Do you believe the universe is fatalistic or based on probability?

JohnB445 said:

What do you think? Does the Bible give us any ideas?

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Are those our only choices?

I mean, I could say on probability, because only one thing ever happens; nothing else can happen, as far as history has shown, anyway. So, only one thing is probable. The rest is just us guessing.

Fatalistic is wrong, because this is not cold fate, but God's overwhelmingly wonderful plan coming about precisely as he intended from the beginning.

Yeah, there is all sorts of evidence in the Bible. Start with the fact that God created.

JohnB445 said:

What do you think? Does the Bible give us any ideas?

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God tends to operate through the kind of faith that does not question the possibility of what is being asked for.

Faith in God destroys the concept of probability.

Gregory Thompson said:

God tends to operate through the kind of faith that does not question the possibility of what is being asked for.

Faith in God destroys the concept of probability.

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Neither ... God has a plan and it will play out just as His written word says it will .... we just don't know when. God is in total control .... he allows things to happen .... but we aren't privy to the how and/or why of it. We have choices and there are consequences for our choices ... God may or may not intervene. God don't make choices for us but does know what choices we will make.

Gregory Thompson said:

God tends to operate through the kind of faith that does not question the possibility of what is being asked for.

Faith in God destroys the concept of probability.

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'Probability', like 'chance' and 'randomness', is just a quick way to say, "I don't know". Probably.

There's nothing wrong with using the word, as long as we understand that for God, there is no such thing —it is only in our minds.

eleos1954 said:

Neither ... God has a plan and it will play out just as His written word says it will .... we just don't know when. God is in total control .... he allows things to happen .... but we aren't privy to the how and/or why of it. We have choices and there are consequences for our choices ... God may or may not intervene. God don't make choices for us but does know what choices we will make.

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Probability is a human concept, and God's kingdom blows all such probability out of the water.

There is indeed a plan, but only the Father knows what it is.

Mark Quayle said:

'Probability', like 'chance' and 'randomness', is just a quick way to say, "I don't know". Probably.

There's nothing wrong with using the word, as long as we understand that for God, there is no such thing —it is only in our minds.

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Yes, it's a human concept. The concept of "believe completely and anything can happen" destroys the concept of probability.

What do mean by "based on probability?"

In my mother's family there were four children. When she was two years old both she and her four year old brother caught the Spanish Flu which was going around the world. He died, and she survived.

Later her younger sister got meningitis at the age of 13. She apparently walked around the house with her head up for 18 months, then walked around with her head down for 18 months, then she died.

I think my mother may have had a boyfriend who went down on the HMAS Sydney during WWII. It sank in 1941 and was not found till 2008, 67 years. But I'm not sure of that. If he had survived I suppose I wouldn't be here - was that a statistic?

I suspect this turned my mother off God. "Probability", "God's perfect plan?", "Fatalistic" ... I don't know. I suppose it's like the Black Death killing a third of the population in some areas - was it the luck of the draw if someone survived or died?

I've had enough "spiritual" experiences to know God is there, and that He knows us. But I also don't like HIm much sometimes.

I also have no doubt He has a plan. But I have no idea how He goes about it.

Mark Quayle said:

Are those our only choices?

I mean, I could say on probability, because only one thing ever happens; nothing else can happen, as far as history has shown, anyway. So, only one thing is probable. The rest is just us guessing.

Fatalistic is wrong, because this is not cold fate, but God's overwhelmingly wonderful plan coming about precisely as he intended from the beginning.

Yeah, there is all sorts of evidence in the Bible. Start with the fact that God created.

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That's good. I would have automatically said an optimistic fatalist but your right here, and make an excellent point. Maybe we shouldn't say fatalist at all...

JohnB445 said:

Do you believe the universe is fatalistic or based on probability?

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Well, fatalistic can mean everything is already determined. I would say this could be true of the universe, but God is involved in what will really happen. But that is part of God's destiny . . . I mean, He also is destined for every thing He does: He can not change from whatever it is that He will do > it will happen.

So, does the Bible show that God has a plan for the universe, and therefore this will happen?

Romans 8:20-21 >

"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." (Romans 8:20-21)

So, from this I see that the universe was "subjected to futility" "because of Him who subjected it in hope". But it will be delivered from corruption and will be in "the glorious liberty of the children of God." And our glorious liberty will include how our bodies are resurrected into God's own incorruptible almighty state. So, if also the universe is delivered like our bodies, this would mean God will resurrect also the whole universe into His level of almighty and incorruptible glory.

If this is what God's word means, this is not "probable", but sure to happen, how He means this. So, it is maybe fatalistic, but how God will have this happen, in HIs working of things.

So, the messy stuff happening now will not decide what will become of the earth. It can seem right now that the universe is fatalistically doomed to be ruined by humans and evil. So, it is not fatalistic, like this, if God will resurrect it all to become new.

