Expert: Daniel Selinski - 8/23/2008

Question
QUESTION: Hello again Daniel!! Do none, most, or all JWs believe God is omnipotent?   As in knowing all past, all present, all future. Knowing everything that exist in all realms of time.  Every rain drop, snow flake etc... hope you get what im saying.

ANSWER: I believe the term you were thinking is omniscient not          omnipotent.

Omnipotent means he is Almighty omniscient on the other hand means God is all knowing.

But we need to understand how he uses his great power,yes if he choose to he can know every rain drop and snow flake that ever fell and its shape and how it landed and the pattern it made.

But if that is true then he knew billions of years of time that prior to creating angels and man that they would sin,so by placing
two trees in the garden of Eden he already knew Adam would disobey.and all the bad consequences of such rebellion down to and beyond this present day. This would necessarily mean that all the wickedness that history has recorded (the crime and immorality, oppression and resultant suffering, lying and hypocrisy, false worship and idolatry) once existed, before creation’s beginning, only in the mind of God,

So he had something that Adam could not possibly be successful at he was doomed to fail.

The truth is that God’s exercises his might not simply an unleashing of limitless power but is constantly governed by his purpose and, where merited, tempered by his mercy.

It is therefore not a question of ability, what God can foresee, foreknow, and foreordain, for “with God all things are possible.”

The question is what God sees fit to foresee, foreknow, and foreordain.



God is described as directing his attention earthward, surveying the situation at Babel, and, at that time, determining the action to be taken to break up the unrighteous project there. After wickedness developed at Sodom and Gomorrah,

Jehovah advised Abraham of his decision to investigate (by means of his angels) to “see whether they act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, if not, I can get to know it.”

God spoke of ‘becoming acquainted with Abraham,’ and after Abraham went to the point of attempting to sacrifice Isaac, Jehovah said:

(Genesis 22:12) . . .Do not put out your hand against the boy and do not do anything at all to him, for now I do know that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.
Selective foreknowledge means that God could choose not to foreknow indiscriminately all the future acts of his creatures. This would mean that, rather than all history from creation onward being a mere rerun of what had already been foreseen and foreordained, God could with all sincerity set before the first human pair the prospect of everlasting life in an earth free from wickedness.

God’s arranging for a test by means of “the tree of the knowledge of good and bad” and his creation of “the tree of life” in the garden of Eden also would not be meaningless or cynical acts, made so by his foreknowing that the human pair would sin and never be able to eat of “the tree of life.

To offer something very desirable to another person on conditions known beforehand to be unreachable is recognized as both hypocritical and cruel which would not be a God of love .


. After urging his listeners to ‘keep on asking and seeking’ good things from God, Jesus pointed out that a father does not give a stone or a serpent to his child that asks for bread or a fish. Showing his Father’s view of disappointing the legitimate hopes of a person, Jesus then said: “Therefore, if you, although being wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will your Father who is in the heavens give good things to those asking him.

He can in all sincerity urge men to ‘turn back from transgression and keep living,’ as he did with the people of Israel.


(Ezekiel 18:23) . . .Do I take any delight at all in the death of someone wicked,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, ‘[and] not in that he should turn back from his ways and actually keep living?’

Peter writes: “Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise [of the coming day of reckoning], as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.


If God already foreknew and foreordained millenniums in advance precisely which individuals would receive eternal salvation and which individuals would receive eternal destruction, it may well be asked how meaningful such ‘patience’ of God could be and how genuine his desire could be that ‘all attain to repentance.’

Paul states that love “hopes all things.


(1 Corinthians 13:7) 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.


Finally take note of this passage with the idea that he already has peoples fate sealed before they were born.


(2 Corinthians 5:14-15) . . .For the love the Christ has compels us, because this is what we have judged, that one man died for all; so, then, all had died; 15 and he died for all that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised up.

by God’s foreknowledge, the opportunity to receive the benefits of Christ Jesus’ ransom sacrifice were already irrevocably sealed off from some, perhaps for millions of individuals, even before their birth, so that such ones could never prove worthy, it could not truly be said that the ransom was made available to all men.

