Is it 'boring' being God?

I thought about this while composing a reply to Jar about God's omniscience and the Fall. Now, with God being omniscient, God would know beforehand that Adam and Eve would disobey His command not to eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, so their 'Fall' would not have been a surprise to God.Moving to the New Testament and Jesus' death and resurrection. Now, I have heard many Christians claim that Jesus didn't know that He would come back to life three days after He 'died'. If we ignore this argument for now and concentrate on what Christians believe is the ultimate exampe of love, namely, sending your only son to die so that others have a path to salvation. How can we really admire God for this when he MUST have known that Jesus' 'death' was only a temporary inconvenience?With these two examples in mind, how 'boring' an existence is it for God? He knows everything, can do anthing He wants, there are no surprises at all, and He knows that He is never going to die, it must be a nightmare.This condition that God finds Himself in, could it make him angry, or affect His 'mental' condition? If God resents his omniscience and omnipotence, could this explain why He appears to be a blood thirsty barbarian in the Old Testament? Think about some of the stories in the Old Testament where God either slaughters thousands himself, or commands others to do His dirty work for Him, do these actions appear to be the work of a rational 'mind'?Topic then, would it be a boring existence being a God, given that you know everything that is going to happen, and you are capable of doing anything that you want to.Brian.

God created the universe out of boredom and then created people with free will, thus giving up omniscience. Now he's entertained. Life is a game.

It may not have been a surprise, but he also knew that the ultimate achievement by it would be the demise of the rebel of the universe, Satan, the devil, the evil one who inspired the serpent to cause the fall of man. Don't forget that this true god, Jehovah is god of the universe, so immense that it's immensity cannot be comprehended by humans. This tiny speck, planet earth in a larger speck, the Milky Way galexy, one of countless billions of galexies is just one teeny bit of what God has to keep him occupied, busy and pleased. Add to that that he's likely been creating, changing and managing things in his universe forever.

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

Hum. This sort of reminds me a comic book graphic novel called The Watchman.One of the characters is someone who has great power, but all time happens at the same time for him. He experiances the past, presient and future all at the same time in his perception.He is trapped by his own perception. He can not do anything that he does not know he is going to do.What a curse that is.

I cannot imagine a worse punisment than such an existence. The most one could do would be to pity such a god.So where shall we go from here?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well Jar, if you get bored, you can enforce my contention that he's not bored, miserable and unoccupied. -----------------------------------------------------------------------AbE OOPS I didit again. changed from admin to buzsaw---------This message has been edited by buzsaw, 01-12-2006 11:35 PM

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

God did NOT know for sure IF Christ would go through with the crucifixion.If free-will exists how could He ?Free will: the ability to change one's mind at will.Christ was paying for all sins ever committed, fulfilling every O.T. type when an innocent animal was sacrificed for payment. We admire God because the atonement benefits us at the expense of an innocent Person.Jesus could have ordered angels to come and take Him off of the cross. His faith wavered for only a moment "My God My God why hast thou forsaken Me ?" Then it returned "It is finished." Genesis 22:12

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And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.... And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: FOR NOW I KNOW that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.Abraham had the knife in hand ready to slay Isaac. THEN God stopped him. This Genesis 22 drama was a type of what God would do to His Son thousands of years later on the same spot (Mt. Moriah).Read the caps = God did not know until that moment if Abraham feared Him, that is would go thru with the sacrifice. Genesis 22:7,8

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And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

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And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offeringUnlike Abraham, there was no one to stop God's hand at the crucifixion except Christ Himself. He doesn't know FOR SURE when a person has the freedom to do otherwise. He took Abraham to the brink.The point is God's omniscience is a function of His omnipotence. This means what He doesn't know His power can arrange circumstances to find out.What God doesn't know:If we will trust His Son while having the freedom to do otherwise. When we trust Jesus this is called the gospel - the good news that God will accept faith in place of Mosaic works.God can predict, and be ready in either case, but He does not know for sure because free will exists.RayThis message has been edited by Herepton, 01-12-2006 08:56 PM

How could God have inspired his prophets to have prophesied the crucifixion seven hundred to a thousand years before the fact if he did not know it for sure?This message has been edited by AdminJar, 01-13-2006 08:33 AM

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

I may not be an expert on this topic, but were the prophecies really crucifixion? My interpretation of the Bible pre-Christ was that he was going to "sacrifice" His son. Like I said, I am not exactly sure of the validity of this.
In any case, God can know what He Himself is going to do just as we can. God saying "I will send My Son to die for the sins of the world." is like a common person saying "I will go to the store later." (Obviously God's statement is far more powerful, but that is not the point of the argument) The prophecies of God sending His son to die only shows that God can plan.
As I mentioned previously, if dying on a cross was predicted I could cause slight complications, but I do emphasize slight.

How about frustrating? If you are omniscient you know what is going to happen, BUT you are also omnipotent so you can change it, BUT you already know you are going to change it (or not), so you change it but you already knew you were going to change it.So if you know what you are going to do are you ultimately powerless to change what will happen cause if you could change what would happen then you aren't omniscient unless of course you knew you were going to change it but then you aren't really omnipotent because you can't change what you already know to be what will happen anyway cause if you could then you wouldn't be omniscient.It's as likely to be frustrating or confusing as it is to be boring.I just don't know. Omnipotence and omniscience as commonly understood of course makes no sense to me. Can't help you, Brian, sorry.lfen

Ray,Oh, you aren't a trinitarian! I hadn't realized that. Haven't heard much lately from those who don't think Jesus was God. I'm a bit surprised you haven't kept one of those threads going.lfen

Ray,Omniscience is like pregnancy. Either you are omniscient or you arent'. There are degrees of knowledge, like knowing nothing, a little, a lot, almost everything, but if you don't know one little tiny thing then you don't know EVERY thing. You know almost everything but that is not knowing EVERYTHING.I think omnipotence is probably preferable to omniscience but most Christians on this forum, well, maybe just some would claim God is omniscients and that can only means knowing everything.lfen

Well, that story is one reason why the Cruxifiction story about Jesus does not go into tune with the Jewish faith.Most Jews take those passages as a promise by god never to require a human sacrifice again. They view the requirement of a human sacrifice
'To cover yourself in blood to wash away your sins' as direcly violating God's promises.

From message 1:

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Below are OT paralell to NT prophecies concerning the death of Jesus which match what happened at his crucifixion. Especially note the piercing of his hands and feet in Psalms 22:16.This could lead off topic but to briefly answer as per the relationship to this topic, here it is. This site is an excellent source for this information. Isaiah 53:1-12 is another important reference

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.