jonw@azure.UUCP (Jonathan White) (02/17/84)
David Norris has asked for some clarification on my free will article.
[Jon]
If God is truly "outside of time," and capable of travelling into the
future to observe our actions, He must have created the entire lifetime
of the universe at the moment of creation. If He can observe the
future, there must be a future out there for Him to observe. Of
course, this means that we are merely puppets playing out our roles.
[David]
I don't see how this follows. Watching somebody do something is not the same
as making them do it. Personally, I believe that God is not constrained by
time; but that is a personal (and not well substantiated) belief....
Let me see if I can explain this a little better. It should be obvious that an
omnipotent and omniscient being would not be constrained by "our" time.
Therefore, God, by definition, is in a constant state of being everywhere
(past, present, and future) at once. Because God exists in the future (as well
as everywhere else), it stands to reason that there must be a future out there
for Him to exist in. That is why I claimed that God must have created the
entire lifetime of the universe at the moment of creation. And, of course, if
the entire lifetime of the universe already exists, all of our individual
destinies are preordainded by God. Is this clear?
As I mentioned in my previous article: "The alternative to the above model is
that God created only the initial state of the universe, and subsequent states
spontaneously "layered" themselves on to previous states. However, this would
mean that there are future states that do not yet exist for God to observe,
and His omniscience would be invalidated."
[David]
...it seems to me that any proof that God has some
limit to his power is going to be flawed because it is based on finite
reasoning. I often wonder if proponents of such arguments are themselves
unaware of the limits that time imposes on their thinking...
I have never been impressed by arguments such as this. What you are basically
saying is that God is so far beyond our understanding, that it is pointless to
even try. I doubt that you would accept the same argument from an adherent of
Zeus or the Great Ubizmo.
Jon White
[decvax|ucbvax]!tektronix!tekmdp!azure!jonw