Does God know the future? Seems like a pretty simple question. God is omniscient - He knows everything, so of course He knows the future. But there are those that believe that the future is as yet undetermined, and thus unknowable by God or anyone else. The main issue is that whole freewill thing. We obviously determine, in a sense, at least part of future with the decisions we make. And God certainly appears to change His mind at times. He bargained with Abraham regarding the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He regretted creating mankind and all but wiped them out with a flood. That whole Adam and Eve doesn't seem to have gone all that well.
First of all, let me reassure those of you reading that, yes, I do believe God is all-knowing. And I understand the concept of anthropomorphism, that we often attribute human characteristics to God for the sake of our puny human understanding, and so did the authors of the Bible. And there is certainly plenty of scriptural evidence that God knows the future; i.e. a buttload of prophecies that went down exactly as foretold. But do you think that somehow, God is (and I use this term veeerrrrry loosely, for fear of lightning strikes) limited in His view of the future? I've always believed that God lives concurrently in the past, present, and future, but does that mean that the future is already determined? Then what of freewill? Can God be both omniscient and have limited knowledge of the future? Any thoughts? Hello?
I am not a heretic, so put down those torches.
2 comments:
I've come to the conclusion that when God is in eternity, outside of time and space, He sees it all at once, and is omniscient, and all that. But whenever He interacts with humanity, He has to engage with time and space, and at the times He's doing that He no longer working within His cosmic perspective of the universe.
That's why He gets shocked, surprised, offended, etc. at our bad behavior which—because He's omniscient—shouldn't surprise Him at all. It's not the writers of Scripture applying human-like qualities to Him; it's the fact that God limits Himself in order to work with His time-based creatures.
It also appears that God likes this medium—after all, He invented it, then became human and lived among us, and intends to live with us forever in the new heaven and new earth. (Plus, if you didn't have time, you wouldn't have music, and God appears to be the biggest music fan ever.)
Yes, I have put some thought into this idea.
I take a slightly different view than K.W. up above me, although I do agree with some of his points.
From a purely logical perspective, I believe that God knows everything. He knew what I was going to type in this comment before I typed it. But there is a difference between KNOWING the future and DETERMINING the future. Just because God knew what I would type, doesn't mean that he made me type it. There you go. Knowing the future AND freewill, all in one mess-free little package.
I think where things get messy is when we start to think about what God DOES with the future he knows. KNOWING that Adam and Eve wouldn't work out, but still creating mankind anyways, one could assume that God is selfish, because he created humans KNOWING that some would go to hell, right? Sticky...
Two things - one, I don't believe we can understand everything about God. If we could, he'd be kind of a puny God, don't you think? Something God did that I might see in my human understanding as "selfish" is really loving. Who am I to question God's motive in creating me? Again, if I could "work God out logically," then I'd be as smart as God, and that's not saying much for God, is it? (hey!)
So I don't think our issue is REALLY with omniscience vs. freewill - because that works out logically with ease. I think our issue might instead be omniscience vs. what God does with that knowledge. What do YOU think?
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