Randomness and God

According to Christianity, God sees all things from outside time: “Since, then, every mode of judgment comprehends its objects conformably to its own nature, and since God abides for ever in an eternal present, His knowledge, also transcending all movement of time, dwells in the simplicity of its own changeless present, and, embracing the whole infinite sweep of the past and of the future, contemplates all that falls within its simple cognition as if it were now taking place. And therefore, if thou wilt carefully consider that immediate presentment whereby it discriminates all things, thou wilt more rightly deem it not foreknowledge as of something future, but knowledge of a moment that never passes.” – Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, Book 5

Calvinists, Thomists, and Molinists all agree that the future is written (while disagreeing on how God took our free will into account in “writing” it).


Yes there is, but it’s an “undiscovered country.”
It follows that if (as seems to be the case) the digits of π are “random,” then they are so in a similar sense to the digits produced by dice. The digits in both cases are determined and known by God, but only a finite number of them are known to us at any given point in time. Concerning the digits as yet unknown to us, we can only guess according to the well-tested laws of probability.


A π pie. Are the digits of π random? (Search π here)
It also follows that it makes sense to pray for good academic results, even if they are sitting in front of one in an unopened envelope (anything for which we have not yet reached the point of certainty can be considered “random”). Indeed, there is even something to be said for the (probably apocryphal) child who came home after a test and prayed that London would turn out to be the capital of France.


For me, the capital of France is a certainty. For others, it may still be in the realm of probability.