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God's foreknowledge: selective or infinite?

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neologist
 
Reply Mon 3 Mar, 2008 04:16 pm
Or, to put it simply:

If God can know the future, does that mean he must know the future?
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InfraBlue
 
  1  
Reply Mon 3 Mar, 2008 07:44 pm
Does your god play games with himself?
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neologist
 
  1  
Reply Mon 3 Mar, 2008 08:26 pm
You have a strange looking avatar. What on earth is it?
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Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Mon 3 Mar, 2008 08:43 pm
The Three Personed Godhead was having a talk with Himself the other day and All Three Persons agreed that being omniscient takes a lot of the fun out of being a GOD.

"Just once, I"d like to be a little surprised." The Paraclete cooed softly." Just once be on the outs."

"Yeah, I'd be for that." The Lamb of God said shaking His head (and the heavens) vigorously."What's the point of performing miracles if the wonder is all on one side? I knew I was going to feed all those people and even knew how many loaves and fishes I was going to have to work with. It makes this being Almighty pretty boring."

"What about me?" God the Father thundered and intoned, "I have to act all bothered and disturbed, fraught with anger so that the people of God are sore afraid, but, shucks, I have always known they would screw up and what they would screw up and how they would screw it up. I just have to play the bad guy."

"Hey, look at the time' said the Holy Spirit, "I have to go appear at a Mega-Church in Dallas in about three seconds. (Sigh) Three dozen women are going to faint when ... oops, gotta go."

Joe(Any GOD who does not know all must turn in his robe and pearly crown)Nation
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neologist
 
  1  
Reply Mon 3 Mar, 2008 11:41 pm
You have a strange looking avatar. Is that you?

BTW, thanks for pointing out the stupidity of the trinitarian doctrine. Was that your point?
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Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Tue 4 Mar, 2008 05:44 am
neologist wrote:
You have a strange looking avatar. Is that you?

BTW, thanks for pointing out the stupidity of the trinitarian doctrine. Was that your point?

Not as strange as the last one.... Tom Jones in a turban. Very Happy
Yeh...dat's the Joe on the road.

It doesn't matter how many gods, ten, six or the whole Greek Pantheon. (except the Greeks were smart enough to invent Gods who were not omniscient. Most of them, the gods, were as horny and ill-mannered as the Greeks.)

If it's just one huge god spread out over the whole fabric of this universe and a couple of others, well good, but that god is stuck with the powers we have enshrined (no pun intended) in it.
No limit poker means no limit.
Omniscient gods know all.
Past, future and however twisted time gets in that past or in that future and all the other dimensions of time/space out there and in here.


Joe(okay. Start your space/time continuums.)Nation
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 4 Mar, 2008 05:53 am
Its been pointed out many times that God's omnipotence is incompatible with his omniscience.

Does He have the power to change his future mind? If so he cant be omniscient.

If not He's not omnipotent.

or as Karen Owens said

Can omniscient God, who
Knows knows the future, find
The omnipotence to
Change His future mind?
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neologist
 
  1  
Reply Tue 4 Mar, 2008 07:14 am
And you define God as omniscient because? . . .
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Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Tue 4 Mar, 2008 11:19 am
neologist wrote:
And you define God as omniscient because? . . .

Please tell us which particular God you referred to in your orginal question.

Joe(There are thousands to choose from.) Nation
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neologist
 
  1  
Reply Tue 4 Mar, 2008 11:29 am
The one the OT refers to as Jehovah, or Yahweh, a word meaning "he who causes to become".
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 4 Mar, 2008 03:51 pm
neologist wrote:
And you define God as omniscient because? . . .
I'm not sure I define God as anything in particular. Its the believers who I've heard describe him as omnipotent omniscient, ever-present etc. I notice you dont deny the logical inconsistency.
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neologist
 
  1  
Reply Tue 4 Mar, 2008 09:32 pm
The word "omniscient" has been assigned by man and implies a limitation on God's power.

I would say it is more accurate to describe God as knowing what he chooses to know, much like the father who chooses not to read his child's diary, or the computer operator who declines to keep constantly informed of the voltage being used by his CPU.

If he were omniscient by our standard definition, it would mean that, at one time, all the misery that has affected the universe for the past several thousand years existed at one time only in the mind of Jehovah and he deliberately unleashed these evils upon his creation in a stellar act of infinite sadism.

Not the God I worship.
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 5 Mar, 2008 04:02 am
neologist wrote:
The word "omniscient" has been assigned by man and implies a limitation on God's power.

I would say it is more accurate to describe God as knowing what he chooses to know, much like the father who chooses not to read his child's diary, or the computer operator who declines to keep constantly informed of the voltage being used by his CPU.

If he were omniscient by our standard definition, it would mean that, at one time, all the misery that has affected the universe for the past several thousand years existed at one time only in the mind of Jehovah and he deliberately unleashed these evils upon his creation in a stellar act of infinite sadism.

Not the God I worship.
Omniscient refers to the infinite knowledge of God. That does indeed imply a limitation on his power, as I have already demonstrated. If he is omniscient he can be potent but not omnipotent. Again these man made descriptions of God lead to total confusion.

