Is God Omniscent?
The question is intended for the believers out there in hubberland and I offer the following thoughts for your consideration:
From Dictionary.com:
"om·nis·cient
[om-nish-uhnt] Show IPA
adjective
1.
having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things"
1) If God is omniscent then He knows the future. (by definition)
2) If God knows the future then He knows your personal future. He knows what you will have for breakfast tomorrow, when you will die and what your ultimate disposition will be (heaven or hell). What you might perceive as change in your life (perhaps being saved one day) is already known to God. Nothing you can do will change that future - it is already written in the Good Witch Glendas book, so to speak. This is also by definition.
If conclusion 2) is true then the concept of predestination is factual; a thought that most of us find abhorrent and unacceptable. It means that we have no free will; that every step in our lives is preordained and unchangeable.
On the other hand, if conclusion 2) is false then premise 2) is also false. If premise 2) is false (it is also conclusion 1)) then premise 1 is also false and God is not omniscent.
A necessary corollary, using the same logic structure, is that if God is not omniscent He is not omnipotent either (there is something He can't do; see the future).
Comments? Is God neither omniscient nor omnipotent but you have free will to decide whether or not to follow God's word? Or is God omniscient and your entire life is structured in such a way that nothing you can do will change any part of it?
Secondary question; what kind of God is neither omniscient nor omnipotent? It would seem to be a requirement for Godhood...God is omniscient. (declaration from believers)
No one and nothing. (necessary conclusion from the above sentence and the OP.
The sum total of all men knowledge is God so therefore he is omniscient.
The concept of free will and predestination both belong to God .....
but because God is perfection He is also harmonious in every way.....this means that that both the knowledge of free will and predestination will exist in harmony with each other and that is where God dwells .
For God is the perfect understanding of all things.
- Emile Rposted 12 years ago
0You guys do realize that omniscience doesn't negate free will?
Hmmm. Where is the failure of the logic structure?
You've got to throw the concept out of time. Think about it. If you can see time, from one end to the other, you can easily know everything that has, is or will happen; without directly affecting it. Compare it to a DVD. You can watch it straight through or select any particular scene to watch. No matter where you come in, you don't affect the movie in any way. No matter how many times you watch it, you can't change the outcome.
Maybe, if there is a God, that entity is not tied to time. That doesn't mean we aren't. We wouldn't necessarily by predestined to a certain fate, simply because he knew our fate. He simply watched us make our choices.I'm not following your reasoning. Your life is one of a stack of records that God cut when He created the universe. We agree here.
On groove 58 of that record (three years hence) God recorded that you murdered your neighbor in cold blood because he had a loud party one night.
In three years will you perform the murder according to the record or will your free will allow you to change that record, recording new information over what God made, and thus proving that God cut it wrong in the first place?
As you say, no matter when you start the record it is the same; you can't change it. As God already watched us make the choices we make in order to cut that record, we can't change it. You WILL murder your neighbor, and nothing, nothing at all, can change that fact.I don't really understand the God cut a record comment. Predestination doesn't fit into it. Sure, a god would know the outcome; but that's because a god would be omnipresent. He watched it as it was happening, was there in the end and was also there at the beginning. All at the same time. Just because you can know all and see all; doesn't mean you affect the outcome. It doesn't mean that anyone was forced to make any choices. You simply know the choices they make.
Not only that, I would assume that, at no point in history, is the future set in stone with this scenario. Every choice we make would be a butterfly effect on the march of history. But, since omnipresence allows the god to see all time at the same time, he would see the changes made on down the line by each choice made. So, the future woud be constantly changing, but always known.I see. I think. Language does not do justice to this concept.
You performed the action in the future, where you had free will and God watched you do it. He therefore knows what you did then, while maintaining the fiction of free will. At the moment of creation He also watched all the future (and cut that record of what He saw) while you used free will to make choices.
Those choices are made, however, and are unchangeable. We are in the now, not the future, and cannot undo the choices we made in the future.
I have a few objections to this. You are treating the future as the past; to God it is all the same. There is no indication that I am aware of that this is possible. The only way you can assume it is to assume the premises that God exists, is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent are all true and argue in a circular logic from there, concluding that your premise is true.
