On the omniscience of God

[Clete]

It's a very good question

What does omniscient mean in reference to God

omniscient of course is not a word found in Scripture.

It could be defined as all-knowing.

Interesting there are two Greek words that I am most familiar with regarding knowing something

Oida and ginosko.

Oida referring to mentally perceiving something.

Whereas ginosko refers to knowing something by having experienced it by participating in it and being influenced by that experience.

Does God mentally perceive that evil exists?

Yes obviously he does.

But does God know evil because he has been an active agent in doing evil?

No God has never done evil not ever.

He has allowed evil to occur because he has given free will to certain of his beings in existence by his handiwork. Humans and spirit beings.

We know that one third of those Spirit beings angels rebelled against God and were cast down from heaven.

Of course Adam and Eve send against God and all humankind procreated by a human father and human mother have likewise sinned and fallen short of the glory of God

Believe it or not, what you said in your post puts you well outside what is considered the pale of orthodoxy by a great many Christians. Calvinism in particular would insist that there is no form or kind of knowledge that God does not possess and to suggest otherwise is blasphemy. They, of course, would also insist that such knowledge does not make God guilty of anything and if you tried to point out the contradictory nature of their position they would simply call it an antinomy and move on.

There is one thing you've said that I want to focus particular attention on. Just as the classical understanding of omniscience is an overstatement, as you have clearly put forth in your post, I think the following portion of what you said may also be an overstatement, although not nearly to the same degree.

Does God mentally perceive that evil exists?

Yes obviously he does.

This seems to me to be more than the bible teaches.

God tested Abraham and when Abraham passed the test God said, "Now I know..." (Gen 22:12) and when God's people prayed to God concerning the evil taking place in Sodom, God's response was go down to investigate to "see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it" and the text goes on to say "and if not, I will know.” (Genesis 18:21). Also God says that He expected righteousness to come out of Israel but no matter what He did, Israel would not produce good fruit. God asked, "What more could have been done to My vineyard That I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?" (Isaiah 5:4)

It seems clear that God does not keep Himself fully aware of every event that is going in all places and at all times and that He does not know the future actions of free will agents. God is infinitely wise and has immediate access to any information that exists and so its not as if He couldn't discover whatever it is He wants to know but in order to remain strictly within biblical boundaries it seem we must say no more than that God knows all things that are knowable, that He wants to know. Anything more would seem to go beyond the testimony of scripture.

Clete

 

[oatmeal]

Believe it or not, what you said in your post puts you well outside what is considered the pale of orthodoxy by a great many Christians. Calvinism in particular would insist that there is no form or kind of knowledge that God does not possess and to suggest otherwise is blasphemy. They, of course, would also insist that such knowledge does not make God guilty of anything and if you tried to point out the contradictory nature of their position they would simply call it an antinomy and move on.

There is one thing you've said that I want to focus particular attention on. Just as the classical understanding of omniscience is an overstatement, as you have clearly put forth in your post, I think the following portion of what you said may also be an overstatement, although not nearly to the same degree.


This seems to me to be more than the bible teaches.

God tested Abraham and when Abraham passed the test God said, "Now I know..." (Gen 22:12) and when God's people prayed to God concerning the evil taking place in Sodom, God's response was go down to investigate to "see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it" and the text goes on to say "and if not, I will know.” (Genesis 18:21). Also God says that He expected righteousness to come out of Israel but no matter what He did, Israel would not produce good fruit. God asked, "What more could have been done to My vineyard That I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?" (Isaiah 5:4)

It seems clear that God does not keep Himself fully aware of every event that is going in all places and at all times and that He does not know the future actions of free will agents. God is infinitely wise and has immediate access to any information that exists and so its not as if He couldn't discover whatever it is He wants to know but in order to remain strictly within biblical boundaries it seem we must say no more than that God knows all things that are knowable, that He wants to know. Anything more would seem to go beyond the testimony of scripture.

Clete

I am aware of expressions like that in the scripture

There are references to God's arm eyes heaven being his throne and the Earth being his footstool and so forth

Adam was created in the image of God.

What is the image of God? Is God shaped like a human being?

