Is God a "robot"?

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Due to God’s foreknowledge and infallibility wouldn’t this mean that God does not have the power to make choices or change His mind? Wouldn’t He be just acting out what His knowledge dictates?

Since God is Perfect and cannot act contrary to His nature, perhaps this means that every situation only has one choice, and any of the other infinite possible choices would be an action that’s contrary to His nature?

So…God = Perfect Omnipotent Omniscient Robot?
 
It is true that God cannot make choices or change his mind. But a robot acts on someone else’s commands. God acts according to his own commands.

(there are instances in the OT where God appears to change his mind, such as Sodom and Gomorrah. He is not really changing his mind, but responding to prayer. He knew what would happen from the beginning of time.)
 
qctheology said:
Due to God’s foreknowledge and infallibility wouldn’t this mean that God does not have the power to make choices or change His mind? Wouldn’t He be just acting out what His knowledge dictates?

Since God is Perfect and cannot act contrary to His nature, perhaps this means that every situation only has one choice, and any of the other infinite possible choices would be an action that’s contrary to His nature?

So…God = Perfect Omnipotent Omniscient Robot?
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God acts not only by knowledge which is in His intellect but also by love which is in His will. God’s knowledge joined with His will is the cause of things.

Change implies imperfection. For example, we can grow in knowledge and goodness. God is immutable because He is perfect and absolutely simple and possesses knowledge and goodness in an infinite degree. God doesn’t need to make successive acts of His intellect and will to know and will things as we do. But, by one act of His intellect and from all eternity He knows all things and by one act of His will He wills all things.
 
qctheology said:
Due to God’s foreknowledge and infallibility wouldn’t this mean that God does not have the power to make choices or change His mind? Wouldn’t He be** just acting out what His knowledge dictates?**
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You assume knowledge and will are separate and constitute different persons?
 
God does not make choices, He is not ignorant, as we are having to think what choice to make. He is omniscient, all knowing He is Intelligence and Good, they are one in Him, God is His attributes. He is Omnipotent He wills and whatever He wills will be, no choices. He may seem to make choices, but not so. He is subsistent, self-sufficient.
 
No, because God had feelings.

When he was a Jesus he cried (John 11:35)
He got angry (Mark 11:15)
Feel Pain and Suffering, Mark 14:36

So if God was a robot it would be plausible that he would have no emotions.
 
qctheology said:
Due to God’s foreknowledge and infallibility wouldn’t this mean that God does not have the power to make choices or change His mind? Wouldn’t He be just acting out what His knowledge dictates?
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This presumes that God’s infallibility is a constraint, which would make God limited, rather than a character trait, describing how God acts.

I would suggest that God has the ability, the potential, to do wrong, but chooses not to do so. However, the tenses get a little fraught when dealing with someone who is omniscient, and who thus has a nonlinear comprehension of time.
 
I’m just waiting for someone to say “Why would God communicate in binary?”
 
Mystophilus said:
This presumes that God’s infallibility is a constraint, which would make God limited, rather than a character trait, describing how God acts.

I would suggest that God has the ability, the potential, to do wrong, but chooses not to do so. However, the tenses get a little fraught when dealing with someone who is omniscient, and who thus has a nonlinear comprehension of time.
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Potentiality is found in created being who do not possess the fullness of being. Potentiality
is the real capacity to become, eg. a child to become an adult, or not knowing something to knowing something it involves movement, either physical or spiritual. When the movement is complete we say that it is terminated in Act. One of the characteristics of human nature is Potency and Act, God is the one who provides the motion. God himself is Pure Act, there is not potential in God, He is all that He can be we are not. Time is regarded as change,in the physical world it is locomotion, like the hands of a clock that have physical motion. God can do no wrong.
 
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