Can omniscience choose?

Not only that, he would not be immutable, since to not know something,then to know it, would represent a change in God.

 

Yes and yes, which is why I disagree with your conclusions about how God can't make real choices. The bible says God makes choices and you say that he can't make choices because of his omniscience. If the bible says God makes choices then it can't be wrong to believe that God makes choices. If scripture employees anthropomorphic language in order to help us understand God then it shouldn't be wrong for us to understand him and explain him using those same terms.

In other words, if scripture uses anthropomorphic terms so we can understand God, then we should understand him by those terms, not different terms made up by some dead theologian.

 

:thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:

 

Non sequitur

Your fallacy goes like this:
1. God is described with human like qualities
2. God is not human
3. Thus, the description is false

or

1. God is described using human like qualities so we can understand Him better.
2. We understand him better.
3. Thus, the description is an inaccurate way to understand God

It doesn't follow. We all KNOW that God doesn't have a body like ours, just as we understand that he doesn't make choices in the exact same manner that we do, but those are the terms given to us so that we can understand and relate to Him, thus to contradict what is clearly revealed through those terms (i.e. "God chose" vs. "God doesn't really choose" or "God relented" vs. "God doesn't really relent") does injustice to the text and redefines the very terms God inspired.

So, in your argument you are comparing "God blowing his nose" with "God making a choice," as both being "anthropomorphisms."

Ok, let me try one:

God loves you. But not really cause that is also anthropomorphic. God doesn't love in the same way you and I love, so God really can't love because for an immutable, eternal, self sufficient being to love someone outside himself would make him less than perfectly self sufficient and subject to emotion and feelings which are humanlike qualities. Thus, I conclude God doesn't really love.

Absurd, right? That is what you sound like to me. Sorry, not trying to be rude, just trying to help you see what this looks like and the absurdity of going down this road.

So every mature Christian needs to contradict the terms used by the scripture which says that God chooses and say what Luke says instead, "God doesn't make real choices." And when He says "let us reason together" we all know that God doesn't really "reason" so let's conclude that God doesn't reason either. And surely God has no emotion, so lets say God doesn't love either. In fact just about every quality of God that doesn't start with an "omni" should just be dismissed as not really being true of God. Ok, good. We got that all straightened out. :smilewinkgrin:

Yes, I'm jesting, but this is really getting to be a bit absurd, I think. Just say, God makes choices but we really don't know how to describe that because his ways are higher than ours and be done with it bro.

 

Folks simply do not believe what the scriptures say, plain and simple.

Gen 32:24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. 26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. 29 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. 30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

We see that God entered time here and became a man. He limited himself in strength as Jacob prevailed over him when they wrestled. We see God limited his omniscience as he did not know Jacob's name. We see God in time as he needed to be released before sunrise.

This is not anthropomorphic language, it is a literal account of Jacob wrestling with God. So, it is obvious God limits himself at times to personally interact with men, as no man can see God's face (in his glory) and live.

Folks should simply believe what the scriptures say, and not interpret it to fit their false presuppositions.

 

Winman, what is your username on this forum? Mine is jbh28, what's yours?

 

You simply refuse to believe the scriptures. Did God limit his omnipotence in this passage? If so, then why could God not also limit his omniscience?

Your problem understanding scripture is nothing but unbelief. You esteem the doctrines of men over the word of God.

 

If we adopt the position that God's asking Jacob his name means God didn't know Jacob's name, I suppose we must hold that when God called out in Eden "Where are you?", he really didn't know where Adam and Eve were.

I am trying to get my mind to understand how an omniscient God can decide not to know something. Did he never know it? Or did he decide to temporarily "un-know" it?

I can hardly visualize God saying, "I don't want to know that, so I won't." Why would God not want to know something, if in fact, he could know it?

What if God accidentally knows something he didn't intend to know? Okay, never mind about that, I'm just letting my mind float freely. I didn't mean to ask that?

I still contend that to limit God's omniscience (or to hold that God himself limits it), is also an attack on his immutability.

 

Correct, but that doesn't mean the anthropomorphic understanding is incorrect. For example, if the poet wrote, "The trees outstretched arms swayed in the breeze." You would know that the tree doesn't have literal arms, but that doesn't give you the ability to dismiss the clearly revealed truth that the tree indeed was swayed by the breeze. Here is your fallacy.

You would say (if consistent with what you have been arguing) "The tree doesn't have literal arms, so we must dismiss the clear intent of the verse to mean that the tree doesn't really sway in the breeze." Expect in our discussion you say it like this, "God isn't like a man, so we must dismiss the clear intent of the verse to mean that God doesn't really make choices."

We believe God makes choices because the bible says that God makes choices. WE understand that he chooses differently than men because he is an eternal being, but we also know that is a mystery beyond our finite understanding. Period.

Ok, I can live with that if you mean:

God's hand = not a literal physical hand like man
God's choice = not a choice made in the same finite way men make choices.

But right now your seem to define it this way:

God's choice = "not a real choice"

If you understood me then you would know I am doing better than the straw-man you are attacking. As explained above, this has nothing to do with dismissing the concepts of anthropomorphic language. It has to do with accepting the intent of such language and not using the anthropomorphic aspects to merely dismiss that clear intent for the sake of protecting one's man-made dogma.

Oh, but of course there IS the "logical necessity" that purports that an infinite being cannot make a choice, right? What you call "logical necessity," I call "man-made finite rules imposed on an infinite and eternal being."

Listen, the bible says God makes choices with qualification, you say God can't make choices. I'll believe scripture and you can believe your "logical necessities."

The fact that you say that only proves you have yet to understand my argument. Please read it again carefully and try to understand me, not just rebut me.

No. Read the tree with outstretched arms comments above. Maybe that will help you understand.

 

By that logic do you then admit that Jesus at some point ceased being God?

 

I actually agree with you on this point. I think the argument that God chooses not to know something is just a way for "our side" to explain the mystery of the way in which a divine infinite God works. Just as I think the Calvinistic explanations of God seek to explain away the mystery to make God fit their logical systems. I argued this point with Van in the other thread sometime ago.

I think we make the claims of scripture and leave it at that. If asked about nuances of HOW God makes choices or gives man free choices while being omniscient etc, the answer can simply be, "His ways are higher than our ways, but both truths are revealed as being true and I accept them both as truth."

 

See my longer reply to your previous post. I address this question there. (On another note and for another thread, it is clear that God has revealed himself with a body of sorts throughout scripture, certainly it would be a "spiritual body" and different than man's, but I don't think its unreasonable for us to think of God has having some kind of "spiritual body" or body-like manifestation by which he relates to and reveals himself to man)

My answer to Tom addresses this, I think...