Does God know the future details?

I wasn’t given much food for thought from another thread and I am requesting some help digesting some of this.

@aleo first opened my mind to a perspective that never occurred to me before.

Then @gbrooks9 posted a video that seemed to refute this at first…

But then @Peter_Wolfe posted this article http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2015/02/an-example-of-unwarranted-theological-speculation-divine-timelessness/ which had me re-watch the video posted by @gbrooks9 and listen to it again from a different perspective.

Although that TEDx video says, God is outside of time, I don’t think he qualifies his definition of time clearly enough. What I interpret the TEDx talk to mean to say is that, God is outside of the confines of time ticking, not time happening (I define those ea bit later).

What I think the linked article to mean is that God is not outside the time of happening.

So first I need to qualify for those that are unfamiliar with the terms I use as I am not aware of any other term out there to use. Feel free to correct me if I am not academically correct as I am no where near as educated as some of you in these matters.

Time ticking (I’ll call it “timeT”)-Is time that we know it as and use in our mathematical and relative physics computations. It can, and is slowed down as velocity increases. So if one approaches(or surpasses) the speed of light, time of ticking stops.

Time of happening. (I’ll call it timeH) however time of happening, is different. It doesn’t matter if you go so fast, and slow down your time, the time back on earth is still happening. The past still happens, regardless of how slow time moves for you, or even stops. If you stop time, the past still happened.

Then you have free will. If God knew what you were going to do, and it went against His plan, why would He allow you to do it? He has to allow you to do it, or it wouldn’t be free will. But if you do something against His will, He then has to change His intermediate plans, to bring about His ultimate plan. Like Gods will is a train, that will get to its final destination, but He gives us the free will to knock it off the tracks (if that is our desire), and He also uses us to help Him (if that is our desire) get it back onto the tracks. That is part of our relationship with Him. But there are a bunch of tiny plans and some major plans and they will hope to all work in concert so the final train will get to it’s destination.

I don’t find one single verse in the Bible that speaks of God’s being outside of timeH. There are some verses which can lead one to go there, especially if they were indoctrinated with this theory from the beginning that it is synonymous with God of the Bible, so it creates a paradigm or a bias that reads it into reality when reading of a scripture that supposedly supports this mindset.

I do believe that God knows the ultimate ending due to His great power and influence and He will reign and be praised and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. But does he know every detail of every second of the future like He does know every detail about the now?

I have searched the Bible for any verses I know of, and uses google, but any Biblical scholars would be able to help me out I hope. But I can only find 1 passage (Ephesians 1) that unbiasely confirms that God knows some details of the future, but I don’t like just one passage. If I can only find one passage that says something without it being backed up, I wonder if I am understanding that passage correctly. I would need to dig into hermaneutics of it and other things to try and understand its meaning. Are there more passages that speak of this?

If you look at many other verses of the Bible, read them from the perspective of an earthly father.

Jer 29:11 If I have a plan for my kid to go to law school, I have a plan for him to go to law school. I don’t know the future, but I have that plan for him. Especially if my son wants to do my will, which is to become a lawyer. Especially if I am a supreme court justice or some high power being, who has great influence. My son might screw up, but if he ultimately still wants to become a lawyer, thanks to my great influence and favors, I can help him to fulfill my plan, and have him, become a layer.

So planing for someones future, and having great power and influence over their circumstances, doesn’t require knowledge of the future, to know what will happen in the future, or make this plan for them.

Is it a prophecy because I have great influence and can assure this will happen?

Psalm 139:4. does this prove God knows the future? Or just our thoughts?

God is outside of timeT, and it presently omniscient. There are many verses to support God knowing the thoughts of man (which would help one to be perceived to know the future). He can hear all the thoughts of man and act accordingly so that His plans are done. and I’m sure it is incredibly difficult if not impossible to comprehend the ability to know everyone’s present and past thoughts at once, though if one could pause timeT and be outside of timeT, that would give one even more time to think and come up with a solution or a plan.

The ability to pause timeT also would account for explaining many miracles. Like the feeding of 5000 and fish just appearing from ‘nowhere’ and apparently violating the law of conservation of energy (creating mass from nothing). God could have stopped time, went into the ocean, or teleported the fish as he teleports himself?, or took as much time as He wanted and walked (since time has stopped for us and He is moving faster than the speed of light) and got some fish. Or turning water into wine, stopped time, got a vase of wine and took the vase of water away, than restarted time. ect. the only miracle this doesn’t really account for is bringing humans back to life, but since He created us, He can certainly create life, or re-animate. He is in charge of the earth and the seas and animals, so lions don’t eat Jeremiah, seas get parted, storms get calmed, when the 3 weren’t burned by fire, God was with them protecting them, they didn’t just not get burned, but were physically protected. The walls of Jericho could have been an earthquake.
I cant think of a physical miracle that can’t be explained.

