"Unthinkable" by Brad Parks is was a very well written thriller with some terrific twists, and a raging philosophical argument throughout. It starts with a common ethical question: would you kill someone to save to the lives of many others? Of course you would. Well, would you kill your wife to save the lives of a billion strangers? Assuming you love your wife, this ratchets up the stakes to an "unthinkable" level, the makings of a great thriller novel. The discussion moves to something like "how can this be a real question?" Because the answer involves someone being able to see the future, it moves into the question of whether free will exists for individuals and the very nature of time. But this is not really a sci-fi piece. The central characters' love for each other drives them to keep questioning the quandary they are in, in spite of pretty convincing evidence, helping the reader do the same. Their humanity, in the best sense of the word, helps them overcome the plot of the bad guys, even if they don't solve the questions of Life, the Universe, and Everything. I don't think making a statement like that is a spoiler, since a major part of the thriller genre is that somehow, the good guys overcome the odds, right?
Now just for argument's sake, suppose that someone really could see into the future. But wait - this supposes that the Future is of a nature that it can be seen into. And if it is there, just another dimension like the spatial dimensions, then is everything predestined? I assert that the Future does NOT exist. It simply is not there to be seen by anyone. Including God Himself, who made the universe the way it is. So wait, hasn't God foretold the future? Yes, on a number of occasions (not including predicting what He Himself was going to do, which, as Jonah found out, can change). However, God sees every choice we make, every star that goes super-nova, every quark or string, depending on how He conceptualizes it. So He is in a good position to predict what will happen next. Because we humans do actually have free will, our choices have a material effect on how the future unfolds, at least on this planet. Remember what Jesus said in his example of how to pray? "May thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This is strong evidence to suppose that on many occasions, His will is not being done on earth. It is the Christian's goal in life to have a relationship with the Living God and lovingly seek to do His will on earth. Admit it, we often fail in this endeavor, but we must persevere.
Returning to the idea then that someone really could see into the future, I accept that it could be a similar thing. Not just a logical prediction based on what someone knows about what's happening, but more like a gift of knowledge, God (or possibly another spirit being who is not confined to the Space-Time Continuum) telling someone about what He sees as going to happen - but which can be changed if God or someone else intervenes in the current situation. When God does it, we call it a miracle - if we actually notice.
One last point: the whole idea that seeing something coming, for instance a bunch of people dying in some catastrophe, we humans would probably declare it to be bad, and to intervene to prevent it would be good. This is just one more example of Original Sin at work. We look on the outward appearance and decide is it good? or is it bad? A bunch of people dying, that must be bad, more bad than just one person dying, who may be causing the others' deaths. Ethics is all about Good vs Evil. Which is why it so easily becomes absurd. Jesus told them, "... those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you Nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."
