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RE: Not "Required"
Gnifyus,
An excellent response for which I am grateful. I am clearly not up to your standard of knowledge or eloquence on this subject, but if you will forgive an under-informed view, I would reply that you seem to be lapsing into the mode of shaping God's powers according to the needs of your argument. Suggesting that He can suspend some of His powers for the purpose of equivocation in creating free will is a bit like saying He can make a rock too heavy for Himself to lift - a logical contradiction.
Either He is omniscient or He is not. Perhaps you assume that His thoughts are laid out in the time domain as ours are, but it seems more likely that he has them all at once. With His brain power I think it unlikely that he is using a serial processor or I/O. That is why I feel that he knows what he knows during the process of creation. If true knowledge of every decision we make exists somewhere before we are born (in God or elsewhere) then everything is predestined for us. That is simply by definition and not my opinion.
I accept what you say about our desire and need to praise. That explains a lot to me as I have always felt that all the "Praise Him, Praise him" rant was a lazy way of praying. We don't praise anything else by saying "praise it". Instead, we give some thought to composing a decent compliment. Is praise from a vastly inferior creature valuable. Would you be pleased if an ant told you what a big, strong and smart fellow you are?
I am relieved that you reject the score card accountability model - too scary by far.
Your quote has added to my confusion as you feared - but in a nice way.
Thanks sincerely
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RE: Not "Required"
However, being omniscient, He knew before He created us exactly how we would act in every situation throughout our lives.
I'm not sure of that statement. I mentioned the possibility that God “gave up” some of his omnipotence and omniscience when allowing for freewill. Maybe ‘deferred’ is a better way of putting it, as one might believe that God could use his all-knowing, all-seeing ways at any time if he deemed it necessary, but chooses not to in any direct manner. Instead of an omniscience of details it becomes an omniscience of overall purpose and direction which each person has some part in if they choose to search for it. So, the purpose itself is predetermined by God, but the way in which it is arrived at, or if it is ever arrived at, is left to the uncertainties of freewill. Instead of micromanaging every detail and decision of our individual lives, these details, (which can all add up to our ultimate personal direction and destiny) are also a product of freewill. When by acting on our own, if we actually manage to fulfill his purpose, God then derives his subsequent joy from these actions. Again, the analogy of not doing and controlling everything for our own children (painful as it might be) comes to mind. I personally get a sense of joy whenever my children (both teens) make a good decision on their own, and this could not happen without the freedom given to make those decisions.
This begs the question of why we will be on trial for our performance on Earth when he put us here knowing exactly what we would do.
Besides the predetermination part of that statement which I tried to address above, it seems you are questioning what I would call the 'scorecard belief' or the belief that each transgression against God is tallied up at the end and one's ultimate destiny is decided from those results. I prefer to think of it as a much more analog "direction of the heart". Each transgression or act against God's purpose causes a persons heart to turn "away from the light" so to speak. Enough of these actions might cause a person to change beyond recognition; sort of a Darth Vader story, or Elliot Spitzer, if you will.
It absolutely beggars belief that God would create us knowing what he would have to do to save us and then expect eternal gratitude.
I'm not sure what you mean by eternal gratitude, unless you are talking about "praise" which is very different concept when applied to God as opposed to our fellow men.
I'll leave you with a C.S. Lewis quote to further your confusion:
"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."
When you reach a point where you "enjoy" God the praise is only natural, this seems to say.
I'm not putting out these thoughts with any pretense of convincing you of anything; in fact most of it was composed while trying to eat left-over stir-fry for lunch, but thanks for turning over the hay and drudging up old conversations. There's two things that are telltale signs of becoming an Omninerd veteran. One is when you begin to repeat yourself, and the other is when you read your old replies and think: "Did I really write that?"
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