How does God know He is God?
Asked by
kess (
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March 17th, 2010
How does God know He is God?
How does God know He knows all things?
How Do you Know that God knows all things?
How Did Jesus the Christ know He is God?
I do know God is not a good word for God, but I believe you do understand my limitations.
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59 Answers
His therapist tells him his delusions of grandeur are treatable with medication.
How do we know God knows he is God?
From what I’ve been told, God is omniscient. All knowing.
So ultimately that question doesn’t really have meaning. If he didn’t know he was God, he wouldn’t be omniscient, which means he isn’t God.. or our definition of God is wrong.
You capitalize the weirdest things.
The same way Superman knows he is Superman.
By using the Almighty Magic 8 Ball.
He managed to overthrow Cronus, what more proof do we need?
1. He knows he is God because when he woke up 6000 years ago there was no one else around, so he figured, “hey I must have created myself! I rock!!”
2. He knows he knows all things because he’s never found anyone that can beat him on Jeopardy.
3. I know god knows all things because the Bible tells me so.
4. Jesus the Christ knew he was the god because the thought of having all those mystical powers and not being god would have meant he was a heretic…or a sinner…or was it a vampire? Something bad anyway.
You know what I’m thinkin’, what if God was one of us.
Just a slob like one of us.
Just a stranger on a bus.
Trying to make his way home..
How does the Easter Bunny know he is The Easter Bunny?
I feel God is me because of this sizzling spiritual thing leading me on, instead of crawlin in a hole and givin up. It’s something you cant see, feel but it is a bond in faith knowing there is something better.
How does God know He is God?
Well, He is self-aware. Like you are.
How does God know He knows all things?
Perspective. Cosmology bases God outside of the Universe; that puts all that there is to know in a single ‘location.’ Should God ever doubt His omniscience, He could simply check His knowledge against that.
Robert Schroeck put it thusly: “Omniscience in a three-space is a party trick, if you live in more than four dimensions”.
How Do you Know that God knows all things?
See above.
How Did Jesus the Christ know He is God?
See the bit about self-awareness.
I do know God is not a good word for God, but I believe you do understand my limitations.
Many will say that ‘God’ is as much a title as anything else.
He knows all these things because his loyal worships gather every Sunday to proclaim his attributes and collect money to promote his on television and overseas where the starving must believe if they want medicine and food.
In the hypothetical universe that this God (or any gods for that matter) exists, would he/she/it/shmer really question whether he/she/it/shmer is God? Wouldn’t he/she/it/shmer simply… be? My point is this: you’re missing the bigger picture. These little details don’t matter. Your religion wasn’t founded on whether God knew he is a god or not. Your religion was founded on the radical notion of showing compassion towards others regardless of who they are.
@bobloblaw Which religion is based on “showing compassion towards others regardless of who they are”?
@FireMadeFlesh I assumed Christianity is all about that, what with the Jesus guy and all. I’ve always heard the argument that the New Testament overruled all the fire and brimstone Old Testament stuff (like some kind of new court precedent) so I ran with that.
If you want to leave western religions, I’d say Buddhism, minus certain baggage, teaches that sort of thing. Of course, I’m not saying that we can’t have compassionate beliefs w/out religion. I just wanted to say “stop focusing on the trees and consider the forest.”
@FutureMemory Oops, misquoted Futurama. That should be “schler.”
God’s omniscience is one of the great contradictions of the Bible. If good knows all things, he already knows which of us is going to heaven and hell. He set it up that way. And yet he punishes come of us by tossing us into a lake of eternal burning sulfur because we did exactly what he programmed us to do. We cannot possibly have free will if GOd is omniscient. So how can we then be held accountable as if we did have free will?
Wait a minute, wait a minute, @ETpro. Knowing and causing are two different things, aren’t they?
Anyway, maybe he only knows what is and not what is not. Maybe he knows all possibilities, but they aren’t real until I choose one.
On the other hand, the existentialists said that if you just take a notion of God out of the picture entirely, everything else makes a whole lot more sense. I tend to go along with that.
He knows he’s god because he does a lot more smiting than most people do.
@bobloblaw Seems you’re an optimist, drawing out the positives like that. The New Testament is scary enough in itself without looking to the Old Testament though.
@FireMadeFlesh Every religion’s got their “Ultimate Doom XXX 3000” scenarios, but those scenarios aren’t really what those religions are about, are they? Of course there are bad parts to any religion, but do those bad parts invalidate everything that religion has to offer? I acknowledge the bad parts exist, but refuse to believe that religions have absolutely nothing positive to offer. That is why I said to focus upon the actual positive teachings of the Jesus guy and not on piddily details.
