Careful not to get it backwards, we have to follow the "rules" of this setup.
So when I say "Because you are NOT able to protect the lamp from the wind", it is not because of a lack in free will or anything. But rather because it IS the fate of the lamp to be blown out and God told you that.
You might very well have tried to protect the lamp as good as you could, but for some reason, it just didn't work, so it ended up being blown out. That is the case, if the fate of the lamp is as God told you, to be blown out by the wind.
If it weren't then God would know it, and therefore not tell you that it was the fate of the lamp. Does that make sense?
The fate of the lamp can't be, to be blown out by the wind and to not be, at the same time, because God knows which one of these are the correct fate.
No, the fate of the lamp can't be to be blown out by the wind
and not to be blown out, because the lamp can only have one fate. God knows which one of these is the ultimate fate of the lamp but God does not CAUSE the fate of the lamp by His Knowing its fate.
Who determined the fate of the lamp? The lamp did not get blown out by the wind because
you protected it from the wind. Thus you made a free will decision to protect the lamp from the wind in order to prevent the lamp from blowing out. God KNEW what you would do, but God did not DO anything at all. Thus God did not determine the fate of the lamp, you did.
Imagine we have Time and we assign a number to it, so the time with the lowest number happens before one with a higher number. Don't confuse it with God being timeless or anything like that, just look at it as the time of which events take place, so read it from top to bottom.
(So we have a strong wind blowing and the weather is very bad.)
Time 1 - You ask God what the fate of the lamp is?
What will God answer you at this point in time?
Time 5 - You decide to build a protective shell around the lamp against the wind. And then you ask God again, what is the fate of the lamp?
At this point in time will God answer that fate of the lamp is the same as he answered in Time 1 or not?
God would give you the
SAME answer at Time 1 and Time 5, because God knew at Time 1 that you would build the protective shell at Time 5, so God knew that the fate of the lamp was not to be blown out by the wind.
If not, did God know the fate of the lamp in Time 1 or not, and if he did, why did the fate change? [/quote]
God knew the fate of the lamp at Time 1 and at Time 5, and God knew that you would
determine the fate of the lamp by building the protective shell at Time 5.
The fate of the lamp did not change; the fate of the lamp was
always not to be blown out by the wind, but you
determined the fate of the lamp by making a free will decision to build the protective shell.
The lamp could have been blown out because the wind was blowing,
but that was never the fate of the lamp. IF that had been the fate of the lamp the lamp would have blown out.
If God answered the same fate in Time 1 as in Time 5, did you then change the fate of the lamp or was it exactly as it was always the way it was supposed to be like?
God answered the same fate at Time 1 as at Time 5 because the fate of the lamp was always the same; it never changed, as I explained above.
And therefore you didn't make any free will choice to protect the lamp, because that was already decided in Time 1, before you even decided to protect it in Time 5?
The fate of the lamp was already
known by God at Time 1, but it was not
decided/determined until Time 5, when you built the protective shell.
God did not
decide/determine the fate of the lamp just because God KNEW the fate of the lamp. That is what you still do not understand. The fate of the lamp was
determined by the protective shell you built around the lamp to protect the lamp from the wind.
No, then it simply weren't the fate of the lamp to begin with and never was. If what you or Abdu'l Baha are saying is true, then you are taking the mick out of God as being all knowing. Because it is IMPOSSIBLE for God to know the fate of anything, if you can change it at will.
That’s right. It was never the fate of the lamp to be blown out by the wind. If that had been the fate of the lamp, it would have been blown out.
The fate of the lamp was
determined by the protective shell you built. God KNEW you would build the shell because God knows everything that will happen, as if it has already happened.
Look at the example above with the time. There is no way, God can give you the correct answer in Time 1, if you can change it, in Time 2-5. Which means that clearly God would give you the wrong answer in Time 1 and therefore he is not all knowing.
As I said above, God would give you the SAME answer at Time 1 and Time 5, because the lamp only had one fate and the fate of the lamp was always the same. God knew what that fate was at Time 1 and at Time 5 because God is All-Knowing.
But if you don't know. Then why did you answer this to the question just above?
"Yes I did prevent that fate by changing my mind at the last minute."
Then clearly the answer should be, "I don't know if I change fate."
What I meant was that
I did not know at the time that I prevented the impending fate of slipping and falling and breaking my leg by putting down the trash and asking my husband to do the trash instead. However, I did
prevent what could have been my fate by changing my mind at the last minute.
The point is, that fate is what fate is. and there is only ONE fate!!
If you have a wine glass, which at some point will break either by someone dropping it on the floor or because someone accidentally hit it with the wine bottle.
Then the fate of the wine glass will either be, that "it is dropped" or that it is "hit by a wine bottle". It can't be both. Doesn't matter if its irrevocable or impending. You and me doesn't know which of these fate will be the correct one, but God does. And therefore it doesn't matter whether its irrevocable or impending, because the wine glass still only have ONE final fate.
It is true that there can be only one fate, but then we have to ask what
determined that fate. As I said before,
God knows what the ONE final fate will be, but out fate can change according to what we choose to do. So if I decide to do something different (like letting my husband take the trash out) that could alter my fate.
Yes so what difference, would it make to God if a fate is irrevocable or impending? If you ask him the fate of something, why should it matter in his eyes, what is the difference?
In does not matter to God but it matters to us because we can alter an impending fate, but NOT an irrevocable fate.
But then clearly you must agree, that talking about impending and irrevocable fates are pointless. Because if God knew that you would change your mind and thereby your fate, then the impending fate weren't really impending was it?
Yes, an impending fate was impending
until I changed my mind and did something different. After that it became my fate.
it was irrevocable, because you didn't change anything compared to what God already knew you would do?
It was never irrevocable because a fate cannot be BOTH impending and irrevocable since those are contradictory. An impending fate can be altered by free will choices and actions but an irrevocable fate can never be altered, as it is something that was predestined to happen no matter what you do. So for example, of it was predestined that you will die of a heart attack on a certain day nothing you might do to try to prevent that would prevent it.
It is important to note that there is no way we can know what our fate will be, and there is no way we can know if it is an impending fate or an irrevocable fate; only God knows which one it is and what the ultimate outcome will be. All we can do is make the best decisions possible and hope for the best; so with my cat all I could do was to take him to the vet as soon as possible because I knew that decision could determine the fate of the cat. The cat might have still had the same outcome if I had waited several days to take him to the vet, but I did not want to take that chance. We all make these kinds of decisions every day and determine what our fate will be. Sometimes it is nothing that important but sometimes it is very important.