Can God Ever Have An Original Thought?

[CeT-To]

CeT-To, I think we're straining a knat, here.

It is that ALL of God's KNOWLEDGE of events (past, present and future) are equally, simultaneously and perfectly clear to Him - certainly not that all events are all ongoing SIMULTANEOUSLY in real time or that He can simultaneously SEE THEM playing out in such a way. It's that He KNOWS of all events just AS IF He is watching them simultaneously - it's what God can and does KNOW, and has ALWAYS known - and that is EVERYTHING in ALL times. God is complete in His knowledge of ALL things - this is why He is said to be ALL knowing.

Enough on that, we either agree or not. But this is what Scripture teaches.

This is biblical now yes, you have to admit though what you were saying before is not what you are saying here.

LOL im not trying to be picky i just find this general misinterpretation of God and time common among Christians lol so that if one day an atheist notices ( given that he knows lol) it will be bad news if he reacts against it.

God bless brother

[Philip]

Cet-To, glad we got that one worked out. Really, it's what I meant all along.

But just to throw a theological wrench in - the heart of the matter is, can God surprise Himself? Can He ever not have knowledge of something He might not decide or plan courses of action and events around until some subsequent or "future" point? Of course, here again, we have introduced a time element that God wouldn't be subject to, as He stands outside of time. Certainly once He has decided something, He instantly knows all future things about it. Because God always creates with a purpose, He must know all that purpose entails. And I can't imagine there is anything that He doesn't know about Himself or that He doesn't have FULL knowledge of ALL of the future (to us) courses of action and outcomes in which He would engage in. Are not all of His thoughts, for ALL time, perfectly complete, and haven't they always been so? It doesn't seem as if there could ever be anything that God hasn't thought of - that there might be some "new" idea He hasn't always known about. If so, He would be lacking in the completeness of His knowledge - or are we back to the rock fallacy, that God could create one that is too heavy for him to lift?

Anyone out there, feel free to chime in with thoughts on this.

[CeT-To]

Cet-To, glad we got that one worked out. Really, it's what I meant all along.

But just to throw a theological wrench in - the heart of the matter is, can God surprise Himself? Can He ever not have knowledge of something He might not decide or plan courses of action and events around until some subsequent or "future" point? Of course, here again, we have introduced a time element that God wouldn't be subject to, as He stands outside of time. Certainly once He has decided something, He instantly knows all future things about it. Because God always creates with a purpose, He must know all that purpose entails. And I can't imagine there is anything that He doesn't know about Himself or that He doesn't have FULL knowledge of ALL of the future (to us) courses of action and outcomes in which He would engage in. Are not all of His thoughts, for ALL time, perfectly complete, and haven't they always been so? It doesn't seem as if there could ever be anything that God hasn't thought of - that there might be some "new" idea He hasn't always known about. If so, He would be lacking in the completeness of His knowledge - or are we back to the rock fallacy, that God could create one that is too heavy for him to lift?

Anyone out there, feel free to chime in with thoughts on this.

Is God timeless or temporal?

Part 1- http://www.youtube.com/user/drcraigvide ... 3N_RAvksP4

Part 2- http://www.youtube.com/user/drcraigvide ... birUdSnZLU

How can God know the future?

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/user/drcraigvide ... X3uujCanf8

Part 2- http://www.youtube.com/user/drcraigvide ... QElhE_n8fY

Check out these vids Philip.

[DannyM]

Whoever said God 'sees' all events simultaneously?

Is God timeless or temporal?

CeT-To, I'm still considering this, and some assumptions remain unclear to me. Timeless does not equal ‘without time’. 'Outside of time' does not mean God doesn’t experience time/duration. It’s just God cannot be constrained by our notions of time. For instance, can God become ravaged by the passage of time?

Before creation, duration existed. I just don’t see how God must necessarily be annexed to the universe upon creation. And since there was duration prior to creation, why and how would this necessarily follow?

1 Kings 8:27
But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!

How can God know the future?

How can God not know the future?

