Board index ‹ God

[Demosthenes]

God is not perfect nor eternal: he learns from humanity

I'm an atheist and I've been reading the bible lately to try to understand how and why it became the moral compass for western culture for a couple of millennia.

One of the things that stroke me when I reached the Exodus was how God, despite from being supposetly eternal, inmutable and perfect from day 1, has been learning from humanity, his own creation.

First Adam and Eve betrayed him, then he had to flood the world and lead Noah to save the life he created. Then he has to take the his people off Egypt. Only then he seems to realize that he never made clear statements about what he expects from humanity and proceeds to tell Moses about his rules and commandments.

During this first bit God clearly has no idea on how to deal with us, and we keep screwing around, until he comes to terms and decides to make some pretty simple rules to guide us towards him.

This really reminds me of parents who get mad at their children for missbehaving, punish them, tell them off, only to afterwards realize that they never explained why the kid's attitude was wrong to him, so they proceed to do so.

Can anyone please refute this theory? I'm interested on the views of Christians who still consider God to know everything from the beggining.

[jimwalton]

For one, I'm glad you're reading the Bible. For two, I'm glad you're reaching out to Christians to talk about it.

You say that when you reached Exodus, it struck you that God is learning from humanity. Let's talk about that. I don't see it. What I see is that God is not an unconcerned, distant tyrant who just ignores people. What I see is a God who desires a relationship with people, communicates to them and listens to what they have to say, and responds to them. In my mind that doesn't indicate that God is learning from humanity, but that He is instead a relational and beneficent ruler, not a dictatorial one. But we'd probably have to talk about the specific things you read to go deeper.

> First Adam and Eve betrayed him, then he had to flood the world and lead Noah to save the life he created. Then he has to take the his people off Egypt. Only then he seems to realize that he never made clear statements about what he expects from humanity and proceeds to tell Moses about his rules and commandments.

You're right that first Adam and Eve betrayed him, and that he did send a flood to save the life he created, but neither of those indicate he is on a learning curve.

Then you're also right that he chose to (he didn't HAVE to) take his people to Egypt for their survival. But then you go off the road, so we need to talk about this also. "Only then he seems to realize that he never made clear statements about what he expects from humanity." An interesting, but I think mistaken, observation. He had made clear statements about what He expected. In Genesis we find that...

- He desires relationship with the people He made, and He expects them to recognize Him as the center and source of wisdom, order, and life (the trees).
- He was very clear about the consequences of them establishing themselves as the center and source of wisdom and order (Gn. 2.17; 6.5-7)
- He is clear that living in relationship with Him will bring blessing and defying Him will bring punishment (Gn. 2.8-17; 4.6-7; 6.3).
- He will graciously provide for the people even though they defied, disobeyed, and betrayed Him (Gn. 3.21; 4.15, 25)
- He makes it clear that He will not allow them to experience eternal life that is full of sin and death (Gn. 3.22-24). Instead He will provide for them a way to have that through Himself (Gn. 3.15).
- Despite their sin, He still wants relationship with people (Gn. 4.26).
- He expects obedience to His word (Gn. 3.11; 6.22; 7.5 et al.)
- He made a contract with Noah that had more expectations in it (Gn. 9.1-17).

This goes on and on. I don't know if I need to continue, because I don't want to just write a wall of text. He had made clear statements about what He expected.

> and proceeds to tell Moses about his rules and commandments.

Yes, it was time for more. We go to school for 12+ years. We learn as a process. We can't just grasp it all at once. So also those people. God had to bring them along, educated them as a process. When they were formed as a nation (days of Moses), it was time to make another contract (the law given to Moses on Mt. Sinai and beyond) so that the people would have a better understanding, now that they were a nation, of how to have this relationship with God. Again, there is no indication that God is having to learn anything.

> During this first bit God clearly has no idea on how to deal with us, and we keep screwing around, until he comes to terms and decides to make some pretty simple rules to guide us towards him.

Wow, that's not what's going on at all. God knows exactly how to deal with us, and we are reading the story of it. He never bobbles or falters; He knows exactly which step is the next one to take with humans who are both calling on the name of God (Gn. 4.26; 12.1 and others) and those who are behaving badly (Gn. 4.6-7; 6.5-7 and others). There is give and take in his relationship with us. He is responsive to our behaviors (read Jeremiah 18.1-12 for a little more about this).

> This really reminds me of parents who get mad at their children for missbehaving, punish them, tell them off, only to afterwards realize that they never explained why the kid's attitude was wrong to him, so they proceed to do so.

I don't know why it reminds you of this. It's not the case at all, as I have shown. I guess we'll have to talk about this further.

> Can anyone please refute this theory? I'm interested on the views of Christians who still consider God to know everything from the beggining.

Hopefully I've shown you that your theory is mistaken, though I've only briefly given evidences. There is so much more to say. I will take a firm stand that God knows everything, and that He knew it from the beginning. So let's talk more.