Simulations, Time and the all-knowing-God

[allan2]

Originally posted by Straybow
[allan2] "Does it actually say in the Bible that God is omniscient?"

O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
…Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
…Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them… —Ps 139

Foreknowledge is not determinism. After a few moments of watching the ball an outfielder knows where to run to intercept it. That knowledge does not "make" the ball go there, it is external to the forces of gravity and air resistance at work. That knowledge does not "make" him get there, either, as it may be out of his range.

There are many times when God knows where you are going, and He meets you there in order to accomplish His will. You may recognize Him or not, you may cooperate or not.

You could look at it like this: you have a child, and you get to know his ways and habits--which may include a lot of what you taught him, too. You can thus usually predict what he will do in a given situation, and prepare for it, or work with it. BUT the child may still surprise you sometimes.

There are a lot of stories in the Bible that imply God REACTING (like to something that displeases Him), and stating an emotional response (wrath, anger, sorrow, etc.) on the part of God toward that event (as IF the writer could "read the mind" of God!)--which, if it was already predestined to be, you'd think would not be present at all. Now granted this could be a device of the writer to make the whole description of the event and God's interaction with that event, comprehensible to himself and the reader. Or God might truly, ultimately, be a reactive force. One who PLANS, just as we plan only better and with more information (omniscience of at least the past and present), but still has to deal with surprises now and then. He may even have contingencies for every possible "surprise" too.

So he may be like a parent, knowing his child's ways and planning accordingly, and even having contingent plans should the child for some reason do different than normal, but the child ultimately has a free will, and sometimes all a parent can do is react. He just might be to the nth degree better or smarter at doing so.

As someone above said, it shouldn't matter to a person of the faith whether everything, on some level, is predetermined or not--we should still do our best to make the best choices within the reality OR illusion of our free will, that we can.

If God exists "out of time", then obviously this is something we won't understand, and those who write about Him will put Him in the context of our sense of time. Or he may exist within the framework of time, too. I really don't see whether this makes a relevant difference anyway--if free will really IS an illusion, we weren't "hardwired" to see it that way, and as such we still have to act as if we have it. I'd say then that, for all practical purposes, we do. If there is a God, I don't think this question is what He intends for us to focus on, anyway--it just makes you dizzy thinking about it!

 

[Dralix]

Originally posted by cgannon64


But the path hasn't been pre-determined. Let me use a long example:

You, as a human, can probably predict what a cat is going to do when you put food out for the cat (and the cat is hungry). The cat will eat the food. Just because you knew that the cat will eat the food doesn't mean that the cat didn't make the choice to eat.

Yes, but I do not know what the cat is going to do. I am guessing. I could be wrong.

Originally posted by cgannon64
Now up the scale. God sees you making an important choice - say, to marry someone. Because God is infinetely more intelligent then you, he can predict - or know - what you are going to do. Does that mean you still didn't make the choice? No.

Does god know for a fact because he is all knowing, or is he just better at guessing and therefore has less of a chance of being wrong? If he knows what I am going to do, then how can I possibly have a choice? It's already been predetermined. If it hasn't been predetermined, then no one can know for certain what I am going to do.

Originally posted by cgannon64
Now, if you want to say that God exists outside of time - which I beleive - then its very hard to comprehend for us little humans. What is it like to exist outside of time? What is it like to see the entire universe not as a series of moments in a sequence, as...something else?

I don't believe that anything, be it god or DS9's wormhole aliens can exist outside of time. I have the same problem with that as I do with time travel, and it's the whole predetermination vs free will thing. Maybe that makes me no less arrogant than one who thinks that humans are alone in the universe, but that's what I think.

 

[Pikachu]

Originally posted by smalltalk
Some people say that God was all-knowing, omniescent; that he could foresee the run of history and also the decisions of our free-will. People say that time is to God like a mere point in space. To God everything happend, happens and will happen in one blink. God would know how you are going to act even before you are born.

I don't think God knows our decisions before we make them. We have free will and there is no way God can know for sure how we will use it. If he could, our will would not be free.

But God knows us very well and he knows all the decisions we already have made. We have already made up rules for how we want to react to countless situations. By adding all those decision-making routines for all humans, God can predict the future very well, but we can surprise him. Well, surprise is perhaps not the word. God knows all our options, and he probably knows something about the probability for which one we will choose, but the final decision is unknown until we make it.

Originally posted by smalltalk
If that's so, why do we have to live through our lifes anyway?

Why don't we suddenly pop into existence in hell, heaven or purgatory or whatever?

If God knows everything that happened before it really happens, he could spare us our (measly or brave or wondrous or magnificent) time of existence. We would find ourselve in the afterlife and God would be telling us: "According to my foresight, you are eternally damned." or "Devine Calculations have revealed that salvation is yours."

Why does God actually have to run the "Reality Simulation" of the universe, when he already knows how it will end?

Why do we have to live through our lifes, when God already knows that we are saved or doomed?

I don't want God to spare me my time of existence. I like to be alive, and I want to keep it that way. I think life would be worth living, even if it was only a "Reality Simulation" and God already knows the outcome.