Journey
Image by Vanessa Pike-Russell
If it is Tuesday, and it is raining, and I say, "It is raining," this affirmation is TRUE. Likewise, if I say, "It is not raining," this negation is FALSE. The principle works for the past as well, on the assumption that something that has happened or is happening is NECESSARY, i.e., since it is that way it cannot be any other way.
However, the same does not hold for the future tense. If it is Monday, and I say, "It will rain tomorrow," and it does, that does not mean that at the time of my prediction the event was necessary (that is, in relation to what humans can know). In other words, a statement made about the future is neither true nor untrue, since the future is indeterminate.
Keep in mind that this is only the case with the statement, not the event itself. Since it is necessarily true that it will rain on Tuesday, being as a thing that happens is necessary, and causes cause things to happen in a particular way (condensation causes rain clouds, making rain necessary, though it has not yet happened), the event will or will not happen in the future because of the causes set in motion by the present. Of the affirmation, though, one cannot be as definite. For it may be likely that rain will occur by the clouds we see today, yet our saying it does not make it happen.
Thus statements about the future can never be true or false, only likely or unlikely. There is an interesting corollary to this. That is, if I say, "It will not rain on Tuesday," and it does, it will not be entirely correct to answer my prediction with the statement, "You were wrong." For at the time of my speaking, I was neither wrong nor right, neither speaking the truth or a falsity. Furthermore, it is also indecent to propose that "I am wrong," since the only way this would make sense is if, at the onset of the Tuesday rain-shower, I still maintained that it is not going to rain. Since it would be patently absurd for me to say this in the face of the actual event, we cannot say that I continue to be wrong (that is, because my opinion has changed).
This is the net result - future statements are neither true nor untrue, even in a deterministic universe.
