Can our all powerful and all knowing God ever want anything?

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As long as He loves and desires me. I’m not like unwanted or rejected by God, than He can will what He wills. He is very lovable. And I am very grateful to have Him.

I used to think that I was unwanted by God because of lineage reason. I did not come from Godly family… How painful it is to feel that way. I fear hell most of all.

He can will what He wills, but please… God , spare me from hell! My Jesus mercy!

If you think about it, only eternity matters. So we should strive for heaven above all.
 
porthos11 said:
“Will involves a want.” Says who? the only one making this assertion is you, and you have nothing to base this on. You’ve conjured this out of thin air, and we’re supposed to accept this as fact?
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Well, I do have a PhD in psychology with extensive study in human values. It’s inconceivable to me how anyone would argue that ‘will’ and ‘want’ were completely independent of one another.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Maybe I’m anthropomorphic, but one’s will must have a motivating factor attached to it, which I assume must be changeable.

Catholic scholars insists that our faith be based on faith and reason, and the reasoning from within me suggests that will involves a want that usually gets acted upon one way or another.
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Are talking of God, or humans?

God is ultimately simple, composed of no parts. He cannot have anything attached to His will.

It sounds like you are imposing human limitations on God.
 
davidv said:
Are talking of God, or humans?

God is ultimately simple, composed of no parts. He cannot have anything attached to His will.

It sounds like you are imposing human limitations on God.
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Yes, I see.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Well, I do have a PhD in psychology with extensive study in human values. It’s inconceivable to me how anyone would argue that ‘will’ and ‘want’ were completely independent of one another.
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It has been said before: God isn’t human. Your approach is flawed, Ph.D. notwithstanding, because you are trying to apply human psychology to God.

It may be inconceivable for human beings. It is not inconceivable for God.

Do not make the mistake of applying human psychology and limitations to God. God is sovereign. What part of that do you not understand?
 
porthos11 said:
It has been said before: God isn’t human. Your approach is flawed, Ph.D. notwithstanding, because you are trying to apply human psychology to God.

It may be inconceivable for human beings. It is not inconceivable for God.

Do not make the mistake of applying human psychology and limitations to God. God is sovereign. What part of that do you not understand?
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Yes, and I read that. All I wanted was to reason things out on something that I was wondering about. I’m still not sure that it makes sense to say an unchangeable being has a will but no want.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Yes, and I read that. All I wanted was to reason things out on something that I was wondering about. I’m still not sure that it makes sense to say an unchangeable being has a will but no want.
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I don’t believe it is reasonable to conclude that the unchangeable God has no want. God’s want is unchanging.
 
davidv said:
I don’t believe it is reasonable to conclude that the unchangeable God has no want. God’s want is unchanging.
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Nothing changes in a being who ‘wants’ when in a ‘satisfied’ vs ‘unsatisfied’ state? Don’t get me wrong: My LOVE for God remains unchangeable even when contemplating Him. I’m in awe either way.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Yes, and I read that. All I wanted was to reason things out on something that I was wondering about. I’m still not sure that it makes sense to say an unchangeable being has a will but no want.
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You are assuming that having a “want” implies that there is something lacking that can be fulfilled in the future. As I tried to say in my earlier post, his “want” to love and be loved is already fulfilled in himself within the Trinity. The only “want” he has for us is to participate in that.

God wants us to participate in his love. Not because he is lacking, but because he knows that is what we want, need, desire, in order for US to be fulfilled. If he didn’t want to share his love, then there is no purpose to any creation at all.

Example: I have unlimited food. I see a starving child. My desire is to feed that child, not because I am lacking, but because the child is lacking. I don’t lose anything by giving the child some of my own unlimited food. I also don’t gain any food because I already have an unlimited supply. It’s not a perfect analogy, but if you change this to be God and love instead of food, I think it may help to understand it.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Nothing changes in a being who ‘wants’ when in a ‘satisfied’ vs ‘unsatisfied’ state?
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Why does this statement apply to God? It seems to me it only applies to humans.
Don’t get me wrong: My LOVE for God remains unchangeable even when contemplating Him. I’m in awe either way.
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Since you are human, the no possible way your love is unchanging.
 
The world is better than nothing. Therefore
  1. Didn’t God have to choose it, since it is His nature to choose the best
  2. If not, than God’s choice was contingent. But then He has contingent knowledge, which is contrary to His simplicity.
So we are on the horns of a dilemna.

I think Cardinal Ratzinger and Peter Kreeft for example have said that God desires us with eros, and I know Kreeft said that God hurts when we hurt. This is contrary to Thomism, but who knows…
 
The original question assumes two powers that may not exist in the creator. However, I would suppose that the creator lacks for nothing.
 
Robert_Sock said:
It feels unchangeable, and that’s good enough for me.
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There might be a paradox. After all we don’t have a direct experience of God. Our rational theology is a negative theology, which means that we know what God is not, but not what He is. The paradox would be in your understanding of God, which is not impossible.

I guess what troubles you is the consideration of at least the three following statements:


  1. *]God is immutable
    *]God created the world
    *]The world is not eternal

    Is it?
 
JuanFlorencio said:
There might be a paradox. After all we don’t have a direct experience of God. Our rational theology is a negative theology, which means that we know what God is not, but not what He is. The paradox would be in your understanding of God, which is not impossible.

I guess what troubles you is the consideration of at least the three following statements:


  1. *]God is immutable
    *]God created the world
    *]The world is not eternal

    Is it?
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  1. Yeah, I think that captures it, but I’m also perplexed by God’s ‘desire’ or ‘want’ in anything, including His creation our world.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Yeah, I think that captures it, but I’m also perplexed by God’s ‘desire’ or ‘want’ in anything, including His creation our world.
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You probably have a detailed knowledge of human will and cannot avoid thinking of God in the same terms. If at the same time you apply to Him the notion of pure act, I can understand why you see a paradox.
 
Just my view, but all human religions ascribe far too many human attributes to the unknowable…
 
I think I know how to answer my dimemna from my previous post. God could have made the world better than it is. In fact, infinitely better, or much much worse. So faced with the reality of any creation being inferior to what it could be, God choose this world. For someone who believes this is the best possible world, he would have to say that God had to create because God always does what is best. But when you have an infinite sliding scale from nothing to infinitely better, maybe God didn’t have to create.

Does God’s contingent knowledge of the world and the Incarnation change His nature, since His nature is His knowledge (as many say)? Well Aquinas says that God has no relation to us, but we to Him. So it is all as if nothing to God, in a sense, because of His necessity. It is hard to see this when we think of the cruxifiction, but I don’t see any way out of it otherwise
 
thinkandmull said:
I think I know how to answer my dimemna from my previous post. God could have made the world better than it is. In fact, infinitely better, or much much worse. So faced with the reality of any creation being inferior to what it could be, God choose this world. For someone who believes this is the best possible world, he would have to say that God had to create because God always does what is best. But when you have an infinite sliding scale from nothing to infinitely better, maybe God didn’t have to create.

Does God’s contingent knowledge of the world and the Incarnation change His nature, since His nature is His knowledge (as many say)? Well Aquinas says that God has no relation to us, but we to Him. So it is all as if nothing to God, in a sense, because of His necessity. It is hard to see this when we think of the cruxifiction, but I don’t see any way out of it otherwise
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Could have, should have…didn’t. The world we see about us is the only reality we know.
Aquinas was a man of his time…
 
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