Proof that the entire future is NOT fixed

[Yahweh1]

All that we can know from our finite minds is that God is fully Sovereign, that he causes/permits ALL things that occur, and that ALl things together according to his divine will and purposes, especially towards the saint of God!

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

That's another very broad brush statement for me, for He works everything in sequence of tomorrow is a newer day... Prophecy is calling to a time when writings comes real. To Him it may be a was, but to the spinning globe He has placed in motion, gives an evening and a morning, a day a week and a year, time is internal and external. His return, as prophesied, is coming to a time God has purposed. God being the subject, is... Time, as He has ordained it, is owned and controlled by Him. History shows that if He wills, even stops time for a moment. Yet we will never have a ground hog day, for each day is is never the same, for everything moves forward. Even in Heaven, the will be silence, for about 1/2 hour, as the last seal is released and the scroll of God's wrath is now unfurled.

So our musing as to what God is and is not is so vain of us to say this or that of Him, the only acceptable reply is worship. Praise be to God!

And yet... You hold to quite a precise view of the Godhead that has Him nicely boxed up. Inconsistent. Take God out of the doctrine box if you're gonna resign to mystery about all else.

Time is external to God, and all you said is applicable and compatible with that.

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

That's another very broad brush statement for me, for He works everything in sequence of tomorrow is a newer day... Prophecy is calling to a time when writings comes real. To Him it may be a was, but to the spinning globe He has placed in motion, gives an evening and a morning, a day a week and a year, time is internal and external. His return, as prophesied, is coming to a time God has purposed. God being the subject, is... Time, as He has ordained it, is owned and controlled by Him. History shows that if He wills, even stops time for a moment. Yet we will never have a ground hog day, for each day is is never the same, for everything moves forward. Even in Heaven, the will be silence, for about 1/2 hour, as the last seal is released and the scroll of God's wrath is now unfurled.

So our musing as to what God is and is not is so vain of us to say this or that of Him, the only acceptable reply is worship. Praise be to God!

And yet... You hold to quite a precise view of the Godhead that has Him nicely boxed up. Inconsistent. Take God out of the doctrine box if you're gonna resign to mystery about all else.

Time is external to God, and all you said is applicable and compatible with that.

[Redeemed by Grace]

And yet... You hold to quite a precise view of the Godhead that has Him nicely boxed up. Inconsistent. Take God out of the doctrine box if you're gonna resign to mystery about all else.

Time is external to God, and all you said is applicable and compatible with that.

How can you declare that time is external to God when He spoke time and controls it... He is yesterday today and tomorrow, as well as relating with man every day?

Do your think Jesus has already returned back to the earth or is that yet a future event that will happen?

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

How can you declare that time is external to God when He spoke time and controls it... He is yesterday today and tomorrow, as well as relating with man every day?

Because time/space/matter are not uncreated, and are not God. What do you mean by "He spoke time" if it's not created? See my posts in this and the other 2 threads.

Do your think Jesus has already returned back to the earth or is that yet a future event that will happen?

Within time, He will return. That doesn't really matter in regards to time being external to God.

[LookingUp]

On this issue, the key is defining with some precision which issues or fixed (predetermined, unmovable, and certain) and which issues are indefinite (able to be shifted related to our choices).

It is clear that a Sovereign God who stands apart from - transcendently above - everything that is knit to the created order - is thus able to give many details about the future with real clarity. Things will come to pass exactly as He has determined and no one created can change, improve upon, alter, or diminish a thing. It is also clear that, within the framework of how He leads us, that we can "improve our lot", as it were, both now and in the age to come, through obedience. He has really given us the dignity of choice - and our choices really matter.

It's in this grey area that the philosophical grid in which man wrestles is formed: is the future a closed or open system as established by a Sovereign God? I see it as a closed one, with room for variance related to our lives in Him (experiencing Him and partnering with Him to varying degrees) as we make choices to love Him and obey Him.

Your view is contrary to reason, though. I agree with you that God is transcendent to His creation. You begin with the assumption that God created time and thus conclude that the future is closed with room for variance. If, in reality, the future is closed then God perfectly knows the future as closed. God doesn’t know things that are unknowable in the same way God doesn’t do things that are undoable. It’s contrary to reason. If, in reality, the future is party indefinite then God perfectly knows the future as party indefinite.

[LookingUp]

Time is external to God. He is utterly transcendent.

God looks forward through time from the beginning. God looks backward through time from the end. The linear elapsation and sequential passage of time does not contain or constrain the eternal, uncreated, self-subsistent God. Created parameters and properties cannot be imposed upon or applied to God.

