Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- All Categories 13.8K
- General Category 10.9K
- General Announcements 184
- Faith Issues 3.4K
- Coptic Orthodox Church 2.5K
- Personal Issues 1.4K
- Prayer Requests 423
- Random Issues 1.8K
- Introductions 294
- Non-Orthodox Inquiries 232
- Youth Corner 606
- Hymns 2.5K
- Hymns Discussion 2.5K
- Technicial Difficulties 368
- Technical Topics 368
Why does God make us live life when he knows our future?
(No Moderaters to answer - especially Maged)
God loves us and all so he has given us freedom - whats the point! He knows our acts so why?
Please do not give me info sources as I have read many on this subject.
Pray for me.
God loves us and all so he has given us freedom - whats the point! He knows our acts so why?
Please do not give me info sources as I have read many on this subject.
Pray for me.
Comments
Personally i dont think anyone can answer that question, because if Christ is small enough to understand then he is too small to worship.
I will however leave you with the following analogy.
St Augustine once inquired about the knowledge of Christ........when he walked along the beach he saw a small child trying to put sand in a bucket........when st Augustine asked him what he was doing......the child said to him im trying to put all the sand in the bucket........St Augustine implied that this is impossible........so likewise......the knowledge of Christ is too great to comprehend with our limited mind..........so dont try to dwell on such issues.......because as you know the only answer anyone will give is God created us with Freewill.....while that is true.......us as humans need a more encouraging and scientifically sound answer......however this answer is unlikely to come......and that is where faith comes in.
Furthermore i think u need to differntiate between Gods will and his divine foreknowledge (predistination). He wants us all to be saved but through his divine foreknowledge he knows some people will fail and succeed
Look at the following example
St. Paul persecuted the Church, God foreknew he would repent and had elected him before he was born, “God who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace” (Gal 1:15). St. Paul’s persecution of the Church is a clear manifestation of free will given to man, for obviously God’s Predestination (from the womb) did not interfere with his free will.
Epshiri do not worry about such issues........while it may be interesting.........it gives the devil a chance to make us fall through doubt.
Salvation is in your hands! Don not lose it
GBU
Please forgive me if I've said anything wrong concerning this issue
The principle of predestination and election, as the Protestants teach it, implies injustice and partiality.
It also leads sinners to despair, feeling that their striving to repent is in vain and useless since they are vessels predestined for dishonor and damnation. As for the righteous, it leads them to slackness and negligence.
Moreover, it leaves many questions unanswered:
a. If people were predistined why did God give people his commandments.
b. Whats the role of the devil, if he knows there is no point in fighting because those that are to be saved have been already determined?
c. On what basis would reward be given to the elect, if they had no choice in their
destiny?
d. Why would God punish a person predestined to perdition....isnt that enough punishment?
The doctrine of predestination, as the Protestants (Calvinists) understand it, leads the world into confusion and contradicts God’s love and justice and humans’ free will.
We as orthodox Christians need to realise that Christ is merciful and Just.......why he put us here on Earth is his doing.......who am i to question his authority.
The Lord wishes us to come to Him of our own will and there is no reason we we shouldn't desire the same with every fiber of our being.
Your point is well taken.....however it is girded upon credulous suppositions. You are presuming the following argument; if God is omniscient in all things, knowing how men will behave in the future, then it is pointless to give men freedom. In essence, your argument is propounding that if God knows any given proposition p then necessarily p must occur. Now, if p must necessarily occur then we really aren't as "free" as we believe to be...freedom is existentially misconstrued. Therfore, it is meaningless for God to imbue men with freedom. The argument must proceed with such premises and cocnlusion, otherwise, I can easily retort that for any given proposition p there would be nothing coercing p into actuality. P would be solely dependent upon the will of men and God would theoreticaly be inculpable of
the professed accusation.
Thus, assuming your argument is as stated above, I believe that there is one major logical fallacy you have committed. In lieu of the argument:
"Necessarily, If God knows p then p"
"God knows p"
"then Necessarily p"
...necessity becomes conflated with absolute certainty. A person may be absolutely certain that if God knows p, then p will occur. However it is fallacious to assert that p must necessarily occur. While it is true that the conclusion "God knows p" necessarily emanates from the argument's premises, the conclusion itself is not predominated by necessity. The conclusion would not result with "then necessarily p" but only "then p".
