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

godrulz

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This is an unfair straw man caricature. Context and other principles determine figurative vs literal. God does not have feathers, but He certainly can and does change His mind (apples/oranges).
 

Lon

Well-known member
No, God thinks. "let Us make man" Whatever. The fact is, God is not without thought or knowledge.
God exists. he is not nowhere.
He is rather everywhere.
A question for further thought: Where is God? If you believe He is someplace coeternal with Him, then He is subject to the laws of the universe (or whatever is greater) rather than it subject to Him.

Movement is not created, just as time, thoughts, knowledge, wisdom, love, are not created. All exist because God exists.
Yet again here. Does God move outside of Himself or inside of Himself? Same problems as above. Ultimately, this is why the open view is getting a cult label and driving toward heresy status. The bottom line is whether God is God over everything that exists or, if as the ov asserts, He is subject to something or somethings else.

This, at least to us, is a denial of who God is and making Him into man's thoughts and parameters where He cannot logically be God. In that sense, it may progress that we believe the open view doesn't worship the God we know but one that is subject to something greater than Himself.
I pray the open theists will take this to heart. It will be the primary need of address by the open view community. It simply must deal with the consequences of their thoughts about Our Father.

Let me continue with my proof: If God is truly God, time and literally everything else must come from Him. There is absolutely no logical way to get around this.

To the open theist any verse that "clearly" portrays God is one that supports their presuppositions about him. When they encounter God with hands and feet, or hearing, or seeing, well, these are merely accommodations to our finitude. Yet, when the open theists run headlong into the same accommodations to our finitude, well, no, of course they are wooden literalisms to be reified by the openist. God does not think discursively, gr, nor does he sit around deliberating. When God reveals himself in this manner in Scripture, it is to give us a means of thinking about him, for we cannot otherwise, unless we were gods ourselves.

For you, gr, there is no transcendence of the divine. Apparently God is just a super-being, something far greater than man, but really not wholly other. God does not think like a man, right? :AMR: So why do you want to make him thus?

AMR
 

Lon

Well-known member
Yes, I know that you do!
Isn't your statement placing a limitation on God's ailities? I am certain that it is!

No, it is placing a concrete limit on man. Read AMR's post (also given just above). God gives us what we can comprehend but that doesn't mean all we comprehend is the totality of God. I restate, it is impossible for God to be thought of as constrained by anything or He is no longer God, but a man-comprehended lesser conception of Him.
 

Delmar

Patron Saint of SMACK
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What does that mean?
You answered your own question with your next statement!
Agreed. God is Triune and God is love.




God is NOT these things . . . God reveals Himself through these means.
How do you know that "these things'' are not simply a description of how He has always been?
Agreed. God is eternal.



You are incoherent. I do not understand the conclusion to your random post. . .

Nang
Your lack of understanding does not prove any post to be incoherent or random! To me the idea of God being separate from sequential reality seems incoherent and random, but you seem to understand it :idunno:
 

Delmar

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No, it is placing a concrete limit on man.
So when you used the term "nobody can measure that" you meant nobody but God?
Read AMR's post (also given just above). God gives us what we can comprehend but that doesn't mean all we comprehend is the totality of God.
I do agree with that!
I restate, it is impossible for God to be thought of as constrained by anything or He is no longer God, but a man-comprehended lesser conception of Him.
Is God constrained by reality?

Thanks for the spelling correction, by the way.
 

Lon

Well-known member
So when you used the term "nobody can measure that" you meant nobody but God?
Yes.
I do agree with that!Is God constrained by reality?
This is very similar to my question above: If God is constrained by anything other than Himself, something is greater than Him. Time, I reiterate, cannot constrain Him, else it is greater than Him. I could say more on this, but have covered my reasons in recent posts here.
Thanks for the spelling correction, by the way.
No problem, bro :)

-Lon
 

Delmar

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Yes.

This is very similar to my question above: If God is constrained by anything other than Himself, something is greater than Him. Time, I reiterate, cannot constrain Him, else it is greater than Him. I could say more on this, but have covered my reasons in recent posts here.

No problem, bro :)

-Lon

You would of coarse agree that God is real. Reality is not a "constraint" on God! Therefore it is not unreasonable to believe that sequential reality is not a "constraint" on God!
 

Lighthouse

The Dark Knight
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I was just responding to zippy2006 use of "eating the apple", but it would not suprise me if we in advertently answered it the same way.

--Dave
Actually I was in another thread and hadn't read zippy's post. I was talking to Gerald and told him that God can't seen an apple in my hand if there is no apple in my hand.

Lighthouse:

You read me like you do the bible:

Here is what I said, about whether or not just because God is free to choose, what He can do with it:

It appeared to me you said the same thing. If not..at least do not try to say I said something I didnt.

