Free Will, Predestination and Time

[zippy2006]

The historical issue has been whether will, foreknowledge and predestination are God's essence or God's energies i.e. what He is or what He does.

I'm not sure. Does anyone really hold that foreknowledge and predestination are part of God's essence? Rather, they are part of his positive and contingent will or plan.

St. Gregory Palamas describes what happens when the two are confused:

"If the energies of God do not in any respect differ from the divine
essence, then neither will they differ from one another. Therefore
God’s will is in no way different from His foreknowledge, and consequently
either God does not foreknow all things—because He does
not will all that occurs—or else He wills evil also, since He foreknows
all. ...Thus God’s foreknowledge differs from His will, and so both differ
from the divine essence."
- Philokalia Vol. IV, op. cit., “Topics of Natural and Theological Science,” pp. 392–393 c.

Distinguishing the divine energies, St. John of Damascus writes:

“We ought to understand that while God knows all things beforehand, yet He does
not predestine all things. For He knows beforehand those things that are in our
power, but He does not predestine them. For it is not His will that evil be done nor
does He compel virtue. Hence, predestination is the work of the divine command
based on foreknowledge.”
- De Fide Orthodoxa, Ch. 44 “Concerning Prescience and Predestination.”

The other thing to note is that in the West we would generally reject the claim that God does not will or predestine all things, although this does lead to certain predicaments.

 

[aganrock]

I'm not sure. Does anyone really hold that foreknowledge and predestination are part of God's essence?

Thomas Aquinas defines God as being "pure act". (Summa Theologica, 1.11.4, 1.25.1, 1.25.2) Here, actus corresponds to ἐνέργεια or energy. This means that God's actions (or energies) are contained in His essence or, simply, are Essence. This includes the divine will and, by logical extension, providence, foreknowledge and predestination. In fact, Aquinas makes this connection here:

"Whence the predestination of some to eternal salvation presupposes, in the order of reason, that God wills their salvation; and to this belong both election and love:---love, inasmuch as He wills them this particular good of eternal salvation; since to love is to wish well to anyone, as stated above (Q[20], AA[2],3):---election, inasmuch as He wills this good to some in preference to others; since He reprobates some, as stated above (A[3])." (Summa, 1.23.4)

So, if predestination is predicated on the divine will, then it must also be essence. And, as a result, free-will in man is subordinated if not precluded outright:

“Whatsoever is in man disposing him towards salvation, is all included under the effect
of predestination—even the preparation for grace” (Summa, 1.23.5)

 

[Mark Quayle]

But how does "the view from 'down here'" soften the difficulties of free will and predestination?

It doesn't. It complicates them.

Or do you mean, how does the argument that God's POV is simple, that I tried to describe, soften the difficulties? I think you would at least agree that God sees no difficulty between them.

For example, Hitler perpetrated the Shoah. If that event was not independent of God's causation, then can God remain just? If it was independent of God's causation, then can God remain sovereign?

That is an example of what I meant when I said that you have two sovereigns reigning over the same kingdom, and I don't see how the time element could solve the difficulty. It does soften the difficulty of foreknowledge and free will, but apparently not predestination and free will.

The analysis you pose to answer the question of Hitler's Shoah, i.e. the questions you ask to describe your puzzlement, are asked from a human POV, as both are ludicrous —we know very well that God is both sovereign and just. It was not independent of God's causation. We know that God intended that it happen, and that he was very far above Hitler in the chain of causation. God was not ignorant of Hitler's doings when he created, so obviously, from the POV alone, God intended that it happen. But we can also know that God had a purpose for it to happen, or he would have 'begun the chain of causation differently', and it wouldn't have happened.

"The heart of a king [is] streams of waters in the hand of YHWH, He inclines it wherever He pleases." Proverbs 21:1

My point is that even if Durangoda's intuition is incorrect, the same problem would persist, for if free beings can act outside of time then the "two sovereigns" problem would persist unchanged.

One sovereign can act outside of time; the other cannot. Nor is that other actually sovereign, but only in some sense independent of peers.

 

[zippy2006]

Thomas Aquinas defines God as being "pure act". (Summa Theologica, 1.11.4, 1.25.1, 1.25.2) Here, actus corresponds to ἐνέργεια or energy.

