Thread: Eye to Eye book, The Science of God

Someone I live with has this book, which I glanced at called Eye to Eye
Facing The Consequences of Dividing Israel by a White House Correspondent Bill Koenig. (Published a couple years ago) It lists certain major catastrophes, wildfires, floods that apparently occur usually directly after (within days) of someone high in power in the U.S. such as former President Clinton, or now President Bush try to push Israel to give up land. The accounts start with some in 1993. Anyone read this? Is this clear evidence for proof of the scripture "I will bless those that bless you, curse those that curse you" referring to Israel? I haven't really researched it much. Any comments?
Also Has anyone read the book called the Science of God by Gerald Shroeder? I haven't read it yet but by glancing at it is supposed to have topics such as free will, the age of our universe.

yawn

Marnix, this writer of the Science of God says that free will can exist along with God knowing everything in the future because "The subtlety in the argument is that we are dealing with two frames of reference, one within and one without the flow of time. For the Creator, being outside of time, a flow of events has no meaning. The future and the past are in the present."

I'm not saying I'm supporting this view, I don't really understand it yet. What does he mean? Is this possible?
Apologies if this makes you yawn..

I too have issues with free will coexisting with Gods knowledge of what we will do. And when coupled with what I understand of Quantum Mechanics, namely the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and that particles are popping into and out of existence according to probabilities then Gods epistemological ability to know the entire state of the universe appears implausible.

But then it is God we are talking about here. The Supreme Being, who is both transcendent and immanent, (which is another contradiction) conscious (in some way), eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent and just so happens is solely concerned with the welfare of humanity.

I also don't see how Gods foreknowledge doesn't lead to a form of Calvins theology.

ok, i'll throw this question to you : does god have free will ?

logically speaking he can't be both omnipotent and omniscient

Originally Posted by Sarah1234

Marnix, this writer of the Science of God says that free will can exist along with God knowing everything in the future because "The subtlety in the argument is that we are dealing with two frames of reference, one within and one without the flow of time. For the Creator, being outside of time, a flow of events has no meaning. The future and the past are in the present."

I'm not saying I'm supporting this view, I don't really understand it yet. What does he mean? Is this possible?
Apologies if this makes you yawn..

have you considered, what outside of time actually means.
a thing outside of time can neither move in anyway possible, without incuring the passage of time, or create, without incuring the passage of time, it cannot even watch the passage of time without, incuring the very same.
therefore a god cannot be outside of time, a god for instance could not listen to everybodies prayers at the same time without incuring it's passage.
do you see how foolish that statement is.
literally everything would have to happen, all at the very same in instant and occur even faster then a nanosecond, thats every eon, life, thought, second, etc...for it not to effect the passage of time. and even then it does. it is infantile even to consider that a god could be outside of time.

Originally Posted by Sarah1234

Any comments?

People would rather believe that deliberate acts (whether of God or Man) account for disasters, than believe that we are all in the hands of blind luck.

ok, i'll throw this question to you : does god have free will ?

logically speaking he can't be both omnipotent and omniscient

Excellent question, never considered it before. Suppose God would have to have otherwise it takes away from being supreme. Along with the contradiction between transcendant and immanent. Now featuring the apparent contradiction between being both omnipotent and omniscient (how come exactly?) as well, we're gradually getting ourselves a God that can make no logical sense.

if you know everything, then you also know what's going to happen, meaning that you can't change your mind about it
this limits what god can achieve, hence he can't be omnipotent

Originally Posted by marnixR

if you know everything, then you also know what's going to happen, meaning that you can't change your mind about it
this limits what god can achieve, hence he can't be omnipotent

I can hold two diamterically opposed ideas in my mind at the same time. [I am working on doing this with three.] I'm sure God can do much better than this.

Originally Posted by Sarah1234

Someone I live with has this book, which I glanced at called Eye to Eye
Facing The Consequences of Dividing Israel by a White House Correspondent Bill Koenig. (Published a couple years ago) It lists certain major catastrophes, wildfires, floods that apparently occur usually directly after (within days) of someone high in power in the U.S. such as former President Clinton, or now President Bush try to push Israel to give up land.

If God is picking such random, minor curses then he doesn't seem to be going about it very efficiently. I mean if he's going to use his divine power to get his point across, why not do something that people would actually notice? If there was an immediate earthquake at the President's location every time he pressured Israel to give up land, people would notice and take it seriously. Heck, it might convince me (and a lot of other people) to become a Christian. So if God is going to go through the trouble of using his magic powers to cause disasters to punish us, why is he doing it in a way that no one notices? Especially when he could accomplish so much more if he just picked one punishment to go with consistently and made some slight adjustments to the timing?

Originally Posted by Sarah1234

Marnix, this writer of the Science of God says that free will can exist along with God knowing everything in the future because "The subtlety in the argument is that we are dealing with two frames of reference, one within and one without the flow of time. For the Creator, being outside of time, a flow of events has no meaning. The future and the past are in the present."

It's not a matter of anyone necessarily knowing the future, it's a matter of whether the future is fixed or not. If God knows the future with certainty then that implies that it is fixed (otherwise he couldn't be certain). You don't even have to bring God into it, you can arrive at the same problem for free will if you believe that the universe is completely deterministic.

If there is any frame of reference from which God (or whoever) can view the entirety of the past and future simultaneously, it implies that the future is fixed - otherwise he wouldn't be able to view it, would he? If the future is fixed then all of your choices are really predetermined, and you merely have the illusion of making a free choice.

Originally Posted by marnixR

this limits what god can achieve, hence he can't be omnipotent

I don't think God is omnipotent...well, he is kind of, but while He's able to do everything (that's within the bounds of logic), He may not do everything (that may not make sense to most of you, but if you consider the difference between may and 'able', it'd make sense to you). This is also the answer to the problem of evil. Truth is that God can get rid of evil, but is bounded by his own laws.

Originally Posted by Scifor Refugee

Originally Posted by Sarah1234

Marnix, this writer of the Science of God says that free will can exist along with God knowing everything in the future because "The subtlety in the argument is that we are dealing with two frames of reference, one within and one without the flow of time. For the Creator, being outside of time, a flow of events has no meaning. The future and the past are in the present."

It's not a matter of anyone necessarily knowing the future, it's a matter of whether the future is fixed or not. If God knows the future with certainty then that implies that it is fixed (otherwise he couldn't be certain). You don't even have to bring God into it, you can arrive at the same problem for free will if you believe that the universe is completely deterministic.

If there is any frame of reference from which God (or whoever) can view the entirety of the past and future simultaneously, it implies that the future is fixed - otherwise he wouldn't be able to view it, would he? If the future is fixed then all of your choices are really predetermined, and you merely have the illusion of making a free choice.

I recently finished reading John Polkinghorne's book "Quarks, Chaos and Christianity. He is both a theoretical physicist and an ordained Anglican Minister.

He has some interesting thoughts on God and time. He says this:

God knows things as they really are. In a world of true becoming, therefore, will God not know them in their becomingness, that is, in their temporal succession? In other words, if the future is truly open, not just a rearrangement of the past, will God not have to know the world in time, as it develops? If this is the case, even God does not yet know the unformed future. This is not an imperfection in God, for the future is not yet there to be known. If this is right, then there must be an experience of time within God, in addition to the divine eternal nature. Such a conclusion is very controversial, but I believe it to be correct, though not all will agree with me.