@bobloblaw What I object to is the notion that humans need saving, or that we are inadequate by ourselves. Sure, humans aren’t perfect, but perfect is a matter of perspective and no being however powerful has the right to inflict punishment on people for a difference in point of view.
I agree that Jesus was largely a good bloke, but the constant assertion that he was here to save us from sin is ridiculous when you consider that sin really means “different to the ideals of God.”
@Jeruba The bible is quite specific that God knows the future. It is specific in that he created the universe. Ergo, he set in motion a system that will produce outcomes he already knows, not a probabilistic machine with many possibilities where he discovers which will come to pass after it has happened.
“Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord” (Ps. 139:4). “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).
There is a very good example of this in the New Testament. Was not the Lord most surely aware of every circumstance in the life of the apostle Paul when he sent an angel to tell his apostle that not one person’s life on board the ship would be lost? (Acts 27:21–25). How could God have his messenger say such a thing if he did not know all that would take place?
The Bible does not mention the word Omniscience. But reading it cover to cover, it clearly speaks of a diety that know all that was, and is, and is to come. There is actually quite a debate going on among Christian theologians right now because traditionally all have taught God’s omniscience, but recently some of the thinkers among them have realized the conundrum this poses for holding man responsible for actions that are predestined.
@FireMadeFlesh That’s an interesting take on it and, I suppose, the mainstream take on it. From an outsider’s perspective, that is to say: from my perspective, I always thought of the Jesus figure as an ideal. Something to be lived up to, but acknowledged as impossible to attain. The ideal is there to provide guidelines on how to live and treat each other. In that sense, he metaphorically “saves” us from ourselves. Of course, that’s just based on my understanding/reading of scripture from a former-Buddhist’s perspective.
Also, I find it interesting that you take issue with your creator’s, so to speak, right to control you. If there really is an all-powerful creator, does it matter whether you think he has a right to do so or not? Also, do you read comic books? If you do, I can recommend a pretty good comic book on point w/that topic.
I know I am because I belive I am
@bob_, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
I just shot Yoohoo out of my nose laughing!
@FireMadeFlesh I feel that you have the wrong angle on salvation.
What I object to is the notion that humans need saving
Here’s the deal: the world is going to get scrapped once it is deemed too unrighteous to carry on. Do you want your everlasting soul to go with it? If not, then you need salvation.
…we are inadequate by ourselves.
God does not like unrighteousness, hence the above scrapping.
Sure, humans aren’t perfect,
This flies in the face of what you just said.
but perfect is a matter of perspective
No, perfect is perfect. Better is a matter of perspective, but perfect is an absolute.
No being however powerful has the right to inflict punishment on people for a difference in point of view.
Not even if they’re His rebelling creations?
Eternal damnation is a passive process. It’s a matter of not letting you in to Heaven (where you likely wouldn’t want to be anyway) more than it is throwing you to the piranhas.
@ETpro, recently? Really? Freewill vs. determinism was an old debate when I was a child in the middle of the last century. My father taught theology as well as philosophy, and this is the sort of thing we talked about at the dinnertable. If you go along with determinism, how can you avoid the conclusion that God picked people out to suffer, have tragic accidents, lose their children, commit crimes, etc.? But freewill poses the problem you mentioned. I’m with the atheist existentialists on this one.
I really couldn’t say. I’ve just always known.
Also, when he gets laid, chicks ALWAYS go “oh God, oh God!”
@bobloblaw “If there really is an all-powerful creator, does it matter whether you think he has a right to do so or not?”
Yes, it does matter. Morality is not such because it is dictated by the most powerful person, it is the best way to act based on logic and the optimal outcome for all parties involved. Maybe he would destroy me without a second thought to my opinions, but I will not follow just because he has different values to my own.
@Nullo “The world is going to get scrapped once it is deemed too unrighteous to carry on.”
That in itself is an immoral act. Unrighteousness should not be regarded as a static concept, because it relies on point of view.
“This flies in the face of what you just said.”
Not at all. We aren’t perfect, but we don’t need another being to save us. We are far more moral than ever before, no thanks to religion, and we can continue the upward trend by ourselves.
“Eternal damnation is a passive process.”
So the fire is just going to spring up of its own accord, be self sustaining, and we’re going to be able to withstand fire automatically just because we have lost the ability to die?
