Does an "all knowing" God have the leisure of choosing not to know something? (page 5)

unstopableravens

ep: correct, unless god know all, from the start to the end,which is the case

You talked about him taking his "best guess". Does he have a worst guess? Your quote ... "Of course knowing all possible possibilities and knowing all about a given person makes the "best guess" seem practically all knowing."

Since free-will cannot exist if a god knows the future, the best guess thing means that god will be wrong at some point.

EntirelyPossible

If gods knows all that there free-will does not exist. What would be the point of it all, then, from his standpoint?

Tater-T

how did he know Abraham would kill his son .. he stopped it before it happened.. what if at the last second he pulled back?

if god already knew what he would do, why did he ask him to and not let him carry it out..

it doesn't add up...

wannabefree

james_woods: " How do you know for sure?"

Point well taken, I guess I don't for sure ... as a matter of fact my wife does believe me to be mentally diseased strangely coinciding with my arrival at this website.

DavePerez

" God can foresee certain events, but in many cases, he has chosen not to use his fore knowledge. Because God is almighty, he is free to excercise his abilities, not according to the wishes of imperfect humans."_______w95 2/15 pp.5-6

So silly.....

Translated, the first sentence is a definition of semicience, followed by an appeal to Divine authority.

That concept begs the question: how does God do that?

Since God didn't have a beginning (he always was), and doesn't ever change (he has always BEEN the same, including always possessing omniscience), then he would not be able to know what future events he'd want to "forget" without knowing of them, in the first place. So, he would have to actively CHOOSE which events NOT to know, which is just the same as choosing to forget, AKA turning his head, looking the other way, etc. Psychologists would say that he suppressed his foreknowledge, just like some memories are suppressed after the fact. Problem is, suppression of foreknowledge requires AWARENESS of it beforehand. Logical impossibility, as you cannot know beforehand what you don't want to know, without actually knowing it.

But playing along with the WT logic:

It's a good thing God decided to remember enough to create the 'Divine Authority Challenge' Tree (which he also designed to grant humans wisdom), and remembered to place it in the center of the Garden where they couldn't miss it, remembered to create a talking snake to entrap Eve into eating it, remembered to create humans without wisdom (and remembered to give them a DESIRE for wisdom), but then chose to forget to put a flaming sword on the tree to protect it.

What an awful long way for God to go, just to play a game of "Mother, May I?" with an AK-47 pointed at Adam and Eve as the penalty if they tripped up.

(Maybe God got tired of playing the game with cattle, since they basically sucked at it, and it got boring, as no challenge?)

BTW, anyone who's heard of the myth of Prometheus, the half-God who stole fire (which symbolised 'knowledge; in Greek culture) from Zeus to give it to humans below, has already heard this story: 'YHWH' is playing the title role of Zeus, 'the serpent' co-stars as Prometheus, and 'Adam and Eve' are appearing as 'the mortals'. Same story, just an adaptation for a Hebrew audience.

prologos

If we take this debate out of the domain of fables, greek fire-bringers, talking snakes, spare-rib-cloned females. etc:

looking at the universe, the reality, it appears (if there is a creator)* he had an extraordinary amount of foreknowledge to assure that with a hot and disorganized beginning it would evolved into what we live in and observe and see. try (astronomy picture of the day).

Assuming that he predated creation and does not MOVE through TIME as the universe does, he would able to view as our future unfolds AT HIS LEASURE.

The CYRUS story notwithstanding there seems to be no historical fore sight intervention that concerns me.

choices we make are limited by natural laws. Could the creator that made all this functioning immensity predict single event outcomes? surely.

as far as we can tell he exists well within the bounds of the glass-ceiling confinement of the infamous WT illustration.

* It would require an extraordinary demonstration to show me that the creation created itself. ( and can be replicated)

Jeffro

*** w95 2/15 pp. 5-6 Can Predestination Be Reconciled With God's Love? ***
True, God can foresee certain events, but in many cases, he has chosen not to use his foreknowledge. Because God is almighty, he is free to exercise his abilities as he wishes, not according to the wishes of imperfect humans.

If we were to assume this were true (which of course it is not), then the humans in that scenario would only be 'imperect' (whatever that means) as a direct result of God's gross negligence.

DavePerez

prologos said:

choices we make are limited by natural laws. Could the creator that made all this functioning immensity predict single event outcomes? surely.

Here, lemme assist you with translating that out of WT Style writing (ie asking a question, and then answering it with the answer that's provided for you), putting it in the form of a statement:

"The creator who made all this functioning immensity can predict single event outcomes."

Now, you get to prove it, starting with proving:

1) the existence of a creator, who can,

2) predict single event outcomes.

No rush: I'll wait right here until you prove that claim.

The WT is simply repeating a claim of the existence of an omniscient God, but dressing up in poetic fluffy-sounding language (puffery) intended to impart a sense of wonderment and majesty that impresses some readers.

Regards,

DP

gubberningbody

No sentient being can ever know if it is or isn't omniscient.

Nor can this being know if it is the creator of all that is.

It can possibly be the creator as far as it thinks it knows of what it thinks it knows.

That's not the same thing as omniscience.

Does an "all knowing" God have the leisure of choosing not to know something?

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