Sometimes I wonder whom really reads posts, before they post.:wave:
I did not say the same thing you did.

Also, you contradicted yourself; if God is free to choose to do something that necessarily means He could do it, so to say that God being free to choose does not mean He could is a contradiction.

To say He is free to choose does not mean He would is not a contradiction, but it logically follows that God would do whatever He pleases that He is free to do, and if there is something God would not do He is most likely not free to do so, possibly by way of a restriction regarding something else: ex. God would not strike a person dead for the same reasons Ananias and Sapphira were under the dispensation of grace, for He is unable to violate His promises as that [violating His promises] would be wicked and God is unable to be wicked. It would not be wicked to strike one dead if He had not made the promises made since that event else it would have been wicked to strike them dead at that time.
 

DFT_Dave

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LIFETIME MEMBER
[/INDENT]Noun: person, place, thing, idea. Yup, time is a thing, an idea.
Is it a physical property? Insomuch as it measures, physical things, but no it is a logical concept of duration.

God isn't in the same reality, He interacts with it, but isn't one of us.

1. <--------------------------------------------->
2 <-------------|-------------|---------------->

The first represents God's eternal being (no beginning/no end).
The second represents our finite beginning (a beginning with no end but
measurable increments.
Note that only the second can be measured by any possible means, the first cannot. Because God has no beginning, there is no point in time you can start measuring His existence. All segments of His eternity are artificial (created) by logic and necessity. This, imo, proves that time is a product of creation specifically because it is impossibly to quantify or qualify His existence other than His specific interactions with the segments involved. They are artificial (created). Time is a segmented concept only possibly by our existence. What God does can be measured (our existence). It is impossibly to apply the same to His existence. Having no beginning, there is no place or point which can be measured because His existence goes both forward and backward from any point you'd wish to measure duration. If you acquiesce His eternal nonbeginning, this very statement means He is without time.

When/if we are involved in this discussion further, I'll simply refer back to this post. It is a sound proof that cannot be thwarted or escaped.

Time is duration, yes, not the duration of no-thing but the duration of some-thing. God is some-thing. God has duration or else he no longer exists.

You cannot reduce time to merely a measurement.

All you have proven is that God has no measurable age. You have not proven that God does not act in any kind of sequence.

I say more later.

--Dave
 

graceandpeace

New member
Lighthouse:

I did not say the same thing you did.

Ok, it appeared you did.

Also, you contradicted yourself; if God is free to choose to do something that necessarily means He could do it, so to say that God being free to choose does not mean He could is a contradiction.


I dont see it as a contradiction.

He has the choice to say "no"..and, He is able to, always, without lust ever entering in.


To say He is free to choose does not mean He would is not a contradiction, but it logically follows that God would do whatever He pleases that He is free to do, and if there is something God would not do He is most likely not free to do so, possibly by way of a restriction regarding something else: ex. God would not strike a person dead for the same reasons Ananias and Sapphira were under the dispensation of grace, for He is unable to violate His promises as that [violating His promises] would be wicked and God is unable to be wicked. It would not be wicked to strike one dead if He had not made the promises made since that event else it would have been wicked to strike them dead at that time.


?

I don't see your point.
 

Lon

Well-known member
You would of coarse agree that God is real. Reality is not a "constraint" on God! Therefore it is not unreasonable to believe that sequential reality is not a "constraint" on God!
If He is bound to it, it is a constraint. Our reality and His reality aren't the same. He isn't affected by gravity (or time).
 

Lon

Well-known member
Time is duration, yes, not the duration of no-thing but the duration of some-thing. God is some-thing. God has duration or else he no longer exists.

You cannot reduce time to merely a measurement.

All you have proven is that God has no measurable age. You have not proven that God does not act in any kind of sequence.

I say more later.

--Dave
In fact, I proved that sequence doesn't exist for God. Time is a concept of measurement between point A and B in progression. God has no point A or B. No matter how you slice it, it is impossible for God to be thought of in a durative sense. Duration as we understand it, is consigned to a physical universe. If God is subject to anything beside Himself, He ceases to be the only God and something else rules Him. The open view is asserting God is ruled by something other than Himself and as such, He can no longer be God.
 

godrulz

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If He is bound to it, it is a constraint. Our reality and His reality aren't the same. He isn't affected by gravity (or time).

God is spirit. Gravity is not an issue.

Time is an aspect of His experience, not a physical thing/force.

How are we affected by time?

Why do you think God is negatively affected by time?

What do you mean bound by time? The fact that God thinks sequentially as revealed in Scripture is not a binding constraint.

