Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[AverageBozo]

First of all, let’s get the blasphemy out in the open. You are probably not God, however the premise is a starting point to be supported or disputed.

The premise is plausible, though, if not provable to anyone but yourself. After all, isn’t everything you experience the product of your consciousness, sort of like a movie written and directed by you?

IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?

A trivial question, you say? But look at the ramifications: if God were God, how can s/he be omniscient?

[Thomyum2]

First of all, let’s get the blasphemy out in the open. You are probably not God, however the premise is a starting point to be supported or disputed.

The premise is plausible, though, if not provable to anyone but yourself. After all, isn’t everything you experience the product of your consciousness, sort of like a movie written and directed by you?

IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?

A trivial question, you say? But look at the ramifications: if God were God, how can s/he be omniscient?

The way you've put this is the classic 'loaded question' - like asking 'when did you stop beating your wife?'
In other words:

Q: IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?
A: I do know everything.

Or can you put the question a little differently?

[Pattern-chaser]

IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?

How do you know that I don't?

[Steve3007]

[Pattern-chaser]

IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?

How do you know that I don't?

More to the point: why do you think I don't know these things, puny mortal?

[AverageBozo]

First of all, let’s get the blasphemy out in the open. You are probably not God, however the premise is a starting point to be supported or disputed.

The premise is plausible, though, if not provable to anyone but yourself. After all, isn’t everything you experience the product of your consciousness, sort of like a movie written and directed by you?

IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?

A trivial question, you say? But look at the ramifications: if God were God, how can s/he be omniscient?

The way you've put this is the classic 'loaded question' - like asking 'when did you stop beating your wife?'
In other words:

Q: IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?
A: I do know everything.

Or can you put the question a little differently?

Good point.

Asked differently: how is God omniscient?

[AverageBozo]

IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?

How do you know that I don't?

I guess I don’t believe God can be omniscient. I am therefore wondering how it is that many say that God is omniscient.

[AmericanKestrel]

First of all, let’s get the blasphemy out in the open. You are probably not God, however the premise is a starting point to be supported or disputed.

The premise is plausible, though, if not provable to anyone but yourself. After all, isn’t everything you experience the product of your consciousness, sort of like a movie written and directed by you?

IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?

A trivial question, you say? But look at the ramifications: if God were God, how can s/he be omniscient?

The way you've put this is the classic 'loaded question' - like asking 'when did you stop beating your wife?'
In other words:

Q: IF you are God, why don’t you know everything from the past, present and future?
A: I do know everything.

Or can you put the question a little differently?

Good point.

Asked differently: how is God omniscient?

Omniscient is not in God’s vocabulary, it is a mortal’s. God is limitless, there is nothing that we know to compare god’s qualities. so no words to describe.

[AverageBozo]

How is it that God is limitless (your word)?

[AmericanKestrel]

How is it that God is limitless (your word)?

Depends on how you define god. In Advaita god is not a creator god but existence that fills everything, no place where it does not exist, transcends time and space, is causeless.

[AverageBozo]

So God can be defined with omniscience by one religion and defined without omniscience by another—right?

[AmericanKestrel]

So God can be defined with omniscience by one religion and defined without omniscience by another—right?

Yes, depends on how you define god.

[AverageBozo]

Thanks.

[LuckyR]

Because humans are the smartest animals on earth, we never developed a word to describe beings smarter than humans, besides gods. If you look at Greek gods, they weren't all that smart.

The omniscience idea came much later. But if you think about it, omniscient could mean (to an Iron age thinker) "knows way more than any human". Or it could mean, "knows all information that can be known" (which would exclude the future, for example).

Bottom line, it is intellectually dishonest to apply 21st century definitions to Iron age word usage.

[AmericanKestrel]

Because humans are the smartest animals on earth, we never developed a word to describe beings smarter than humans, besides gods. If you look at Greek gods, they weren't all that smart.

The omniscience idea came much later. But if you think about it, omniscient could mean (to an Iron age thinker) "knows way more than any human". Or it could mean, "knows all information that can be known" (which would exclude the future, for example).

Bottom line, it is intellectually dishonest to apply 21st century definitions to Iron age word usage.

If the idea of god, or a being, an existence, is the source of everything, and transcends all three times and space, it is also the source of all knowledge. Since we have nothing else in our universe, within our limited knowledge, to compare such a state, we lack the vocabulary to describe it. It can only be described as what it is not.
Such an idea of god is in itself timeless.