Thomas, you have stated why you believe the SDA interpretation of prophecy is incorrect but you haven't suggested what you believe is the correct view. Do you subscribe to a specific interpretation?

Considering that my premise here was merely that in my view the prophecy would not demand an anglophone united states to still hold true, I think I did what I came to do.

You see my questions and thouths, do you have better reasons to why you disagree with them than "Ellen did not interpret it that way"?

Thomas, I do not see how prophecy could have been fulfilled by any other than Europeans fleeing persecution. Neither the Chinese nor the North American tribes were being persecuted because their faith stood in opposition to the pope. None other were persecuted for 1260 years beginning in 538 AD and ending in 1798 AD.

It would be nice if you would submit a view you subscribe to. It seems rather pointless to merely work to debunk a view you believe is incorrect, especially one that comes stamped with the seal of God's approval.

I assume AG means some reference (Not in Ellen White's index) rather than you choosing an odd sounding term and then codifying it. How about, "Humans". Will that work for you? Or "beings", if you want to include angels and other worlds? "Entities" is another choice. But, in light of the topic, maybe you believe there are non-free moral or immoral agents out there?

...Anyway, just seems an odd term to be repeating and then to codify....
See, it throws your readers off the train of thought you are trying to convey....

But this is an assumed premise which has not been established. This is what we are discussing.


Do you believe God does have the right but yet doesn't intervene even though He does in other cases?

If I am understanding you correctly, the problem with the atheist is only that he doesn't understand that he doesn't understand. The point being, that understanding one's lack of understanding makes it ok for realizing the future has already been played out even though it appears to one that it's a pointless exercise. Is that the only reason why some react the way the atheist does and others react the way you do?



I don't know if I've ever heard of single-threaded or multi-threaded future before I heard Tom start talking about it. I'm not sure I fully understand his explanations. You seem to be saying the opposite of what Tom describes as single-threaded. Could you explain what multi-threaded means regarding how God knows exactly how the future is? And maybe contrast that with what single-threaded means or would mean.

What I am wondering is if this is a kin to how no one could see how bacteria could cause disease until Pasteur showed conclusively that they did, or how no one could imagen time being relative until Einstein introduced and proved the concept? So I assume that I wrote too much in my previous post so that you skipped reading it? Or, none other were both persecuted for 1260 years and were also spiritual ancestors to us. Learning, like faith, is a journey. You start out where you are and you either move or you stay put. Moving requires that you take a step away from where you were into something new.

So I have the theory, which is quite unlike your view, that history could have taken other paths while still ending up with a prophetically true ending. Of course this is entirely foreign to your closed future view. But what if?

So I look at history, and I look at the prophecy, and I ask questions, exploring really. And you have different choices. The one I would appreciate most is if you would then go exploring together with me, possibly giving both of us a deeper understanding and appreciation for the Word. What I heard you say, however, was more towards, 'stop wandering and get to your goal'. But sometimes the goal is much less interesting or even important than the process of getting there. The end of the road is not the point of interest for friends on a road trip. It is the journey itself.

And the stamp of the seal of Gods approval, I guess that means that it is written in stone and that there is nothing more to be learned about it? Just reading the correct answers to save us from the hassle of studying and wrestling with the Word. It was what brought Jacob/Israel the blessing, but now that we have the book of final answers for all our questions, why bother to look for ourselves anymore...

BTW, Id be interesting in your thoughts on the sermon I posted today.

Kland, AG stands for "Amazing Grace" ( an EGW compilation). The reasons why Jesus chooses to intervene or not to intervene have not been explained. The facts are, though, that He does indeed choose to intervene or not to intervene. He knows best, even if the atheist despises the whole concept. I believe single-threaded, as it relates to the future, means it can play out only one way; whereas, multi-threaded means it can play out many different ways. Since God knows the future like history it means, from His supernatural perspective, He knows the facts before, during, and after the fact. God occupies the past, present, and future simultaneously without destroying the natural flow of time and space. I suspect time and space did not exist prior to Jesus creating free moral agents (as opposed to animals and inanimate nature).

Thomas, it sounds like you disapprove of using the SOP as a shortcut to arrive at truth. Why should I spend my entire life discovering truths God has already clearly confirmed through the SOP? I feel like it would be a waste of time to take the time to verify what God has already verified and validated. I believe it is better to believe the truth my entire life rather than wasting my entire life discovering what God has already revealed and stamped with the seal of His approval. No, I'm not implying there is no more truth to discover. Eternity isn't long enough to exhaust God's storehouse of treasures.

I looked at a few sites online and couldn't find anything that supported your idea. Instead I found things like the following:



This is what I was saying. I didn't find anything contrary to what I was saying, or to support what you were saying. "God inhabits eternity" means "God is eternal."



Why would you constrain God in this way? There's other ways He could know. For example He can know what civilizations are like.



This is simple, MM.

1.If God knows the future to be like history, then
2.The future is like history (God isn't mistaken in how He knows things.
3.History is single-threaded.
4.Therefore the future is single-threaded.



Sure. People can't change history.



It seems clear to me that these can only not be true if one is illogical.



This isn't reasoning from assumption to conclusion.



Why do you think it might?



But this isn't the issue! The issue is, what is the nature of the future? Is it single-threaded or multi-threaded? Whatever it is, that is what God knows it to be, right? Or do you think God knows the future to be something that it is not? (Please answer).



No, it's not that I have difficulty understanding your view, but your view is illogical; it's self-contradictory. You assert, on the one hand, that the future is open. On the other hand, you assert that God knows it to be not open. Unless you believe that God knows things to be different than they really are, this is self-contradictory. Do you understand this?

Even if God existed in the past, present, and future simultaneously, this wouldn't alter the fact of this self-contraction. Do you understand this?

The contradiction doesn't have to do with God's existence, but with asserting things which are mutually contradictory. Namely:

1.The future is open.
2.God knows the future as not open.



This isn't what "We are free to choose as we please." means. Multiple options isn't the same concept as being able to do what one pleases.



Same problem. Do you not understand the difference between:

1.A person is able to do what (s)he pleases.
2.A person can do either A or B.



I don't see that you responded to my question. All I saw was a confusion between the compatibilistic and incompatibilistic definitions of free will. You seem to be conflating these two concepts.



MM, I've never had the least difficulty comprehending your view. Your view is self-contradictory, which is what I've been trying to explain. As Thomas and others have pointed out, you believe in a god for whom squares can be circles, etc.

Even though God is omnipresent, and omniscient (or, better said, *because* He is such), the laws of logic an reason apply to Him, as much as to any other being.



This gets to the point I've been making all along. Under your view, we do not really have free will (under the libertarian definition, that we can choose between different options, or to state it colloquially, that our choices "make a difference") but we merely have the "perception" that our choice makes a difference.

If the future really is single-threaded, and God knows it like history (which means it really is like history, and thus single-threaded) then our perception that our choice makes a difference is just a perception. But it is *God's* perception that corresponds to reality! Not ours.

You left out the Portuguese.

But, I'm being picky. A very nice post.

This is how your response struck me as well, MM. Thomas wrote a very well-reasoned, detailed, and rather long post, and you responded the same as before he wrote it. It gives the impression you didn't read his post.