Is it 'boring' being God?

He gave up His only begotten son. Otherwise, the story makes no sense. Ransomed.

You've lost me RR. Too cryptic for me.

There is nothing cryptic about what I said. God the father sacrificed his only begotten son. I'm sure you've heard of that before. At that moment, he was separated from the father.

What does that have to do with God's giving up his omniscience?

God became human. That is the Christian message. When one becomes human, you give up some stuff, such as omniscience.

OK, that's clearer. But as I understand the creeds and confessions, God didn't give anything up of His own attributes. A man by the nature of being a man is not omniscient, but Jesus was both God AND man, had BOTH natures. I've read different things about His God nature during his life on earth, and don't know exactly how it was expressed if at all, if His knowing what was in people's hearts for instance, is a power of God or simply a power of a perfect sinless man who has the Holy Spirit. This isn't easy stuff, but I do know that He was fully God, not lacking anything of God's attributes, as well as fully man, although I can't say I understand it.

Faith, in order to sacrifice one has to give up something. This is some serious stuff, and I am not perhaps prepared to discuss it at this moment, but the power of the Christ-story comes from the sacrifice: the nails through the hands.

God gave up His Son. He did not give up His omniscience.

so eather, god came to earth and has omniscience- in that case jesus wasn't a man, or jesus wasn't god in earthly form, but a man, you can't have it both ways faith

Robin,Crucifixion would have have been nails through the wrists. It was a cruel suffering.Orthodox Christian believe that Jesus and God are the same. The Father and Son are sort of like multiple personalities in the same body. So it's hard to understand what was given up. And they were reunited in a matter of days. Pick a war, any war. Parents see there child go off to fight for longer periods than that and they may suffer and die deaths as bad or worse than cruxifiction. Think what the Nazi's put Jews through in the holocaust, or well, there is all kinds of suffering.The story does impress people. My response is to get pissed off by the obvious guilt tripping. It's God suffering and for a short time and then back to heaven. Why am I too feel guilty? Humans suffer far worse than that for far longer. Does God feel guilty about that?If Jesus was a human the suffering is poignant. But how much better off the west would have been had God decided to teach for decades and really give people a chance to understand the teachings. Instead there is this brief contradictory sketchy set of teachings that has led to lots of conflicts down to the present day.God is supposed to have all eternity, so giving up a few days, even a few years how meaningful is that?lfen

Or are you pretending that you cannot limit what God can and cannot do?But, that's the beauty of creating a fitcional chratacter, you can give it whatever attributes you want. People did it thousands of years ago, and many do it today.Brian.

Albeit a man who could, turn water into wine, walk on water, bring people back to life, cure the blind, cure the lame, cure lepers, exorcise demons, resist the opposite sex (or even the same sex), etc.Jesus lived as a man who knew he was going to die and then rise three days later.Hardly a big deal was it?Brian.

Hi Robin,I am having real problems following your argument here, and you are normally very easy to read. Maybe too cryptic for me as well.But, But, the Father didn't become human, nor did the Holy Ghost, so I really do not get your point here. It is part of it yes. A lot taken for granted there mate. Do you know anyone who has 'become human'? Did they tell you that they gave up their omniscience?Did Jesus give up His ability to read as well?Brian.

How sure are you that omniscience is an essential characteristic of God? There are passages which suggest that God knows all, and there are passages which suggest he doesn't. It's a contradiction, and I feel that your belief is like the opinion that "animals came before man, not the way around"; that is, it's a ruling on a Biblical contradiction without any produced justification.But the question of whether God is omniscient or not is unimportant here. The greater question is whether omniscience necessarily includes knowledge of the future. clpMINI suggests that it doesn't, and I'm inclined to agree, assuming that God is omniscient, omnipotent, the creator, and that we have free will.For if God is an omnipotent creator who "knows which way you are going to choose long before you do", then we do not truly have free will. That is the crux: do we have free will? If we do, then talk of "knowledge of the future" is just as meaningless as talk of "existing outside of existence".This message has been edited by Funkaloyd, Sun, 15-Jan-2006 02:20 AM

On but we do have it both ways. Jesus is completely God AND completely man. "All the fullness of the Godhead bodily."