Can God see the future? (page 5)

ninja

let me get this straight...the wright brothers were responsible for nagasaki?......muhahahaha

Terry

Permission is the same as causation!

Philosophically, this is interesting thinking!

I think might need to define "causation".

There has to be agency involved.

I give myself permission to be very very rich, but, if I write a very large check I'm in trouble!

Jehovah has the largest bank account in the universe. His checks never bounce. (Or, do they?)

nvrgnbk

The context was the following:

If you are observing an unsafe condition, and do nothing to remediate it, and someone subsequently is harmed, you are responsible as if you caused it.

Adolfius

Oh what I have started here. It's all getting a little deep for me.

The general idea I'm getting is this very question would seem to imply that jehovah god, as described in the bible, simply can't exist!

If he could see the future of which he doesn't interfere (it's determined by our free will), he must be a sick b*****d for going ahead and letting it all pan out like this regardless.

Or....he can't see what is going to happen and therefore he forces our hands to make it fit his predictions. So he made the people like Judas do the bad things they do. No free will.

Or....he's not the all powerful genius he likes to tell us he is. Clearly far more powerful and clever than any of us, but still prone to mistakes. He created the universe and humans with the best of intentions, but designed us with a monumental flaw, and is now wondering how the hell to fix it.

I think I'm looking forward to the next time a JW knocks on my door. I now know what question I'm going to be asking.

nvrgnbk

The general idea I'm getting is this very question would seem to imply that jehovah god, as described in the bible, simply can't exist!

Duh! LMAO! You've got a real gift for noting the obvious.

Not busting on you Adolfius! You way cool and inteligente.

Just agreeing with you bro.

Paralipomenon

The downside of what you describe is that God (as maker) becomes responsible for what he has wrought.

If I build a machine that goes awry and flattens people I get sued. Why? The machine did the flattending, right?

No, I set it in motion, designed it and hold final moral culpability.

By your logic, if I get in an accident I should be able to sue the auto manufacturer because I wouldn't have had an accident if they didn't manufacture the car. Would it be better then to ban cars, because of your personal potential for risk?

You are assuming that if/when God looked into the future of creating mankind that they were destined for misery and suffering for all eternity. This assumption is based off your view of the past and the present. One can only assume that -IF- God predicted the future of mankind that he was satisfied with the eventual outcome.

Adolfius

By your logic, if I get in an accident I should be able to sue the auto manufacturer because I wouldn't have had an accident if they didn't manufacture the car. Would it be better then to ban cars, because of your personal potential for risk?

No, because the manufacturer had no idea how you were going to drive, where or when or what other external factors you would encounter.

But, if god can see the future and he could see the balls up that would result from his creation, yet he went ahead and did it anyway, then he is absolutely responsible. It would be like the auto manufacturer knowing that a car without breaks or a steering wheel is likely to end in an accident, and then going ahead and building it without those two components anyway.

For me this was just a hypothetical question that I would like to see the JWs answer. If I believed in (the biblical) god, I would be inclined to say he can't see the future which would explain cracking on with creation. But it must mean he causes people to do things in order to fulfil his prophecies and therefore we don't really have free will.

Paralipomenon

No, because the manufacturer had no idea how you were going to drive, where or when or what other external factors you would encounter.

To the contrary, they assume that people are going to have accidents. That is why we have ABS brakes, air bags, crumple zones etc.

Buy putting in these features, they are assuming that each and every driver has the potential to crash.

My point was, God may have the ability to predict the future at will, rather than omniscience of all time, past and future. If God was really omniscient, that would mean that he didn't have free will either, so how could you blame him? He'd just be a slave to time like the rest of us.

Adolfius

To the contrary, they assume that people are going to have accidents. That is why we have ABS brakes, air bags, crumple zones etc.

My point was that god left out the ABS, air bags and crumple zone and so is responsible in the same way that a manufacturer would be if they knew we would crash and left these safety features out.

I agree that if a god in the bible sense did exist, he would not see the future, and so therefore would have influenced or directed Judas to betray Jesus against his will. Judas did not act out of free will.

If god can't see the future, yet he can predict with confidence that an event will take place, he must make it take place. He can say the end of the world is coming because he's going to physically intervene and do the destroying, in the same way he must have intervened by making Judas betray Jesus. And therefore we do not have free will.

frankiespeakin

Poppers,

"Actually the "now" we experience is the "past" by the time it cycles thru the senses and into our consciousness.." ..... If by "our" you are speaking of an individual entity, then yes. The "I" that takes itself to be real is just more "past" - this is the egoic sense. The egoic sense arises in pure consciousness and is a creation of the mind. Without that egoic sense there is just pristine consciousness devoid of anything which forms and then clings to an identity - THAT consciousness IS now, and can only be now. I think that could be true master but how do you know for sure, if one were to do this it would be lost in comprehending it with the mind, so that when returning to regular consciousness in the mind and no longer the One without a second, and so how could one speak of these things with certainty? Just wondering if you knew?.

Can God see the future?

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