ramifications of omnipotence for God

Hi Jaderis, just a thought here.God the Son came in the flesh, and lived 33 1/2 years on earth.For 3 1/2 years He did many wonderful things.
The blind was made to see.
The lame was made to walk.
The sick was cured.
He commanded the wind and seas to be still and they obeyed.
He called a man back to life who had been buried 4 days.The religion of the day that was supposed to be looking for His arrival, tried Him on trumped up charges and had Him crucified.What makes you think it would be different today?

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

If Jesus walked the earth today, he would be dead within minutes!

That would be a very good point except that you omitted the idea I proposed next: I wasn't proposing that God walk the Earth again or do anything in specifically at all. I was asking, since God supposedly knows us and our hearts and minds individually and is supposedly omniscient and omnipotent, whether He could present Himself in such a way individually to people in order to convince them based upon His knowledge of us as individuals. Of course, He has every right not to do this, but if He is a loving God who doesn't want us to suffer eternal damnation (whatever it ends up being) then why does He not do everything in His power to convince us in whatever way we can be convinced. Surely, He can do more than give us a book and a couple of coincidences here and there. I got as much from The Celestine Prophecy.An omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent and just God would know what it would take to convince me even if I do not.

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London

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I wasn't proposing that God walk the Earth again or do anything in specifically at all. I was asking, since God supposedly knows us and our hearts and minds individually and is supposedly omniscient and omnipotent, whether He could present Himself in such a way individually to people in order to convince them based upon His knowledge of us as individuals. Of course, He has every right not to do this, but if He is a loving God who doesn't want us to suffer eternal damnation (whatever it ends up being) then why does He not do everything in His power to convince us in whatever way we can be convinced. Surely, He can do more than give us a book and a couple of coincidences here and there. I got as much from The Celestine Prophecy.

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An omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent and just God would know what it would take to convince me even if I do not.

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If God said man was free, then true to his own word, he would set them free. This statement alone says that God respected the discretion of his human creations. If we ourselves had the power of choice in planning our own children's futures right down the how they behaved and turned out, VS., working with them and setting them free, which option do you think would prevail? We all know that the first of the two just isn't freedom don't we?Yes, God is all powerful and yes, he most likely has the power to peer into ones timeline. However, based on the information given to us, He choses not to. I have been making this statement all along in regards to free will. You can't have it both ways! either humans are free or they are not. And since God cannot lie, and He stated that they were free, then systematically, we can assume in confidence that they were.Absolute power, almighty, infinite, etc etc. none of these bind God to contradiction. Neither do they negate His capacity to set humans free.
I beleive that God has pushed His own divine influence to the boundaries of our very freedom in order to help us gain eternal life.

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He can do more than give us a book and a couple of coincidences here and there.

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The Book is not just a mere book. It is unique, unsurpassed/unmatched, it holds the secrets to our past and the future, it gives us insight to things we cannot see by means of prophesies and serves as our guide to eternal life.Beyond this, we have the power to connect with God. Though we don't see people walking on water, we still hear of numerous examples of divine intervention(just ask).(excluding the crocks)When I began my own journey, I decided to approach matters with intellectual honesty rather than the classic down in the dumps run for cover that we so often hear and see. I challenged God(silently) and decided that if He Truly existed and his word was as it were, then I would have no problems uncovering the truth. So I took into the bible and found this scripture "Most truly I say to YOU, If YOU ask the Father for anything he will give it to YOU in my name." Since this was from Jesus, I figured what better example would we have to summon God's power. And I decided that I would ask "for the good of good" that if He truly existed and truly cared, that He grant me the insight to understand and resolve His existence.I figured, what does a person have to loose? If things are as it was written, then we have nothing to loose! And that's how my journey began. Since that time(7 years), I have been researching the Genesis account according to the ancient scriptures(Hebraic, Greek) and as painfully slow as it has been. I have gained more insight within only a few pages than I could of ever done in a lifetime circling the issue the old fashion way.When I look back at my experience, it makes me laugh. How else could God of gotten his message through to me? The days of those who stare into the preachers eyes with glee are all but faded into the past. We are approaching the threshold of intellectual reason as a nation and the old ways of teaching no longer work. So look, God is understanding, and compassionate. He does grant us divine help for the greater good.So my advice to anyone struggling with such issues would be, put God to the test. Take him on his word and follow the instructions provided. There is no sense even saying, it may or may not work!It's all about choices.

