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To: Dutchboy88

“No, I am saying that there is a “future” with a single outcome that HAS been determined.”

That statement itself is contradictory. If we are talking about the future, you can’t use past-tense words like “has been determined” to describe it.

“Of course God exists outside of time and space. He manufactures time as it unfolds...”

Does He manufacture time as it unfolds? That doesn’t seem to be a good assumption, if time functions like the spatial dimensions. God doesn’t just expand height, width, and depth as people move around and need more space. A dimension, by its nature, extends in two directions to infinity. If it doesn’t, then it is not truly a dimension, but something else.

“Is there a single outcome that God knows about? Yes, or no?”

Yes.


187 posted on 05/14/2015 2:14:48 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman

I am not sure we are communicating here. You said there is a future with a single outcome that God knows. When I say that it is “determined”, I simply mean this “single outcome” is the ONLY outcome that will occur. That single outcome (which you agree God knows), by definition, makes it impossible for any other outcome to occur. I am not speaking hypothetically, but realistically. If no other outcome can occur, then the “free agents” are actually just marching their way to (and through) that single outcome (which God knows). Irrespective of what the agents “feel” or “think” or “decide”, they are moving toward the outcome that God knows about. This is not contradictory; it is observant and logical and Biblical.

Whether time is being manufactured as it is presented to us or whether time is some kind of “thing” God created in one moment, is not really important. I suspect we may never know this because it affects nothing.

But, what is clear is that there is no “infinity”, if by this you mean “never beginning and never ending”. The universe, as big as it might be, is finite. God is the only infinite being in existence. Otherwise, we have a universe that is equal to God and we know that Creation Ex Nihilo is true. I don’t find anything infinite in the Scriptures (Job, et al). He is definitely larger/longer lived than it all and if He is infinite, the universe is infinity minus something. Thus, because all dimensions are also created, they too are less than infinite, irrespective of Hugh Ross’ contentions. To some extent, this means even “heaven” is a created place and is not infinite.

You may wish to argue this from a theoretical (or mathematical/scientific standpoint), but I believe the Scriptural perspective trumps these.


189 posted on 05/14/2015 3:10:11 PM PDT by Dutchboy88
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