclusions. How does God relate to causality? Don't know. What is the difference between time and eternity? Don't know. How much of what we think of as the normal flow of time is merely a limitations of our own scope of perception caused by the veil? Don't know. Heck, what is time itself? Don't know. Given all of the holes in our understanding, it would be foolish for us to conclude, "If God has absolute foreknowledge, then logically..."
If we can, then it does not seem a stretch to me to postulate a second being with the same characteristic, even if you admit that you personally are unable to honestly formulate such a thought.Again, that's a different matter than the fishbowl; that's simply that I can't conceive of a being having absolute knowledge without being a supreme deity in all other respects -- which means that postulating two such beings, with potentially conflicting wills, becomes nonsensical. The question becomes irrational in all ways except the grammar (like the "irresistable force/immovable object" problem or "Can God swallow His own head?").
Geoff,
Nathan is mixing assumptions when he says God knows all possible outcomes of his actions. If He absolutely knows the future already then there are no contingencies that would cause him to ever change his plans.And thus -- what? Is the future fixed because God CAN'T change it, or because he DOESN'T change it? Again, assuming we know what causality means to a being with an eternal perspective only guarantees that we don't know what we're talking about.
I'm not saying that we can't ponder and dabble in such speculations, but I am saying that thinking we have a grasp of it is like seeing two dots on a grid and thinking we can plot a graph. Sure, if all of our experience has been with straight lines and therefore we assume that the dots denote a straight line... but we'll feel awful silly at some point in the future when perspective allows us to see a big sweeping curve that we couldn't possibly have charted from those two dots.
Posted by Nathan
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteNathan: Is the future fixed because God CAN'T change it, or because he DOESN'T change it?
ReplyDeleteIf the future is actually fixed then the answer, by definition, must be: Both. If God could and did change a fixed future then it never was fixed in the first place -- it was more of a slated future or something.
Of course you are right when you point out that God's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. I fully expect lots of surprises when the veil is lifted. But Blake Ostler makes some pretty compelling arguments on how much of this timeless and incomprehensible stuff we attribute to God today really had origins with Middle and NeoPlatonism instead of from God through prophets.
Joseph Smith showed that we, as human beings, are much closer to God than the world ever thought. I just wonder why we can't imagine a God that lives in the same time we do. It's not like his living within our time makes him unworthy of our worship (which is the underlying message of Grasshopper's original post).
Posted by Geoff Johnston
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteDang! Sorry about the deleted post number 9, Nathan. I was trying to clean up the double posts and didn't get the proper response from Blogger. Looks like Blogger is having some problems.
ReplyDeleteAs best I recall, your comment said that we need to define "fixed future", as you had never grasped the conflict with free will. You then indicated that in order for someone to have foreknowledge of the type you describe, he would also need to have complete knowledge of the past and present, and that my neighbor doesn't qualify. The only being you can envision having such comprehensive knowledge is a God -- not just *a* God, but the supreme God of a given creation -- only a single being could have this (though you made a possible exception to include both Mother and Father God). Thus, this being becomes the "wild card".
You further said that because of our limited mortal perspective (like fish in a goldfish bowl), we cannot profitably speculate on these issues (such as multiple beings having absolute foreknowledge); they become nonsensical.
Hopefully this captures the essence of your prior comment. If you have a copy of it somewhere, feel free to repost it.
Posted by Grasshopper
A copy of it? Hah -- this is all coming off the top of my head, into the eternal palimpsest of the internet. (Your recap pretty much covers what I recall, though.)
ReplyDeleteGeoff, when you say "by definition," you're pointing up the very thing I was trying to get at: What do we mean when we say the future is "fixed"? You may think that the definition you use is pretty obvious, but the further you get into deep doctrinal discussions, the more you find out that half of the squabbles come from people assuming that everyone else uses the same definition they do.
Posted by Nathan
This is a topic that I think about and study a lot. I find it very fascinating and have devoted a lot of time in an attempt to understand some of the fundamental archetypes and foundations of God’s creation. I wanted to chime in with my explanation of how God can have a perfect foreknowledge that allows the incorporation of free agency and choice. The two concepts seem contradictory on the surface. If God knows all our choices ahead of time do we have a choice really? If God knows everything can He change it? Or does He chose not to change it? I think my answer is very challenging in itself, but here is an explanation that incorporates choice and destiny into a unified framework.
