Omniscience, Omnipotence, the Fall & Logical Contradictions.

Hi all,I would like to start a spin-off thread from "Does Immunity Disprove the Fall?" thread. Certain posts with Faith were getting off-topic, so a new thread seems the best solution.It started with this statement as regards the Fall: I replied: I'll start my response with Faith's last message: What consistent error? You haven't shown one.Free will is a red-herring, an irrelevance. If god is omniscient, then he must have known that the forbidden fruit would be eaten, it simply cannot be any other way & still have god being omniscient. So, I repeat, god knew he was making flawed men who would eat the fruit, he therefore knew that the fall was inevitable. So why bother with a pre-fall period? Why not just start out with carnivores, death etc if the fall of man was an absolute certainty, & it must have been an absolute certainty to god, because he's omniscient. It's impossible to start with the fall in place? So he's not omnipotent, now, either?God knew with absolute certainty that the forbidden fruit was going to be eaten, he knew with absolute certainty that this would result in the fall, he knew this before he created anything, so why bother with the pre-fall period? Not to labour the point, but free-will is an irrelevance. You can have free-will, or the illusion of it, but the outcome of any decision you make must be known in advance to an omniscient being. It cannot be any other way. It is not therefore impossible (logically speaking) for that being to stop things happening before they do.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Quite frankly, im not sure what God thought In The Beginning.I've never gotten an answer from Him, nor have I chatted with Adam or Eve yet.

In his new book, Richard Dawkins points out that omniscience and omnipotence are incompatible. Is God able to change his mind in the future?

If God exists in timeless eternity (a reasonably well established if not unchallenged view) then 'future' must be dropped insofar as it concerns talking of him. The name he gave Moses to describe Himsself was "I AM". Jesus calls himself "I AM" a number of times - which drove the Pharisees into a rage - they saw this as Jesus calling himself God.I AM indicates 'ever present'It is unlikely that Dawkins factored this well established notion into his argument. Otherwise he wouldn't have one

Please show that 'I AM' indicates ever present.Please show the 'I AM' that Jesus said means he is describing himself as God.Where is it established as 'a fact' that god is in 'timeless eternity'?

Hell, he could just show that there is such a thing as 'timeless eternity'. LOL

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Iano, How does this make it easier for you? The odds of getting something as complex as god from nothing are = to something as complex as god existing forever.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

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I've never gotten an answer from Him,

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...? don't you pray ?Edited by AdminPhat, : fixed broken link

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Hell, he could just show that there is such a thing as 'timeless eternity'.

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why, it's the opposite of the 'fixed timespan eternity' ofcourse!

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

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If God exists in timeless eternity (a reasonably well established if not unchallenged view) then 'future' must be dropped insofar as it concerns talking of him.

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By "reasonably well established" I think you mean "commonly assumed". It's certainyl nto established on any evidential rounds.

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It is unlikely that Dawkins factored this well established notion into his argument. Otherwise he wouldn't have one

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If your assumption makes it impossible for God to change His mind then it contradicts the Bible, which does depict God as changing his mind. So it looks as if Dawkins has a point.

i contend that the bible says he is timeless or eternal, genesis says neather of these, people just assume this now

God certainally could have started with the fall. He could have started with the judgement. But that would not do us any good. WE are the purpose of HIS works here. He started with the Creation and the Fatherhood. We are created with will (and were created with him). We chose. The fall happened to us. We fell because of choosing to do against his commandment. We fell from being with him to not being with him. Fallen, we need to be redeemed if we want to return to him. Needing to be redeemed means needing a Savior since we can not redeem ourselves. The Savior requires obedience which requires faith. Faith sorts out those who want to return from those who do not want to return. With this plan, those who do not want to return will have demonstrated that they do not want to return and those who do want to return will have demonstrated that they do want to and those who do will have demonstratd that they do. We will be judged based on the evidence of our lives via that demonstration.If we did not know that we were created by him and with him then we would not know to want to be with him, our Father. If we did not know about the fall then we would not know we needed a redeemer, our Redeemer. The creation and the fall are essential elements of our knowing. If we did not have knowledge of the Fatherhood, the creation, and the fall, the balance of the plan would make no sense to any of us. God's plan does not require that the above make sense now to those who do not want to return. But it will make sense to all of us when we stand before him to be judged. Not one person will be able to say "I am not standing before you". When I am standing before him then I will know for certain that the Fatherhood, the Creation, and the Fall happened. And I will know if I want to live with him. If I want to live with him then the Atonement will take effect and I will be freed from the effect of the Fall.I sincerely hope that this helps,
Bob, Alice, and Eve

BobAliceEve,You haven't addressed the question. Why bother with the pre-Fall era if the fall was inevitable. A logical corollary of this is that since god knew in advance that Eve would eat the fruit, she had no free-will in any case.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

It's about "plausible deniability", Mark.If you think aobut it the Fall has to be a set-up - and God has to be responsible. But believers usually don't think about that and place the blame on Adam and Eve. If God created the universe with the Fall already there they wouldn't be able to evade the fact of God's responsiiblity.