Is God capable of learning anything?

by nicolaou 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  BlackSwan of Memphis

  Not all Jews agree upon the nature of their own G_d and neither do Christians.

  Ok good point.

  The Judeo-Christian God is a different entity depending upon the person to whom you're speaking. And very often they will argue with each other if they think their mental image of God to match reality exactly. This is, IMO, ridiculous. How perfectly does your mental idea of any human you know match reality? How often will someone's behavior surprise you? Did you really, really know them? How less so could you really know God?

  Couldn’t agree more.

  To me it’s a matter of perhaps if everyone Stopped trying to define God, there would be more room for agreement. Maybe?

  Which leads me to….

  Creative theology implies treating the word "God" as an unknown x, susceptible of new definitions.

  But in the dictionary "God" implies a very definite notion, as reflected in popular usage which depends on a specific history of beliefs and includes all the "omnis" of classical metaphysics -- omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.

  This popular notion can change, but very slowly.

  In the meantime, alternative notions of "God" are only available to sectarians who can claim an original "truth about God" or, in a different way, to atheists who can use the word metaphorically.

  Creative theology, new term to me. Interesting way to put it: popular usage. It can change but slowly.

  Alternative notions are only available to sectarians who claim an original truth about God or … atheists.

  Are those the only options?

  The bible says that during Noah's day...he "regreted" making man to the point of wiping him off the planet. A regret means you "wished you hadn't done that". God wished he hadn't made man. If god would have erased what he did and started over again he wouldn't have made man ....because he said "he regreted it". I'd say he learned something. When you regret something, you learn something. They cannot be seperated.

  I had thought the same thing. Another reason to wonder if the God of the Bible can ‘learn’?

  meagan
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  peacefulpete

  According to Genesis 22 YHWH had to mentally torture Abraham to " truly know that he feared God...' In the mind of the author of this piece, God learns things by experimentation and torture.
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  bob1999

  What is God's point? I mean what is the point of all this. God's perfect plan is just that, a perfect plan and all is going according to that plan. We all worry and think too much. Somewhere in the NT it says that all of the events that came before were to show us our need for grace. If you look at it that way you can't help but give thanks to God. That he did all that and put all those people through all that just for us. He wants to share life with free willed people, like you and me. That's what it's all about.
  
  Peace....
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  peacefulpete

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Narkissos

  BlackSwan,

  Alternative notions are only available to sectarians who claim an original truth about God or … atheists.

  Are those the only options?

  That was not really strict speech, but I think those are the two major directions for the future of what I called "creative theology," i.e. theology that tries to redefine "God" beyond the limits of classical metaphysics. Either the "heretic sect" (which needs not be a cult) in which people will believe "realistically" in a new definition of "God," or people who are past the stage of "realistic belief" and acknowledge their "God" as poetical creation.

  Btw the problem is not new. In a sense the major innovations of NT theology run against the metaphysical core of monotheism (the all-knowing, all-powerful, God): cf. Paul on the weakness and folly of God. But this can be no more than a paradoxical moment in metaphysics. In the end "God" remains "God," and the "cross" amounts to the fancy whim of an absolute despot. If otoh I take "God's weakness and folly" seriously, I am out of classical monotheism. Heretic, poet, or both.
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  heretic

  wow great question. ahh Maybe rephrase the question for me, if an alpha god did exist, is he capable of learning anything.
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  greendawn

  From the perspective of a believer God has revealed his qualities in the things we observe around us and we see there a level of knowledge that far surpasses anything humans can learn or know. From the minute atoms to the cell to the vast galaxies.
  
  It always astonishes the deist that the atheists believe all these could come about by chance rather than by the actions of a supremely intelligent being that planned and put them into effect. And that being is surely beyond learning which for humans: to have fun by learning new things.
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  nicolaou

  It always astonishes me that deists assume all "atheists believe all [this] could come about by chance."

  If you roll a single dice 100 times is it pure chance that you will never roll a 7? The universe is, of course, more complex but only certain outcomes are possible. Just as in the throw of a dice there are only 6 outcomes so the Universe seems to be restricted to playing out certain probabilities.

  Perhaps life is one of those extremely rare probabilities in which case we are truly special or maybe the cosmic dice are landing on life in galaxy after galaxy and we just don't know about it yet.

  And of course for the deists there is the age old chestnut, did the original, most complex, powerful and ancient form of life arrive at existence through chance?
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  PoppyR

  Isn't this one a conundrum? Because if God is NOT capable of learning then it means he knows everything, therefore he knew in advance what mankind was going to do, what Satan was going to do, that he would have to sacrifice his son etc. To me this doesn't make sense, and I really dont buy into the JW thing of 'he chose not to see' That's utter rubbish.

  If he is capable of learning then surely that implies that he is not omnipotent, that he can and did make mistakes..

  Either way, I'm definitely getting to the stage where if I believe in god at all.. I dont like him!

  Poppy
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  greendawn

  Life even at the level of the most basic viable cell, a primitive bacterium according to the evolutionists, is extra ordinarily complex and as the science of cytology progresses cells turn out to be ever more complex.
  
  The probability of getting that complexity occuring by chance is so infinitesimally small that it can occur only in theory but never in practice. In theory everything is possible, even a ball can in theory roll up a hill after rolling down but we never see it happening and we don't believe it can ever happen.