Did the metaphor get lost on you?

Daryl, Jesus gave up His omnipresence when He became a man.

MM, you're contradicting yourself. First you wrote that God experiences everything as now. You agreed that God perceives reality as it is. I reasoned from this that if every time is now for God, then that is reality. You then responded, "unless it's not like that for God." But you were the one I was quoting! You were the one who said it *was* like that for God.

You're not being consistent in your position, which is making it difficult to carry on this conversation. But regardless of your position, my basic argument will hold, which is:

a)Reality is what God perceives it to be.
b)If reality, as God perceives it to be, is something different than the future is comprised of possibilities, fundamentally different than the past, which is accomplished fact, not possibilities, then we do not have (libertarian) free will.

This is because libertarian free will requires that there be options available to us, which is not possible if reality is such that the future is just like the past.

Regarding your metaphor, what you write appears to me to be quite vaguely put. Time and space are different things. "Omnipresent" has to do with space, not time. You can make up your word if you want, to communicate the idea that God exists everywhere at the same time, but please don't use the word "omnipresent" because that word already has a meaning, and it's just confusing if you have your own private definition for words.

Tom, you labored long and hard to get me to agree with you that God knows the truth as it is, as it really is. And now you are using it as a weapon agaisnt me? What's up with that? You came up with an unrelated conclusion. It doesn't fit.

Just because God has the ability to experience yesterday, today, and tomorrow now and forever it does not necessarily mean what you have concluded. It could be some other way. You have no way of knowing. It has nothing to do with free will as you have stated. The future is like the past in that it consists of the truth as it realy is - not how it will be.

Concerning time and space: We both agree people can sit on God's lap at the same time in different places throughout the universe. But what about the space in between people? Is God there too? If so, then space is made up of God's body. If not, then what occupies the space between people?

How can God carry on a conservation with everyone everywhere at the same time? Obviously, it has something to do with God's ability to transcend time and space as we know it. God can be everywhere at once because time means something different to Him. It only seems to us that God is everywhere at the same time when He reality He is not.

I'm not following this post at all, MM. If God perceives reality as it is, and God sees that only one thing can happen in the future, then only one thing can happen in the future. This shouldn't be hard to grasp. It's the same thing Luther asserted when he said that what God knows will happen must of necessity happen.

Regarding what you are asserting that if God is in the space between people then space is made of of God's body, this doesn't make any sense to me. Regarding what occupies the space between people, most likely air.

God doesn't see that "only one thing can happen in the future". He sees it happening as it is happening. When He reports it to us, in a prophecy or whatever, He is simply telling us what He is happening.

How do explain God being everywhere at the same time? How can He carry on a conversation with everyone everywhere at the same time?

Whatever. This comes to the same thing. There is only one possible thing, under your perspective, that can happen in the future, which is that which God sees (or saw, however you want to put it) will happen (or happened, or is happening).



Whatever. It really doesn't matter what tense you put things in. The salient point is that only one thing can happen in the future, as God perceives the future as consisting of only one possible thing, whether that thing is happening now, or in the past, or whatever tense you want to use.

God's ability to be everywhere at once in time and space does not rob us of our ability and freedom to choose as we please. Reporting what is happening now does not interfere with freedom of choice.

You haven't explained how God can be everywhere at the same time. How is it physically possible? How can He carry on a conversation with everyone everywhere at the same time?

God's perception of reality reflects reality as it really is. It's the nature of reality that makes it logically impossible for us to have options.

Do you understand this, MM?

I've pointed out to you quite a number of times that the issue does not (directly) involved God.

It's only that certain assumptions about God lead to certain logical conclusions, and *those* logical conclusions are what cause the contradiction to the definition of free will.

Let's try it this way.

a)Assume God perceives that there is only one thing that can happen in the future.
b)Since God perceives reality as it is, there is only one thing that can happen in the future.
c)Since there's only one thing that can happen in the future, there are not two or more things that can happen in the future.
d)Since libertarian free will is defined as having options available, not hypothetically or theoretically, but in reality, and since, in reality, there's only one thing that can happen (not two or more), it follows that, under the assumption of a), that man does not have libertarian free will.



This is not an epistemological issue, MM, but an ontological one. Do you understand the point here, MM?



Why do you think this is relevant? What sort of explanation are you looking for?

Your argument against God being everywhere at once in time and space does not make sense to me. It's like saying we do not have options if God is watching us ponder our options.

If you cannot explain how God can physically be everywhere at the same time, how can you say He cannot know and experience yesterday, today, and tomorrow now and always?