the attributes of god

[Skandelon]

Van, you never answered my question. Does God know all our thoughts? Yes or no?

If no, how do you know? And how does that not contradict the clear revelation of scripture which claims he does know our thoughts and motives?

If yes, then how can he not know what I recall about my own past, or what I recall about someone else's past?

 

[Van]

Hi Skandelon, I do not know what God knows, and neither, dear friend, do you.

Yes God can know our thoughts and motives, He can "search" our hearts. But He can also choose not to know our thoughts and motives and test a person such as Abraham. He does as He pleases. To assert God cannot limit His knowledge is to limit God and deny scripture.

And as for you last point, scripture says He can put your forgiven sins out of His view, behind Him so to speak, that He will not bring them to mind. That they will not be "before Him." So again to deny God has the power to limit His knowledge is to limit God and deny scripture.

Final point, God can know what existing people, or people who lived in the past, would do if a circumstance arose, so He can say those people in that town would have repented if they had seen My miracles. But this does not support the assertion God knows what people who have not yet been conceived will do, unless God has predetermined what He will bring about in their lives.

 

[JesusFan]

Hi Skandelon, I do not know what God knows, and neither, dear friend, do you.

We know all that need to know though, its found in the Bible...

Yes God can know our thoughts and motives, He can "search" our hearts. But He can also choose not to know our thoughts and motives and test a person such as Abraham. He does as He pleases. To assert God cannot limit His knowledge is to limit God and deny scripture.

Again, the testing was NOT to have God learn something He did not already know, its to "test" Abraham in the sense to allow him to show by his action what was already in his heart/mind to expose it ... Be like Thru paul, God saw his heart, know his faith and he would do it if need be, per James, his actions showed his faith and belief...
Do you believe God "did not know" what Abraham would decide to do until he actually did it?

And as for you last point, scripture says He can put your forgiven sins out of His view, behind Him so to speak, that He will not bring them to mind. That they will not be "before Him." So again to deny God has the power to limit His knowledge is to limit God and deny scripture.

No, its just that there are NO scriptures showing God can do that, chosen to do that..
There ARE just things God CANNOT do, as would go against His nature.Attributes "forgetting/not knowing" falls here
Jesus DID have limitations to Himself while in human form upon the earth he chose to "limit" not use His divine attributes, but exist and live as a man fully dependent upon doing will of His father In power of Holy Spirit
UNLESS you refer your line of reasoning JUST to Jesus while he was on the earth, cannot apply any of that to God... And Jesus right now has back fullness of His glory, so exercising ALL divine attributes once again, so not of yourr reasoning applies to God right now!

Final point, God can know what existing people, or people who lived in the past, would do if a circumstance arose, so He can say those people in that town would have repented if they had seen My miracles. But this does not support the assertion God knows what people who have not yet been conceived will do, unless God has predetermined what He will bring about in their lives.

You have to understand though that God existed outside time and space as we do..
As such, He sees all things as if they were being done right now, in present sense, so God does know everything that has and will be done, as we need it to come to pass in future, God sees it all in the present already... .

 

[Amy.G]

Hi Skandelon, I do not know what God knows, and neither, dear friend, do you.

I know what God knows. He knows everything.

Psalms 139:1-8 O LORD, you have searched me, and known me. You know my downsitting and my uprising, you understand my thought afar off. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, you know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there: if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.

Yes God can know our thoughts and motives, He can "search" our hearts. But He can also choose not to know our thoughts and motives and test a person such as Abraham.

How can God "choose" what to not know unless He first knows it??

 

[Van]

Hi Jesusfan, you do not know how things are in eternity, you are engaging in speculation.

The whole "outside of time" argument is without merit, suggesting that we know something that has not been revealed in scripture. The actual basis for your view, not to put too fine a point on it, is Pagan metaphysics.

 

[JesusFan]

Hi Jesusfan, you do not know how things are in eternity, you are engaging in speculation.

The whole "outside of time" argument is without merit, suggesting that we know something that has not been revealed in scripture. The actual basis for your view, not to put too fine a point on it, is Pagan metaphysics.

We KNOW from Bible that God exists outside of His time/space creation, If he was in it, would be bound by physical laws, time etc

So he would Have to be outside time, so there IS no past future aspect to him!

