The omniscience of god?

Well, that could be a problem - not reading the Bible carefully.Sometimes people who are more prone to digging up so called "pictures of Jesus" either pretty or otherwise are also ignorant of what is the written content of the Scripture. I never had that problem because I am not hyped by religious pictures one way or the other.Why don't you go back and read from chapter one until you notice it?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

But I bet you spend far more time railing against the God of the Bible than you do visiting forums and trying to debunk Father Christmas, Thor, Zues, Neptune, Aphrodite or Fairies at the bottom of the garden.So this disproportionate vehement treatment of the Bible's God causes me to suspect that the prospect of His reality is of far greater concern to you.The issue here is that God's behaving with human attributes at times does not detract from His omniscience. So I see no "glitches" concerning this.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Wow. I was asking a serious question and you were a fucking asshole about it.Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

Or maybe the fact that people believe YHWH's existence and live their lives and adopt social policies based on the writings of the bronze aged people and beyond who worshipped him. As opposed to the others who don't pose as much of a social concern.Or, yeah, maybe its because he's worried that YHWH is really real. Believe whichever you like - I'm sure your biases will err you towards the latter.But if there was a large group of people that said we shouldn't mass produce insulin because it went against Thor's will or that glasses were an abomination and should be banned because Wotan's one-eyed nature proves it. Then you would definitely see a lot more activity in debunking Thor and Wotan. You seem to be of the opinion that whenever god isn't omni-present or omniscient this is god seeding clues about his future incarnation as man. Do you have any evidence that this was gods plan all along or is it just apologetics designed to patch up unusual or confusing character inconsistencies in a book?

I really can't get worked-up about anything which, in my opinion, doesn't exist. But there are many consequences of god-belief, which I believe to be harmful to human society. I'll go into what those are elsewhere, as we are way OT.Here's another non-omniscient god moment: God makes man, then later regrets this action, because man behaves badly. But an omniscient god would know in advance exactly how man was going to behave.

Focusing on the matter of omniscience you continue: Genesis 6:5-6 is also not a problem to me. The hatred of God for sin must be firmly established in the minds of sinners. Then the fact that in Christ God carried up our own hated sins in His body onto the cross reveals how great the love of Christ is for us.If some of us did not appreciate that sin was an abomination to a righteous God we would not grasp the significance of Him coming in the Son to bear our judgment that we might be saved.In fact the law of Moses in the Old Testament was called "the ministry of condemnation" (2 cor. 3:9) The backround of the divine condemnation of man's transgressions needed to be established to appreciate the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God that sinners may be justified - Christ having absorbed into His person the wrath of God against our sins that we may be saved.Along with the examples in Exodus the things in Genesis were written for the instruction of the new covenant believers not because God was not omniscient:"Now these things occured as examples to us, that we should not be ones who lust after evil things, even as they also lusted ... Now the these things happened to them as an example, and they wee written for our admonition, unto whom the ends of the ages have come." (See 1 Cor. 10:6,11) The Triune God is very profound in His eternal purpose and in His salvation. So the revelation was gradually unfolded in a manner which communicates His heart to those whom He will save.The ark of Noah is a type of Christ. And the details of the flood and the ark are a type of the death and resurrection of Christ who is our living Ark. Peter tells us this in First Peter 3:20-21. And the omniscience of God is surely indicated in the fact that the day that the ark rested upon the dry land was the same day on which Jesus Christ rose from the dead. I will go over the calender details if you are interested.So in this we see not only God's salvation but His omniscient foreknowledge. It would have been quite a coincidence that Christ resurrected on the same day that the ark (a type of Christ) rested on the dry land. I think it is not a coincedence but a demonstation of God's wisdom and foreknowledge.Without Christ's redemption we could all be wiped out and God would be righteous to do so. As it stands the wicked generation can enter into Christ by beliving into Him. They can be "shut in" as God shut Noah and his family in the ark.Also Christ's redemption is the salvation not only of man but of the earth. Hebrews says that He tasted death on behalf of everything. So the creatures along with human beings reveal Christ's work to save man and man's environment for His eternal kingdom.Let's see your next example.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I can't say I follow your logic, if logic is the right description.OK, next: The lord changes his mind. Truly omniscient beings never need to change their minds, because they already know the future.Edited by Blzebub, : No reason given.