The atoning power of the blood of Jesus is one that isn’t of the physical universal realm, so of course God has the power over that.

This isn’t to say that I know Gods ways, as I surely don’t, but IF He confined Himself to the laws of the universe we live in, this would be a logical explanation of those ‘miracles’.

Like when God speaks to Moses about freeing the Israelites. Exodus 4:23 what will take place about the killing of the first born. Is this because He saw the future, and knew this would happen? Or because He has the influential power to ensure it happened? God did know Pharaoh and his heart and mind, and knew that he probably would not let His people go with the first few plagues. But then later, it says “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart”. Was Pharaoh going to let them go? Did God need to harder his heart to keep them so He could fulfill His plan to save the Israelites with the sacrificial lamb?

Jesus was prophesied and since Jesus was the embodiment of God, is littered throughout the OT scriptures. But was that because God could see the future happening where Jesus died? Or that because He has great influential powers that He could make certain Jesus would come? He used kings and entire kingdoms to help his ultimate will be done. If a king wasn’t willing to acknowledge Him as the King of Kings, he humbled him real quick and picked someone else.

This goes against the Calvinist vies and pre-destination. Again the only support for this I can see is Ephesians 1 More specifically Ephesians 1:4. I guess this could be a poetic thing to say, in that He created the world for us, and therefore He knew us before the creation of the world?

Maybe God doesn’t know the future details? Though He is omniscient, and outside of timeT, is He outside of timeH? The past happened, He can’t change that, does He know the future? In that, meaning see the future and the details of what exactly happens? Or does He just have great influence over the future?

Jer 1:5. Could that mean that once conceived (before you were born) I had a plan for who you would become? Does that demonstrate future knowledge?

Like with Joseph, who was sold into slavery, and ends up 2nd in command who interprets a dream that stores food and ends up saving many thousand of lives including the Israelites. If he wasn’t sold into slavery, would he still have become 2nd in command and save all those lives? Did God speak to Reuben so that he stopped his brothers from killing Joseph and changing God’s plan for Joseph to save the Israelites and to also fulfill the prophesy of his brothers bowing down to him? I believe God had a plan for him to save the Israelites to confirm His covenant to make them as numerous as the stars. Man screwed up his inner-workings of a plan, but God’s ultimate will and outcome will be done Prov 19:21. Selling Joseph to slavery was in God’s permissive will, in that He allowed it to happen, in order to persevere free will, something that God seems to have a great respect for. Maybe if he wasn’t sold to slavery? I still believe that maybe through business partners or some means, or perhaps Pharaohs seeking for an answer to his dream would have been announced to the ends of the earth, and maybe Joseph would have still interpreted his dreams and still saved the Israelites. God’s ultimate and perfect will, will be done, but He has a permissive will that allows us to ‘derail His train’, and He also uses us to be allowed to help fix that plan and get it back on track so that His perfect will and plan does happen. Rom 8:28

God also says in Exo 32:9. Let me destroy them. Then Moses pleads on their behalf and God changes His mind. If the future is known, or set (not the ultimate future, but the inner workings and details of it), then it seems pointless to ask God, as we can’t change His mind. There are other examples of man apparently changing God’s mind.

A good video on prayer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiAMzghLcMA . I used to believe the mindset of this video, and there is great things that can come of prayer, but I think even greater things can come of prayer if I know that it could change God’s mind. However I am aware that I have an extremely limited mind, and could unknowingly pray for something that if God did as I wished, could hurt His plan. Which is why I always end my prayers as Jesus did, with “Thy will be done”. I know His will is best, and want that to be done. But it is neat to think that God can listen to us and change the smaller details of the future if we ask. John 114:13 and 1 John 5:14.

This also explains much better “why bad things happen” or 'why God allows bad things to happen". A hurricane is just part of the laws of nature He set in motion in the beginning of timeT. Some that do pray, are delivered from the harm of it, and it is good to pray for that. But bad things happen because of God’s permissive will. If He didn’t allow bad things to happen, then we wouldn’t have free will, He would be micromanaging us and all you would see would be good things. But though God doesn’t want bad things to happen, which is one reason why He instructs us to pray unceasingly and with great perseverance, but when bad things do happen (like with Joseph being sold to slavery) God can still use those bad things to bring about a greater good, His perfect will and ultimate plan.