It hasn’t been demonstrated how God can maintain His infinite nature if He is, upon creation, annexed to the finite universe. Can an infinite form of subsistence be joined to a finite form of subsistence without scaling down the infinite to the finite?

Is God continuously learning new things?

[August]

How could there have been Biblical and Godly prophets if God does not know the future?

[DannyM]

How could there have been Biblical and Godly prophets if God does not know the future?

I was thinking the same thing myself...

[CeT-To]

Whoever said God 'sees' all events simultaneously?

Is God timeless or temporal?

CeT-To, I'm still considering this, and some assumptions remain unclear to me. Timeless does not equal ‘without time’. 'Outside of time' does not mean God doesn’t experience time/duration. It’s just God cannot be constrained by our notions of time. For instance, can God become ravaged by the passage of time?

Before creation, duration existed. I just don’t see how God must necessarily be annexed to the universe upon creation. And since there was duration prior to creation, why and how would this necessarily follow?

Hi Danny,

Okay lets untie those knots of what you think are assumptions -

Timeless is without time by definition, without the experience of passage of time... i think though you have Eternal in mind, would that be right? Since you can be go from timeless to temporal and still be everlasting eternal.

I think you are seeing time as a merely physical dimension which it isn't, again the example of angels that they are not timeless, they are temporal because they take time to think yet they are with God outside the universe. So even outside the universe there is a passage of time, as a result of temporal creation even outside the universe. Even if God did annihilate the universe and all creation outside of it too God would still be in time as shown in the videos i posted and my comments earlier. Again with the word " constraint" is an emotionally loaded word, you can just say God liberated his activity with his creation. No, God would not be ravished by time lol becoming old and weary is a physical property in time, it is not a necessary property of time in itself, im pretty sure spirits like angels and God don't get old and get wrinkles hahahah, plus God is eternal. These questions and so called assumptions are all answers in the video i posted up lol all im doing is basically repeating it.

No, time began since creation and before that there was no time, hence God was timeless, if there was duration before creation then that means there was time and that God had been existing through an infinite amount of time.... which again leads to contradictions like - if there was an infinite amount of time prior to this moment then this moment should have never arrived because it is impossible to go through and "finish" an infinite amount of time or any actual infinites.

1 Kings 8:27
But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!

How can God know the future?

How can God not know the future?

I never said he couldn't ... it was just a good vid on the subject, so i don't understand what this is supposed to mean lol it's like stating the obvious.

It hasn’t been demonstrated how God can maintain His infinite nature if He is, upon creation, annexed to the finite universe. Can an infinite form of subsistence be joined to a finite form of subsistence without scaling down the infinite to the finite?

Is God continuously learning new things?

Is he if he knows the future ?

Annexed? in what sense is God annexed to the universe? Where has it ever been stated that God is dependant on something? What has been shown though is the logical effect that if God creates something then since that created thing came to existence time began. Lol if you want to say God is annexed to something then the case here would be logic. Because that's what we are talking about here, logic.

God bless!

[Philip]

No one is really answering my original contention: that God cannot have a thought He'd never had before or something that He would one day do or decide, that He hasn't ALWAYS intimately known about. As if this was possible, then God would not be COMPLETE in His knowledge or all future things and events. Was there ever a moment that He didn't know He would create Adam or that Jesus would one day die to redeem His sheep?

And how can we be sure that this created time has been the only one? "In the beginning would appear to only be relevant to THIS universe, to THIS time, and to all creatures and matter that make it up. An eternal Artist can make an infinite number of paintings. No? And while God is complete in His fellowship withing the Trinity, I don't think, before the beginning of THIS universe, that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were just hanging out playing board games. But again, we can really only relate to the physical realm, and when we speculate beyond that, then the reality must be so far beyond our comprehension as to almost to be pointless to wonder about.

We just can't define God; no human theological box or theoretical understandings are sufficient. And to think that from God flows so many countless wonders and immense and endless beauty and yet that He loved us so much that He submitted Himself to puny, ignorant hateful men to be spit upon and dragged through the streets of Jerusalem to an unimaginably brutal death. Just WOW!

