Does The Future Exist?

[RalphP]

I am absolutely Reformed in my theology, at least as much as I know about Reformed theology, not sure about the L in the tulip, though I lean that way, but not ready to stand on it. J

I have always struggled with the existence of the future in the present.
As I was becoming Reformed in my theology, I have become even more suspicious that the future exist in the future to be viewed by anyone even God.

My first nail in the coffin to the existence of the future available before it happens is prophecy. I see prophecy in the Bible as God saying what will happen in the future and then making sure it will happen exactly has He said. God does not need to see the future and then proclaim it. That would make the future sovereign over God. Nothing can be sovereign over God! So at least from the perspective of prophecy, God does not need to see the future.

Then recently, discussing Romans 8:29-30 again! Hearing people say Rom 8:29-30 means God looked into the future and saw who would choose Him and elected them based on Him seeing them choose Him in the future, is not even implied in the text and also is an attack on the sovereignty of God. IMO

If I am correct in understanding prophecy and election, God does not need the future to exist. For me the existence of the future is an attack on the sovereignty of God.

So my questions are:

Am I off somewhere in these comments?

Where does the Bible say God “looks into” the future?

Does my present position make me an Open Theist?

Looking forward to the conversation!
Ralph

 

[Hentenza]

God doesn't "look" into the future. He merely 'knows" what to us is the future. God is not temporal but works "in" time.

 

[RalphP]

Hi Hentenza
Yes that is a common response but do we have any Scripture that supports it?

Thanks for responding
Ralph

 

[kenrapoza]

The language of the Westminster Confession is that God has foreordained "whatsoever comes to pass." God "knows" the future because He knows what He has decreed from before the foundation of the world. He creates and sustains our very reality or "being". God actively works in history to bring about His purposes. We cannot always understand how He does this, but we know that He is sovereign over everything. He even works through our decisions and actions to accomplish His purposes.

 

[RalphP]

The language of the Westminster Confession is that God has foreordained "whatsoever comes to pass." God "knows" the future because He knows what He has decreed from before the foundation of the world. He creates and sustains our very reality or "being". God actively works in history to bring about His purposes. We cannot always understand how He does this, but we know that He is sovereign over everything. He even works through our decisions and actions to accomplish His purposes.

Thank you Kenrapoza.

So can we say the "future" seperate from what God foreordains does not exist? Another words the "future" is not something that can be looked at like a book on the shelf?


Ralph

 

[Hentenza]

Hi Hentenza
Yes that is a common response but do we have any Scripture that supports it?

Thanks for responding
Ralph

Hi Ralph,

Yes , there is biblical evidence to support an all knowing God. Here are a few biblical references (NKJV)

Psalm 147:5
5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power;
His understanding is infinite.

The Hebrew word rendered here as infinite is מִסְפָּר transliterated as mispar meaning abundance. The root word סָפַר transliterated as saphar means a number of infinite (or finite) narration. The context relates to an infinite understanding both previous, during, and going forward.

Isaiah 46:10
10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,’

God declares the end from the beginning because it is His pleasure. There is no effort in His part.

Psalm 139:4-6
4 For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
5 You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.

God knows the word "on my tongue" before I do. The knowledge is a wonderful knowledge that we, as created beings living in time, can not attain.

Heb. 4
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Nothing is hidden from Him, therefore, His knowledge transcends time.

These are just a few. Just remember that God's thoughts are His thoughts and His ways are His ways. There are some things that we as created, finite beings can only have understanding limited by our nature.

 

[kenrapoza]

Thank you Kenrapoza.

So can we say the "future" seperate from what God foreordains does not exist? Another words the "future" is not something that can be looked at like a book on the shelf?


Ralph

I would say that there is no "ontologically separate future" apart from God sustaining it. In other words, I think the proper conception of God's omniscience, omnipotence and sovereignty is that there is a definite distinction between Creator and creation, but the creation (which includes linear time) only exists so long as God is actively involved in it.

From what I can see, I think the alternative is open theism where God is a pretty good fortune teller, but is not really sovereign. In this view, God looks down the corridor of time and takes an educated guess at what will occur. What I'm saying is that God could shut the whole thing down tomorrow if He wanted to (although He wouldn't because He has already promised that Christ will return and consumate his kingdom).

 

[Regenerated]

Insights from Pink


"Let it not be forgotten that God's providences are but the manifestations of His decrees: what God does in time is only what he purposed in eternity- His own will being the alone cause of all His acts and works."
-A.W. Pink from the The Sovereignty of God

 

[RalphP]

I would say that there is no "ontologically separate future" apart from God sustaining it. In other words, I think the proper conception of God's omniscience, omnipotence and sovereignty is that there is a definite distinction between Creator and creation, but the creation (which includes linear time) only exists so long as God is actively involved in it.

