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Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
#1
Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
Recently some theist -Steve maybe?- suggested that god's knowing what will be didn't mean he'd been to the future and had witnessed how it turns out.  Rather, He just knows everyone so well that all their choices are transparent for him.  I probably am butchering this so please correct me if you recall better than I how this worked.

So it occurred to me that the natural world wasn't made to be the way it is by God.  Maybe He just looked around, saw that it was good to go and understood how it would all turn out.  He didn't decide to set physical laws a certain way, He just knew how they'd work out.  Create life?  Pfft.  Homo sapiens, please.  He just grokked the inorganic/organic threshold and saw it how it would go down.  He didn't stir any pots, He just watched them.

So God might be a whole lot more passive than sometimes imagined.  Maybe He wasn't so much a cosmic watchmaker as He was a cosmic voyeur?
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#2
RE: Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
Anne Rice played with that idea in her Memnoch the Devil book.

Quote:Cosmology
The universe as revealed to Lestat by the Devil follows the following cosmology:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memnoch_the_Devil
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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#3
RE: Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
Guess it's just been too long. I read that too but don't remember that part.
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#4
RE: Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
(May 17, 2017 at 11:15 am)Whateverist Wrote: Guess it's just been too long.  I read that too but don't remember that part.

Edited in a portion to refresh your memory.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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#5
RE: Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
Thanks. Didn't remember that at all. Though doesn't it say the earth was God's creation and that all the other beings admired it. I was thinking the natural world happened without God's help while he just stood by.
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#6
RE: Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
Not useful to believers.  If god don't "own it" what justifies him doing "whatever he wants" with it.......like all of the stuff that believers innately recognize to be evil, and thus require theodicy?  

This question is alot like the "can there be christianity without vicarious redemption" question.  No, absolutely not, there could not be such a thing, because theistic faith does not allow for it. Even deistic faith requires the meddling hand. The meddling hand is what makes a god a god in the first place.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#7
RE: Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
(May 17, 2017 at 11:35 am)Khemikal Wrote: Not useful to believers.  If god don't "own it" what justifies him doing "whatever he wants" with it.......like all of the stuff that believers innately recognize to be evil, and thus require theodicy?

That's the beauty of my new theory. He has no need to do anything with anything because to Him the world is at one with its inherent coolitude.  


(May 17, 2017 at 11:35 am)Khemikal Wrote: This question is alot like the "can there be christianity without vicarious redemption" question.  No, absolutely not, there could not be such a thing, because theistic faith does not allow for it.  Even deistic faith requires the meddling hand.  The meddling hand is what makes a god a god in the first place.

Great. Dodgy Then there is no way around being diddled by God? GODDAMMIT!!!
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#8
RE: Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
(May 17, 2017 at 11:43 am)Whateverist Wrote: That's the beauty of my new theory.  He has no need to do anything with anything because to Him the world is at one with its inherent coolitude.  
Again, useless to the faithful.  If everything is "at one" with gods inherent coolitude than what impetus is there to adhere to "god's" strictures, what need of strictures is there at all?  

Thus, what need of religions, the religious, or faith itself?  

Quote:Great.   Dodgy   Then there is no way around being diddled by God?  GODDAMMIT!!!

If there is a god, then it must have diddled you, somehow.  The two statements are inseparable. Maybe it diddled you in undetectable ways, or just the once...but it definitely diddled you.   Wink
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Reply
#9
RE: Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
(May 17, 2017 at 10:56 am)Whateverist Wrote: Recently some theist -Steve maybe?- suggested that god's knowing what will be didn't mean he'd been to the future and had witnessed how it turns out.  Rather, He just knows everyone so well that all their choices are transparent for him.  I probably am butchering this so please correct me if you recall better than I how this worked.

So it occurred to me that the natural world wasn't made to be the way it is by God.  Maybe He just looked around, saw that it was good to go and understood how it would all turn out.  He didn't decide to set physical laws a certain way, He just knew how they'd work out.  Create life?  Pfft.  Homo sapiens, please.  He just grokked the inorganic/organic threshold and saw it how it would go down.  He didn't stir any pots, He just watched them.

So God might be a whole lot more passive than sometimes imagined.  Maybe He wasn't so much a cosmic watchmaker as He was a cosmic voyeur?

god is using the completion backwards principle of organic chemistry? It knew what it wanted as the end yield, did some quick calculations, then threw in the substrates needed and is out having a smoke waiting for the process to end?

I wonder how it's going to test the purity?
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#10
RE: Could God's creation be like His omniscience?
[Image: Untitled-2-e1452855777979.png]

I think SteveII takes a more Arminian position (see Wesley's position in the above graphic) but he can correct me if I'm wrong. I have some thoughts about it based on my own philosophical speculations about the nature of time (still very rough); however, I think it is bad practice to read Scripture through a philosophical position rather than allowing the text to speak for itself. In this case Scripture seems to be indeterminate on the matter. There may be a way to resolve the dilemma of God's Sovereignty with Man's responsibility, but I really haven't had much luck cracking that nut. On the one hand, it seems to me that an omniscient being could only know that which it is possible to know. If the future does not yet exist then it is impossible to have knowledge of it. On the other hand, couldn't God extrapolate from current conditions? Only if the physical universe is causally closed. I would not be willing to concede that. There is an intermediate position along the lines that God's purposes are fore-ordained but the paths to achieving those purposes are not. It would be like a captain constantly adjusting the sails in response to changes in the wind. As such people enjoy freedom within certain parameters, but not to the extent that it could thwart God's ultimate goal.
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