- Apr 26, 2009
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Hmm. I understand what you are saying. Thank you for correcting me. However even if there is no such thing as past and future for him. he would still see himself seeing himself changing something for the simply reason that he controls the universe and sometimes he would have to join liner time inorder to change events on earth.It seems you don't understand a very crucial element in your own argumentbut you're in good company because a lot of people miss it when they raise this argument.
Specifically, this argument only works with regard to beings that are bounded by temporal and spatial limitations (space-time dimensions of this universe). Beings like you and me. We are constrained by spatio-temporal realities. We have a linear experience of time; the 'past' is distinct from the 'present', and both are distinct from the 'future'. And our spatial experience is similar; the fact that I am standing 'here' means that I'm not standing 'there'.
This is not the case for God. As the creator, he transcends (exists independent of) this universe with its temporal and spatial dimensions. He does not "see the past, present, and future at will" because such things don't exist to him; i.e., for God there is no such thing as a 'past' or 'future' to contemplate. With respect to his frame of reference, it is incoherent to talk of what he will do or has done, because God exists at every point of time and space simultaneously (omnipresent). For God, there is no such thing as changing what he "has done" or planning what he "will do" because, for God, there is only what he "is doing"; God does not "foresee," he only "sees" because everything is present to him in an eternal 'now'.
You could, of course, argue that God does experience things like 'past' and 'future' or that he didn't create the physical universe, but then you would no longer be talking about the God of Christian theism. Other gods might not withstand critical scrutiny. All I know is that the God of Christian theism does.
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