From what I can see, I think the alternative is open theism where God is a pretty good fortune teller, but is not really sovereign. In this view, God looks down the corridor of time and takes an educated guess at what will occur. What I'm saying is that God could shut the whole thing down tomorrow if He wanted to (although He wouldn't because He has already promised that Christ will return and consumate his kingdom).

I think we are seeing the same thing. Thanks

 

[RalphP]

Hi Ralph,

Yes , there is biblical evidence to support an all knowing God. Here are a few biblical references (NKJV)

Psalm 147:5
5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power;
His understanding is infinite.

The Hebrew word rendered here as infinite is מִסְפָּר transliterated as mispar meaning abundance. The root word סָפַר transliterated as saphar means a number of infinite (or finite) narration. The context relates to an infinite understanding both previous, during, and going forward.

Isaiah 46:10
10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,’

God declares the end from the beginning because it is His pleasure. There is no effort in His part.

Psalm 139:4-6
4 For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
5 You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.

God knows the word "on my tongue" before I do. The knowledge is a wonderful knowledge that we, as created beings living in time, can not attain.

Heb. 4
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Nothing is hidden from Him, therefore, His knowledge transcends time.

These are just a few. Just remember that God's thoughts are His thoughts and His ways are His ways. There are some things that we as created, finite beings can only have understanding limited by our nature.

I am not struggling with an all knowing God, just the existance of a future that can be viewed.

Ralph

 

[AMR]

I have always struggled with the existence of the future in the present.
As I was becoming Reformed in my theology, I have become even more suspicious that the future exist in the future to be viewed by anyone even God.

My first nail in the coffin to the existence of the future available before it happens is prophecy. I see prophecy in the Bible as God saying what will happen in the future and then making sure it will happen exactly has He said. God does not need to see the future and then proclaim it. That would make the future sovereign over God. Nothing can be sovereign over God! So at least from the perspective of prophecy, God does not need to see the future.

Your view seems to be that God is not atemporal, but somehow confined within time, versus the God of Scripture who exists outside of the time that He created: in the beginning. From God's vantage point of His creation all things (what we call past, present, and future) are viewed equally vividly.

Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

Eze 11:5 And the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak; Thus saith the Lord; Thus have ye said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them.

Ecclesiastes 3:14-15
14 I know that whatever God does, It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, And nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him.
15 That which is has already been, And what is to be has already been; And God requires an account of what is past.

Time could not simply be some metaphysical concept that has always existed. To reject the idea that time has a beginning forces one to explain an actual infinity. That is, if God existed for an infinite number of moments prior to actual creation, then, in fact, creation has not yet occurred!

Declaring the future does not make the future sovereign over God. In fact, declaring what will be and that declaration coming true is what God Himself stated as evidence that He is the one, true God.

Your view would impose contingency upon God, who cannot be subject to contingencies and remain wholly sovereign. Time is a means created by God by which His creatures can measure the flow of events.

God knows perfectly what to us is the past, present, and future. God, from a lofty height, sees them all laid out before Him equally vividly. This does not mean all times are indistinguishable to God. He certainly knows that an event happened in His creation on 9-11-2001 or that some other event happened on Tuesday. This is because God understands the process by which one event flows into the next event. Nevertheless, God does not sense one moment of His own transcendent consciousness flowing into another. But God fully understands the process by which time flows in the creaturely world He created. Since God can do this, it means God’s experience of time is very different than ours—His relationship to time in ontologically unique.

Does my present position make me an Open Theist?

You are coming dangerously close, my friend. When you make a statement that the future is non-existent in the mind of God and then state that God merely "makes sure" His prophecies come true, it appears that you deny God's atemporality and that God is forever locked into a battle with autonomous creatures and their choices with which God must outwit, outlast, and outplay (the Survivor® God ) to achieve His ultimate ends. This is part and parcel open theism, unsettled theism, as I like to call it.

God knows the exact day and hour of the Eschaton (Matthew 24:36). If the existence of the future in the mind of God holds no meaning and cannot be known by Him, then our Lord was speaking very confusedly. I think not.

AMR

 

[RalphP]

Thanks AMR for your response.

You said, “Your view seems to be that God is not atemporal, but somehow confined within time, versus the God of Scripture who exists outside of the time that He created: in the beginning.”

