I have always been under the impression that God didn't necessarily know my exact future but knew me so well He could predict with almost 100% accuracy what I was going to do. However, in reading in the 130 section of D&C, that my not be the case. It reads there that...
QUOTE (7) |
But they reside in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord |
Message Edited... Persephone: Please look at how we use the Quote Tags here. When you do not use these tags source material that is not your own may appear to be yours when it is not. See our Constructive Posting Policy. |
This can be a difficult topic. I am not sure that we can really answer it since we are coming from a perspective and the experience of time. I think that god is outside of time per say. He is not effected by it. But not withstanding this leads to a lot of questions. If God does know the future of all things, then can he then really answer prayers and change outcomes? For example if the Lord knows that your future is to marry your high school sweet heart, but God knows that you would be better off marrying the girl next door, does he have to power to alter the future by blessing you to have insight to marry someone else? Or is it since he knows that you are going to marry your high school sweat hart he is powerless to change that outcome? In other words does god create outcomes or does he just know what those outcomes are and is powerless in changing them?
Also how does free agency play in? If he knows all things future then how then does one use free agency to change anything? This would make us bound to fate with perhaps the illusion that we are making choices, when in reality the choice we make is really our pre-prescribed fate.
Or perhaps God being free from time does not see time as we see it. Perhaps what he sees is as we make decisions in life new possibilities open and shut by our individual decisions, and he sees all of our endless options and repercussions of them as they open and close. Thus future is as fluid as present in the mind of the Lord. As we make decisions our future changes as we move through life. The question that this leaves is prophecy, if future is fluid them how do we explain prophecy and the ability to make a prophecy of the future when our choices can change the future outcomes?
Actually, that is a great answer... I have been pondering on those exact lines of thought over the last couple of weeks.
In my opinion about prophesy...
Although I see God as standing back and watching (unless we ask Him into our lives) then what He has set in motion continues in motion. Which explains accidents and so forth... (I can explain more if needed)
Prophesy then in my opinion, is God providing to man a view to His divine plan and God, directing events to make it happen. He will not rob us of our agency, but I believe He will use man to fulfill His plan for all of us by asking men to fulfill certain roles within His plan. If man accepts, he accepts of his own free choice...
Hope this makes sense....
We then can extend this into the problem of evil and Gods power. If God does know all things, and has all power over them, then why then does he allow evil? Would not a moral God who knows all and has power to shape it have a moral obligation to stop it? If we say that evil is there for us to learn and grow from, then I guess we would say that evil then may be good thus it is not evil in that sense. However a mother may not shelter her child so that He/she may learn, but would that mother be immoral if she let something happen knowing that it could kill her child? If god knows everything, then why then does he allow such things to happen with full knowledge. Perhaps we can say instead that god is not all knowing or all powerful in such terms. Perhaps then he is limited in his foresight and knowledge? Maybe then we can say that he is all powerful and all knowing in redemptive power. Ie the power to redeem rather then the power to know and control all things. Rather it is is power of love and patience that changes outcomes? Like I said before I have more questions then answers.
I Heavenly Father knows my future why not just tell me rather than send me here to be tested? Isn't the whole idea of being tested to see what you will do?
Boyd K. Packer in a book he wrote called Teach Ye Dilligently said something to the effect that God knows that when you hold a pencil in the air and let it go that it falls to the ground but in which direction it will lay is anyone's guess.
In order to understand this topic you need to remember that although we have our agency, god knows what we will do or what we need to have before we even consider it. We were shown to many prophets threw out the ages. Moses and Mormon was great examples.
QUOTE |
"Morm. 8: 35- Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing. " |
Message Edited... Persephone: Please use the Quote Tags here. When you do not use these tags source material that is not your own may appear to be yours when it is not. See our Constructive Posting Policy. |