That would be some kind of a sign and if God convinced them they would no longer have free will. God said the only sign we would have would be the three days and nights Jesus body was in the grave.If He was still in the grave we would have no sign.But you ask why would God not convince men.When Jesus was getting ready to go back to where the Father was He gave His Church a job to do. The Church was given the task of teaching all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things He had commanded.The truth is the Church has failed in its job.It has not led by example, they have baptized a lot of people, then failed to teach them the all things.The reason for that is Satan tried to destroy the early Church and found out that did not work. They only grew stronger.Satan got wise and decided to polute the Church which he did.Now you have over 1200 different types of churches in the US alone teaching 1200 different so called gospel truths.Problem is there is only one set of doctrines and beliefs that are correct.Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me." John 14:6Jaderis, you wrote in msg 134:

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To tie this into the topic (adding omniscience into the mix) does God think so little of His creation and the intelligence He bestowed upon us that he would require us to beg for His forgiveness instead of just looking into our hearts and seeing that we are sorry for the wrongs we have done in our lives and have taken steps, leaps even, to improve ourselves and be "good" people.

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Being good can not restore you or anyone into the fellowship of God as the first man had in the garden before he ate the fruit.The only thing that can do that is a person realizing their condition, separated from God by the first man's sin.Then believing that God is and that God will keep His Word.God says He will save all who believe on the Son for salvation.Jaderis, if you want to know the truth you can. But you got to search for it, and you will not find it searching with a closed mind. The best place to find it is in a true New Testament Church but they are about as hard to find as the truth you seek.The next best place is the Bible. Ask for understanding before you read, then keep reading. Then ask for understanding and read, then ask for understanding and read.

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

ICANT Exactly why would we no longer have free will if God were to convince us of his existence?

If He tells you He exists, you have a choice.If He convinces you then you have no choice.The heavens declare the Glory of God. You have a choice.His Word declares He exists. You have a choice.Millions of people believe He exists. You have a choiceYou can choose to believe God exists or does not exist. It is up to you and that is the way God wants it.That is what freewill is.

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Everything you said is completely nonsensical. You have some impaired logic and word definitions.If some agent provides evidence for some concept you have a *choice* to be convinced or not. I suspect what you are trying to convey is that since the heavens are majestic that should be convincing enough that the Christian God is real and true so you can choose to believe in this God or not.In truth there is nothing in the majesties of the universe that points to the Christian God or the validity of the bible. Nothing. In fact in the Genesis there is a parenthetical phrase "he made the stars also" which has to be one of the greatest understatements of all time. Millions of people believe in other Gods too... So. Millions of people for thousands of years believed that the earth was the center of universe also.... again so. You make it sound like God wants a army of gullible people who fail to use the rational gifts he provided.Further you speak from an arrogant position by making stupid statements such as "that is the way God wants it" You have no clue how God wants it or not.

ICANT So why does he not say something? The entity you refer to as God is singularly silent on the matter. So Adam and Eve had no free will then? The heavens declare the glory of themselves. They suffice to present us with deep respect for the nature of their existence, but not for anthropomorphic considerations. By God's word I presume you speak of the Christian bible. However, the matter is directly refuted when we understand that the books of the bible are the creation of human imagination and reflection and in no way a direct writing from the God they refer to within their verses. Millions voted Bush into office twice so the arguement from the madness of crowds is hardly a worthy one. And the belief of millions does not make it correct now does it? But the ability to choose whether he exists or not only declares the ability of humans to make a choice and in no way means that belief is the same as fact.
God is incapable of clear communication it would seem since there are many versions of what constitutes God in our world my friend.Perhaps he should hire a good image consultant?

