The claim that God had to "learn" something, or did not "know" something, is of course, rank heresy.

Now, Hebrews tells us that Jesus had to suffer and had to learn obedience (as a son) through that suffering. Indeed, it tells us he was perfected through that suffering.

And in the Gospels we see that Jesus did not "know" everything (in the same way God the Father does).

A tough nut, perhaps. But we know that Christ was not born into existence on the first Christmas Day - he always was, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. So when Paul says that Christ emptied himself, and when Jesus himself tells the disciples that he is here for only 'a little while' (and in the form of a servant), we can understand a bit.

Did God have to kill his son in order to 'understand' suffering? No, absolutely not. But did Christ have to suffer in order to redeem his people? Yes, absolutely yes.

God is omniscient. To argue against it or qualify it is just silly. Was Christ omniscient (in his 33 years, before the resurrection) in the same sense as God the Father? By his own words, no.

I suppose OJ's refrain on omniscience is that God had to "learn" what we experience in order for Christianity to work. I understand, but there is a line there, which if crossed, erases the Christianity and replaces it with something else.

Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.

An omniscient God wouldn't have needed to discover that.

Hi Orrin,

May I recommend _The Beauty of the Infinite_ to give you an enjoyable (if you skip past all the time he spends refuting postmodern philosophers who aren't worth the time and effort) Orthodox (in the capital letter sense) explanation about omniscience.
http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Infinite-Aesthetics-Christian-Truth/dp/080282921X
I was also surprised at your heresy, because I remembered you as an appropriately old-school Arian heretice from a post a couple years past.

Thanks and Happy New Years,
Drew

Of course God didn't have to learn anything. But in order to make we feeble humans comprehend what he wanted to tell us, he had to tell a story lasting several millenia, and I don't think that oj's interpretation, if somewhat rephrased, need be considered heretical.

Arianism is nonsense. Christ is God, which is why His ignorance is revealing.

b:

The notion that God has to act out all of His confusions--for instance, pretending not to realize Adam and Eve would Fall but planning it all along--makes Him kind of a silly B-movie star. Rather, the narrative ought to be taken at face value. We're a disappointment to Him but once He is able to comprehend our plight--by becoming one of us--we are reconciled to Him.

oj: When you're telling a story for children, you can't beat the methods of the B-movie. We're children. That's why the story took so long to tell, and even though God made sure to use small words he had to repeat himself so many times.

When Jesus asked the crowd "Who touched me?", I doubt if he was confused.

God is not in any sense ignorant or teachable.

He stoops so we can know him, not so he can know us. In Psalm 50 (verse 21), he tells the wicked, "When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was altogether like you".

But he isn't.

God does not intentionally provoke Cain to kill Abel. He just fails to realize the effect of his preference for prelapsarian Man over post.

God is a character in the story, not the teller.

jim:

You are stumbling towards an insight. It isn't until the Crucifixion that God realizes he would be just like us were He human.

"Let this cup pass..." is the precise moment of His awakening to our moral cowardice.

When Christ became flesh he lived under human rules, a 6"x4"x3" mass of grey matter isn't designed to hold all the mysteries and trivia of the universe. Fully human, fully God the Son had limitation and had to rely on the Father, as we do, this is part of obedience, something new to One who ruled all heaven. That the Father isn't omniscient, I am not compelled by your argument oj.

Precisely. Were He omniscient there wouldn't be "new"

Interesting, OJ, that you seem to believe God is subject to time. Jesus was "foreordained before the foundation of the world" as a sacrifice. (1 Peter 1:20; Rev 13:8)

Rather difficult if God had first to learn we needed such a sacrifice?

1 Peter 1:18-21

18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
21 Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

Re 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Yes, it seems not unlikely that God realized at the Fall that He'd never understand us until He became one of us, but put it off as long as He could.

Time predates God.