ReplyDeleteNecessary background scientific and scriptural information:
There is a classic experiment in quantum physics called the Two-Slit experiment (often attributed to Thomas Young). In this experiment, a stream of electrons are fired at a barrier with 2 slits in it. The two slits are very close together (microscopic). The slits in the barrier make it so that there is a perfect 50/50 chance that a single electron will go through one slit or the other. The scientist can not determine ahead of time which path it will take. There is a sensor on the other side of the barrier that records where an electron hits. When this is done normally without any other modifications, the electrons form a rippled interference pattern on the surface of the detector. This indicates that electrons are an energy wave and that the wave MUST have traveled simultaneously through both slits. The reason is that the wave interfered with itself on the other side of the barrier just like throwing 2 rocks into a pond of water. Here is the mind blowing part – when scientists put a sensor at each of the two slits that tells them which slit a particular electron passes through, the pattern changes on the detector! When they know which slit each single electron passed through, the electrons become particles and only travel through one slit and not the other (individually). The pattern changes. Instead of looking like rippled waves, the pattern of many electrons looks like 2 concentrated areas correlating to the two slits. As soon as they stop looking at which slit an electron passes through, the rippled interference pattern returns. You can turn it on and off like a switch. The only condition that changes is that someone perceives or knows the path. When they do not know the path before it strikes the detector, all paths happen. To make a long story short, our consciousness changes things in the physical world. The results change the path so that only one path is chosen.
John Cramer devised an important explanation of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Cramer developed a mathematical theory to explain how actual experimental observations (like the two-slit experiment above) happen when we observe them. He created terms called Retarded waves and Advanced waves. Retarded waves are sort of like a request for information that travels into the future until it meets the future result. The future sends an Advanced wave backwards in time that essentially instructs a particle telling it which path to take in an experiment. The particle in the past and the particle in the future perform a sort of handshake that cancels out other possibilities. They agree on a path based on the future result. That is how the particle “knows” which path it should take when someone is observing it at a given point in time. When nobody is observing the particle, particles seem to take all possible paths. A much more profound implication here is that our past does not create our future. It appears that our future creates a past to explain itself. The bottom line really is that there is no such thing as time. Time appears to only be a way that our conscious mind organizes the causes to explain the results. There seem to be laws involved in this from a higher source that pushes down some organization. These show up in probabilities. Some part of us expects things to happen a certain way. Things fall down not up when you drop them. Your thumb is smashed after you hit it with a hammer not before. If you throw something, it tends to keep moving unless something else gets in its way. All these make it appear that there is a pre-existing framework of a higher observer. Time does not exist outside of the observer independently. In a way, it does not exist at all but appears to be an illusion.
One more experiment that indicates this:
There is an experiment where the scientists shoot pulses of laser light at an angled mirror. The mirror is designed so that there is a perfect 50/50 chance that the beam will be deflected to the left or the right. At some distance down both the right and left paths there is a photo sensor that tells the scientist which path the beam took. Here is some strange quantum behavior. Scientists recently were able to alter the angle of the mirror very rapidly. At a point in time after the pulse of light hits the deflecting mirror and before the beam hits the sensor at the end of either path, they change the angle of the mirror so that the beam *should* have taken only one path. Lo and Behold! It always hits the sensor for path they choose. You have to understand that they send many many pulses of light before messing with anything. Sure enough, 50% hit the right detector and 50% hit the left detector. If they then start changing the angle of the deflector AFTER the light beam hits it and before it hits the detectors, it always goes that way they chose. It goes the way they chose even though the pulse of light should already be past that physical point in space. It should no longer be affected by a change in the angle of the mirror.
Taking all this into account, it brings new light to scriptures such as this where and angel declares the end of time when the world is being prepared to receive its celestial glory.
