Equate? Good grief. Nor do I. Do I ‘equate’ the speed of light with it? That does not mean that what science tells us about it is false.
You have nothing to explain – I am not disagreeing with that. But is it science to say that God is omnipresent? It is not. Neither is it science to say that he is omnipresent in time.
There is a good reason for why I’m not sure about your position, namely, you seem hesitant to answer a simple question with a direct answer. Does your saying the answers to my question is irrelevant mean that the Bible does or does not talk about QM, the big band, or the speed of light?
??
I said so explicitly. You seem hesitant to understand. The Bible does not talk about QM, the big band [sic 
wrong era – that was the middle of last century] or the speed of light.
Well, thanks to much effort on your part, I finally understand. Thanks! I’m usually a big quicker on the uptake.
Your error of logic is equating foreknowledge with active interference, with actual control. I am certain that God had His prophet tell His people the truth, that they had a choice that would have real consequences, and told them also what He wanted as a sincere attempt to influence their choice, without controlling the choice. Doesn’t God influence us by whatever we read in the bible? That doesn’t mean God is controlling us. We still have choices to make.
I believe that God also knew what choice you would make, but did not control you to force you to make that choice. The difference is knowing something because you have seen it happen, or causing something to happen. I am not guilty of shooting someone if I see another person shoot someone, but I still know that it happened if I saw it, even if I didn’t cause the action.
I believe that God’s knowledge of what we will do is only there because God exists outside of time, so God’s knowledge is based on His observing what we did choose to do in the future. I do believe God does work in this world today, and I am sure that some of what He does is intended to influence people to make the right choice, when that particular choice is very important in His overall plan. But here, too, observation of how God created the universe, and how His universe operates, gives us some insight into how God can make “all things work together for good…” The entire material world is made up of myriads of particles so small that we cannot ever measure the exact location and state of motion of any one of them. Yet, they bond together in huge numbers, with the activity of the aggregate being highly predictable. We can build complex machines, like cars, or even bigger things, like a power grid, and know that they will work as designed without knowing exactly where any single electron is. This tells me that God can very accurately know the large scale behavior of a society without impinging on the free will of any of the society’s individual members. And I trust God to be even better at accomplishing His purposes in this world than what I can imagine.
I would say that ‘foreknowledge’ is a word, a tensed word, that does not really apply to God since he is outside of (actually all through) time. More correctly it might be said that he dynamically relates? (@Relates ; - ) I am not saying I understand this wonderful (awe-full) mystery – I am only describing it.
If not active interference or actual control, what would compel me to do what God knew I’d do? I certainly wouldn’t be free to do anything other than what God knew I’d do. I would in fact have had no choice at all. Where is the breakdown in logic in saying I’d have to do what God knew I’d do? Would I be free to do something other than what He knew I’d do? If we go by logic, I don’t think I would be free at all.
If God knew my choice, then how could I have chosen anything other than what He knew I’d choose?
What exactly do you mean by God existing outside of time? Not that you are wrong, but scripture references would help me understand.
Those are past tense and timebound – God is not bound by time. Tensed language does not really apply to God (it is however the only thing we’ve got in English and many others).
@Christy: There are languages that are not as intrinsically time-based as English, aren’t there, or where tense is irrelevant?
The question becomes when did Judas decide to betray Jesus? Before or after Jesus said what he said? The answer is found a few verses back in the same chapter.
Matt 26:14-16,
14 Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests,
15 And said [unto them], What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
16 And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.
God revealed to Jesus that Judas had decided by his free will that he would betray him. Judas was not forced to betray Jesus because God “knew” he would. No foreknowledge found here.
The ‘forcing’ you read into God’s omnitemporallity doesn’t exist.
No foreknowledge is required because foreknowledge does not apply to God, it just looks like that to us who are constrained to sequential time.
Judas is just one case among plenty of others for which you will not find such a convenient explanation. God hardened the Pharaoh’s heart, right?