John 4:24 tells us that God is Spirit

God occupies all of eternity in habits all of eternity according to a verse in Isaiah which I'm not going to look up right now.

Forgot to do so you would have to be Spirit not in some kind of shape of a human being

So I 100% agree with you that there are lots of figures of speech used in Scripture one of them is attributing human characteristics to God in order for us to understand better God's communications towards us

Those uses of figures of speech include the passages that you refer to

Even as God does not literally have an arm and literally does not use the Earth has his footstool (remembering that God inhabits all eternity). We recognize that attributing human shortcomings emotions and other actions to God is a use of a figure of speech called condescensio

God uses those figures of speech to call attention to that which he wishes to emphasize in his communication

 

[Clete]

I am aware of expressions like that in the scripture

There are references to God's arm eyes heaven being his throne and the Earth being his footstool and so forth

Adam was created in the image of God.

What is the image of God? Is God shaped like a human being?

This was said to suggest that the passages I cited were figures of speech. They are not figures of speech. They cannot be.

When the bible talks about the Spiritual (i.e. non-physical) God as having eyes it is a figure of speech meaning that He can see. When it talks about Him having arms, it is a anthropamorphism meaning that God is able to reach out and affect the things around Him, the analogy of the Earth being God's footstool communicates the greatness, not only of God's size but of His power and authority.

Do you see the point?

Figures of speech have meaning. Meaning that is usually intuitive and implied by the figure of speech itself.

So when Moses quotes God as saying,“Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”, what does that lengthy figure of speech mean?

Does it mean that God always knew? How could that be? How could what Moses God as saying to Abraham mean the opposite of what He said?

Same goes for the other passages that I cited. Isiah 5:4 isn't a stand alone verse. It's embedded right in the middle of a whole passage that is explicitly about God being disappointed with Israel. Is it a seven verse long figure of speech that somehow means that He wasn't really disappointed?

These passages are not figures of speech and the only reason that exists to suggest that they are is your doctrine. That's called eisegesis and is a hopelessly poor way of doing theology. One must allow scripture to inform our doctrine not the other way around.

John 4:24 tells us that God is Spirit

God occupies all of eternity inhabits all of eternity according to a verse in Isaiah which I'm not going to look up right now.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

The Hebrew word translated as "eternity" is עַד or 'ad' and is pronounced the same as the English word "add". It means, "in perpetuity", "forever", "without end", etc. It does NOT refer to "timelessness" or "outside of time" or any such similar concept. There was no such concept in the ancient Hebrew language, culture or religious belief.

In short, you use of this passage in Isaiah is an excellent example of what happens when one reads their doctrine into the text.

Forgot to do so you would have to be Spirit not in some kind of shape of a human being

That sentence made no sense to me but taking a guess as your meaning, I would ask you to tell me how you know that a spirit cannot have a shape that is in some way analogous to the shape of a human being? I see no reason to believe that God cannot have some form. He is a spirit being and so it would sufficiently outside of our frame of reference to do much other than speculate about its nature but any such speculation would be no more or less valid than an assertion that He can have no form at all.

So I 100% agree with you that there are lots of figures of speech used in Scripture one of them is attributing human characteristics to God in order for us to understand better God's communications towards us

Calling something a figure of speech so as to preserve your doctrine doesn't make it so.

Those uses of figures of speech include the passages that you refer to

Even as God does not literally have an arm and literally does not use the Earth has his footstool (remembering that God inhabits all eternity). We recognize that attributing human shortcomings emotions and other actions to God is a use of a figure of speech called condescension

God uses those figures of speech to call attention to that which he wishes to emphasize in his communication

This is so false that its laughable.

In what way is anything better communicated by God lying? What would be the point of such a figure of speech? If God knew in advance that Abraham was going to do what He did then why not say so? Where is the advantage to saying "now I know" when the fact is that He always knew? Why would Moses put such a falsehood on the lips of God? What is there communicated by this very odd figure of speech that would not have been equally well communicated by God explaining that the test He had given Abraham was for Abraham's benefit and not His own? Why pretend like the test was for His own benefit? Why?

