According to scripture God is not omniscient (all knowing). For those who know Him God promises to "never again remember their sins and lawless deeds" (Hebrews 10:17). Thus He doesn't "know" those things anymore.
Jeremiah 32:35 talks about people doing something evil that God says "It never entered My mind that they would do this abomination." This clearly says that what they did never entered into God's mind. I suggest to you that other evil is like this as well. God is not sitting back for thousands of years knowing something horrible will happen to us while doing nothing about it. God does not have knowledge of future evil within Himself. "There is no evil or sin in God" (Psalm 92:15, 1 John 3:5).
See this post for more: God is Not All Knowing & God is Not in Control
God is not omnipotent.
Is God omnipotent (all powerful/disallows freewill)? Jesus said, "O Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but YOU were not WILLing" (Matthew 23:37). Jesus wanted something multiple times but the people's lack of WILLingness prevented Him from doing it. Why? Because God is love. The scripture itself says in 1 Corinthians 13:5 "love does not demand its own way." In other words "love allows free will."
See this post for more: God's License to Sin?
God is not omnipresent.
Is God omnipresent (everywhere)? Almost. In God we live & move & have our being (Acts 17:28). God's spirit has been poured out ON all people (Acts 2:17) but He is not IN all people. So God is everywhere except inside of those who have not been reborn by trusting in Him. Being good, God does not enter a person without their permission.
See this post for more: "You are in Me and I am in you." -Jesus
The 3 oms depersonalize God & didn't seem to be something Jesus was concerned with convincing people of. For some reason people think the 3 oms glorify God more than if He weren't those things. But these concepts taught in Sunday school aren't even true according to scripture. These ideas are foremost in the minds of many philosophers & theologians. Sadly these 3 concepts replace in many's minds what Jesus actually came to reveal about God. Jesus said, "I made The Father's name (character) known and continue to make it known so that the love with which the Father has loved Me might be in people, and I be in people" (see John 17:26).
So to me these are 3 integral questions about God:
Is God a good Father as Jesus described?
Is Jesus the exact representation of the Father as scripture says He is?
God is love, but is God love as scripture describes love (1 Corinthians 13)?
I agree that God (if there is one) is neither omnipotent nor omniscient nor even good in any sense meaningful to his creation. Omnipresent - possibly, depending on how the term is interpreted.
ReplyDeleteI'm a non-scriptural monotheist. Have you considered that position?
I'd say I'm partially scriptural. I can find all my beliefs in scripture but I don't believe scripture is perfect.
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