I'll just say this upfront, I can barely understand what Boethius and Philosophy are saying.
Aside from that, in Prose II, Boethius is attempting to reason out the existence of both free will and the omnipotence of God. Boethius first tries to reason out God's all-knowing ability by stating that if humans had free will and could determine their own fate, how could God still have the all-knowing capability while still holding true to every man lives his own life? Though in Prose II Boethius never says the term, he is knocking on the door of the theory of predestination. It makes sense to some, with God knowing the final outcome of everything in the universe, there's no rhyme or reason to believe that we can determine our own destiny when God has decided for us: thus, ruling out free will in humans. What Boethius seems to forget, or what he doesn't understand, is that God stands outside of time. I personally like to view this as God over looking "time" in front of Him; "time" looks to almost better the size of a meter stick, and God has access over every event in history; therefore, God is able to "view" the first second of time, the "present", and the world's final moments after the 2nd coming of Christ. "Time" is relative, meaning only we are affected by it, and our minds can only think in terms of "time." In this case, Boethius can only think that God has determined our ending because he himself is thinking that if God is all knowing and knows our end, we should not have free will. However, if we were to use the "meter stick of time" image, then we can say that we have free will and we exercise it, and that's from our perspective as we can choose for ourselves whether or not to buy the HoneyBun at the gas station or not and it is truly our choice because we think in terms of time. However from God's perspective, our choice of buying that HoneyBun was predetermined because a meter stick is a meter stick no matter what you say, and in this case, the course of time. God views all events as current while Boethius can view still view his life as determined by himself due to the fact of being bounded by time.
I like this topic, it turns into a paradox. :)
I commented on Daniel's and Natalie's posts.
Thanks for your honesty, Noah. To be quite frank, my head was swirling trying to follow Boethius' and Philosophy's dialogue back in forth as well.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that you brought out the point in time. Despite my swirliness on the back and forth concepts of foreknowledge thrown about by Philosophy and Boethius, Philosophy connecting God's being outside of time as a key factor in understanding foreknowledge caught me. I think I agree with her, though I need to ponder and wrestle with it further! I appreciate the paradox and admire the depth and richness it adds!