We had an interesting debate at college about the way prayer works - is prayer a persuasive act in which which engage with God to influence and be influenced by him.
The ability or not to influence God began an interesting discussion about free will and predestination. A friend wanted to argue that God is outside of time and all that happens does so according to God's plan which incorporates our free choices. I wanted to debate with him that such a complete system is incompatible with personal freedom. Either God has predestined my choices (and I am only relatively free - it feels like I'm making free choices but I'm not actually because they are already decided) or I am genuinely free and God does not know in advance what I'm going to choose.
It is of course, possible to argue that God has fore-knowledge of the choices that I'm going to make due to his different relationship with time. However, foreknowledge is not the same as a preordained plan and anyway, I'm not sure that God is 'outside of time'.
In fact, inasmuch as I want to argue for the freedom of man (a freedom that enables genuine choices necessary for genuine love) I also want to argue for the freedom of God. This means that God would not actually be outside of time in order that he genuinely can respond to what's happening and be free to change his mind.
Where do the ideas of the immutability (un-changeability) of God and omniscience of God come from? Perhaps I'm ignorant of the bible verses. It strikes me that these ideas have more roots in Greek philosophy than in the scriptures.
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