This will admittedly deal directly with Christianity, though it may prove applicable to other religions as well.

It seems that Christianity (as well as other religions perhaps) operate with the fundamental belief that there is some divine plan. Chance and random happenings are routinely dismissed. People who die do so because "it was their time," rather than simply because they were the latest victim of SARS. "The Lord works in mysterious ways," and while events may seem like coincidences or horrible tragedies in our lives, they serve some greater purpose.

And yet, in the face of this belief, we find prayer. Prayer seems to be the metaphysical means of putting in a request form. Grandmama is sick and dying from cancer, so the family files into the hospital chapel to pray for a miracle. A relative, who was known to deal drugs to children, dies and the family prays his spirit lives on in heaven with God. Presumably, when prayers are answered, God has listened to this request and decided to grant it.

But this seems to be a contradiction. At least to me it is.

If there is already a "divine plan" what good is prayer? If somebody can in effect submit a request for change, isn't the plan thereby drastically altered? If prayers are truly believed to be answered, and we look at the sheer volume of prayers, how can events be viewed as planned when they are always subject to change? Suddenly the future takes on a veil of random happenings. But if the future isn't random but rather planned, then our prayers aren't answered... it just so happens that our request was already part of the plan; in which case prayer is ineffective and essentially just a placebo.

So the question(s) for debate, if you haven't already taken them from the previous paragraph, are basically:
Does prayer work or doesn't it?
Is the future planned (divine plan) or is it random?
Could prayer work in determined universe and how?

Someone correct if I'm wrong because I'm dipping into my bizarre American History class here, but the Puritan settlers of the original 13 colonies believed in Predestination (their fate was already determined,) and their good deeds helped to REVEAL that fate while they were alive. They believed that their entire lives was an excercise in following the path that God set.

Whether or not they're right will have to wait until I finally gak, but that's a little ways off. If you ask me, religion is full of contradictions. Statements like "part of God's plan" strike me as comforting platitutdes; which is what I feel religion basically is. A nice way to dress up easy answers for the hard questions.

I'll take a shot at it from the perspective of the Izdaarian Church (one member -me; Zen Taoist Anglican basically):

1. The flip answer is "It couldn't hoit." Prayers are always heard, but most often the answer is "no." There are also countless examples of prayers being answered with either a "yes" or something even better that we hadn't thought to ask for.

2. As Paul Simon put it, "God only knows, and God makes His plans. The information's unavailable to the mortal man." I'd say there is a Divine Plan, and history is progressing according to God's plan, but that's a Big Picture plan and doesn't account for the details of our daily lives, most of which is according to our own choices and random events. I don't however rule out God intervening in our lives when He thinks it good for our spiritual development, or when answering prayer.

3. Yeah, it could. If it's all predetermined, than each prayer is also predetermined and part of the plan. But I don't believe it is all predetermined, as noted above.

Not sure it would be very productive to "debate" those propositions, since they are just my own opinions and not based on much except my somewhat unothodox Christian faith and my understanding of scripture, much of which is subject to more than one interpretation. They're kinda fun to discuss though.

I think George Carlin covers this one in you are all Diseased and the Interview with Jesus. In Hinduism everyone has a Dharma that is kind of like a predetermined path. I think the divine plan or Dharma is just a way of making people feel less responsible for their life on earth.

Christianity is based on the principle that you NEED God's help and that God is a loving God and that Man has the free will to decide on his own what to do.

Of course, I can't explain Christianity in a single sentence, but that is the gist of it.

Example: If you want forgiveness for something you have done, you need to ask God for forgiveness. If you want intervention, you need to ask God for it.

Christianity (my brand, anyhow) is NOT about pre-determination. God is all-knowing, but that does not mean that we do not have free choice. He just knows what choices we will make before we do.

Prayer is basically asking God for help. It gives comfort to the asker, more than anything. If God decides to intervene, then it is His decision, for His reasons. Just don't expect it too often.

How is that not pre-determined?

Maybe I should simplify the problem:

FREE WILL implies an uncertain, undetermined future
OMNISCIENCE implies a certain, determined future

To say that our actions or decisions are already known is to say that God is omniscient (all knowing). It is also to say that our futures are determined, eliminating free will. When we take the opposite view, and accept free will, then we are ruling out that the future is determined or previously known.

