When did God become all knowing?

[2bizE]

On a walk with Mrs. 2bizE and I told her the story of the polygamist kids having rare inbreeding birth defects. I said to her, looks like God must not of known that when he started polygamy. God must not be all-knowing.
Started to think more about the invention of God and religion, and wonder when people started to believe God was all-knowing. What say ye?

[LaMachina]

Based on my understanding the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful creator God goes back as far as humanity has any history we can reliably know about. The thing was, all these early religions had a pantheon of gods and this all powerful god had no interest in the affairs of men and was even quite uninterested in the affairs of the other gods. He/she/it seemed quite impersonal. So when did the the all-knowing god start to care about all our personal little lives? Apparently when we decided that there could only be One True God.

But if we're talking mormon god, he became all knowing when he passed his Celestial knowledge board exams. There is the argument as to whether he does literally know everything (his wives roll their eyes and titter when questioned on the subject) but he is a licensed Omniscient. It is quite the accomplishment, I've heard the oral exam portion is a real bear.

[Red Ryder]

But if we're talking mormon god, he became all knowing when he passed his Celestial knowledge board exams. There is the argument as to whether he does literally know everything (his wives roll their eyes and titter when questioned on the subject) but he is a licensed Omniscient. It is quite the accomplishment, I've heard the oral exam portion is a real bear.

Ha ha ha. Celestial knowledge board exam!

I think the idea of God morphed as mankind developed. God was important when mankind was dependent and struggling to survive with basic needs like water, food, and shelter. Survival occupied the frontal lobe and God was thanked for another day of survival. As mankind developed new tools, hunted for food, built shelters, and weekends included sexual recreation, mankind began to forget about needing God for survival. Survival normalized and the idea of God developed into an all knowing dude who watched the weekend sexual proclivities of his children. Mankind rationalized this intrusiveness as a loving all knowing God.

[oliver_denom]

If you look at ancient myths, then you see stories about gods being tricked, making mistakes, and going on quests. They may have had powers, but they weren't all knowing. The ancient Hebrews had a similar pantheon of gods before moving firmly to monotheism. Modern readings of god in the garden make Adam and Eve hiding and god's questioning of them seem instructional, but there's no good reason to assume that the origins of that myth assumed that a person couldn't hide from god and that questions were actually necessary because god didn't know.

I believe the belief in omniscience really arose out of the collecting of powers within the pantheons to create one super god who ruled them all, before getting rid of the spares. Christianity borrowed heavily from the Greeks and their ideas of platonic perfection. So maybe its the case that Christian gods have always been omniscient, but maybe not all gods at all times have been that way.

[wtfluff]

As always...

Which god?

[dogbite]

Read Big Gods. When cooperative society got larger than you knowing everyone it required methods for you establish trust with strangers. Outward (expensive in time effort or money) displays of belief such as clothing or food requirements, public prayer and so on.

In smaller groups, god(s) are not all watchful or knowing or even concerned with morality. In those societies they're more to explain why things are the way they are than a moral powerful force.

In the modern world this is mostly the recourse to police and the courts, assuming rule of law. Where rule of law is not the norm, religiousity is higher and is the fall back trust position.

Read Big Gods.

[Hagoth]

Assuming LDS eternal progression doctrine is true, God was probably a hunter-gatherer or maybe a poor field worker or common laborer in a stone age society on some distant planet. He would have required a lot of post-death education to get from there to all knowing.

[moksha]

From Big Gods:

Once human minds could conceive of supernatural beings, Norenzayan argues, the stage was set for rapid cultural and historical changes that eventually led to large societies with Big Gods--powerful, omniscient, interventionist deities concerned with regulating the moral behavior of humans. How? As the saying goes, "watched people are nice people." It follows that people play nice when they think Big Gods are watching them, even when no one else is. Yet at the same time that sincere faith in Big Gods unleashed unprecedented cooperation within ever-expanding groups, it also introduced a new source of potential conflict between competing groups.

My God's better than your God,
My God's better than yours,
My God is Mormon,
And he has many wives,
My God's better than yours.

