Questions for God

[InChrist]

Isn't it interesting that it is skeptics who reason, and the religious rely on faith?

I'm not convinced. You recite typical Christian dogma, and that doesn't come from learning facts, but from being exposed to that kind of dogma without adequate skepticism and questioning. Do you think Hindus and Muslims are following a true path, or indoctrinated into a common religious framework in their countries?

Who told ou a God exists, and can be found in our religious framework? There are no facts. Theyre is no reasoned conclusion thyat leds tyo what you and other Christians believe.

So the fragmentation of Christianity is planned? The crimes committed by Christian institutions is planned? The Holocaust was planned?

This isn't a factual statement. This is a product of religious indocrination. Notice you offer no facts. Gods aren't known to exist. Any claims about any god isn't based on fact. Unless you admit thaty religious texts are products of ancient peoples, and their beliefs have carried on as traditions of belief, you can't assume these texts represent truth as a premise.

Although not a born again believer in Jesus Christ, I had some superficial Catholic instruction while growing up, which I never took very seriously. Yet, I cannot remember a time when I didn’t have some innate sense that there was a God who made everything. While we are on the subject of reasoning, just something to think about…

“If, as atheists insist, there is no God or divine purpose behind the universe, and humans are purely physical beings – biological machines without souls or spirits – the implications are logically self-destructive for atheism. If atheism is true then all our thoughts and values, and all our deepest convictions, including our belief in the validity of logical argument and the existence of mathematical and scientific truths, are simply an accidental by-product of our cerebral biochemistry and the mindless movement of atoms. This means we are deluding ourselves when we think that we have free will, and with it, that inner freedom to weigh evidence and judge between conflicting arguments without which there can be no successful pursuit of truth, or acquisition of knowledge. In reality, all our reasoning and conclusions are nothing more than the unplanned result of a long chain of entirely random non-rational physical causes over which we have no control.

In other words, if we have no souls and no spiritual connection to God as the ultimate source of reason and truth, it follows that our brains, and therefore all our mental activity, are imprisoned within a process of physical determinism that discredits all thinking. We cannot be sure that any of our thoughts correspond to reality, moral or scientific, since we are biologically conditioned to think them regardless of whether they are true or not. By discrediting all thinking, including their own, atheists cut their own throats philosophically. Their view of ultimate reality is therefore self-refuting.”

Evil and God: Reflections of a Former Atheist

The existence of evil seems to challenge the idea of an all-powerful God of love. Here is one person's account of grappling with this question.

www.bethinking.org

 

[siti]

If, as atheists insist, there is no God or divine purpose behind the universe,...

OK so far...but...

...and humans are purely physical beings – biological machines

...that's not a statement about atheism, its a statement about a materialistic and mechanistic view of reality...true some people who are atheists also believe that the universe is mechanistic...

If atheism is true then all our thoughts and values, and all our deepest convictions, including our belief in the validity of logical argument and the existence of mathematical and scientific truths, are simply an accidental by-product of our cerebral biochemistry and the mindless movement of atoms.

No! I mean what is claimed here is only true if logic and math are human constructs...we really don't know that one way or the other...the universe may be perfectly logical, mathematical and intelligible regardless of whether or not intelligent life has emerged to make sense of it.

This means we are deluding ourselves when we think that we have free will, and with it, that inner freedom to weigh evidence and judge between conflicting arguments without which there can be no successful pursuit of truth, or acquisition of knowledge. In reality, all our reasoning and conclusions are nothing more than the unplanned result of a long chain of entirely random non-rational physical causes over which we have no control.

None of this follows from atheism (or indeed materialism). Purpose, ability to reason, ability to delude ourselves (some much more successfully than others) could all be emergent properties arising form the complexity of the physical process of evolution. None of this calls for the mandatory reinstatement of the God hypothesis.

if we have no souls and no spiritual connection to God as the ultimate source of reason and truth, it follows that our brains, and therefore all our mental activity, are imprisoned within a process of physical determinism that discredits all thinking.

No it doesn't...atheism does not entail determinism. Even materialism doesn't.

We cannot be sure that any of our thoughts correspond to reality, moral or scientific, since we are biologically conditioned to think them regardless of whether they are true or not.