For instance, for the given proposition that God already knows Joe will mow his lawn next Thursday, you can conclude with absolute certainty that Joe will mow his lawn. You may not, however, state that Joe must necessarily mow his lawn. I find that many people often tend to conflate the attributes of certainty with the properties of necessity in arguments regarding the omniscience of God and free will. Since certainty is a property of mind and necessity is a property of truth you can be absolutley certain that something will occur and still find yourself wrong in regard to the actual outcome. It may be possible that with any given possible world, under the exact same circumstances as listed above, Joe would or would not mow his lawn. The notion of middle knowledge surfaces as one considers that God holds knowledge of any given truth p and the counterfactual truth none p.
Accordingly, a Molinistic perspective would define God's absolute control only over the end result of any given action. However, God would not exercise absolute control over the will that leads to such a result. If the sovereign Lord acted forcefully upon men's willpower then I would agree.....freedom could be deemed to be meaningless. However, given that you are not following a Calvinistic doctrine, you are free to hold a Molinstic perspective that purports God's absolute control over the end result of an action but not the will that incites such action. It therefore follows, that we are meaningfully given the ability to choose our own destiny although God has sovereignly decreed what that destiny will inevitably turn out to be. Freedom holds intrinsic meaning by the very inspiration and glory of God's majesty.
God bless you
(No Moderaters to answer - especially Maged)
God loves us and all so he has given us freedom - whats the point! He knows our acts so why?
Please do not give me info sources as I have read many on this subject.
Pray for me.
Many people have answered greatly.. bes here is what I have to tell you habibi... ummm DONT WORRY ABOUT IT... don’t think of it too much habibi... all you’re doing is wasting your thought... God gave you freewill, yet God knows all, if he throws you in hell for no reason then he is not a fair God, is he now?... but if God throws you in Hell for something you did... even though He knew you’re gonna go to hell previously , He's still being FAIR... and that’s all you need to know... and insha'allah when we go to God, we can ask him... bes don’t look into such things too much... especially things that deal with the afterlife... its not your Job... its God's... so back off His throne and don’t try to take over... really that’s what I say about everything that deals with the afterlife... its not your business, or mine... or whoever habibi...
much love and peace!
;D :D
no seriously, God wants us of our own freewill to go to him thats why he lets us live our lives.
"...work out your own salvation in fear and trembling:13 for God is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure."
Do the logical thing......work to get to heaven
Submit your will to God for that is the beggining to happiness
Philippians 3:14 "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
St. Paul is working
Of course Our Lord is all knowing.........learn to separate this from your own working towards the goal of heaven.
Forgive me
Yours in Christ,
Danny
I don't know if this will confuse you but if you don't understand it, please talk to your priest.
Jesus said that no one on earth nor the angels know the hour in which the son of man is coming. Not even the Son himself. Only the Father.
Jesus made this statement before he resurrected meaning that the divinity did not reveal to him the hour which he would come until after the resurrection.
We take Jesus' example in that we take no worry in the knowledge of God because he already granted us the mystery of free will. Through his emmence love for us, we became partners to our God in the great gift. The great gift of having the capability to work for our salvation.
Seriously the devil is playing with this lie way too much.
Jesus came for the sinners to repent
HELLO OUR GOD GAVE US THE ABILITY TO REPENT TO GET TO HEAVEN
People who use this excuse to be athiests just want to continue in their sin.
I pray for them always because i want them to relize that the power they are ignoring is the love of eternity.
We as orthodox Christians need to realise that Christ is merciful and Just.......why he put us here on Earth is his doing.......who am i to question his authority.
Erm.. maybe im the one suffering for it
Secondly whats your problem - Im not protestant why accuse?
How many people in the world are not Orthodox? Billions.
All of them are going to hell?
That seems to be the reallity.
If we really have free will, do you all think God knows what we will do? That would defeat the whole purpose of having a free will.
The fact of the matter is we don't have free will right now. Our every action is controlled by God (Jehovah).
But in about 20 years, we will have free will. And there won't be damnation or salvation anymore. It is much better that way.
What about this?
How many people in the world are not Orthodox? Billions.
All of them are going to hell?
That seems to be the reallity.
