Does God have knowledge of things which don’t exist?
Let’s something doesn’t exist, and it might possibly come to exist but still has the potential to not come into existence - would God be aware of it’s existence?
Let’s say unicorns don’t exist. Would God’s knowledge be that unicorns don’t exist? If God’s knowledge reflected reality - that unicorns don’t exist, then what happens to God’s knowledge if at a later point in time unicorns do come into existence?
actually this is an interesting question. we perceive the world thorough our senses and our mind . so in a small way our will is involved in that perception. with god my feeling is that he perceives through his will in a total way . he can sort of attaches his will to the idea of the world in us . ho he does it i have no idea. but look when you crack a math problem do you know how you did it ? the solution just pops in your head . with god it doesn’t work like that . it works in some other way kind of mysteries right now to us .
there is a lot of research going on . things like studying the mind peculiarities of autistic children in terms of intention and whatnot . i mean if you want to go the science root.
no victory, or defeat, or emptiness or loses for me. all is equal to me. hell or heaven . no fear . no complaint . only respect in the knowledge that one goes to god as one goes to war and with total utter confidence in myself because I know nothing really matters .
God [if a reality] doesn’t ‘exist’ and is infinite so I presume he is omniscient knowing all things intimately because he is everywhere. So he ‘knows’ things that don’t exist because he doesn’t exist, then that all things are manifest from this unmanifest place therefore he knows all existences.
I would think most things would be unconscious/innate to him.
That reminds me of the Omnipotence Paradox. Can God create a boulder that he cannot lift? It doesn’t matter what the answer is. One would have to debate over what omnipotence is.
If you believe in god being omniscient, then yes. He knew of all things that were going to exist in creation before creation was even started. God knew of cancer, youtube, Billy Mays, the curse on the Chicago Cubs. God knew I would fart while typing this sentence.
But if god is not omniscient, then god can’t know. Can probably make a decent guess (depending on how many times universes have been created before hand, previous experience is helpful) but things twist and turn in neat little ways. Chaos theory is fun like that. We do the same thing in our daily lives without noticing. You leave for work around the same time because of how long it normally takes to get there, doesn’t mean you’ll make it on time though. But you could probably predict the time frame pretty accurately.
If all the universe is just subatomic particles flying around chaotically in space, why are decisions and actions a separate unpredictable category from when a tornado is going to strike or when we experience a winter solstice?
It seems to me that if a god can create everything in existence, and be fully aware of the when how why of dirt/rocks/trees/clouds/waves, what is so overly complex about decisions that make them beyond reach? To say that god can do everything except know what humans are going to do seems a little… arrogant I suppose.
Knowing what someone is going to do doesn’t have an impact on their ability to do it. Just because an omniscient god knew I was going to write this doesn’t mean I had no say in the matter. Just means that god knew I was going to write it.
I personally think that the concepts of freewill and omniscient beings can co-exist.
That kind of omniscience requires the knowledge of the state of all energy and matter to the smallest subatomic particle.
If that is possible, I wonder what kind of horizon God has. Does He see a couple of seconds ahead or does he see all things at all times from the beginning until the end of time?
Perhaps the universe is God’s brain. The people, animals and objects being similar to cells in the human brain and the various interactions are analogous to neurons firing. Perhaps this forum is a thought process in God’s brain.
I’m not arguing that free will and omniscience cannot exist. If free will is really free then it is not contingent on what exists presently. Therefore, the future would be open and would not be known by an omnicient being that has knowledge of everything that exists.
I’m not following how free will is limited by knowledge of events before they happen.
Let me try this and see if I can figure out what you are trying to say. Assume these …assumptions. You believe in the existence in god, that god created all that exists, that god is omniscient, free will exists.
Did god know you were going to exist before he created the universe?
Good question. No. Humans would freely make choices about whom they have children with. God would not know in advance of their free choices. So God would not know I was going to exist before my parents conceived me.
So then did god know that humans would exist at all?
I might be mistaken but I somewhat remember a verse where Eve was made essentially because Adam was bored or lonely (or something, maybe Stumps can spot me). That seems to me an emotion that stems from free will which would be unforseeable.
And if that’s the case, does that mean all of humanity was unplanned?