God not All Powerful?

If God Is all knowing,
regardless of our free will,
did he know that the apple was going to be eaten?
Did he not know?

If he knew, why did he punish them and us by kicking them out of paradise? If he already knew it was going to happen!

If God didnt know, was unable to see the outcome of his creations, is his power limited to everything but seeing the future? Time is a physical dimension. Is God physically limitated?

If he did know the future, why would he subject us to lives of such fear and hardships?
If he didnt, should we, as christians, refine our definitions of god?

By the way, in theory, if a person was able to effectively leave our universe, and reenter at his will, wouldn't time and space not apply or affect him?
If he had a bio engineering background along with this, could he not in all intents and purposes, go back in time, and be God, based on our definitions of God as we know him, and our knowledge that God created us?
We need to adress this hypothetical logic.

This question is for those who share my beliefs in YHWH / Jehovah / Jesus / Allah. Please, no defensive responses. I feel this needs reflection, and i appreciate opposing views,'
i just want to understand things that confuse me

Athiests, no need to reply. Your views are respected, as i used to share them, however, not constructive to this topic.

[edit on 11/9/2004 by theBLESSINGofVISION]

[edit on 11/9/2004 by theBLESSINGofVISION]

i think the reason or answer for all this is that it's part of his "plan", whatever that means... i know it hurts to even think about it.

what i wanna know is how the so called day of rest reflects on his supposed power. rest implies a limit to power or resources. is he not as almighty as we might think? does this imply that something else created us? dfh out.

ps: id normally not get into this kinda stuff soo late, but i just happen to get out of a deep and heavy discussion with my brother about it all.

[edit on 9-11-2004 by deaf fences hit]

Did God know?
I have no idea. IF he wanted to know he would have known. What IF God chooses not to know?

I believe there is a lot of this. God (as I believe) gave us freewill and wants us to choose for ourselves. Otherwise why would we be here?

Many believe we (humans) were angels that chose to become humans. At some point in time we chose to have a soul and all the risks that entails. With this belief it wouldn't make sense for God to intervene.

I dont believe god controls everything in the way some people do. I believe that we are all here because of god and his love for us.

I like your idea of god being non-physical entity, as this would explain why we can see angels, see saints, even his son, but never tha man himself.
But take this further. I have friends who are atheist, and one of their main argument about there being any kind of loving god is that....how could an all powefull all seeing god let peadophiles exist, wars happen and murders take place.........I think maybe physicality is the key.
Is it possible that God lets these thing take place because he does not have the physical presence in our world to stop them, and in fact is not all powerfull and ominpotent. This makes more sense than a loving, omipotent god who lets his creations rape and kill each other by the thousand.

Maybe he doesnt want to have to make all our decisions for us and just wants us to find our own way, whatever that is. A technologist who builds a robot and creates its AI, has a goal of one day letting his creation learn and think and feel for itself. So like this, God created us, not knowing exactly what we were capable of doing or achieving, and just watched us from on high while we, his human machines continue to learn and grow. This for me sounds like a more plausible way of interpreting god and how our world works with him as an integral part of it.

I know this is a sensitive subject, and I apologise if I say anything in my posts to offend any1, thats not my intention.

We might never know the answer my friend. Do you mind me asking....if you believe in god/allah/ or who you consider your maker, do you believe in his opposite, a devil or satan like entity?

theBLESSINGofVISION

If he knew, why did he punish them and us by kicking them out of paradise? If he already knew it was going to happen!

One of his gifts to us was freedom of choice. He gave us a few simple rules to abide by but lets us make our own desisions and we will be judged upon them. Personally, I wouldn't want to be an athiest who finds himself standing at the gates of Purgetory.

theBLESSINGofVISION

If he did know the future, why would he subject us to lives of such fear and hardships?

I guess it's just the trials and tribulations of our mortal existence in how we deal with whats effecting us in our lives. Personally, I think our own destiny is pre-determined.