[ulmite]

I think that God has always been omniscient, just like your parents when you are 2. The only difference is that most people end up realizing that their parents actually are not perfect but many remain convinced that their God is. My position is that either God doesn't exist, or else He is imperfect but knows what He's doing with us humans, and so I trust Him. After all, He scored second-highest on those Celestial Knowledge Board Exams, only surpassed by Heavenly Mother. (and His jealousy is why we can't talk to Her?)

[1smartdodog]

About the time men needed a scary God to keep people in line.

[Newme]

My position is that either God doesn't exist, or else He is imperfect but knows what He's doing with us humans, and so I trust Him. After all, He scored second-highest on those Celestial Knowledge Board Exams, only surpassed by Heavenly Mother. (and His jealousy is why we can't talk to Her?)

Now, it's all beginning to make sense.

In primitive times, God was distributed as objective reasons for weather, etc.
If there was a drought, it was because the gods were angry & needed more sacrifices, etc.
Everything around them was interpreted as objective causes - as if their interpretations of gods' punishments through weather - were FACTS.
Gradually, I guess, we've transferred the reasoning to one idea of God - one unifying parental divine figure who has it all under control and knows it all. And then gradually, of course (as you mentioned), people realized that their parents & God are not perfect (at least according to their idea of perfect).

My current idea of God involves objective truth (which nobody is really able to graps since we're subjective-interpreting beings), as well as subjective truth (ie endocrine system changes that are real but based on illogical thoughts & consequent feelings). "The kingdom (experience) of God is within you." Duh! Where else is it going to be? Am I all knowing? Of course not. But are there laws - yes - like gravity and maybe a type of karma (no caste system though).

Also, maybe God is the highest GOoD, which involves some messy parts of "bad" along the way.

[sirensong]

I'm just finishing up a class this summer. It's "Biology of Hope and Belief" and it's super interesting. It's looking at hope and belief from an evolutionary standpoint. Here is the course description:


Course Description: The underlying premise of this course is that the human mind and human behaviors have been shaped by the force of natural selection. That is, we are not born as blank slates waiting to be shaped by the environment and experience. Rather, we come into the world with predispositions, preferences and passions that evolved because they helped our ancestors survive. Some of these behaviors are complex, longstanding and present in every human culture ever studied. This course explores the biological basis for two of them: the human capacity for hope and the human desire to believe in a supernatural deity.The course begins with an evaluation of hope. What is it and how is it different from optimism? Thereafter, we explore the nervous system, how it is structured and how it has evolved over time. Do we find evidence for hope among other species, including our closest cousin, the chimpanzee? We will look at the neurobiology of hope and how that changes when one is in a state of hopelessness. We will ask whether it is possible to cheat death with hope and what data support this contention. From there, the course takes on an issue that is intimately related to hope, i.e., the near universal human desire to believe in god. We will examine how causality is learned in young children and from that how beliefs are formed neurologically. We will study how malleable beliefs are once they are formed, how false beliefs are created and the neurobiological events that attend the changes. Thereafter, we will examine the neurobiology that underscores religious states such as reverie, mysticism and hallucination.We will learn how brain activity is studied using various types of brain scans and data from brain-injured subjects. We will evaluate data used to support different points of view about the reality of religious states. Throughout the course, we will seek to understand how the force of natural selection might have led to both hope and religious faith. What were the selective advantages to our ancestors and what, if any, data support these contentions? The course, in short, explores the biological bases for qualities thought to be uniquely human: our capacity for hope and our relationship to a supernatural deity.


Basically, the need to have an all-knowing god has been around since the times of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Like others have said, they needed a way to keep everyone in line when the tribes got too big to exist solely on egalitarian principles. An all-knowing, all-seeing God served the purpose of overseer to keep people in line...

This class has been wonderful!

[moksha]

It is hard to imagine an all-creator, an unmoved mover, and a master of celestial mechanics not having a pretty firm grasp on everything. Perhaps this universal super being understands why green tea, the most healthy of all beverages, is denied to Mormons and why Mormons must regard bare shoulders as being pornographic. Those items are beyond normal human understanding.