Featured Do non-cals believe in omniscience?

The only emotionally satisfying way we can embrace this is to do so in complete trust in Him.

There is no way one can understand all of this in ones finite state. To undo this truth and attribute of God, as some do within their theology is to make attempt to downgrade the Godhead to fit into mans reason. Therefore there are some who reject the truth of Gods Omniscience because it is against their own reason.

God bows to nothing, neither man, reason, nor logic.

 

Gentlemen - I agree.

 

God is good.
God is great.
Evil exists.


Any two of these is easy to believe. It's when we try to put them all together that we have problems. This is one of the biggest issues non Christians have. As Luke said, we cannot sacrifice biblical truth to help us understand. God is omniscient all the time. He has always known everything! Praise be to God!

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: x's 10

 

A pastor friend of mine and I were having lunch.

During our conversation, he asked "Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God?"

The answer to that question is important. If something occurs to God, he is not omniscient. Nor is he immutable, because the new thought would represent a change in God.

 

Great answer! The Bible teaches God's omniscience clearly.

 

:thumbsup: to all.

When someone figures out God, let me know.

 

Only Satan and those who follow him would believe otherwise. Satan as opposed to God, sought to change God's word.
He believing that "free will" existed thought he could dictate to God what was right and wrong, and he sought to think evil thoughts about God and his Holy attributes.
His discontent with all God has created and given meaning to ended up in his sinful rebellion,and tempting of Adam to do likewise .....to believe the lie!
many who are still in Adam ...do so today,unless and until God opens their eyes by His grace and mercy.
They fail to see that to go against the love of God In Christ is to remain in darkness and the realm of evil.
One purpose of evil seems to be to magnify and teach a contrast to God's holiness and we will understand this eternally, and also to teach the elect angels who never sinned the evil of sin and eternal death.

 

The OP raises some very good questions.

Here is something to consider. Perhaps God created man to have fellowship with Him (Them). It started out that way in the Garden of Eden.

You cannot have fellowship with something unless it has a free choice to have that fellowship with; such as, you cannot have fellowship with a chair. So God created man for fellowship. Fellowship is a two-way street. Both parties must have a choice and want it to continue.

God knew man would choose to break that fellowship which Adam did by sinning. Jesus came to provide a sacrifice for our sins so that the fellowship could be restored. For those of us who are Christians, that fellowship will be restored for eternity. The time the fellowship was broken is a short time compared to eternity.

Man will appreciate that fellowship more throughtout eternity since it was once broken and then restored by God. His sacrifice also demonstrates just how much God loves us and treasures our fellowshsip.

 

:thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:

PS, JB, questioning one another's understanding of "biblical truth" is not of necessity "sacrificing" biblical truth. Just wanted to be clear on that point. The wonderful exchanges between Luke and Skan are not "sacrificing" biblical truths.

 

Ah, the (from a human standpoint) age-old problem of evil.

I presume that God's perfect holiness has a sufficent resolution in His infinity that our finite minds simply cannot comprehend and that is sufficent for me.

I don't have to understand it. I DO have to bow before God and admit it.

I DO BOW before my Sovereign God and King and bare my neck for His sword; but every time He picks me up and tells me He loves me and sends me back into the battle! Oh, how He loves us through the completed work and imputed righteousness of Christ!

 

Luke,
First of all, thanks for being clear that most all of us - cal's and non-cals -believe in the Biblical doctrine of God's complete and total knowledge of everything... after all that is what the "omni" means.

I agree with you about the non-satisfying aspect of whatever sytem we believe. I just know that is what the Bible says and it's one of the many things I don't understand and cannot explain thoroughly about our eternal God. Just because I can't explain it doesn't make it any less true. Why we think that the God of the Bible and His divine actions can be explained to our satisfaction eludes me.

 

:thumbs: I can't believe it but we actually agree on this point.

The point you bring up regarding this being 'from a human standpoint' is paramount because that is the basis for this dilemma. Notice Luke's basis of reasoning when he writes, "God has always known all there is to ever know about everything."

Notice the problem with this statement. He speaks of God's knowing as if it is past tense thus thrusting God into our linear timeline and makes him subject to our laws of cause/effect.

He goes on to say,

Showing once again how the problem is created by looking at God 'from the human perspective.' As if God is on a human like time line in history foreseeing what all will come to pass and then pushing the button to make it happen exactly as he foresaw it would be. I suppose it probably is a bit more complex than that. The PROBLEM or DILEMMA is not created by the Bible, it is created by judging God from the human perspective. He doesn't KNOW things in the same way we KNOW things. He doesn't make choices in the same way we make CHOICES, yet the whole set up for this 'dilemma' is based on the assumption that He does. And then he concludes...

Why do we need to offer an emotionally satisfying explanation unless we accept the premise that God foreknows, chooses, creates in a linear time bases cause/effect construct prior to when He created time? It makes NO SENSE.

To me, though it is still speculative, the 'eternal now' explanation of God's complete omniscience is much more reasonable, but it was dismissed out of hand as it was arbitrarily concluded that the only two viable speculative theories were Determinism or Open Theism, both of which make the same error.

 

While God indeed stands apart from time, He is not absent from time. Beware that you do not carry God's transcendence to a point where God is also unknowable and non-existent.

Even in the Revelation, God caused to be said, "before" and "after" -- and that AFTER the end day when we inherit eternity.

 

Luke, you said you agree with JonC yet did you notice the first line of his post?

He wrote, "I think that our understanding of God’s omniscience is by nature anthropomorphic."

Yet, you are basing your entire premise on your understanding of God's full knowledge of all things, his choices of those things (which you already admitted were anthropomorphic), at a "time" when "time" itself didn't even exist yet. How can you conclude there is a dilemma that must be answered if you concede these things are mysterious and unknown to us...the very argument I've been making all along for what else is LFW, if its not an appeal to mystery?

 

You make a valid point. I do agree that we are to understand God within time, what other option do we have really? But, I think you would agree, that understanding must be firmly rooted in His revelation, not our logical constructs. I've been arguing the 'appeal to mystery' from the beginning on this subject because I believe where the scripture is silent so should we be.

I've also argued that if God chose to reveal himself using anthropomorphic terms then it can't be wrong for us to understand him according to those terms.

This is why I have rejected speculative conclusions such as, "If God knew it prior to creating it then He must have determined it to be." The bible doesn't say that.