God may well be a superior genetic scientist capable of time travel but we just don't know. I think at the end of the day it all boils down to faith.

All these points give reasons to God to withhold His Power and Knowledge--and even His Own IDEAS--so that we His nascient Children might find our own truth and our own experiences with Life, Death and Change to overcome.

The only way God [YHVH] might exist outside of Time would be if He creates His Own energy--as a particle accelerator does. In that case, He would be visible to His Creation as Light [but toxic in that He would also generate radioactivity, heat and influence waves such as gravity].



I think it's very interesting that the energy field around the planet Jupiter is not only thousands of times as radioactive as our planet, but there is also an odd assortment of seventeen moons--unique and in different stages of development--there. Maybe that's where God hangs out.

On the subjective side, many humans experience and become proficient at clair audience ["hearing spirits"], clair voyance ["seeing faces"] and mental telepathy ["intuiting feelings"]. Well? Where did those abilities come from? Has to be, from the One who communicates across time and space with only His Mind.

He's even got to have a sense of humor, if we have that Gift. This is due to the Law that says: "The Cause has to be SUFFICIENT to produce an effect."

What are YHVH's plans, now that the Bible is 2000 years old and our planet is near toxic-death?

God knows.

[edit on 9-11-2004 by Emily_Cragg]

GOD cannot lie. Allah promises to decieve

Hmmm. Having 180-degree opposite views of the function of Truth is going to cause problems.

In my experience, no problem can be solved until a person knows enough real, honest, actual physical TRUTH, he/she can say, "I got to the bottom of the problem."

Deception confounds that process. Nothing ever gets fixed nor transcended.

Interesting thought. And thanks for bringing it.

Well one thing is for sure. We will all find out the truth when we die. At the moment we have no way of cheating death.

Yeah, we find out from angels, the Truth about ourselves and our lives and how we impacted and affected others.

But even the angels don't know what God is up to--not totally. They are a physical creation as we are; built of different STUFF.

And as I hear it, all our visualization of angels are incorrect. The reason they wear these long robes is to appear human; but under those robes they have the leg-structures of large birds, although they do have human arms and faces.

I think I saw a cathedral statue once, that actually gave an accurate depiction of the anatomy of an angel--a bird with human face and arms.

And of course, their wings have a 10-ft span, to support the extra weight of arms.

If you think about it, God has no need of "extremities" at all. His electronic template must, then, resemble a zygote--head and body only. It's interesting also that all zygotes look nearly alike, regardless of specie or race or family.

I like to ponder such things.

Originally posted by Emily_Cragg
< snip>
The One who created Life as we know it [and as we don't know it yet] also created the form that became "IT," that favors Power over Mercy; Compliance over Intelligence; Predation over Pacifism and Self-Sufficiency.
< snip>

Other than the self-sufficiency part I agree with this. I believe we are to help others- therefore, self-sufficiency doesn't fit well in my belief system.
(my wife might disagree with me on this)
I agree with the thrust of ALL the rest except for the attempts to decribe God.
- -
IF someone could define God I am still not convinced the definition would be understandable of believed. Perhaps if an adult could transcend their own adultness and perceive �as a child� then they would understand.

TheBLESSINGofVISION, I don't buy arguments along the lines of ��full and complete�� anything before debunking. That type of thought would have me believe satanism is worthy of study as well as Nazism. I have limited knowledge of both and have rejected both as purposeful belief systems.

I freely admit to being a bigot, however.

Originally posted by Psychoses
Well one thing is for sure. We will all find out the truth when we die. At the moment we have no way of cheating death.

exactly what i think, you dont know til it happens, like all experiences in life. you dont know what an apple tastes like until you taste it. people can tell you, but all tastes differ. as for cheating death, perhaps thats its purpose, to move onto something else, but then again maybe not... dfh out.