If God already knows the actions of a person before they do, their actions are predetermined, they have no real choice over them. An entity can't know the future unless the future is determined. And if your actions are predetermined, you have no real choice over them. All you really did was restate the fundamental problem.

Atheists....

YOU choose, God just knows what choice you will make. I know it's hard to understand, but he isn't making the choice for you.

Hmm, hamburger or hotdog for lunch...guess what, you choose.

Knowing something does not mean that you control it.

I knew that the Cleveland Cavaliers were going to lose last night...did that make it my fault?

God is impossible to understand. Trying to know God is like trying to see in 4 (or 5, or 10 or 100) dimensions. You can get a basic understanding of how it functions, but you cannot really understand it, because you cannot see it or experience it.

You still don't get it.

I haven't once said or implied that God has to have some control over the actions.

In order to know the future, the future has to be determined, whether somebody controls your action or not. It can be a completely unconscious process.

To use your example:
2:03 a.m.
God already knows you're going to eat a hotdog from the cafeteria for lunch today.

11:17 a.m.
"Hmmm... do I go to McDonalds or the cafeteria for lunch today? Cafeteria."

12:01 p.m.
"The hamburgers look pretty good today... ah, but I'll have a hotdog instead."

Nobody forced you to eat at the cafeteria or to choose the hotdog. But in order for God to be correct you would have to eat at the cafeteria and eat the hotdog. If you chose to eat instead at McDonalds or to eat the hamburger, God would be wrong.

You don't have to be forced into an action, but that doesn't mean you necessarily get to choose, either. In order for God to know the future and be correct (which is necessary for his "infallibility"), you only have one course of decisions to follow and you are unable to deviate from those choices (make alternate decisions).

I don't see the necessity of the connection, Abs. Or more accurately, I don't see a contradiction between your freedom of choice and God's foreknowledge of your choice. If my SO knows me well enough to accurately predict what I'll order at a restaurant, does that imply I don't have free will? I hardly think so.

From what I've read in the Bible and theology courses, God doesn't merely predict what your next action will be, like a significant other. (SO?)

God is supposed to be omniscient, and thereby all knowing. If your significant other is wrong, there's no big deal. If God is wrong, then there has been a dramatic shift and fundamental undermining of the perception of God. He can't be omniscient and potentially wrong at the same time.

In order to be omniscient and aware of what we will choose and do in the future, God has to be right -- according to the whole omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. If we follow that God is these things, knows your future actions, and is infallible, then you can't choose to go against what God knows and what is thereby predetermined.

I believe there is a divine plan for each of us. I don’t remember where I heard it, but I agree with a quote that said,” Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things... I am tempted to think there are no little things.” There are thousands of seemingly insignificant events we encounter all of the time that drastically effect our future. I have reaffirmed my belief in destiny (and God) throughout the course of my life, and it usually centers around events which appeared inconsequential at the time.

Prayer (in my way of thinking) is a way for us to maintain our contact with God, to bond and remind us that he’s there. It isn't simply a forum for our desires to be heard, like Santa Clause. It transforms our wishes into hope. The active hope is much more powerful than the passive wish. That hope propels people to do great things, find inner peace, obtain and grant forgiveness.

The way I was taught it is that God is outside of time. Time is linear and we follow a linear path in it.

God is outside of this linear timeline. Therefore, not only is He here, now, but that same God is with you 10 years from now when you are deciding what to get for lunch. He therefore knows what choices you will make before you make them, because He is simultaneously Here Now and There Then.

God is not limited to the 4 dimensions (3 physical and time) that we are. He exists outside of them, therefore He is able to understand things that we cannot. This does not mean you have no free will, or that your path is pre-determined. It just means that God knows what you are going to do before the choice even presents itself to you.

I hope this makes sense.

Why are we debating something neither side can prove?

The notion of God being outside the timeline does nothing to resolve the problem between free will and predetermination. I've already mentioned that the traditional concept of God views him/her as being omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (always present) and omniscient (all knowing). To try and escape the timeline and have God co-exist in the past, present and future falls under omnipresent.

Would you say that God is also infallible? That is, incapable of making mistakes.