Not sure what I may have said to give you that opinion, but I do not think God can be confined within time. I believe time is part of God’s creation and God is separate and outside of His creation including time. All time is subject to God, God is not subject to time, past, present and future.

I clearly see Scripture supporting an all knowing God. As your references Acts 15:18 and Eze 11:5 make very clear. Ecclesiastes 3:15 does seem to support the existence of the future. “15 That which is has already been, And what is to be has already been; And God requires an account of what is past.” I do need to spend more time looking at. I wish there were more references to support the existence of the future.

You said, “Time could not simply be some metaphysical concept that has always existed.” I don’t believe that time always existed.

You said, “Declaring the future does not make the future sovereign over God. In fact, declaring what will be and that declaration coming true is what God Himself stated as evidence that He is the one, true God.”
I was not trying to say “Declaring the future…make the future sovereign over God.” What I was saying was that if the future existed outside of God making it, then the uncreated future by God would be sovereign over God. Hope that makes sense. For me if the future exists, God made it.

You said, “You are coming dangerously close, my friend. When you make a statement that the future is non-existent in the mind of God…” I don’t think the future is non-existent in the mind of God. If it does exist, that is the only place it can. IMO

You said, “..it appears that you deny God's atemporality and that God is forever locked into a battle with autonomous creatures and their choices with which God must outwit, outlast, and outplay (the Survivor® God ) to achieve His ultimate ends.” I am sorry I gave you that impression. I do not believe God is in a battle with anyone or anything. That is why I don’t think I am an open theism. I see the way some people explain the existence of the future, as a denial of God sovereignty.

You said, “God knows the exact day and hour of the Eschaton (Matthew 24:36). If the existence of the future in the mind of God holds no meaning and cannot be known by Him, then our Lord was speaking very confusedly. I think not. ” My question is how does God know the exact day? Not because God has to look into the future. But because he makes the future. As I said before, if the future exist anywhere it can only exist in the mind of God.

I am sure I am not being clear about my thoughts. My questions are motivated by people saying God looked into the future, saw who would chose Him, saw who would freely believe in Jesus Christ and based on what God saw in the future, God elected them to be justified and glorified. This understanding of Romans 8:29-30 is based on a belief in a future that God has to submit to when making His decision on who to elect.

Thanks for the time
Ralph

 

[kenrapoza]

Actually that helps clarify things. Knowing that your initial motivation was the Arminian (or semi-pelagian) interpretation of Rom. 8 helps us understand your question. That interpretation denies God's sovereignty in other ways, it is an aberrant view.

 

[Hentenza]

I am not struggling with an all knowing God, just the existance of a future that can be viewed.

Ralph

An all knowing God knows all, past, present, and future. Logically, there is a future because there is a past and a present. He knows all, we know the present and past only. There has been a future since the beginning of time. My contention is that if God is all knowing then by nature he knows the future and since He knows the future then He does not need to look forward to view it because He already knows it, hence, an all knowing God.

 

[AMR]

My questions are motivated by people saying God looked into the future, saw who would chose Him, saw who would freely believe in Jesus Christ and based on what God saw in the future, God elected them to be justified and glorified. This understanding of Romans 8:29-30 is based on a belief in a future that God has to submit to when making His decision on who to elect.

Well, if this is your underlying issue I don't see anyone in this particular forum disagreeing, for all reformed thinkers reject the notion that God chooses His people based on foreseen merit. So, yes, we agree that God is not peering down the corridors of time and rubber-stamping the choices of presumed libertarian free will moral agents.

The free knowledge of our aseitic God is the knowledge which He has of all things actual, that is, of things that existed in the past, that exist in the present, or that will exist in the future. It is founded on God's infinite knowledge of His own all-comprehensive and unchangeable eternal purpose, and is called free knowledge, because it is determined by a concurrent act of the will. It is also called scientia visionis, knowledge of vision.

That the future existence of all the actualities known by God are not yet for us, in no way means they are not yet for God, who, as you agree, exists atemporally, and thus would see all actualities as equally vivid. So, in the strictest sense, there is no future, present, or past, that God experiences, but only an ever-present, eternal now. This does not mean that God is not capable of interacting within the temporal realm or that God does not understand how the succession of moments in that realm relate to one another, and therefore know fully past, present, and future tensed events.

