Are you familiar with countable infinity? We say that the number of integers is countable infinity but the number of real numbers is uncountable.
…but countable infinity…
It is not that it isn’t countable, but only that you cannot have counted to it.
There is no contradiction in this statement if you understand what it is saying.
… it only means that it can never be done.
Which statement? This?:
Of course it’s countable… up to as far as you as you have counted. But completing counting is undoable, to use your word.
Yes, it is. You did not understand what you were saying.
G’night.
I meant that Progressive Christians I.e. politically, theologically and socially liberal ones tend to also question Gods wisdom in creating free will when the reality of the world is brought up.
I guess you are talking about cultural Christians. Being a convert and as far away from being a cultural Christian as you can get, it is a bit hard for me to fathom how one can believe in God at all if one buys into an argument like that. For me it would seem to be the first thing you have to dispense with before you can believe in God.
But I guess it changes a lot of things when you start with that belief. Does this mean anyone who asks any serious question about the Christian ideology in which they were raised is a “progressive Christian” by your way of thinking?
Not instantly. But Ive observed that a good amount turn out that way. Then again, I could be wrong or only seeing what I want to. Come to think of it, a good amount of christians who now identify with progressivism have been raised with the predestination you previously mentioned. So I guess it makes sense that they would entertain an argument like this?
The point that is not being understood from where I sit is that the word ‘predestination’ (or any other tensed word that doesn’t really apply to God’s relationship to us) isn’t really a problem when we are ready to confess that there is a wonderful mystery in how God, being immune from the constraints of sequential time (and I contend, omnitemporal), relates dynamically with us who are so bound. I would again point to the abundant evidence of his providences where what is preternatural is not the violation of any natural laws, but his sovereignty over timing and placing (and all the necessary precursors! ←note the pre- prefix 
).
Judas had free will but it would have been better for him not to have been born. Maybe that should be terrifying and perhaps compel some to want to be or to be sure they are adopted or newly birthed (or any of several other God-ordained metaphors) into family and brotherhood with Jesus. That confidence can be had or else Paul would not have talked about it some several times.
And yet … nearly all nontheists (and theists) - at least all that I have ever met well enough to get a sense of them - somehow they manage to not buy into or promote solipsism. So I guess even if one’s theologies or lack thereof aren’t ‘up to your snuff’, it remains easy enough reject on a host of other grounds good enough for the person on the street.
That confidence is mostly about the heart and the heart’s desires. Secondarily it is about our minds and our minds’ behaviors and self-talk. Lastly it is about our physical behaviors including our words (where I fall short most frequently and obviously – please refrain from the loud 'Amen’s… but I can hear some already ; - ).
All of those can be tested against the laws of love both in the OT and in the New – Jesus and the epistlers expand upon them significantly. We are also told to test ourselves in several places and in all three categories, and the latter ones implicate the previous. Of course the last one others can help us with (too readily sometimes) …or curse us with.
External providences revealing the Father’s care are sweet and certainly confidence building, but not necessary as the basis of confidence.
[split off new topic from this as linked]
It easy to reject until it isn’t, and it’s a fascinating study for anyone considering non-dualism.
It’s also quite the picture of what the serpent (in the garden) intended to hide while uttering the sweet sound of a plural pronoun.
I remember bringing this subject up with you in connection to what length the Lord will not go to rescue his beloved.
Does it? From what I understand it says that local determinism cannot be true but “superdeterminism” still can.
I don’t understand it 100% but I think it’s that all things, scientists doing experiments included are decided by universe, and because measurerer is a part of equation, you can still have determinism, locality and realism.
Do you have any thoughts about it?
The indeterminism in QM and the Bell’s inequality has NOTHING to do with a choice of experiment. That is only involved in some of the more complicated experiments which some consider even more “spooky.” But I have only referenced them to established a completely different point, that observation is all about measuring devices and nothing to do with consciousness (which BTW superdeterminism does not alter).
Besides, it sounds to me like it is still an example of going outside the basic premises of the scientific worldview. And the supposition behind superdeterminism is as unfalsifiable as the existence of God.
Remember that the conclusions of science are not about proof, but only what is reasonable to believe. At most this superdeterminism idea shows that this conclusion is not proof but if you read Bell’s objections you find that it doesn’t alter the reasonable conclusion aspect of this.
I think a reference to this belongs in the thread 
:
It looks like Bro. Grudem is wrong on other things besides the Trinity, Time is a succession of events. Of course, God knows time, because God created time.
Supposedly, quantum physics makes determinism impossible because it means that the output is slightly different from the input, so there is an element of chance introduced. Because we live in a finite world, there is always an element of chance involved. That is the way God created it.
I don’t see anything contrary to that. If you do, could you cite it?
Since God is not constrained to time, how does that work? Luck is not in my vocabulary.
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33
This sentence, I don’t understand it, I know it’s in the Bible, Jesus himself allegedly said it, but I don’t understand being born and betraying Jesus is worse than not being born.
If this decision is final, it has to show the character of Judas, him being born later so he couldn’t betray Jesus would not change the fact that he can’t have a relationship with God, so the relationship is lost just the same.
If it was not based on his character, but on situation, and in different situation he may have made a good choice and enter relationship with God, then that shows God is separating a person with potential to have a relationship with him forever. And that makes no sense, if there’s a way, God will find it.
Living in this world is a kind of faint relationship with God to me. So why having no relationship at all ( not being born ) is better than having this faint relationship but not gaining anything deeper ( betraying Jesus )?
There’s also hell, but hell as a place where fire and suffering is never extinguished doesn’t make too much sense to me.
A controversial thought shows up in my head: “Maybe Jesus was wrong about that, after all, he was human”, but him being wrong about theology is kinda iffy.
Or maybe I’m taking it all to seriously and Jesus just wanted to underline how grave Judas sin was 
What you think of that?
God works within the framework of time. God does not “have” to, except God is constrained by God’s Will as found in the Creation. God is much smarter and wiser than we are, but does not know anything that we cannot know. God is not omnitemporal. God does not have to be a control freak to be in charge.
Proverbs is not the Logos. Anyone who does not prepare for possible unforeseen events, which what we are talking about here, is a fool.
This is a caricature that Calvinists and the Reformed find offensive. Please be mindful of that.
Your reading comprehension is different than mine. I’m not going to take time to find the way more than several verses that refute that – just start with the thought that he is infinite and we are not.
You don’t know that. There are reasons to believe that he is. Is he omnipresent? Yes. If you haven’t yet, watch enough of this interesting NOVA video posted earlier and elsewhere to be able to visualize spacetime slices. God is omnipresent in them. That implies he is omnitemporal as well:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/the-fabric-of-the-cosmos-the-illusion-of-time/
ETA: Corrected link just above. ↑ Outside of the U.S., the video may be inaccessible, but there is a transcript available on the page. (Streaming might be available in Canada?)
God does not “know” something that is not true or real. If God knows something, it must be true and real. The future is not true and real until it takes place, because humans have free will. Therefore, God does not know the future.
I should have qualified that by saying, Within the scope of Creation God does not know anything that we cannot know. No, we cannot know how God created the universe out of nothing, but we are continually learning new information as to how God shaped the Creation. Please do not underestimate God’s ability to give humans the ability to observer and think.
The Fabric of the Cosmos
Science is beginning to understand that the Cosmos is basically relational, not physical. God is Relational. Philosophy is not, so God is not understood as philosophy, but Love.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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