Now the first part of that statement is probably true, but nothing whatsoever to do with atheism or materialism. However, there is nothing (under an atheistic, materialistic or theistic, creationist worldview) to suggest that we are "biologically conditioned" to think any particular thoughts at all - though we may be somewhat genetically predisposed to thinking certain kinds of thoughts I suppose, and maybe even posting them "regardless of whether they are true or not".

On reflection, maybe you do have a point - perhaps you just couldn't help it?

 

[RestlessSoul]

I'll stop short of God and say I do see the evidence for the soul is within the individual.

I really have no idea about evidence for God within me because I see no benevolence in nature, nor is their any sense of a God that plays fair, nor impartial.

Possibly you do see those things; but you also see their opposites, which I’ll admit is paradoxical for anyone who believes, as I do, in a loving God who cares for His creation.

There are of course, some faith traditions which do not acknowledge the duality of good and evil; for others, these polarised qualities are within us, and we have a choice which to develop and which to turn away from.

 

[blü 2]

If "God doesn't know there's nothing God doesn't know which God doesn't know" is FALSE then "God knows there's nothing God doesn't know which God doesn't know" must be true.

No, if the proposition is false, God may have a means of knowing [he] doesn't know [he] doesn't know X, but that doesn't satisfy the requirement that there be NOTHING [he] doesn't know [he] doesn't know.

 

[RestlessSoul]

No, if the proposition is false, God may have a means of knowing [he] doesn't know [he] doesn't know X, but that doesn't satisfy the requirement that there be NOTHING [he] doesn't know [he] doesn't know.

If nothing is a subset of everything, then He who knows everything knows everything there is to know about nothing. And there’s nothing more not to know

 

[1213]

So the God of the OT and NT is the same? So the God of Jesus could drown the whole planet again if it wants to?

The God said He will not do it again. So, I don't think He would want to do so, even if He could.

How did Jews break the covenant? Jews don't think so, but Christians do? Could Christians be wrong?

I think it is the Bible that says so. And the events that followed proves to me it happened, because Jews were scattered as promised here:

Behold, the days come, says Jehovah, that I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt (which covenant of Mine they broke, although I was a husband to them, says Jehovah). But this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel: After those days, declares Jehovah, I will put My law in their inward parts, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall no longer each man teach his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah. For they shall all know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest of them, declares Jehovah. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.
Jer. 31:31-34
But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these com-mandments; and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my command-ments, but break my covenant; I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.
Lev. 26:14-16
I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cit-ies shall be a waste.
Lev. 26:33

Do you justify the Holocaust, which was performed by Christians?

Why call them Christians, if they don't follow Jesus?

I think people should not kill others.

Jews disagree with they Christian interpretation.

What interpretation?

Hindus think their gods guide them correctly, some billion of them. How would you know the don't? Are all these Hindus wrong?

I would like to hear one example. But, if for example one keeps a cow as his god, it is possible that the cow guides him. I wouldn't keep the cow as my God, even if so.

 

[1213]

Correct. Christians do not partake of the Covenant mentioned in the Tanakh. Instead they've felt free to persecute Jewish people, confine them in ghettos, "confiscate" their lands and property, drive them away, murder them with inquisitions and pogroms, and of course gas chambers, and so on. Whoever Jesus represented, it clearly wasn't the God of the Tanakh and [his] followers.

If "Christians" do wrong things, why do you accuse Jesus for that? Jesus didn't say Christians should steal and murder. He told the opposite. So, if Christians don't live as Jesus taught, why call them Christians?

But of course the old covenant was made directly with God, not with God's representative.

The covenant with the law was done through Moses for the people. Moses was the mediator in that deal. The same way as Jesus is the mediator in the new covenant.

And as I said, no faithful Jewish person would have recognized Jesus as a messiah, because in Jewish terms he never was.

Sorry, I disagree with that, if the terms would be the ones in the Old Testament.

Where in the NT does God anoint Jesus?

Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and shall name him ‘Jesus.’ He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. There will be no end to his Kingdom.”
Luke 1:31-33
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the bro-ken hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed, and to pro-claim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Luke 4:18-19
And having been baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water. And, behold! The heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God coming down as a dove, and coming upon Him. And behold! A voice out of the heaven saying, This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I have found delight.
Matt. 3:16-17

 

[blü 2]

If nothing is a subset of everything, then He who knows everything knows everything there is to know about nothing. And there’s nothing more not to know

I would have thought 'nothing' was antithetical to 'something' hence also to 'everything'. I'm aware of the 'empty set' and that all empty sets are the same empty set.

