Honest struggles on God’s omniscience.

[Skywatch89]

Here lately I have been wrestling in good faith concerning God’s omniscience/foreknowledge. A couple of questions that has been weighing on my mind that is hard for me to reconcile with God’s omniscience/foreknowledge with the questions of why?

I know believers and unbelievers alike have struggled with this. It is difficult for me. Since God is omniscient, have you ever wondered why God allows someone to be born when He already knows they’d do wicked acts toward others, or why allow someone to be born already knowing they’d go to hell? Foreknowledge isn’t causing or determining, but if God already knows (based on His omniscience/foreknowledge) how a person will be and where a person ends up, then it makes one wonder why have them be born at all? Or, why allow someone to be born already knowing they are going to immensely suffer or be hurt by evil?

I have looked into what is called Open Theism, or Dynamic Relational Omniscience, but many believe they are heretical beliefs, as it diminishes God.

Have you ever heard or read any of those statements or questions before?

The only comfort I can bring to myself in this is God is a God of love, salvation, patience, mercy, compassion, grace, kindness, goodness, holiness, righteousness, long-suffering, justice, and is able to bring good from evil, etc. If people can’t give Him that, then they are no longer talking about the God of the Bible.

While I don’t understand why some things happen in life, and while I don’t have the answers to some of the difficult questions and statements, I must trust in the God who has all wisdom and knowledge, knowing He does right.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

I know believers and unbelievers alike have struggled with this.

Calvinists and sometimes baby Christians struggle with it. The smart and mature Christians who are open-theists, do not.

 

[JudgeRightly]

It is difficult for me. Since God is omniscient, have you ever wondered why God allows someone to be born when He already knows they’d do wicked acts toward others, or why allow someone to be born already knowing they’d go to hell? Foreknowledge isn’t causing or determining, but if God already knows (based on His omniscience/foreknowledge) how a person will be and where a person ends up, then it makes one wonder why have them be born at all? Or, why allow someone to be born already knowing they are going to immensely suffer or be hurt by evil?

If the consequences of your paradigm make God out to be unjust, check your premises.

"Since God is omniscient" begs the question that God infallibly knows everything.

Get rid of that premise, and most of the problems go away.

I have looked into what is called Open Theism, or Dynamic Relational Omniscience, but many believe they are heretical beliefs, as it diminishes God.

The only rational response to that is... Who cares?

And by that I mean that truth is not dependent on how many people believe something.

Seek the truth. If open theism is true, then it doesn't matter that "many believe" it to be heretical.

That just makes them wrong.

Have you ever heard or read any of those statements or questions before?

All the time.

The only comfort I can bring to myself in this is God is a God of love, salvation, patience, mercy, compassion, grace, kindness, goodness, holiness, righteousness, long-suffering, justice, and is able to bring good from evil, etc. If people can’t give Him that, then they are no longer talking about the God of the Bible.

While I don’t understand why some things happen in life, and while I don’t have the answers to some of the difficult questions and statements, I must trust in the God who has all wisdom and knowledge, knowing He does right.

All of these things in this part of your post are true.

What you're experiencing is cognitive dissonance. You're recognizing that something isn't lining up with your beliefs, though you hold them all to be true.

My advice is to start with what scripture says, that God is love. Use that as your foundational premise.

If something on its face contradicts or goes against that starting premise, then you should investigate it, and if it cannot be reconciled, then you can discard it as false.

God is love, therefore He is committed to the good of His creation.

So let’s test the premise that is troubling you:

"God does not cause a man’s wickedness or unbelief, but before creating him, God already infallibly knows that this man will freely become wicked, harm others, reject Him, and end in hell."

That avoids making God the direct cause of the evil, but it does not remove the difficulty you are seeing.

If God infallibly knows before creating a person that the person’s life will certainly end in wickedness and damnation, then that outcome is already settled before the person exists. And if God still chooses to create him anyway, then the question remains:

Why create him?

Saying God merely “allows” it may preserve human responsibility, but it does not fully answer the moral problem. God would still be choosing to create a person whose wickedness, victimization of others, suffering, and damnation are certain before that person ever exists.

That is the very tension you are feeling.

Now test that against what Scripture reveals about God.

