How do you think God's mind works?

[JohnnyZ]

Clearly, since God is omniscient, He never has to think. He knows the answer to every possible question. However, do you think all of this knowledge is eternally being "focused on" by God, or not?

[jayceeii]

Statements about how God thinks can only be interpreted by creatures along the creaturely avenues of thinking. In other words they cannot exit from their type of thinking, to comprehend God’s thinking. So the answer to this question is limited by the types of things the creaturely intellect can understand, of what is beyond the creaturely intellect. Men cannot think like God, or begin to know what that is, through experience.

At the same time, to conclude God’s omniscience means He never has to think is facile. Instead it is better to try to understand God’s omniscience as a form of massively parallel thinking. He has to be over here, and over there, and over everywhere, simultaneously. To subtract from Him the power of thinking is reducing God to some background haze. To be really present and acting, spiritual organs are required, that really think and act.

Knowing the answer to every question in the human domain isn’t hard for God. God’s challenges, as the tenets of Molinism begin to suggest, are in deciding what He will do. To plan requires thought, conjecture; and God certainly plans. There are questions that can be framed in words, and a much larger region of knowledge that is forever beyond the reach of language. Most real thinking is nonverbal, though men believe all can be constrained within the categories words represent. They do not even know their minds.

[JohnnyZ]

Statements about how God thinks can only be interpreted by creatures along the creaturely avenues of thinking. In other words they cannot exit from their type of thinking, to comprehend God’s thinking. So the answer to this question is limited by the types of things the creaturely intellect can understand, of what is beyond the creaturely intellect. Men cannot think like God, or begin to know what that is, through experience.

At the same time, to conclude God’s omniscience means He never has to think is facile. Instead it is better to try to understand God’s omniscience as a form of massively parallel thinking. He has to be over here, and over there, and over everywhere, simultaneously. To subtract from Him the power of thinking is reducing God to some background haze. To be really present and acting, spiritual organs are required, that really think and act.

Knowing the answer to every question in the human domain isn’t hard for God. God’s challenges, as the tenets of Molinism begin to suggest, are in deciding what He will do. To plan requires thought, conjecture; and God certainly plans. There are questions that can be framed in words, and a much larger region of knowledge that is forever beyond the reach of language. Most real thinking is nonverbal, though men believe all can be constrained within the categories words represent. They do not even know their minds.

I guess what I meant is that God doesn't have to "come up" with the correct answer to a question, as humans do. He knows everything eternally.

[jayceeii]

I guess what I meant is that God doesn't have to "come up" with the correct answer to a question, as humans do. He knows everything eternally.

Actually God has to present the answers according to where His present creatures are. If addressing angels, for instance, the answers will be very different than if addressing humans. The humans can bear very little of truth, as is so obvious from the paucity of the religions. One should not think of truth as linear, as black and white, as what can be said or not said. Truth is reality’s description. The more one can bear of reality the higher the truth. Profound individuals live in a different world, from shallow insouciant individuals.