Knowledge of the future = God?
By ready2earn
@ready2earn (435)
Italy
December 17, 2006 12:00pm CST
This post is inspired by the cable TV series "4400" in which mankind of the future has abducted, altered and returned 4400 people in order to alter the course of history and save mankind. While watching the show I thought how pointless it was to resist the aims and goals of these future humans. And then it occured to me that relative to the humans of the present these future humans were effectively equivalent to God in power, knowledge and sovereignty.
The idea is not a new one. It has been entertained in a number of science fictions stories like "Dune" by Frank Herbert and "The Redemption of Christopher Columbus" by Orson Scott Card. In Card's book however the intervention is much smaller, consisting of only 3 people sent back. In "Dune" it is only one man (and his children) who has the ability to see the future and alter its course, only I think this book sees beneath the superficialities to the underlying truth, that such an ability spells the destruction of human potentiality. Therefore the son and God emperor of Dune, spends a thousand years breeding humans for an immunity to his own ability to see the future.
I think this idea raises some interesting theological questions. It is so easy for us to imagine people with just this one ability of forknowledge and no other qualifications, who for all intents and purposes, take upon the role of God. However when I look at the state of the world and consider that God is its creator, I cannot help feeling that this ability of foreknowledge actually trumps the power of God rather than merely immitates it. Otherwise we are logically forced to the conclusion that evil is necessary for the greater good and therefore justified. But this is something I could never accept. The possibility of evil, may be necessary for a greater good, as an inherent risk in the existence of life, by its very nature, but I repudiate the idea that evil itself could be neccessary or justified.
Therefore I agree with the conclusions of "Dune" that existence of forknowledge by any being, including God, is destructive of the potential of life. I believe it reduces life to non-life, turning all subjects into objects. Therefore if God has the power of foreknowledge, then I believe he must have imposed limitations upon himself in the creation of life so that His forknowledge would not include our choices. That puts me within the bounds of the controversial doctrine of Open Theism.
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