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To: Mad Dawg
"I mean, just think: All these people standing around after Mass with donuts in their hands and thinking,"I don't know, but I just feel I should be holding something warm.""

Cute. But, this implies the donut was invented by the Roman Catholic Church, too. I mean, sheesh, the pretzel, double entry bookkeeping, AND the donut? Well, I am pretty sure that us protesters invented the...lawnmower?

"We think God is outside of time and sees the whole thing at once. He doesn't "FORE-see" anymore than he changes his mind. Yet first it's REALLY hard to talk or too think that way,... On this matter, however, I have to take issue. CS Lewis was firmly aligned with your view, here. He argued, as you did, that God sees all things at once and that therefore there is no "yesterday" "today" or "tomorrow" for Him to see. It just all appears to Him. Sadly (for the free will advocates) this argument is eminently weak.

Read the claim carefully. Of course God sees everything at once. The problem of "foreknowledge" is just that. What God sees at all moments is "something" and that thing which He sess He is His plan designed after the counsel of His will. We are all moving exactly, and only, toward that thing He sees at all moments. There can be nothing else that could happen. (Must I cite the passages contending this?) There are not an infinite number of outcomes that He is seeing as He tries to become a better guesser of which one might actually transpire and adapting to get His "hopes" to come true, in spite of the eventual outcome. Surely, you don't teach this in your sit-down sessions. Lewis thought this raised the nobility of man and solved his need for "free will", but it actually proves divine determinism.

"...and second we have language all over the Torah the presents God as "repenting of the evil" after he sees some change in behavior or hears Moses or something."

Now this...this is an interesting matter. I would not agree that it is "all over the Torah", but there are remarks that God was sorry He created man and a couple other matters. (Gen. 8?). What though should I conclude from your statement?

26 posted on 06/15/2012 8:55:21 AM PDT by Dutchboy88
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To: Dutchboy88
If you like philosophy (and headaches) you should try Whitehead's “Process and Reality.” He argues that God does not “need” to be eternal (as I am using the term).

The standard, and glib, answer to the objection is, “Knowing isn't causing,” and therefore God can know what man “will” do without causing it.

But this is the point where my brain starts turning to mud and dribbling out my ears. I don't see what “responsibility” can mean if there isn't freedom, but I have trouble seeing how there is freedom. How can I NOT be like the brute beasts that perish if I cannot direct my choices according to reason? (Kant has the same problem, IIRC.)

(We only say we invented the donut because otherwise somebody would say we're eating it because it's a pagan symbol, being all round and everything. We could say it's just a gentile bagel, I suppose.

(The devil invented the lawnmower. Saints use goats.)

27 posted on 06/15/2012 12:39:56 PM PDT by Mad Dawg (Depone serpentem et ab venemo gradere.)
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