You will make no attempt to answer that question because you know right now as you are reading this sentence that there is no answer to that question. Will you permit that fact to persuade your mind and to alter your doctrine away from the Aristotilian philosophy and toward the plain reading of scripture? NOPE! God Himself could not make you do that.

Clete

 

[oatmeal]

This was said to suggest that the passages I cited were figures of speech. They are not figures of speech. They cannot be.

When the bible talks about the Spiritual (i.e. non-physical) God as having eyes it is a figure of speech meaning that He can see. When it talks about Him having arms, it is a anthropamorphism meaning that God is able to reach out and affect the things around Him, the analogy of the Earth being God's footstool communicates the greatness, not only of God's size but of His power and authority.

Do you see the point?

Figures of speech have meaning. Meaning that is usually intuitive and implied by the figure of speech itself.

So when Moses quotes God as saying,“Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”, what does that lengthy figure of speech mean?

Does it mean that God always knew? How could that be? How could what Moses God as saying to Abraham mean the opposite of what He said?

Same goes for the other passages that I cited. Isiah 5:4 isn't a stand alone verse. It's embedded right in the middle of a whole passage that is explicitly about God being disappointed with Israel. Is it a seven verse long figure of speech that somehow means that He wasn't really disappointed?

These passages are not figures of speech and the only reason that exists to suggest that they are is your doctrine. That's called eisegesis and is a hopelessly poor way of doing theology. One must allow scripture to inform our doctrine not the other way around.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

The Hebrew word translated as "eternity" is עַד or 'ad' and is pronounced the same as the English word "add". It means, "in perpetuity", "forever", "without end", etc. It does NOT refer to "timelessness" or "outside of time" or any such similar concept. There was no such concept in the ancient Hebrew language, culture or religious belief.

In short, you use of this passage in Isaiah is an excellent example of what happens when one reads their doctrine into the text.


That sentence made no sense to me but taking a guess as your meaning, I would ask you to tell me how you know that a spirit cannot have a shape that is in some way analogous to the shape of a human being? I see no reason to believe that God cannot have some form. He is a spirit being and so it would sufficiently outside of our frame of reference to do much other than speculate about its nature but any such speculation would be no more or less valid than an assertion that He can have no form at all.

Calling something a figure of speech so as to preserve your doctrine doesn't make it so.

This is so false that its laughable.

In what way is anything better communicated by God lying? What would be the point of such a figure of speech? If God knew in advance that Abraham was going to do what He did then why not say so? Where is the advantage to saying "now I know" when the fact is that He always knew? Why would Moses put such a falsehood on the lips of God? What is there communicated by this very odd figure of speech that would not have been equally well communicated by God explaining that the test He had given Abraham was for Abraham's benefit and not His own? Why pretend like the test was for His own benefit? Why?

You will make no attempt to answer that question because you know right now as you are reading this sentence that there is no answer to that question. Will you permit that fact to persuade your mind and to alter your doctrine away from the Aristotilian philosophy and toward the plain reading of scripture? NOPE! God Himself could not make you do that.

Clete

This was said to suggest that the passages I cited were figures of speech. They are not figures of speech. They cannot be.

Why not?

When the bible talks about the Spiritual (i.e. non-physical) God as having eyes it is a figure of speech meaning that He can see. When it talks about Him having arms, it is a anthropamorphism meaning that God is able to reach out and affect the things around Him, the analogy of the Earth being God's footstool communicates the greatness, not only of God's size but of His power and authority.

Do you see the point?

I agree and that is my point.

God uses human characteristics in reference to himself to communicate from his infinite "mind" to our very, very finite mind.

Figures of speech have meaning. Meaning that is usually intuitive and implied by the figure of speech itself.

So when Moses quotes God as saying,“Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”, what does that lengthy figure of speech mean?

These passages are not figures of speech and the only reason that exists to suggest that they are is your doctrine. That's called eisegesis and is a hopelessly poor way of doing theology. One must allow scripture to inform our doctrine not the other way around.

They are in so much that they communicate to man in language that is easily comprehended by the human mind.

Much like a parent may use a higher pitch and baby talk to communicate to a toddler. Adults do not speech college level language to a toddler, but condescends to the level of the mental acumen of the child.