"We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous"This lets us know that can God responds to intercession. What He has the righteous ground to do He may alter for the sake of petition made on behalf of the guilty party. In this particular instance I believe the petitioner was Moses. In that regard Moses was a type of Christ.Christ on His cross petitioned for mankind "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."You will have difficulty understanding this quite logical exegesis as long as you can't see how all of Scripture is pointing to Jesus Christ. It is leading up to Him and in various ways the positive people in the Old Testament dipicted various aspects of the coming Son of God. The same could be said of this. We see that God responds to intercession. This passage reminds me of Christ who is the Advocate for the new covenant believer: The Apostle Paul assures the Christians in Rome that Christ's intercession for His believers is totally effectual before God. He will present us without blemish and pure before His Father in utter sanctifying love: These instances of a prophet interceding for the people of God foreshadow the effective priesthood of the Son of God whose intercession will accomplish the eternal plan of God to produce many sons of the Divine Father.Here again we see that Christ ever lives to intercede for His redeemed people: The verses you have pointed out so far foreshadow the mighty intercession of the Son of God to save sinners to the uttermost. One of the most significant things about Saul to me is that he represents a man from whom God withdrew His mercy. There is hardly any more pitiful person in the Bible than King Saul. Even the witch of Endor felt sorry for him.God replaced Saul with David and said that He would not withdraw His mercy from David. So Saul's decline depicts the decline of the person from whom God has withdrawn mercy.I don't see how these lessons are less valuable than the dubious objection to God's omniscience. God knows a lot. Things are not a surprise to Him. It is we who have to be enlightened. If God chooses to teach us by saying that He repented of this or that, that is fine with me. This is another picture of the intercession of Christ as God's High Priest. Christ is the centrality and universality of the Bible. And all the positive types, shadows, and symbols are pointer toward Him.If you go on to read you will see the burnt offering offered on the spot where the angel ceased to carry out God's judgment on Jerusalem. The burnt offering also points to Jesus Christ. He was the Son absolute for the Father's will. And His being consumed with the will of God was an ascending fragrance to the Father by which sinners destined to perish for eternity are rather saved and become sons of God. I think these are the difficulties one gets in when he honess in on one and only one aspect of God's character. What impresses some of us is rather how His love, His righteousness, His omnipotence, His omniscience, and His omnipresence all coordinate together.In other words you are hammering on one and only one divine attribute. Some of us prefer to get a more well rounded portrayal of such a Divine Life from various angles.It is not as if the omiscience of God was the only subject in the revelation of the Bible. But how He became a Man that He might be our Lord and Savior - and the Head of a new race of divinized humanity - sons of God."Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.

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And those whom He foreknew, He also called, and those whom he called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified." (Rom. 8:28,29) You would get more out of the Bible if while you read you kept your focus that all these things are leading up to the accomlishing of God's will to have many sons of God, brothers of Christ the Firstborn. And all the divine repenting and powerful interceding in the Old Testament simply foreshadow that nothing can stop God from accomplishing His purpose, least of all man's failures and sins.God has made provision for all these obstacles in Jesus Christ. This is what such passages are trying to teach us. They are not glitches in the doctrine of God's omniscience. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The thread is about omniscience. Omniscience means "all-knowing". This includes all events, thoughts and motives in the past, present and future. The biblical god doesn't satisfy these conditions, because he keeps changing his mind, and fails to anticipate future events (including various intercessions).Omniscience and omnipotence are mutually exclusive. This is because an omniscient entity knows all their future thoughts, decisions and actions. This knowledge robs them of the power to alter any of their future thoughts, decisions and actions: hence they are not omnipotent.OTOH, if the entity is truly omnipotent, including having the power to change their mind, then they cannot be omniscient.

