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How might you answer this one? Quote:“Why does God let us come to earth when he already knows what we are going to do (beyond getting a physical body)?”
My daughter asked me this one today.
SilentDawning wrote:“Why does God let us come to earth when he already knows what we are going to do (beyond getting a physical body)?”
1) Life is not a test. The point of living is not to get all the right answers nor to prove anything.
You might ask, if we can build a computer architectural simulation of a beautiful and wondrous building – then what is the point of actually constructing the building? Would it not be simpler (and save considerable time and expense) to just refer to the architectural simulation to know that it can be done?
2) There is a paradox between the foreknowledge of God and the gift of agency. Is it important that God “already knows what we are going to do?” Why?
BTW, I am not filtering my answers for a 13 yr old – so I would recommend some individual adaptation.
To a non-13-year-old (or a very intelligent 13-year-old), I probably would answer: Quote:I’m not so sure he does know every single thing we will do – and I’m not so sure it matters in the long run, since I think we have much, much longer to reach our ultimate destination than we realize, no matter what we do in every single instance.
Then, obviously, I might have to explain in greater detail – but I might not.
To an “average” teenager, I probably would answer:
Quote:Because it’s not about God; it’s about you and me and everyone else.
Then, obviously, I might have to explain in greater detail – but I might not.
Having said all that, I hope my very first response would be:
Quote:I don’t know for sure. What do you think?
SilentDawning wrote:How might you answer this one?
“Why does God let us come to earth when he already knows what we are going to do (beyond getting a physical body?
i like ray’s last comment as the first question– to draw out what she thinks…if your daughter is actively engaged in soccer or dressage, then i would ask her if there is a difference between reading about her sport and actually participating in it? which is more fun?
then, i might expand the dixcussion to explore the conflict between free will and determinism. “lets say i know that you are the very best soccer player in your district, playing on the very best team. because i know you are the best on the best team, is that a guarantee that you will win every time? why not? if we really have our free agency, then does it really make sense that god knows every outcome?”
These questions inevitably come up (for those who bother to think about it) because we have been conditioned to believe that the gospel has all the answers, and that consequently everything is simple and makes perfect sense. It can be upsetting when we realize that there are some things that just don’t make any sense. There is freedom in the realization that we don’t really know where we came from, why we’re here, or where we’re going. Asking the question that your 13-year-old asked is therefore tantamount to asking what the meaning of life is. People have been struggling with this one for thousands of years, and while some have found partial answers that give them peace, the fact is that we cannot really know the answer with any certainty. It’s part of the eternal mystery. But that’s probably not what your daughter was looking for …
Experience. I don’t think God knows exactly what I am going to do. If so, life does seem pretty pointless from a religious standpoint. God would already have the naughty and nice lists drawn up and this whole getting a body thing is just a formality. Who cares whether we live another day or repent, it is all decided. I gave this answer, and her face lit up…. Quote:
Let’s say you come to me and ask me if I will pay for soccer lessons. I know you’re not really adapted to soccer (although perhaps good at a lot of other things), and that you’ll probably not be the best soccer player in the world, so I say “no, I already know you aren’t going to be good at it”. What would you say to me?She said “I’d say but you didn’t even give me a chance!”.
At that point she saw the analogy. (I believe God gives us the chance so he has some evidence to point to on judgment day for whatever rewards we will receive at that time — if you believe in a fixed judgment day like most of Mormondom.
I followed up with a second reason:
Quote:HE knows what we are going to do, but WE don’t know. We come here to learn for ourselves what is important and who we are. The fact that God knows in advance doesn’t alter us or develop us in any way. We need to do that for ourselves.
At this point she had her answer and walked away pretty satisfied.
A great answer & even better response from your Daughter. I’ll remember this story.
Thanks!
Mike from Milton
You have a really good daughter, SD. SilentDawning wrote:How might you answer this one?
Quote:“Why does God let us come to earth when
he already knows what we are going to do(beyond getting a physical body)?”
I don’t remember ever hearing that idea growing up in the Church. I always heard the exact opposite, that we are free to choose and this life is supposedly mostly a test to determine what rewards/punishments we deserve in the next life. Like Gordon B. Hinckley would say, “I don’t know that we teach that.” Ideas like predestination and Baptists claiming they are already saved never made much sense to me. I still don’t believe God knows everything we are going to do throughout our entire lives; if he can predict the future in special cases then I think it would typically be based on understanding the current state of affairs and people’s short-term intentions more than a case of him controlling everything or setting it all up to play out a specific way ahead of time like a huge puppet show. To me it couldn’t be more obvious that people can change their mind and act in ways you wouldn’t expect and that some events are mostly random and could have easily happened very differently than they did. Even with quantum mechanics things are not deterministic and instead what we have is a set of alternative outcomes described by probabilities.
fantastic outcome, SD. This is what I see as the advantage of going through all of the pain of being disaffected — it helps us ask the questions, rather than just providing the pat TBM answers. One legacy of mormonism is that through ‘revelations’, LDS have a more precise ‘knowledge’ of life than is possible with mainstream christianity. Whether the more precise ‘knowlege’ is actually ‘true’ is a matter of faith and is unknowable (I know that sounds like a contradiction, but it’s the definition of LDS testimony here). The downside of such increased ‘knowledge’ is often an oversimplified set of answers to life’s hard questions.
children often ask the really hardest questions in life — like your daughter did. I love the way you handled it.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:I don’t remember ever hearing that idea growing up in the Church. I always heard the exact opposite, that we are free to choose and this life
I think it is interesting that I’ve heard both ways in the church…God can’t interfere with Agency, so He doesn’t know, or He knows us well enough to know what we’ll do even before we do it.
I’ve usually heard people justifying the Omniscient God knows all, but we need the experience to know in a way we can’t by thinking through things…we have to do things.
I often hear it discussed in the context of Abraham’s test…God knew Abraham would be willing, and was ready with an Angel and ram in the thicket to step in last minute, but Abraham and Isaac went through the anguish of getting ready to go through it to show faith…and God finds that important for their growth.
:problem: Its kinda funny how many people see such a story pacifies them and their question… but the more you think about it, the more it seems to raise more questions about the nature of God than it answers, at least it does for me. And now I just settle with…”its just a story to teach a point…not literal”.I’ve had a lot of exposure to people who are artsy — musicians, writers, poets, painters, photographers…and one thing I’ve heard repeatedly is that good “art” allows multiple people to look at the same “art object” (the song, painting, poem, picture, story) and come away with very different, but personally meaningful interpretations from the experience. And the more diverse the “meaningful meanings” people come away with, the greater the artistic achievement. As I hear the multiple interpretations of various scripture stories, it seems to me that scripture qualifies as a significant art form. And not always a source of absolute truth. In fact, if you stop looking at it as an absolute truth, it often becomes far more meaningful personally.
That’s exactly how I see scripture, SD – as as an artistic expression of personal and communal understanding conveyed through the written word. Now, I hadn’t phrased it in exactly those words previously, so, thank you!
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