God is simply acknowledging to Abraham that He recognizes Abe's willingness to give without restraint to God.

God does so without insulting Abe in the process. God does not say, "Abraham, you stupid idiot, I never told you to kill your son, I told you to offer him up as a burnt offering! "

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

The Hebrew word translated as "eternity" is עַד or 'ad' and is pronounced the same as the English word "add". It means, "in perpetuity", "forever", "without end", etc. It does NOT refer to "timelessness" or "outside of time" or any such similar concept. There was no such concept in the ancient Hebrew language, culture or religious belief.

In short, you use of this passage in Isaiah is an excellent example of what happens when one reads their doctrine into the text.

This is so false that its laughable.

That depends on who's definition you use.

perpetuity, for ever, continuing future

1. ancient (of past time)
2. for ever (of future time)
   1. of continuous existence
3. for ever (of God's existence)

In what way is anything better communicated by God lying? What would be the point of such a figure of speech? If God knew in advance that Abraham was going to do what He did then why not say so? Where is the advantage to saying "now I know" when the fact is that He always knew? Why would Moses put such a falsehood on the lips of God? What is there communicated by this very odd figure of speech that would not have been equally well communicated by God explaining that the test He had given Abraham was for Abraham's benefit and not His own? Why pretend like the test was for His own benefit? Why?

Why would you accuse God of lying?

Was God surprised by Adam and Eve's sin?

No, He warned them not to do it.

Genesis 2

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

But they did it anyway.

God, knowing that they would sin, already had a plan in place for man's redemption, which He anounced to the serpent directly.

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

God was so confident, that His plan would work that He announced it to the one who would most adamantly oppose it!

Since God already knew that The event in the book of Revelation would be make known and be fulfilled, I do not find it difficult to believe that God would already know that Abe would make that mistake of trying to kill his son.

That is a minor detail compared to all the events that are described in the book of Revealation and other places

You will make no attempt to answer that question because you know right now as you are reading this sentence that there is no answer to that question. Will you permit that fact to persuade your mind and to alter your doctrine away from the Aristotilian philosophy and toward the plain reading of scripture? NOPE! God Himself could not make you do that.

Actually, "that question" is erroneous, seeing that you asked multiple questions.

I counted seven questions.

It is plain that God that God has been and is fully aware of many actions and events in the future, both those He does and those others will do.

For me to believe that God would not "foreknow" that Abe would err is, as you put it, laughable.

 

[ttruscott]

We know that one third of those Spirit beings angels rebelled against God and were cast down from heaven.

The verses that tell us what we know about this situation are in Rev 12:3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: a huge red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven royal crowns on his heads. 4 His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky, tossing them to the earth.
and
7 Then a war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But the dragon was not strong enough, and no longer was any place found in heaven for him and his angels. 9 And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

Please consider
that the 'tossing down' of v4 is the same word as 'to be hurled', v9 which would share the aspect of a violent and hostile 'casting away' of the 1/3 of the angels and then, later, Satan and the demons were cast down. IF the angels Satan cast to earth were also Satanic and fallen into the unforgivable sin and so were also demonic, why would Satan cast them away in a fury before his great war with Michael and the holy angels? Is it not more reasonable that he cast them away as useless to him (as implied in the words) even though the indication was that they were sinners he had seduced? Is this not reminiscent of the fact that the sinful elect, the sinful good seed, must live with the demonic tares until the time of the harvest, ie, the time of the maturity of the good seed in holiness?

If we can see that these 1/3 of angels were tossed down as sinful but elect angels who rebelled against GOD's call for the judgment of the Satanic, we do not have to think that 1/3 of all creation was sent to hell since we know that one sinner can corrupt thousands with his lies, but no sinful elect, corrupted by Satan, will ever face judgement because election is the promise of salvation: Jn 3:18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, (even though they have rebelled) but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

 

[ttruscott]

Adam was created in the image of God.

What is the image of God? Is God shaped like a human being?

