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Friday, February 28, 2020

Does God have desires?

This may seem like an odd question. For instance, does God desire the lost? Does God desire our obedience? 

The question is how the concept of divine desire relates to a timeless God. On the assumption that God is timeless, then we need to modify the concept of desire.

In the case of temporal agents, we begin with a desire or form a desire. Then there's a gap or interval between having the desire and having what we desire. A waiting period. Having a desire, we may take steps to achieve what we desire.

If, however, God is timeless, then there's a sense in which he has no desires because he was never in a state of unrealized desire. The object of his desire was always in his possession. It was always achieved.

In terms of world history, there may be a process by which that's achieved. But one the plane of God's existence, there is no interval between first having a desire (much less forming a desire) and then obtaining what he desired, later on. 

In another sense, there was never a time when he didn't have the desire in question. It's not like there was a point prior to his having a desire, then forming a desire, then taking actions to achieve the desired goal. 

1 comment:

  1. God's `desires` (if they can even be called as such) differ from ours by their complete lack of any obsessive or compulsive component.

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