Jesus says, on Revelation, "Behold, I make all things new," in Revelation 21:5. I see this means new in resurrectional glory.

com7fy8 said:

Well, fatalistic can mean everything is already determined. I would say this could be true of the universe, but God is involved in what will really happen. But that is part of God's destiny . . . I mean, He also is destined for every thing He does: He can not change from whatever it is that He will do > it will happen.

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Can you demonstrate that God is fated/destined to do whatever he does? The idea that he 'cannot' change himself is an anthropomorphism, just as the idea that he 'cannot lie' and so on; anthropomorphisms are written by God in the Bible for the sake of the reader, and yet they are not inaccurate —when you say that God has a destiny, though, you go a bit too far. God is not like us. To be God, he is not subject to any principle external to himself. He didn't happen upon any already existing reality to fit himself to it. IT is drawn on HIS doing. It would not be inaccurate to say that God invented reality, though the word, 'invented', doesn't really do that job.

One would exclaim at the foolishness of the question, "Can God make a rock too big for him to pick up?" The idea that God must only do this or that, (for whatever reason), or that he is fated/destined in any way, is a purely human construction. We suppose it to be logical because we threw some words together that WE admit apply to us, or even to all created things. But God is not created; instead, everything is created by him.

God is the only absolutely free being. That does not imply that he is 'free to sin', for example. But the fact that WE say he is not free to sin, means nothing. It is a foolish statement on the order of the question above about the rock. God does what he does. He does not sin.

And where, in the Bible it says, he 'cannot' do this or that, the language in which it is written is not modern English. To the readers back then, it most likely meant something along the lines of, for example, "The notion that God could lie is impossible (ridiculous?)." or, "It cannot be that God would lie." There is no demonstration of any inability on God's part. There is only demonstration of our small self-centered minds. God does not compare to us and cannot be measured by any of our statements or thoughts.

com7fy8 said:

So, does the Bible show that God has a plan for the universe, and therefore this will happen?

Romans 8:20-21 >

"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." (Romans 8:20-21)

So, from this I see that the universe was "subjected to futility" "because of Him who subjected it in hope". But it will be delivered from corruption and will be in "the glorious liberty of the children of God." And our glorious liberty will include how our bodies are resurrected into God's own incorruptible almighty state. So, if also the universe is delivered like our bodies, this would mean God will resurrect also the whole universe into His level of almighty and incorruptible glory.

If this is what God's word means, this is not "probable", but sure to happen, how He means this. So, it is maybe fatalistic, but how God will have this happen, in HIs working of things.

So, the messy stuff happening now will not decide what will become of the earth. It can seem right now that the universe is fatalistically doomed to be ruined by humans and evil. So, it is not fatalistic, like this, if God will resurrect it all to become new.

Jesus says, on Revelation, "Behold, I make all things new," in Revelation 21:5. I see this means new in resurrectional glory.

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Good thoughts, there.

Mark Quayle said:

when you say that God has a destiny, though, you go a bit too far. God is not like us. To be God, he is not subject to any principle external to himself.

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I do not mean He is subject to some external principle. By destiny I simply mean what really is going to happen . . . and therefore it can not be stopped, since it will happen.

For example, God did not choose to exist. He simply always has existed. So, this is included in His destiny of simply what is true and always will be. This is not because of some external principle, but because of how God is, this is sure to be.

And because He is good and nothing is strong enough to change Him from being good, He is incapable of doing evil > James 1:13 < or being changed by evil. So, this is part of His destiny, of what can not change. And this is because of how He is, in His character, not because of some external influence.

com7fy8 said:

I do not mean He is subject to some external principle. By destiny I simply mean what really is going to happen . . . and therefore it can not be stopped, since it will happen.

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Maybe a better way to say it, is that your statement is only from a human point of view. You consider what really is going to happen, as clinical fact or something, which, apparently God fits into. Notice when you said, "By destiny I simply mean what really is going to happen", but this time you stopped short of saying, "God's destiny." God is the source of fact.

com7fy8 said:

For example, God did not choose to exist. He simply always has existed. So, this is included in His destiny of simply what is true and always will be. This is not because of some external principle, but because of how God is, this is sure to be.

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Actually, existence is what it is because God exists. That is not his destiny, because existence is completely HIS doing—not a principle that he fits.

com7fy8 said:

And because He is good and nothing is strong enough to change Him from being good, He is incapable of doing evil > James 1:13 < or being changed by evil. So, this is part of His destiny, of what can not change. And this is because of how He is, in His character, not because of some external influence.

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Again, the notion of his being "unable" is misleading. It is not that he is not able. It is that the mere consideration of such a thing is plain bogus. You may as well say that he is unable to make a rock too big for him to pick up.

God did not come into nor fit into nor find fact with which to do what he planned. There is no, "just is", except God himself, and even that does not describe him except to human minds. God is the only "raw fact". Logic and reality are God's 'invention'. He is not subject to any principle but what he does. He is self-existent.

No, it's intentional.

For the most part, Creation seems to run mechanically,* but God still oversees its processes.
Proverbs 16:33 says,

*Math & engineering would not work so consistently if it did not.