But apart from that, we haven't yet established that there is, or even can be, '[he] who knows everything'. [He] can't be said to know everything unless there's a method by which [he] can know there's nothing [he] doesn't know [he] doesn't know.

And so far no one has pointed to that method. Which is simply to say in other words, you can't have a credible '[he] who knows everything' merely by assertion.

 

[blü 2]

If "Christians" do wrong things, why do you accuse Jesus for that? Jesus didn't say Christians should steal and murder. He told the opposite. So, if Christians don't live as Jesus taught, why call them Christians?

The covenant with the law was done through Moses for the people. Moses was the mediator in that deal. The same way as Jesus is the mediator in the new covenant.

Sorry, I disagree with that, if the terms would be the ones in the Old Testament.

Why should any honest Jewish person look at Jesus, a blow-in to Jerusalem who no one who matters has heard of till then, and say, Oh look, that dude over there is the Messiah! ?

He was not anointed by the priesthood, which is the meaning of 'messiah' ('anointed', in Greek 'khristos'). He was not a civil, military or religious leader of the Jewish people, he was just another player in the religious industry that you've never heard of. And when he refuses to say outright to Pilate that he's not a king, Pilate says, 'Guards, here's another stirrer, do the usual.'

(You'll be aware that was no such Roman practice as letting a prisoner free at Passover, and that the idea of the Roman governor asking the governed what he should do is extraordinarily unlikely anyway.)

Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and shall name him ‘Jesus.’ He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. There will be no end to his Kingdom.”
Luke 1:31-33

Yes, but that's not true of Paul's Jesus or he would have mentioned it, and it can't be true of Mark's Jesus, who's an ordinary Jew until on his baptism by JtB the sky opens and God adopts him as [his] son just as [he] had adopted David as [his] son in Psalm 2:7 (as expressly stated Acts 13:33). Nor is it true of the Jesus of John, since there's never a whisper of it there either, yet if it were true you could scarcely leave it out. Only in Matthew and Luke do we get the 'virgin birth' shtick, not credible in itself since in the extremely rare case of human parthenogenesis the offspring must be female (or else those two Jesuses but not the other three have God's Y-chromosome) and (so that Jesus can be a messiah descended from David) supported by two incompatible and obviously fake genealogies which anyway are expressly for Joseph, who even more expressly is NOT Jesus' father here.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I would have thought 'nothing' was antithetical to 'something' hence also to 'everything'. I'm aware of the 'empty set' and that all empty sets are the same empty set.

But apart from that, we haven't yet established that there is, or even can be, '[he] who knows everything'. [He] can't be said to know everything unless there's a method by which [he] can know there's nothing [he] doesn't know [he] doesn't know.

And so far no one has pointed to that method. Which is simply to say in other words, you can't have a credible '[he] who knows everything' merely by assertion.

"He who is pure consciousness, from which all form emerges, manifest and transcendent" should just about cover it imo.

 

[F1fan]

The God said He will not do it again. So, I don't think He would want to do so, even if He could.

My problem is why the God had to do it the first time. Is this supposed to be the best a God can do? And it fixed nothing. This is why I can't take these stories literally, or useful.

I think it is the Bible that says so.

Believers and their literalist interpretations are a dime a dozen, and lack evidence & arguments that their beliefs are credible. The disagreement is notable.

And the events that followed proves to me it happened, because Jews were scattered as promised here:

Behold, the days come, says Jehovah, that I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt (which covenant of Mine they broke, although I was a husband to them, says Jehovah). But this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel: After those days, declares Jehovah, I will put My law in their inward parts, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall no longer each man teach his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah. For they shall all know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest of them, declares Jehovah. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.
Jer. 31:31-34
But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these com-mandments; and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my command-ments, but break my covenant; I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.
Lev. 26:14-16
I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cit-ies shall be a waste.
Lev. 26:33

Why call them Christians, if they don't follow Jesus?

Because there is no real standard. The more conservative the Christian, the less like Jesus they tend to be.

I think people should not kill others.

That is a common attitude of most humans, which comes from evolved moral outlooks, not religion. Religion just wrote it down. And religious people often violate it.

What interpretation?