You are assuming that there is somewhere outside our universe that God exists in while he watches and has watched that which has not happened. Again, there is no evidence that is possible.
It would thus appear, putting it basically and simply, that you require omniscience AND free will so you will declare that that which is impossible is possible to God. Once more, a circular logic which assumes that which is to be proven, but works in that context.
Thank you.Well, you are right. It isn't possible if you throw it in the pan with everything you know about the way the universe works. But, if you start with the premise of God, outside of time, it isn't really circular logic. You have to first believe in the possiblity of God.
When I did believe in God, I always assumed we were a bored game. and I didn't misspell that. I just thought it was probably a big game for him to wile away some time in eternity. Kind of a Kobiashi Maru. He wrote the story's end, but we had mostly free will. He would make a little change here, a little change there, at different moments in time and he'd keep on making little changes until he got the end result he was looking for. So, free will, for the most part; as long as we didn't screw up the game.
Edit: I hadn't thought about this in years. Typing it out. It just occurred to me. There is the possiblity that it is all free will. If you take into account the multiverse theory.God cannot be outside time as time is a concept. Only if time is a "thing", god can be inside or outside of it. Now if gods knows for sure, our future, that means our future is gods past. How can the past be changed, even though it is our future, hence free will is a mirage, if there is an omnipotent god.
That is if god can see our future, can we, with our free will, change it? No, for if we change it god does not omniscient-ed.
Eg:- I put a cake on the table, and I make a guess that my son will take it. If I'm 100% sure my son would take it(what we do is make intelligent guess, but here I mean omniscience), he should take it and has no choice, but to take it.I have one word for you. Multiverse. But, just so you know; its a fun thing to try and figure out. Not something I believe in.
And you sound like you're talking about one of the Merlin tales. I don't think you quite understand what I'm saying. Think about a mountain. By our perception, it feels as if it has been there forever. It hasn't. That's just perception.
Energy is eternal. Is it tied to the concept of time? I don't know.Multiverse is a fiction and nothing else.
Matter is eternal, energy is a concept and the conceiver should be eternal for it to be eternal.
I didn't understand the mountain part.Jomine, I don't know what is to be done with you. We are apples and oranges. I don't know that it is possible for us to converse on this matter.
You do understand that it is OK to exercise your imagination when pondering the mysteries of life? Nothing is written in stone until provable, but humanity can't prove anything unless they first think.I have no problem with anybody using imagination, in fact I enjoy it, I'm a big fan of Harry Potter.
But if we are discussing about the universe we have to be objective, not imaginative.I disagree. We must be objective of what we know. There are still an infinite number of mysteries unsolved within the universe.
In fine print there are no mysteries.
Mysteries are what we make make out of it, by our imagination, to make our life interesting.Now, that's simply not true. Are you saying we know everything? All of the hows and whys have been answered? Exactly, what can you offer to support that conclusion?
We know everything about the working of the universe. What we do not know is, what all things are there in the universe, but there is no reason for it to be a mystery. There might be a cockroach in your house, though you do not know about it, its not a mystery.
Again, I would have to ask you what evidence you used to come to that conclusion. We do not, by a long shot, fully understand the workings of the universe. We speculate. We theorize. And, you are correct; we do not know everything that exists in the universe.
You can’t compare it to a house and a cockroach. I guess you can, but it’s not a valid comparison. Since I was the GC when my house was built, I know every piece of material that was used. Every piece of equipment that was purchased. Everything purchased was either grown, or manufactured on this planet. I can easily find out information, no matter how in-depth, if I want to go in search.
And, anyway; if you compare it to a house and a cockroach; you are, in essence, saying the cockroach appeared in the closed system of the house. Are you now arguing in support of a God? I’m confused.A theory is rational explanation. We have rational explanations about the working of the universe.
About the cockroach, i was asking, what the mystery. Is.
We may find lot many things in the universe, if we set out a search, but what is the mystery in that?
A mystery is something that has no explanation. Right now the only mystery is, why all these things are here. But if you think about it, because all there things are here- we are here and we are thinking about it. Our ability for abstract thought give or ask meanings and mysteries, for nature there is no mystery, it just is.
