Does God Know From All Eternity Who Will Die Having Rejected Sound Doctrine?

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Oct 18, 2023
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the language says God's anger was "against" Moses - in the same way that it's written the ordinances "which were against us" were nailed to the cross.

just as the Law does not say "thou shalt not be Moses" but condemned sin in us, God's anger is "against" Moses because of sin in Moses, in the case of the passage you cited, his unbelief.

also written, God is angry with the wicked every day - why? because of wickedness. not because they are themselves.

humans have capacity to get angry at people and to despise them in a very general sense. but God's anger is not our anger. He hates sin, but so loved us - while we were sinners - that He laid down His life for us. the view you are giving here has no room for that.
Does God hate the wicked who are in hell?
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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you don't acknowledge that "forever, evermore, everlasting, perpetual.." are not descriptions of temporary states?

you understand "everlasting" to mean a finite time?

if there is no concept of infinity outside of Greece, why is it written "from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God"?
Oh. My apologies. My mistake. I substituted infinity for eternity in the text you cited. I should have said,

"
What is the Hebrew word translated here as "eternity", and what did it mean for the Jews before a platonist-influenced translator chose to represent it by "eternity"?
'aLaM - long duration, antiquity, futurity, for ever, ever, everlasting, evermore, perpetual, old, ancient, world. It contains the idea of a long time, not of a timeless state.

You had cited,
Ecclesiastes 3:11
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end."

Everlasting to everlasting means beginningless past and endless future. IT IS INFINITY. IT IS NOT ETERNITY.
 

stilllearning

Well-known member
Oct 4, 2021
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There is not a word for word correspodence between languages. A word in Hebrew has a semantic range, a spectrum of meanings, and English language translators choose a word from English that matches the meaning from the Hebrew spectrum that they believe best conveys the Hebrew thought into English. Sometimes more than one Hebrew meaning makes sense, but the translator chooses one, possible the wrong one.. The result is a sentence that makes sense in English but may miss the meaning intended by the Hebrew. writer.
I get that bro. What I am not following is every version of the bible for Psalms147:5 I look up has the Hebrew word micpar and has it mostly translated as infinite. The other versions translate it in a like manner with translations like, limitless, numberless, beyond measure, and such.

The literal translations I looked up translate it as, no narration. So it is as you have said not always easy to do a word for word literal translation. However, so in there lies my confusion and how I am not following because I have not found a translation that says it is the Hebrew word misphat, as you presented. With that word meaning judgement. So have found no translation that says Psalms 147:5 says, his understanding is judgement/misphat.

So not following because unable to find any translation or scholarly writing that has translated it misphat or judgement or justice or other associated words for such a interpretation.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
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Everlasting to everlasting means beginningless past and endless future. IT IS INFINITY. IT IS NOT ETERNITY.
maybe you should give us your personal definition of eternity lol
because "beginningless past and endless future" sure doesn't sound finitely temporal to me.
 

oyster67

Senior Member
May 24, 2014
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oyster67 said:
God knows all things from beginning to end. The Book of Revelation makes this very clear. God dwells outside time and is omniscient.

Please show clearly from Revelation.
Revelation 1:
1The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: 2Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. 3Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.


Revelation 1:8
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
 

Dino246

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2015
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Oh. My apologies. My mistake. I substituted infinity for eternity in the text you cited. I should have said,

"
What is the Hebrew word translated here as "eternity", and what did it mean for the Jews before a platonist-influenced translator chose to represent it by "eternity"?
'aLaM - long duration, antiquity, futurity, for ever, ever, everlasting, evermore, perpetual, old, ancient, world. It contains the idea of a long time, not of a timeless state.

You had cited,
Ecclesiastes 3:11
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end."

