Can God learn?

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by modernpaladin, May 26, 2019.

  1. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What, you want us to read the begats again? That’s sadistic.
    "And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died. And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth . . . . . . . . .
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2019
  2. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  3. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  4. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    God cannot come to know, come to emote, come to choose, come to be or not be. God is what He is necessarily. God has no potentiality. He is simple actuality.

    We are a complex of actuality and potentiality. We actually exist, and we have the potential to come to know, come to emote, come to choose, come to be or not be.

    God is holy; that is to say that, He is inviolate. God cannot change in any way. We, on the other hand, are defined by our changes. We are a complex of intellectual, emotional, volitional and corporeal processes. (A process is a prescribed sequence of changes.) If any of those processes stop, we are considered dead in that way. We are defined by our changes. God is defined by His holiness. We could not be more different.
     
  5. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hallelujah! Almost as absurdly self justifying as Aquinas.
    “Then others there were who rose to the consideration of being, as being, and who assigned a cause to things, not only as these, or as such, but as beings. Therefore whatever is the cause of things considered as beings, must be the cause of things, not only according as they are ’such’ by accidental forms, nor according as they are ’these’ by substantial form, but also according. to all that belongs to their being in any way whatsoever. And thus it is necessary to say that also primary matter is created by the universal cause of being” Summa Theologic. First Part: Question XLIV: Article .II
     
  6. Stuart Wolfe

    Stuart Wolfe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If God is truly omniscient - and He is - then He can't learn anything because He already knows everything.
     
  7. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Which leads to the greates moral question about the Christian God. I wonder if you can see what it is?
     
  8. jack4freedom

    jack4freedom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I sure hope so. As I see it he/she/it has been a piss poor example of a Supreme being throughout history. However if he/she/it hasn’t learned by now, I am afraid that we are sh*t out of luck until we create a new better god.
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2019
  9. Stuart Wolfe

    Stuart Wolfe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There's several questions, moral and otherwise, that lead from this. Which are YOU referring to?
     
  10. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    To pick one, given God’s supposed omniscience how could he/she/it grant free will to our species knowing where it would end up thus having to torture his son ( who is a third of himself ) to redeem sins he made possible in the first place? Centuries of biblical apoligetics have been devoted to trying explain away this one.
     
  11. Stuart Wolfe

    Stuart Wolfe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The short answer would be that since we are made in God's image, we would have to have free will just as He does as there would be no real way to know whether we love him or not/wish to obey him or not without it.

    Since He knew that it would inevitably lead to His sacrificing His Son on the cross, that in and of itself is proof that He loves us enough to create us knowing this would happen even before He created the world.
     
  12. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I reckon its because of what we will (or may) become in the future. We havn't 'ended up' anything yet.
     
  13. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    which means his mistakes and bad deeds are intentional
     
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  14. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And we’re all about to ‘end up'
     
  15. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    except it wasn't his son, it was God pretending to be his son, and pretending to die, since God can't really be killed - getting 12 year old mary pregnant was all part of the gag - he is like that, remember when he order the father to kill his son, just for kicks to see if he would do it - heaven is sure to be full of fun and games like that

    people just need to be honest, the bible God is both good and evil rolled up into one - if one wants a God that is only good, they need to find a new God, as this one goes by the name Jealous, cause he is a Jealous God
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2019
  16. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    The best thing about imaginary characters is that you can give them whatever attributes you want them to have.
     

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