Is morality objective or subjective?

[Will Bouwman]

If your god changes his actions, then there is before and after and he is subject to time.

No, I don't agree.

I'll go through your other issues, but so this doesn't get lost: what do you think time is?

[Will Bouwman]

All you need for time is one change.

A whole change? A half, a quarter, a third, or an infinitesimal part of a change won't do?

Do you not think a fraction of a change is a change?

[Skepdick]

All you need for time is one change.

A whole change? A half, a quarter, a third, or an infinitesimal part of a change won't do?

Do you not think a fraction of a change is a change?

Do you think a fraction of change is still a change?

How many changes is a change made of?

[Harbal]

God knows exactly what the future holds, but he is not controlling or influencing the future, he just has knowledge of it.

God is always 100% right in his predictions about the future, and it could never be otherwise.

The future is always what God knows it will be, but God does not interfere in order to make it so.

The future cannot be other than what God knows it will be, because God is always 100% right about what it will be.

No matter how you put it, the future always comes out looking very inflexible.

Can you explain how any future event can be known with absolute certainty if the future is open to other possibilities?

Because "knowing" is passive. It's not any kind of active intervention, like "doing." That's why you can't build a bridge or tower by simply "knowing how to" build a bridge or tower.

My point is that God could only know the future if the future was fixed, but I'm not saying God fixed it.

But we might also note that one can "know" multiple alternatives at the same time. If I were God, I might know what will happen if Harbal responds to this message, and also what would happen if Harbal did not respond to this message.

But that is not a possibility, because God already knows which one I will do, so the alternative never arises.

And I might correctly know that Harbal will, and still know what would have been the case had he done otherwise.

If God knows I will, and God is always right, there was never any possibility of my doing otherwise.

So God can know both what Harbal will do, and what would have happened had Harbal chosen otherwise than he, in fact, did.

If God knows what I will do, then how could I have chosen otherwise without God being wrong in the first place? which he never is.

Harbal remains free, and I still know how he is going to choose freely to actualize his choice.

If God knows what I am going to do, am I free to do something different and make him wrong?


It cannot be both the case that God knows everything I will do, and that I have free will; those two things contradict each other.

[Will Bouwman]

Do you not think a fraction of a change is a change?

Do you think a fraction of 1 is still 1?

I'll take that as a yes.

[phyllo]

It cannot be both the case that God knows everything I will do, and that I have free will; those two things contradict each other.

If you could see 5 seconds into the future, then you would know what happens ... every result of determinism, free-will or complete randomness.

So a god which is "beyond time" would have no problem with it.

[Harbal]

It cannot be both the case that God knows everything I will do, and that I have free will; those two things contradict each other.

If you could see 5 seconds into the future, then you would know what happens ... every result of determinism, free-will or complete randomness.

So a god which is "beyond time" would have no problem with it.

What does being "beyond time" mean?

[phyllo]

The traditional view has been that God is timeless in the sense of being outside time altogether; that is, he exists but does not exist at any point in time and he does not experience temporal succession.

https://iep.utm.edu/god-time/

The eternity of God concerns his existence beyond time. Drawing on verses such as Psalm 90:2 ("Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God"), Wayne Grudem states that, "God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time."[11] The expression "Alpha and Omega" also used as title of God in Book of Revelation. God's eternity may be seen as an aspect of his infinity, discussed below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute ... ristianity

[Harbal]

The traditional view has been that God is timeless in the sense of being outside time altogether; that is, he exists but does not exist at any point in time and he does not experience temporal succession.

https://iep.utm.edu/god-time/

The eternity of God concerns his existence beyond time. Drawing on verses such as Psalm 90:2 ("Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God"), Wayne Grudem states that, "God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time."[11] The expression "Alpha and Omega" also used as title of God in Book of Revelation. God's eternity may be seen as an aspect of his infinity, discussed below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute ... ristianity

Is all that even theoretically possible? Do we actually know of anything that is "beyond time"? And just how does being beyond time enable something to be simultaneously totally predictable and undetermined?

[Skepdick]

Do you not think a fraction of a change is a change?

Do you think a fraction of 1 is still 1?

I'll take that as a yes.

I'll take that as utter mathematical incompetence.

[phyllo]

Is all that even theoretically possible? Do we actually know of anything that is "beyond time"?

That depends on your metaphysics.

And just how does being beyond time enable something to be simultaneously totally predictable and undetermined?

I explained that in a previous post. God sees the future. Undetermined events have already happened in the future.

[Harbal]

Undetermined events have already happened in the future.

How can they be undetermined if they've already happened?

Don't tell me, I've decided I don't want to know.

[Will Bouwman]

Do you think a fraction of 1 is still 1?

I'll take that as a yes.

I'll take that as utter mathematical incompetence.

On the plus side, I can speak English.

[phyllo]

Undetermined events have already happened in the future.

How can they be undetermined if they've already happened?

Don't tell me, I've decided I don't want to know.

Good.

Now you can move on to the ethics aspect : God knows that the world is going to be a mess but he creates it anyways.

One would think that HE/SHE/IT would have tweaked it and made it better. This is the best there is ???

[Immanuel Can]

If your god changes his actions, then there is before and after and he is subject to time.

No, I don't agree.

I'll go through your other issues, but so this doesn't get lost: what do you think time is?

Well, it has different definitions. What sort are you looking for?

You could say it's the interval in traversing between two points. That's a technical and geometric definition. You could say it's a measure of the rate of entropy. That would be a scientific one. You could say it's a metric of how close we are to death. That's a human-centered definition of time...

Narrow down for me what you want.