Thanks Jac3510. One less thing to read!! lol
I am having a somewhat similar conversation on another discussion board about freewill and predestination. I'm going to post some of it here for comments.
First thought from a Jesus Seminar/Crossan follower Christian:
In my view, God doesn't know what I am going to do. He knows me, knows what I'm capable of, but like me, He doesn't know what I'll eventually do.
If He knew it all, He wouldn't have to pay attention. why wouldn't He just pull up stakes, because we wouldn't require God to pray to, as it is already written.
I then posted the thoughts of CS Lewis:
This is what CS Lewis says in his book "Mere Christianity" about God and time.
Our life comes to us moment by moment. One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is room for very little in each. That is what Time is like. And of course you and I tend to take it for granted that this Time series—this arrangement of past, present and future—is not simply the way life comes to us but the way all things really exist. We tend to assume that the whole universe and God Himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do. But many learned men do not agree with that. It was the Theologians who first started the idea that some things are not in Time at all: later the Philosophers took it over: and now some of the scientists are doing the same.
Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty—and every other moment from the beginning of the world—is always the Present for Him. If you like to put it that way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.
(Lewis makes an illustration using a novel and its author which I am not including.)
If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all.
Another difficulty we get if we believe God to be in time is this. Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call 'today.' All the days are 'Now' for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing the, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not 'foresee' you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way—because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already 'Now' for Him.
******
Then an agnostic joined in with comments:
According to you God is all powerful; not just the most powerful, but all powerful, but not really all powerful because man has the power of free will (a pretty powerful power), but God remains all powerful, anyway.
Expressed as a mathematical formula: 100% - 1% = 100%.
God knows everything. Not just most things, or a lot of things, but everything. Every time a bird falls( or has ever fallen, or ever will fall), and everything else, without exception, isn't just known to God, but was known by him since the nanosecond He created everything.
But God chooses to do nothing about it, because it might affect our free will.
Except God DOES intervene. He created floods that wiped out everything on Earth except a boatload of creatures, he ordered the genocide of entire groups of people, parted seas, and nuked cities (this last apparently because the citizens weren't playing in a manner in which He approved of), just to mention some of His more memorable interventions.
He sent a part of himself directly to Earth and walked on water, raised the dead, moved a boulder and flew back to heaven.
And yet He allowed Hitler to murder millions of people, Pol Pot to do the same, and Stalin to starve and torture even more innocent humans because that would affect our free will, oblivious to the fact that the free will of all those millions was affected when they were variously starved, shot, thrown into ovens, etc.
So God intervenes in our affairs, but doesn't intervene in our affairs, except when He intervenes in our affairs.
Temporal semantics aside, did I get that right?
******
I think the Agnostic has some legitmate questions.
This from the Christian has me stumped:
He wouldn't have to pay attention. why wouldn't He just pull up stakes, because
we wouldn't require God to pray to, as it is already written.
God knows we will pray to Him and knows already how He will respond?
Isaiah 46:8-11
"Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, 'My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,'
calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it.
Any comments?