 

[Van]

Hi Amy G. You are right, God knows everything. But the question is everything about what? You can say, everything about everything, but you cannot support that assumption biblcially. But, on the other hand, I can support that God does not know everything about everything. Jesus did not know the time of His return, yet Peter said Jesus knew "everything." So your premise is in fact unbiblcial.

The passage you cited, Psalm 139:1-8 supports God knowing everything about David during David's lifetime. But what you do is say (1) God has as detailed a plan for each and everyone. But each and everyone is not featured as a type for Christ, so the assumption is unsound. And (2) God knows all these details concerning the lives of those He has not created yet. Basically the verse provides no support for your assertion whatsoever.

How can God choose not to know something. By not bringing something previously known to mind, if it was known in the past, and more than a dozen verses say this is exactly what God does, and by not obtaining knowledge by searching the heart of someone, such as God not searching Abraham's heart, but instead testing Abraham to see if Abraham would be willing to kill Isaac. When Abraham drew back his knife, God said stop, "now I know". That means before Abraham drew back his knife, God had chosen not to know something.

We have lots of verses where God searches, looks, etc all indicating God is obtaining knowledge He did not know previously. Basically Amy, the doctrine of total omniscience simply ignores the reality presented in scripture. The correct doctrine, consistent with all scripture, is God knows whatever He has chosen to know according to His purpose.

 

[Van]

Jesusfan, you know nothing about how "time" works in the spiritual realm. You know God created physical time, the '"space-time" continum, and assume outside of that "spiritual' time does not exist. But you do not know that, you have no scripture to support that, and to teach that as biblical doctrine is without merit in my opinion.

 

[mandym]

Hi Amy G. You are right, God knows everything. But the question is everything about what? You can say, everything about everything, but you cannot support that assumption biblcially. But, on the other hand, I can support that God does not know everything about everything. Jesus did not know the time of His return, yet Peter said Jesus knew "everything." So your premise is in fact unbiblcial.

The passage you cited, Psalm 139:1-8 supports God knowing everything about David during David's lifetime. But what you do is say (1) God has as detailed a plan for each and everyone. But each and everyone is not featured as a type for Christ, so the assumption is unsound. And (2) God knows all these details concerning the lives of those He has not created yet. Basically the verse provides no support for your assertion whatsoever.

How can God choose not to know something. By not bringing something previously known to mind, if it was known in the past, and more than a dozen verses say this is exactly what God does, and by not obtaining knowledge by searching the heart of someone, such as God not searching Abraham's heart, but instead testing Abraham to see if Abraham would be willing to kill Isaac. When Abraham drew back his knife, God said stop, "now I know". That means before Abraham drew back his knife, God had chosen not to know something.

We have lots of verses where God searches, looks, etc all indicating God is obtaining knowledge He did not know previously. Basically Amy, the doctrine of total omniscience simply ignores the reality presented in scripture. The correct doctrine, consistent with all scripture, is God knows whatever He has chosen to know according to His purpose.

When we become reactionary to extreme doctrines we ourselves become extreme as well. And nothing you have presented has supported your false doctrine contrary to your claim.

 

[Van]

I have supported my view that God knows what He has chosen to know. I have provided more than a dozen verses indicating God can blot out or remember no more our sins. I have shown that God did not know beforehand that Abraham would be willing to kill Isaac, and you dismiss it all without addressing any of it? Me thinks you protest too much.

 

[jbh28]

I have supported my view that God knows what He has chosen to know. I have provided more than a dozen verses indicating God can blot out or remember no more our sins.

Just to clarify, no one denied that God remembers our sins no more. What you are doing is saying that the knowledge is gone, which isn't true. Even us humans don't have the knowledge removed from our brains. We may never remember, but the knowledge is still in our head. Have you ever had a situation that you never remember, but then someone says something that triggers your memory and you then remember. See, the knowledge was there, just it wasn't in your mind. God will never bring to mind our sins because they are as good as if they never happened. To say that God doesn't have the knowledge is to deny Scripture(that says that God knows everything...and nothing in the context limits the everything) and to read something into the text.

I have shown that God did not know beforehand that Abraham would be willing to kill Isaac, and you dismiss it all without addressing any of it? Me thinks you protest too much.

Actually, it didn't say that God didn't know that Abraham would be willing to kill Isaac. Again, adding to Scriptures.

