HELP! Can God SEE the future?? How?? Is this predestination??

Bloody Hotdogs!

Hi all. Had a very long and frustrating debate last night.

JWs like to say that God has the ability to foresee the future, but can chose not to look. This, they claim, removes the problem of predestination/preordination.

How does that work??

1. Does God look into a 'crystal ball' of unalterable future events? If so, can it not be said that those events are predestined to occur? If God chooses not to look, what difference does it make?

JWs seem to believe that so long as God doesn't look at his 'crystal ball', no one - not even God - knows the future. But if the ABILITY to foresee absolute future events exists, is the future not absolutely set?

2. Does God simply discern what the future will most probably hold? This is what I try to do when planning for the future, but the events I 'foresee' are by no means absolutely certain. No predestination here.

3. (This is an extension of #2) Does God tell us what He will cause in the future, and then make that prediction happen? Again, this is similar to what I do in my own life, it's just I can never be absolutely certain of my abilities. No predestination here.

What I need to know is what JWs think. Is it option #1? How the heck do they rationalize out of predestination??

Thanks!

PS: I’m an Atheist ex-JW, but I could never wrap my head around this one!

prologos

Even if "God" could see the PRESENT he/she would be way ahead of us because we can not see the present happenings, since

everything we see, hear, feel, is a message from the past.

"c"

The future or its shape has not arrived yet, we, the cosmos has not moved into it yet, has not taken shape yet,

how coud anybody SEE it?

NeonMadman

I think the JW position is a rather confused mish-mash of all three options that you mention. God has the "super-power" of seeing the future (which is distinct from the God of mainstream Christianity who knows all things by his nature), much as Clark Kent has the super-power of seeing through solid objects with his X-Ray Vision. Just as Clark can choose not to look through the wall into the girls' locker room, God can choose not to see the outcomes that will be brought about by the free acts of human beings (as if there were such libertarian freedom). This is a form of a doctrine that pops up here and there in evangelicalism called "Open Theism." For this reason, Jehovah doesn't know who will be saved and who will not, because he has chosen not to look. JWs have a God who can be surprised. So when God said (after Abraham as much as offered up Isaac), "NOW I KNOW that you are God-fearing, in that you have not withheld your only son from me," it was because God really didn't know what Abraham would do (Gen. 22:12). This does create a bit of a conundrum for the JW, however, since, if taken as anything other than an anthropomorphism, this verse not only implies that God does not know the future, but doesn't even know the present, since the implication is that he was unaware of the present condition of Abraham's heart.

However, in JWism, Jehovah can also maneuver the events of the future if he wishes to in order to accomplish his purpose. Pharoah, Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus were all people that God specifically said would carry out certain actions relative to Israel. Did he thus deprive them of their free will? What if Cyrus didn't want to conquer Babylon? How would the Israelites been freed from bondage? God had specifically named Cyrus in Isaiah's prophecy, well before Cyrus' birth. What happened to Cyrus' free will? Apparently Jehovah overrides the free will of some people in order to carry out his purposes. Seems rather unfair, when viewed through a JW lens. The image one actually gets from JW literature, though, is of God as a master chess player who, while not directly overriding free will, maneuvers external factors to the individual in order to cause him to behave in the desired manner.

In short, I think you are trying to make sense of a JW doctrine the implications of which have never been fully explained by the organization, that is not understood by JWs themselves, and that is internally inconsistent.

Calebs Airplane

For the most part, when JWs are unable to respond to critical questions regarding God's will, they're programmed to say:

"Just wait on Jehovah." which is to say: a clarification will com in due time...

(and maybe they'll mention Micah 7:7 which has nothing to do with waiting for a "clarification")

Mr Fool

If god cannot even see when a person shall die - he must have problems to see any kind of future.

MadGiant

Problem is that it can go either way using the bible. The book can be use to support anything and everything you want to convey. It's worthless.

God sees and knows all things.

Job 42:2 No thought can be withholden from thee.

Psalm 44:21 For he knoweth the secrets of the heart.

Psalm 139:7-8 Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of the Lord are in every place.

Jeremiah 16:17 For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.

Jeremiah 23:24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth?

Acts 1:24 Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men.

1 John 3:20 God ... knoweth all things.

There are some things that God doesn't know and can't see.

Genesis 3:8 And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord, amongst the trees of the garden.

Genesis 4:14-16 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid. (v.14) And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. (v.16)

Genesis 11:5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the town.

Genesis 18:9 And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent.

Genesis 18:17-21 And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? (v.17) And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and, if not, I will know. (vv.20-21)

Genesis 22:12 For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

Genesis 32:27 And he [God] said unto him [Jacob], What is thy name?

Numbers 22:9 And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men are these with thee?

Deuteronomy 8:2 God led thee these forty years in the wilderness ... to know what what in thine heart.

Deuteronomy 13:3 The Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God.

2 Chronicles 32:31 God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.

Job 1:7, 2:2 And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

Hosea 8:4 They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not.

Jonah 1:3, 10 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD ... For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

Ismael

prologos

jws live in a fantasy land and they love it.

In their minds God can do all these things ---or not--.

They ascribe the power of predicting or seeing, even shaping the future even to their leaders, writers/waiters of food for thought:

recently they wrote: at the end of the overlapping generations,

JESUS WILL BE DELIGHTED TO GIVE THE FADS all his belongings. and

there must be many similar predictions in their "current light" repertoire*

If "God" can do it, we can do it, seems to be the WT motto.

The future is ours to be. and to see.

* any idea you can entertain that does not make you possibly subject to JC procedures.

Apognophos

It's a good question. I am pretty sure I've never seen an answer in JW land. JWs just don't think about it, and the Society isn't about to open a can of worms by trying to be religious philosophers and explaining how God can know the future without predetermining it; they just leave the topic alone.

transhuman68

There's a couple of pages of information on this subject in the 'Insight' book, under the heading 'Foreknowledge', but it seems to be inconclusive; as MadGiant has posted- there are scriptures for and against this concept. You could argue about it from here to Armageddon, and still not come to an agreement, lol.

prologos

th68, and when Armageddon would come there would be some proof that there was a correct vision of the future. But

so far it is only stories.

wrongly interpretet.

HELP! Can God SEE the future?? How?? Is this predestination??

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