Does God know the future?

[lee_merrill]

Hi Bling,

1. Has there been a posting explaining this story?

Lots of them! But these are good questions...

3. Did Jonah run away because he did not want to be party to the saving of Nineveh?

Yes, he thought the Ninevites would repent (Jon. 4:2), and God, we are being told, did not?! Jonah knew better than God did?

4. Do you feel the entire sermon over the at least three days Jonah was in Nineveh consisted of the one line we have recorded in Jonah?

I expect he said just the minimum! "There, I did what you told me to do". He may have even spoken in Hebrew (all the words but one ("yet") are the same in Hebrew and Ninevitese, Ravi Zacharias said in a message).

8. Why did the people of Nineveh not run like Jonah ran? Did Nineveh have a better understanding of God then Jonah?

I think they knew they couldn't run from God! Jonah being one prominent example. And yes, again we seem to have people who are better at estimating an outcome than God is.

10. OV would like me to think God was completely surprised by the reaction of Nineveh... Are we saying God could not know the reaction of at least some of the people in Nineveh?

Well, the OV makes much of character solidification when a prediction succeeds! This point is apparently abandoned, however, when the interpretation is that the prediction failed.

11. OV suggest God was giving a false message through Jonah, so when did God figure out that this message could possible be wrong?

And this involves God in lying, if he knew (surely he must have) that the judgment was conditional, and yet he stated it as being really unconditional, that his plan was really judgment, and he had to change it.

12. Was Nineveh not overturned? Can God overturn the hearts of people, so they become, “new creatures” with the same name and living in the same place?

Someone mentioned to me once that Augustine made a similar remark a (long) while ago. Yes, the same word "overthrown" is used of people's hearts in other places, such as Ps. 105:25.

Blessings,
Lee