Michael Rea - Is the Future Open?

Why is an 'open' future controversial among theologians? If the future is not 'settled', if there is no certainty from God's viewpoint of how future events will turn out, then God's providence, could not be as sure. If the future is truly open, then not even God could know the future because there are no future facts to know.



Michael Rea is Rev. John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame.


Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[Bill..N]

A fascinating BUT painful to watch interview.. The respectable gentleman tried HARD, but fell considerably short of a rational argument.. A humble opinion.

[shazanali]

If you truly think about it, we have such sort time on earth, and we waste it working, working to get a better situation or pass a better situation onto our decendents, just enjoy and be at peace

[readyfry]

It really annoys me how much this whole conversation thrives on some vague, intuitive acceptance of the word 'knowing'

[cvsree]

For God everything is settled
For our mind that is very distracted by the external world, things are always unpredictable

So, for Saints who gave up their desires to help others and hence are always one with God, everything is settled

[mysticwine]

The future is subjective. It becomes objective when experienced. Ergo the entire future is in the present.

[markc]

These sort of arguments make sense if you ask questions like: what do things like omnipotence and omniscience imply? It’s just intrinsically philosophically interesting. But if you treat the issues as if they’re about an actual being, it starts to sound ridiculous - like making arguments about what Superman can do as if there really is a Superman.

[xspotbox]

There's only one perspective i can think of relating to this question, could we do something wrong in our own dreams? I mean, dreamscapes are designed that way we can't make any serious damage, no mater what we dream, hallucination always realign back to a stable state. It's like dreamer has some foreknowledge about dreams that didn't manifest yet. But there's also a paradox there, when dreams became to intense and emotionally stressful, brain decide to reset and switch modes into a waking state, to avoid impossible recombination. Dreams are not like special effects, they're not made from pixels and picture doesn't come in regular time intervals, there are no cuts and transitions between objects and events. Brain must transform flow of energy without disturbing coherent information in our thoughts and there are two ways it normally does this. One is to simply disconnect a dreaming self, sending us to deep sleep and erase paradox from memory. But brain can also collapse dreamscapes and wake up dreamer in an instant, because of subconscious instructions important for wake state, like when we always wake up at same hour of a day because we must go to work and similar reasons. There are also intermediate states like sleep paralyses, but it's not important for the topic.
I believe this natural principles are somehow related, universe is not a dream, but it's made from same magic dust, those two dimensions resonate in sync somehow. It's like universe would be like a dream if no matter would be present, but than nobody could have a dream about the universe since you must have material brain first in order to shape and transform power of imagination.
Brain knows what is real, it can never forget the most persistent illusion of them all we call the present moment of being right here and right now. God always reminds us on who we really are.

[lukewalker]

I think this is about Freewill vs Determination, I already said its like Triangle Ball Conundrum, Random is uncertain but still there is Order and Fine Tuning, no mater where they go, in the end it always going Back go to God Decree.
Correlated into Nihilism vs Existance, that Nothing is meaningless and never be established, and then goes to Randomness/Chaos that bring into Nihilism which is also meaningless.
Free and Random is meaningless, but however there is always be a Necesarry "meaning" no mater which path is choose or force to choose.

[spitfirered]

God gave you Free Will he never said you could Be Free From What Is On Earth That Is Going To Happen To You By Others.

[daveduffy]

The future is undefined. There is nothing “up the road”. If this is remotely true, we are nothing but puppets in a story with a predefined end. That’s a pretty bleak thing to be.

[realskepticalstoic]

I see a complete contradiction in God knowing the future and yet the future is not determined...

[tekannon]

Dear Mr Khune and Mr Rea, Thank you Mr Khune for bringing to the world some of the most interesting people and thought-provoking interviews on YouTube and the internet. I'm 1:29 into this one and Mr Rea has just said the future is known because God knows everything. This is a statement that none of us can prove and once more shows where theologians have us in a quick draw every single time. Mr Rea is speaking for God, God knows everything, therefore the future is known. A couple of days ago, according to Mr Rea, God knew that 5 year old boy was going to be killed by a man's neighbor who shot him in the head in front of his sisters and a cousin and left to die in his father's arms, and well; I guess that was okay with God. Give us a break. A loving God would never have let that happen anymore than a compassionate God would not have allowed Donald Trump to be the American President. Does everyone see where I'm going with this? For God's sake, let's quit trying to imagine what or what not God knows and realize the future gets carved out every second and no one can predict what tomorrow will bring. Thank God we are the masters of our destiny.

[jamessmith]

"The first will be last and the last will be first."

[dustinellerbe]

What happened to the all knowing all powerful all present all good god?

[SandipChitale]

How does he know?

It is amazing how these guys keep inventing new mechanisms to accomodate/deal with objections that are raised e.g. gods perfect knowledge of everything and yet putting the burden of sin on humans because of free will. They are finding ways to get god off the hook and blame evil on human freewill. What about destruction and suffering not caused by humans? then god works in mysterious ways, once again getting god off the hook. and then organized religions want you to contribute to them in this life but your reward will be in non-existent after life. Why aren't humans allowed to take rewards in this life on credit and pay for them with service and money and contributions in after life? it works in our society, getting stuff on credit. will any organized religions accept that transaction? banks do not because banks do not actually belive in after life, but religions do, so they should not have any problem with it, right? Has anyone tried that? biggest con.

[garyh]

For God to be able to “look ahead” the future would have to exits. But it is called the future,

[realskepticalstoic]

The future seems to me to have three constants: the past, the now and the unknowns.

[freedommascot]

It’s all God, no exception—nothing outside the set.

[solmatrix]

Mind bending but I don't think God knows everything about the future only a possibility of what could happen with the current moment in time so if you take every event and add them up until the current moment you would only know the possibility of that time frame unless you say God knows the future by each moment in time then yes but i can't imagine what type of calculator one would need to compute such a vast amount of data literally infinite amount of compute power.

[thomasridley]

The more he tries too justify how the world is the way it is. The weaker his version of god gets.
This is hilarious. Watching him dance around trying to make a logical connection to the illogical concept of gods. 😂