[narnia4]

Yeah, I don't want to put a damper on this discussion at all, but there is just no way we can know. That's not an excuse or a way to avoid asking tough questions intellectually, but when you think of the scope of God, would it make sense for us to really understand everything or more than just a very tiny slice that God has chosen to allow us to know? Of course not! In the scope of his majesty, power, and grace our questions just seem small and our reasoning wholly inadequate. I love theology, but theology/philosophy seem like little mind games in comparison.

I was thinking on the nature of angels the other day, and how little we really know about them... that we even forget that God created them. To me they're yet another little indication that we understand nothing fully. Not only that, but also that there are many things about God and his creation that we not only haven't hypothesized/imagined, but that our minds literally cannot comprehend even were they to be explained. So I just hope that we maintain that wonder and awe and don't get discouraged that we can't fit all the pieces of the puzzle together.

So thinking about other worlds God could have created, even other TIMES, the world that awaits us... learning more about God and angels. The speculation of what could possibly be and the knowledge of what IS to come, that really gets me excited.

More on topic, I do agree that God did know these things all along, he knew he would create Adam. Maybe elaborate when I'm less tired but to believe that he doesn't know those things just doesn't make sense to me.

[CeT-To]

No one is really answering my original contention: that God cannot have a thought He'd never had before or something that He would one day do or decide, that He hasn't ALWAYS intimately known about. As if this was possible, then God would not be COMPLETE in His knowledge or all future things and events. Was there ever a moment that He didn't know He would create Adam or that Jesus would one day die to redeem His sheep?

Sorry about that Philip! In my view God has always had one thought in his timeless state but with an innumerable ( not infinite though) amount of ideas in the one thought - so ideas would be the content of the thought which is the action of thinking about something. So i would answer no God always knew that the Son would die on the Cross and that Moses was the one who he would use to deliver the Hebrews out of Egypt. But now that God is in a temporal state then yes the ideas change but only timely tensed propositional wise which would be from future tense to present tense to past tense. Like, "I Will bring the Hebrews out of Egypt" would change to "I am Now bringing the Hebrews out of Egypt" which it would then change to "i Have brought the Hebrews out of Egypt".

And how can we be sure that this created time has been the only one? "In the beginning would appear to only be relevant to THIS universe, to THIS time, and to all creatures and matter that make it up. An eternal Artist can make an infinite number of paintings. No? And while God is complete in His fellowship withing the Trinity, I don't think, before the beginning of THIS universe, that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were just hanging out playing board games. But again, we can really only relate to the physical realm, and when we speculate beyond that, then the reality must be so far beyond our comprehension as to almost to be pointless to wonder about.

I don't think time is created in the sense you are thinking of, like a human or an angel or any Thing - but time is the logical result of creation or God's initial act so yes it is created but you can't create one time here or one time there hahah like you can with things. There is only 1 now and only 1 past and there can only Be 1 now and 1 past ( i'm not including future because it has yet to happen though it can be included considering God's future plan). No, God cannot make an infinite number of things it leads to contradictions since an actual infinite number of things has no beginning nor ending in the set of numbers there in. Though a possible infinite number of things, yes, which is where it has beginning though no end. LOL right, i don't think the Father, Son and HS was playing around and stuff hahah that would be funny though, though if they were lol the moment they started doing that would be when time would have begun if it was the case that they did this before the universe began, since it would always make sense to say God did ( past tense) play around.

We just can't define God; no human theological box or theoretical understandings are sufficient. And to think that from God flows so many countless wonders and immense and endless beauty and yet that He loved us so much that He submitted Himself to puny, ignorant hateful men to be spit upon and dragged through the streets of Jerusalem to an unimaginably brutal death. Just WOW!

When you said " We just can't define God" lol you already are, you are defining God as indefinable hahaha which doesn't make sense so you can't say God is indefinable. i mean if God was indefinable then we can never say God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, all-loving, all-just etc etc which is silly... really.

God bless!