I’ll grant you that Pharaoh’s heart is not quite as convenient as Judas. It requires getting into the heads of those who lived in the Ancient Near East. In the last 100 years or so we have made many discoveries of texts that help us get into their heads. I trust you could understand that their worldview was radically different than our own. We think one thing when we read about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart whereas they thought something quite different.
It does require a fair amount of background study, more than I can do here, but there’s plenty of info on the internet and elsewhere. Comparative Studies is the academic field you may want to investigate. You seem to be an intelligent and thoughtful individual. I think you’d really enjoy such a study.
Suffice it to say, God does not force people to go against His will. There is something else going on behind the scenes. I’ll leave it at that.
Well, if you read the passage, it says sometimes that pharaoh hardened his own heart (and later in the sequence of events that God hardened his heart). These are likely different ways of describing the same thing… that in response to displays of God’s power, Pharaoh turns away from God “hardens his own heart” by his own freewill. Nothing here compels one to think that God overrode Pharaoh’s free choices in real time.
Hi Dale, and thanks also @rrobs for an interesting discussion on God and time. I’m not a physicist and my brain starts to hurt when thinking about God’s relationship to the space-time continuum… I’ll point out an interesting looking book (which I haven’t bought or read because it is so expensive), but which presents several views of God and time. The author argues that when interacting with his creation, God is indeed “in Time”. Here’s the cover blurb, F.Y.I. (author R.T. Mullins, “End of the Timeless God”.
The claim that God is timeless has been the majority view throughout church history. However, it is not obvious that divine timelessness is compatible with fundamental Christian doctrines such as creation and incarnation. Theologians have long been aware of the conflict between divine timelessness and Christian doctrine, and various solutions to these conflicts have been developed. In contemporary thought, it is widely agreed that new theories on the nature of time can further help solve these conflicts. Do these solutions actually solve the conflict? Can the Christian God be timeless? The End of the Timeless God sets forth a thorough investigation into the Christian understanding of God and the God-world relationship. It argues that the Christian God cannot be timeless.
Your brain ought to hurt when thinking about God’s relationship to the space-time continuum. Mine does too. My solution is to not ponder such things as that as well as how many angels can fit on the tip of a needle. Such ideas are man’s and have nothing to do with the scriptures. God had no interest in explaining angels on the tip of a pin nor a space-time continuum to Israel. There is nada, zip, zero, nil in the actual scriptures about angels on a pin or a space-time continuum.
Thanks, I agree that my faith doesn’t hinge on solving this question, and I don’t see much point in flogging a horse to death. Still, one’s faith and one’s practice as a Christian can be influenced by one’s concept of God, and of his character. The concept of libertarian free will seems to be essential to how I can conceptualize a loving God. So, it’s in that framework that I “like” to wrestle with some theological/philosophical questions about foreknowledge, determinism and free will. It still makes my brain hurt sometimes, though, and I’m sure it’s something I’ll never fully grasp on this side life.
Reminds me of that hymn, “…we’ll understand it all by and by…” Until then I guess are brains will hurt from time to time. 
How God orchestrates his providential interventions into the lives of his children is an argument for his omnitemporality (not that it makes it any more understandable – it is still only describable and still a wonderful mystery).
If you reflect on all the necessary precursor events and multiple people involved1 and the decisions they have made (even speeding up a bit or slowing down sooner at a yellow light, for instance, or leaving the house a second later in the morning), I think it’s obvious that no one’s free will was violated. My favorite examples of course that do not involve me personally are Rich Stearns and Maggie Eriksson. Imagine all the individuals involved and the timing and placing of each of the myriad of precursor events leading up to the significant ‘final’ one to have it fall out exactly as it did. And these are whole sets of incidents, not just one-offs.
1 (They have to have been born, too, and their particular lives led to put them when and where they were to influence the particular outcome of God’s providence. ; - )
Since you’re in Canada, you may have streaming access to the NOVA episode noted above? If God is omnipresent, he is omnipresent in ‘spacetime slices’, would you not concur?
“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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