Everlasting to everlasting means beginningless past and endless future. IT IS INFINITY. IT IS NOT ETERNITY.
Um... "eternity" is usually understood to mean an infinite future or past, so it implies time. "Infinity" does not imply any particular unit (time, length, depth, etc.) but simply any number beyond what is countable.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,735
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Um... "eternity" is usually understood to mean an infinite future or past, so it implies time. "Infinity" does not imply any particular unit (time, length, depth, etc.) but simply any number beyond what is countable.
please excuse a small bit of nerding..

to a mathematician, "uncountable" means that some set can't be mapped in a one-to-one way onto the natural numbers N {1,2,3,4,....}

there are many ways to describe infinity, and many infinitives, but one infinity (arguably the smallest) is the cardinality of N - which is obviously 'countable' in the mathematical sense.

which means yes, any set with cardinality greater than N is infinite, but because N is too, it doesn't make a good definition.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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Um... "eternity" is usually understood to mean an infinite future or past, so it implies time. "Infinity" does not imply any particular unit (time, length, depth, etc.) but simply any number beyond what is countable.
No. Eternity has a latin root which means without time. Infinite also has a latin root, but means without a finish/end. An eternal God would exist without experiencing time in His usual dimension of existence. He would be timeless.
An infinite God has no limits to the capacity of His attributes and uncountable content with those attributes, but He does exist within time, He is from everlasting to everlasting. Despite an infinity being boundless and uncountable, it can be added to. We can add to the infinite set of even numbers. We can add 2.4,6 and 8, and the new extended set will also be infinite and still able to receive new content. God's knowledge of the past and present is infinite/uncountable, but can be added to as he observes new presents happening, God's intellect is infinite. It has no limit to the amount of knowledge it can contain. But it is being added to daily as the world and free will decisions of creature become known. The idea that God must know all things that will ever be and cannot change by adding knowledge is a philosophical conclusion of the Greek thinkers our culture has followed. But the reasoning by which they get to that conclusion is flawed and unbiblical.
I believe in the infinity of God's attributes, that they cannot be measured or their content counted, just as the set of odd numbers cannot be measured or counted . But I believe the notion of God's eternity is foreign to the Hebrew, Greek and Chaldee received biblical text ut was imported into the Bible by Platonism-infected church theologians, and is readily but incorrectly accepted from them by many of today's platonised christians who also read it into the scriptures.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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oyster67 said:
God knows all things from beginning to end. The Book of Revelation makes this very clear. God dwells outside time and is omniscient.


Revelation 1:
1The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: 2Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. 3Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.


Revelation 1:8
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
Things which must suddenly come to pass" does not mean "all things that will ever come to pass."
"This prophecy" does not mean that every detail of everything that ever happens has been prophesied."

This does not show what you claimed The Book of Revelation clearly shows.
 

Cameron143

Well-known member
Mar 1, 2022
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please excuse a small bit of nerding..

to a mathematician, "uncountable" means that some set can't be mapped in a one-to-one way onto the natural numbers N {1,2,3,4,....}

there are many ways to describe infinity, and many infinitives, but one infinity (arguably the smallest) is the cardinality of N - which is obviously 'countable' in the mathematical sense.

which means yes, any set with cardinality greater than N is infinite, but because N is too, it doesn't make a good definition.
N for nerd.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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maybe you should give us your personal definition of eternity lol
because "beginningless past and endless future" sure doesn't sound finitely temporal to me.
More straw men from you? Where did I use the term or say that God is "finitely temporal"? Eternity (aeternitas in latin) as used by theologians, means that which is outside of any framework that includes time, that which does not experience the passage of time.
 

Dino246

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2015
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This passage has always been used, inappropriately and out of context, to prove Calvinism. Let's take a look once again.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

What was chosen before the foundation of the world were the spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. In Christ is the key. The entire chapter are the things found in him, in Christ, in the beloved. The word, "according" takes us back to verse 3 to the context. However, it does not say that he chose us to be in him, as Calvinist somehow think it states.
As I said before, I'm surprised at you for adding to the text.