[Philip]

Cet-To said, "God cannot make an infinite number of things it leads to contradictions since an actual infinite number of things has no beginning nor ending"

What does "infinite" mean? It means unlimited - no limits. No beginning, no end and no limits on. If God has always created and is always active, then GOD is not limited to the NUMBER of things He can create. It's not the THINGS God has created that are infinite, in and of themselves, but that they are part of the unlimited NUMBER things God can create - as He has no limits.

[CeT-To]

Cet-To said, "God cannot make an infinite number of things it leads to contradictions since an actual infinite number of things has no beginning nor ending"

What does "infinite" mean? It means unlimited - no limits. No beginning, no end and no limits on. If God has always created and is always active, then GOD is not limited to the NUMBER of things He can create. It's not the THINGS God has created that are infinite, in and of themselves, but that they are part of the unlimited NUMBER things God can create - as He has no limits.

Has God always been creating? where did you get this notion from? He can't have always been creating cause then he would have never arrived to creating us since he would have needed to create an infinite amount of things before us. Btw i said that God cannot reach the point of having created an infinite number of things - it does not make sense because to arrive at an infinite number of things is unreachable and neither would it have a beginning for you to start. Btw i never said God can create things that are infinite i said that he cannot create an infinite number of things, there is a difference.

God is limited to the number of things he can create, he can't create logical impossible things like a circle with corners or make something which can exist and not exist at the same time.

God has limits as well for example ones that he puts on purposely - he cannot force me to freely do something. Though to say that limits are bad is another thing because in the case him limiting himself for us is showing his All-just nature.

God bless!

[Philip]

Cet-To says, "God is limited to the number of things He can create."

Cet-To, you are confusing the number of things He HAS created with what He CAN create if He so desires to - which has infinite POSSIBILITIES and in which there are no limits as to what He can create (that are not illogical fallacies or sinful) if He so chooses to. And no, He cannot sin, He cannot create a square circle, these are impossible for Him, and are His only limitations that are not self-imposed. He will not force us to embrace Him - that is self-imposed.

[CeT-To]

Cet-To says, "God is limited to the number of things He can create."

Cet-To, you are confusing the number of things He HAS created with what He CAN create if He so desires to - which has infinite POSSIBILITIES and in which there are no limits as to what He can create (that are not illogical fallacies or sinful) if He so chooses to. And no, He cannot sin, He cannot create a square circle, these are impossible for Him, and are His only limitations that are not self-imposed. He will not force us to embrace Him - that is self-imposed.

Ummm not confused here i'm responding clearly to what you were saying before about God has always being creating and active, this is what You said - not me.

Also, i never said he has created an infinite amount of things - this is what you said when you said he has always being creating. See look below:

If God has always created and is always active, then GOD is not limited to the NUMBER of things He can create.

Plus this doesn't even logically follow from one another - how is it the case that God creating an infinite number of things ( which i say is impossible) mean that there are an infinite number of different things he can create? You have to show how.

I don't even think there are an infinite different number of things God can create - i don't think an actual infinite can exist at all as i've shown multiple times that it always leads to contradictions. If God can create an infinite different number of things then he has an infinite amount of ideas inside his mind about each and everyone of these different number of things he can create but that's impossible because an infinite number of things is unreachable LOL you can never count the ideas and then suddenly say okay now i've reached infinity hahaha .

God bless!

[Philip]

Cet-To, this has become a straining of knats - a pointless dialogue.

My entire point is that God has no limitations as to what He CAN do (not in what He CHOOSES to do, but in what He has the ABILITY to do), outside of logical fallacies, sinful acts, and self-imposed constraints, and that there are NO limitations as to His knowledge of future things. No, we don't know how active God has been over eternity, but indications are that it is healthy speculation that He has been extremely active much of the time. And that may well mean multiple realities of created times. To say that God is unlimited in His ABILITIES (non sinful, non logical fallacies, non self imposed), means that all other things - including creating within other times and dimensions, are entirely reasonable to suppose he MIGHT have done.