Omniscience

[Fez]

1 Corinthians 2:7 (NIV)

7 No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. The other translations say before the eons of our glory or of this world but it states before this time line began regardless.

2 Peter 3:8 (NIV)

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Psalm 90:4 (NIV)

4 For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

Time to God is a relevance to us.

If God was at work "before time began", it means He has and always been. The time began relates to us, our perception of time, He lives outside time.

The next to scriptures are also examples of eternity, and were written to illustrate His timelessness. It is like me saying, "It took me forever to get the shopping done".

You need to read the passage in context and not shotgun scripture to your own ends.

[Guest shiloh357]

This is incoherent and unnecessary. You did not exist 6000 years ago. If your parents never freely mated, you would not exist and be known. The Psalmist talks about present knowledge of God seeing the real you in the womb. Time has no constraints is an uncritically accepted assumption leading to wrong conclusions. Time is unidirectional, even for God. Jesus is not on the cross perpetually and creation precedes Second Coming, even for God. Every page of the Bible shows God's history, His Story, chronological dealing with men in real, unfolding space-time history. Timelessness is an unbiblical, philosophical error. Take it away, and our view of omniscience becomes more coherent, biblical.

Really? Not according to God's Word...

Ex 3:14

14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

KJV

Deut 33:27a

27 The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms;

NKJV

Ps 90:2

2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

NKJV

Rev 4:8

8 The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying:

"Holy, holy, holy,

Lord God Almighty,

Who was and is and is to come!"

NKJV

So if in the beginning of His Word and in the middle of His Word and even right unto the end of His Word says The God of the Bible is without beginning and without end... Oh also He Warns-Rev 22:19

19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

NKJV

Love Steven

Endless time, not timelessness. Thx for proving my point with tensed verses about God's eternality. He is without beginning and end, yet that does not mean He is timeless (incoherent and contrary to every page of Scripture that shows Him experiencing succession/succession/endless duration).

Time is measurable and God is immeasurable. Time is measured by a succession of changing events. There must be ongoing change in order to measure time. That is why we measure and tell time by movement of the sun, moon and stars. We measure time by the changing seasons. Time passes and we measure the passage of tmie through change. Time exists because we live in a changing universe.

God created the universe. He created it to change and set time in motion when He gave us the means to measure it. He said that the luminaries were for signs and seasons.

Before there was a universe, there was nothing but God. There was no changing seasons nor was there time, as God did not, and still does not, change. Before the physical universe, there was no time and yet God was still there. He is timeless because He preexisted time and the universe which measures it. Time is not part of God. It is part of this universe. God existes outside of time and at the same time He chooses to intervene, operate and interact with us within time.

[godrulz]

Time is more fundamental than space. Time marches on even if we do not measure it (the subjective measures of time should not be confused with objective time itself). Endless time is more coherent than timelessness.Just because there was no clocks, moons, suns, etc. before creation, does not mean there was no duration/succession/sequence in God's triune relations (otherwise, creation is co-eternal with God). God must think, act, feel in sequence, even apart from creation. It is a myth that time is created or limited to creation. The temporal measures of time were created, but the concept has always been an aspect of an eternal God's experience (without limiting Him).

http://www.revivaltheology.net/9_openness/eternity.html Try this on for size....

[Openly Curious]

[quote] name='~candice~' timestamp='1312085953' post='1702324'

name='Openly Curious' timestamp='1312083773' post='1702318'

name='~candice~' timestamp='1312025717' post='1702118'

name='Openly Curious' timestamp='1312013124' post='1702106'

Yes, God has "experienced" what it is like to not be God." For God "experienced" this when he came down to this earth in the form of his Son Jesus Christ. Even though Christ was crucified it in no way meant that God ceased being God for that will never ever happen.

Isn't this self contradictory???

No, I do not think there are any contradiction.

Would you care to elaborate further ?

You said that God has never ceased to be God, and yet He has experienced what it is like to not be God. How? It can't be both.

Yes, I did say that God has never ceased to be God. And yes, I also said that God has "experienced" what it is like to not be God refering to un-believers.

It is because within the heart of the un-believers they teject the salvation of God in that he gave his only begotten Son making it possible for the sins of the world to be atoned for through his only Son Jesus Christ (John 3:16). Not every person that has been born into this world becomes a believer.

