Does God ever learn anything that He never knew before?
Does God learn?
Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by Dale-c, May 5, 2008.
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Pastor_Bob Well-Known Member
No.
I John 3:20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.
Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. -
He wouldn't be all knowing if there was something He didn't know. He wouldn't be the God the bible describes Him as.
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For God to learn something new would involve God's having a new thought. Can't happen.
As a wise man said, Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God? -
That is like asking if God ever gets a second wind.
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Jesus learned obedience through suffering...
(Heb 5:8) Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
Of course that was in the flesh.
But for the first time in his existance, he experienced being under subjection to someone else...
I don't know if that would be considered learning or not.
Also, by putting on Human flesh, he learned what it was like to be human...
Again, I don't know if that is really learning, but it was a different experience for him because until the incarnation, God had never experienced being human.
(Heb 4:15) For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as [we are, yet] without sin.
He "learned" our infirmities... And because of this, we can now come boldly to him...
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Theres a good article here http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2562
Who has understood the mind of the LORD, or instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the LORD
consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or
showed him the path of understanding? (Isaiah 40:13-14, NIV)
Since it is a bible teaching that God knows all things, there is nothing He does not know, it is a different 'god' being described when one claims God can not know all things (that He can learn soemthing new He didn't know). -
Does that create a tension with God the Father's claim that "I change not?"
Seems to me that any scriptures which seem to teach to the contrary must be interepreted in the light of clear scripture which says flatly that God does not change.
Anybody else want to take a crack at this? -
I think it boils down to the fact that Jesus didn't use all his "God" attributes while here on earth... IOWS, God is Omnipresent.. but Jesus wasn't...
The trouble we have with Jesus learning, and God can't has to do with our limited understanding of the incarnation and the Trinity.
This is one area where we will have to accept God's immutability by faith...
Although I wonder, really wonder what Jesus thought when he was, for the first time in his life, confined to a human body...
As God, He never was under subjection until he stepped into human flesh.
I wonder how it must have felt. -
Pastor_Bob Well-Known Member
Sorry. Misposted.
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No................
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I tend to take a different perspective on this. First a question. Does the Bible tell us everything there is to know about God? I think everyone would have to agree that the answer is no. If it did, it would be of infinite length and we wouldn't be able to understand it. So the Bible gives us a snapshot of God. I believe that it gives us a true perspective in every way but there is a lot about Him that we don't and can't know. Why couldn't God grow in areas not discussed in the Bible? For instance, is there anything in the Bible to refute the possibility that God has created other worlds with creatures much like us? I put these kinds of questions in the category of unknowable (at least until the final trumpet).
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Is there anything that God doesn't know?
That was the question our military chaplain posed to us when I was deployed to the desert back in early 2003.
Then he proceeded to preach on "Four Things God Doesn't Know":
1. God doesn't know of a sin that He doesn't hate (Ps. 45:7).
2. God doesn't know of a sinner that He doesn't love (Jn. 3:16).
3. God doesn't know of another way for sinners to be saved other than through Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).
4. God doesn't know of a better time for a sinner to be saved than this very day (2 Cor. 6:2). -
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To suggest that God can learn things smacks of open theism which is a ridiculous form of theology. It basically is the doctrine of the stupidness of God which to me is rather blasphemous.
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There are a couple of things that solve the issue for me:
1) Jesus was God and Jesus did learn (as a previous poster offered). To see Jesus is to see God, Jesus said.
2) Intelligent design. Any time we create something, we have in mind what could happen but no certainty as to what will happen within the bounds of the design. In God's case, He knows what could happen and then He can "preview" what will happen under the aspect of His omniscience we call "foreknowledge."
Now He predestines His plan according to perfect knowledge of what will happen.
I am not sure what "compartments" people put God into that they can't integrate these two ideas (what could happen and what will happen) into their understanding of God's omniscience. Put another way, He wouldn't have much "intelligence" if He didn't know what could happen and there would be no "design" if He couldn't know what will happen.
skypair -
If you understand there are things God does not know, then you are not understanding the God of the bible.
There is nothing Jesus as God did not know. Experience in human flesh is not the samething as not knowing.
Saying there is anything God does not, or did not know is lowering God to less then He is, less then He said He is in the bible. It's a recreating of God to suit ourselves. In that case whats next for His makeover. -
I know of at least one open theist as a member of the BB. Is open theism heresy? When is this heresy going to be addressed by the administration? You know....... kinda like the ME heresy.
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Pastor_Bob Well-Known Member
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