It is 2011 for God and us. His reality is not totally different than ours. There are analogous things with God even when not identical. God thinks; we think, but not identical in every sense.

We could not have relationship with God if we were not in His image in some way.
 

godrulz

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In fact, I proved that sequence doesn't exist for God. Time is a concept of measurement between point A and B in progression. God has no point A or B. No matter how you slice it, it is impossible for God to be thought of in a durative sense. Duration as we understand it, is consigned to a physical universe. If God is subject to anything beside Himself, He ceases to be the only God and something else rules Him. The open view is asserting God is ruled by something other than Himself and as such, He can no longer be God.

Huh? Is God ruled by love because God is love? Is God ruled by thinking because He thinks sequentially? Are we ruled by something just because we are personal beings? Duration is God's reality, not something He is subject to (whatever you mean by that).

Measures of time are not identical to time. Time is more philosophical/conceptual rather than physical. Clocks are not time. Time exists whether clocks exist or not.
 

Delmar

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If He is bound to it, it is a constraint. Our reality and His reality aren't the same. He isn't affected by gravity (or time).

What do you mean bound to it? God is real. Could it be otherwise! No!
 

ghost

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He is rather everywhere.
How then is anyone cast out of his presence?

A question for further thought: Where is God? If you believe He is someplace coeternal with Him, then He is subject to the laws of the universe (or whatever is greater) rather than it subject to Him.
Not if he created it and chooses to dwell in it.


Ultimately, this is why the open view is getting a cult label and driving toward heresy status. The bottom line is whether God is God over everything that exists or, if as the ov asserts, He is subject to something or somethings else.
At least this speaks to the open view that godrulz subscribes to, because he thinks that God is moral, which makes Him subject to something greater than Himself.


Let me continue with my proof: If God is truly God, time and literally everything else must come from Him. There is absolutely no logical way to get around this.
Did God create communication, thought, movement? He did not. They exist because God has always had thought, movement, communication. Time falls into this as well. You want to make it into something it is not.
 

Lon

Well-known member
God is spirit. Gravity is not an issue.

Time is an aspect of His experience, not a physical thing/force.

How are we affected by time?

Why do you think God is negatively affected by time?

What do you mean bound by time? The fact that God thinks sequentially as revealed in Scripture is not a binding constraint.

It is 2011 for God and us. His reality is not totally different than ours. There are analogous things with God even when not identical. God thinks; we think, but not identical in every sense.

We could not have relationship with God if we were not in His image in some way.
The omni's go hand in hand. To deny one essentially denies them all. Scripture tells us God is Almighty (omnipotent). Since this is true, whatever He wills to pass necessarily must. So, His omnipotence insures omniscience, for nothing can happen apart from His power and will (understand I'm infra when I state this). Omnipresence is a scriptural given as well, though Enyart denies it.
Pro 15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch upon the evil and the good.
Eze 1:18 Their rims were high and awesome, and the rims of all four wheels were full of eyes all around.
And, if He sees everything, then He also knows everything, and with omnipotence, no future action is without His knowledge for "in Him, we live and move and have our being" and "without Him we can do nothing."

Is it 2011 for God or is it that He is relational to us in 2011? Is it really 2011 for a God with an eternal past or 2011Xa billion? No. It is not 2011 or even 2trillion for God. It is 2011 A.D. from a randomly chosen point in time. It is not 2011 for God yet He relates to us in our 2011. It is our's, not His. Why is it this difficult to wrap your head around the fact that God has no beginning therefore it is impossible for sequence? I said this before, God's past isn't over, it cannot be else He is a creation as you and I.
Once you wrap your head around this fact, any assertion of duration like unto our own is sheer nonsense. Yes, He relates to us in our durative reality, no, it cannot possibly be the only reality for Him. Its impossible.
 

Lon

Well-known member
Did God create communication, thought, movement? He did not. They exist because God has always had thought, movement, communication. Time falls into this as well. You want to make it into something it is not.
See just above, I explain why this cannot be.
 

DFT_Dave

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In fact, I proved that sequence doesn't exist for God. Time is a concept of measurement between point A and B in progression. God has no point A or B. No matter how you slice it, it is impossible for God to be thought of in a durative sense. Duration as we understand it, is consigned to a physical universe. If God is subject to anything beside Himself, He ceases to be the only God and something else rules Him. The open view is asserting God is ruled by something other than Himself and as such, He can no longer be God.

Psalm 102:24 RSV "O my God," I say, "take me not hence in the midst of my days, thou whose years endure throughout all generations!"

Psalm 102:26 RSV They will perish, but thou dost endure; they will all wear out like a garment. Thou changest them like raiment, and they pass away;

I guess you'll say these verses are not to be taken literally either.

--Dave
 
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