AMR

 

[JM]

John Brine:

"From the Beginning, and before the foundation of the world mean the same. And, there never was an instant, wherein the Church was not the object of a gracious choice unto salvation, or the enjoyment of eternal life. A learned Writer hath been pleased to distinguish upon eternity, a parteante, or that duration, which was before the existence of the world, or things created, and speaks of a first, and an after date therein. The first date respects, he says, God’s existence, which was eternal, and had no beginning: The after date refers unto his decrees, or acts within himself relating unto Christ and the Church, which he affirms had beginning: He sums up what he had before more largely, expressed, and pleaded for, in this assertion, viz. God himself was before the conceptions and thoughts which he entertained of his Works: Before, besure in order of nature; but how long before, the Thing neither speaks nor the Word declares."

"The divine decrees are of the same date with the existence of God. His Being is not of one date, and his purposes of another, a later date. Besides, to suppose, that there was an everlasting, or a duration, before the existence of a creature, that really had a beginning, or commencement, is to imagine, that there was a duration, which was neither eternal, nor temporary; but something between both, which is an highly absurd imagination."

"If there was a duration before the production of the world, which had commencement, why may there not be a duration, after the dissolution of it, which will have an end? And if the former is called everlasting, tho’ it had beginning, why may not the latter be so called, tho’ it should have an end? As some imagine it will; but both are foolish dreams and alike untrue. Farther, if this Liberty may be taken in interpreting the Scripture..."

 

[RalphP]

Thank you all for you comments. I have enjoyed the conversations. As I said, my thoughts about the future come from the false interpretation those who reject Gods sovereignty in mans salvation by the belief in a future that is separate from God, that God has to refer to before making His decisions. Clearly unbiblical. But I was hoping to be able to show them how there view of the future is also unbiblical. Because with out that view they are stuck seeing God as completely sovereign in mans salvation in Romans 8:29-30 and maybe that would be the beginning of them being able to see all the other verses that clearly confirm Gods sovereignty in mans salvation.

This comment from Kenrapoza confirms what I am seeing in Scripture. "The language of the Westminster Confession is that God has foreordained "whatsoever comes to pass." God "knows" the future because He knows what He has decreed from before the foundation of the world. He creates and sustains our very reality or "being". God actively works in history to bring about His purposes. We cannot always understand how He does this, but we know that He is sovereign over everything. He even works through our decisions and actions to accomplish His purposes.

 

[hlaltimus]

God is indeed "all knowing", but it is important to understand, (if that is even possible,) why He is all knowing, or omniscient. God is all knowing, (and therefore knows what is our relative future,) because He must know, as He has an unfixed moment of consciousness. I personally do not believe that God "looks ahead" to see what will be...He looks back upon what was concerning anything that is yet future for us at any one point in our fixed moment of consciousness in time. Since we have a fixed moment of consciousness unlike God, we unavoidably stumble in any attempt to satisfyingly comprehend such superior advantage resident in this Being. However, that discrepancy is much to our advantage, as he is a great fool who covets a truly unlimited knowledge, as that would prove to be an even worse hell than hell itself. Now there is a "future", but it is only relative to the consciousness of God, and contrariwise not so with us. In our conscious existence, there is really only "now" and nothing else, but not so with this fearful, mighty and profound Being. Saints in heaven never become little "gods", but they are not far from it in another sense: They never really do partake of Christ's divinity, but they are happily and contentedly united to Christ's humanity, and by virtue of that union have access to the use of His divinity, though not to the proper possession of it. Here is where Peter, (a mere man,) raised the dead just as Jesus, (a true God/man,) had done, not because Peter had magically become a "god" as Jesus was honestly "God", but because Peter had access to the use of Christ's creative potential through the cooperative indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God, sent by Christ and from the Father. Saints in glory perpetually enjoy the use of Christ's divine power just as Peter did on Earth, and since He, (our Lord Jesus Christ,) will always have an unfixed moment of consciousness, they, (the saints still and eternally united to His humanity,) also enjoy the incomprehensible benefit of the use of His unfixed conscious moment. What this means by way of implication is further beyond our comprehensibility, than the furthest galaxies are from our tiny little planet. I not only believe that there is a future, (relative only to God's person though,) but that saints may indeed travel forward in what they would call their experimental moment of "time", even though they are in an eternal state. In our world, we can measure actions, objects and the duration of existence, and we call that "time", however in eternity, objects and actions may still be measured, but the duration of both the objects and the existence of the realm cannot be measured, as a termination of either is just as impossible as a termination of God Himself would be, and that is part of what makes heaven so blissful and hell so horrid. Now what I proposing here is not clearly taught to my knowledge anywhere in the scriptures...but neither is it denied. Scriptural "silence" does not necessarily argue vacuity of truth, as one normally doesn't close a door to hide nothing, but may indeed close a door to hide something. In the end, we must really just wait and see.