The God of the Bible is Not Omniscient

[Diogenes]

Question for debate, "Is the god of the Bible omniscient?"
According to Genesis it is obvious he is not omniscient... or he must be an idiot.

So God created man in his own image....
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
. . . .
And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.

__ Genesis, chaptesr 1 and 6

Apparently this great and powerful god did not see this coming. And then the giant, imaginary idiot decides he should kill ALL the animals, because ONE of them, just one, 'man,' was corrupt.
So this guy is not only not omniscient, he is unfair.

[TRANSPONDER]

Question for debate, "Is the god of the Bible omniscient?"
According to Genesis it is obvious he is not omniscient... or he must be an idiot.

So God created man in his own image....
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
. . . .
And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.

__ Genesis, chaptesr 1 and 6

Apparently this great and powerful god did not see this coming. And then the giant, imaginary idiot decides he should kill ALL the animals, because ONE of them, just one, 'man,' was corrupt.
So this guy is not only not omniscient, he is unfair.

Clearly God is not omniscient. At least not in the popular sense of knowing every little thing that has happened, or that's ever going to happen. Frankly, we should dispel such notions and rethink the nature of God's knowledge.

Consider omnipotence as a parallel. There's good reason to believe that God is not omnipotent either in the classic sense of being able to do all things. That's all based on a Greek notion of perfection. Strongest biblical evidence for such a view is God's name El-Shaddai, which is commonly translated as Almighty, but whose original meaning is unclear.

A better view (if you want my 2 cents) is that God's knowledge (and power) can change over time. God can go from being practically powerless to all-powerful. From knowing nothing to having all knowledge. Such aspects of God are dependent on the degree that we have committed ourselves -- including our knowledge and power -- to God. The whole point being for all knowledge and power to eventually be God's (so that as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15, "God may be all in all").

As our level of commitment changes over time, i.e., as more things depart from God or join with God (and effectively become God as part of, say, elohim or the body of Christ), so too God's power and knowledge will diminish or rise across time.

But even then, 'all knowledge' is not the same as 'knowing everything'. It always has the upper bound of current collective knowledge, which like our commitment also changes over time. Again, just my 2 cents if you want to go into more nuanced theologies versus just beating up strawman views.

Aside the classic strawman (which you are not arguing, but we might as well get shot of it) and atheists are guilty of this - God can't be expected to make a square circle. Nor to make himself never to have existed. No, we are talking about what makes sense. The idea of a god that hasn't got it all in hand sounds more like an ET with a bad attitude. And frankly while the idea of an incompetent teenage god who smashed his toys when they wouldn't do what he wanted, coming on a bit and repenting his mistakeshas some points, He still has a bad attitude and could do with a bit of humility as if he doesn't know that slavery is bad and we do, maybe he needs some lessons from us.

Of course i'm not seriously suggesting he take our correspondence course any more than we say He is evil - rather i say that this being is so unreasonable and incoherent that probably there is no such thing and is merely the fevered imaginations of humans that have spent too long going short in a monastery.

[theophile]

Clearly God is not omniscient. At least not in the popular sense of knowing every little thing that has happened, or that's ever going to happen. ... just beating up strawman views.

"Srawman views? Christians differ on what god's omniscience is. Even when I was a Christian I did not believe in total omniscience of God, but absolute omniscience is a classic Christian view, including that of Thomas Aquinas who relied on Biblical texts.

Yah, exactly. Aquinas. He was less biblical than he was Aristotelian. Again, Greek thinking. Not biblical.

You could go back to Augustine too if you wanted, but then you'd just be squarely in Platonist (i.e., more Greek) thought.

So sure, there are intellectual heavyweights behind some of these ideas, but still a strawman for some of the obvious issues that result (hence your original post, right?), and questionable relationship with original biblical thought.

[theophile]

Of course i'm not seriously suggesting he take our correspondence course any more than we say He is evil - rather i say that this being is so unreasonable and incoherent that probably there is no such thing and is merely the fevered imaginations of humans that have spent too long going short in a monastery.

Or, maybe we just don't get it yet.

[TRANSPONDER]

Absolutely no. If God was omniscient he would have known he would have to destroy man before he even created him. If he knew he was going to have kill everyone but Noah and family and repented afterwards, surely he's skip Adam and sinful man and start with Noah. Then he wouldn't need to destroy all the animals, along with man, and the critters didn't disobey.

You basically say, short life is worthless, God should not give a chance for evil people, even if it would be just a short life. I think that is not good.

I do not know what chain of reasoning you followed to get there from what I posted. Would you like to explain? Unless God does not know what's going to happen. I don't care for the trump card 'appeal to dead children' but are you seriously saying that it was better for God to give them 10 years before drowning them than no years. But taking the whole of creation with it makes no sense, even without God 'repenting'. This has to be Myth, aside for having no evidence for it and all the evidence against it.

Which is really the argument - the God of the Bible is not limited in what he knows - The God of the Bible is a man - made invention. Prime bet hypothesis.

We haven't even got onto Eden and God walking through the forest calling out to Adam 'Come out, wherever you are'. Not to mention a scenario that looks totally set up to get Adam to sin. Again, omniscient, he's know that was going to happen before he even started creating.
...

1213 post_ Does someone really think God asked it next to them because He didn't know where they were?

I don't know. Do they think they know what the Bible means better than what it says? And what i think is that it's all a tall tale, whatever idea the writers had in mind.

