God's Omniscience

[Iacchus]

God's Omnipotence

From this thread

Evidently this is not an all-powerful God as well, because an all-powerful God could restructure justice as he saw fit until it was just to create someone damned to eternal torment.

...just like an all-powerful God can change the laws of logic so that an unliftable rock becomes a logical possibility?!

You're saying that God's laws would be arbitrary; that if God says so, then it is ok to mutilate babies. And then goodness, or justice, no longer have any meaning.

Can God create an object to heavy for him to lift? Yes. Then can God lift it? Yes. But God does not do such a thing, he has the ability to do it, but he does not.

So then you ask how I could know God won't change the laws of logic? How could I know that God won't break promises, sin, cause himself not to exist?

Is not breaking his promises a limitation to power? no. Is not being able to sin a limitation to power? no. Is not being able to not exist a limitation to power? no.

On the other hand, it is my limitation to power to have the ability to break promises, sin, and not exist.

Am merely reposting this because I thought BJQ87's reply was such a good answer.

 

[c4ts]

I have said more in the other thread.

 

[uruk]

I have said more in the other thread.

You have no way of knowing that he does not, since anything God says, God can simultaneously contradict, and not let you know any of it. You forget that even though God does not appear to behave certain ways, you've already left the boundaries of logical discourse. It does no good to assume any kind of consistent behavoir when the entire concept of "consistency" no longer has meaning.



Though you may think you have the answers and believe what others say on this subject (or you might not), breaking the confines of thought itself means you will never, ever, know, not now, not in a million years, not if God himself gave you all the answers, not even if you actually did know, or knew everything there is to know and everything that is not there to know. "Possibility," "impossibility," "contradiction," and other things no longer apply. Once the entire structure of knowledge becomes meaningless, anything anybody says goes, and pattern recognition no longer holds up. You're dealing with absurdity here.


Since all ideas about what this sort of God is doing or is not doing hold no more weight than pure speculation, it doesn't matter if God doesn't do something. God might be doing it and not doing it at the same time, in the same sense, but preventing you from finding out, and it would appear to you no different.




This isn't really about promises anyway. A God powerful beyond logic can keep promises by breaking them, and break promises by keeping them. If this isn't making any sense to you, that's because it shouldn't.

The solution is to say that things like justice and logic exist outside of and independantly from God, and therefore he is subject to them. Therefore, God can't do anything illogical (and therefore he is not omniscient), and he is capable of both just and unjust actions.

I'd thought I'd save you the trouble and post your response here
__________________

 

[Babe from Missouri]

Why the ◊◊◊◊ didn't you just tell him so in the other thread? Why start a new thread? Do you think that if you start enough damned threads one of them will accidentally make sense?

btw, this post seems to be more about god's omnipotence than his omniscience.

 

[uruk]

Why the ◊◊◊◊ didn't you just tell him so in the other thread? Why start a new thread? Do you think that if you start enough damned threads one of them will accidentally make sense?

btw, this post seems to be more about god's omnipotence than his omniscience.

It's Iaachus' way of increasing the number of his posts. He figures the bigger number will give him more credibility.

 

[Iacchus]

btw, this post seems to be more about god's omnipotence than his omniscience.

Yes, you are correct. I just realized that myself and hoped I could change the title before anyone caught on but, I stand corrected.

 

[Belz...]

Is not breaking his promises a limitation to power? no. Is not being able to sin a limitation to power? no. Is not being able to not exist a limitation to power? no.

That's ridiculous. "God CAN do these things... he just doesn't." Really ? So he CAN create a stone too heavy for him to lift, and then he can lift it ? Well, that's just a contradiction. If God can create contradictions with impunity, then no logic or thought has any value, and God himself is meaningless.



... of course, I could've told you that last bit.

 

[c4ts]

"Omniscience," "Omnipotence," I make the same mistake too, sometimes. Stupid Latin derivitives. Three years of Latin in high school and I can't remember "to be able" was "potior."

 

[Tricky]

"Omniscience," "Omnipotence," I make the same mistake too, sometimes. Stupid Latin derivitives. Three years of Latin in high school and I can't remember "to be able" was "potior."

Well, there is some overlap, so confusion is understandable. For example, if you are omnipotent, you are also omniscient, because if you can do absolutely anything, then one of the things you can do is know everything. But the reverse is not true. You could be omnescient, but unable to do anything with your limitless knowledge, even if you thought what was happening was wrong.

Of course "omnibenevolent" is totally circular, because if you can do only good, then whatever you do has to be defined as good, regardless of what moral standards we mere humans might hold. Kill thousands of people in a tsunami? Well, has to be good, because an omnibenevolent god can only do good.