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(Revelations 10:5-6)
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
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It also adds a lot of meaning to statements found in the scriptures that indicate that all things are before God from the beginning to the end. How can he have perfect foreknowledge? Because you are standing there in His field of observation, outside of the illusion of time, in the state of glory that you are in. You already are who you are. You are now creating an experience (a series of events that you organized into a logical sequence) which justifies that state of existence. To ponder this magnifies how great and mighty our Heavenly Father really is! It is difficult to wrap your mind around the concept that all of our life experiences have been interwoven and structured by Him in such a way that each of our circumstances and choices mesh together and affect each other so that the end results are correct. I buy the gray pair of tube socks that causes cashier to stay past his break and get tired, which causes him to swerve on the road later, that irritates another driver, who gets into an accident that kills the lady that would have cured cancer next year, that causes people to continue to suffer and die at the right times in their lives, etc., etc., etc. Is it foreordained and unchangeable? Yes. Does it violate free agency and choice? No, because you are already who you are. That is the way that you would chose to be and DID!!!!! You and Heavenly Father already know it. Take away the element of time and it becomes more clear.
It seems that there is no such thing as time in God’s kingdom. That makes a lot more sense when you read that He does not alter his course or change. His is one eternal round (a loop) with no beginning and no end. That He (and we) are eternal with no beginning and no end. It is that way because there is no such thing as time except in the Temporal realm where we experience a time of probation. Did you notice the words that we use like this every day in church? The Temporal Realm is the realm of time. That is the root meaning of the word. Our mortal probation is a *time* period in which we are observed and are tested. Outside the veil there is no time – just like the angel in Revelations declares at the end of creation. At the end, everything justifies the result. Seeing this enhances and magnifies the beauty of the atonement of Christ. Were it not for His sacrifice, the angle of the mirror would not change. Our future would be justified by our imperfect actions. The atonement overcomes justice and allows mercy to be the justification for our results.
PHEW!!!! I think I need to rest my tired brain a bit. Enjoy!
-Brian
Posted by Brian Johnston
Brian, you bring up some interesting issues with backwards causation, etc. I'm familiar with double-slit experiments and so forth, but how to interpret them in practical terms is controversial. A few big problems I have with your suggestions:
ReplyDeleteI buy the gray pair of tube socks that causes cashier to stay past his break and get tired, which causes him to swerve on the road later, that irritates another driver, who gets into an accident that kills the lady that would have cured cancer next year, that causes people to continue to suffer and die at the right times in their lives, etc., etc., etc. Is it foreordained and unchangeable? Yes. Does it violate free agency and choice? No, because you are already who you are. That is the way that you would chose to be and DID!!!!! You and Heavenly Father already know it. Take away the element of time and it becomes more clear.Ah, so what's the point of all this "silliness" about "repent now before it is too late" and "this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God"? I mean, it's all foreordained and unchangeable, right? If I'm irrevocably foreordained to repent, then I suppose I'll repent; if not, then not.
See the problem? Joseph Smith also taught that foreordination is not the same thing as predestination, which is what you are describing.
Second big issue:
It seems that there is no such thing as time in God’s kingdom. That makes a lot more sense when you read that He does not alter his course or change. His is one eternal round (a loop) with no beginning and no end. That He (and we) are eternal with no beginning and no end. It is that way because there is no such thing as time except in the Temporal realm where we experience a time of probation. Did you notice the words that we use like this every day in church? The Temporal Realm is the realm of time. That is the root meaning of the word. Our mortal probation is a *time* period in which we are observed and are tested. Outside the veil there is no timeHow do you reconcile this view with D&C 130:4-5?
"In answer to the question—Is not the reckoning of God's time, angel's time, prophet's time, and man's time, according to the planet on which they reside? I answer, Yes."
Seems that angels and Gods do have and experience time, though their experience may differ from ours.