The impartiality of God is clearly no mere figure of speech. “In every nation the man that fears [God] and works righteousness is acceptable to him.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: ok.  So in other words God choose not to know that Adam was going to sin?  From what I understand is that God does know ALL things. God can know what will happen but that does not mean he caused it. God already knows what i will do next week. But the beauty is that I have no clue, let alone the next hour. My wickedness is my choice. My good deeds is my choice.  


So my next question is:  If i decide to rob a bank and kill a hostage, is it now being so called recorded or it was already seen?

The reason I dont give scripture or much scripture is because i had a lot of talks dealing with the bible.   Most of the time when a disagreement on the understanding of verses it boils down to common sense.  I try to ask simple questions and give simple answers as much as possible.


My understanding in Jesus.    Is the messiah( Not God) ( Not Michael)

He was with God spiritually in the beginning, not physically.









ANSWER: Ok,I put it this way so maybe you can understand, if he choose to know who will be saved and who will be lost would there be a need for him to be patient right now,we know he will bring about the end of this evil world of sin:


(Matthew 24:14) . . .And this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.

What is he waiting for if we use your logic since he already knows the outcome.

But thats not the case:

(Proverbs 14:29) . . .He that is slow to anger is abundant in discernment, but one that is impatient is exalting foolishness.

His patience gives wrongdoers an opportunity to change their ways and gain eternal benefits. Hence, the Bible encourages us not to be unhappy with God’s patience. Rather, it says: “Consider the patience of our Lord as salvation.”

(2 Peter 3:15) . . .Furthermore, consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given him also wrote YOU,. . .

There would be no need for God to show patience since he already knows who will be saved.

The same in Noahs day ,Noah worked on this Ark for well over a hundred years all the time sounding a warning for people to get right,if what you say is true God could have the Ark built in a couple of days and brought the deluge.


In your logic it makes no sense for Noah to labor well over a hundred years on this thing,he just waisted time ,he could have got the thing over and done with.It would seem that if God is doing what you suggest he is just playing games with humans.

God was patient before the great Flood of Noah’s day. The world of that time was filled with violence and was very wicked. We read:


(Genesis 6:5) . . .Consequently Jehovah saw that the badness of man was abundant in the earth and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time.. . .

So why wait over a hundred years makes no sense using your line of thinking.


The Bible says: “The patience of God was waiting in Noah’s days, while the ark was being constructed, in which a few people, that is, eight souls, were carried safely through the water.


(2 Peter 2:5) . . .but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others. . .

Why have Noah preach to those people back there since he already knew their fate,see your thinking makes God just playing around in a fiendish plot.


To seal my point The Bible says:

(2 Peter 3:9) . . .Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with YOU because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.

This clearly shows he doesn't choose to know who will finally gain salvation because his desire is all be saved,and Jesus died for all.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Ok  plain and simple. Does God know what im going to do a week from now?   Yes, or know, or maybe, or if he choose.

Did God know Adam was going to sin?  Yes, or know, or maybe, or if he choose.      I just want your view with simple answers. I see your verses but I just need a simple and short answer.  

Answer
He gave us with free will and that means we are free to worship him or not,we are not pre-programmed,he does not know what you will do next week or if the first man would sin against him.

His word says:

(Ecclesiastes 9:11) time and unforeseen occurrence befall them all.. . .




(Genesis 1:26-28) 26 And God went on to say: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.” 27 And God proceeded to create the man in his image, in God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28 Further, God blessed them and God said to them: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.. . .


(Genesis 1:31) . . .After that God saw everything he had made and, look! [it was] very good.. . .

With his power if he had prepared all of this for man with such a wonderful future set in motion that this was going to be a a sad start and sin he wouln't have say everything was very good when he knew it was horrible he lied then.

So no he didn't choose to know the outcome why should he everything was perfect.





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