[1213]

Absolutely no. If God was omniscient he would have known he would have to destroy man before he even created him. If he knew he was going to have kill everyone but Noah and family and repented afterwards, surely he's skip Adam and sinful man and start with Noah. Then he wouldn't need to destroy all the animals, talong with man, and the critters didn't disobey.

You basically say, short life is worthless, God should not give a chance for evil people, even if it would be just a short life. I think that is not good.

I'm unclear on how you got that from TRANSPONDER'S post.
OTOH, it is easy to get that idea from the Bible:

Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

James 4:14

What else could the "skip all others before Noah" mean? I think it is blatant despise of the life of those before Noah.

[The Nice Centurion]

It was another time. Perhaps the OT Verses that call this god in their words omniscient are not to be taken literally.
I hold it plausible that compliments like omniscience were commonly given to mighty earthly rulers, like Nebukadnezar too.
They said it to get on his good side, against better knowing.
So they wrote it about gods too.

If my theory is correct, than they knew that Nebukanezars and gods could mess things badly up too, but that was one more reason to tell them what they wanted to hear.

After all, Lieutenant Bligh of the Bounty was called Captain by his Crew, even if Corvetts were too small to be commanded by Captains.
Bligh tried to get promoted to Captain before the ship left the english harbor, but didnt receive the promotion.

[TRANSPONDER]

Of course i'm not seriously suggesting he take our correspondence course any more than we say He is evil - rather i say that this being is so unreasonable and incoherent that probably there is no such thing and is merely the fevered imaginations of humans that have spent too long going short in a monastery.

Or, maybe we just don't get it yet.

Maybe we don't and maybe we do - but too many won'r accept it yet that the Bible is not true, nor is Christianity and its god does not exist - even if a Creator god existed, which i doubt.

But the logic is that, until you make a case for it, the suggestion that it makes sense in a way we don't get is without merit. Unless you make a sound case to get over all the problems with the Bible, Christianity and the God -claim, there is no valid, logical reason to believe it.

[TRANSPONDER]

Absolutely no. If God was omniscient he would have known he would have to destroy man before he even created him. If he knew he was going to have kill everyone but Noah and family and repented afterwards, surely he's skip Adam and sinful man and start with Noah. Then he wouldn't need to destroy all the animals, talong with man, and the critters didn't disobey.

You basically say, short life is worthless, God should not give a chance for evil people, even if it would be just a short life. I think that is not good.

I'm unclear on how you got that from TRANSPONDER'S post.
OTOH, it is easy to get that idea from the Bible:

Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

James 4:14

What else could the "skip all others before Noah" mean? I think it is blatant despise of the life of those before Noah.

That's actually a good point which I did touch on. The thing is that potentially everyone not created has been (by analogy) killed. To not have them exist before creation even happened is no more than that. That is, if God went straight to Noah (whether or not in place of Adam) those wicked people and their fate (including all the babies and animals) would never have been and we would know nothing of them. It seems pointless to protest about all the billions of potential people that could have existed, because we know nothing about them. If God had started with Noah, the fall, Flood and destruction of creation wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't know about them. We wouldn't be having this conversation and nobody would be having to either excuse God or tough it out and say that mankind had it coming.

[TRANSPONDER]

It was another time. Perhaps the OT Verses that call this god in their words omniscient are not to be taken literally.
I hold it plausible that compliments like omniscience were commonly given to mighty earthly rulers, like Nebukadnezar too.
They said it to get on his good side, against better knowing.
So they wrote it about gods too.

If my theory is correct, than they knew that Nebukanezars and gods could mess things badly up too, but that was one more reason to tell them what they wanted to hear.

After all, Lieutenant Bligh of the Bounty was called Captain by his Crew, even if Corvetts were too small to be commanded by Captains.
Bligh tried to get promoted to Captain before the ship left the english harbor, but didnt receive the promotion.

The apologetic has been made at least once - God does not know everything, or at least God does know everything but chooses not to. Which is worse - like someone who can know his job but acts as though he doesn't, or can drive carefully but opt to drive like an incompetent. It's rather like Epicurus' problem

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”"

If God doesn't even know where everything is and what is going on, why is it a god at all? Maybe it's just some ET alien pushing us around and not doing a good job of it. Does it deserve our worship, even if we believed the stories?

[theophile]

Of course i'm not seriously suggesting he take our correspondence course any more than we say He is evil - rather i say that this being is so unreasonable and incoherent that probably there is no such thing and is merely the fevered imaginations of humans that have spent too long going short in a monastery.

Or, maybe we just don't get it yet.

Maybe we don't and maybe we do - but too many won'r accept it yet that the Bible is not true, nor is Christianity and its god does not exist - even if a Creator god existed, which i doubt.

But the logic is that, until you make a case for it, the suggestion that it makes sense in a way we don't get is without merit. Unless you make a sound case to get over all the problems with the Bible, Christianity and the God -claim, there is no valid, logical reason to believe it.

Hence why I proposed the beginnings of such a view in my previous post. But that aside, just because such an agreed upon 'sensible' view is not yet before us doesn't mean the default view should be that the bible is wrong, which is what you seem to be saying. Rather, it means only that the views that have so far been properly assessed and found wanting are wrong. The bible itself (or its actual teaching) should have more of a TBD status.

For example, the Greek theology of a perfect God (perfect in knowledge, power, etc.) has been found wanting on good grounds (per the OP). Not just lack of physical evidence but biblical too. But all that means is that the early Church Fathers who injected such a theology into Christian thought were wrong. It says nothing about the actual biblical God except what that God is not.