I would like to hear one example. But, if for example one keeps a cow as his god, it is possible that the cow guides him. I wouldn't keep the cow as my God, even if so.

If you don't understand Hinduism why dismiss it? You assume supernatural forces, so why not cows having some influence?

 

[F1fan]

Although not a born again believer in Jesus Christ, I had some superficial Catholic instruction while growing up, which I never took very seriously.

I never took Christianity seriously, see how easy it is?

Yet, I cannot remember a time when I didn’t have some innate sense that there was a God who made everything.

Who told you this? I was told similar things as a child. I hyad natural skepticism and asked questions.

While we are on the subject of reasoning, just something to think about…

“If, as atheists insist, there is no God or divine purpose behind the universe, and humans are purely physical beings – biological machines without souls or spirits – the implications are logically self-destructive for atheism. If atheism is true then all our thoughts and values, and all our deepest convictions, including our belief in the validity of logical argument and the existence of mathematical and scientific truths, are simply an accidental by-product of our cerebral biochemistry and the mindless movement of atoms. This means we are deluding ourselves when we think that we have free will, and with it, that inner freedom to weigh evidence and judge between conflicting arguments without which there can be no successful pursuit of truth, or acquisition of knowledge. In reality, all our reasoning and conclusions are nothing more than the unplanned result of a long chain of entirely random non-rational physical causes over which we have no control.

In other words, if we have no souls and no spiritual connection to God as the ultimate source of reason and truth, it follows that our brains, and therefore all our mental activity, are imprisoned within a process of physical determinism that discredits all thinking. We cannot be sure that any of our thoughts correspond to reality, moral or scientific, since we are biologically conditioned to think them regardless of whether they are true or not. By discrediting all thinking, including their own, atheists cut their own throats philosophically. Their view of ultimate reality is therefore self-refuting.”

Evil and God: Reflections of a Former Atheist

The existence of evil seems to challenge the idea of an all-powerful God of love. Here is one person's account of grappling with this question.

www.bethinking.org

Terrible self-serving thinking. What I wonder is why children develop cancer or defects if a God exists. i had asthma very bad as a kid and I asked God "why me?" Eventually it made more sense that the Christian God wasn't true and humans aren't special, just other animals in nature.

 

[setarcos]

Gosh! That's nearly as incomprehensible as something I might say...actually it isn't really, but I think you have taken the discussion on a slightly different tack with the phrase "all that can be known"...so far defenders of God's omniscience seem to have been focused on God's knowledge as absolutely unlimited

Thanks for the reply.
So we've opened the door now lets explore...
Seems logical to me that IF a God exists with the typical Christian minded attributes of Omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence then we must consider these attributes confined to what is possible in reality.
Many people have taken to prove an absurdity in their quest to prove contradiction within God so defined and thereby prove the concept logically impossible. This path stems from a misunderstanding of how those words should be or even can be logically defined.
The problems partly arise from bad apologetics, over zealous religious people, or simple misunderstanding and miscommunication.
There are limitations to the Christian God. Those limitations are defined by contradiction and impossibility. Gods attributes are framed by what is possible in reality. Possibility in reality is qualified by the least possible embodied in finite beings and the fully fulfilled possible in the infinitely qualified being to do what's possible in reality- "God".
God cannot create contradiction - either within itself or within creation. Thus God cannot do what is not possible for an infinitely qualified being to do in reality if it causes contradiction.
When I use the phrase "all that can be known" in reference to God I mean all that can be known of reality without causing contradiction.

but this phrase suggests that there might be a limit...i.e. that there might be some things that just cannot be known

As I've attempted to explain above there is a limit - that which causes contradiction. Contradiction cannot meaningfully exist within reality.
There is nothing that cannot be known by God within reality. If something can be known in reality then definitionally God must know that thing.

"how does god know that there is nothing he doesn't know he doesn't know" along that those lines.

Lets see if I can logically break this down.
First it seems prudent to understand what we mean by "know".
"Know" implies an object of knowledge. For if there is nothing to know then "know" points to nothing and may be disregarded.
In other words the phrase "how does God know...." implies there is something to know in reality.
IF there is something to know in reality that implies that that something can be known in reality.
The OP has already started this conversation with certain axiomatic assumptions - for the sake of argument of course- and that is that a God exists with the attribute of omniscience.
Now IF omniscience describes an infinite ability to know all there is to know of reality AND this God has that attribute THEN anything within reality which can be known as described above but isn't known by such a being would create a contradiction in reality which isn't possible.
Descriptions of contradictions can exist within reality but they point to nothing existent. They are a dead phrase so to speak. They are meaningless and empty, used merely for demonstration not realistic proposition.
The bold above may be contentious and subject to further discussion.