God is a term that carry no meaning, though it carry significance for the person who think about it, based on his experience and education and level of critical thinking.It isn't only a question of whether or not a god exists. It is a question of how it all works and why. Science gives us the hows as it unravels the mysteries. Philosophy ponders the why as each new answer to a how is placed on the puzzle board.
The "why" question is the meaning part, which I agree, is philosophy, which has no significance to the universe, but is the most important stuff for us, on account of our thinking ability.
If the term"god" carry no meaning, what is the point in debating about "its" existence?
If we are to debate that issue of "its" existence, first the name has to resolve into some object.Well, we could debate the value of Sherwin Wine's contribution to the discussion; but I think that argument is a blatant attempt to muddy the waters. We all know what the core idea of the creator is.
No I didn't mean ignostism. I meant "god", not creator. God may be creator for you, but not for other theist, pantheist, atheist... In fact the term god, unlike creator, means different for different people. When a term carry too many meanings, its as Good as having no meaning, that is what I meant.
Creator cannot exist, because creation event is untenable. Creator has to exist before he can create anything, that means the matter that makes him is eternal. Similarly space is nothing and need no creation. So space and matter are eternal, so what did he create to be a creator?Creator is the lowest level. The common denominator. People tack other attributes onto the term, but creator is, for the most part, common to all concepts of god. So, the word is not rendered meaningless.
The creation event is untenable? Why is that? Theists and scientists assume a creation event, but from different causes. I'm not certain I understand what you are saying.
And, I've said it before; we are formulating theories on what little we know of the observable universe. That's a word people like to leave out of the conversation. Thinking we know too much about the universe is getting ahead of ourselves.For you it is creator, for some it is not. See that itself, the word carry two meanings which are near opposite. For some it is the whole universe. So, god carry no specific, that is, useful meaning.
There are three creation scenarios, of which ex-nihilo is the most common. Theists assume the god was present before that. If god had existed then that means he was matter and the matter that constitued him existed even before him.(logic says he has to evolve from matter). The scientists says nothing suddenly got length, width and height to become something which is more irrational. Creation is a past event and past events can only be explained. Irrational is a contradiction and hence cannot occur in nature.
Universe is a concept, a collection of matter with the space separating them. There is matter in the universe and all are interconnected. How they are interconnected, is the only matter of contention.
It doesn't matter whether we see all of It, or whether we see it at all. What matters is whether we can explain it rationally.For me, it is nothing. I’m agnostic. I haven’t found reason to believe that a Creator is possible. I do spend some time speculating, but I’ve come to no conclusions. But, I think you are being overly difficult with the word. It doesn’t really matter how a person envisions a higher power, the higher power they envision is what they call God. It is not a term that has been rendered useless. Confusing as heck; but not useless.
I agree. Ex nihilo sounds rather bizarre. But, I do think that to say things have simply always been here is no better. There has to be an answer other than those two. That is the only logical conclusion.
I agree, we are looking for a rational explanation that explains it all. We are not there yet. You cannot say that simply because we don’t have the answers we will pretend that we do. That is irrational.Power is what something got, not what something is. Say an eagle has a powerful eye than mine,(most people has better power than me, I use specs), most animals are powerful than me. People just say higher power and leave it to the listner to guess the meaning. When I say useless, it means the meaning is what the listener make out, not the speaker meant and useful word is the one which the speaker and audience get the same meaning. And no religions have agreed whether god is a concept or object. If it is a concept, for there is no object that is called god, its a personal business, and have no effect on the world.
If you leave out all creation scenarios, then your default will be matter is eternal. That is more correct especially when you consider time, which is an artificial construct.
We have no answer for the why question, I already agreed. For each person it is different.
But we have answers for the workings of the universe. You are asking why the universe is there, which has no answer. We'll like to guess an answer, but it matters only for us.I disagree, petty much all the way around. The word god is a starting point, yes. Just like many words. Cake, for instance, means several different things; but even if you agree to agree it is a dessert, you have to talk about it further to figure shape, texture and flavor. The god concept is no different. You have to talk it down until you understand what, exactly, the individual is refering to.