I suggest that image has nothing to do with physical appearance but to the fact that HE created us as persons with all the attributes of personhood. HE made us this way so we could enter into a full emotional and intellectual communion with HIM in the perfect marriage. No one accepts a marriage with a being not of thier kind as legitimate and GOD created us to be HIS Bride though some rejected HIS marriage proposal.

Being created in HIS image means that we were created as the kind of beings HE could marry.

 

[oatmeal]

The verses that tell us what we know about this situation are in Rev 12:3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: a huge red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven royal crowns on his heads. 4 His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky, tossing them to the earth.
and
7 Then a war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But the dragon was not strong enough, and no longer was any place found in heaven for him and his angels. 9 And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

Please consider
that the 'tossing down' of v4 is the same word as 'to be hurled', v9 which would share the aspect of a violent and hostile 'casting away' of the 1/3 of the angels and then, later, Satan and the demons were cast down. IF the angels Satan cast to earth were also Satanic and fallen into the unforgivable sin and so were also demonic, why would Satan cast them away in a fury before his great war with Michael and the holy angels? Is it not more reasonable that he cast them away as useless to him (as implied in the words) even though the indication was that they were sinners he had seduced? Is this not reminiscent of the fact that the sinful elect, the sinful good seed, must live with the demonic tares until the time of the harvest, ie, the time of the maturity of the good seed in holiness?

If we can see that these 1/3 of angels were tossed down as sinful but elect angels who rebelled against GOD's call for the judgment of the Satanic, we do not have to think that 1/3 of all creation was sent to hell since we know that one sinner can corrupt thousands with his lies, but no sinful elect, corrupted by Satan, will ever face judgement because election is the promise of salvation: Jn 3:18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, (even though they have rebelled) but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

Please take a few deep breaths before you post.

 

[JudgeRightly]

This was said to suggest that the passages I cited were figures of speech. They are not figures of speech. They cannot be.

When the bible talks about the Spiritual (i.e. non-physical) God as having eyes it is a figure of speech meaning that He can see. When it talks about Him having arms, it is a anthropamorphism meaning that God is able to reach out and affect the things around Him, the analogy of the Earth being God's footstool communicates the greatness, not only of God's size but of His power and authority.

Do you see the point?



Does it mean that God always knew? How could that be? How could what Moses God as saying to Abraham mean the opposite of what He said?

Same goes for the other passages that I cited. Isiah 5:4 isn't a stand alone verse. It's embedded right in the middle of a whole passage that is explicitly about God being disappointed with Israel. Is it a seven verse long figure of speech that somehow means that He wasn't really disappointed?

These passages are not figures of speech and the only reason that exists to suggest that they are is your doctrine. That's called eisegesis and is a hopelessly poor way of doing theology. One must allow scripture to inform our doctrine not the other way around.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

The Hebrew word translated as "eternity" is עַד or 'ad' and is pronounced the same as the English word "add". It means, "in perpetuity", "forever", "without end", etc. It does NOT refer to "timelessness" or "outside of time" or any such similar concept. There was no such concept in the ancient Hebrew language, culture or religious belief.

In short, you use of this passage in Isaiah is an excellent example of what happens when one reads their doctrine into the text.


That sentence made no sense to me but taking a guess as your meaning, I would ask you to tell me how you know that a spirit cannot have a shape that is in some way analogous to the shape of a human being? I see no reason to believe that God cannot have some form. He is a spirit being and so it would sufficiently outside of our frame of reference to do much other than speculate about its nature but any such speculation would be no more or less valid than an assertion that He can have no form at all.

Calling something a figure of speech so as to preserve your doctrine doesn't make it so.

This is so false that its laughable.



You will make no attempt to answer that question because you know right now as you are reading this sentence that there is no answer to that question. Will you permit that fact to persuade your mind and to alter your doctrine away from the Aristotilian philosophy and toward the plain reading of scripture? NOPE! God Himself could not make you do that.

Clete



Why not?



I agree and that is my point.

God uses human characteristics in reference to himself to communicate from his infinite "mind" to our very, very finite mind.





They are in so much that they communicate to man in language that is easily comprehended by the human mind.