I think knowing that God is with us in the now is more of an intimate feeling and relationship with Him as that linked article states much more eloquently.

I think God is omnibenevelant (all good). But I don’t think there is sufficient scripture to say that God is omnipotent (all powerful) as He is confined by His goodness, and can’t sin. He is not omniscient (all knowing) in that He knows every detail about every second of the past an the present, but possibly not the future? God is omnipresent (everywhere) ,though He can’t go to hell, as hell is defined as being separated from Him. It is mostly semantics. I think those words are used too loosely which can confuse someone, though I understand the use of them. Like if I give you keys to my car and say you can go anywhere. You can’t go to the moon or the center of the earth. Does that make my statement of going anywhere untrue? The limits are in the context. And God is very knowledgeable and powerful, but I just think one needs to be slightly careful about the misunderstandings that can occur from using the words omnipotent and omniscient, which as far as I know, are not in the Bible anywhere?

Sorry for that long post, and thanks to those (if any) that made it through all of that. None of any of my rants or questions takes away from the validity of the inerrant-ness of the Bible or the loving power of God and His purpose for our lives to know and love Him and to know and love our fellow man. But it is interesting to learn more about Him and as iron sharpens iron, and I asking you guys to sharpen my thoughts and help me on my journey to know, live for, and glorify Him better.

@still_learning
Free Will is really more fundamental than that. Free Will means there are no “boundary conditions” (i.e., no laws within a bounded area).

What would that look like? It would mean anyone with Free Will would act and sound like a mad man half the time. How does that solve anything.

This is why I have concluded the only way for humans to have the kind of Free Will they think they have is if the same God that made it possible for a single photon to interfere with itself, made it possible for a mind to “interfere with its own lawfulness”.

So unlike the Calvinists who think God is a recipe for predestination - - without God, natural law already takes us to predestination … or at least Non-Free wandering. God’s ability to suspend natural laws is where humans get their Freedom.

Now that is a mystery for the Catholic Church to brag about!

Oh… as far as time goes… you do understand that everything has happened all at once, right? It’s our conscious mind that is now tracing the course of all these events at the “speed of causation”… it’s already done and complete … we just haven’t experienced it all yet.

I don’t mean to dismiss what you said. I just want to first re-emphasize the intent of the tread if it wasn’t clear since I jumped around a lot.

I am hoping to find (or help finding) a passage or interpretation in the Bible that says God knows the future or is outside of timeH. If there is such scripture?

Apparently this is also nothing new as ecclesiasties 1:9 says.

Apparently my latest beliefs is something called open theism, or a much closer branch of it than the others.

There is, for example, Psalm 139:

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

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Psalms being a poetic book. Could this be understood another way? Does God have a book of His knowledge written? there is also a book of life with (those saved) names written. Which implies permanence, but is this a literal book or just a thing known in God’s head?

And again, before a day for the writer came to be, could mean before born like in Jer 1:5. And yes, God might have ordained the amount of days for this writer. God could could have very well wanted this writer to live for example 55 years, and God knowing the thoughts of man ( to protect him from others) and knowing everything in the present to protect him from natural disasters) having control over our health (i.e. Having great influence) could make it so that this writer lived to be “x” number of days old and to have kept this train on the tracks.

But does this specifically and clearly say/convey/infer that God knew every detail of this future?

Much like a painter “sees” their final product in their head while painting it. But doesn’t literally see a future with the completed product.

I guess that is why the open theist believes we are free to make our own choices, and God’s unfathabale knowledge can see every contingency and therefore know in a sense the immediate future, and influence to ensure the further out future.

It I don’t know if “know” is the correct word. Like an engineer who engineers something knows the output when an input is put in, almost like a certain prediction, rather than actually seeing the future of what actually occurred.

I do not believe this takes away from the glory of God, rather I think it increases the intimacy of living in the now with Him, going through life together. Like watching a movie for the first time with a friend/spouse/child/parent You enjoy it together, and some parts you might be able to predict with great certainty, but you still enjoy the present moment experience with them. And Calvinism is more like watching a movie with a friend/spouse/child/parent that you have already seen, so you know exactly what is going to happen, but you still enjoy watching them react to it being new to them. Neither takes away the glory of God or the yearning for a relationship with Him and to experience life together with Him.