 

[DHK]

A day or two ago I was going to make a post using the word "antinomianism." I forgot the word. It was in the "hard-drive" of my mind, but my "memory" could not access it. All I could think of was "no-law," or chaos. Today, as you see above, I remembered the word. It was there all the time. I just needed to be able to access it. Sometimes we can't because of tiredness, fatigue, stress, or just a simple mental block. God doesn't have any of those. He deliberately "forgets", an anthropormorphism, to relate to man that he is not going to remember them any longer. He is not going to put them to our account any longer.

Thus Romans 8:1:
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Jesus Christ."
If he remembered our sins (judicially) there would be condemnation, but he doesn't.
Realistically, he knows about them, but judicially they are wiped off the record.

When I go to court for a crime committed, I must pay the penalty for that crime. If the penalty is a fine, then the crime is wiped out. It is paid for. The record is clear. A prisoner pays for his crime in jail and then after his time is finished he gets out. No longer is he a prisoner to his crime. He is cleared from it. The penalty is paid for. In all these situations the previous crimes will be on record and "remembered," but judicially they will be forgotten, because they are paid for.

Van do you have a reason for not answering anything I post?

 

[Van]

Folks, you see the Calvinists repeating and repeating the same absurdity, stuff remembered no more forever does not equate with God limiting His knowledge according to His purpose.

What we have is a basic promise of God, repeated in scripture in various ways over a dozen times and yet denied by Calvinists. Me thinks they doth protest too much.

Total Omniscience is false doctrine, clearly demonstrated false by verse after verse after verse. Why would God search our hearts if He already knew our hearts? No answer will be forthcoming. Why does God look to ascertain something if He already knew it. Verse after verse presents God operating within time, and responding as events unfold. This thread presents a battle between what the Bible actually says and man-made doctrines based on speculative rationalism and pagan metaphysics. How many times has a Calvinist posted why their position is valid because of special knowledge of how God operates in eternity, without a shed of support?

Do we walk by faith and trust in what the Bible says, or do we make up interpretations based on what the Bible does not say. It is that simple.

 

[DHK]

Van, I am not a Calvinist but there is a need to reply to your post.
1. The phrase that God remembers our sin no more is: 1) anthropormorphic—God helping man to understand himself by using language characteristic of man to describe himself.
2) It is a metaphor, a figure of speech.
3) It is judicial. In our forgiveness God judicially removes our sins. He remembers them no more. He forgets about them. Realistically they will always be there for He is God and omniscient. But they will never be held to our account. He cannot go against His own attributes.

2. You say that Total Omniscience is a false doctrine. When all the world is against you and you are the only one that believes this way, it ought to tell you that you are the one that needs to take a step back and re-examine your position. All of orthodox Christianity has believed in Total Omniscience not only for the last 2,000 years, but since the time of Moses and before. It is a cardinal doctrine, and a basic attribute of our God—both OT and NT. It is not a false doctrine. I am sorry to say this, but if you do not believe in the Total Omniscience of our God, you do not believe in the true nature of who God is.

3. You say it is clearly demonstrated false in verse after verse. But you haven’t demonstrated Total Omniscience false. You have demonstrated your ability to reinterpret Scripture according to the way you think it should say, and avoid listening to others.

4. Why would God search our hearts, if he already knew them? For our benefit. He knew our thoughts before we were born. But he searches our thoughts for our own benefit. He knows what our prayers are before we pray them, but praying is not for God’s benefit, but ours. He loves us. He knows the number of hairs on our heads—all of our heads. He couldn’t have that ability unless he were omniscient.

5. God doesn’t exist in time. He exists outside of time. Time was created for man’s sake. God is eternal. Time only started with the creation of the world. Only when the world started revolving around its own axis did time start. One revolution is a day. It took seven 24 hour days to create the world. That is when time started. God lived before that time and will live after that time, or beyond the destruction of this world.

There are many verses that give us evidence of how God operates in eternity. I am not a Calvinist. But I can answer this for you. I don’t mean for this post to be long. You don’t seem to listen to my answers. In fact you don’t seem to listen to very many answers. Thus I am going to post this for you and the benefit of others, and close the thread. There doesn’t seem to be much point in simply repeating the same thing over and over again.