But I thought a potoir was the room in a house where Rastafarians went to smoke.

 

[c4ts]

Of course, omniscience doesn't necessarily imply omnipotence. You might know everything, but be powerless to affect some of it. Or all of it.

Omnibenevolence started out as some kind of "providence" thing, where you could point to anything and say "goddidit, therefore it must be good because god is good, but I just can't see the apparent good, and by that logic I'm special," but it really places God outside of morality.

 

[BJQ87]

"You have no way of knowing that he does not, since anything God says, God can simultaneously contradict, and not let you know any of it."

God's nature is to be all-powerfull, therefore he "decides" based upon his nature, because God cannot change. (not changing is in this case not a limitation to power either) If Gods nature is to be all-powerfull and he "decides" based upon that nature, then He "decides" the more powerfull route because he must in order to be all-powerfull. The more powerfull route is not to break promises, not to sin, or not to not exist. Rather than breaking promises, sinning, or not existing.

To add to this- God can "create contradictions with impunity" as belz put it, but can only do so if this action does not conflict with his nature.

 

[teacher]

God's omnipotence

The Judeao Christian God is all powerful and also consistent with His nature. There's lot's of thinks He can't do - like lie, fail a task, do evil etc. An all loving mother doesn't sit and smile dumbly at her naughty child, she punishes it, in love. Power doesn't mean going round bragging or throwing lightning either. Plato's Euthyphro dillema is interesting if you haven't come across it though. I'll leave you to resolve it, but let me know if you don't grasp the point. It's a challenghe to theists.
"Are things holy because the God's deem them so, or do the God's deem them holy because they are holy?"

 

[teacher]

There is much debate in theological circles as to whether God knows the future or not. If He doesn't, this apparently does not intrude into his omnipresence or omniscience, though I certainly think it denies his omniscience. The reason for this debate is over God's foreknowledge and the important theological notion or aspect free will.

 

[Belz...]

To add to this- God can "create contradictions with impunity" as belz put it, but can only do so if this action does not conflict with his nature.

Isn't that a limitation in and of itself ?

 

[fruit_loup]

The Judeao Christian God is all powerful and also consistent with His nature. There's lot's of thinks He can't do - like lie, fail a task, do evil etc.

Lie:
Ezek.14:9 "And if a prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet."


Fail a task:
(Judg 1:19 NRSV) The LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron.

Do evil:

(Isaiah 45:6-7 ) "That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."

I am not sure if we are discussing the same Judeao Christian god as it seems the one in the Christian bible is capable of all these things.

 

[teacher]

Hi Belz and fruit loop. I'm not sure that most people would say that 'not knowing' the future is a limitation of God's, because it would not be consistent with allowing free will which would go against His nature which I believe is not determined by God but is a part of God - like He doesn't (just) love but God is love. I am sympathetic to your view because prophecying (which God does a lot of and third of the Bible is just this, and N.T. believers and O.T. ones were given such powers) is tantamount to knowing the future given that an O.T. test for a true prophet is 100% accuracy in hindsight. One alternative by the way is that God supposedly knows so much detsail about everything that the future can be known by extrapolation of such intricasies. Determinism and free will is an interesting topic for this. There is a Euthyphro dillema in this too but I'll leave that for now.

With regards to God lying, failing tasks and comiting evil. Good search you made! Whilst I would not contend that the Bible is necessarily accurate to any degree, none of these examples you suggest would be persuasive to inspirationalists or innerentist.

God tries to persuade and disuade - many examples from Moses and the Pharoh to Saul and Peter, it would be contended that He never takes away free will. He tests but doesn't tempt.

Regards failing tasks, God was with Samson but left him and finally returned but he still died. Whilst God was finally with him God must havbe been very disappointed as Samson was largely a very bad role model.

[Point of interest on discrepency. It was a custom (Nazarite vow) for Samson to grow his hair long and God specifically used it for his strength. In the N.T. it says "doesn't even nature itself teach us that it is a shame fo a man to have long hair." No doubt there will be an alledged answer to this apparent contradiction, but I find it strange to say the least.]

God's spirit smote 10,000 in a sitting and destroyed the whole world in the flood, so God would seem to be ABLE to destroy the army you quoted. Interesting that Jesus was UNABLE to heal those in some places due to their unbelief. The task is failed due to the will or lack of faith of the people, not God's power but free will again. Remember, it was just a man that couldn't win that battle you quoted, albeit a man who had God with him. God was supposedly with those victims in WWII but they died. If God is with both sides in a battle of Christians, what happens? Death or not having a job or whatever is no determining factor as to whether God is with someone or not.