If you have a kid, and you give him a choice, doesn’t it fill your heart with joy when the make the right choice or the one you know is best for them? You raised them well, so you have a great certainty that they will do it, but when they actually make that choice, that moment is bliss. I think if God is waiting for us to do the right thing, that is much more intimate, than Him knowing what we will do as He has seen it occur in the future.

And if they don’t do what you had great certainly for them do to. One, there are consequences, and two, there is more training required ( through the Bible or church or brothers and sisters in Christ or direct revelation or communication) in this area of there lives. But if those consequences are to great, you can intervene and reduce or eliminate those consequences and sometimes them realizing what could have happened is a great learning experience/deterant to not make that bad decision over again.

@still_learning,

You have a rather strange way of cherry-picking virtually any text that is provided you.

For most people, Verse 16 is pretty gosh-darned good!:

"Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be. "

Now, technically, you could say that all this says is God only knows how many days a person is going to live.

But don’t you think that would be a rather odd limitation for the creator of the Universe?

I don’t know if cherry picking is the proper word.

When I get an idea ( as I am very open minded and want to learn and challenge). I like to play “devil’s advocate” or put on the rose colored glasses of the challenging idea (as if I momentarily adopted it) and then try to disprove it. I recommend that method as hard as it may be. But of course if you never take off your rose colored glasses, it will be greatly difficult to to not see rose colored things.

If you are born with blue glasses on, someone asks you if the sky is blue, you look at them like they are crazy, the sky is “normal” it’s not a color. It isn’t until you take those glasses off that you could even attempt to understand what others are saying.

I have recently also tried on the glasses of condionalism or annihilism and and having a hard time proving that wrong…but that is another topic…

You also saw I has some form of YEC glasses on most of my life, so I put on EC glasses and then attempted to disprove it, and haven’t been able to yet, and I am putting my roots deeper into the EC theory more and more.

So with those glasses of God knowing the future details off…

But most of my idea I build from the foundation of God’s character or how I perceive it being throughout the entire Bible. We are created in the image of God. So when we grieve it is due to something occurring right? People die everyday, and it is sad but that is an impersonal fact. It isn’t until we see that individuals or group of people in the news or in the now, that it becomes a specific event, that we tend to grieve over it.

If we had foreknowledge of this event ( which in a way we do as again statistically speaking many people die daily) would we grieve as much?

How many verses speak of God grieving over an event witnessed? Do you think He would grieve as much if He had forknowledge of this event?

Also like I said about your kid in my last post…

So it is the Bible as a whole and God’s characteristics, are the glasses I put on, when reading other scriptures. Though some things are pretty irrefutable, like God’s goodness or glory. So I am searching for verses that would invalidate my latest beliefs/theory on which does God know/see the future details. Most of them, I can explain another interpretation. So I am searching for more of them, that maybe I can’t explain, and would require me to go back to the Calvinist beliefs with which I grew up and spent most of my life believing.

Cherry picking is more picking certain verses while hiding others to support my view that is long held and I am trying to defend. I am not leaving any verses out, I want to use them all, to verify and validate as instructed to do. Rather than cherry pick using philosophers of past or indoctrinated “givens” that I am starting to see are possibly not so. Nor am I trying to defend a long held stubborn view. The opposite, I am trying to look through the glasses of this new found view and use all verses to invalidate it, if it can be invalidated.

And no, I don’t think it would be an odd limitation. Once God creates a circle, it can’t be a square. Sure He can change it into a square, but it can’t be both, that is a limitation. It is possible that God is limited by timeH when He gave us free will?

Like a chess player (which I don’t like to use as it is too strategical and impersonal) but a chess player who is wise and knowledgeable, will win, and achieve check mate, but they don’t know what the player is going to do, but they do no of the possibilities and contingencies. God is not caught of guard or scared of the future or taken by surprise and is in ultimate control of check mate and victory. But He might not know the moves of the next player on their turn.

Which I understand free theism was given great scrutiny and disregard for a long time so I am not surprised by it. I am not trying to convince anyone of it. I am trying to convince myself out of it, ( as it is difficult to change such a long held belief) but have yet to have been able to do so, so far, it I have only put on these glasses very recently, there is plenty of time to find fault.

