Have atheists misinterpreted the word “omniscient”?

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on April 24, 2011 at 12:07pm

Merde.  Either Big Daddy knows it ALL, past, present and future, or he/she/it doesn't.  If a billiard player can determine where the targets of his cue ball will be after his play and some deity (who is also supposed to be omnipotent, while we're at it) can't anticipate the outcome of creating intelligent beings with putative free will, then we must be talking about some off-the-rack at Walmart god and not the real deal.  Oh, and while we're at it, why should this deity's prophets be able to predict the future when he allegedly can't?!?

Trying to qualify or water down an absolutist term such as omniscient amounts to more apologetic BS.

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Permalink Reply by George on April 24, 2011 at 9:15pm

The problem with discussing the made-up abilities of a made-up being is that there's no way of actually determining whether it's true or not.

Omniscience is generally held to mean at least limited knowledge of the future. 

Some sample bible verses you could use in your discussions:

Psalm 139:16 - "all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Psalm 139:4 - "Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely."

Isaiah 46:10 - (god) make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.

If you want to really get in depth, here are some excellent sources:

Omniscience and Divine Foreknowledge - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Omniscience- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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Permalink Reply by Stanley Post on April 25, 2011 at 6:33am

George, your input is exactly the kind of info I am looking for, thanks much :)

 

I am looking for any bible verse which mentions god's omniscience in the future tense, not

simply, knower of all things (which may or may not include the future).

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Permalink Reply by Stanley Post on May 7, 2011 at 7:35am

"Stanley it sounds like your christian friend adheres to a christian interpretation called "open theism" where yahweh knows everything there is to know but since the future hasn't happened yet then there is nothing there for yahweh to know. This is considered heretical by traditional christianity as far as i understand but it is growing in popularity as christians try to explain the bible passages that clearly show yahweh and/or jesus do not know the future."

 

Daniel,

Yes, that is her belief, you put it well and I am enjoying your posts on the subject, very enlightening.

If  omniscience does not include knowing the future, this eliminates the philosophical paradox completely, thus an argument asserting that god can not be the god of the bible because his omniscience is inconsistent with logic and the bible it's self becomes a moot point.

 

She asserts that nowhere in the bible does jesus (god) say he knows all future things. Only his deciples say this.

So what I am looking for is bible verse which is said to be the very words of god himself (a quote, if you will!!).

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Permalink Reply by Irina Uriupina on April 25, 2011 at 4:52pm

How about the book of revelation?

It's all about the future that hasn't happened yet, but is supposedly awaiting us in the final days

God sure knew that future, he also knows he will defeat devil in the final battle.

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Moore on May 6, 2011 at 7:08pm

yeah I believe psalm 139 says that God knew everything about the universe before he laid down the first grain of sand in the creation.  He knew all of our comings and goings and the futures of our very souls themselves.  Also, if knowledge of the future is impossible, then ...umm... what about the prophets fortelling the coming of Jesus and the entire book of Revelations, the apocalypse and the rapture?  

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Permalink Reply by Jameer Logan on May 13, 2011 at 5:58pm

The funny thing about this is when I debate Christians, they always say the proof in Jesus was the fact that he was prophesied in the Old Testament, but when I tell them how easy it is for someone to look at the Old Testament and make someone fit the description of the prophesies that can't believe. To me it boggles my mind to see how easy it is to make up these stories, but Christians can't see it themselves. This is the thing the frustrates me about Christianity and other religions is how blatant the b.s. is, but how no one can recognize it.

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Permalink Reply by Stanley Post on May 15, 2011 at 1:50pm

It seems that faith is a very powerful "blinder".

 

I too am uterly amazed that people still believe what is writen in the bible when it is obviously contradictory, and yet the "perfect" word of god at the same time!!??

 

There is absolutly nothing in the bible which could not have been known at the time it was written.

If the bible contained such profound prophecies, it would have mentioned important breakthroughs in human development; dinosaurs, splitting the atom, mapping the human genome, space travel, quantum mechanics, genetic engeneering, evolution of speices, the creation of the first living cell in the laboratory (no gods required), all these leaps in human knowledge should have profound implication to christianity.

Yet nothing like those things are "prophesied" (for obvious reasons) ;)

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Permalink Reply by Dogly on May 7, 2011 at 8:39am

Yes, the bible DOES say god knows the future.  Can one of you give the chapter and verse?

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Permalink Reply by Irina Uriupina on May 7, 2011 at 9:51am

Psalm 139:7-16

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

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+139%3A7-16&ve...

 

Also there are some references in this silly article http://www.equip.org/perspectives/omniscience-does-god-know-all-things

 

holy jebus, i love it when they try to explain god's actions by comparing him to parents! Reminds me Bertrand Russell's "Why should I allow that same god to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown his own?"))

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Permalink Reply by Brian Wood on May 14, 2011 at 9:34am

From a christ-tard apologetic site:  God has emphasized repeatedly that He knows the future, perhaps never more emphatically than when Jesus Himself prophesied (see Matthew 24:1-51; Mark 8:31; John 2:19-22). The fact that God knows the future does not imply that humans somehow lose freedom of choice. Just because God knows that something will happen, does not mean that He causes it (see Bales, 1974, p. 49). God cannot be taught anything about the future (Acts 17:31; John 14:3). http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&arti...

I would argue that knowledge of the future does strip us of free will, and just because the 'tards say it doesn't doesn't remove the logic.

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Permalink Reply by paul babcock on May 14, 2011 at 1:19pm

Elihu describes God as the one "who is perfect in knowledge" (Job 37:16 c.f. Job 36:4)
John says that "For God is greater than our heats and he knows everything." (1 Jn 3:20)
The writer of Hebrews says that "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." (Heb 4:13 c.f. 2 Ch 16:9)
Job said "for he views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens" (Job 28:24).
Jesus said "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." (Mt 10:29-30)
God said to Isaiah "for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done" (Is 46:9-10 c.f. Is 42:8-9)
Psalm 139 - all of it, but in particular: "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand." (vv. 17-18) "All the days ordainded for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." (v. 16)

Sorry but my copy and paste capabilities being as limited a9pps they are do not allow for good spacing and such. I hope that is readable at least. My understanding is that plenty, if not most, theists hold Jehova to be so omniscient and omnipotent that he is beyond being limited by petty mortal concepts such as rules of logic. This being the case, he is so awesome and omnipotent that he can, in fact create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it and be so powerful as to be able to lift it, both and probably do them both with at least one arm tied behind his back.

And so, this being the case Jehova is similarly not bound by whatever rules of logic we mear puny mortals perceive him to be bound by in the case of him seeming to have erred in creating us in the manner he did knowing us to be flawed from the start.

So in answer to your question, "Have atheist misinterpreted the word 'omniscient'? ", I have to say "no".

It is that theists have misunderstood how logic and reason work. But that is nothing new.

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