Let's look at the context more thoroughly... this is Ephesians 1, so we only have two verses of context:

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

2 Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

In verse 1, Paul addresses his letter to "the saints" and "the faithful in Christ Jesus"... people.

In verse 2, Paul simply conveys greetings, so this tells us nothing more about the context.

In verse 3, Paul blesses God and tells us that God has blessed us with heavenly spiritual blessings in Christ. This tells us something about God.

In verse 4, Paul starts a very long sentence (in Greek) that continues through much of the chapter. The context is after this verse, not before it! If you look at each verse in the KJV, you'll see how most are structured as clauses without periods at the end.

So, the words, "spiritual blessings in heavenly places" is not the context for "chosen us in him".
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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I am not sure I am following what you are saying here.

Psalms 147:5.....his understanding is infinite.
his understanding/tabuwn is infinite/micpar.

mishpat means judgement. So it reads like your saying Psalms 147:5 says, his understanding is judgement? So I am not sure I am following.
I never said MiShPaT means judgment in this text. I said it means uncountable.

"Ps. 147:5 says his understanding (TaBUN) is uncountable (MiShPaT), not that his knowledge (Da'aT) is infinite (MiShPaR)."after uncountable after uncountable.

Sorry, I typoed MiShPaT for MiShPaR after uncountable. It should have been (MiShPaR, which means uncountable/infinite and comes from SePher, to count). But I was actually intending to focus on the translation of TaBUN as knowledge, and pointing out that actually means understanding. It was a pedantic aside on my part, which I would have been better to ignore.

So, the text is saying God's understanding is uncountable/infinite; not God's knowledge is uncountable/infinite. My main focus for that post was actually on the second text cited, to clarify it's meaning and how as an open theist I understand that text as compatible with the open theistic view of God.
 

PaulThomson

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Oct 29, 2023
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I never said MiShPaT means judgment in this text. I said it means uncountable.

"Ps. 147:5 says his understanding (TaBUN) is uncountable (MiShPaT), not that his knowledge (Da'aT) is infinite (MiShPaR)."after uncountable after uncountable.

Sorry, I typoed MiShPaT for MiShPaR after uncountable. It should have been (MiShPaR, which means uncountable/infinite and comes from SePher, to count). But I was actually intending to focus on the translation of TaBUN as knowledge, and pointing out that actually means understanding. It was a pedantic aside on my part, which I would have been better to ignore.

So, the text is saying God's understanding is uncountable/infinite; not God's knowledge is uncountable/infinite. My main focus for that post was actually on the second text cited, to clarify it's meaning and how as an open theist I understand that text as compatible with the open theistic view of God.
See Proverbs 24:3-4. Wisdom = ChoKhMaH, Understanding = TaBUN; knowledge = Da'aT
 

Nehemiah6

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Jul 18, 2017
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No. Eternity has a latin root which means without time. Infinite also has a latin root, but means without a finish/end.
So why can't both meanings apply at the same time? Or do you enjoy quibbling about words? Actually infinite is about the amount of space: "limitless or endless in space, extent, or size; impossible to measure or calculate".
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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So why can't both meanings apply at the same time? Or do you enjoy quibbling about words? Actually infinite is about the amount of space: "limitless or endless in space, extent, or size; impossible to measure or calculate".
Because it's inaccurate and inappropriate theologically to eliminate the distinction. It would make all discussions recorded before the equalizing of eternal and infinite but concerning God's relationship to time incomprehensible in the present. day If the exhaustive foreknowledge lobby wants to commandeer eternal to equal infinite, then they need to start using some other distinct word to represent their claim of God's timeless eternality. Maybe atemporal? what word would you suggest to replace eternal and eternity to signifying a timeless existence. And they will need to keep pointing out when citing writing that predate them that in those days theologically eternal meant without time, but now we use it theologically to speak of endless or infinite time.

Infinite is not only about space. It can be time, knowledge, understanding, sets of endless number series...