What is God? When you say "He" ? Is God a man( with the plan)? If I decide to pray, I would like to know who or what I am praying to. Can you help?

What is God? When you say "He" ? Is God a man( with the plan)? If I decide to pray, I would like to know who or what I am praying to. Can you help?

 

That's a complicated answer to give, but I'll take a stab.

 

1) God is a spirit, and isn't limited by the same definitions that we are as humans. However, the first book of the Bible states that mankind was created in God's image, and that He created mankind as both male and females. So that tells us that God is human-like in form to some extent.

 

2) God is a trinity...which is one of the most central holy mysteries of Christian faith. God is three beings, as Jesus states several times throughout the gospels. Jesus refers several times to God the Father, Jesus refers to himself saying "I and the Father are one", and and then he refers to the God's Holy Spirit in several other passages. Three separate beings, all making up one God. (St. Patrick famously compared the Holy Trinity to the leaves of a shamrock, all three are part of the shamrock and all three comprise one single shamrock.) So when you say "Is God a man?", this idea of the Holy Trinity muddies the water a bit because it makes it much more difficult to see the human-like image of Him as is described in Genesis when it states that mankind is created in God's image.

 

3) Prayer is our way of communicating with God. Jesus directly instructs us on how to pray in both Luke and Matthew's gospels, stating: "This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. And give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, now and forever. Amen." So right there, Jesus tells us directly to address God as 'Father'...which is a masculine form. So regardless of whether or not God is a masculine form as is thought of in terms of humans, I'm going to default to what Jesus said to do, and go with Father/He/Him when speaking about God.

This is one of the times I agree with you Lipton.:up:

 

My reasoning is growing on you.

 

Really good episode I saw this afternoon on Outside the Lines about Arian Foster. He calls himself an atheist, but then says that he doesn't know if there is a God, which in my mind would make him agnostic. Either way, it was a good episode. Thought provoking.

I think God has a plan for every one of His children. He knows every day that has been written for me before it comes to pass. He has a will and a purpose for my life. Sometimes God makes it very clear, often He doesn’t and that’s the problem. I don’t know how some of the things I’m anxious about are going to work out. But I do think that God has determined to use my prayers in His plan for my life. So when I’m anxious, when I want something or need something, when I’m in pain, when I feel like the world is crashing in on me, I pray. I take fear, worry, pain as a call to pray because it may very well be that God has decided to heal me or to heal a relationship or to bless a decision or to give me insight through my prayers.

 

I feel that is why God calls us to pray for ourselves and for other people—for lost people we know to come to faith, for sick people to be healed, for hurting people to be comforted, for hard hearts to change, for leaders to make wise decisions or to repent of wicked ones. I think that we are called to pray for all these things because God has determined to use our prayers to accomplish His purposes. I don’t know His plan but I feel my prayers are part of it. And so I pray about everything.

 

Never heard the term hell freezing under.

I think God has a plan for every one of His children. He knows every day that has been written for me before it comes to pass. He has a will and a purpose for my life. Sometimes God makes it very clear, often He doesn’t and that’s the problem. I don’t know how some of the things I’m anxious about are going to work out. But I do think that God has determined to use my prayers in His plan for my life. So when I’m anxious, when I want something or need something, when I’m in pain, when I feel like the world is crashing in on me, I pray. I take fear, worry, pain as a call to pray because it may very well be that God has decided to heal me or to heal a relationship or to bless a decision or to give me insight through my prayers.

 

I feel that is why God calls us to pray for ourselves and for other people—for lost people we know to come to faith, for sick people to be healed, for hurting people to be comforted, for hard hearts to change, for leaders to make wise decisions or to repent of wicked ones. I think that we are called to pray for all these things because God has determined to use our prayers to accomplish His purposes. I don’t know His plan but I feel my prayers are part of it. And so I pray about everything.

 

I have a question about the bolded because I get confused about the omniscience of God. If God is all-knowing and knows each individual's future before it occurs wouldn't that negate the idea of Free Will?

I have a question about the bolded because I get confused about the omniscience of God. If God is all-knowing and knows each individual's future before it occurs wouldn't that negate the idea of Free Will?

 

Pretty much. Can't be free will if God knows what your choice will be. Sounds more like that predestination stuff that white South Africans used as justification for apartheid.

Sounds more like Calvinism.

I have a question about the bolded because I get confused about the omniscience of God. If God is all-knowing and knows each individual's future before it occurs wouldn't that negate the idea of Free Will?

 

I struggle with that too. I have decided that I do not think that God is necessarily omniscient.

If God is all-knowing and knows each individual's future before it occurs wouldn't that negate the idea of Free Will?

 

It's a great question and one that is often asked & debated.

 

I don't believe God's knowledge of the future negates the free will of human beings. I don't think we can fully explain or understand that, but I believe it's the truth. If God created time, and is therefore not bound by it, then there is no past, present, & future for Him. Humans are time-bound, meaning everything and everyone has a beginning and an end from our vantage point.

 

It's one of those things that, for me, is best answered by Isaiah 55: 8-9 (God's ways are higher than our ways). And the next best answer is a quote by Augustine, where he said something along the lines of, "Once we fully understand God, He stops being God."

I have a question about the bolded because I get confused about the omniscience of God. If God is all-knowing and knows each individual's future before it occurs wouldn't that negate the idea of Free Will?

 

How so? Knowing is one thing, altering is what would affect free will, wouldn't it? I still have free will to make my choices, how does God knowing what choices I will make affect that?

How so? Knowing is one thing, altering is what would affect free will, wouldn't it? I still have free will to make my choices, how does God knowing what choices I will make affect that?

 

Wouldn't it be ingrained in you at that point the same way I was born with green eyes? It stops becoming free will if the individual — not overall for all of time — ending was already predestined.

Wouldn't it be ingrained in you at that point the same way I was born with green eyes? It stops becoming free will if the individual — not overall for all of time — ending was already predestined.

 

I'm still not seeing how it's not free will if God simply knows the ending but doesn't affect that ending. I think I'm missing something.