Why would you think it corresponds to ἐνέργεια? Thomas wrote in Latin, not Greek, and he simply did not understand God as pure energy in the Palamite sense.

So, if predestination is predicated on the divine will, then it must also be essence. And, as a result, free-will in man is subordinated if not precluded outright:

“Whatsoever is in man disposing him towards salvation, is all included under the effect
of predestination—even the preparation for grace” (Summa, 1.23.5)

Aquinas does connect divine knowledge and will with the divine essence, but your implicit claim is untrue, namely your claim that whatever God wills he wills necessarily (because the divine will is grounded in the divine essence). Here is Aquinas' response to such an idea:

Objection 6. Further, whatever God knows, He knows necessarily. But as the divine knowledge is His essence, so is the divine will. Therefore whatever God wills, He wills necessarily.

Reply to Objection 6. As the divine essence is necessary of itself, so is the divine will and the divine knowledge; but the divine knowledge has a necessary relation to the thing known; not the divine will to the thing willed. The reason for this is that knowledge is of things as they exist in the knower; but the will is directed to things as they exist in themselves. Since then all other things have necessary existence inasmuch as they exist in God; but no absolute necessity so as to be necessary in themselves, in so far as they exist in themselves; it follows that God knows necessarily whatever He wills, but does not will necessarily whatever He wills.

-Summa Theologiae, Ia, Q. 19, A. 3, ad 6​

This means, among other things, that free will is not "subordinated if not precluded outright."

So, if predestination is predicated on the divine will, then it must also be essence. And, as a result, free-will in man is subordinated if not precluded outright:

“Whatsoever is in man disposing him towards salvation, is all included under the effect
of predestination—even the preparation for grace” (Summa, 1.23.5)

Aquinas answers such a charge in the very first objection of the question that you reference, where he quotes the same John of Damascus that you quoted earlier:

Objection 1: In De Fide Orthodoxa 2 Damascene says, “We must understand that God foreknows all things but does not predetermine all things. He foreknows what exists in us, but He does not predetermine it.” But human merits and demerits exist in us insofar as we are masters of our own acts through the power of free choice. Therefore, whatever pertains to merits and demerits is not predestined by God. And thus the predestination of men is ruled out.

Reply to objection 1: Damascene is using the name ‘predetermination’ for the imposition of necessity, as happens with natural things that are predetermined to a single effect. This is clear from the fact that he adds, “For He does not will malice, nor does He compel virtue.” Hence, predestination is not being ruled out.

-Summa Theologiae, Ia, Q. 23, A. 1, ad 1​

The idea here is that Aquinas does not understand "predestination" to refer to something that would preclude free will. The larger point is that, for Aquinas, just because something flows from God's essence does not mean that it exists in a necessary manner.

 

[zippy2006]

[The Shoah] was not independent of God's causation. We know that God intended that it happen, and that he was very far above Hitler in the chain of causation. God was not ignorant of Hitler's doings when he created, so obviously, from the POV alone, God intended that it happen. But we can also know that God had a purpose for it to happen, or he would have 'begun the chain of causation differently', and it wouldn't have happened.

You are claiming that God intended and caused a great evil, the Shoah, in order to bring about a further purpose. You wish to simultaneously affirm that God is just, and yet we know that to do evil that good may come is to commit an injustice (Romans 3:8). So you have a contradiction to deal with, and these sorts of claims do not help address the contradiction:

• "God's point of view is different from our point of view."
• "God is just; he would never commit an injustice."

 

[Mark Quayle]

You are claiming that God intended and caused a great evil, the Shoah, in order to bring about a further purpose. You wish to simultaneously affirm that God is just, and yet we know that to do evil that good may come is to commit an injustice (Romans 3:8). So you have a contradiction to deal with, and these sorts of claims do not help address the contradiction:

• "God's point of view is different from our point of view."
• "God is just; he would never commit an injustice."

God did not do evil. For us to take such a responsibility into our hands would be evil, because we are not the Creator. God is not subject to the laws he obligates us to, any more than parents don't have to be in bed by 8:00.

Your notion that he cannot do that and be just is to claim that these happen by mere chance, and that is simply self-contradictory, not to mention it claims God is subject to things beyond himself, which is, sorry, in my book it is blasphemy. If God is subject to any principle from outside himself, he is not First Cause, and therefore, not God.