Finally God created or allowed the possibility of evil, He doesn't do evil.

I would just add that I am sure there are countless discrepancies in the Bible and disagreements as to the nature, attrributes or existence of God, but destroying the arguments of interpretations of God or His supposed Holy books doesn't say anything about God itself. Babies and bathwater spring to mind.

I am just speaking off the cuff here and would need to look a bit deeper to get a more detailed or sufficient answer if I haven't really helped, but providing you accept my point that by finding Biblical errors does not discount God, then I don't think we really disagree, however much our philosophies may differ. A lot of timewasting occurs is debates between theists and non theists (or between theists and theists over what the Bible is) and it ends up with semantics or minor issues or hurt or similar. I think there are better ways to examine and discuss the issue. One might be not unlike the Randi challenge. Agree over the terms of what constitutes a discepancy in some meaningful detail that can conclude on a clear yes or no. I can't see that hapening, butbrules and guidelines and limitations are needed. I think that ambiguity is on the side of those who claim inspiration, as it is on the side of the psychic. It is SO annoying that they can get away with so much and others can domso little.

And finally, after the weekend I am keen to commence a thread on healing. I was (previously) an ardent evangelical involved in leadership, healing, prophecy, creationism and similar ministries. I am keen to expose all claimed healings for what I believe they are, in a new way that is tangiable. More on this later.
Sorry so long, I'm new!

 

[Belz...]

Finally God created or allowed the possibility of evil, He doesn't do evil.

God kills children just for laughing at a prophet. I call that evil of the highest order.

I would just add that I am sure there are countless discrepancies in the Bible and disagreements as to the nature, attrributes or existence of God, but destroying the arguments of interpretations of God or His supposed Holy books doesn't say anything about God itself. Babies and bathwater spring to mind.

If the bible is supposed to be inerrant, then any single mistake it makes destroys the entire edifice. If, however, it's NOT meant to be inherant, then there is nothing we can learn reliably from it and, again the entire idea of the christian god is suspect.

 

[Iacchus]

There is much debate in theological circles as to whether God knows the future or not. If He doesn't, this apparently does not intrude into his omnipresence or omniscience, though I certainly think it denies his omniscience. The reason for this debate is over God's foreknowledge and the important theological notion or aspect free will.

Hey, the camera's always rolling, whether we like it or not. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to interfere with our free will, however, so long as "we're" unaware of it.

 

[Iacchus]

With regards to God lying, failing tasks and comiting evil. Good search you made! Whilst I would not contend that the Bible is necessarily accurate to any degree, none of these examples you suggest would be persuasive to inspirationalists or innerentist.

Yes, I understand that the scorching heat of the sun is very "nasty" in the middle of the desert.

 

[teacher]

Hi Belz. Better to make posts of a genuinely enquiring nature. You found a good example of apparent evil which you seem to find hard to diggest and would be interested to know how a Biblical supporter understands it, right?

For anyone who is unsure:
Inspired - originating from God but put into the hands and minds of people with their words and understanding.
Innerent - wholly without error. In fundamentalist cases this means from all perspectives including scientific. It does allow for perspective and the like, e.g. if something is meant to be poetic (sonf of songs, Psalms etc.) then clearly this is not factual.

May I offer a more significant example of apparent evil and suggest a solution. When you see this you may also understand the more general point of the futility of arguing with those who hold this view in this way.

On several occasions, God committed genocide. He not only killed all the men, but the women, children and animals. Most agree that genocide is about as bad as one can get, this being a particularly horrific set of examples.

First, death (killing someone) for believers is just a stepping stone, not the end. Atheists (obviously because it is their thinking) take death (certainly from another or unexpectedly) as bad, where theists take it as good, going to a better place (if that is where the person is believed to be going).

If someone catches an incurable disease that always spreads quickly, is always fatal and cannot be treated or contained or quarantined, if the only answer is to kill the (otherwise innocent) person, we would do it so save the world - atheistic utilitarianism in action.

If the wrong that the people did in the Bible (in most cases it was against the first commandment, have no otrher gods before me as they worshipped other false, non existent gods) caused them and their descendents thoughout all future history to go to hell, then removcing all the exposed 'cancer' including any good bits close by that may be subject to it must logically be removed to save the majority. This is a consistent explanation of the events, however much you may not like it.

You could certainly argue that free will is interfered with. I believe that if God CAN interfere, He WOULD and SHOULD do so in all cases. If salvation can happen by any other means than that laid down, e.g. by exceptions, it should happen multi laterally for God to be loving an d 'not willing that any sahoukd perrish and all come to repentence.'.