Tom, you may have convinced yourself that the examples you posted prove God does not know ahead of time exactly how things will play out, but you have not convinced me or Rosangela or Daryl or Arnold.

If God cannot know with certainty what FMAs are going to do in the future, then how can you insist that God can accurately predict the future behavior of the laws of nature or what Satan will do? According to your theory, God cannot accurately predict a nuclear holocaust or a biological attack. Plus, according to your theory, it would be impossible for God to predict or prophesy the mark of the beast crisis. Also, you chess game example does not explain God’s ability to jump ahead in time and watch how things played out.

MM, why do you think God's ability to predict the future is limited to there being only one possible outcome? I'll give two examples to show that your logic doesn't follow.

First of all, consider a chess game. The world champion has achieved a winning position. He can calculate that no matter what route his opponent takes, he will be checkmated. Now he doesn't know exactly what moves the opponent will make, but he is 100% certain that he, the world champion, will win.

Here's another example. Let's say I create a computer program to do some specific thing. Now there are all sorts of possibilities as to inputs, etc., but I know what the end of my program will be. I know every possible outcome because I built the program. My program can do that which it was designed to do, even without the specific inputs being known.

God's ability to know the future is not limited to there only being one possibility of how things might happen.

I don't understand the point of this statement. Truth is truth regardless of whether people believe it or not. All I can do is share what I believe to be true. I can't force someone else to believe it, nor is that my intent.

The key words are what you believe to be true, however, that doesn't make it true.

Daryl, I'm not understanding your response. I've been making this point all along. Why would you quote back to me a point I've been making the whole time? I'm glad you agree with me on this.

Daryl, somewhere I asked you what you think it means when Ellen White wrote that "heaven itself was imperiled." Under the point of view you are espousing, I don't see how this could be possible. Would you please explain how this statement fits with your perspective?

(I know I asked this elsewhere, but am unable to find it, so I'm sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself).

God sees perfectly and knows perfectly the uncertainties? How, if they are uncertainties? How can God, for instance, allow someone to die unsaved today, if He does not know if that person would accept Him in the future or not? If God has doubts in relation to the future, and if He can be surprised by the future, how can He see it and know it perfectly?

Please consider the chess game and computer program analogies I mentioned to MM as an explanation as to how God can know what will happen without there only being one possible path.

Quote:
R: How can you say that the future is as clear to God as the present is clear to me, if He sees only possibilities?

T: I didn't say that. I said the future is more clear to God than the present is to you.

I’m using “you” generically. It’s Ellen White who says this.

Her point is that God sees the future clearly. She certainly isn't asserting that we see things as clearly as God does. I don't see how you can disagree with this.

But let’s leave the present aside. She also says that the past and the future are alike with God.

Right. He sees both with equal clarity.

When someone dies, God knows if that person died saved or unsaved, and God knows all the choices that person made during his life. But if our future choices are uncertain to God, how can the past and the future be alike with Him?

He sees them both with equal clarity. This was her point. It was not her point to write something which is contradicted by what she wrote elsewhere, where she states that God took risks in the things He did. Even heaven was put as risk. If the interpretation of the future you are suggesting were correct, she could not have asserted the things she did regarding risk and peril.

Knowing possibilities and knowing realities are two very different things. I married my husband. This is past. In case he dies in the future, I may marry or not marry again. The first is a reality, the second is a possibility. The reality (a past choice) is clear. The possibility - my choice between the two options - is unclear (of course I know the two options; what I don't know is which one will become a reality). So, no, I don't agree that the past and the future can be equally clear to God in the view you are defending.

And again, if God does not know the future as a reality, it's unfair for Him to allow someone to die unsaved (unless that person has committed the unpardonable sin), because He doesn't know whether or not this person would repent and accept Him in the future.

TE: MM, why do you think God's ability to predict the future is limited to there being only one possible outcome?

MM: Because we’re not talking about God “predicting” the future. We’re talking about God jumping ahead in time and looking back on what has already happened. He simply reports to us what happened. As such, we’re talking about the past.

Do you believe God can jump ahead in time and look back on what has already happened?

TE: I'll give two examples to show that your logic doesn't follow. First of all, consider a chess game. The world champion has achieved a winning position. He can calculate that no matter what route his opponent takes, he will be checkmated. Now he doesn't know exactly what moves the opponent will make, but he is 100% certain that he, the world champion, will win.

MM: There is no way your world champion chess player can be 100% certain he will. Besides, what does it have to with God jumping ahead in time and looking back on what has already happened?

TE: Here's another example. Let's say I create a computer program to do some specific thing. Now there are all sorts of possibilities as to inputs, etc., but I know what the end of my program will be. I know every possible outcome because I built the program. My program can do that which it was designed to do, even without the specific inputs being known.

MM: Again, what does it have to with God jumping ahead in time and looking back on what has already happened?

TE: God's ability to know the future is not limited to there only being one possibility of how things might happen.

MM: Not so. He knows exactly how things will play out because He has already watched it happened. It is true, however, that when relating to us He might give us options and explain the various outcomes, but such communication does not imply God does not know exactly how things will play out.

TE: I don't understand the point of this statement. Truth is truth regardless of whether people believe it or not. All I can do is share what I believe to be true. I can't force someone else to believe it, nor is that my intent.

MM: The quotes you posted do not substantiate your theory. Just because you believe they prove God does not know exactly how things will play out it does not change the truth about it. Nor do they demonstrate that God does know the future like a rerun. Why not? Because they aren’t addressing God’s foreknowledge.

TE: If the interpretation of the future you [Rosangela] are suggesting were correct, she could not have asserted the things she did regarding risk and peril.

MM: Tom, you are grossly misapplying what Sister White wrote about “risk”. You are drawing personal conclusions from it that have nothing to do with what she wrote, and then you treat your conclusions as if they are the truth. If it were true, Sister White would have said so, but nowhere does she teach that God did not know ahead of time if Jesus would fail of succeed on the cross.

In fact, the opposite is true. Sister White plainly wrote that God knew Jesus would succeed on the cross. There was never a moment of doubt of in His mind. Such knowledge, however, in no way lessened the risk Jesus took, the danger and peril it posed for Him and the universe. Just because God knew Jesus would succeed it does not mean the risk was unreal. God’s hindsight knowledge of something does not in the least effect how it plays out. You seem to believe it does, but it doesn’t make sense to me.