God grieves. God regrets. God tests. God warns. God pleads. God says things like “perhaps they will listen.” God is angered by wickedness. God is disappointed by rebellion. God says Israel did things that did not even enter His mind. God responds relationally to man’s choices.

That does not read like a God who created people while already knowing every one of their future choices as fixed certainties.

It reads like the living God genuinely interacting with His creation, responding to real choices, and desiring repentance rather than destruction.

So the problem is not with God’s love, justice, wisdom, or goodness.

The problem is with the assumption that omniscience means God infallibly knows every future free choice as already settled.

God knows everything that exists to be known. He knows the past perfectly. He knows the present perfectly. He knows His own purposes perfectly. He knows what He has determined to bring about. He knows every man’s heart better than the man knows himself. He knows what men are capable of doing, what they are likely to do, and what He Himself will do in response.

But if a future free choice has not yet been made, then it is not yet a settled fact. And if it is not yet a settled fact, then it is not a thing to be known as a settled fact.

That is not ignorance.

That is knowing reality as it actually is.

God does not fail to know the settled future. The future is not exhaustively settled.

So yes, trust that God does right. But if a doctrine leaves you trying to defend God against conclusions Scripture itself does not require, then it is worth humbly asking whether the doctrine is the problem.

 

[Skywatch89]

@JudgeRightly, maybe I should have asked “What does omniscient mean?”

If some future is not yet knowable, are you saying God doesn’t know? How would that answer objections that it makes God ignorant, or that He didn’t prevent something because it wasn’t known?

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

The biblical God is not Omni-whatever in the Classical sense of those terms.

God's attributes....

Classical	Biblical
God knows everything, without exception or qualification.	God knows what He wants to know of that which is knowable. God predictably changes His mind.
God is everywhere, without exception.	God is everywhere He wants to be at once but is not anywhere He doesn't want to be. He will not be present in the Lake of Fire, for example.
God is capable of doing anything whatsoever.	God cannot be evil, irrational, or in some other way act in a manner that is contrary to His nature.
God controls everything, without exception.	God is routinely disappointed and sometimes does not get what He wants or even what He expects.

 

[ttruscott]

Here lately I have been wrestling in good faith concerning God’s omniscience/foreknowledge. A couple of questions that has been weighing on my mind that is hard for me to reconcile with God’s omniscience/foreknowledge with the questions of why?

I know believers and unbelievers alike have struggled with this. It is difficult for me. Since God is omniscient, have you ever wondered why God allows someone to be born when He already knows they’d do wicked acts toward others, or why allow someone to be born already knowing they’d go to hell? Foreknowledge isn’t causing or determining, but if God already knows (based on His omniscience/foreknowledge) how a person will be and where a person ends up, then it makes one wonder why have them be born at all? Or, why allow someone to be born already knowing they are going to immensely suffer or be hurt by evil?

The dogma or doctrine that is the truth to me is often heresy to others and vice versa. I have settled into answers I can have faith in, my unproven hope in a reality that does give me rest by answering all my whys and I have written essays for each of your 'why?' questions.

Since you ask most pointedly about our Lord's omniscience, I will share my opinion about the doctrine of omniscience and why the word must be redefined...

Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

The idea that HIS omniscience is from eternity to eternity is a pagan Greek philosophical idea that crept into the Church and supported the blasphemy that GOD knew who would go to perdition before HE created them but created them anyway and the false doctrine / heresy that HE creates sinners liable to death, the wages of sin, for no reason.

Much better is the Biblical definition:
Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. This limits HIS omniscience to 'all HIS works' and it started at 'the beginning of the world.' All HIS works describe HIS creative decrees.

Therefore if HE did not decree into creation something, HE did not know it...and I contend HE did not decree the results of our true free will decisions so HE did not know what those results would be until we decided them for our selves. HE created no one already knowing their fate. HE gave us a true free will, let us choose our own FATE then gave us determined LIVES to fulfill our free will choices.

My understanding of our creation is that YHWH created every person in HIS own image with a free will and the ability to fulfil HIS purpose for their / our creation to become HIS bride by faith, an unproven hope in HIM as our LORD and saviour from all sin OR to become HIS eternal enemy by choosing by faith, their unproven hope that he was a liar and therefore a false god against all HIS warnings of the consequence of making such a choice.