 

[zippy2006]

God did not do evil. For us to take such a responsibility into our hands would be evil, because we are not the Creator. God is not subject to the laws he obligates us to, any more than parents don't have to be in bed by 8:00.

So you would say that when Hitler killed millions of innocent people in the Shoah, he was committing an evil act, but when God killed millions of innocent people in the Shoah, he was not committing an evil act? This is your position, is it not? That the law against killing innocents applies to Hitler but not to God?

Your notion that he cannot do that and be just is to claim that these happen by mere chance, and that is simply self-contradictory,...

How so? What are the two propositions that I am committed to which contradict one another?

...not to mention it claims God is subject to things beyond himself, which is, sorry, in my book it is blasphemy. If God is subject to any principle from outside himself, he is not First Cause, and therefore, not God.

It seems to me that you are falling directly into the Euthyphro dilemma, for you are in effect claiming that God's law flows entirely from his will, which is "outside himself," and which does not bind God. Such is theological Voluntarism.

 

[aganrock]

Why would you think it corresponds to ἐνέργεια? Thomas wrote in Latin, not Greek, and he simply did not understand God as pure energy in the Palamite sense.

Because all divine acts, .i.e. things that God does, are identified with the divine energies. St. Gregory did not consider God to be pure act. And, there is no "Palamite sense," since St. Gregory's understanding of the divine energies, in contrast with the divine essence, was the same as that taught by the Fathers during the previous thousand years.

Aquinas' response to Objection 6 in 1.19.3 presupposes that there can be something in the divine essence that may not necessarily be there in the first place, such as willing something. But this cannot be the case since the divine essence is eternal and unchangeable. When any act –necessary or not– is identified with essence then it becomes a definition of what a being is. Saying, for example, “God may or may not will,” becomes the same as saying “God may or may not be,” because a pure-act God is what He does and cannot do otherwise.

The larger point is that, for Aquinas, just because something flows from God's essence does not mean that it exists in a necessary manner.

But for Aquinas, nothing can flow from God's essence. If he did believe that, then the East-West schism might have been healed.

 

[Halbhh]

And God absolutely did predestine everything that comes to pass.

Ah, I remember this is a key thing to look closely at. We know as a certainty God predestines things, and that means He plans them and then causes them to happen, as HTasianas wrote out well in post #2.

But, if you read post #2 with care you noticed that 'everything' isn't necessarily including 'everything' they way many of us use the word, where we mean even the most trivial and meaningless things (such as which way a butterfly flies or which flower it visits first or 2nd...).

Instead, myself where you wrote "everything" I would have written "everything that matters".

God plans out all that is ultimately important. That does not mean he causes a common cold or a car wreck....but it can mean sometimes He intervenes during a car wreck....

So, when you say 'everything' you will get more than a few of us saying 'wait a second' because you are possibly using the word in a radically different way than many of us use the word.
So, if you actually mean 'everything that matters' instead of literally everything, then you could word that more exactly, and that will help communication.

So, when I agreed with post #2, it's because there isn't even one bit of it that is mistaken as I understand. I agree with post #2 not just in large part, but in all the parts.

 

[Halbhh]

Is there some reason to think that every word is not important somewhere else in Scripture?

Here is an apt explanation of Genesis 6:6 from a site that I find no reason to think is Reformed or Calvinist:
"The King James version says, “And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart” (Genesis 6:6 also Exodus 32:14). But the New King James Version gives a clearer meaning to this verse, “And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”

"Therefore, the words “it repented” the Lord, can be understood from the explanatory statement “it grieved him” to His heart. This shows that the repentance of God does not mean a change in His nature or purpose. The “repentance” of God is an expression showing the pain of divine compassion that is caused by man’s sin." I don't wish to add more words than necessary to what they said, but I ask you to remember that God is often presented in Scripture in Anthropomorphic language. We are looking at this question from a humano-centric, temporal, point of view.

Your other reference isn't the only other one, by far. But I would note that God had put Moses into the position of pleading with him, "standing in the gap" between God and Israel, to turn God's anger aside, and that, for the sake of his name. Psalm 106 gives a good review of those events.

One such reference, Exodus 32:14 “So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.” actually comes out and says that God "changed his mind". This has been explained in several different ways, and I won't lay them out here, but will say, that other references say such things as that God is not like us, to "change his mind", and Scripture does not conflict with Scripture. It is saying (and context bears this out) that God changed the force of his direction.