Your proposal of separating timeH from timeT is an interesting one and new to me. But I do not find it a convincing way of explaining the miracles recounted in Scripture. By nature, I am somewhat of a skeptic, which suits me well in my career as a scientist, but presents a problem with the level of 'inerrancy’ in the scriptural accounts of miracles. To be accepted as ‘historical’ by today’s standards, an event has to be recorded promptly by eye witnesses, preferably with video images. Most scriptural miracles were recorded long after the event, and probably after the beneficiaries had recounted it many times, eventually giving it mythical proportions. Did Joshua really delay sunset so he could finish defeating the Amorites? Does it make sense to preserve the ‘inerrancy’ of that account by postulating that God ‘circumvented’ physical laws (energy & momentum) by manipulating the nature of Time? Why not accept the ‘Occam’s Razor’ approach, and postulate that, as the sun was about to set and Joshua’s army was getting the upper hand in battle, a dark cloud started to block out sunlight and threatened to allow the Amorite army to escape in the ensuing darkness. But Joshua appealed to God to let him finish off his enemy, and the cloud quickly dissipated. In celebrating the victory (over a few mugs of mead) Joshua and his men built up the story into a mythical saga, and that is how it was recorded much later.

Yes, this is just the way the New Atheists seek to disparage religious Faith, because of its reliance on events that are not truly miraculous. So perhaps it does behoove each of us to ask: Which miracle(s) in Scripture is (are) absolutely essential to maintain my faith in Jesus as my Savior? For me, the answer would be: Water-to-wine at Cana: not at all. Feeding the 5,000 in the wilderness: the miracle might be one of willingness to share, and not the sudden appearance (by timeT standards) of thousands of fishes…. And so on. Paul stated the one absolutely essential miracle: Jesus’ Resurrection. If He is not truly risen, then our Faith is worthless.

A legitimate criticism of what I propose above is that it is too analytical. Simple Faith is preferable. I tend to make Doubting Thomas as my patron saint, and the resurrected Jesus scolded him for wanting evidence rather than depending upon the simple faith of Simon Peter.
Al Leo

@still_learning

Oh, I agree with that completely!

But when it comes to omniscience - - I’m pretty sure none of us knows what is “feasible omniscience” vs. “impossible omniscience”.

And since neither you nor I are in a position to even know how the author came to think he knew enough about God’s omniscience as to write about it …

listening to you “ruminate” about which part of an incomprehensible structure you think is workable and which isn’t is rather humorous.

You haven’t even demonstrated a grasp of “Nested Hierarchies” wtihin the field of Evolution… and you think you are going to nail down the part or aspect of the Divine that is outside of time?

This again assumes the author was attempting to define/explain God’s level of omnipotence.

Could not Psalm 139 verses 1-18 be a poetic way of expressing the fact that God knows me intimately and has control over my entire life? It is a poetic book right? I know there are some hermeneutics experts out there that could perhaps shed light on this?

David beat Goliath with God’s help. I am aware I am a David amoung intellectual goliaths in this forum (this is not to mean you are all the bad guy and I am the good guy, just to make a sizing analogy). I am not trying to nail down the Divine, rather trying to fully understand the Divine through His word with the help of others who have much greater intellect and experience. Elders so to speak, which I have respect of, in coming to risk looking a fool to learn from. Which I am sure I do plenty of, and if in my public journey, my ruminations bring you humor, but it enables me to learn more of God and grow closer to Him, is more than worth it. The way iron gets sharper is to get hit hard, so that some of it is knocked away. If you rubbed iron with a cotton cloth, that would just waste time and damage the cloth. However there is intent and control in the sharpening iron. If it was to hit hard on the edge at 90 degrees, it could damage the edge as opposed to sharpening it.

@still_learning,

Hey, remember me?, the Unitarian Universalist?

Of course it could mean that… and bunches of other things.
Frankly, I think it is virtually impossible to really know God truly based on what someone wrote 2000 years ago.

And then you arrive, and you start parsing out individual texts in pursuit of a simultaneous Time-is-a-Mystery Switcheroo… that will answer all things about God and Time…

Knock yourself out …

George

I don’t know everyone’s religious affiliation here. I assume the moderators are Christians based off of the founder Dr. Collins and the “creed” or statement they have, it other that that, I’m clueless and would be foolish to assume.

I was requesting to have hermeneutics experts and Biblical scholars weigh in on my thoughts., which is why I put the " Biblical interpretation" tag on it.

Though it is more of a thinking out loud, and anyone can see it and is welcome to.

I see nothing wrong with searching for knowledge and if that one bit of knowledge can reconcile and make much of your personal questions now more logical, to be passionate in pursuing that.