Regarding the evils in the world, the Bible tells us many times over that they are as a result of rejecting God. That God inflicted them deliberately upon the earth and upon individuals as punishment. Jehovah may not be your god, but I would like to know by what name you call him.

And is not the father the Father of Jesus, God the Father to whom he called out Yahweh on the cross? What religion are you Neo?
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Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Wed 5 Mar, 2008 04:39 am
Neo wrote:
Quote:
If he were omniscient by our standard definition, it would mean that, at one time, all the misery that has affected the universe for the past several thousand years existed at one time only in the mind of Jehovah and he deliberately unleashed these evils upon his creation in a stellar act of infinite sadism.

Not the God I worship.


Oh, but he is the god of the Bible; mean as a snake, vengeful, self-centered, quick to anger, quick to start smiting and smoting as a supreme being can be, that one. He may not be the God you worship, but He is the one millions have feared.

Joe(If your daughter was dating a man who acted like God does in the Bible, you'd fear for her life and sanity.)Nation
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neologist
 
  1  
Reply Wed 5 Mar, 2008 07:34 am
Steve 41oo wrote:
Omniscient refers to the infinite knowledge of God. That does indeed imply a limitation on his power, as I have already demonstrated. If he is omniscient he can be potent but not omnipotent. Again these man made descriptions of God lead to total confusion.
Agreed
Steve 41oo wrote:
Regarding the evils in the world, the Bible tells us many times over that they are as a result of rejecting God. That God inflicted them deliberately upon the earth and upon individuals as punishment.
Not a punishment, but as you first said, a result, a consequence.
Steve 41oo wrote:
Jehovah may not be your god, but I would like to know by what name you call him.
The cruel God you seem to have described and that Joe reviles in his last post is not Jehovah.
Steve 41oo wrote:
And is not the father the Father of Jesus, God the Father to whom he called out Yahweh on the cross? What religion are you Neo?
How long have we known each other?
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Terry
 
  1  
Reply Wed 5 Mar, 2008 02:52 pm
Re: God's foreknowledge: selective or infinite?
neologist wrote:
If God can know the future, does that mean he must know the future?

Yes. Exactly how is God going to hide any information from himself?

Quote:
If he were omniscient by our standard definition, it would mean that, at one time, all the misery that has affected the universe for the past several thousand years existed at one time only in the mind of Jehovah and he deliberately unleashed these evils upon his creation in a stellar act of infinite sadism.

When I was working as a design engineer, we had to complete a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis for each component and system. We wrote down every way we could imagine it to fail and evaluated the consequences. If they were serious enough, we had to redesign it.

Didn't God have the same responsibility to consider the results of his creation, and redesign it to mitigate suffering? Even if he is not omniscient, he should be intelligent enough to figure out some of the basics: much of the suffering in the world is directly the result of poor design, including diseases, mental illness, birth defects, noxious parasites, natural disasters, drought, floods, and genetically-determined biological urges that induce men to steal, rape and kill.

The "free will" apologetic for God's failure to control his creations is illogical. The will isn't "free" if mental problems make it impossible for someone to stop themselves from commiting evil. Supposedly God chooses not to intervene in murders and other crimes in order to preserve the perpetrator's free will, but the victim's loss of free will is ignored. How does that make sense to anyone?

Quote:
Not the God I worship.

So your faith allows you to pick and choose the qualities you want in a god? How nice to be able to ignore all the bad things the Biblical God did, and imbue him with all of the love and care we would wish a heavenly father to have!
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 5 Mar, 2008 02:54 pm
I dont know. I've never met you, but read your posts for perhaps 3 maybe 4 years! You are obviously an intelligent and thoughtful person. What I dont understand is how such a person gets swallowed up in superstitious nonsense dressed up as religion. I presume you to be some sort of evangelical christian. Or buddhist. Not a devil worshipper, or muslim.
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neologist
 
  1  
Reply Wed 5 Mar, 2008 07:38 pm
Re: God's foreknowledge: selective or infinite?
Terry wrote:
. . . Didn't God have the same responsibility to consider the results of his creation, and redesign it to mitigate suffering?
If we take the bible's word

And I realize that, for many, this is a big if

Then God has promised to provide mitigation. In fact, his very name defines his ability. Jehovah (or Yahweh) literally means 'he who causes to become'. The conclusion is that his purpose, though it may be delayed, cannot be denied.

Though the delay may seem interminable to us, we don't wind the clock.
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neologist
 
  1  
Reply Wed 5 Mar, 2008 07:39 pm
Steve 41oo wrote:
I dont know. I've never met you, but read your posts for perhaps 3 maybe 4 years! You are obviously an intelligent and thoughtful person. What I dont understand is how such a person gets swallowed up in superstitious nonsense dressed up as religion. I presume you to be some sort of evangelical christian. Or buddhist. Not a devil worshipper, or muslim.
Try card carrying, door knocking Jehovah's Witness.
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Mar, 2008 07:24 am
So whats the latest prediction for the end of the world? I'd really like to pencil it in my diary.
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