Keeping in mind how we will of course already agree on 95%- 99% of things in scripture, the most interesting part to me is the very last part, tied up in the details of "God is not like us, to "change his mind" -- of course God isn't unreliable or unsteady. So, the question isn't whether God will suddenly back out of His promises -- He never will.

But instead a very different thing entirely: whether He allows real free will, whether He does change His mind at times about the particular path by which He will get to His stated goals He will certainty accomplish.

(on one level this is just a highly speculative discussion about what we cannot know everything about)

To me, it's seems clear from full reading of scripture (all the bible) that He does indeed respond to what we do.

(that this isn't just a show or just an illusion, or just a play following a set script, but real)

While we know of many such passages, of course I won't quote to you 5 passages when just 1 or 2 will do. But they never give us the full meaning without all that context from full natural reading.

I feel the only way to see the aspects of this more fully is to read without a viewpoint and really listen, and read through the entire bible, so as to learn which things we picked up in youth are correct and which are not. In other words, I try to be silent in my mind as I listen to the words --> I try to silence all the doctrines/ideas from men, and better hear. So, instead of a doctrine talking over the text, the text does all of the talking instead. Then very gradually over the years, we learn more and more.

 

[Mark Quayle]

So you would say that when Hitler killed millions of innocent people in the Shoah, he was committing an evil act, but when God killed millions of innocent people in the Shoah, he was not committing an evil act? This is your position, is it not? That the law against killing innocents applies to Hitler but not to God?

Was it murder for God to kill the multitudes of people he did in the Old Testament? While you think about that, why not claim God kills us all by old age? Is not old age in his will? We are his creatures, not Hitler's, to do with as he sees fit.

How so? What are the two propositions that I am committed to which contradict one another?

The one proposition, that anything can happen by chance, is self-contradictory. Chance has no causative ability.

It seems to me that you are falling directly into the Euthyphro dilemma, for you are in effect claiming that God's law flows entirely from his will, which is "outside himself," and which does not bind God. Such is theological Voluntarism.

How is God's law or God's will from outside himself? I don't begin to believe such foolishness. And it is not I who judge God by the laws he subjects us to.

 

[Halbhh]

Chance has no causative ability.

Just a friendly thought:

Just saw this by random reading, and my thought: 'Chance' does have causative ability if the dice are loaded, say by design to roll 11s a lot.... Then strangely enough in the eyes of the onlookers, a lot of 11s come up over time.... Things can be designed to unfold, like a flower from a seed, including 'chance', and of course as you'd agree, then it's sorta a new thing that is more than just simple 'random chance', but a kind of chance that leans toward a designed goal.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Ah, I remember this is a key thing to look closely at. We know as a certainty God predestines things, and that means He plans them and then causes them to happen, as HTasianas wrote out well in post #2.

But, if you read post #2 with care you noticed that 'everything' isn't necessarily including 'everything' they way many of us use the word, where we mean even the most trivial and meaningless things (such as which way a butterfly flies or which flower it visits first or 2nd...).

Instead, myself where you wrote "everything" I would have written "everything that matters".

God plans out all that is ultimately important. That does not mean he causes a common cold or a car wreck....but it can mean sometimes He intervenes during a car wreck....

So, when you say 'everything' you will get more than a few of us saying 'wait a second' because you are possibly using the word in a radically different way than many of us use the word.
So, if you actually mean 'everything that matters' instead of literally everything, then you could word that more exactly, and that will help communication.

So, when I agreed with post #2, it's because there isn't even one bit of it that is mistaken as I understand. I agree with post #2 not just in large part, but in all the parts.

Nope. I mean absolutely everything, which is in keeping with all the attributes of God. Every smallest detail, down to the motions of the smallest particle or the tiniest force, is part of God's plan, as part and parcel of him being First Cause. Nothing can happen by chance, as that is self-contradictory, and also logically impossible for cause-and-effect to have any small gaps. To say that something exists that God did not cause, is to claim either that there is causation by chance, (which is to say that things affect God that come from outside him, and over which he has no control), or is to claim that there are other little first causes trotting about the planet; both are monstrous logical contradictions, not to mention unbiblical.

