Is God All Knowing?

[nebula]

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to go through all this - but real quick...

You can understand that God is good, but can you understand that God is the ever present moment in whom we live and move and have our being?

Yes

There is no past moment, no future moment, only NOW, the present. Time is just a devise to help us relate to the passing of the present moment into nothing but a memory. We can

[HAZARD]

I truly apreciate everyones thoughts, understandings and input on this topic. Regarding Sodom and Gomorrah , why did God continually say "If I find fifty rightious, If I find Forty five, If there be fourty, If I find thirty, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake, Abraham finally asked, Lets say there are ten righteous there? God's final reply, I will not destroy it for tens sake," (Gen. 18:22-32).

God said he came down to see if it was true what He had been told about Sodom and Gomorrah? "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know" (Gen. 18:16).

Why say all this when He supposedly knew already what was going on there? And why continually respond to Abraham as He did. If God knew "they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me;" Why did He not say, "I know there are no righteous there and I am going down to destroy it! And when God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifiec his son, why when He stopped Abraham did He say NOW I KNOW! rather than, "I knew all along?"

These and many other statements by God tells me that He does not get involved in Free Moral Agents thought processes and free choices untill the choices are made, and then if those choices interfeer in Gods plan, WHICH HE DOES KNOW FROM BEGINNING TO END, He acts accordingly to ,make sure His plan is carried out. To the point of even destroying men and replacing them with me who do act according to God plan, and who do carry out His plan. When God tests men to see if they will remain true to Him before giving them more responsibility, He then responds accordingly depending on how they respond. Some respond positively and are used by God, and some do not and are rejected. If God knew those who did respond positively beforehand, why test them at all?

[nebula]

I truly apreciate everyones thoughts, understandings and input on this topic. Regarding Sodom and Gomorrah , why did God continually say "If I find fifty rightious, If I find Forty five, If there be fourty, If I find thirty, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake, Abraham finally asked, Lets say there are ten righteous there? God's final reply, I will not destroy it for tens sake," (Gen. 18:22-32).

God said he came down to see if it was true what He had been told about Sodom and Gomorrah? "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know" (Gen. 18:16).

So, you are saying that God does not know the present state of affairs?

[Massorite]

I truly appreciate everyones thoughts, understandings and input on this topic. Regarding Sodom and Gomorrah , why did God continually say "If I find fifty righteous, If I find Forty five, If there be forty, If I find thirty, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake, Abraham finally asked, Lets say there are ten righteous there? God's final reply, I will not destroy it for tens sake," (Gen. 18:22-32).

God said he came down to see if it was true what He had been told about Sodom and Gomorrah? "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know" (Gen. 18:16).

So, you are saying that God does not know the present state of affairs?

I think he is saying that God does not know the choices a man might make in any given situation by choice. He willingly chooses not to know the choices a man might make a in any given situation. I have from time to time asked myself if we could change the plan of God. The answer is yes. If every single person on earth would fall down on their face and except Jesus and humble themselves before God much of the book of Revelation would be rendered null and void. But God knows that is not going to happen. Doesn't He?

[Rick-Parker]

Good stuff!

[nebula]

Sounds good, makes no sense though. God doesn

[HAZARD]

I truly apreciate everyones thoughts, understandings and input on this topic. Regarding Sodom and Gomorrah , why did God continually say "If I find fifty rightious, If I find Forty five, If there be fourty, If I find thirty, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake, Abraham finally asked, Lets say there are ten righteous there? God's final reply, I will not destroy it for tens sake," (Gen. 18:22-32).

God said he came down to see if it was true what He had been told about Sodom and Gomorrah? "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know" (Gen. 18:16).

So, you are saying that God does not know the present state of affairs?

No, I never said that at all? You never answered my question, you just asked another? God knows exactly whats going on now, and that His plan for man is on track. God cannot and will not create free moral agency and also have controle over it, for then it would not be free moral agency would it?

[nebula]

OK, I'm having fun with this.

Here's some food for thought for you.

