Allow me to indulge in a little thought exercise. I think it would be safe to say that most Christians believe that God is omniscient, which means that God knows everything that there is to know. Most Christians would include “the future” amongst those things that God knows. My first question is: What if the future doesn’t exist? Now before you get the wrong idea… I’m not saying there IS no future… I’m asking, rather, what makes us think the future is already determined? I suspect we (Christians) think the future is already determined because we believe that God is not bound by time and therefore God sees past, present and future in one eternal moment. But wait… believing that God is not bound by time does NOT NECESSARILY mean that God knows something that doesn’t even exist yet… unless the assumption is made that the future is already determined then … wait… THAT assumption stems from the conviction that God is eternal and knows the past, present and future as one eternal moment… but… ok… anyone see a circle yet?
My second question, then, is: If the future does not yet exist, isn’t determined, then isn’t it reasonable to say that God doesn’t know the future? I think it would make more sense to say that God knows what possible futures there may be… but not what the future is per se, because it doesn’t exist yet. So… any thoughts? Comments?