Ahh... there we are. Thank you Godless, your link was very nice. It put what I tried to say at the start clearly. The problem that Cris makes in his original argument is a modal error. That is, his argument is invalid, as his conclusion doesn't follow necessarily from his premises.
As for the temporality/non-temporality of God. That God interacts with the temporal does not necessitate Him as a temporal being. As I have stated, the eternal nature of God means that His actions, knowledge, thoughts, and whatever else, are simultaneous, thus God's actions at any point in the temporal sphere, occur at once, in the eternal sphere.
Thanks for the lesson in Calvinism, but I was quite aware of that. If you want to be specific about the particular Christian "God" that we're talking about, then please do, it would make things much easier. As it is, I don't believe in the Calvinistic God. I also do not believe in the Temporal God. This is because I believe both in the omniscience of God and free will. Hence, belief in either of those Gods would represent a logical inconsistency on my part, however less for God's omniscience and more for God's immutability.
In my religious studies, I have seen God named omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, infinite, omnijust, omnibenevolent, truth, existence itself, pure being, pure spirit, pure act, eternal. While most of these attributes (and others that have slipped my mind just now, as I'm struggling to keep my eyes open), can be accounted for by various other means, mostly having to do with God as an infinite being, three of these attributes caused me the most difficulty. They are: pure act, omnipotence and immutable.
While most would probably look at those three and wonder how they can cause any kind of logic problems, I don't, or didn't. The difficulty came from breaking the terms down and understanding the root dualities of two of them, with respect to the third. That is, broken down, the two represent actuality and potentiality. Omnipotence means that God is capable of anything. To have a power means you are capable of something specific. To have all powers means you are capable of every possible action. However, to be capable of something means that you can do it potentially. In other words, there is the possibility of your doing it.
This causes a problem if God is said to be Pure Act. Of course, being Pure Act would make complete sense if God is Pure Being. However, temporal entities, as beings, are neither pure act, nor pure potential. They move from potentiality to actuality, potency to activity. To be possible, is to be potential. To be real, is to be actual. Change occurs in the movement from potentiality to actuality.
So if God is omnipotent, that is, contains all possibility, is fully potent, not lacking in any form of potential, but also Pure Act, that is, purely actual, fully real, perfect reality, but at the same time immutable, unchanging, then how is it that He interacts with people, how is it that He exists sequentially (moving from one moment to the next)?
The only way to reconcile all of these different, seemingly contradictory aspects of God, was to realize the full meaning of that final quality belonging to Him: eternality. The temporal is a sequenced existence, which is why anything existing in the temporal experiences time, past-present-future, sequenced events. The eternal is holistic existence, anything existing in the eternal experiences perfecton, totality, fullness, pure simultaneity, present, the "Eternal Now."
This then allows for omnipotence, immutability, Pure Act, as well as interaction, since interacting with temporal entities would still be experienced by an eternal being eternally, simultaneously, at once. All relationships known, experienced, made, acted upon, reacted upon, at the same time, at once, always, forever, unchanging, now.
There is precedent for asserting such an existence. That precedent is the duality of sequence and holism, potential infinity and actual infinity, partial and complete, evolution and perfection. The very thinking device utilized by every human being operates upon this basic duality. One hemisphere operates on logic, sequence and is responsible for science, reading of symbols, mathematics, any sequenced function. The other hemisphere operates on intuition, holism and is responsible for religion, art, the big picture, and holistic function.
Though you may not find this precedent convincing, I believe it is simply a basic underlying reality of existence. Thus, if there is a temporal, and there clearly is, there is also an eternal.
At any rate, the knowledge that even a temporal person has of the future is a result of the choices made in the future. That someone knows what those choices will be, doesn't mean those choices are predetermined. Consider it like this: if I didn't choose to do what God knows, then God wouldn't know it.
As for the temporality/non-temporality of God. That God interacts with the temporal does not necessitate Him as a temporal being. As I have stated, the eternal nature of God means that His actions, knowledge, thoughts, and whatever else, are simultaneous, thus God's actions at any point in the temporal sphere, occur at once, in the eternal sphere.
Thanks for the lesson in Calvinism, but I was quite aware of that. If you want to be specific about the particular Christian "God" that we're talking about, then please do, it would make things much easier. As it is, I don't believe in the Calvinistic God. I also do not believe in the Temporal God. This is because I believe both in the omniscience of God and free will. Hence, belief in either of those Gods would represent a logical inconsistency on my part, however less for God's omniscience and more for God's immutability.
In my religious studies, I have seen God named omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, infinite, omnijust, omnibenevolent, truth, existence itself, pure being, pure spirit, pure act, eternal. While most of these attributes (and others that have slipped my mind just now, as I'm struggling to keep my eyes open), can be accounted for by various other means, mostly having to do with God as an infinite being, three of these attributes caused me the most difficulty. They are: pure act, omnipotence and immutable.
While most would probably look at those three and wonder how they can cause any kind of logic problems, I don't, or didn't. The difficulty came from breaking the terms down and understanding the root dualities of two of them, with respect to the third. That is, broken down, the two represent actuality and potentiality. Omnipotence means that God is capable of anything. To have a power means you are capable of something specific. To have all powers means you are capable of every possible action. However, to be capable of something means that you can do it potentially. In other words, there is the possibility of your doing it.
This causes a problem if God is said to be Pure Act. Of course, being Pure Act would make complete sense if God is Pure Being. However, temporal entities, as beings, are neither pure act, nor pure potential. They move from potentiality to actuality, potency to activity. To be possible, is to be potential. To be real, is to be actual. Change occurs in the movement from potentiality to actuality.
So if God is omnipotent, that is, contains all possibility, is fully potent, not lacking in any form of potential, but also Pure Act, that is, purely actual, fully real, perfect reality, but at the same time immutable, unchanging, then how is it that He interacts with people, how is it that He exists sequentially (moving from one moment to the next)?
The only way to reconcile all of these different, seemingly contradictory aspects of God, was to realize the full meaning of that final quality belonging to Him: eternality. The temporal is a sequenced existence, which is why anything existing in the temporal experiences time, past-present-future, sequenced events. The eternal is holistic existence, anything existing in the eternal experiences perfecton, totality, fullness, pure simultaneity, present, the "Eternal Now."
This then allows for omnipotence, immutability, Pure Act, as well as interaction, since interacting with temporal entities would still be experienced by an eternal being eternally, simultaneously, at once. All relationships known, experienced, made, acted upon, reacted upon, at the same time, at once, always, forever, unchanging, now.
There is precedent for asserting such an existence. That precedent is the duality of sequence and holism, potential infinity and actual infinity, partial and complete, evolution and perfection. The very thinking device utilized by every human being operates upon this basic duality. One hemisphere operates on logic, sequence and is responsible for science, reading of symbols, mathematics, any sequenced function. The other hemisphere operates on intuition, holism and is responsible for religion, art, the big picture, and holistic function.
Though you may not find this precedent convincing, I believe it is simply a basic underlying reality of existence. Thus, if there is a temporal, and there clearly is, there is also an eternal.
At any rate, the knowledge that even a temporal person has of the future is a result of the choices made in the future. That someone knows what those choices will be, doesn't mean those choices are predetermined. Consider it like this: if I didn't choose to do what God knows, then God wouldn't know it.
As beyond said, you have to understand the concept of enternal.