If the answer is yes, as is traditionally the case, then to know the future of humanity is to have the future of humanity (or any other entity subject to the timeline) predetermined.

[Edit: for response]

Because logic shows it to be a fallacy. Free will can't exist in a predetermined universe. It's an either/or scenario... you can't have it both ways.

[QUOTE]Trying to know God is like trying to see in 4 (or 5, or 10 or 100) dimensions. [/qoute]

We do perceive in four dimensions; and string theory may eventually lead to mathematics that allow us to see into the remaining 9, or whatever the number is.

If God is omni-present (existing at all places at all times, simultaneously) then He sees you making your future choices. That does not change your ability to make a choice. He just knows now what choice you will make. That is not pre-determination, where no matter what action you take in life, certain events or consequences are going to befall you. The choices you make affect your future.

God just knows what that future will be.

EDIT : Joe, I meant 4 physical dimensions (not time). Like a stick figure on a paper trying to perceive something outside of the "plane" of his paper. He might be able to imagine it, but he cannot experience it or fully comprehend it.

You are completely ignoring the correlation between omniscience and infallibility.


If God sees right now what your future choice will be on Sunday, that choice -- the one God sees "today" on what we know as Thursday -- will be the choice you are required to make on Sunday. If you make a different choice, God will be wrong, and thus fallible. If you make a different choice from what God sees and is purported to know, then God didn't really know -- God would be wrong.

While you might claim to know what sports team will win a matchup, you don't really know. You aren't claiming to be omniscient, though, as God is claimed to be. That's the difference between making comparisons between what people can know and what God is supposed to know. Humans are fallible... God is alleged to be infallible. Anything God knows or sees must, according to this principle of infallibility, be correct.

So... in order for what God sees your future choices and actions to be correct, they cannot change. And if your future is already known (whether by an entity in or outside the mortal timeline), that future is predetermined.

He is outside of time. He has already witnessed your future actions, so he cannot be wrong about them.

Follow me?

I admit it takes a leap of faith, but you are asking valid questions.

His infallibility follows from the fact that he exists past, present, and future Simultaneously (his omnipresence).

He has witnessed all of your actions before you do them, but you still have the choice to make at the time.

It's that old Masolow's hierarchy of needs thing. The war is over, so we have progressed from safety needs to transcendence and self-actualization. In other words, we're bored.

Infallibility coupled with omniscience and omnipresence (as it relates to time) create only the illusion of choice, not choice itself.

When you read a book, you follow the progression of a central character, along with perhaps a few side characters. From page 1, you read while the character appears to make choices that lead to different, seemingly unpredictable events in the life of this particular character. Is the character actually making choices, though? Or isn't it true that it only appears the character is making choices, all the while his or her choices have already been written out for them to follow?

In this scenario, the reader outside of the book is not dissimilar from the idea of God being outside the timeline of humanity and all other applicable entities and objects. If we accept this [divine] knowledge of the future prior to its occurence -- or, comparably, accept that each chapter and the book as a whole have an end before reaching the final page -- then we are presented only with the illusion of choice, not choice itself.

OK,

Let's say you have a time machine. You can travel backward and forward through time at will (sorta like God does, being "outside of time").

You go back and record the historical events of, lets say, Julius Caesar. His words, his deeds, everything.

Now you know for sure what Julius Caesar will do at any point in time. Does that mean he is pre-destined? or does that mean you just know what choices he is going to make? Did he really choose those actions before you recorded them? If you had not recorded them, would they then be real choices?

It is a difficult argument to make, but right now, I can decide what to have for lunch. I don't really think that its pre-determined for me.

He is predestined if he can't change his actions or words and surprise you. The only way he can change (through conscious choices) his actions that you know he will do is if you are fallible -- which we're presuming that God is not.

If his actions are required as a means to bring about a determined end, then he's not choosing his actions. As I said before, it's the illusion of choice.

As for the recording... that seems to be a nonissue considering your stance (as well as others) that God doesn't divest himself from his knowledge of events. What you're proposing here goes into an entirely different argument of metaphysics, and would only apply here if God wasn't omniscient or was at least willing to surrender his omniscience, which doesn't seem to be the case.

What if the reason that God is omniscient is that he is recording all of those events?

