Dogmatic Theology Quote
Mom's comment to me yesterday morning: "Good morning, bushy!" It's probably time for a haircut. =)
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Here's an awesome thought I was reading about today from a book entitled, Dogmatic Theology by William Shedd.
"We must negative from God, not only all limits of time, but time itself ( Read more... )
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Here's an awesome thought I was reading about today from a book entitled, Dogmatic Theology by William Shedd.
"We must negative from God, not only all limits of time, but time itself ( Read more... )
What scriptural evidence do they provide for this?
There's no past, present, and future for His perfect existence. It's no wonder (as I'm sure you've thought about before) that God says He is the "I Am."
I have thought about it before, but that's not the conclusion I came to. Why does perfection necessitate having no past, present or future? What is your rationale for that?
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Well, theologians often take bits of scriptural evidence and apply vast amounts of reasoning to them in order to attain a better understanding of God. Sometimes they may go too far into the arena of speculation, but in this case I doubt it.
My answer to your first question is that God is omniscient, and omniscience dictates that He have perfect possession of the entirety of His existence and knowledge. That God is omniscient is evident from these passages (among others):
“Known to God from eternity are all His works” (Acts 15:18). Since He is an eternal God, and He knows all of His works throughout eternity, that requires an infinite amount of knowledge.
“...For I am God ... declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done...” (Isaiah 46:9-10). We can only declare the end when we reach the end, but God knows the end of things before anything happens (from our perspective in time).
“He counts the number of the stars; He calls them ( ... )
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God is also omnipotent. However, simply because he has the power to do everything and anything doesn't mean he uses all that power at any given moment. He has control over his power; that is one aspect of his omnipotence. From that you could extrapolate that he has control over his omniscience as well. He has the ability to know everything and anything, but that doesn't mean he has to know it all at any given moment.
“Known to God from eternity are all His works” (Acts 15:18).I think the context of this shows that the Gentiles didn't have to worry about becoming Jews (and becoming circumcised) because God had clearly prophesied in Amos that He would take out a people for his name from all the nations, not just the Israelites. Most Bibles translate this scripture as "that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who ( ... )
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He has the ability to know everything and anything, but that doesn't mean he has to know it all at any given moment.
Having the ability to know everything is a far cry from actually knowing everything, like having the ability to run a marathon is a far cry from actually running one. Either God knows everything or He doesn't; there's no almost-knows-everything point.
You are saying in essence (correct me if I'm wrong) that God can willfully choose what He knows and what He doesn't know. One problem with that is that if you don't know everything, then you don't necessarily know what you might want to know about. This implies that God may be unwittingly ignorant of certain things, which certainly wouldn't be a perfect existence.
Now tell me, is there a single verse in the Bible that says that God did not know something? There are verse as mentioned that strongly suggest that He does know everything.
If God doesn't know everything all at once, but rather grows ( ... )
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You are saying: God can do anything, but He chooses what to do; in like fashion, God can know anything, but He chooses what to know. It's not a perfect comparison, because it would be impossible for God to do everything all at once, since some actions would conflict with others; but it is possible for God to know everything all at once. Knowing is an internal mental state; doing is an external physical operation.
God's state is one of perfection and changelessness. There are no deficiencies of His (internal) existence. Therefore, it follows that He is not deficient in either knowledge or might. The concept of deficiency does not apply in the same way to His use of His knowledge and might. How He uses those defines His character. God certainly limits His (external) operations. Logically it could be no other way. You can't do everything as I already mentioned ( ... )
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1)
(I believe the Bible teaches that humans since the Fall do not have perfectly free will, but that's off on another subject.)
I believe it is incompatible to believe he dignifies his creatures with free moral agency, but that our existence is purposeless because he already knows the outcome of our decisions. Really, what is the point?The idea of God being outside of time is beyond comprehension, so it's impossible for me or you to conceive of how He would view the universe and the events of time. Just because God is timeless, does not mean that He is incapable of enjoying His existence. He enjoys His existence better than any other. Timelessness does not imply being bored ( ... )
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I don't suppose that a gap he allows in his knowledge is a deficiency. His perfect wisdom allows him to control his perfect power. His perfect love shows us mercy from his perfect justice. It is a perfect balance that only God can achieve. I believe that his voluntarily limiting his knowledge about much of our future actions is part of the way he balances his love, power, wisdom, and justice.
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8). If God moves through time like as we do, why does He view time in such a drastically different way? I'd propose that it's because He is outside of time ( ... )
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No. I believe God is complete within himself and that he chose to share existence with others. However, I do believe he gets a kick (as you say) out of how we respond to things. Those are not mutually exclusive ideas. I don't see how they conflict.
The answer I have for those passages is that God speaks to us in human terms so that we can understand (as I mentioned in one of the last comments). God doesn't need to express the reason for His actions in terms of timelessness.
True. But I find it instructive how he does speak to us.
You are saying in essence (correct me if I'm wrong) that God can willfully choose what He knows and what He doesn't know.
Yes.
One problem ( ... )
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Apparently. =) And, I doubt that we'll change in our views with further discussion, since we both seem quite settled in where we stand.
His power is so great, that no situation could possibly arise that God could not effortlessly handle.
That is theoretically reasonable, but the question still remains, "Is God all knowing or does He restrict His own knowledge?" The view I get from the Bible is that God knows all things at all times.
But do you believe he can change in emotion?
I don't have all the answers at this point, certainly, but I'll try to answer in a bit of ignorance here. I believe that perceived emotional variances in God are changes only from our perspective as beings who experience time and learn of God's actions and emotions through time. In a real sense, yes, God changes in emotions through time, but from His timeless perspective there was no change in His being or emotions toward persons/actions/events. I'm thinking of it this way: All of His many emotions ( ... )
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God is separate from His creation, and He allows His creation to run independently. That God could predict with 100% accuracy what was going to happen in Eden and later does not in any way make Him the author of evil. Evil is always a personal choice that God does not play a part in, though He knows of those choices ahead of time.
Certainly knowing of something ahead of time is not the same as participating in it.
Completely 100% on board. As Deuteronomy 32:4, 5 says,
The Rock, perfect is his activity ( ... )
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Yes, then, evil was once only "in God's mind." Which only means that He knew of good and evil before anyone, not that He had anything but hatred of it. I see no problem with believing that evil was once only in God's mind. It doesn't make me think less of Him for knowing of it. As I understand it, evil is not an entity that exists within people. Evil is a willful state of rebellion, displayed by acts of disobedience. Evil cannot exist separately from evil beings. Evil did not exist before the creation of all things, only the knowledge of its future existence; similarly, people did not exist before the creation of all things, only the knowledge of their future existence. I see no difficulty here. In eternity Christians will still have memories of wickedness, but we, as now, will abhor the memory of evil.
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Amy
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