It depends whether there’s really one thing that will happen, or there’s really many things which could happen, each of which is equally real until you decide.
But if they’re only equally real until you decide, then they cease to be equally real after you decide. And if God is omniscient and exists out of time, he’s as familiar with the state of the universe after you decide as he is familiar with the state of the universe before you decide. So he knows all of the choices that are “equally real” - but he also knows which one of those choices is actually real.
Sorry for the italics! I know they make me look like an uptight, didactic pedant, but I love them anyway.
Well, that’s Catholic theology and trinitarian theology in general. As I noted:
If the Wisdom is omniscient, and if she exists within time, then there is no reason she would know (anything that ain’t so)/(that one choice is or will be more real when it isn’t and won’t necessarily be more real).
I don’t know what an omni-potent/present/prescient/temporal (thanks @JonBristow) being feels, but I know when I got the cheat codes for infinite cash in SimCity, I played one super fun game and then sort of lost interest.
Oh, sorry, I think I misread your comment a bit. Sure, if God has no foreknowledge of the future, then your future actions might not be settled fact. That seems like a pretty poor sort of omniscience, but some Christian philosophers have put limits on omnipotence, too (that God couldn’t make a square circle or a black shade of white) so maybe that’s not a problem.
Even if God is omniscient but temporal, with no actual (experiential? It’s hard to know exactly what words are appropriate for an infinite entity) knowledge of the future, we might expect him to have perfect predictive knowledge of the future–i.e., he should know the exact set of circumstances you are in, and the exact way that you would choose(?) to act in any given set of circumstances, such that when you do act, you will always act in accordance with God’s “hunch.” This seems like just as much a restriction on your free will as “true” foreknowledge (although admittedly it seems to require a deterministic world, just not one made deterministic by divine foreknowledge).
Well, if there is no one already-set future, then not knowing the one already-set future, as opposed to all possible futures, is a bit like not knowing the highest prime number. Presumably one who is omniscient would know which concepts (if any) of time and of free will actually correspond to anything…
Why did BoingBoing post this to Google+ with the summary “I think the pope may be an atheist”? Not only is it not the summary given here, it’s also utter nonsense to suppose the pope might be an atheist simply for repeating the position the Catholic Church has had for ages on these issues.
It’s only news to people who are not familiar with the Catholic Church. They’ve always been very positive on science. Plenty of medieval clergymen already pointed out that if ever our observations of nature conflict with out interpretation of the bible, it’s most likely a sign that our interpretation of the bible is wrong.
(I’m not catholic, by the way. I’m protestant. But even most protestants don’t agree with the idiocy peddled by the American Ignorance Lobby.)
I’d agree. Except for the part where every progressive statement that Francis has made so far has been immediately walked back to the status quo by the rest of the Vatican. Sure, Francis talks a big game, but a revolutionary he is not.
It’s a lot like Obama’s presidency. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. The Catholic church can talk out of both sides of its mouth all day. I’ll be impressed when they start acting in accordance with Francis’ statements. I’d be really impressed if they stop being an international criminal organization, and a shelter for wanted pedophiles. I’m sick and tired of hearing all of the fawning over what amounts to the empty words of a figurehead who symbolically is the leader of perhaps the most undeservedly respected criminal organization in the world.
I’d rather go to war with the Vatican than sit here and listen to the bastards blow smoke up my ass.
I wouldn’t wonder if this pope would happily join you in the war with the Vatican.
And I think he may not last for long. Uncomfortable revolutionaries who want to change the cozy-for-the-powerful status quo sometimes meet an unnatural demise.
You are correct in that the overall issue is more complicated and really @Mister_Eppy put it quite well . My comment regarding Maimonides was obviously not intended as any sort of shortcut “solution” or ending statement, just an attempt at humor. My FYI reply to you was a comment on your comment on Liebnitz. Rather than restate the obvious, I want to assure you and the peanut gallery that I’m not attempting to to change your views on anything, just adding to the conversation.
Now as far as Exodus 7, you came close to what is a more interesting problem for me. A few lines earlier (7:3), God speaks of “hardening Pharaoh’s heart”, or shall we say changing his will which in my eyes is a far more impressive change of the laws of nature (a super natural act) than Aaron’s staff. Commentary explains however that this is not an actual suspension of free will yet it remains interesting as a (possibly) unique example of His interference in the natural order in that other cases (parting of the Sea of Reeds, battle of Jericho, etc) are not changes to Man but changes to Nature. The section you quote is also interesting in that in 7:11 the Hebrew word for magic is textually unique.
In any case, once again I’ve gone far off topic here…
This is a news story only to the hardcore anti-evolution crowd, who are unaware that the Vatican for all its faults, has never been in the business of denying scientific fact.
Well, you’re clearly only talking about this Pope, though, who is very likable. Innocent II and Julius II, to give just two examples, seem to have been trying to expand the theoretical limits of shrill… and Sixtus IV giving Europeans blanket permission to seize Africans as slaves was not very funny.
Incidentally, this is why I personally find Pope Francis terrifying. A good man in the Papacy could conceivably revitalize Catholicism, and I would prefer that it continue to die off.
Remember that the gruesome inequities of the organized Christian Church essentially grew from a tiny seed, and that seed was the perception that Jesus Christ himself was a pretty impressive guy. People liked Jesus, and wanted to be part of his thang. That in turn led to Christianity, the biggest mass murderer of all time, defeating both Hitler and Stalin for the title, and the Catholic church enabling sexual abuse of children for over a thousand years. Literally, a thousand years! People were complaining about it in 800 AD, and it’s never stopped! I want Catholicism to die for the good of the human race - not for their philosophy, but because of the organization’s actions.
Except that he’s the replacement for the Nazi pope. My cynical side (which covers about 84% of my body) tells me that Ratzinger was replaced because he was unpopular. Therefore, the current pope was selected to be popular.
If you think about it too much it falls apart, I know, but I still can’t help thinking about it.
