Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: Dr. Eckleburg; blue-duncan; xzins; Alamo-Girl
That sentence makes no sense. It's like saying "Trees grow in the mountains, therefore I use a fork to eat peas."

Why didn't you ask if you fail to grasp the connection?

Free will is what man does, whose existence is temporal. He does not foreknow his actions absolutely; he has to decide based on what he knows from the past.

Predestination is what God does, Whose existence is eternal and outsside of time. He foreknows absolutely what man will eventually end up doing. He can predestine man to his eventual end by giving him trials and opportunities, which temporal man then is free to handle.

Therefore, what man does in the temporal plane and what God does in the eternal plane coexist without a logical difficulty.

The difficulty would be insurmountalbe if either of the two conditions I enumerated were not true. If God existed only temporally, He could predestine anoyone. If man consciously existed outside of time, he would not pursue choices that, he would foreknow, are not predestined, just like we today do not attempt to walk through walls.

1,027 posted on 07/16/2010 5:35:55 AM PDT by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 881 | View Replies ]


To: annalex; Dr. Eckleburg; blue-duncan; xzins; betty boop; TXnMA; MHGinTN; GOPJ; shibumi
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!

Again I'd like to underscore the observer problem associated with man trying to understand time.

We mortals persistently sense time as a line, an arrow of time, as events move from past>present>future. In reality, we never sense anything in the present due to the time lag between sensation and cognition.

God has no such limitation.

And geometric physics strongly suggests there may be more than one dimension of time. What we think is a line may be a plane or volume, what we call past, present and future existing concurrently as a moment.

But even that observation refers to the space/time continuum, part of the Creation. And God the Creator is not limited by His own creation.

Even the word "eternal" is inadequate when we meditate on God because eternal only means time without limitation. It binds us to an arrow of time in our meditations.

So I strongly suggest the word "timeless" when meditating on God the Creator in contrast to His Creation, a property of which is space/time, i.e. geometry.

If one meditates with the term "timeless" it becomes obvious that when God says a thing, it is. Indeed, it is because He said it.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. - Genesis 1:3

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. - Psalms 33:6

And that illuminates the Name of God, Word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. - John 14:6

And that the words of God are spirit and life.

For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. - Hebrews 4:12

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63

To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. – John 10:3-5

Meditating with the word "timeless" also illuminates the Truth that God cannot lie, nor could Adam be let off the hook or Jesus spared the crucifixion.

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; - Titus 1:2

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die [literally, muwth muwth or “death death”]. – Genesis 2:17

And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou [wilt]. - Matt 26:39

Finally, meditating with the word "timeless" instead of an arrow of time illuminates these passages and lays aside the property of cause>effect which we also so often wrongfully apply to God the Creator of causation itself.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. – Revelation 13:8

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. – Ephesians 1:4-6

To God be the glory, not man, never man.

1,036 posted on 07/16/2010 8:27:30 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1027 | View Replies ]

To: annalex; Alamo-Girl; blue-duncan; xzins; HarleyD
What God "foreknows" is what a man will do.

Men not purchased with the blood of Christ will always sin and enjoy their sins.

Men purchased with the blood of Christ will hate their sins and try to "sin no more," according to the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit within them, given as a free gift from God of pure, unearned mercy.

If God existed only temporally, He could predestine anoyone.

Your theories on time are unintelligible to anyone with a Biblical perspective. God exists inside and outside of time. He did, however, create time and time is the universe into which He put us. This universe had a temporal beginning. It will have a temporal ending. And between those two points is the will of God. Period. Men who think they act independently of the Creator are simply fooling themselves into thinking they are God's equal with the ability to surprise God or thwart God or deny God.

That's not God. That's Zeus.

1,052 posted on 07/16/2010 10:08:19 AM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1027 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson