Does God know all things that are, have been, and will be?

[Bright Raven]

timelessness - a state of eternal existence believed in some religions to characterize the afterlife

 

[godrulz]

timelessness - a state of eternal existence believed in some religions to characterize the afterlife

philosophical, not factual...

 

[Nang]

Endless duration of time explains God's experiences before and after creation. Timelessness is simply incoherent with no biblical support.

I do not think it is an appropriate definition of God to claim that He "experiences" in His eternal realm at all. What could you possibly conjure up that God would "experience" other than His own Being?

It is a silly hypothesis . . .

And that is why the incarnation of God, coming in the fulness of time in human flesh, under the Law, is so amazing!!!

God, in His essence need never have lowered His Son to such a state of "experience" except out of love and desire to save His children who were created in such a state.

Nang

 

[Nick M]

Corporate vs individual election resolves your proof texting. Your exegesis, including attempt to use Greek you don't understand, does not support your preconceived idea.
Why do I find it so difficult to dialogue with you? You are dogmatic when you should not be. Repeating the same verses or misunderstandings over and over is not persuasive nor confirmatory.

As long as you understand why people think you are a joke, no matter what side of the debate you are on.

 

[godrulz]

As long as you understand why people think you are a joke, no matter what side of the debate you are on.

The few peanut gallery types may think I am a joke, but this is not true of the majority.

Instead of dealing with my content (you can't), you and jw resort to personal attacks. Waste or time (WOT).

 

[Bright Raven]

Ephesians 3:11

Amplified Bible (AMP)

11This is in accordance with the terms of the eternal and timeless purpose which He has realized and carried into effect in [the person of] Christ Jesus our Lord,

 

[Nick M]

The few peanut gallery types may think I am a joke, but this is not true of the majority.

13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

You didn't make a point that had substance warranting a response.

Why do I find it so difficult to dialogue with you? You are dogmatic when you should not be. Repeating the same verses or misunderstandings over and over is not persuasive nor confirmatory.

Translation: I don't care what Romans 5 says. My flesh doesn't sin because I have Jesse's will.

 

[Lon]

Endless duration of time explains God's experiences before and after creation. Timelessness is simply incoherent with no biblical support.

No, no, you are settling for a half an answer. His direction is at least bidurational having no beginning. He is that by which all other things exist, therefore we as beings redeemed and created in His image have endless duration. God surpasses that as I've repeatedly expressed.

 

[Nang]

But what AMR doesn't seem to ever address is the fact that some Calvinists themselves affirm a true freedom of man with respect to sin prior to the Fall.

Really? Who would these "Calvinist" people be?

Nang

 

[DFT_Dave]

No towel to throw in, especially when the swings are missing altogether.

Yes, we weren't there at the creation. That doesn't mean there is no time until we got watches, but God's existence is without the possibility of any durative measurement, period. Read AMR above as well.

No, to come up with that means you are missing something crucial to the proof. His duration is at the minimum two-way with a past that is going forever (no singular direction).

Again, read AMR above.

AMR has to answer the same question I'm asking you. Which he can't anymore than you can. To say God's "past is going on forever" is a contradiction of terms and makes no sense, you know that.

--Dave

 

[DFT_Dave]

I AM.

Look it up. :AMR:

God is independent, and claims it so in his own name-- he makes himself known as absolute being, as the one who is in an absolute sense.

BTW, if your litmus test is explicit words, where in the Bible do we find the word "Trinity"? Best to stick with "by good and necessary consequence" of the whole counsel of God when determining doctrine, no?

AMR

But you knew that the term and concept of "pure actuality", God being "fully actualized", was Greek philosophy before it became Biblical theology, didn't you?

Aristotelian view of God: Wiki
"In the metaphysical order, the highest determinations of Being are Actuality (entelecheia - Greek: ἐντελέχεια) and Potentiality (dynamis -Greek: δύναμις). The former is perfection, realization, fullness of Being; the latter imperfection, incompleteness, perfectibility...Actuality and potentiality are above all the Categories. They are found in all beings, with the exception of the Supreme Cause, in whom there is no imperfection, and, therefore, no potentiality. God is all actuality, Actus Purus." (Pure Actuality)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelian_view_of_God

--Dave

 

[Lon]

AMR has to answer the same question I'm asking you. Which he can't anymore than you can. To say God's "past is going on forever" is a contradiction of terms and makes no sense, you know that.

--Dave

So He has a beginning in your worldview? That is the only way you could assert that.

 

[DFT_Dave]

So He has a beginning in your worldview? That is the only way you could assert that.

The answer is, God is "Infinite Potentiallity", not "Pure Actuality", we are "Finite Potentiality". God is free to actualize his own unlimited potential of thought and power do what he wants, when he wants. The infinite past is not a problem for God because his infinite potentiallity can never be exhausted. That's a start, have to go to work.

--Dave

 

[Nick M]

Really? Who would these "Calvinist" people be?

Nang

Anybody that says God would condemn a person before the foundation of the world.

 

[Jerry Shugart]

.Corporate vs individual election resolves your proof texting.

As usual you make an assertion but when confronted with the facts you put your tail between your legs and run. Let us look at the proof texts:

"But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess.2:13-14).​

The salvation spoken of in that verse is not in regard to a "corporate" one at all but instead an "individual" one:

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Ro.1:16).​

You do know what the word "one" means, don't you? Not only that, but the believer is chosen by God by salvation and that choosing is based on His FOREKNOWLEDGE:

"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet.1:2).​

One of the meanings of the Greek word translated "according" at 1 Peter 1:2 is "in consequence of" (Thayer's Greek English Lexicon).

So the saved are described as "elect" and their election is "in consequence of" God's foreknowledge.

That completly destroys the teaching of the Open View!

And all you can do is assert that the verses are speaking about a corporate election and not an individual one. Your theology has come crashing down like a child's house of cards and you refuse to even attempt to address the facts which speak of an "individual" election.

As usual you just close your eyes to the truth and go your merry way!

 

[Lon]

The answer is, God is "Infinite Potentiallity", not "Pure Actuality", we are "Finite Potentiality". God is free to actualize his own unlimited potential of thought and power do what he wants, when he wants. The infinite past is not a problem for God because his infinite potentiallity can never be exhausted. That's a start, have to go to work.

--Dave

If He isn't actually infinite, He could not know that He is infinite (and wouldn't be). These semantics aren't working for you, or for me.

 

[DFT_Dave]

If He isn't actually infinite, He could not know that He is infinite (and wouldn't be). These semantics aren't working for you, or for me.

Philosophy 101
A God who is "fully actualized/pure actuality" is Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover". He has no "potentiality" which means he cannot act, and therefore he is not the creator of the world. The eternal "unmoved mover", who is "pure actuality" is the cause of movement in an eternal world of "actuality and potentiality". A God who is "pure actuality" could not create the world or incarnate into it.

Your comment makes not sense. All you are saying is "if God isn't actually infinite he isn't infinite".

"Infinite potentiality" is as reasonable a concept as "finite potentiality", it's not a contradiction of terms. It's simply means God can do anything, there's nothing he can't do. A God who is "infinitely actualized" doesn't do anything other than self contemplation as Aristotle explains, or does everything all at once in classic theism's synthesis of "Unmoved Mover" with the Biblical God in whom there is movement.

There is the impossible infinite regress of cause and effect of activity and movement, but only if the cause is not within that which is affected. Aristotle believed that "nothing moved itself". We believe that God can freely "move himself" and that's why movement/time does not require a beginning point for him.

--Dave

 

[Lon]

Philosophy 101
A God who is "fully actualized/pure actuality" is Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover". He has no "potentiality" which means he cannot act, and therefore he is not the creator of the world. The eternal "unmoved mover", who is "pure actuality" is the cause of movement in an eternal world of "actuality and potentiality". A God who is "pure actuality" could not create the world or incarnate into it.

Your comment makes not sense. All you are saying is "if God isn't actually infinite he isn't infinite".