At a subatomic level there is no distinction between the past and the future. In a typical interaction involving subatomic particles, two particles may come together and interact in some way to produce two different particles, which then separate. According to the laws of physics there is no reason why these two new particles could not then interact and revert to their initial condition. By studying these particles it would be impossible to determine the order of events that took place, or indeed if any event had taken place. At this level there is no way to distinguish the past from the future simply by looking at each pair of particles.

In the macroscopic world - at the level detectable by our own senses - we are clearly able to discern the arrow of time. If we see a picture of a tumbler of water on a table, and another of a broken glass on the floor lying in a puddle of water, we know the order of events that took place. We know that broken tumblers never reassemble themselves and that spilled water will not gather together and place itself back in the glass. But why not? According to the known laws of physics every interaction involving the atoms of the tumbler as it smashes is reversible, as is the spilled water. But there is an inbuilt arrow of time, pointing from the past to the future, when we are dealing with complex systems which contain many particles. This distinction between past and future events can be expressed mathematically by the science of thermodynamics, which is based on analysis of the way things change as we 'move' from the past into the future.

Is there a constant 'Universal' time?

If we were to take two atomic clocks and synchronise them to read the same time, we know that we could leave them to 'tick' away for years and they would still read the same time. But if we separated the two clocks and took one of them on an 'plane journey around the world, then when compared to the other clock on return it would be seen to be running a fraction of a second slower. It will only be a very small fraction of a second, but the difference would be real, our globe-trotting clock will have run slower than our stay-at-home clock, travelling the world really does keep you younger! This is not just a theoretical concept, many different experiments, including the 'globe trotting clock', have been carried out and have proved the theory to be correct. So what's going on? The answer can be found in Einstein's theory of relativity, because that tells us that the faster an object moves the slower time runs, until at the speed of light time comes to a stop. This effect is known as 'time dilation', and is very small when travelling at day to day speeds, but becomes significant at relativistic speeds - speeds that are approaching the speed of light. For an example of time dilation at speeds that we are familiar with, an astronaut having spent a year aboard the space station will have aged 0.0085 seconds less than the rest of us that stayed on Earth - hardly eternal youth is it?

It is important to understand that relativistic speed, or any other speed come to that, does not effect the speed at which clocks run, it is time itself that slows down. . . .

To answer the original question, 'Is there a constant Universal time?', the answer is clearly no. We all experience time as passing at different speeds, relative to our speed in relation to one another and the strength of any gravitational field that we may happen to be in.

Our universe could not exist without time, and time could not exist without the universe, they are different components of the one entity.

According to Einstein's theory of relativity, time is regarded as a fourth dimension, on an equal footing with the familiar three dimensions of space. Einstein says that you can imagine all of space and time represented as a four dimensional space-time map, on which all of history, the present and the future of the universe can be represented. The four dimensions of space and time are collectively referred to as the space-time continuum, which by the way, is not just an invention from the script writers of Star Trek. The problem we have is in trying to visualise these four dimensions because we can only see the three dimensions of space, we cannot 'see' time. However, even though we cannot see it, it is necessary to include time if we are required to define a precise location. We can, for example, define an object's position in a room by three simple measurements, such as how far forward, how far to the left and height above floor level. These co-ordinates will define where the object is, but only where it is now, it may be somewhere else tomorrow.

<snip>

Again, according to relativity, the past and the future, as well as the present, all exist equally. . . .

To read everything, click here.

[nebula]

No, I never said that at all? You never answered my question, you just asked another?

Because I'm confused by what you are saying and was asking for clarification.

I am still not understanding your argument.

When the Lord met Abraham, did He know how many righteous people were then currently existing in Sodom and Gomorrah or not?

[Guest]

Tick Tick Tick Ti.................................................

"And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer" Revelation 10:6

Although I do not claim any expertize in time, I have a very difficult time demoting the nature of God to a being who has no power over time.

Are You Saying Dr Who Isn't The Real Time Lord

"Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down" Isaiah 38:8

For Of Him And Through Him And To him Are All Things

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?

Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?

For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen" Romans 11:33-36

God Knows Stuff

"The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law" Deuteronomy 29:29

We Don't

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" 1 Corinthians 2:9