Much like a parent may use a higher pitch and baby talk to communicate to a toddler. Adults do not speech college level language to a toddler, but condescends to the level of the mental acumen of the child.

God is simply acknowledging to Abraham that He recognizes Abe's willingness to give without restraint to God.

God does so without insulting Abe in the process. God does not say, "Abraham, you stupid idiot, I never told you to kill your son, I told you to offer him up as a burnt offering! "









That depends on who's definition you use.

perpetuity, for ever, continuing future

1. ancient (of past time)
2. for ever (of future time)
   1. of continuous existence
3. for ever (of God's existence)

Why would you accuse God of lying?

Was God surprised by Adam and Eve's sin?

No, He warned them not to do it.

Genesis 2

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

But they did it anyway.

God, knowing that they would sin, already had a plan in place for man's redemption, which He anounced to the serpent directly.

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

God was so confident, that His plan would work that He announced it to the one who would most adamantly oppose it!

Since God already knew that The event in the book of Revelation would be make known and be fulfilled, I do not find it difficult to believe that God would already know that Abe would make that mistake of trying to kill his son.

That is a minor detail compared to all the events that are described in the book of Revealation and other places



Actually, "that question" is erroneous, seeing that you asked multiple questions.

I counted seven questions.

It is plain that God that God has been and is fully aware of many actions and events in the future, both those He does and those others will do.

For me to believe that God would not "foreknow" that Abe would err is, as you put it, laughable.

I don't know what happened when writing your post, but your post needs to be fixed, as there are no quote boxes around Clete's words.

 

[ttruscott]

In short, you use of this passage in Isaiah is an excellent example of what happens when one reads their doctrine into the text.

Everyone does this, me and thee.

The flim flam of exegesis is that for anyone to get the meaning of a verse from the verse without any input from their mindset and unfiltered by existing ideas is on the order of Paul's conversion as a bright light and hearing GOD's voice. Every interpretation of a verse is eisegesis, the fitting of the verse into previously accepted definitions.

 

[oatmeal]

I suggest that image has nothing to do with physical appearance but to the fact that HE created us as persons with all the attributes of personhood. HE made us this way so we could enter into a full emotional and intellectual communion with HIM in the perfect marriage. No one accepts a marriage with a being not of thier kind as legitimate and GOD created us to be HIS Bride though some rejected HIS marriage proposal.

Being created in HIS image means that we were created as the kind of beings HE could marry.

The image of God is spirit, not a human shape. John 4:24

 

[Clete]

Why would you accuse God of lying?

The formatting of your post was so poor that I almost decided to completely ignore it all together. I decided to respond to this single question....

I didn't accuse God of lying, I accused you of accusing God of lying. I'm the one who believes the the scripture plainly states. I'm the one who believe that Moses quoted God as saying "now I know" and that God meant precisely that. You, on the other hand think that God already knew and that He had always known and that this is some sort of figure of speech. That it doesn't mean what it says but was instead some sort of white lie told for our benefit because the truth would have somehow been beyond our ability to understand.

Now, I do not waste my time with people who are too lazy to format their posts in a manner that is intelligible. There is already a boat load of time that I spend writing my posts, I will not compound that use of time by having to wade through your laziness in order to decipher whatever it is your saying. I feel certain that I've had this issue with you in the past and so count this as one more warning than you deserve. Any post that does not offer an explicit explanation as to what these passages, that you are calling figures of speech, mean and that is not in a format that the average thirteen year old could manage will be totally ignored.

Clete

 

[oatmeal]

The formatting of your post was so poor that I almost decided to completely ignore it all together. I decided to respond to this single question....

I didn't accuse God of lying, I accused you of accusing God of lying. I'm the one who believes the the scripture plainly states. I'm the one who believe that Moses quoted God as saying "now I know" and that God meant precisely that. You, on the other hand think that God already knew and that He had always known and that this is some sort of figure of speech. That it doesn't mean what it says but was instead some sort of white lie told for our benefit because the truth would have somehow been beyond our ability to understand.

