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Is an Emotional God All-knowing?

J

Josef

Member
Hey All,
I love it when a simple question triggers deep thoughts. We say that God knows all. But the reaction of emotions come from exterior, sometimes unforseen, circumstances. Something happens, and it makes us sad, happy, hate, love, etc. as is the emotion appropriate to the situation.

Genesis 6:5-6 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Deuteronomy 16:22
Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the LORD thy God hateth.

1 John 4:8
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

It seems clear that God has emotions.
Repentance, grief, love, hate, that can all be caused by sources outside of God Himself; our sin nature. God's emotions are reactions to sinful human events.
So God's mood changes?

Malachi 3:6
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Emotions are inner reactions to outside actions or circumstances.

How is the fact that God reacts, not a contrdiction to the fact that God is all-knowing?

I can partially understand it. Death is inevitable for all life. We know this. But when it happens to someone close, a loved one, or good friend, we emote sadness. So knowing something generally does not prevent emotions from specific circumstances.

So, scientifically, knowing an outcome, does not necessarily preempt the emotion(s) caused by the knowledge.

But this doesn't seem to be a complete answer to the question.

Is God all-knowing, if He reacts to mankind's actions?

There is no specific preemptive statement
such as: "If society becomes depraved, I will destroy it." that I can see.

How can an all-knowing God show emotion?

Is this reaction a self contradiction to His omniscience?

I know that the Bible does not contradict itself. That is one of its greatest attributes.
So it's me.
I have to be a missing part of the answer.
What is it?
What am I missing?

Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
 
Its consistent with Omniscience and infinite intellectual capacity that God would know the feeling of emotions brought about by events, and be able to compartmentalize the emotions so He can experience them in truth.

Therefore, as its compartmentalized, when God says He was grieved He truly was---without implying actual mood change in God, or limited knowledge.
 
Josef said:
How is the fact that God reacts, not a contrdiction to the fact that God is all-knowing?


Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
Click to expand...
A parent doesn't lose emotion just because they know more. That is how it works, except on a grander scale.

I think if you are a parent, you can relate.
 
Josef said:
Hey All,
I love it when a simple question triggers deep thoughts. We say that God knows all. But the reaction of emotions come from exterior, sometimes unforseen, circumstances. Something happens, and it makes us sad, happy, hate, love, etc. as is the emotion appropriate to the situation.

Genesis 6:5-6 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Deuteronomy 16:22
Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the LORD thy God hateth.
Click to expand...

These are all anthropomorphisms applied to God. We can only understand Him from our own human frame of reference and so use anthropomorphisms to approximate what God "feels."

Josef said:
1 John 4:8
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
Click to expand...

Love is, at bottom, desire rather than emotion. And the agape type of love God extends to us is characterized by self-sacrificing action, not feeling.

Josef said:
It seems clear that God has emotions.
Repentance, grief, love, hate, that can all be caused by sources outside of God Himself; our sin nature. God's emotions are reactions to sinful human events.
So God's mood changes?

Malachi 3:6
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Click to expand...

In His essential nature, God does not change.

Josef said:
How is the fact that God reacts, not a contrdiction to the fact that God is all-knowing?
Click to expand...

Where is the contradiction in being all-knowing and reacting to what one knows?

Josef said:
But this doesn't seem to be a complete answer to the question.
Click to expand...

Why not?

Josef said:
Is God all-knowing, if He reacts to mankind's actions?
Click to expand...

Doesn't this depend upon the type of reaction? Being all-knowing, God wouldn't ever react with surprise, right? He wouldn't ever be disappointed, either. But responding to human wickedness with wrath seems quite in keeping with God's holy, just nature.

Josef said:
How can an all-knowing God show emotion?

Is this reaction a self contradiction to His omniscience?
Click to expand...

I don't yet see why you think there is a contradiction in any of this...
 
Ecclesiastes 7:29 kjv
29. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

Schemes is another word other than inventions.

God found out man could invent things outside of his design.

This is straining the redneck mind.
eddif
 
Josef said:
Hey All,
I love it when a simple question triggers deep thoughts. We say that God knows all. But the reaction of emotions come from exterior, sometimes unforseen, circumstances. Something happens, and it makes us sad, happy, hate, love, etc. as is the emotion appropriate to the situation.

Genesis 6:5-6 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Deuteronomy 16:22
Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the LORD thy God hateth.

1 John 4:8
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

It seems clear that God has emotions.
Repentance, grief, love, hate, that can all be caused by sources outside of God Himself; our sin nature. God's emotions are reactions to sinful human events.
So God's mood changes?

Malachi 3:6
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Emotions are inner reactions to outside actions or circumstances.

How is the fact that God reacts, not a contrdiction to the fact that God is all-knowing?

I can partially understand it. Death is inevitable for all life. We know this. But when it happens to someone close, a loved one, or good friend, we emote sadness. So knowing something generally does not prevent emotions from specific circumstances.

So, scientifically, knowing an outcome, does not necessarily preempt the emotion(s) caused by the knowledge.

But this doesn't seem to be a complete answer to the question.

Is God all-knowing, if He reacts to mankind's actions?

There is no specific preemptive statement
such as: "If society becomes depraved, I will destroy it." that I can see.

How can an all-knowing God show emotion?

Is this reaction a self contradiction to His omniscience?

I know that the Bible does not contradict itself. That is one of its greatest attributes.
So it's me.
I have to be a missing part of the answer.
What is it?
What am I missing?

Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
Click to expand...

Hi @joseef

What you're missing is the false equivalency that you have set as one of your parameters.

"How is the fact that God reacts, not a contrdiction to the fact that God is all-knowing?"

Tell me, how is it that God reacts a contradiction to the fact that God is all-knowing?

I remember when my son had his first child. We all knew it was coming. But we all rejoiced greatly when the child arrived. Why would that be if we knew the child was coming? I don't see the contradiction that you have set up as being true. God can know before the foundations of the world were established that His Son was going to suffer greatly at the hands of pretty worthless people who hated Him pretty much with their every breath. But on the day that it happened, I'm confident that God wept.

Knew all along that it was going to happen. Even told Adam and Eve that such a thing was going to come. Set up the entire practice of the Passover to His people that they would understand it when it did come. For, what to us was a few thousand years God knew that His Son was going to be mocked and spit on and whipped and jeered before a group fairly worthless creatures that He had made. Yet I'm sure that God felt emotion as it was happening to His servant, His Son.

Thank you Jesus. Praise the Father and praise the Son. Praise the Spirit. Three in one.

The fact that someone showing emotion because they know something is going to happen is a false equivalency that you have assumed in order to make your argument. That would be a fail.

God bless,
Ted
 
I posted somewhere on this forum about God's Impassibility.
Classic theism teaches that God is impassible — not subject to suffering, pain, or the ebb and flow of involuntary passions. In the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, God is "without body, parts, or passions, immutable."
You can read a short explanation if this here:
 
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