I do see how that can appear to be arrogant if I am the one claiming to have all the answers and known-truths that no one else knows. I apologize if that is how it comes off as that is not my intent. I’m simply spit-balling here or brainstorming that if x, then y and possibly z, can anyone invalidate x. This is why I am trying to invalidate x, because y and z hangs on it.

@still_learning

I should have chosen better words when indicating my general flexibility of interpretation based on my own denominational status.

In contrast, you have chosen your own words well when you offered a description of the impression you might make unintentionally through your “spit-balling”.

The problem is that you intend to make rules about how to interpret conditions of passing time based on no established calculus for interpreting time… not particilarly consistent with any known school of thought on the matter.

At the end of the day, when dealing with metaphysical material - - notorious for lacking hard corners or any other well defined features - - who is to say what is real or what is even possible?

Your efforts remind me of two things:

the first being my own father’s favorite saying when discovering he had nothing to show for a day’s hard work: “crabs and ice water”!

The 2nd being my own response to anyone saying ghosts had no means to affect the material world: “how would you know?!”

Your dad might not have received his expectations (money or things to sell to make money), but other than crabs and ice water, I bet he gained experience, muscles and strength, possibly friendships, and pride for working so hard in attempt to provide for his family?

I don’t think my time here is wasted either…

What rules am I making contrary to established calculus? The video in the first post says that things can be outside of timeT. So why not God?

There is no scriptural evidence that claimsor even infers that God can go back in timeH.

There is arguable inference (based on hermeneutics) that God can see the future details.

A known school of thought is open theism that agrees with that.

Though just because something hasn’t been thought of or discovered doesn’t invalidate it. Calvinism at one point in time wasn’t an established doctrine.

Sure, from a physical world standpoint. I am diving into the Biblical word, and the Bible is to say what is real or what is even possible…if it is in there, and can be interpreted differently or taken out of the proper literary context. But using hermeneutics and literary genres and parallels scriptures can help us to learn what is real or what is even possible ( if you believe in the inerrancy of the Bible), which if you don’t, other helping me find scriptures with your knowledge, really doesn’t assist in my journey.

Of Course God.

Then you start deciding to create multiple-state descriptions of time, while asserting that God, the creator of All, might know when someone will die, but nothing else.

There is no fathoming what rule you will assert next…

The Franciscan teacher Duns Scotus argued that God does not completely know the future but only what He has willed.

We may however consider that based on our ability to input the condtions of weather, even with our limitations, we have computors that can give reasonable predictions of what may happen in the near future. God must be better in knowledge of probably events than we are. Gid knows what we are like and all the proerties of the world and given that would not a great deal about possible events, at least in the near future.

But if God is in someway interactive wiht the world, and wills things to an end, God does not need to know whole future, He just leads it to the future He desires to take place.

(By the way, whenever we say He/God singular, we mean as Christians the dynamic God who is Three persons in communion, with a common shared will, knowledge and purpose).

Thank you for that. That is a much more concise manner of explaining exactly what I was trying ton convey. I think that is what an open theist believes, and I have yet to see scripture that clearly refutes that.

@cosmicscotus explained what I was trying to convey, my time theories are just to attempt to explain how or why God would be limited But you are acting as if I am just randomly making up weird limits and powers at any whim. I am using scripture and logic to attempt to better understand scripture and God.

. Maybe instead of giving God all powers, all knowing, or many statuses that we tend to give God even though not one verse uses these words, and then require us to dial back and appear to put limits on God. Maybe we should start from nothing, and give God the powers He tells us He has. Looking at it through those glasses makes open Theism seem quite logical, and almost makes Calvinism seem heretical. Omni-benevolence (all good) is a property of God that is in the scripture. Maybe not in those words, but it does say God is good, and God is truth, those things can and should be repeated. But I haven’t found it to say He is omniscient (though there is many verses supporting all knowing of the past and the present) of the future. Nor does it sya He is omnipotent. It says the very opposite, it says He is limited by His nature, and by definition not all powerful. He definitely has mind boggling powers, but not omnipotent.

@still_learning,

Take this up with the YECs please. We’re all a little fatigued around here…

Again Franciscan theology (including Scotus) makes much of the passage from Phil 2, that the self emptying of the Word in the Incarnation is characteristic of the whole nature of God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirt are limited in the excercise of their shared power to what is consistent with their own nature of goodness. Its the difference between Absolute Power and Ordained Power (that they Will to use). If they controlled everyting there could be no freedom for creation, nor room for our excercise of love and responsibility.

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