If we really have free will, do you all think God knows what we will do? That would defeat the whole purpose of having a free will.
The fact of the matter is we don't have free will right now. Our every action is controlled by God (Jehovah).
But in about 20 years, we will have free will. And there won't be damnation or salvation anymore. It is much better that way.
I completely disagree, we are not God so we dont know who is going to heaven or not. Being orthodox means we are on the right path to Heaven, but that doesnt mean that everyone else is out of the game. God, through his mercy and fairness, will decide who is worthy to receive this heavenly glory.
I couldnt disagree more, we do have free will and we have the free will to choose every action and thought in our lives. If we dont have free will, then we wouldnt be humans but rather slaves. God would not have sent his only begotten son to free slaves.
He wouldnt be loving if he only created the people that would go to heaven, that would be called slavery because he created certain people and chose their life and their eternal life for them. It is like a teacher who only allows smart kids in her class but doesnt give a chance to those who have failed before to improve. It is out of God's love that he created man in a free will and he gave us a mind to think with, not like animals. It is out of God's love that he sent his only begotten son to die for our sins, to give us hope and salvation. It is out of God's love to give us all the remedies needed for our salvation, moreover he helps us, we do 0.00001% of the work and he does the rest. We walk one step towards him and he runs miles to give us salvation. Indeed it is out of God's love to allow us to fall so we can taste his love compassion and mercy towards his. finally, it is out of love that we dont comprehend all the divine matters because our human nature cannot bear all this great glory of understanding God's wisdom.
Why would you look at it as if God intended to punish you, why cant you look at it as you are one of those getting to heaven one of the people that will enjoy God's divine glory and the company of all the saints. I look at it like this, I am a free man to do whatever I want, I dont think about God's predestination because I dont understand it, I choose to follow God's path because I am sure that if I overcome at the end God will grant me to sit with him on the throne. Being positive is what it takes, why would I keep thinking about going to hades, if I have all the power to choose to go to heaven? Many people lose hope and dont want to try to get to God and then blame it on God predestination. If a person sincerely tries to reach God, they would not be thinking about an issue like this. If St Ba2esa thought about it like this, she wouldnt have repented in the last few hours of her life.
I hope that God grants us wisdom to understand his mysteries as much as we can comprehend. Pray that God may enlighten your mind and heart
Pray for me
Because God does not just create us in order for Him to watch what we do and judge us...
He is not a distant Creator who creates people and then leaves them to figure out everything and just watches from far away..
God created you so that you can exist, and in your existence you will be able to experience certain things, one of those things: God's Love
God might just say: I know what X will be doing in his life, the story of X's life is in front of Me, so why create X?
Because if God did that, where would that leave X???
X himself would NEVER get the chance to LIVE and FEEL God's love and His mercy and blessings etc
Gb
Well, not everyone is going to suffer. A lot of us are going to retire on a good pension, and some lucky humans are going to get jobs in the Government and claim expenses like it was nobody's business.
So, no.. its not all doom and gloom. If you are from that percentage of the lucky-few, life is OK.
I havent read all the topics as i didnt have the time to read them all before i posted so forgive me if this has been said.
I have to disagree with Hailemikael, as I am all yours Lord said we are in no position to say who will have the right to enter the heavenly kingdom and who will not. We also cannot say we do not have free will as this goes against the words of the bible.
I recently had this discussion with my dad and my father of confession as i was very upset about the topic and confused,
my FOC explained it in such a way that comforted me, but like hardyakka says nothing will give us a clear answer to quite our question for this is a way to put doubt into us...Here is what my FOC said:
It is as if you are watching a movie you have watched before....You know what will happen but have not the power to do anything about it.
Same goes here God knows what we will do (as if it is a movie he has seen) and he has not the power (for lack of better word) to change it because he respects our free will.
Hope this helps :)
God Bless
Pray for me
So apparently when St. Sarabamoun was attacked by the bandit, the theif's hand was left suspended in the attacking position until he was pardoned by the holy man, oh that wasn't God or anyhting (sarcasm).
Erm... So what i'm getting to (long-windedly), is that God does have power over what is happening in our lives, and he repays our evil deeds with other occurances.
There is a verse I read about five years ago wehich meant the what you do will be repaid... distant memory...
anyway
yeah