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To: xzins; P-Marlowe

I do not think that "God's omniscience is dependent upon God's omnipotence".

What I think is that God has a different relationship with time than we do. That's what makes him omniscient, is that He knows the future because he doesn't merely exist in the here and now, but in the future as well as in the past. As Jesus said, "Before Moses I AM".

Thus God can introduce prophecy in 3000 BC and already knows instantly the effect on man at the end of the age.

Otherwise, God's propheses that man will do evil are problematic. They would imply that God could only prophesy that man would do evil because He has the power to make man do evil. But if He does that, then man no longer is excercising free will and is not responsble for his acts.

But if God knows the future because He IS already in the future at the same time he is dealing with us, then man can have free will and neither God's omniscience or His omnipotence is affected.

While I agree that God works according to a plan, I do not believe that he manages it to the minutest detail. Again man's free will comes into play. God knows what man will choose because He's seen it already, but God doesn't force man to choose right or wrong. The extent of God's inteference is up to Him.

That unique relationship is also the only way that the believer's names could be written in the Book of Life before the foundation of the world, yet man still has a choice. They could not be written then, if man truly has a choice, and if God experiences time the same way we do, for they could not be known.


71 posted on 06/09/2004 10:40:56 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN; Alamo-Girl; P-Marlowe

Omnipresence, if it actually means "all" would include all times as well as all places.

My first take would be to say that God's omniscience is separate from His omnipresence that is separate from His omnipotence.

If His omniscience is a separate attribute from His other attributes, what would it mean to say that God is all-knowing?


72 posted on 06/09/2004 10:48:41 PM PDT by xzins (Retired Army and Proud of It!)
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