Questions on God's Omniscience

[PonderingJak]

If God knows everything, even the future, then He would know if certain people would go to Heaven or Hell. Would that mean that people can be destined to Hell? Another question involving God’s omniscience, if he knows the future, why would He be angry when things go wrong? Example: Why did He get angry at Adam and Eve for eating for the forbidden fruit if he knew they were going to do it anyway?

 

[meltzerboy]

If God knows everything, even the future, then He would know if certain people would go to Heaven or Hell. Would that mean that people can be destined to Hell? Another question involving God’s omniscience, if he knows the future, why would He be angry when things go wrong? Example: Why did He get angry at Adam and Eve for eating for the forbidden fruit if he knew they were going to do it anyway?

G-d’s KNOWING the future is not the same as His CAUSING the future. G-d gives humans the free will to make their own life choices. It is when we make the wrong choices that we may speak of G-d’s being angry, sad, or disappointed. Obviously, however, G-d’s mind and emotions are not exactly the same as ours, so we use the human language of emotions. It is also good to remember that even when G-d is “angry” at us, He is also forgiving and merciful toward us.

 

[Micosil]

I’ve personally thought of this question of myself, and the way that it makes sense to me to explain it is that of a college professor.

A college professor may know everything about his subject and assuming he doesn’t have too many students, will know in general how each student is doing, so he has a good idea as to who will pass and who will fail – that doesn’t mean he’ll be happy when the student he suspected would fail, fails. He generally wants them to succeed (unless we mean some strange, sadistic professor… ).

 

[truetofaith]

God knows Past, Present, & Future …but He doesn’t intervene because of His knowledge. How could He know the future if He is going to keep stepping in to change it?

He stepped in at Calvary!

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

God desires the salvation of every human being (1 Tim 2:4), thus it is impossible to speak of someone being “destined to Hell” in terms of some eternal divine decree according to which God created them with the purpose of sending them to hell. But God also wants us to freely accept the salvation he desires for us, so that desire for universal salvation - the purpose for which He did in fact create us - is subjected to the contingency of our free choice.

In terms of God’s anger, it is important to remember that many ways of speaking about God are only analogous. God is immutable - eternally unchanging - and so nothing we do can “affect” God or give rise to passing states like anger. We nonetheless use such language, on the model of the Scriptures themselves, because while adjectives like “angry” can’t describe God Himself with theological rigor they are helpful in describing His actions toward us in a manner accessible to human experience.

 

[Chatter163]

We often know that our own children will make certain mistakes, sometimes very serious ones. However, that does not mean that we stop loving them, or encouraging them to make the best choices possible. It also does not mean that their poor choices were not freely made, or are in some way our fault, as parents. How much more this must be true of our Heavenly Father, concerning our own sins.

 

[mh2007]

He knows, indeed, but created humans with a free will. Our condition is flawed and limited, but we can choose - and should choose - to get up and try again when we fail, seeking to do better. Human ego makes us want to be at the center of things, but in reality Almighty God is.