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CS Lewis 1/17: Now Is The Time (MC)

I think we can agree that if there is a God, then He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. Knowing the future is basically part of the job requirement of "God." But here's the dilemma: if God already knows I'm going to eat at Burger King tomorrow, then am I really free to eat at McDonald's instead? Are all my actions locked in stone, with me acting out a pre-ordained script God set down beforehand?

The problem with these questions is the way we view time. We see time as linear. We can look behind us to the past and around us right NOW, but not ahead into the future. In imagining God's supernatural powers, we suppose that He *can* see ahead to the future... but is still limited to our same linear timeline.

Ahh, but God HAS no limits. So suppose God is not on this line of time with us, but instead above it. Beyond it. In that case, God sees our "tomorrow" in exactly the same way He sees our "today" and "yesterday" - that is, as if each were happening right now.

If someone watches you make the choice to eat at McDonald's instead of Burger King today, would you call that knowledge pre-ordained? Of course not. They are merely observing your actions right now. And so it is with God's knowledge of our future. Because He is already there, in His own "right now", He is not so much "foreseeing" our actions as He is simply seeing them.

Suggested Reading: Ephesians 1:4-14


Study Questions:

1) Have you every struggled with the belief that your actions are pre-ordained, or set in stone?

2) What is the most distressing part of believing God can see the future?

3) Do you find it comforting to think that God only watches our choices, rather than dictates them? Why or why not?



Original Text: "Always Now"

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 Timeline like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw 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, though 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 dong. 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.

- Mere Christianity

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