This was the Satanic fall and all else stemmed from their rebuke of HIM as their LORD and Saviour from all sin.

Peace, Ted

 

[Bright Raven]

Calvinists and sometimes baby Christians struggle with it. The smart and mature Christians who are open-theists, do not.

Open theism is not smart. It takes away from the Omniscience of God.

 

[Skywatch89]

The dogma or doctrine that is the truth to me is often heresy to others and vice versa. I have settled into answers I can have faith in, my unproven hope in a reality that does give me rest by answering all my whys and I have written essays for each of your 'why?' questions.

Since you ask most pointedly about our Lord's omniscience, I will share my opinion about the doctrine of omniscience and why the word must be redefined...

Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

The idea that HIS omniscience is from eternity to eternity is a pagan Greek philosophical idea that crept into the Church and supported the blasphemy that GOD knew who would go to perdition before HE created them but created them anyway and the false doctrine / heresy that HE creates sinners liable to death, the wages of sin, for no reason.

Much better is the Biblical definition:
Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. This limits HIS omniscience to 'all HIS works' and it started at 'the beginning of the world.' All HIS works describe HIS creative decrees.

Therefore if HE did not decree into creation something, HE did not know it...and I contend HE did not decree the results of our true free will decisions so HE did not know what those results would be until we decided them for our selves. HE created no one already knowing their fate. HE gave us a true free will, let us choose our own FATE then gave us determined LIVES to fulfill our free will choices.

My understanding of our creation is that YHWH created every person in HIS own image with a free will and the ability to fulfil HIS purpose for their / our creation to become HIS bride by faith, an unproven hope in HIM as our LORD and saviour from all sin OR to become HIS eternal enemy by choosing by faith, their unproven hope that he was a liar and therefore a false god against all HIS warnings of the consequence of making such a choice.

This was the Satanic fall and all else stemmed from their rebuke of HIM as their LORD and Saviour from all sin.

Peace, Ted

I appreciate your response. Could it be possible that until we begin living our lives as teens/adults, He presently knows whether or not (unless someone changes), they won’t go to heaven, and allows the future to be “open” for the opportunity to change?

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

Open theism is not smart. It takes away from the Omniscience of God.

Do you believe God knows every single thing I will think and do, since before I was born?

 

[Bright Raven]

Do you believe God knows every single thing I will think and do, since before I was born?

Open Theists do not believe this. If I am correct Open Theists believe in partial Omnicience.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

Open Theists do not believe this. If I am correct Open Theists believe in partial Omnicience.

Do you believe God knows every single thing I will think and do, since before I was born?

 

[Bright Raven]

Do you believe God knows every single thing I will think and do, since before I was born?

Yes, Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite.

 

[SaulToPaul 2]

Yes, Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite.

Long time, no see, Ravenator

 

[Bright Raven]

Hey STP, good to see you. Yeah I'm going to try to get more involved.

 

[Bright Raven]

Hey STP, have you heard from Chickenman? I finally have a copy of his book coming after waiting for a year and a half to find a copy. I'm really looking forward to reading it.

 

[Bright Raven]

Open theism is considered a serious heresy or dangerous false teaching by many traditional evangelical theologians because it denies that God has exhaustive foreknowledge of future free-will decisions. While proponents argue it is a biblically based view that protects human freedom, critics view it as a denial of orthodox omniscience.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

Yes, Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite.

Then why does God change his plans so often in the Bible? Why does He have to plan anything at all if He already knows everything everyone is going to do?

Why did God design us with such a complex peripheral system? A visual system that detects single photons and converts them into an electro-chemical data stream that must be processed in order for my spirit to "see" the outside world? What good have my eyes done me if God has already known since before I was born whether or not I would be saved? What good are my own eyes if they can't prevent me from getting hit and killed by a bus tomorrow, if that's what God already knows will happen?

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

Open theism is considered a serious heresy

If it's heretical to believe God can change His mind, then why are there so many examples of God changing His mind in the Bible?

 

[Bright Raven]

God does things His way.

Isaiah 55: 8-9

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

God does things His way.

Isaiah 55: 8-9

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

Ok, so if it's heretical to believe God can change His mind, then why are there so many examples of God changing His mind in the Bible?