Now, I do not waste my time with people who are too lazy to format their posts in a manner that is intelligible. There is already a boat load of time that I spend writing my posts, I will not compound that use of time by having to wade through your laziness in order to decipher whatever it is your saying. I feel certain that I've had this issue with you in the past and so count this as one more warning than you deserve. Any post that does not offer an explicit explanation as to what these passages, that you are calling figures of speech, mean and that is not in a format that the average thirteen year old could manage will be totally ignored.

Clete

It is clear that God's foreknowledge is far more complete than you allow it to be.

I made that very clear

Why then would God state what He said to Abraham as He did?

For Abe's sake. God let Abe know by saying what He said by how He said it that God recognized Abe's absolute commitment to serve God no matter what.

 

[Clete]

It is clear that God's foreknowledge is far more complete than you allow it to be.

Saying it doesn't make it so.

I made that very clear

There was nothing at all clear about your last post.

Why then would God state what He said to Abraham as He did?

For Abe's sake. God let Abe know by saying what He said by how He said it that God recognized Abe's absolute commitment to serve God no matter what.

Except that He didn't say that! What's more is that He absolutely could have said just what you suggest, if that's what He meant and Abraham would have totally understood it without any problem whatsoever. Instead, what God actually said was "now I know..."! You claim that God didn't mean that and was talking in some sort of coded version of English that is dumbed down for us limited human beings to understand but there's nothing you can tell me that God meant that has any relationship to what God actually said nor can you posit any ideas about what God must have meant that God couldn't have simply said outright. Instead, you posit that God tells us white lies so as to cope with our inability to understand the truth and you do so for no reason at all other than to prop up your doctrine against the plain reading of scripture.

Clete

 

[Lon]

For the most part, this discussion is about 'containers.' Containers 'hold or contain' things. For God to not know something means there is a container He didn't create nor is a part of. Unless one wants to contest: Infinite means by definition 'nothing else' and 'all that there is.' It means literally that 'without Him, nothing exists that exists' Colossians 1. While I realize it causes perception damage to 'free will' I'm not certain that 'free will' has to do anything significantly, in our interaction with God and I'm certainly not willing to sacrifice anything of God's being and reality to entertain a construct for mankind. There is literally no point to that other than human rationalization (humanizing God, rather than elevating Him). If I am even to entertain the thought that God has a 'limitation' (and that is what we are talking about), it cannot be set upon the premise that it gives dignity or some such to men. We are 'like grass that withers' rather. The singular value of man is only and that: God loves him.

As a preliminary, I've never seen a justified reason to even entertain God with a 'finite' condition other than man's self-interest and preservation. To me, that is already taken care of by the 'singular value' of God's love and interest. Respectfully and to see where such preliminary may lead, -Lon

 

[oatmeal]

Saying it doesn't make it so.

There was nothing at all clear about your last post.

Except that He didn't say that! What's more is that He absolutely could have said just what you suggest, if that's what He meant and Abraham would have totally understood it without any problem whatsoever. Instead, what God actually said was "now I know..."! You claim that God didn't mean that and was talking in some sort of coded version of English that is dumbed down for us limited human beings to understand but there's nothing you can tell me that God meant that has any relationship to what God actually said nor can you posit any ideas about what God must have meant that God couldn't have simply said outright. Instead, you posit that God tells us white lies so as you cope with our inability to understand the truth and you do so for no reason at all other than to prop up your doctrine against the plain reading of scripture.

Clete

When you limit God you miss out on learning great truths

God knows how to communicate to me and he made communicate to me much differently because of my own heart and experiences than he might communicate to someone else

it's odd that even after the examples I've given you you still don't see it God's complete foreknowledge for that matter post knowledge and present knowledge

 

[Clete]

For the most part, this discussion is about 'containers.' Containers 'hold or contain' things. For God to not know something means there is a container He didn't create nor is a part of. Unless one wants to contest: Infinite means by definition 'nothing else' and 'all that there is.' It means literally that 'without Him, nothing exists that exists' Colossians 1. While I realize it causes perception damage to 'free will' I'm not certain that 'free will' has to do anything significantly, in our interaction with God and I'm certainly not willing to sacrifice anything of God's being and reality to entertain a construct for mankind. There is literally no point to that other than human rationalization (humanizing God, rather than elevating Him). If I am even to entertain the thought that God has a 'limitation' (and that is what we are talking about), it cannot be set upon the premise that it gives dignity or some such to men. We are 'like grass that withers' rather. The singular value of man is only and that: God loves him.

