Religion concepts and applications

God's Knowledge in the Thinker's Guide to God by Peter Vardy and Julie Arliss (2003)

In The Thinker's Guide to God, the author Peter Vardy asks the question, did human beings 'make' God and did humans make the various conceptions of goodness that they have attached to God? Or is it possible to detach such concepts as a God that exists in space and time apart from the very varied conceptions human beings have evolved to explain the Supreme Being? In essence, why do so many religions have such varied conceptions of goodness and God, despite the persistence of evil in the world?

Furthermore, the all-knowing nature of a good God would also seem to complicate and problematize the notion of goodness, as well -- why does God know of evil, and allow it to exist? Why did God, in the Christian understanding of the fall, give humans free will to choose to disobey his command and suffer?

A God who did not know all would be, in some ways, easier to explain as good -- God could be good but unknowing of how the world he created would evolve. Yet the idea of a non-omniscient being would mean there is no 'larger' plan or purpose for human suffering in the world. God's ability to affect the world would not necessarily be impacted, however the concept of a purposeful human existence, under the watchful moral eye and hand of God would be significantly altered.