Caylao, Inna Marie S.

4Phl

This paper aims to examine Roberty Guenette’s 1981 documentary style film

entitled “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow”. It shall further provide a brief summary of the

aforesaid movie combined with my personal reaction and insights. Lastly, I shall make a

conclusion by providing a critique on the nature of Nostradamus’ series of predicted

events with that of David Hume’s philosophy in his “An Enquiry Concerning Human

Understanding”.

To begin with, it is imperative to know who is subject with time and who is not.

The past, the present, and the future are all inside the limits of time. Living and the non-

living beings are entitled to live in a particular time. Thus, to be subject with time is

inevitable. It is impossible then not to begin and end with time. Nonetheless, this holds

true only for the finite and temporal beings. God, who possesses all perfections and

essences particularly of being infinite and eternal, is the only exception. Thus, God is

omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. However, the question then arises whether a

finite being could foresee the future beyond his own existence in the temporal world. If it

is possible for him to predict such future events, could we say that it is something

coincidental? Coincidence, in a sense that certain foretold events happened in a

surprising or remarkable way, without any intentions of planning it whatsoever, and the

fact that it has the same likeness between you and with the events and decision of the

other. Or is it a sort of something like a divine action, and interference? Having said that,

I mean to say that God who is considered as the divine and perfect Being, made or

created that person as a special instrument in such a way that he foretells the incoming

events so that one could become vigilant and be able to take advantage of the
remaining time one possesses. In brief, it might be the case that he is the “prophet”

during that particular period in time where all people were under the influenced of

religion particularly of Catholic faith.

In this light, I am referring to Michel de Nostradamus, better known in his last

name as Nostradamus. He is the subject of the film and considered as the “man who

saw tomorrow”. Since the very beginning of his being in the world, he has the

exceptional potential of envisioning the possible events that will occur in the future. To

explicate it further, he provided us his precise and probable predictions of the events

that happened, continuously happening, and will happen in the future generations. His

visions of the future events are extraordinary as it focused more on the negative

aspects of reality such as war, death and or assassinations of prominent people. This is

so since during his early life, he filled himself with the knowledge of astronomy and

every related study that could be said and attributed to it. That it is why he dedicated his

life in writing about his predictions of the fate of people and of the world. With this, he is

then considered as the greatest cosmologist of all time. Nonetheless, from all the

presented and predicted events of Nostradamus, I would like to focus more on the most

important and authentic events that really occurred. The first would be the prophesized

death of the defiler who is responsible for digging the grave of Nostradamus. The defiler,

who desecrated the decayed body particularly of that very skull of Nostradamus by

using it like a glass to drink wine, was shoot by a sniper’s bullet. In this light, I think that

to begin with Nostradamus’ nature of prophesying is to begin with his very own

prediction not to the world but with himself. Subsequently, the projection about

Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler as the first two predicted antichrists with their rise
and fall as powerful leaders in the Western world. This is a fact that really fitted to what

has been predicted by Nostradamus. It is evident that the two antichrists participated in

the historical, political, economic, social, and moral consciousness of their respective

constituents and enemies. This then was the beginning of another human extermination,

that of the World War II. Lastly, Nostradamus’ prophecy about the assassinations of US

presidents namely Abraham Lincoln, John and Edward Kennedy. In this case,

Nostradamus predicted who, when, where and what way (the aforementioned

presidents) shall be assassinated and including their corresponding assailants.

As a result, all the predictions that have been concretized were undeniable. Yet,

according to Hume, man’s knowledge which is attained through experience and his

rational faculties has in no way can prove and predict any future events. Man is limited

to the knowledge of the ‘relations of ideas’ that are analytic and a priori and ‘matters of

fact’ that are synthetic and a posteriori. Hume maintains that we are not capable of

having this kind of knowledge of certainty with the future through our inferences of

similar events that happened between the past and the present. A past event might be

a proof for the future but this is not always true for Hume.

Conclusively, it seems that the prophecy of Nostradamus although it might not be

true and contrary for Hume, is still worthy to be considered. One should take this as an

advantage or an opportunity to live life more meaningfully and morally. I believe that we

can change our future positively if we live in the present ‘presently’. In this light, if there

is no substitute for a good preparation then the best preparation to prepare for our

future is to pay very close attention to the present moment.