As I get older, I'm coming to think more and more that either a) God is more of an 'energy' then a physical being or b) God is a physical being or some sort.

When I say "god", I do not mean the christian god, or the muslim god, or budhaa. I am referring to the concept of god. I believe there is a "god" out there. This god may or may not be one or more entities, which may or may not have a physical form. I don't know why this god created us, but it does seem he/she/it does indeed care for us as it gave us an outline of beliefs and attitudes we could follow which would make our existence as pleasant and loving as possible (note, I said OUTLINE, not RULES).

This god probably did know everything...in a way. Just like we can predict the behaviour of certain things, possibly this god had an advanced way of predicting likely outcomes of the short-term future. The fact the christian god says he will come back for the day of armageddon, but then goes on to say even he himself does not know the exact date seems to suggest while god has the intelligence to deduce that yes, one day, mankind will be destroyed, he is unable to determine the exact date because there are just too many factors.

The christian god created us in his image, I do not believe this is meant to be taken literally. More like he created our emotions, personalities etc in his image, not our bodies. To me this also suggests god is an intelligent physical entity, but it isn't conclusive proof.

He also gave us free will. This means god has free will, the same way his angels did (as god created us in his image). Free will when it boils down to it means you can choose to do the right thing, or the wrong thing. Some of gods angels did the wrong thing, and hence the stories of lucifer. This means god also has the ability to choose right or wrong, which means it is possible for him to make mistakes, thus, making him not all powerfull.

Originally posted by theBLESSINGofVISION
If God Is all knowing,
regardless of our free will,
did he know that the apple was going to be eaten?
Did he not know?

One of the most common and recurring problems with discussions of this type comes from the ambiguity of the term "God".

There are actually thousands and thousands of gods that people worship. Many of them go by the name "God", which leads to some confusion.

For example, Mormons describe God as a man who progressed to godhood in accordance with the doctrine of eternal progression. Baptists, on the other hand, take offense at the idea, and offer a trinitarian God that has always been God (i.e., didn't work up to it) instead.

And that's just two sects of Christianity. Muslims and Jews also routinely use the word "God" to describe their versions of the One True God which -- needless to say, are described in very different ways by them.

Meanwhile, I define "God" as "All Things Without Exception" or "Totality", which is clearly different from the other examples illustrated here.

Which God are you talking about?

Interesting Question. Who is God?

The Name of the "God" that coded our DNA is YHVH. He is also the One who negotiated certain progressively-challenging commitments and Covenants before us--with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Yeshua ["Jesus"].

That's WHO I mean.

[edit on 10-11-2004 by Emily_Cragg]

The problem with the God in the bible is that people has make him to human with human feelings and human mentality.

Nobody can imagine a God that is not human because it will be hard to relate to it.

People in the pursue of being like God even created the Jesus myth because just having an entity with no faces was not enough so now a human like Gos was created with a human body and a human face, with human feelings and human traits.

And in his name the worst atrocities against humanity has been committed through the ages in this world.

One day we will meet (our creator) just like many of us that has died before us, and what a surprised that is going to be. Creator may be just a globe of light with not body or facial features because when we die we released the spirit and that is nothing more and nothing else that our soul the energy that suport our human and earthy bodies.

He may not be anything like we has created him to be at all.

Since He deals everyday with Cause-and-Effect, as we here in Hell must DO LIKEWISE, I think we will find that our mutual resemblance will be astounding.

He is unlike Angels because they don't copulate or reproduce.

He is unlike the Ancient of Days because He has a WILL and They don't.

He is unlike Spirits in the Subjective for the same reason. They are used to simply manifesting whatever occurs to them in their thoughts. They have no sense of obstacles to contend with.

But we in Hell deal with causes and effects every day of our lives, as God must also. And so, our natures despite our spiritually deprived condition, may be more like His than the whole rest of His Creation.

But, that's just my opinion. That and a buck fifty will buy a cup of coffee somewhere.