Tom:Given that most prophecies do not have the word "if" in them, how can you tell if they are conditional?

Daryl:As you had already stated before, by their content or characteristic.

I stated this? Where? This doesn't sound like me. For one thing, that's not what I think.

Well, leaving that alone, what does this mean? What is the "characteristic" of a conditional prophecy? How does it differ from one which is not conditional?

What I've been trying to ask is, how do you know the difference from a conditional prophecy and an unconditional one?

(This is taking so long to get to, I've forgetting what my point it!)

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Topic name change only as creating a new topic from this post and subsequent posts. - Daryl

Tom,

I said what I said in reference to what you had posted in post #84497 in this same topic.

I've been asking for over a week now how you know if a prophecy is conditional. You first stated by whether or not it had the word "if" in it. I pointed out that this was an inadequate test, and suggested that a more fruitful course would be to consider the characteristics of the prophecy, which you are agreeing with. However, for you to say that you agree with me on this is not answering my question. To answer the question, you would have to explain what these characteristics are.

How do you know if a given prophecy is conditional or unconditional? Is it important to know?

Yes, it is important to know, therefore, if you know the answer to your own question, please answer it yourself?

Ok, I'll answer my own question. (I'm a bit disappointed you didn't take a shot at it. Things learned by our figuring things out ourselves are better remembered than things just pointed out by someone else.)

Very few prophesies are not conditional. The principle of conditional prophesies is spelled out by Jeremiah:



Very few prophecies do not involve the free will of either a person or nation. Therefore determining the truthfulness of a prophet is not as simple as seeing if what (s)he predicted came true or not, because very likely there is an element of conditionality involved (implicit if not explicit). One needs to take into account the prophecy as a whole, taking into account the conditions (which again, may be implicit, rather than explicit).

In other words, the characteristics of the prophecy itself, as in Jonah's prophecy.

I also agree that most prophecies are conditional prophecies, but there are also prophecies that are not conditional.

As all the posts didn't move with this topic, I am calling this topic Part 1 and will close it down and create part 2 from the other posts that I will soon be moving here.