Posted by Grasshopper
First off before we continue, I want add a disclaimer for myself. The ideas I like to kick around related to this are not LDS canonized doctrine. I also don’t claim that what I say is 100% true. This is a subject that I doubt any of us will really truly understand while in this mortal state and while inside the “veil” of ignorance. Knowing that doesn’t stop me from trying! I am such a persistent little pest. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI read your bio from the Blog homepage’s *about me* link Grasshopper, I think we are kindred spirits in many ways. Many people, understandably, do not like being confronted with difficult ideas in religion (the LDS Church is not exempt from this). Like you, I just love rolling those things around in my head and thinking about them. Out of consideration for others, I have mostly learned to keep my mouth shut. But sometimes I still blurt out one of those whopper questions in Elder’s quorum too. You know, the ones that lead to a long pause and an uncomfortable silence as people wake up from their naps
So anyway, I am totally open to constructive criticism on what I say. I am not always sure I understand what I am saying about this topic either. It is one of those things that you can get the feel and texture of, but as soon as you think you have a firm grasp on it, FLOOP! it slips out of your grasp. I am not here to “win” a debate. I am happy to be able to kick around an idea like this with people who don’t go glassy-eyed or start backing up slowly and talking to me soothingly like I am dangerous. Hehe
*****************************************************
[quote from Grasshopper]
Ah, so what's the point of all this "silliness" about "repent now before it is too late" and "this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God"? I mean, it's all foreordained and unchangeable, right? If I'm irrevocably foreordained to repent, then I suppose I'll repent; if not, then not.
See the problem? Joseph Smith also taught that foreordination is not the same thing as predestination, which is what you are describing.
*****************************************************
Response:
I agree with you. We must repent before it is too late. This life is a time for us to prepare to meet God. I propose that God is speaking to us through the prophets usually in terms that we understand. That would make them more useful, since few (if any) are likely to benefit if He tells us everything the way He sees it. We perceive something that we call “time.” At a point that we think of as “before” the end, we must reconcile ourselves with who we are when we exit the “test.” The position that I am trying to champion is that we have ALSO already met God (in terms of that scripture). We have also already repented or did not repent. The fact that time may not exist outside of our perception does not excuse us from anything. I don’t want to just sound like I am playing games with words. A good way of describing what I am trying to say is with the example of a time game I play sometimes. I call it putting a “marker in time.” I will give you a personal example of this.
About four years ago my family and I were on vacation for a week near Virginia Beach, VA. One night after all the kids had been tucked into bed, my wife and I took some plastic lawn chairs down to the edge of the water and planted them there so that waves would wash up and touch our feet. It was a warm, breezy clear night with tons of stars. We were sitting in our chairs talking and we decided it was such a nice moment in time that we would plant a marker there. We sat there and talked about how real it all seemed, BUT we stretched our minds and looked forward, imagining how one day we would look back and it would all seem like a dream. We really planted the memory deeply so that we could remember as many details as possible (why not aye? It was a nice moment to remember). Right now I am here typing this response. That moment seems like a faded dream just as we expected. I can look back and see myself *there* vividly imagining myself *here* today. I made a bunch of decisions in between that point and this point. I can’t change those decisions now because they have been made. I am trapped right? Is my free agency gone? Once you take a path, you can’t change it. I am who I am now. I would have to have a set of decisions and paths that equal who I am today. That does not take away any choice or agency from me. *I* made all the decisions. Yet here I am right now typing away describing this. This point in time surely was destined to happen, I have100% proof because it DID happen. I am right now who I am (see my comment below on the name of God in the Old Testament).
At some point I will exit this existence and I will be who I am. Think of me as setting another marker in time. That person in the future (who is me) at the end of my life *is* there. He is (I am) looking backwards at myself typing this response thinking about all the decisions I made. Did I repent? Did I prepare to meet God? What a fascinating question. I have to wait and find out. The *me* in the future is just as valid as the me right now, just like the *me* on the beach that night was just as valid as the *me* that is typing this response on the Blog right now. My destiny is locked by the choices I made, and I will make the choices to become who I am. I can not be anyone else. I would not make any other choices than the ones that I want. Faith and our desires make us who we are. I think that we always do what we really want – what our true desires are. We might possibly wish that we did not have to make certain decisions at all, but we always take the path that our deepest true desires lead us to. I can think of some dumb things that I have done (can’t we all!). I am not always sure that I would do it differently if could. The reason I say that is that something changes about me when I make a mistake and repent. If I had not made the mistake, I would never benefit from the way that it shaped and molded my soul for the better. The atonement is such a beautiful and precious gift! And for those who do not repent, you will also be changed. It appears that it is a MUCH more difficult and painful process:
[D&C 19:15-20]
Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.
For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;
But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;
Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—
Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit.