Consider the thing said poetically by science writers, that the seeds of everything we see today, were sown by the Big Bang. If one accepts the notion of the Big Bang, and rules out the intervention of God within time, then the logic is otherwise flawless, because cause-and-effect is pervasive. If God is First Cause (and I will accept no God who is subject to principles from beyond himself), then deistically, at least, the logic is flawless, that God caused absolutely everything. If, contrary to deism, I claim that God not only created, but also intervenes within time, then the logic is still flawless, because he still remains the only first cause.

 

[Mark Quayle]

"Chance" is just our substitute for "I don't know". Random, likewise. If the dice are loaded, it is not chance. But God controls the dice regardless.

Proverbs 16:33 "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD."

 

[Mark Quayle]

Just a friendly thought:

Just saw this by random reading, and my thought: 'Chance' does have causative ability if the dice are loaded, say by design to roll 11s a lot.... Then strangely enough in the eyes of the onlookers, a lot of 11s come up over time.... Things can be designed to unfold, like a flower from a seed, including 'chance', and of course as you'd agree, then it's sorta a new thing that is more than just simple 'random chance', but a kind of chance that leans toward a designed goal.

"Chance" is just our substitute for "I don't know". Random, likewise. If the dice are loaded, it is not chance. But God controls the dice regardless.

Proverbs 16:33 "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD."

 

[Halbhh]

Nope. I mean absolutely everything, which is in keeping with all the attributes of God. Every smallest detail, down to the motions of the smallest particle or the tiniest force, is part of God's plan, as part and parcel of him being First Cause.

"Every smallest detail, down to the motions of the smallest particle or the tiniest force, is part of God's plan" == Well, that's true! Certainly this I quoted out is true, surely. How would it be otherwise? Maybe I need to write a much longer post....

After all God creating "all things", meaning 100% of what exists, must mean, to a believer like me who believes that God creating all things must mean God created all of Nature's attributes.

All we can find.

To a believer that God created all things who also knows some of physics, like how gravity works, that believer must believe that God created gravity also.

And all of physics, both what we know of so far, and also what we haven't yet found.

God created all of this physics we are discovering slowly over time.

Does that make sense?

Your first word, "Nope." -- that doesn't make any sense to me in response to my post that I can figure out. It's like I said 1 + 1 = 2, and the you responded " Nope! 2 + 3 = 5!" as if I'd not agree that 2 + 3 = 5 see. That's what this is like above for me.

I don't think that's 100% my fault though.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Keeping in mind how we will of course already agree on 95%- 99% of things in scripture, the most interesting part to me is the very last part, tied up in the details of "God is not like us, to "change his mind" -- of course God isn't unreliable or unsteady. So, the question isn't whether God will suddenly back out of His promises -- He never will.

But instead a very different thing entirely: whether He allows real free will, whether He does change His mind at times about the particular path by which He will get to His stated goals He will certainty accomplish.

(on one level this is just a highly speculative discussion about what we cannot know everything about)

To me, it's seems clear from full reading of scripture (all the bible) that He does indeed respond to what we do.

(that this isn't just a show or just an illusion, or just a play following a set script, but real)

But your logic here assumes the possibility of things happening by chance. It is not so. Worse, it assumes that him responding to what we do, means he hadn't planned for that too, to happen. In fact, we find several places in scripture that show exactly that happening. For example, him installing Moses into the position he did, so that Moses would reason with him and turn him away from wiping out his chosen people.

While we know of many such passages, of course I won't quote to you 5 passages when just 1 or 2 will do. But they never give us the full meaning without all that context from full natural reading.

I feel the only way to see the aspects of this more fully is to read without a viewpoint and really listen, and read through the entire bible, so as to learn which things we picked up in youth are correct and which are not. In other words, I try to be silent in my mind as I listen to the words --> I try to silence all the doctrines/ideas from men, and better hear. So, instead of a doctrine talking over the text, the text does all of the talking instead. Then very gradually over the years, we learn more and more.

There is no way to read without presuppositions; we cannot help but have a viewpoint. One of these is the simple fact that we are self-focused, time-dependent people. It is a very worthy endeavor to try to read without presuppositions, but it will not happen. But I do agree it is always best to bear in mind when we read, and reason, that we are indeed biased, and to thus keep in mind that our conclusions MUST be held tentatively.