There is a sense of total temporal simultaneity to everything in creation for God. God is remembering as much as He is foreknowing. Time is only relevant as a construct of creation itself, into which God expressed and manifested the substance and identity of His transcendent Self.

I agree that God is utterly transcendent. If He created time, He’s transcendent to it. Scripture doesn’t teach that God created time. Why should we assume He did? Scripture demonstrates that in reality the future is partly indefinite.

How did you come to the conclusion that time is created? Scripture? Science?

[LookingUp]

Those 'fixed" things of History are those events in which God directly intervened and determined they MUST happen, while hezekiah.Isaiah shows us that God indeeds intervenes and responds to prayers IF part of his Will and purposes!

God always knew he would heal isaiah, but 'waited" upon the prophet freely deciding to pray to God to heal the King!

Then God was being dishonest with Hezekiah when He told him he would die. He wasn't going to die. God knew that he'd pray and that God would give him an additional 15 years. I don't believe that God was dishonest...

The Hezekiah incident proves that God faces an indefinite future. He perfectly foreknows it. He knows every possible future and it was His intention for Hezekiah to pray and for Him to add the 15 years, but it wasn't fixed until it was in the past. Only past events are fixed. God can "fix" future events in that He, personally, sees to it that they come to pass.

[Redeemed by Grace]

Because time/space/matter are not uncreated, and are not God.

Not Uncreated? Double negative, so then you agree that God created all things?

What do you mean by "He spoke time" if it's not created? See my posts in this and the other 2 threads.

God in creating all things is above all things, yet within all things... meaning is both outside of time and within time, just as light and dark are the same to Him, for He is not bound nor constrained by time, yet His creation is. As I believe that Isaiah, and Daniel, Ezekiel, Paul and John were taken forward beyond their times, God is not outside of time, but outside and inside time.

Within time, He will return. That doesn't really matter in regards to time being external to God.

Sure it does matter, for God He is, and eternal. For man, His created, we became eternal when we were first created.... and our time is enduring, but moves one directional, for which 'Marty', God relates with man through time.

[Redeemed by Grace]

I agree that God is utterly transcendent. If He created time, He’s transcendent to it. Scripture doesn’t teach that God created time. Why should we assume He did? Scripture demonstrates that in reality the future is partly indefinite.

How did you come to the conclusion that time is created? Scripture? Science?

Scripture most certainly does... Read Genesis 1

Genesis 1:3 Then God said, Let there be light; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day 14 Then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day

[LookingUp]

Scripture most certainly does... Read Genesis 1

Genesis 1:3 Then God said, Let there be light; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day 14 Then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day

Where does this say God created time? Time has always existed and this explains how to measure it.

[Redeemed by Grace]

Where does this say God created time? Time has always existed and this explains how to measure it.

I have to ask, are you pulling my leg? Time has always existed? Where do you find that?

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

I agree that God is utterly transcendent. If He created time, He’s transcendent to it.

Yes.

Scripture doesn’t teach that God created time.

Scripture doesn't teach that time is uncreated.

Why should we assume He did?

I'm not, but why should we assume time is uncreated, thus having no beginning and being inherently eternal LIKE God or AS God?

Scripture demonstrates that in reality the future is partly indefinite.

I understand the Molinist view and see merits and demerits.

How did you come to the conclusion that time is created? Scripture? Science?

I come to no conclusions based on Zionist-manipulated science.

God alone is uncreated. If time is not created, it is uncreated. That's ridiculously paradoxical, to say the least. Time and space are conjoined. Time is created, as space is created and matter are created.

Is there some middle ground between created and uncreated?

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Not Uncreated? Double negative,

Um... Yeah, ...and? Are you saying time IS uncreated?

so then you agree that God created all things?

Yes, of course. Only God is uncreated, including His Spirit and His Logos.

God in creating all things is above all things, yet within all things... meaning is both outside of time and within time, just as light and dark are the same to Him, for He is not bound nor constrained by time, yet His creation is. As I believe that Isaiah, and Daniel, Ezekiel, Paul and John were taken forward beyond their times, God is not outside of time, but outside and inside time.

I understand this is your perspective. I agree to the extent that God's externalized Spirit pervades time in omnipresence.

Sure it does matter, for God He is, and eternal. For man, His created, we became eternal when we were first created.... and our time is enduring, but moves one directional, for which 'Marty', God relates with man through time.

Since God alone is uncreated, of course God relates to man through time. I don't really want to get on into whether man is eternal because salvation brings eternal life.

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

It would seem the key foundational question to answer before any of this is... Is time created or uncreated?

I think it's quite an easy answer, since God alone is uncreated.