The Forum is about What The Bible Really Means. Omniscience is a theological construct which is man's attempt to use his finite philosophy to assign characteristics to God. I do not hold these words and definitions above what the Scriptures actually say.For example if by saying God is Omnipotent someone means nothing is impossible for God, I would counter that His word says that it is impossible of for God to lie:"In order that by two unchangeable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement ..." (Hebrews 6:18)I do not feel duty bound to allow creed to rise above what the Scripture says. For me what the Bible says is far more important then any theological axiom like "God by definition is omnipotent" or "God by definition is omniscient".Such axioms may be helpful. But they are theological creeds which are subject to Bible says. And if there is a tension between them and what the Bible says, what is written is more important to me.The story of Joseph seems to go out of its way to portray God's sovereignty over human affairs. Joseph had a dream for which his brothers hated him. All their envious acts against their brother because of the hated dream God used to fulfill the contents of the dream.This kind of providence of the divine is established without apology in the first book of the Bible. And any supposed tension it may cause the philosophical minded between a doctrine of omniscience and omnipotence is simply too bad for their theological construct. This is simply the kind of God we are dealing with. He can cause "all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28).After the entire Bible reviews all of God's providential and soveriegn actions over history to accomplish His eternal purpose the last word of the revelation is still -"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints. Amen." (Revelation 22:21)That is the last sentence in the whole Bible. And it speaks of God impowering us to cooperate with Him. There is not a hint here that because God is omniscient or omnipotent therefore man has no responsibility and can just sit back expecting all the chips to lay as God has pre-arranged them.Our human freedom and willing cooperation with the aid of His grace is the final word. So any alledged mutual exclusivity of theological creeds does not absolve us of open our hearts to God to receive grace and coordinate cooperatively with Him for the fulfillment of His purposes. I don't see God robbed of power because of this. I think this is the atheists attempt to handcuff God so as to philosophically not allow Him to do anything, if they possibly could.I don't see God robbed of power except I see our unbelief postponing Him a little. But surely the Bible is also a record of God overcoming obstacles to His will of all kinds. His own promises do not stop Him. His foreknowledge doesn't hinder Him. Man's sins cause Him some trouble. But these also He makes provision for. We can postpone His work but cannot seem to stop Him.In the end His multifarious wisdom is made known to all other beings in the universe in eternity future:"In order that now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies the multifarious wisdom of God might be made known through the church, according to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Eph. 3:9,10)In other words all obstacles whether from His own being or man's failures do not rob Him of His wisdom working out His eternal purpose. You cannot tie the divine hands. So some of us choose to go along with Him in His grace. Early in my Bible reading I noticed a passage in Psalms which became a kind of governing vision. God fashioned my heart and observes my deeds: While I recognize that God has fashioned my heart uniquely, He still observes what actions I take with that heart. So His Creatorship does not rob me of a certain amount of freedom and responsibility.

According to the bible, god does lie. According to the bible, god is not omnipotent.

The point I am making is that "the scriptures" (I assume you mean the bible) is/are terribly confusing on this and almost every other subject. The bible is riven with contradictions and logical impossibilities. It can't all be correct, so which bits do you pick as being wrong?