We also are required to compare reading to reading, that is, scripture to scripture, so as not to take the first assumption that may present itself to our ignorant (or open) minds. We are not to be fools, to conclude one thing and then conclude the opposite because another reference seems to contradict the first. (But by your demeanor, I think you know this, and were only trying to make the point, which I do agree with.)

 

[zippy2006]

Because all divine acts, .i.e. things that God does, are identified with the divine energies.

Not in the West.

St. Gregory did not consider God to be pure act.

Sorry, what I meant was "energy in the Palamite sense," not, "pure energy in the Palamite sense" (i.e. the object of 'the Palamite sense' was 'energy', not 'pure energy'). The notion of divine energies is foreign to Aquinas, and it is therefore mistaken to say that when Aquinas is talking about pure act he is talking about pure energy. I grant that there is a etymological overlap, but Aquinas did not speak Greek and Gregory was not a metaphysical Aristotelian.

And, there is no "Palamite sense," since St. Gregory's understanding of the divine energies, in contrast with the divine essence, was the same as that taught by the Fathers during the previous thousand years.

I realize Orthodox make that claim, but whether or not it is true, Palamas really is the high point and crystallization of the distinction between the divine energies and the divine essence (which is partially why many Orthodox hold that the related councils were ecumenical).

Aquinas' response to Objection 6 in 1.19.3 presupposes that there can be something in the divine essence that may not necessarily be there in the first place, such as willing something. But this cannot be the case since the divine essence is eternal and unchangeable. When any act –necessary or not– is identified with essence then it becomes a definition of what a being is. Saying, for example, “God may or may not will,” becomes the same as saying “God may or may not be,” because a pure-act God is what He does and cannot do otherwise.

No, this is a misunderstanding of Aquinas. God does will his own goodness as an ultimate and perfect end, which is his essence, but a related part of that willing includes creation, which is not necessary. See Summa Theologiae Ia, Q. 19, Aa. 3, 8, and 10.

But for Aquinas, nothing can flow from God's essence. If he did believe that, then the East-West schism might have been healed.

Aquinas would say that God wills his own perfect goodness in a necessary way, and that the overflow or manifestation of this is creation, but that creation is nevertheless not willed in a necessary way (and is instead willed in a free way).

 

[Halbhh]

But your logic here assumes the possibility of things happening by chance.

Actually I was just writing to you above in post 32 how what we see isn't like 'random chance' but radically different! The analogy: it's like carefully designed loaded dice -- so what might seem to some to be 'chance' actually is designed ahead of time to lead to a specific planned outcome that can be fully seen ahead of time by the Designer. (that's how 'loaded dice' work -- they lead to the outcome they are designed to achieve)

That's what post 32 says, to paraphrase post 32.

Does that help?
If it does, let me ask: was post 32 hard to interpret? What did it seem to say if you read it carefully?

 

[Mark Quayle]

"Every smallest detail, down to the motions of the smallest particle or the tiniest force, is part of God's plan" == Well, that's true! Certainly this I quoted out is true, surely. How would it be otherwise? Maybe I need to write a much longer post....

After all God creating "all things", meaning 100% of what exists, must mean, to a believer like me who believes that God creating all things must mean God created all of Nature's attributes.

All we can find.

To a believer that God created all things who also knows some of physics, like how gravity works, that believer must believe that God created gravity also.

And all of physics, both what we know of so far, and also what we haven't yet found.

God created all of this physics we are discovering slowly over time.

Does that make sense?

Your first word, "Nope." -- that doesn't make any sense to me in response to my post that I can figure out. It's like I said 1 + 1 = 2, and the you responded " Nope! 2 + 3 = 5!" as if I'd not agree that 2 + 3 = 5 see. That's what this is like above for me.

I don't think that's 100% my fault though.

Thank you for the uncontentious response. I really do appreciate it.

But, you said:
Halbhh said: ↑
...'everything' isn't necessarily including 'everything' they way many of us use the word, where we mean even the most trivial and meaningless things (such as which way a butterfly flies or which flower it visits first or 2nd...).

Instead, myself where you wrote "everything" I would have written "everything that matters".

You qualified the word "everything", and to that I said, "Nope". If it helps, I believe absolutely everything matters to God who created / caused it.