As a preliminary, I've never seen a justified reason to even entertain God with a 'finite' condition other than man's self-interest and preservation. To me, that is already taken care of by the 'singular value' of God's love and interest. Respectfully and to see where such preliminary may lead, -Lon

It is concepts of timeless eternity and exhaustive divine foreknowledge that are the "construct for (of) mankind" and is a human rationalization not the truths of scripture that explicitly states that God does live in time and does not have anything close to an exhaustive knowledge of the future.

 

[Clete]

When you limit God you miss out on learning great truths

God knows how to communicate to me and he made communicate to me much differently because of my own heart and experiences than he might communicate to someone else

it's odd that even after the examples I've given you you still don't see it God's complete foreknowledge for that matter post knowledge and present knowledge

You've given no such examples nor do any examples exist.

And there is no such thing as the irrational communication of truth. Communication, whether from God or from anyone else, may take different forms (e.g. writing, spoken words, visions, emotions, etc) but they are all rational if they have any meaning whatsoever.

 

[oatmeal]

You've given no such examples nor do any examples exist.

And there is no such thing as the irrational communication of truth. Communication, whether from God or from anyone else, may take different forms (e.g. writing, spoken words, visions, emotions, etc) but they are all rational if they have any meaning whatsoever.

Your limited education is not helping your understanding

According to EW Bullinger in his work, "Figures of Speech used in the Bible" he states regarding the word "know", the following, "God, of course, knew it already; but in wonderous condescension, He stoops to make Abraham understand"

God in His compassion for Abe's faithfulness, howbeit misguided, let's Abe know what God already knew about Abe's commitment to God

 

[Clete]

Your limited education is not helping your understanding

At least my education is sufficient to permit me to write cogent posts on a website that people can read and make sense of, not to mention make arguments that have something to do with the topic at hand rather than bringing up something you I exactly nothing about, like my debate opponent's education.

According to EW Bullinger in his work, "Figures of Speech used in the Bible" he states regarding the word "know", the following, "God, of course, knew it already; but in wonderous condescension, He stoops to make Abraham understand"

I have read literally every single syllable of Bullinger's "The Companion Bible" which includes his essay on figures of speech in the bible.

On that particular point, he was as wrong as you are and for similar reasons.

God in His compassion for Abe's faithfulness, howbeit misguided, let's Abe know what God already knew about Abe's commitment to God

Bull!

You have your doctrine, I have the plain reading of the text of scripture which in any language you want to translate it to, says "...now I know...".

There is no contextual, grammatical or any other language based reason to think it means anything other than what it explicitly says nor is there anything about the idea that God already knew that couldn't have been said by God has that actually been the case.

In short it is your doctrine, which you bring to the text in an a priori manner that causes you to think that there is any reason at all to think that it means anything other than what it says.

Clete

 

[oatmeal]

At least my education is sufficient to permit me to write cogent posts on a website that people can read and make sense of, not to mention make arguments that have something to do with the topic at hand rather than bringing up something you I exactly nothing about, like my debate opponent's education.

I have read literally every single syllable of Bullinger's "The Companion Bible" which includes his essay on figures of speech in the bible.

On that particular point, he was as wrong as you are and for similar reasons.

Bull!

You have your doctrine, I have the plain reading of the text of scripture which in any language you want to translate it to, says "...now I know...".

There is no contextual, grammatical or any other language based reason to think it means anything other than what it explicitly says nor is there anything about the idea that God already knew that couldn't have been said by God has that actually been the case.

In short it is your doctrine, which you bring to the text in an a priori manner that causes you to think that there is any reason at all to think that it means anything other than what it says.

Clete

It is an interesting thing about ew Bollinger.

You can see that he was a trinitarian from reading his companion Bible yet he has no problem with pointing out the figures of speech used in that passage

Likewise he has no problem pointing out the forgeries and additions to the text that were falsely been unethically added to scriptur