Might God (if there is one), perhaps, know what he doesn't know, in a sense analogous to the way that I would know that I don't know the content of a novel that may not even have been written?

I would say no. The difference being our knowledge of reality is definitionally finite. Our very act of questioning and then discovering reality is testament to our finite understanding of reality.
Gods knowledge of reality leaves no room for question and no room for discovery of reality. We know we exist because it is definitionally and realistically self evident. God knows all there is to know of reality because it is definitionally and realistically self evident.
The mechanisms by which such things are possible as concerns God will forever remain infinitely speculative from our perspective of course.

You have also brought in the term "awareness". Is that the same as "knowledge"?

I would say no.
Awareness is necessary to have knowledge. It does not guarantee what particular knowledge one might have though. Nor is awareness contingent upon any specific knowledge, unlike knowledge which is contingent upon awareness.

Could God (if there is one) be "aware" of everything and yet not necessarily have intimate knowledge of everything?

Not in reality...definitionally speaking.

 

[ppp]

Seems logical to me that IF a God exists with the typical Christian minded attributes of Omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence then we must consider these attributes confined to what is possible in reality.

I do not believe that you know enough, or are capable of knowing enough about what is possible in reality to form an informed opinion. (edit: on this particular subject)

"Know" implies an object of knowledge. For if there is nothing to know then "know" points to nothing and may be disregarded.
In other words the phrase "how does God know...." implies there is something to know in reality.

That is really awkward and ungainly and incorrect. the phrase "how does God know" does not imply that God exist. So, no. It does not imply that there is something to know in reality. It only implies that there is something to know in the context of the hypothetical. Which is to say, the thought experiment. Which is to say your imagination. No actual "reality" is implied.

Possibility in reality is qualified by the least possible embodied in finite beings and the fully fulfilled possible in the infinitely qualified being to do what's possible in reality- "God".

It is not. Possibility in reality is qualified by empirical demonstration that the components of a given proposed phenomenon exist and can interact in a way so as to produce said phenomenon. Or by direct observation of that phenomenon.

 

[PureX]

Hey! What's the deal, Dude?

... My question for God.

 

[setarcos]

I don't think that's quite the case here. The claim is that God is omniscient ie there's nothing God doesn't know.

That's assertion, not demonstration or anything else useful.

And the question is intended to test the assertion. The result so far is a FAIL for omniscience.

I was presuming that assertion was being used as an axiomatic assumption used for the sake of your argument since we all know by now absolute proof of an existent God is sparse. Disproof of a particular definition of God is in my opinion possible and quite a different matter though.
So, correct me if I've misunderstood your line of thinking here but "God is omniscient" shouldn't have to be proven for the sake of your argument.
What this argument seems to be about is whether or not an existent God that has omniscience is logically possible or can be disproven logically.

(The fail for omnipotence, or one of them, is that God can't make a perfect copy of [him]self occupying the same frame of reference.)

This is a common misunderstanding of how God and its attributes should be defined.
God nor its attributes cannot create contradiction within reality. Contradiction cannot exist within reality. Contradiction can be defined, a particular contradiction can even be described. But that description does not nor cannot extend into an object of reality.

Then let God articulate the part explaining how [he] knows there's nothing [he] doesn't know [he] doesn't know. Until then, nope.

Explain to me how you know you exist?
Then explain to me how a finite being is suppose to understand the infinite mechanisms by which a God may exist. Should you be capable of understanding then you would be God. Should you be God then you wouldn't be finite. A contradiction. And as such, not possible.

We can invent gods and goddesses and angels and demons and miracles and magic wands.