And within the heart of un-believers God is not allowed to be God as he ceases to be God in their lives. Un-believers will not allow God to sit on the throne room of their hearts. And because of this God "experiences" being rejected and what it is like to not be God in the lives of individuals. God gave his only begotten Son Jesus Christ to be the atoning sacrifice (once for all) as Christ shed blood on the cross cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This is how God is not God of "individuals" lives. But this does not reflect on God ceasing to exist as God. God is God and he doesn't stop being God because those in the human race will not let God be God in their hearts. Whenever people reject the Lord's salvation that he gave to mankind through his only begotten Son then it is when they reject him and when this rejection happens then God is not God of their lives and God experiences not being the supreme ruler in their hearts.

[Smalcald]

Time is bendable it is relative and it changes. God invented time itself.

So how does God answer individual prayers of all humanity if He is bound by time?

[nebula]

This shows that God has infinite wisdom and can think intelligently to the nth degree. It also is consistent with Him knowing the past and present exhaustively. It does not prove or disprove the issue of exhaustive definite foreknowledge of future free will contingencies. There is not verse that says that God knows all of the future because it is not a logical statement in a non-deterministic universe.

I am suddenly reminded of Ecclesiastes 12:

12 ... Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. 13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

[Guest shiloh357]

Yes, I did say that God has never ceased to be God. And yes, I also said that God has "experienced" what it is like to not be God refering to un-believers.

You are trying to fit square pegs in round holes. God cannot experience what it is like to not be God unless He ceases being God at some point. Rejecting Him in no counts as an "experience" of not being God on His part. Your theological gymanstics simply won't work. God has never experienced what is it like to not be God. Sorry, but you are simply wrong.

[godrulz]

Time is bendable it is relative and it changes. God invented time itself.

So how does God answer individual prayers of all humanity if He is bound by time?

Where do you get these ideas? Time is not a piece of string that can be bent. It is relative to observers, but not objectively (one minute is one minute regardless of subjective perception). Time is not a created thing, but a concept of duration experienced by the eternal triune God in His relations.

God is not bound by time just because He experiences it. He is omniscient and omnipresent and can hear billions of prayers all at once in the present. He is not hearing prayers from a 1000 years ago and 10 days into the future all at once. He remembers all past prayers, hears all present prayers, and anticipates that there will be future prayers though He does not hear what is not existing yet (if the person is praying, future prayers are not heard/known until they are made from potential to actual). God can multitask. He can hear and answer my prayer today and hear and answer an African's prayer today. He is not finite and limited to one location, but this does not mean He is experiencing the past/present/future in one eternal now simultaneity. Being timeless is not necessary to answer prayers if you are omnipotent and omniscient. Crystal ball foreknowledge of the future is also not necessary nor desirous. If He foreknew the future, He could not change it or respond to believing prayer because it would be fixed/unchangeable (to change it would make His foreknowledge false). Hezekiah and all Bible prayers show God responding in real space time AFTER the prayer with no hint of a need for prescience in order to answer it. I can make a chess move and win the game based on past/present knowledge. Future knowledge of all moves are not necessary if I am intelligent and responsive. Knowing future moves would be like cheating and make me less capable.

[godrulz]

This shows that God has infinite wisdom and can think intelligently to the nth degree. It also is consistent with Him knowing the past and present exhaustively. It does not prove or disprove the issue of exhaustive definite foreknowledge of future free will contingencies. There is not verse that says that God knows all of the future because it is not a logical statement in a non-deterministic universe.

I am suddenly reminded of Ecclesiastes 12:

12 ... Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. 13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

It is the glory of a king to search out a matter (Proverbs). There is merit to a right understanding of God and His ways and a hindrance in apologetics, evangelism, and our relationship with God to misunderstand Him and His ways. The area of providence has practical implications for the problem of evil, prayer, suffering, counselling, evangelism, etc. We should desire to know God and His Word accurately, even if it takes some work. Too many reject a wrong view of God and His Word or impugn His character and ways with bad theology (Calvinism, for e.g.).

[nebula]

This shows that God has infinite wisdom and can think intelligently to the nth degree. It also is consistent with Him knowing the past and present exhaustively. It does not prove or disprove the issue of exhaustive definite foreknowledge of future free will contingencies. There is not verse that says that God knows all of the future because it is not a logical statement in a non-deterministic universe.

I am suddenly reminded of Ecclesiastes 12:

12 ... Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. 13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

It is the glory of a king to search out a matter (Proverbs). There is merit to a right understanding of God and His ways and a hindrance in apologetics, evangelism, and our relationship with God to misunderstand Him and His ways. The area of providence has practical implications for the problem of evil, prayer, suffering, counselling, evangelism, etc. We should desire to know God and His Word accurately, even if it takes some work. Too many reject a wrong view of God and His Word or impugn His character and ways with bad theology (Calvinism, for e.g.).

I think you missed my point.

Sorry, I don't know how to express the element of sarcasm.

Reading your statement with those magnanimous phrases left me feeling