And, no. Absolutely not. Simply because we haven't found an answer, it does not follow that we say existence is eternal and just leave it at that. It is simplistic and an insult to the intelligence of everyone involved. It perpetuates the concept of religion.
And the why is firmly tied to the how. Once we answer the question of how, we will have the answer to why. Why does not need to equate to the concept of god.. CONCEPT. Concepts don't affect matter. And concept varies with the people who conceive it. For some it is creator, for another its omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent sky daddy, for another it is the universe itself, entirely different and almost opposite concepts. When you say cake people'll think of a colored, sweet edible substance but will neve think of a transparent, poisonous bitter thing.
All the creations conceivable are irrational, hence cannot occur. But still we have matter. So if it is not created, then the only option we have left is it is always there. Again begin and end are based on the concept of time. There is nothing called time. For nature there is only present, eternal present. When there is no Beginning, where is the question of creation?
How two objects is attract is science. Why it attracts is philosophy. The first has to do with the working of the universe and the latter our emotional need. I didn't say anything about god. Or may be my choice of words is wrong.I think, it all boils down to personality types. It isn't in my nature to just accept an answer, when it doesn't answer the question. I can't wrap everything up in a pretty little package because, it simply won't fit.
If sighing and saying 'ok, those answers don't work so lets just say it has always been' works for you, I guess that's good. To each his own. I, personally, enjoy the process of attempting to understand it. Not everyone does. And there's nothing wrong with that.All I say is this., creation is tied to beginning, which is tied to time. All these are human concepts, that is artificial, not occurring in nature. When there is no time, there is no beginning. When there is no beginning there is no creation(the act). When there is no creation, creator has no role. When there is no beginning nor end we call it eternal.
Calling time a concept and saying since it is a concept...it doesn't count...so existence has always been sounds like cheating, somehow. I get what you're saying, but it is still a non answer.
Edit: actually, it's a little funny. I just realized it is the exact same thing I told Wilderness. Time is a concept that wouldn't exist for an omnipresent god. Existence just is.
You're not God are you?Emile, it is not I who made time a concept. Time is invented by humans, based on the location of sun with respect to us. Just imagine the sun is fixed on the sky and not moving, or we have no memory, what will happen to time?
Wilderness understand it, but he does not want to accept the meaning of concept.
"I said, 'You are "gods" Psalm 82:6Like I said, I get what you are saying. But, I'm not going to use it as grounds to supress a desire for information. Time being a concept does not imply existence is eternal, with no way to locate a discernible beginning to the portion of reality that we call this universe. Not for me.
And, you're preaching to the choir with the quote from psalms. I assume, if there is any truth to spirituality, we are each infused with a piece of the whole that constitutes whatever this god thing might turn out to be.
It negate free will. If god doesn't have a 100% knowledge of future, we can say, at best, he is making an educated guess, then he is not omniscient. If he is omniscient that means our future is gods past, like a director of a cartoon movie, then we have no free will. For god has predestined it, we cannot change it with our free will.
So it seems to me, but I am interested in the reasoning of those that believe otherwise which is why I posted in the manner I did. I would like to understand how others come to their conclusion.
apparently God knows my future as it seems to be that the future progresses towards him. if this is the case, God knows that I will deny him. he knows that if I get an alter call I will not heed to it. therefore he knows that my destiny is hell. thus being so, WHY THE HELL WAS I CREATED??????
You can think pretty well, so you must be one of those who were born and not "created"
Don't be ridiculous. There are those in both camps who think. As do those of us in between. The non thinkers are the ones that assume we've figured out the mysteries of existence and taken sides. If everyone had your attitude we'd simply hunker down and wait it all out. Oh wait, that's what the zealots on both sides have already done.
Don't be ridiculous!
There is no thinking required for the creationist argument, in fact there is no creationist argument, there never has been one bit of sense in the whole thing.
“Where we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith; where we have no reasons, we have lost both our connection to the world and to one another.”
― Sam Harris- Béla Mongyiposted 12 years ago0
The word omniscient does not sound to me like a religious term, rather a scientific one. Question is why is there a scientific term for something that doesn't exist?
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