Is God Omniscient, An Attribute of God
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. Psalm 147:5
I have posted on God’s omnipresence and His omnipotence. I wanted to discuss God’s other attribute last as it is probably the more difficult attribute to understand. This attribute is His omniscience. Understanding His omnipresence and omnipotence ties in and aids in understanding His omniscience.
Omniscient is the attribute of knowing and perceiving all things at all times. His knowledge is absolute. It neither increases nor decreases. It does not change. His knowledge cannot increase because He possess all knowledge at all times.
I recently read a website where the author of the article correctly stated that omniscience is “having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things.” Yet after correctly describing God as having complete and unlimited knowledge, the author went on to state that omniscience does not mean that God knows our every choice. He used Abraham and the test of sacrificing his son Isaac. The author stated that God did NOT know until the moment Abraham was ready to slay Isaac if Abraham would obey.
I do not think the author realized what he just said. That statement meant that God does possess all knowledge at all times. His knowledge cannot be absolute if He did not know what Abraham’s choice was until the last minute. The author was stating that that God had to wait to learn what would happen so that He could intervene.
After Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from God. In Genesis 3:3 God called out “Where are you?” This cannot be understood to mean that God had no knowledge of their location and needed to ask Adam and Eve to identify their location. God knew.
When God called out to Adam and Eve, it was not so He could learn information that He did not know, that is their location, but as a means to point out that they were hiding because of their sin. The bible is full of such language where it “appears” that God is seeking information unknown to Him such as Genesis 18:21.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. Psalm 147:5 ESV)
The two Hebrew words that is translated to English as “beyond measure” is “ayin” and “mispar.” Together those two words mean “nothing in comparison (ayin)” and “without number, innumerable or unlimited (mispar)”.”
God’s knowledge does not grow based on what we will or will not do. If God’s understanding is infinite (beyond measure), then it must follow that God’s knowledge is also infinite.
for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 1 John 3:20 (ESV)
All things are known by God (1 John 3:20). If God knows all things, the conclusion must be that there is not anything that God does not know. He knew Abraham’s decision regarding Isaac as well as knowing where Adam and Eve were. This must necessarily include all that is in the past, present and the future.
Man lives in a creation called time. God created time but He is not bound by time. In eternity, there is no time. The argument is that God waited until Abraham made a decision but did not know until he made the decision is binding God to a creation of His, that is time.
There are some that will take the position that even though God is all powerful, He is not exercising all His power at all times. In other words, He is not exercising all His ability or capacity to do all the time. This is true. God does not exercise the fullness of His power at all times. It is this same reasoning that will be used to argue that God chooses not to know everything at all times in the same way He is not chooses not to exercise all His abilities at all times. It is an illogical argument. Having all power certainly means one does not have to exercise that power but knowing all things means exactly that; knowing all things. God does not claim that He can know all things. He claims that He DOES know all things.
The infinity of God means that God is unlimited and not confined by space. He is everywhere at all times, present at all times in His fullness at all times. He fills all things with His Being. The infinity of God means possessing unlimited power, His ability to do whatever He wills. The infinity of God also means that He possesses all knowledge at all times. There is no change in His knowledge. It neither increases nor decreases. All of God, is constant and infinite. There is no limit to His presence (omnipresence). There is no limit to His power (omnipotence). There is also no limit to His knowledge (omniscience).
Infinite means “Without limits; unbounded; boundless; not circumscribed; applied to time, space and qualities. God is infinite in duration, having neither beginning nor end of existence. He is also infinite in presence, or omnipresent, and his perfections are infinite.”
All of God is infinite. He has no boundary in His omnipotence, His omnipresence and His omniscience. His attributes are constant, they do not change based on circumstances. His attributes are absolute and even to the very next thought that enters our mind is already known to God and has always been known to God in all of eternity, infinitely. All things have always been known to God. His knowledge is based on nothing outside of God.