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"The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss."Thomas Carlyle

I assume you mean, nonsensical=Foolish; absurd:Hi iceage, glad you understood everything I said. Why? So they exercised their choice. Just as you have exercised your choice. So you are saying only ignorant, and unlearned people who don't have all their marbles could possibly believe in God. But the love letter God sent to me tells me how He wants things done. So what makes you think I can't know what God wants?

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Why would they not have freewill. Are you saying because they walked and talked with God they had no freewill?God gave the first man a direct command.The man exercised his freewill by eating the fruit. It is not that God is incapable of clear communication.That comes about because of Satan and his plan to lift his throne and angels above God's. Satan is very powerful and has many followers, many who claim to be christian. Satan has polluted the church and the message of God. Many people would rather believe the lie's of Satan, rather than the truth. Satan's lie's lifts man up to equality of God as they did in the garden. Man wants to think he is very smart. So smart in fact that he does not need God.sidelined, you know about God and because of the things you have read, heard, seen, and the way you were educated you have come to the conclusion that God does not exist. That is you exercising your freewill to believe whatever you want to.Because of what I have read, heard, seen and the way I was educated I have come to the conclusion that God does exist. So I exercised my freewill to believe what I wanted to.One of us came to the wrong conclusion.If you are right, then there is no problem for you or me.If you are wrong the results are unthinkable for you but not for me.But then it is your choice and you are free to choose what you want to believe, right or wrong. That is what freewill is.

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

You are side stepping the consequence of your own stated logic. You said... Adam and Eve must have been allegedly quite convinced of God existence, walking and talking with God, and yet they had free-will.This is stark contradiction to your statement that ones level of convincement is inversely proportional to choice. Those who do not understand the fallacy of Pascal's wager are doomed to confuse and fool themselves.Pascal's wager - WikipediaICANT your religion is very self-centric and self-adsorbed endeavor with your complete focus on redemption theology and the potential of saving your own stinking ego. This hedging your bets, so to speak, is really a cowardly, dishonest and lazy approach to God. Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

Because Genesis speaks of earth as the centerpiece of creation and the stars are an afterthought. We now know that the earth is not the centerpiece and in relation to the rest of the universe the earth is but a speck of dust. This passage demonstrates complete ignorance of scale and nature of reality and the earth position with creation. No I said gullible. Gullibility is not necessarily correlated with education or intelligence.

ICANT You had stated Since it seems to me that Adam and Eve {correct me if I am wrong} were convinced of God's existence then according to your statement they had no choice,no freewill. We have not even established the validity of the existence of God and you now bring in the excuse of Satan in order to explain the inability of God to communicate himself to others? How is it that a God of omnipotent ability is incapable of reaching humans whom he created {and for that matter Satan whom he must have also created}
yet Satan is not?
By the way for my personal observation Satan is an excuse for people to avoid their own responsibility for their actions.Indeed, I often think the same thing applies to God. I have not come to the conclusion that God does not exist. I have not in 50 years of life found any convincing evidence whatsoever. I am an atheist because this is the stance by which the observations of the world around me best fit and which best explains the contradictions of life.
If tomorrow God could convince me otherwise, then fine, I would be convinced, however the actions of humans hardly qualifies since we humans are too full of ourselves. Since the social animals we are are quite capable of deceit and subterfuge then we can hardly be the evidence for such a significant phenomena that I would presume a God to be.As for freewill brain studies have found the notion to be wanting since it seems that unconscious process occur before we become conscious of the wish to act. See the wikipedia article here Benjamin Libet - Wikipedia for a better understanding of the experiments performed.

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"The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss."Thomas Carlyle

iceage, I am having a hard time finding where Genesis speaks of earth as the centerpiece of creation.The word center or centerpiece is not in the Bible.Neither do I see the stars as an afterthought as they were created in Genesis 1:1. Now you are saying a well educated intelligent person can be easily decieved.

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."