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The Ways of the Theistic God
Please, help me understand something, theists.

The Ways of the Theistic God

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Posted 06/29/07 - 07:17 PM: Subject: The Ways of the Theistic God	#1
I was wondering if some theists could possibly help me understand something that I’ve been pondering on. Now theism posits that there’s a god who intervenes with the universe. But why didn’t he just set it up, from the get-go, so that what he will inevitably cause to happen – happens, and at the exact time that he would have had to step in to cause it to happen? Since he’s omniscient he must know what future occurrences will require intervention and that he will in fact end up intervening (surely he can see the future), so why doesn’t he just set it up, from the very beginning, so that it DOES happen that way. “Yes,” you might say, “that’s EXACTLY what he does! That’s why it’s called destiny. Everything is prearranged, preplanned and predetermined .” Fine, but if he DID in fact set things up to be a certain way, in everyway, so that he wouldn’t need to intervene in the future, that’s not theism. A god that created the universe, set it on its course, and no longer intervenes – is deism. Theism appears to me to be God giving Himself work to do instead of using his all-knowing foresight and omnipotence to set things up just right from the start.
"The reason our institutions, (and) our traditional religions are all crumbling is because THEY'RE NO LONGER RELEVANT!" - Bill Hicks “Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanour. Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original sense.” – Sigmund Freud "Compulsion to lie - in that I detect every predestined theologian." - Nietzsche "It has served us well, this myth of Christ." - Pope Leo X

harvey1
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Posted 06/29/07 - 07:39 PM:	#2
Stream of Conscious wrote: Since he’s omniscient he must know what future occurrences will require intervention and that he will in fact end up intervening (surely he can see the future), so why doesn’t he just set it up, from the very beginning, so that it DOES happen that way. Each theist has a different view, but my own view is that God has knowledge of a future that actually happens. If God were to use that knowledge in ways that brought a temporal paradox (e.g., choose not to make it based on knowing great evil occurs), then reality would founder.

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Posted 06/29/07 - 08:00 PM:	#3
That's fine, and obviously he'd know what needs to be done to allow or stop certain things from occuring. My question is, if there's a future he knows "actually happens," as you put it, why does he need to cause it through intervention instead of just setting it up that way from the beginning? And that, of course, includes the prayers that would and would not be answered.
"The reason our institutions, (and) our traditional religions are all crumbling is because THEY'RE NO LONGER RELEVANT!" - Bill Hicks “Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanour. Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original sense.” – Sigmund Freud "Compulsion to lie - in that I detect every predestined theologian." - Nietzsche "It has served us well, this myth of Christ." - Pope Leo X

harvey1
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Posted 06/29/07 - 08:56 PM:	#4
Stream of Conscious wrote: That's fine, and obviously he'd know what needs to be done to allow or stop certain things from occuring. My question is, if there's a future he knows "actually happens," as you put it, why does he need to cause it through intervention instead of just setting it up that way from the beginning? And that, of course, includes the prayers that would and would not be answered. Well, God can't act on the knowledge of the future without a temporal paradox. Imagine, for example, that you knew that next year that you were going to be given a lottery ticket and subsequently win the big lotto. The catch is, though, that if you do anything different than what you would have done without this knowledge, that you won't get the lottery ticket and won't win the lottery. Being the rational person that you are, you are able to rationally decide each of your actions for the next year, and are confident that none of your actions would have been any different had you never been told about the lottery ticket. However, after winning, someone asks you, "why did you just live your life as if you weren't going to win if you knew that you were going to win?" The answer, of course, is that this was necessary for you to have knowledge of the future. Similarly, God cannot pre-decide all the events at the beginning of time because to do so God would need to act on divine omniscient knowledge, and this is surely forbidden for God to do and still preserve the temporal integrity of the universe. Therefore, God must do what your lottery ticket friend asked of you: move forward and act as if you do not know the future--even though you know it. Now, as a caveat, God can do some actions with that future knowledge because there are ways to act on future knowledge without causing a temporal mess. For example, there are many events in the past that a time traveller could change without affecting the present. For example, you or I could conceptually go back to the past and tell Anne Boleyn at the age of 6 that she would marry a king and be executed by him. A 6 year old would not remember, and therefore it would not change history. So, God could tell a 6 year old the future, and just as long as the effects are contained, God could act with omniscient knowledge. However, in the case that you are suggesting, God's actions would have to be fully dependent on omniscient knowledge which would violate the principles by which God has omniscient knowledge. It would be like knowing you will win the lottery ticket, and therefore began telling people the lottery ticket number and date that you are sure you will win with in 2008. Using that knowledge in that way would cause that future not to happen--which is impossible since your knowledge of the future was fully based on you having access to that knowledge.

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Posted 06/30/07 - 05:45 AM:	#5
Let's say someone gets sick and is in the hospital. They pray to God, he intervenes and then they get better. My question is, couldn’t God have set it up from the beginning so that the person would get sick, pray and then surely get healthy, since in that way nothing is different than in the former case except for his stepping in later? I guess my question is, why can’t the power he uses for things like this, be executed from the start, instead of having to use it throughout existence?
"The reason our institutions, (and) our traditional religions are all crumbling is because THEY'RE NO LONGER RELEVANT!" - Bill Hicks “Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanour. Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original sense.” – Sigmund Freud "Compulsion to lie - in that I detect every predestined theologian." - Nietzsche "It has served us well, this myth of Christ." - Pope Leo X

harvey1
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Posted 06/30/07 - 06:28 AM:	#6
Stream of Conscious wrote: Let's say someone gets sick and is in the hospital. They pray to God, he intervenes and then they get better. My question is, couldn’t God have set it up from the beginning so that the person would get sick, pray and then surely get healthy, since in that way nothing is different than in the former case except for his stepping in later? I guess my question is, why can’t the power he uses for things like this, be executed from the start, instead of having to use it throughout existence? In my view, once God created the universe, God entered into a temporal relation with the universe (i.e., God is "in" time), and therefore God doesn't exercise power into the future, rather God executes power "now." God can determine future events by declaring what is to be, but that divine will is not exercised until a future "now." Therefore, God is always acting in the present. God allows the universe to chart its own course of evolution, and God "intervenes" in the sense that God restricts the path of the world *as it evolves*. So, in summary, your question is answered by saying that God is in time, and therefore does not exercise divine will from some distant past. In addition, God's power is not a latent force that sits and waits to be actualized. It is actualized upon God's will. Which, is in the "now."

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