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Hi,
Interesting commentary, however, I need some help reconciling some of your points. If God’s omniscience is to include the future which has not yet happened, what do we do with the problems that we have introduced to his omnipotence? If all of God’s future is known by Him, he can not make any new decisions, nor could he make any changes to that known future. He would be powerless to make any change because it would make his omniscence in error.
I can only understand scripture if we make the future and unknowable item unless God should choose to determine all or part of that future (predetermine).
It seems, from the teachings on God’s omniscience, that we believers make more unnecessary trouble for ourselves by the way we define some of God’s attributes. For example, where did we get the notion that God can’t experience anything ‘new’ to him and still be God. Do we somehow think that he is like a liiving crystal ball who experiences nothing, or something like that??
The brilliant ones ‘outsmart’ themselves and then try to convince us to believe them. The same silliness I find when they say that ‘sovereignty’ means that God controls all things. Sovereignty is simply the ability to control all things.
Thanks for your interest in these important teachings
Ladd
Hi, I really do understand your confusion.
Here is where I think the problem lies. There is no future outside of time. Future is time based just like present and past are time based. God created time, it does not just exist. Here is something interesting that demonstrates that science has accepted that time is a creation. Science teaches that is a created entity that did not always exist. Science says that the laws of causality demands that everything within our material universe has a cause and all events are dictated by a cause and effect. These laws are only valid if they exist within a time entity or framework, that is within a passage of time. Science likes to teach that the big bang is the cause of creation but as we Christians know, it was God that created. In any event Einstein and a few other scientists taught, and it is now accepted science, that there was no such thing as “before” prior to the moment of creation since time had not yet been created. This science is comes from the general theory of relativity which supports the Word of God. At creation, time was created. It did not exist before creation.
I’m only bringing up the above to demonstrate that the entity of time is something that God created, it didn’t just exist. God is not bound to any of His creation and that includes His creation, time. The laws of cause and effect which is bound by the creation of time, has no bearing on God. It can’t as it is something He created. Future does not have the same meaning to God as it does to you and I and in fact is irrelevant. We are bound to time and we cannot know something in the future. But there is no such thing as “future” outside of time. The future is unknowable only to us who are bound by time. We are created and live in a created world, a created universe and the created entity which is time.
It’s really a difficult concept because we can only think in terms of time. We should not think of God in terms of time. To say that God has always been there is incorrect for that suggests a passing of time. To think or speak of our “ETERNAL” God must be in terms that do not use time based words such as present, past, future. But as time bound creatures, we have no other way of speaking so we may say “always.” Before there was such a thing as “time,” God existed.
You ask where did we get the notion that God can’t experience anything ‘new” to Him and still be God. If God could experience ‘new’ (also time based word), then God is learns and does not possess all knowledge. If God were to experience something new, it would have to be at the hands of something He created. That would mean that something He created took Him by surprise and He experienced something unknown to Him. That simply is not possible. There are several scriptures that speak to His understanding as without limits (infinite).
Thanks for your comments. It made me search how to even articulate such a difficult concept.
If there is no past present or future in God, then did we (all of humanity) exist in the mind of God for eternity? Since there could never be a point where he thought of something new. Has humanity, even our cosmos, alway been with God, did he simply change our form from thought to corporal existance? Thanks
Hi Paul,
“Past, present & future” is a created entity. It did not always exist (even the word “always” is a time based word). Also, God does not learn something new so you are correct in saying that there never was a point where He thought of something new, such as our creation. All of everything, yo and I, the universe, every single event and thing has always been known to God at all times. I admit that this is extremely difficult and to be honest, while I can understand the concept, I really cannot grasp it. I accept it as truth but that doesn’t mean I can really grasp it. I think our minds are too limited to really fully comprehend it.
To try and answer your question — (“Has humanity, even our cosmos, alway been with God, did he simply change our form from thought to corporal existance”) — it has always been part of God’s mind and what was in His mind for all of eternity, He created at some point. Even though I occupy a teeny weeny little blip on the time spectrum, I have always been known by God for all of eternity. My existence began the moment I was conceived but God has always known about me and when I would come into existence.
I don’t know if I’m making any sense — hopefully I am.