Whatever, I am done with trying to argue with you on this one Abs.

... and I'll pick it up from there.



The issue here is one of characterization. That is your use of the words "required to"; replace this with "will" and you have a more accurate view of what Christians believe. Both "required to" and "predestined" imply an action by an entity doing the "requiring", or "predestining". The alternate view is that this is a more passive situation on the part of God. With regards to ordinary actions, outside of the main plan, God does not "require" or "predetermine", just "know".

Maybe "having predefinition" in the sense can be seen but not predetermined by any entity.

As others have stated, having foreknowledge of your actions, does not mean you control them.

Place a mouse a few feet away from a piece of cheese. The mouse runs to the cheese and eats it. You knew that was going to happen, but did you put your finger on the mouse and force him to go to the cheese? Nope...but you knew what would happen anyway.

Granted, it's a lot more complicated than that...but that is the jist of it.

While I tend to agree with what you said in your first post, about prayer contradicting the divine plan, I think you miss the point of prayer.

Prayer is not only used for special requests. How about strength to get through the stupid college exam? Pray for a good nights sleep. etc etc.

Though if God does have some kind of divine plan for us, and what happens will happen regardless, than prayer is at least a vent or a release of frustration or other feelings.

It's a complicated religion. It's something not even the pope himself will ever understand.

--cheers

Suppose an astronomer observes a comet. Knowing its velocity and trajectory, as well as the velocities and trajectories of any objects in the area, the astronomer can predict what, when, and where (and if) the comet will strike.

If an intelligent entity takes all variables into account in a system, that entity can predict the outcome of the system with confidence.

As for God, such a being knows all variables in the system (the universe) and knows exactly how our human minds will respond to them. Therefore, God knows how each human mind will respond in every situation, and He knows what those situations are.

Pertaining to prayer, there seems to be a prevailing assumption that prayer is always some sort of request for a change in circumstances. However, religious people often pray simply to commune with God. One prayer I have heard very often can be restated thus: "please do what you have planned." Also, one big prayer line among my own religious group is "Thy will be done."

As you can see, these lines serve pretty much no purpose toward changing the plan. Their sole use is to make one feel better about one's situation.

I did overlook one thing...

Quatnum Physics can actually resolve the issue -- though not without creating another one (as I see it).

In regards to determinism and free will:

But, as the article goes on to suggest, to go with either free will or determinism violates the "Law of Excluded Middle," which is where the quantum physics comes in.

This kind of falls back on the recording aspect of the Caesar scenario... nothing is determined, in this case, until it is observed, leaving the universe indeterminate. So quantum physics, so far as I have presented here, would allow humanity to have free will, but it neglects the notion that God is an omnipresent, omniscient observer, "recording" all events simultaneously in time.

Quantum physics has an answer for that, too.

From the latest issue of Scientific American (May 2003) comes the topic of parallel universes and the astronomical observations, coupled with probability, that support them.

So... with the introduction of parallel universes, free will and predestination, as seen through the lens of omniscience and omnipresence, can be resolved. With parallel universes, time is an illusion and every possible action or outcome is taking place, though we can't view it. God, however, being outside of the perceived "timeline" and open to view every possible universe, can have the knowledge of the future, or outcome of any event, (based on an array of multiverses) without any one universe having to be predetermined.

The only problem I see remaining is actuall a new problem, which I hinted at from the start of this post. If multiverses continue to be upheld by observations and empirical data, and humans are in the role of the quantum dice, which form of ourselves is to be judged in regards to heaven and hell? Conceivably, there will be pure evil, pure good and an infinite array of middle ground forms of ourselves throughout these multiverses. Also, if time is in fact an illusion as these studies suggest, there never actually is any ceasing to exist for us. As one of us dies in one universe, another one of us continues living in a parallel universe... and so it continues indefinately.

I guess that's the subject of another post, though.

I am waiting for this thread to start burning as some sort of divine sign..

I want Abs' job...he has ALOT of time on his hands.

Very good articles, by the way.

Once again, to the common mind, quantum physics is just as inexplicable as God.

To the untrained (or unbelieving, both terms really mean the same thing, don't they?) eye, neither theory makes any sense. It's all about who you believe is telling the truth.

