Doesn't God get bored?

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Since God knows everything, there’s nothing that surprises him. When you take away the element of surprise from something, it becomes dull and boring.

For eg. watching a live football match is certainly more surprising and interesting than watching a match that you’ve already watched before.

So does God not get bored watching all the things when he already knows what is going to happen?
 
I would tend to think that “boredom” is probably a uniquely human quality and should not be ascribed to God. I don’t think He gets “bored” with us! Heck, if you could sit back and watch humans, aren’t they pretty darn interesting in all that they do?? 🙂
 
Since God knows everything, there’s nothing that surprises him. When you take away the element of surprise from something, it becomes dull and boring…So does God not get bored watching all the things when he already knows what is going to happen?
Is it only surprise that prevents dullness and boredom? I have been on the same roller coasters many times, and I don’t get bored by them. They are still exhilarating.

If the activity is one that I enjoy, I am not bored by it.

And I am human. God is not human. It isn’t even proper to his nature to speak of “boredom,” any more than it is proper to my nature to speak of “omniscience.”

God is “other” – we can only go so far in understanding Him by analogy to us. That analogy is always going to break down.

Regards,
Joe
 
I can’t understand God as God, so I try to think about this at a human level. He isn’t bored for He has to deal with each one of our poor souls every single second. Nothing can make Him bored when He does it with a pure true love.
 
IHe isn’t bored for He has to deal with each one of our poor souls every single second.
Exactly, and we do have a free will to decide for the good and the evil, so things are very exiting idea. And: Don’t forget, that heaven with it’s legions of Angels h been ages before the world was. Adding the very new thing, that ever since first people died, there are many of us in heaven. According to “the case Lucifer”, they still have a free will. So - things ever will remain exiting.
Otherwise we might just as well ask: “won’t heaven be boring” 🤷
No no no to all such thoughts!
 
Since God knows everything, there’s nothing that surprises him. When you take away the element of surprise from something, it becomes dull and boring.

For eg. watching a live football match is certainly more surprising and interesting than watching a match that you’ve already watched before.

So does God not get bored watching all the things when he already knows what is going to happen?
**I don’t believe for one moment that we are the only focus God has with regard to His creation. When one fathoms the entire known universe, one has to be speechless as to both its mystery and grandeur. There’s a lot more going on there than just ‘us’. Although one could say that humankind is the emergence of the universe looking upon itself (in Chardin’s words) - which I believe is true in the greater picture of things - we don’t know enough of what is “out there” to even assume that God is bored. There seems to be much more going on!

On a personal note, I am not sure if even God knows what humankind will do, although like a good parent who can ‘read’ his or her child or children quite well, can pretty much know what they are going to do or how they will respond to parental guidance. But I think there are different levels of creation that we are not aware, and I doubt God is bored with any of it.**
 
**Certainly are things as well animals and any creation “different levels of creation” as >peary< mentioned, and especially we are different in every way.
We never find two persons in the world who feel precisely alike in he one and only real important uncertainty; our right relation to God and to our next.

As there are not two alike persons in this world, the Pope said: >There are as many ways to God, as there are people on earth.<

Of course many contradicted with the argument, that there is but one way, the way Jesus told us to take in Joh 14:6

True! But every person living on this world, takes this way in his own manner. Some even without knowing Jesus. Definitely, there always in history have been and there are people today, who are ever so good and loving their next, but never knew Jesus. Surely God won’t condemn them, for they never had been near the behaviour of those of us, who’s life consists of blasphemy of the kind that will never be forgiven; as Jesus pointed out in Mat 12:31 and in Mat 18:6

God knows how someone is assessed. We however are not slave of our assessement and do have the free will “not to”.
Lets finally mention, that people who are highly educated with noblesse of the heart, never can be bored – quite in contrast to people of little development, who very frequently are bored.
God the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth simply never could be bored – no way. The very idea is to be thrust aside and dismissed completely.**
 
From that sage G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy:

*"For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed and ecstasy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. *

*Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. **But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. *It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."
So no, I don’t think God gets bored. ;0)

God Bless,
RyanL
 
On a personal note, I am not sure if even God knows what humankind will do, although like a good parent who can ‘read’ his or her child or children quite well, can pretty much know what they are going to do or how they will respond to parental guidance. But I think there are different levels of creation that we are not aware, and I doubt God is bored with any of it.
No, God is definitely not bored.

But to suggest that God does not know what we will do is to suggest that God, like us, is bound by the time.

God is greater than time. God created time. God is outside of time, although he can enter it to walk with us. Outside of time, past present and future are meaningless. Outside of time, change does not happen.

God’s omniscience means that He has always known what we have done or will do.

However, God wanted us to freely choose to love Him. Therefore, He created a situation (time) wherein change could exist. God created time so that we could evaluate our options, consider the consequences, choose, and even retract that choice.

How it is that God’s omniscience and man’s free will are not in conflict with each other, how it is that God’s omniscience does not equal man’s predestination to heaven or hell, is one of the great mysteries of God. Theologians have struggled with it for centuries. The Catholic Church recognizes Free Will and denies predestination.
 
Since God knows everything, there’s nothing that surprises him. When you take away the element of surprise from something, it becomes dull and boring.

For eg. watching a live football match is certainly more surprising and interesting than watching a match that you’ve already watched before.