Absolutely...that's called imagination. But, simply because I can imagine an animal that probably doesn't exist doesn't mean that no animals exist.
Notice that in all our imaginings, nothing absolutely unique exists in that imagining. All our imaginings is always related in some way as a mish mash of human experience.
From where then does the concept of divinity come from and please don't waste our time by describing the monkey man sitting in a cave contemplating the unknown and applying anthropomorphic superpowered beings behind lightning, fire, and death as explanation. There's absolutely no evidence that our ancestors were those simpletons described as scared of their own shadows and desperate to define their own ignorance of natural phenomena with invisible forces, and sentient beings. There's no evidence whatso ever of how these concepts first arose.
If anything, what little we know of "uncontacted" tribes have shown the opposite. Lightning is just lightning that does what lightning does. There is no concept of somebody up in the sky throwing lightning bolts. Fire is just fire that heats. The dark is just the dark, perhaps hiding predators etc.
The concepts of Gods and magic etc. seem to have arose in fairly sophisticated societies that should have known better than their ancestors. So what happened? What changed?

If we invent infinite beings, we take responsibility for giving credible accounts of them, surely? Such as giving reasoned and sufficient answers to questions about omniscience?

As credible as can be made comprehensible given our limitations - sure I agree.

Are there in fact elements of reality that God is not aware [he]'s not aware of?

Briefly, I would say no since that would create a contradiction in how we've defined omniscience and contradiction cannot exist in reality.

(And if God is said to exist outside of reality, whatever that might mean

I neve said that and don't believe that's a meaningful expression.

there in fact elements of outside-of-reality that God is not aware [he]'s not aware of?)

Again, no lest we create contradiction.
To be clear, defining God as being atemporal or outside of time does not mean outside of reality. Reality is not a bounded spatial-temporal place. And saying God is "outside of time" does not mean time is bound in a bubble like some sort of ball God is playing with. My understanding is It means God is not temporally confined in its awareness or action.

The question is HOW goes God know this?

Again....like proving Gods existence the absolute proof is decidedly lacking. As is the bane of all our theories due to our finite abilities.
The how can only be speculated upon.
However, like all theories they may be disproven. So your argument should be whether or not God having omniscience is logically possible.
I think it is and I'm trying to show you why it is, not how it is done. We don't even know HOW the brain gives rise to our consciousness but you want an answer to HOW Gods awareness gives rise to his knowledge?
I don't know how but I think I can demonstrate why its logically consistent for a being to have omniscience.

there can never be personal responsibility in fact; in which case the whole sin thing is the merest of guilt traps, a tool for manipulating others ─ albeit manipulating others exactly as God foresaw and intended when or before [he] made the universe.

All good arguments to discuss. But, again I think that is straying from your original questions here.

 

[setarcos]

I do not believe that you know enough, or are capable of knowing enough about what is possible in reality to form an informed opinion. (edit: on this particular subject)

Okay. That's a reasonable supposition. So what's your argument?

That is really awkward and ungainly and incorrect. the phrase "how does God know" does not imply that God exist.

Okay, but the discussion is not about proving God exists. Its my understanding that the discussion is about whether it is logically possible for a being to be omniscient.

So, no. It does not imply that there is something to know in reality. It only implies that there is something to know in the context of the hypothetical. Which is to say, the thought experiment. Which is to say your imagination. No actual "reality" is implied.

Again the phrase has nothing to do with whether or not God exists. God was simply used as the object which is capable of knowing. The discussion started out as a thought experiment you are correct there.
It is not hypothetical to state that if there is something to know then there must be something capable of being known. That is logical not hypothetical. Whether or not that something will ever be known is hypothetical.
In like manner, if there is nothing to know then there is nothing capable of being known.
The hypothetical would be what is specifically capable of being known given specific circumstances I think

Possibility in reality is qualified by empirical demonstration that the components of a given proposed phenomenon exist and can interact in a way so as to produce said phenomenon.

This needs rephrased in order for it to make logical sense. As it stands its saying that everything is impossible until its empirical demonstration in reality. Yet if it begins as impossible how does empirical demonstration make it possible?
Empirical demonstration is a discovery of what is possible not a mechanism by which the impossible is made possible.
I think you may be misinterpreting what I've tried to say.
Thanks for discussing this with me.

 

[ppp]

Okay. That's a reasonable supposition. So what's your argument?

I don't understand. My argument for what exactly?

Okay, but the discussion is not about proving God exists. Its my understanding that the discussion is about whether it is logically possible for a being to be omniscient.