"Infinite potentiality" is as reasonable a concept as "finite potentiality", it's not a contradiction of terms. It's simply means God can do anything, there's nothing he can't do. A God who is "infinitely actualized" doesn't do anything other than self contemplation as Aristotle explains, or does everything all at once in classic theism's synthesis of "Unmoved Mover" with the Biblical God in whom there is movement.

There is the impossible infinite regress of cause and effect of activity and movement, but only if the cause is not within that which is affected. Aristotle believed that "nothing moved itself". We believe that God can freely "move himself" and that's why movement/time does not require a beginning point for him.

--Dave

I don't suscribe to Aristotle but am saying that you seem to be playing with physical concepts in trying to figure out what God can and cannot do. That is, God is limited by the extent of your grasp rather than the exceeding extent of His own. There is no reason to suspect God cannot see the future as scripture indicates to the rest of us, without such limitations. God then, is limited to the finiteness that the open view can conceive of Him rather than clear indications of even the possibility that God exceeds what the open theist has laid out for Him (so that He can somehow be relational and 'in-the-same-boat' for proximal comfort). I too believe that He is relational and proximal, yet I believe He exceeds those parameters.

 

[Tambora]

I can see that you have fully and completely missed the point. Thanks for trying.

wow. Now I know that you not only believe that God purposed every detestable act throughout earthly history, but everyone of those acts have eternally been in His mind. Therefore, according to you, the god of Calvinism not only eternally thinks about children being molested but has decreed every child molesting act.

I've heard all I need to hear. Thanks for clearing things up.

I just understood what you were getting at with this post. I think!

If GOD thought about it, then He had to create it in order for it to happen.
That would mean that if GOD thought about a child being molested by a molester, then He had to create a child and a molester, and the situation where a molester molests a child.

So, the child had no choice of being a child while molested, and the molester had no choice but to molest the child (because all things in the mind of GOD must come true).


This poses an unlikely scenario.

 

[DFT_Dave]

I don't suscribe to Aristotle but am saying that you seem to be playing with physical concepts in trying to figure out what God can and cannot do. That is, God is limited by the extent of your grasp rather than the exceeding extent of His own. There is no reason to suspect God cannot see the future as scripture indicates to the rest of us, without such limitations. God then, is limited to the finiteness that the open view can conceive of Him rather than clear indications of even the possibility that God exceeds what the open theist has laid out for Him (so that He can somehow be relational and 'in-the-same-boat' for proximal comfort). I too believe that He is relational and proximal, yet I believe He exceeds those parameters.

I'm using scripture in order to figure out what God can and cannot do instead of natural theology which presupposes "pure actuality". A philosophical approach to understanding God not only starts with "nature" it assumes that God is the opposite, the negation, or antithesis of nature. God is not just "holy" he is "wholly other than" what we are and the reason he is "incomprehensible" to us. I have often wondered why those who believe God is so "incomprehensible" always have so much to say about him.

Revelation means God has revealed himself to us. God communicates to us what he is like, Christ reveals to us what God is like, so that we can "comprehend" God.

Natural theology negates revelation. Natural theology is the opposite or antithesis of Revelation. Natural theology sees God as the opposite of this moving, changing world of time and concludes that God cannot communicate or reveal himself because that would by definition and logic require movement, change, and time in God.

Augustine and company decide to combine natural and revealed theologies and form a irrational synthesis. A "science" of God's attributes now explain to us what the "Infinite God" is truly like and the Bible has become a mere metaphor where it "seems" to contradict the "Perfections of God", so called in order to sell this "red herring" as purely Biblical theology.

God as fully actualized = pure actuality = unmoved mover = eternal now = timeless, spaceless, changeless, and immovable = natural theology = perfections of God and means that God cannot reveal himself neither by communicating with man nor an incarnation into this world. That's why the deity of Christ was such a hot topic in the early church, how could God become man without negating his timeless, spaceless, immovable, changeless perfect nature?

God as "Infinite Potentiality" is both reasonable and Biblical. God is not only unlimited but also free. The God of "Pure Actuality" is not free and neither are we.

By the way, you don't "suscribe" to Aristotle in total, but, you do "suscribe" to him as incorporated into classic theology.

--Dave