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To: driftdiver
“”I’m pointing out that God does things in succession. That’s the first example. Throughout the Bible there are references to time and Gods use of it.””

That's only how you understand it in your finite mind-which is not reality with God who does not predict -He already KNOWS ALL THINGS

Perhaps this might help..

That nothing is predicated of God and other beings synonymously* By Saint Thomas Aquinas

AN effect that does not receive a form specifically like the form whereby the agent acts, is incapable of receiving in synonymous predication the name taken from that form.* But, of the things whereof God is cause, the forms do not attain to the species of the divine efficacy, since they receive piecemeal and in particular what is found in God simply and universally.

3. Everything that is predicated of several things synonymously, is either genus species, differentia, accidens, or proprium. But nothing is predicated of God as genus, as has been shown (Chap. XXV); and in like manner neither as differentia; nor again as species, which is made up of genus and differentia; nor can any accident attach to Him, as has been shown (Chap. XXIII); and thus nothing is predicated of God either as accident or as proprium, for proprium is of the class of accidents. The result is that nothing is predicated synonymously of God and other beings.

6. Whatever is predicated of things so as to imply that one thing precedes and the other is consequent and dependent on the former, is certainly not predicated synonymously. Now nothing is predicated of God and of other beings as though they stood in the same rank, but it is implied that one precedes, and the other is consequent and dependent. Of God all predicates are predicated essentially. He is called ‘being’ to denote that He is essence itself; and ‘good,’ to denote that He is goodness itself. But of other beings predications are made to denote participation. Thus Socrates is called ‘a man,’ not that he is humanity itself, but one having humanity. It is impossible therefore for any predicate to be applied synonymously and in the same sense to God and other beings.

1,038 posted on 06/30/2009 6:02:50 PM PDT by stfassisi ((The greatest gift God gives us is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi)))
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To: driftdiver

Here is a better one that should help you understand ,Dear Friend

That God understands all things at once and together By Saint Thomas Aquinas

THE reason why our understanding cannot understand many things together in one act is because in the act of understanding the mind becomes one with the object understood;* whence it follows that, were the mind to understand many things together in one act, it would be many things together, all of one genus, which is impossible. Intellectual impressions are all of one genus: they are of one type of being in the existence which they have in the mind, although the things of which they are impressions do not agree in one type of being: hence the contrariety of things outside the mind does not render the impressions of those things in the mind contrary to one another. And hence it is that when many things are taken together, being anyhow united, they are understood together. Thus a continuous whole is understood at once, not part by part; and a proposition is understood at once, not first the subject and then the predicate: because all the parts are known by one mental impression of the whole.* Hence we gather that whatever several objects are known by one mental presentation, can be understood together: but God knows all things by that one presentation of them, which is His essence; therefore He can understand all together and at once.

2. The faculty of knowledge does not know anything actually without some attention and advertence. Hence the phantasms, stored in the sensorium, are at times not actually in the imagination, because no attention is given to them. We do not discern together a multitude of things to which we do not attend together: but things that necessarily fall under one and the same advertence and attention, are necessarily understood together. Thus whoever institutes a comparison of two things, directs his attention to both and discerns both together. But all things that are in the divine knowledge must necessarily fall under one advertence; for God is attentive to behold His essence perfectly, which is to see it to the whole reach of its virtual content, which includes all things. God therefore, in beholding His essence, discerns at once all things that are.

6. Every mind that understands one thing after another, is sometimes potentially intelligent, sometimes actually so; for while it understands the first thing actually, it understands the second potentially. But the divine mind is never potentially intelligent, but always actually: it does not, then, understand things in succession, but all at once.

Holy Scripture witnesses to this truth, saying that with God there is no change nor shadow of vicissitude (James i, 17).


1,042 posted on 06/30/2009 6:15:48 PM PDT by stfassisi ((The greatest gift God gives us is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi)))
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To: stfassisi

“He already KNOWS ALL THINGS”

Shouting doesn’t help.

yes God is all knowing and all powerful. I stated he used time so therefor he acknowledges time. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.


1,049 posted on 06/30/2009 6:27:56 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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