Jehovah's Witnesses, why do you claim God isn't omniscient or omnipresent?

Question

1 Samuel 2:3
"the Lord is a God of knowledge."

Psalm 139:1-10 speaks of God's great knowledge and that his presence is everywhere.

1 John 3:20
"for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything."

Jeremiah 23: 23-24
"Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?
Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord."

How can God be God if he doesn't know everything? What things would God NOT know? Who or what would know about the things God doesn't know? Also how can God be God if he doesn't exist in a specific space in time? What replaces this space that God is not? What exists within the space God isn't? If God isn't omnipresent, then he's not God; for God would be limited to an area of space. If God is LIMITED in space and knowledge, he's also LIMITED in his POWER to make himself in that space and to know what he doesn't know.

Psalm 139:7-8
"Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

God dwells in heaven but his presence is everywhere. If God's presence didn't exist in a space in time, then nothing in that space would exist; or else whatever it is would exist outside of God's presence.

Answer 1

Ok, here we go...

We should understand first that the faculties of God are selective ones. That means that he choses when to use them and when not to.

He has the prescience, which means that he could know everything, if he wanted, but also he gave us the free will, so he decides "not to know” in order to let us take our own decisions.

His presence is everywhere, which means that he knows what is happening, but that doesn’t mean that he IS in any thing, like a chair or table.

To understand this, the best example is his omnipotence… he is pure energy, but he can control that power, he decides when to use it, which means that he is able to direct and control his mighty power according with his own will, to punish, to protect, to reward…

Imagine for example an amazing fighter, he can use many techniques and movements in order to fight… but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to be fighting all the time, while sleeping, eating, etc. right?

Well, I hope this helps.

A.

Answer 2

Isa. 46:9,10 "I am the Divine One and there is no other God, nor anyone like me; the one telling from the beginning the finale, and from long ago the things that have not been done; the One saying, 'My own counsel will stand, and everything that is my delight I shall do.'"

(He makes know his purpose, foreordains certain matters in connection with its accomplishments, and has the almighty power to assure that these will be fulfilled.)


ILLUSTRATION: The owner of a radio can listen to the world news. but the fact that he can listen to a certain station does not mean that he does. He must first turn on the radio and then select the station, likewise, Jehovah has the ability to foreknow events, but the bible shows that he makes selective and discretionary use of that ability, with due regard for the free will with which he has endowed his human creation.

Answer 3

NATURAL ATTRIBUTES;

omniscience - He knows all things, PSALM147:4-5
omnipotence -He is all-powerful, Job 42:2; Matthew19:26
omnipresence -He is present everywhere at the same time
Jeremiah 23:23-24; Acts 7:48-49 Hehrews 4;13
Eternality - He always has been and always will be
Psalm 90:1-2
immutability -- He does not change, Malachi 3:6;
Hebrews 13:8.

MORAL ATTRIBUTES, of God are; holiness, righteousness, grace, and love.

Answer 4

The Bible also says that God is too pure to look upon what is unclean (or wicked.) Remember that the people in Noah's day did things that made him feel regret. Also, that the people in the Hebrew Scriptures sometimes did things that had not even occurred to God in his heart.

When the Israelites were enslaved, he turned his attention to them after a while.

The other people in this forum have done a good job of explaining the rest.

When I throw a jewelry making party (beading) I have fun seeing which beads a guest will choose to make a bracelet or necklace. There is a finite number of combinations she can choose from but I never really know what that combination will be until I see it happen in front of my eyes.

Answer 5

Jehovah's Witnesses agree that it may be accurate to describe Jehovah as both "omnipotent" and "omniscient".

Jehovah's Witnesses do not engage in debates, nor do they pretend to know the precise degree to which biblical anthropomorphisms and figurative language can be understood to literally describe the person of Almighty God.

For example, the bible teaches that God's holy spirit can perform any assignment instantly, and the bible also teaches that the holy spirit is God's finger. Thus, if God can see and influence anything anywhere, why would his physical(?) "presence" or "omnipresence" be required?

