Why is it hard to predict the future? I suppose that first answer that most folks would give is that it’s hard to predict the future because we don’t know the future. And that’s no doubt correct as far as it goes.
However, we might take this to mean that if only we knew the future, then it would be easy to predict the future. The only impediment to predicting the future is our ignorance of the future. Is that a valid inference?
Unbelievers sometimes say they don’t believe in God because God, if he really wanted them to believe in him, would be far more explicit in his predictions than we find in Bible prophecy. Or he would predict some distinctly modern discovery. He would predict the stock market crash of 1929. Or the sinking of the Titanic. Or Einstein’s discovery of special relativity. Or 9/11. Or the invasion of Normandy on D-Day.
Because nullifidians don’t believe in God or Bible prophecy, they don’t bother to think through their position. But if you give the problem a moment’s thought, it would be tricky to predict the future even if you knew the future.
If you tell someone that he will be run over by a drunk driver when he walks to work tomorrow, and he believes you, he will simply falsify your prediction by not walking to work tomorrow. Perhaps he’ll stay home. Or take the bus.
If you predict that someone will name is son Brandon, and he’s aware of your prediction, then even if he intended to name his son Brandon before he knew about your prediction, now that’s he’s heard it, he may change his mind and name his son Brendan instead just to spite you and be contrary.
Prophecy has a countersuggestive potential that could undercut its own fulfillment. So it actually takes a certain amount of ingenuity to accurately forecast the future—even if you know the future.
Because nullifidians don’t believe in divinely inspired prophecy, they don’t make the effort to ask themselves how it would be possible to predict the future even if the future were knowable. The Bible avoids this conundrum in a couple of related ways:
i) In general, the Bible isn’t very specific about the way in which an oracle will be realized. The means. The intervening events leading up to the terminal event.
ii) Scripture compartmentalizes knowledge. It doesn’t predict every element at one time or place. Rather, this is distributed to a number of prophets or seers.
It’s only after the fact that you can see how all these apparently discrete and disparate oracles were referring to the same event. One oracles lays down one condition, and another oracle another condition. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that you can discern how a particular event satisfied all these scattered conditions.
Steve, this is very, very lazy on your part.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all the ability to falsify prophecy doesn't come into play for you since you are a Calvinist. Are you now advocating open theism?
Also, even on the Arminian view it would be possible to make fairly precise prophecies (Penicillin or semiconductors being discovered in such and such a decade) which it would be almost impossible to falsify.
The person with the desire to falsify would have to know which scientist would make the discovery, when he would make it, and have opportunity to take him out.
In this case even assuming autonomous free will, an omnipotent God (with foreknowledge) could do the calculus to make sure his prophecies would be fulfilled, even given the condition that hostile people knew about it beforehand. In addition, because it would be a discovery, no one could make the accusation that it was done 'on purpose' simply to fulfill the prophecy.
"It’s only after the fact that you can see how all these apparently discrete and disparate oracles were referring to the same event."
Even if you are correct, this assertion is still not as plausible as that vague "predictions" were read as being prophecies after the fact, similar to what people do with Nostradamus.
What if Isaiah saw the Babylonians as an aggressive up and coming nation, and his own nation as decadent. All the "predictions" prove is that Isaiah was an astute political commentator.
anonymous said...
ReplyDelete“Steve, this is very, very lazy on your part._First of all the ability to falsify prophecy doesn't come into play for you since you are a Calvinist. Are you now advocating open theism?”
Anon, this is very, very lazy on your part. First of all, you seem to be confounding Calvinism with fatalism, which is a common mistake among the theologically illiterate. In Calvinism, the end is not irrespective of the means.
“Also, even on the Arminian view it would be possible to make fairly precise prophecies (Penicillin or semiconductors being discovered in such and such a decade) which it would be almost impossible to falsify.”
You’re making the prophecy possible by making it more imprecise, which reinforces my original point.
If, say, Scripture contained a detailed prophecy in which Einstein would discover the theory of special relativity in 1905, then the effect of that prophecy, if he took it seriously, would be to prompt him to discover the theory before 1905. The prophecy itself would have a suggestive force in his reflections. It would jump-start his reflections on the subject. Or it could have a countersuggestive force if he chose to spite the prophecy by waiting an extra year. Or it might spur someone else to beat him to the punch. The prophecy itself would contain information that contributes to the very finding it predicts. It is pointing the reader in a particular direction. So the prediction, if overly precise, affects the result—thereby undercutting the prediction.
“The person with the desire to falsify would have to know which scientist would make the discovery, when he would make it, and have opportunity to take him out.”
No, the scientist himself would be in a position to falsify the prophecy. He would see his name and his discovery in this ancient prophecy. He would have the opportunity to change the date of the discovery.
Once again, you’re proving my point by removing certain details from the prophecy to make it less specific.
“In this case even assuming autonomous free will, an omnipotent God (with foreknowledge) could do the calculus to make sure his prophecies would be fulfilled, even given the condition that hostile people knew about it beforehand.”
The actions of a truly autonomous agent cannot be foreknown.
“In addition, because it would be a discovery, no one could make the accusation that it was done 'on purpose' simply to fulfill the prophecy.”
Irrelevant since that wasn’t my point.
“Even if you are correct, this assertion is still not as plausible as that vague ‘predictions’ were read as being prophecies after the fact, similar to what people do with Nostradamus.”
For which you offer no argument.
“What if Isaiah saw the Babylonians as an aggressive up and coming nation, and his own nation as decadent. All the ‘predictions’ prove is that Isaiah was an astute political commentator.”
That won’t give you the name of “Cyrus” 200 years in advance of the fact.
ok, I was a bit sloppy, I admit. I have two more questions - I'd just appreciate your answers. I don't want to argue, I'd just appreciate some pointers.
ReplyDelete1) In the days of Uzziah 2 Ch 26, there was an empirical answer to bad theology. Uzziah strikes me as an inclusivist postmodern type, but when he embarked on proving his views, he was immediately shown to be wrong. Why has that ceased? Wouldn't Irenaeus, Athanasius, and anyone who disagrees with Spong have had a much easier time if there were such evidence? So why has it ceased?
2) Why does it seem like the NT presents salesman like features. 12 apostles (= 12 tribes), slaughter of the innocents (= Moses). If it were true, these details would not have to be thrown up as if to 'sell' people with something that was familiar.