This will cause an adjustment in the discussion. There are paradoxes in the Bible. There are some mysterious things in the Bible. There are some things upon which we could meditate as being "knowledge too high and [we] cannot attain to them" (Psalm 139:6)There are things which make more sense as we spiritually mature once having received the life of Christ into our innermost spirit. That is we have been regenerated and are in the process of moving from one level of growth to the next spiritually as any child would grow. But even a very spiritually mature person like the Apostle Paul left us with the impression that there were still mysteries to him in the Scriptures. This Paul writes after explaining quite about God's providential ways with Israel and the nations in Romans 9 through 11. He leaves us with the impression that as much as he has insight there are still deep mysteries in God's ways. And his attitude seems an echo of Deutoronomy 29:29: The Scripture is less a test on God then it is a test on us and our hearts.Jeremiah spoke of receiving the Word of God as nourishing spiritual food: The prophet Jeremiah came to the words of God as food to feed a spiritual hunger in his heart. You seem mostly interested in either tickling your intellectual curiosity or finding ground for accusations against God. It is no wonder that you leave it hungry, grumpy, and confused.I think you will get better and truer meanings from your Bible when you come to receive it as eating spiritual food for the heart - the conscience, the mind, the emotion, and the will, not solely seeking out philosophical inconsistancies. Let it rather shine on the moral problems of your own life so that you can be reconciled to this God.He is trying to speak to you but you are too busy fault finding in a proud way. I think you should let the Scriptures rise above your ego and feed and enlighten you about the condition of your heart before God. Those who humble themselves will be exalted. But the proud God knows from a distance.I come to the Scriptures in a certain way. I come to touch the living Spirit of Christ deep in my being. Behind the words is the living God. Whenever I come to Scripture I come to contact this living Spirit of God.Jesus told the Pharisees that they searched the Scripture but that they would not come to Him that they may have spiritual life: You should at least balance your time of researching Scripture with a time for coming to them to obtain Christ Himself as spiritual life. This means you are not searching primarily for dead information, much less mistakes to gloat over. But you come with a heart willing to be changed by an encounter with the Spirit of Christ.You should come to the Bible ready to be dispensed into by His Holy Spirit. It is the contradictions in your life which you are willing have light shone upon them. You allow the Bible to ascend above you to shine down on your life. You humble yourself that you may be exalted in due time. This is better than combing through the Bible to discover mistakes to justify your disbelief in Christ.This is a book of life. This is a book meant to nourish something spiritual and deep within you which should hunger and thirst for life. So far you have displayed a hunger for "glitches". I would like to see you come hungry to "taste and see that the Lord is good." I come to the Bible prayerfully and praying over what I read. At least I like to balance my time of just seeking facts in Scripture with being nourished by each word in my praying inner man.It is better to let the words of the Bible convict you of your sins and confess them than it is to search for rationals to accuse God.You read the story of Noah. You seem to miss so much of God's compassion, faithfulness, power to save, trustworthiness as shown by the salvation provided by the ark. Instead you notice something about God being sorry that He made man who became so evil.At least you should pray and ask God to impress upon you what He wishes to impress upon you. At least you should try this for a season. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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The point I am making is that "the scriptures" (I assume you mean the bible) is/are terribly confusing on this and almost every other subject. The bible is riven with contradictions and logical impossibilities. It can't all be correct, so which bits do you pick as being wrong?

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You're up against a difference in interpretation approaches.You're looking at the simple reading of the text which does not support the current view of omniscience in every writing. Jaywill even said that omniscience is a theological construct.Even if the questions asked by God are rhetorical or meant as allegory, or God knows the answers to his tests; God is still portrayed in the OT as being capable of anger and jealousy, which is a paradox for an omniscient being.Scripture does become confusing when different interpretations are used. One person is looking at plain text (p'shat), another is looking at hidden meanings (remez), and another is looking at current teachings (d'rash). Even in looking at the simple reading, one has to remember that there are various styles of writing in the Bible: Fictional, poetic, historical, songs, letters, etc.We also need to understand that religion/belief systems change over time just as civilizations and cultures change over time. A current belief system can be based on an interpretation of the text other than the simple reading, but no interpretation should contradict the simple reading of the text.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

The best way to understand the part of the Bible you do not understand is to respond in obedience to the part that you do understand.To him who has will more be given. But him who has not even what he has will be taken away. Often God will not waste further enlightenment on the person who has not responded to the enlightenment that they previously received.He gave you something and you were too casual about it, not repenting or responding. Then you want more understanding. But you did nothing with what God already gave you. In that case He may not be pleased to give you more.