Regarding the matter of "omniscience", it seems rather obvious that Almighty God can know anything He is interested in knowing. Yet Jehovah's Witnesses believe the bible to strongly imply that God's perfect love would not have allowed Him to knowingly acquiesce to the rebellion of Satan and Adam. It would seem that the only way to reconcile God's perfect love with the Edenic emergence of sin and suffering is that Jehovah intentionally refused to foresee how these particular creatures would behave.

The bible many times describes circumstances in which God (and His prophets) presents a choice to some individual or group, and the bible seems quite plainly to imply that God chooses to observe the unfolding of a matter based on the actions of creatures who are under the physical laws of time and space (which God is not).

Please note the account where Jehovah has assigned Adam to name the animals. Some versions of "omniscience" insist that Jehovah is forced to already know the names which Adam has not yet settled upon. Yet how does the bible describe the manner in which the information came to Jehovah?
...(Genesis 2:19) Jehovah God was forming from the ground every wild beast of the field and every flying creature of the heavens, and he began bringing them to the man TO SEE WHAT HE WOULD CALL EACH ONE [caps added]

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/20050308a/article_01.htm

Answer 6

God is not omnipresent see what the scriture says, you might not have accurate knowledge
(Hebrews 9:24) . . .For Christ entered, not into a holy place made with hands, which is a copy of the reality, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the person of God for us. . .

Answer 7

How can you claim that your god exists and claim that you get a chance to save yourself? Maybe you should understand what omniscience is.

Edit: Moises, dude he already had one there:

Psalm 139:1-10 speaks of God's great knowledge and that his presence is everywhere.

Answer 8

He is omniscient cause the bible says so but God isn't omnipresent. Can you show me one verse that says that he is omnipresent?

Job 1:6 "Now it came to be the day when the sons of the [true] God entered to take their station before Jehovah, and even Satan proceeded to enter right among them"

Why angels have to go to the place where God is, if he is everywhere? if he is everywhere they didn´t have to go to certain place to meet with him.

Answer 9

JWs believe that God has the ability to know everything and can be in any place that he wants or chooses. His spirit and his presence can be everywhere. It doesn’t mean that when God decides he doesn’t want to be in the midst of a certain place or person , that God is limited.
A strong man doesn’t need to lift all heavy objects to prove that he is strong.


Omnispresent according to www.m-w.com is present in all places at all times.
So the question is, Is God present in ALL PLACES at ALL TIMES?

Is God IN Satan?

Jehovah is not in the midst of Israelites at some point (Deut 1:42).


God’s power, glory, qualities and Godship are manifested and clearly seen everywhere.
Romans 1:20
20 For his invisible [qualities] are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship.



Some excerpts from the Insight book:

Infinite exercise of foreknowledge? The argument that God’s not foreknowing all future events and circumstances in full detail would evidence imperfection on his part is, in reality, an arbitrary view of perfection. Perfection, correctly defined, does not demand such an absolute, all-embracing extension, inasmuch as the perfection of anything actually depends upon its measuring up completely to the standards of excellence set by one qualified to judge its merits. (See PERFECTION.) Ultimately, God’s own will and good pleasure, not human opinions or concepts, are the deciding factors as to whether anything is perfect.—De 32:4; 2Sa 22:31; Isa 46:10.
To illustrate this, God’s almightiness is undeniably perfect and is infinite in capacity. (1Ch 29:11, 12; Job 36:22; 37:23) Yet his perfection in strength does not require him to use his power to the full extent of his omnipotence in any or in all cases. Clearly he has not done so; if he had, not merely certain ancient cities and some nations would have been destroyed, but the earth and all in it would have been obliterated long ago by God’s executions of judgment, accompanied by mighty expressions of disapproval and wrath, as at the Flood and on other occasions. (Ge 6:5-8; 19:23-25, 29; compare Ex 9:13-16; Jer 30:23, 24.) God’s exercise of his might is therefore not simply an unleashing of limitless power but is constantly governed by his purpose and, where merited, tempered by his mercy.—Ne 9:31; Ps 78:38, 39; Jer 30:11; La 3:22; Eze 20:17.
Similarly, if, in certain respects, God chooses to exercise his infinite ability of foreknowledge in a selective way and to the degree that pleases him, then assuredly no human or angel can rightly say: “What are you doing?” (Job 9:12; Isa 45:9; Da 4:35) It is therefore not a question of ability, what God can foresee, foreknow, and foreordain, for “with God all things are possible.” (Mt 19:26) The question is what God sees fit to foresee, foreknow, and foreordain, for “everything that he delighted to do he has done.”—Ps 115:3.
Selective exercise of foreknowledge. The alternative to predestinarianism, the selective or discretionary exercise of God’s powers of foreknowledge, would have to harmonize with God’s own righteous standards and be consistent with what he reveals of himself in his Word. In contrast with the theory of predestinarianism, a number of texts point to an examination by God of a situation then current and a decision made on the basis of such examination.
Thus, at Genesis 11:5-8 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.” (Ge 18:20-22; 19:1) God spoke of ‘becoming acquainted with Abraham,’ and after Abraham went to the point of attempting to sacrifice Isaac, Jehovah said, “For now I do know that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.”—Ge 18:19; 22:11, 12; compare Ne 9:7, 8; Ga 4:9.
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. His instructions to his first human son and daughter to act as his perfect and sinless agents in filling the earth with their offspring and making it a paradise, as well as exercising control over the animal creation, could thus be expressed as the grant of a truly loving privilege and as his genuine desire toward them—not merely as the giving of a commission that, on their part, was foredoomed to failure. 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.”—Ge 1:28; 2:7-9, 15-17; 3:22-24.
To offer something very desirable to another person on conditions known beforehand to be unreachable is recognized as both hypocritical and cruel. The prospect of everlasting life is presented in God’s Word as a goal for all persons, one possible to attain. 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?”—Mt 7:7-11.
Thus, the invitations and opportunities to receive benefits and everlasting blessings set before all men by God are bona fide. (Mt 21:22; Jas 1:5, 6) He can in all sincerity urge men to ‘turn back from transgression and keep living,’ as he did with the people of Israel. (Eze 18:23, 30-32; compare Jer 29:11, 12.) Logically, he could not do this if he foreknew that they were individually destined to die in wickedness. (Compare Ac 17:30, 31; 1Ti 2:3, 4.) As Jehovah told Israel: “Nor said I to the seed of Jacob, ‘Seek me simply for nothing, you people.’ I am Jehovah, speaking what is righteous, telling what is upright. . . . Turn to me and be saved, all you at the ends of the earth.”—Isa 45:19-22.
In a similar vein, the apostle 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.” (2Pe 3:9) 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.’ The inspired apostle John wrote that “God is love,” and the apostle Paul states that love “hopes all things.” (1Jo 4:8; 1Co 13:4, 7) It is in harmony with this outstanding, divine quality that God should exercise a genuinely open, kindly attitude toward all persons, he being desirous of their gaining salvation, until they prove themselves unworthy, beyond hope. (Compare 2Pe 3:9; Heb 6:4-12.) Thus, the apostle Paul speaks of “the kindly quality of God [that] is trying to lead you to repentance.”—Ro 2:4-6.
Finally if, 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. (2Co 5:14, 15; 1Ti 2:5, 6; Heb 2:9) 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.” (Ac 10:34, 35; De 10:17; Ro 2:11) The option is actually and genuinely open to all men “to seek God, if they might grope for him and really find him, although, in fact, he is not far off from each one of us.” (Ac 17:26, 27) There is no empty hope or hollow promise set forth, therefore, in the divine exhortation at the end of the book of Revelation inviting: “Let anyone hearing say: ‘Come!’ And let anyone thirsting come; let anyone that wishes take life’s water free.”—Re 22:17.