I am certainly taking liberties, but I don't see how you can be correct in that representation of your own words. Your post repeatedly and relentlessly focuses on God. In the first dozen sentences you make "God" the focus 9 times. And when you finally get to the point you just mentioned, it is not whether or not or not a being or any conceivable can be omniscient. It is about whether or not God specifically can be omniscient.

God cannot be omniscient unless God exists. Existence is a necessary condition to having omniscience. Or to having any state. Without existence God is disqualified.

So, yes. your discussion of God's omniscience is explicitly dependent upon the state of God's existence.

Do you want to ditch God completely and just discuss whether omniscience is possible? I suspect that it is not simply due to incompleteness. The existence of what you don't know you don't know is compelling.

It is not hypothetical to state that if there is something to know then there must be something capable of being known.

There are three ways I can read that using standard uses of 'to know':
If there [is a phenomenon that can be understood by X] then [the mechanisms of that phenomenon must be comprehensible by X].
If there [is a phenomenon that exist] then there must be something capable of [being aware of its existence].
If there [is a phenomenon that exist] then there must be something able to [comprehend the mechanisms of that phenomenon].

None of those convince me of omniscience.
Which do you mean? Or roll your own.

Possibility in reality is qualified by empirical demonstration that the components of a given proposed phenomenon exist and can interact in a way so as to produce said phenomenon.

This needs rephrased in order for it to make logical sense.

Well, it may need to be rephased for you to apprehend it.

As it stands its saying that everything is impossible until its empirical demonstration in reality.

Nope. You have incorrectly inferred some statement of impossibility from my words, where impossibility was neither stated, nor implicit. I suspect that you are simply conflating the actual state of things with your assessment of the state of things. That is a common misconception. I won't pretend to know your internal thoughts, but I do hope you can overcome it.

 

[siti]

confined to what is possible in reality.

There is nothing that cannot be known by God within reality. If something can be known in reality then definitionally God must know that thing.

So you need to make up your mind here - are you talking about things that are "possible in reality" or that actually exist in reality? Because there are uncountably many "things" that are possible in reality but may never actually come to pass - aren't there?

"Know" implies an object of knowledge.

Well that depends what you mean by "object"...presumably for an omniscient deity my knowledge (or lack thereof) could be an "object" of the deity's knowledge couldn't it? Or is the deity incapable of knowing something that doesn't actually exist? For example if I had no knowledge of the existence of a particular object, my knowledge of that object is non-existent and yet an omniscient deity would, by definition (as defenders of God's omnipotence are fond of repeating), know that. Yes? No?

Also, an "object" in sense you seem to be using it here, must surely include "things" like concepts, ideas, emotions...etc. And it must, presumably also include ideas (for example) about things that don't exist in reality...not just don't exit yet, but never will exist in reality. For example, if I have the idea that an invisible creature called a moncupator lives in the corner of my fridge occupying the exact same space as my lettuce and cucumber...an omniscient deity must know that as an idea (because it exists as an idea) and yet there is no way it could possibly ever actually exist in reality. There is no genuine "object" here except my (ridiculous) idea. And there is an infinity of ridiculous ideas that are impossible as actual entities but are possible in reality as ideas that nobody has had yet and perhaps nobody ever will - indeed, if infinity is actually possible, and there are sentient beings in reality, then there IS an infinity of ridiculous ideas that are possible as ideas but that no sentient being will ever actually have. Does God know all of that?

The OP has already started this conversation with certain axiomatic assumptions - for the sake of argument of course- and that is that a God exists with the attribute of omniscience.

That is absolutely wrong! The OP made no assumption about either the existence of God or any of God's attributes. The OP was clearly phrased as a rhetorical and hypothetical starting point for defender's of God's omniscience to discuss the actual evidence they might have to show that there is nothing that God doesn't know he doesn't know. So far, all we have heard from that side of the debate are assertions devoid of any logical (let alone evidential) basis. Of course there cannot be any actual evidence for the non-existent knowledge of a non-existent deity and a finite being could not be expected to be capable of providing proof positive of the knowledge of an infinite being. So we're left with only logic. And the task for defenders of God's omniscience is to show that their claims about God's omniscience are not logically inconsistent.

Descriptions of contradictions can exist within reality but they point to nothing existent.

Right! So that's my point - if it can be shown that the claim of God's omniscience involves a logical inconsistency then God's omniscience doesn't exist - except as a logical contradiction. Correct?