There appears to be a small minority that never change. They are never reconciled with a kingdom of glory even after they pay for their own sins. I don’t want to drift too far off topic.
Isn’t it interesting that Jehovah in the Old Testament calls himself the great “I am?” He IS who he is. There is no was who He was, or will be who He will become. He was the savior of the world regardless of the fact that He had not yet been born or died for our sins (in the illusion of time that we perceive). Since we knew from the beginning that Christ would succeed with the atonement, does that mean that He could not fail? Does that mean that He did not have a choice?
Time relates to our observations about change. We can only measure time when something changes. When the hand of a clock moves an angle on a circular face, when an atom pulses radiation (atomic clock), or when the Sun is in at a different place in the sky. If you want more mind-boggling observations from quantum physics, there are theories that motion is also an illusion we create. The only concrete thing that exists is the exact “now” of an observation. There is a school of thought that concludes that an object (or particle) does not move fluidly from point A to point B, but that the entire fabric of reality pulsates on and off an astronomically high number of times ever second (6.626 x 10^34 actually, called Planck’s Constant) – so fast that it is nearly impossible to detect it (we certainly can not with our naked senses). So things do not travel but are created and destroyed and then recreated again in a new location, sort of like frames on a filmstrip. They do not actually move, they just appear to us to move. Something IS here and then something IS there.
How does this relate to what I am saying about people and free agency? It relates again to our illusion of time. We are something before we enter this probation period. We are something more at the end. We are now creating in our minds the series of decisions that happened in between – the illusion of motion through time that justifies and explains the difference between point A and point B. Under what system will we be justified? The law of justice or the law of mercy? At the end when you look back, and it seems like a dream, and all the frames of your life are before you, will it still seem like there is time? This is where I admit that I venture into much speculation.
If God does not change or alter His course, does He experience time? It would not seem so. I am proposing that from His perspective, all the individual “nows” or frames of time/reality exist simultaneously. From that perspective, everything is what it is. All things are before Him from beginning to end (the reality subset we are experiencing).
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Second big issue:
[me]
It seems that there is no such thing as time in God’s kingdom. That makes a lot more sense when you read that He does not alter his course or change. His is one eternal round (a loop) with no beginning and no end. That He (and we) are eternal with no beginning and no end. It is that way because there is no such thing as time except in the Temporal realm where we experience a time of probation. Did you notice the words that we use like this every day in church? The Temporal Realm is the realm of time. That is the root meaning of the word. Our mortal probation is a *time* period in which we are observed and are tested. Outside the veil there is no time
[Grasshopper]
How do you reconcile this view with D&C 130:4-5?
"In answer to the question—Is not the reckoning of God's time, angel's time, prophet's time, and man's time, according to the planet on which they reside? I answer, Yes."
Seems that angels and Gods do have and experience time, though their experience may differ from ours.
*************************************************************
Response:
I think that Grasshopper and I agree more than disagree. It is hard to reconcile the two ideas of free agency and foreordination from our mortal understanding of time.
I retract my blanket statement that time does not exist for God. I will rephrase and say that it is so radically different for Him (and those in His kingdom), that our perception and common understanding of it is irrelevant.
With Love,
-Brian J.
Posted by Brian J.
Quibble time:
ReplyDeleteGrasshopper: "See the problem? Joseph Smith also taught that foreordination is not the same thing as predestination, which is what you are describing."
Actually, that's not the meaning of predestination, which usually means (by John Calvin's usage) that God decided by whim who He intended to save and not save, and engineered them and their lives to be worthy of salvation, and that those who do evil or never had the opportunity to learn righteousness are the way they are because God intended them to be unsaved from (or before) the moment of their creation.
Posted by Nathan
This all depends on whether the future is absolutely fixed.
ReplyDeleteWhat is to prevent God from knowing about not just one, fixed and permanent future, but all possible futures that can arise from the multitude of choices that take place on any given day.
It's kind of a "Groundhog Day" viewpoint. Bill Murray's character can take any number of paths through that single day, and after living the day 10,000 times (or more), he has a pretty good idea of how certain aspects will turn out, depending on what he does. How many times did he fail in his attempt to steal the bag of money from the armored truck before we finally saw him succeed? We'll never know.
Posted by Mark N.