@FireMadeFlesh
That in itself is an immoral act. Unrighteousness should not be regarded as a static concept, because it relies on point of view.
Certainly, it is possible to be closer or farther from the target, but you’re missing it all the same. Righteousness, on the other hand, is an absolute; anything less is unrighteousness. Straight paths, narrow gates, and all that.
We aren’t perfect, but we don’t need another being to save us
You think that you can save yourself from the hellfire? You’ve sinned at least once before in your life, so it’s not going to be your squeaky-clean record that’s going to save you.
We are far more moral than ever before Elaborate, plz.
and we can continue the upward trend by ourselves
Slip up one time, and it’s curtains. That means that even if you’re right, that we are steadily improving, even if original sin weren’t an issue, only the most minuscule fraction of those that try can ever be ‘good enough’
Or are you not aiming heavenwards?
So the fire is just going to spring up of its own accord, be self sustaining, and we’re going to be able to withstand fire automatically just because we have lost the ability to die?
It’s more like a door. God and Heaven on one side, Hell and the rest of the unrepentant on the other. Many argue that Hell is miserable because God isn’t there at all.
There’s a parable that illustrates this nicely in Matthew.
If you read through the Bible he is told who he is by many other people, many times. His name is spoken 7000 times in the original Bible.
@Nullo “Righteousness, on the other hand, is an absolute; anything less is unrighteousness.”
Righteousness is a concept defined by the opinions of God, but there is no reason to obey God any more than there is to obey anyone else.
“You think that you can save yourself from the hellfire?”
Not at all, I think that hellfire is an extortion tactic of the religious, a relic from the days when the Catholic Church sold indulgences for exorbitant prices to become even less like Jesus. I’m not worried by such a myth in the slightest.
“Elaborate.”
A significant proportion of the world now attempts to avoid warfare, rather than the ancient practice of going to war every spring. A significant proportion is also opposed to child sacrifice, slavery, rape (which used to be a rightful spoil of war), and many of us are also opposed to capital punishment. All these practices have faded or are fading into a bad memory of our barbaric past.
“Slip up one time, and it’s curtains.”
You’re still assuming there is an absolute code that defines slipping up, and some being to administer punishment. I don’t see why God would have to cause any punishment at all. He could leave us here living a happy, fulfilling life, and take all the Christians (or Jews, or Muslims) to heaven. That way we might both win.
@FireMadeFlesh
I don’t see why God would have to cause any punishment at all. He could leave us here living a happy, fulfilling life, and take all the Christians (or Jews, or Muslims) to heaven. That way we might both win.
That would just make too much sense, but you know how it works: can’t get recruits unless you draw a difference between us and them!
God can not be omniscient. Here is why.
Let us suppose God is omniscient. And let us also assume that, following this, that he knows that he is omniscient.
But here is the thing. Does he really know, that he is omniscient, or does he just believe that he is omniscient?
The fact is, that there is the possibility that his belief of being omniscient may be not true at all. The possibility that his own conviction of omniscience is a mere delusion. This possibility exists always, lingering above his head in every case.
Because God can not be sure of his own omniscience, he can not be omniscient and thus it is certain that he is not omniscient.
His mom sewed His name in His underpants when He went to camp.
We don’t know because we are not God.
Because during sex or after sex or before sex, the words OMG will come out of almost every human being.
Because when we get that dream job or win a prize or escape some possible tragedy, we say , O’ thank you Jesus.
When I was younger my mom always seemed to know everything I was up too. She use to say a little birdie told her. I think that is also how he gets his info. There certainly are a lot of birdies!
He has got to know everything because I never seem to get away with crap.
Being God. I get that question all the time.
My favorite answers… Because, talk to the hand and get use to it.
Everyone keeps referring to him as “the guy upstairs”, even though his place is actually a one-story mansion.
@mattbrowne Shouldn’t that be – “We don’t know because we”.. are.. “God”?
Well, some people believe we are. I don’t. But it’s just a belief.
He snickers every time he listens to that “what if God was one of us… just a stranger on the bus” while driving around in his Lamborghini.
@Jeruba I am sorry to take so long replying. I did not catch your reply for some reason until just now. In terms of a church now nearing 2,000 year old, I consider the debate between freewill and determinism quite recent. And how can a determinist not condemn God for human tragedy or more importantly, for creating certain people for eternal hellfire? Simple. Don’t believe in God.
Ah, @ETpro, you meant relatively recent. Ok.
As for fulfillment of prophecies, that’s easy enough: write the prophecies down after the fact.
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