I took a quantum mechanics class once upon a time. My grade (which ended up being pretty good) was directly proportional to the amount of alcohol I imbibed prior to an exam. I think it made me more creative.
Thus, my opinion of quantum mechanics.

You're comparing a one time event, the restaurant, with God's ability to predict your choices about anything all the time. That's apples and oranges.

If God is omniscient and knows everything you will do, then clearly there is no free will; not unless you want to move into an Orwellian world where "Slavery is freedom" and "War is peace." If God "knows" what you are going to do then your life path has been laid out and you cannot deviate from it by a fraction of an inch.

Uh huh, Abs. I hadn't thought about in exactly that way, but quantum physics and parallel universes are part of my world view. Maybe that's because I'm a major sci-fi reader, have been since I was a kid, and maybe that's why my personal version of Christianity incorporates significant elements of Zen and Taoism. So I did get something useful out of this discussion after all.

There have been some interesting article involving the power of prayer. Here are two of many.
Investigating the power of Prayer
POP

I would like to take this one step futher and use the term healing. Healing: To heal ailments by thought alone, prayer or conscious energy channelling. Of course, one can say prayer causes different chemicals in the body which could have an healing effect on the disease/condition on hand, But there has also been studies of distant healing of individuals, so the former is therefore disproved. I totally believe in the power of prayer, but I don't question it. There are so many things in this world that can't be answered. I always say that man is only as smart as the tool he has. For instance,

Before man developed the microscope, bacteria were not known, and therefore did not exist in our reality.
Before man developed the electron microscope, viruses did not exist in our reality.

Just imagine telling the tale of what virus do. An invisible bug, which is not living, enters your body takes information from your cells, changes dna in cells and it become alive and replicates. This sounds crazy and insane, but it is what viruses do. So people believe, prayer, distant healer, homeopathy, metaphysics, etc is not science, thus therefore is garbage.

I believe those, who truly believe in God have the tool, for the power of prayer, the know it works and they have seen its results. As for distant healing, we can't examine waves, energies, thought forms or patterns being that we don't have the tools to define or validate them, but it of course does not mean that it does not exist.

If one wants to think of prayer in a more scientific reality than one would look at quantum mechanics, (as Abs FJ mentioned),which we don't understand, which according to the standard interpretation (the Copenhagen interpretation), that nothing is real unless you look at it, that an electron (say) exists only as a wave of probability, called a wave function, which collapses into reality when it is measured, and promptly dissolves into unreality when you stop looking at it. We are no further advanced philosophically, on this picture, than the image of the tree in the quad which disappears when nobody is looking at it.

Therefore Quantum Physics shows that our consciousness can influence and initiate fluctuations from coincidence. It shows further that this phenomenon extend beyond our physical body. This confirms the core of Jean Watson's "Human Care theory for Nursing, where she suggest that one can consciously attempt to transcend the material dimension to touch the human centre in the other person, and thus attempt to initiate a healing process.

BUT because our tools to fully explain matter, waves, quantums, etc has not yet be discovered, the best tool to see the power of prayer is the belief in God.

Glad you got something out of it after all, Izdaari.



Long before both of these, however, people theorized about such things. I forget exactly which century before the common era (BCE) it was, but Greek philosophers were already theorizing about the existence of the atom. There have actually been many instances in which man has been smarter than the tool that he has. I believe another philosopher came up with the approximate circumfrence of the earth long before we had the tools to actually measure it. I've had a physics teacher and a friend in astronomy marvel at the feat.

That and the "power of prayer" thing could make for an interesting discussion, but it would probably be better suited for Victoria's thread on faith healers and such.

True, there were many theories, some even believed colds were caused by demons and they also believed in witchcraft, Being an ex researcher in biology and neuroscience, theories are not laws and laws are only as good as the tools that man has to examine or to disprove. I tend to have the tought, I accept everything as a possibilty, until disproved. That includes, holistic, Ghost,UFOs, quatum mechanics, esp,God, Chaos theories, etc, science as we see it today, etc.
The example, I gave about viruses and how they enter your body, sounds like a martian movie. If I did not know about viruses, I would totally not believe the actions of viruses. So, point being, the Power of Prayer is a possibility with some supporting evidence for and against.