Is God capable of learning anything? (page 2)

BlessedStar

God knows everything so the truth maybe that He cannot learn anything more because He already knows everything.

blessedstar

daystar

So can the Judeo-Christian God learn? I don't see why not. If according to the bible we were made in the image of God and we continue to expand our knowledge why couldn't God continue to do the same?

I think it depends upon the indivual concept of God. If God simply IS ALL, then he actually contains all possibilities as well as all impossibilities. There is no duality, nothing outside of I AM to gain knowledge of.

If God is a being somehow separate from the rest of creation, then I would answer yes, but that belies omniscience and omnipresence.

This is hard for us to understand because we are seperate even from ourselves, not to mention each other. So we create a God that is knowable, limit him just as we are limited ourselves. That God must be able to learn since he is limited by us. But I think that God has much less in common with reality than a God of which I can conceive.

The God I can conceive of is also beyond good or evil, so that I can't consider asking things like "why does God allow bad things to happen?" To me, that is akin to asking why a volcano "decided" to erupt and kill thousands of people. The volcano is not evil, it simply is what it is.

cosmic

By strict definition, the answer would have to be "Yes". Because, another way to phrase the question would be: Could God experience things He had never experienced before? And that answer most certainly is also "Yes". My proof for that is you. You are unique, and whatever you do is something that has never occurred in this universe before and, therefore, God has to be experiencing something new, i.e. seeing the universe thru your eyes, and therefore, He is learning.

Here's one back at you. When JC "came up out of the Jordan" it is believed that all of his pre-human existence and memories and knowledge came back to him. Question: does that mean that the human brain is capable of holding the same amount of knowledge as the creator of the universe?

daystar

cosmic

You are unique, and whatever you do is something that has never occurred in this universe before and, therefore, God has to be experiencing something new, i.e. seeing the universe thru your eyes, and therefore, He is learning.

From a biblical stance, I will have to disagree.

Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 (NIV)
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

Also, your logic is faulty.

BlessedStar

When you close your eyes what do you see?

When you close your eyes you cannot really see anything but your eyelid's shadow. When you close your eyes you are aware of your body, your presence.

Think about God. He is present too.

BlessedStar

BlackSwan of Memphis

Daystar: Ok wait though. What would be strict definition of the judeo Christian God? You said:

I think it depends upon the indivual concept of God. If God simply IS ALL, then he actually contains all possibilities as well as all impossibilities. There is no duality, nothing outside of I AM to gain knowledge of.

So, what I’m wondering is can the person who believes in the judeo Christian God have their own individual concept of him?

You said:

If God is a being somehow separate from the rest of creation, then I would answer yes, but that belies omniscience and omnipresence.

Hm first I’ll be honest in that while I am still able to handle the bible ok, I’m not a scholar. I’m wracking my brain trying to think of scriptures that explicitly tell us that God is both of those things.

You said:

So we create a God that is knowable, limit him just as we are limited ourselves. That God must be able to learn since he is limited by us.

Is the God that we created the Judeo Christian God or something/one other than?

BlessedStar

You know it's something when psychic people say they can predict the future, some things may come to pass.

God is the Creator and He knows the future so He doesn't have to learn anything. He already knows.

blessedstar

daystar

Daystar: Ok wait though. What would be strict definition of the judeo Christian God? You said:
I think it depends upon the indivual concept of God. If God simply IS ALL, then he actually contains all possibilities as well as all impossibilities. There is no duality, nothing outside of I AM to gain knowledge of.
So, what I’m wondering is can the person who believes in the judeo Christian God have their own individual concept of him?

Well, think about this: When you say the word "chair" to someone who lives in your area, you can be pretty certain that you are thinking generally about the same thing. However, it won't be exactly the same. When you say "chair" you might think of a comfy recliner, while the other person may simply think of a barstool. Of course, the context may change one or both mental images. This is true for anything that has a name. Names are verbal symbols for an individual's mental image of a subject.

Now, worldwide, the word God means many different things to many different people depending upon the culture of the region. Even within cultures there will be debate, even on the nature of God himself. Not all Jews agree upon the nature of their own G_d and neither do Christians.

The Judeo-Christian God is a different entity depending upon the person to whom you're speaking. And very often they will argue with each other if they think their mental image of God to match reality exactly. This is, IMO, ridiculous. How perfectly does your mental idea of any human you know match reality? How often will someone's behavior surprise you? Did you really, really know them? How less so could you really know God?

You said:
If God is a being somehow separate from the rest of creation, then I would answer yes, but that belies omniscience and omnipresence.
Hm first I’ll be honest in that while I am still able to handle the bible ok, I’m not a scholar. I’m wracking my brain trying to think of scriptures that explicitly tell us that God is both of those things.

Yeah, I don't think there are any. But the majority of Judeo-Chistians I'm familiar with assume both characteristics. However, I also don't think that the bible, as we have it today, is the final word on the nature of God either.

You said:
So we create a God that is knowable, limit him just as we are limited ourselves. That God must be able to learn since he is limited by us.
Is the God that we created the Judeo Christian God or something/one other than?

Since is really is impossible to know any sort of real "God" based upon the context of what I've been saying here, if a person has an idea in their mind of what God is based almost entirely upon the OT/NT bible, then their God is the Judeo-Christian God. For example, my sister and I both know our father. We have the same father. But my experience of my father and knowledge of the person that he is, is different to certain degrees than that of my sister's. But no doubt we're talking about the same person when we talk about "dad", we just have a different level/type of knowledge of, understanding of and relationship with him. However, if I speak of "dad" with you, you have no doubt I'm talking about my dad and not yours. If we shared the same father, but had been separated at a young age, we might have much more different viewpoints on who "dad" is. It's the same with anyone we have a relationship with or knowledge of.

As always YMMV. (Your Mileage May Vary)

Narkissos

Creative theology implies treating the word "God" as an unknown x, susceptible of new definitions.

But in the dictionary "God" implies a very definite notion, as reflected in popular usage which depends on a specific history of beliefs and includes all the "omnis" of classical metaphysics -- omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.

This popular notion can change, but very slowly.

In the meantime, alternative notions of "God" are only available to sectarians who can claim an original "truth about God" or, in a different way, to atheists who can use the word metaphorically.

gumby

The bible says that during Noah's day...he "regreted" making man to the point of wiping him off the planet. A regret means you "wished you hadn't done that". God wished he hadn't made man. If god would have erased what he did and started over again he wouldn't have made man ....because he said "he regreted it". I'd say he learned something. When you regret something, you learn something. They cannot be seperated.

Btw....ain't ya glad good old Noah just happened to be a rightous guy along with his 3 sons, shem ,ham, and Japeth..(sorry to the ladies, the wifes had no names)! Were it not for these 8 rightous people.....god woulda wiped out everyone and today there would be no humans on planet earth....cuz remember, 'he regreted making man'. Bastard!

Gumby

Is God capable of learning anything?

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