So does God not get bored watching all the things when he already knows what is going to happen?
God exists in a single instant called “Eternity.” He does not experience the passage of time, so he is not just sitting around waiting for things to happen. For Him, everything is suddenly happening all in the same instant. It is only we who experience them in consecutive order, one at a time.
 
No, God is definitely not bored.

But to suggest that God does not know what we will do is to suggest that God, like us, is bound by the time.

**To either presume or assume to know what God knows or does not know is rather the result of human arrogance (not you, but just in the general sense). God can be surprised at our decisions just as we are of His. It has nothing to do with the element of ‘time’. As I said beforehand, an observant parent can pretty well tell in what direction his or her child is going with regard to behavior et al, and can even accurately ‘predict’ it. It is just my own personal opinion, but I see God in the same way. **
 
**To either presume or assume to know what God knows or does not know is rather the result of human arrogance (not you, but just in the general sense). God can be surprised at our decisions just as we are of His. It has nothing to do with the element of ‘time’. As I said beforehand, an observant parent can pretty well tell in what direction his or her child is going with regard to behavior et al, and can even accurately ‘predict’ it. It is just my own personal opinion, but I see God in the same way. **
I’m not trying to suggest that we know or can imagine what God knows. I’m saying that God, being omniscient, knows everything and always has. That’s the definition of omniscience, which one of the basic qualities of God.

God is outside of time, and is not bound by it. Therefore, God is never surprised, nor is He ever bored. Surprise implies ignorance of the future. Boredom implies disinterest from the weariness of repetition; repetition is another thing that only occurs within time.

I used to think that God gave us a universe with a lifetime of choices, that He knew all the likelihoods of each choice and all the possible outcomes of all the possible choices, but left it up to us to surprise Him with the combination of choices we made.

I say “used to think that”. Afterwards I discovered that scripture and the church both insist that God knows everything absolutely, not just potentially everything. In the end I deferred to the authority of the church, re-thought my position, and realized that I was trying to limit God with my former position.
 
God is Infinite.

And it is really difficult [impossible, really] for us limited, finite creations to visualize what it’s like to be Infinite.

I was out in the yard the other day digging around in a flower bed and a little earthworm wiggled by.

Got to wondering … what does that little earthworm think of bipeds like us? Does that little earthworm even have a “clue”? How can an earthworm “conceptualize” of what a human’s life is like?

And the gap between us humans and God is infinitely greater than the gap between that little earthworm and me.
 
the gap between us humans and God is infinitely greater than the gap between that little earthworm and me.
How right you are! The gab between God and us is alike. Still: God loves us more, than we love God. Why? Well; because we over and over again give room to doubts.
 
So does God not get bored watching all the things when he already knows what is going to happen?

**Your words “what is going to happen” assumes that God lives in time, where He experiences some things as past, others as present, and anticipates others as future (“going to happen”), just like we do.

This is an error. God lives outside of time in Eternal Now.

WE experience reality as a series of events. God sees things all happening at once.

And as C. S. Lewis said on this very matter, seeing a man hit his hand with the hammer is not the same thing as making him do it.**
 
God is infinitely “un-bored” since everything and anything that could entertain us (within the will of God) is eternally present in God. God Bless…teachccd 🙂
 
From that sage G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy:

*"For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed and ecstasy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. *

Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. **But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. **It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."
So no, I don’t think God gets bored. ;0)

God Bless,
RyanL
Ryan, this was awesome. Good ol GK. Thanks for posting.
  • Westy
 
God is Infinite.

And it is really difficult [impossible, really] for us limited, finite creations to visualize what it’s like to be Infinite.

I was out in the yard the other day digging around in a flower bed and a little earthworm wiggled by.

Got to wondering … what does that little earthworm think of bipeds like us? Does that little earthworm even have a “clue”? How can an earthworm “conceptualize” of what a human’s life is like?

And the gap between us humans and God is infinitely greater than the gap between that little earthworm and me.
This is awesome too. Lots of great thoughts around here.
  • Westy
 
Since God knows everything, there’s nothing that surprises him. When you take away the element of surprise from something, it becomes dull and boring.

For eg. watching a live football match is certainly more surprising and interesting than watching a match that you’ve already watched before.

So does God not get bored watching all the things when he already knows what is going to happen?
I don’t think the get bored.
He knows all things in the same way a computer programmer can predict any outcome from a particular action. But the computer programmer does not know how people are going to ask so he can still be surprised when watching for example a game he programmed himself.

I think the same way, God knows how everythign works. He Word is Truth itself. But since he gave us free will, we as his childreen sharing in his own dignity of freedom, I think we can ‘surprise’ him in certain ways even though it can be hard for us to understand.

Well, the Lord Jesus showed us the face of the Father. Just try to see when Jesus seemed to be surprised at some people’s faith.

God being ‘I Am’ he is in the present not in the future. The future does not exist yet. May be he can be surprised, he just can’t be overcome by any thing being the all powerful, the absolute, but he can may be be surprised like a parent surprised by a smile of his baby.

God bless
 
I don’t think the get bored.
He knows all things in the same way a computer programmer can predict any outcome from a particular action. But the computer programmer does not know how people are going to ask so he can still be surprised when watching for example a game he programmed himself.

I think we can ‘surprise’ him in certain ways even though it can be hard for us to understand.

God being ‘I Am’ he is in the present not in the future.
Even I had this opinion before, but I was proved wrong in another thread.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=248515
 
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