Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Can't wrap my brain around this quote by CS Lewis from Mere Christianity

"Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so and so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God forsaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call 'today'. All the days are 'Now' for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, thuogh you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not 'foresee' you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing . Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way--because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already 'Now' for Him."



hmmmmmm still thinking on this :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting way to describe it. It helps me wrap my brain around it a little although I'm not sure I agree with him completely.
Jeannie

lisatatj said...

I actually don't know if i agree with him either (he is my IDOL Though :)....but I just believe so strongly in the sovereignty of God that I feel weird about him saying that God doesn't know??? But maybe he isn't saying that, maybe he is just saying HE does know, in a different way....soooo confusing :) smiles

mwh said...

This is crazy-hard to understand. It's an interesting proposal, but it's almost as if the new situation that Lewis is proposing (i.e., God outside of time) is as hard to understand as the old system (i.e., the whole free will issue).