In fact, if we take your argument here at face value, then you have clearly answered the question in the OP...

...I have already shown that there is a logical contradiction in the claim of God's omniscience...to wit - if God knows everything then he knows what it is like for me not to know something...if he really knows what it is really like not to know something then he is not omniscient.

That IS a logical contradiction that, as you claim, "points to nothing existent" (the "nothing" here being God's omniscience because that is certainly what is being "pointed at").

Gods knowledge of reality leaves no room for question and no room for discovery of reality.

I personally doubt that any of that is true even if there is a God. Indeed, the only logically consistent version of God that I have yet encountered in my own mind is one that learns and questions and doubts as we do (except on a larger scale) and grows and develops as culture (not exclusively human necessarily) and the universe it is embedded in evolve. For most people, what I am calling "God" here would be nowhere "God enough" to qualify for the title...but I reckon everybody has to start somewhere and maybe s/he will be promoted to that rank (at least in the minds of humans) somewhere down the track. For now, I just use it (the word "God") a placeholder for the "holistically emergent something bigger than the simple sum of all the parts of the entire reality it is the whole of." And it is "God enough" (and ineffable - practically not in principle - enough to be worthy of my profound awe and wonderment without the need to redefine it as something either supernatural or actually infinite - although for all I know it might be.

If I am anywhere near right, then I sincerely doubt that God knows that's what it is...at present God seems more to me like a confused teenager with a severe case of multiple personality disorder. Only the sentient parts of its "creation" can help with that...but we (sentient beings) will have to learn to think more logically, scientifically and ecologically (by which I mean recognizing that things - all things - are intricately interconnected and it is the relations between existing "things" and the processes by which they are connected that give rise to emergent reality - not the things themselves in themselves).

Anyway, I'm straying way off topic now...the point is omniscience is not a logically coherent concept, and therefore, by your argument does not exist.

 

[blü 2]

I was presuming that assertion was being used as an axiomatic assumption used for the sake of your argument since we all know by now absolute proof of an existent God is sparse.

My question assumes a god, specifically the bible god, since I know omniscience is claimed as one of [his] attributes.

And so far no one has been able to state how this allegedly mniscient being knows that there's nothing [he] doesn't know [he] doesn't know.

I say that vitiates the claim of omniscience. Either there IS a way for God to make certain there's nothing [he] doesn't know [he] doesn't know, so that the claim of omniscience is not invalidated on that ground, OR there is no way to make certain there's nothing God doesn't know [he] doesn't know, end of story.

So, correct me if I've misunderstood your line of thinking here but "God is omniscient" shouldn't have to be proven for the sake of your argument.

As I said, my argument on this occasion is about the possibility of omniscience, not the existence of God.

God nor its attributes cannot create contradiction within reality.

Let's save that one someone's future 'God is omnipotent' thread.

Contradiction cannot exist within reality. Contradiction can be defined, a particular contradiction can even be described. But that description does not nor cannot extend into an object of reality.

Yes, contradiction is a statement about statements, not about objects.

Explain to me how you know you exist?

As Descartes might have said, my sense of self is the basis of my claim to exist. That this is correct is an assumption, but one with an enormously consistent body of evidence to back it.

Then explain to me how a finite being is suppose to understand the infinite mechanisms by which a God may exist.

Gods, at least in my experience, don't even have a definition appropriate to an entity with objective existence, such that if we found a suspect, we could determine whether it was God or not. Nor does there appear to be a coherent definition of "godness", the quality a real god would have and a real superscientist who could create universes, raise the dead &c would lack. Further, God never appears, says or does. The evidence thus points very strongly to God (like supernatural beings generally) existing only as a concept, thing imagined, thing acculturated into, an individual brain. That's to say, gods exist only as ideas.

Should you be capable of understanding then you would be God.

Even were that correct, it wouldn't alter the validity of my question. Omniscience is asserted as a quality of our target God; now let someone on God's behalf explain how God knows there's nothing [he] doesn't known ]he] doesn't know.

Should you be God then you wouldn't be finite. A contradiction. And as such, not possible.

Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, being eternal, infinite, "self-creating" (&c), are all imaginary qualities, and thus are from the same department that brings you gods in the first place. My question here tests an aspect of omniscience, an imaginary quality for an imaginary being. My question, if it can't be coherently and satisfactorily answered, simply underlines that view.