God is Omniscient Notes
a God who is all-powerful but does not possess the perfect knowledge of how to use that power would be a terrifying thing.
The classical Christian position on God's knowledge is, like His power, that God is omniscient, or all-knowing.
If God knows everything, and that includes the future, what we call God's foreknowledge, how can anything we do be truly considered “free”?
Let's consider the logical progression of what we already know. God is infinite, necessary and perfect. He requires nothing else to exist and all that does exist requires His existence. For this reason He must be infinite for if He were to cease to exist, so would all other things. He must be perfect for God to be the Maximally Great Being that we can conceive of. Therefore He must also be powerful. Such power must be infinite as He is infinite and therefore the greatest power in existence. It must be perfect power, as He is perfect and as such cannot be deficient. And as we have just said, God must possess the knowledge to use that power. His knowledge must correspond to His nature and therefore we may rest in the comfort that God's knowledge is not only infinite, meaning He can know all that can be known, but that it is perfect.
Omniscience can be defined as “knowing the informational content of every proposition and experience that a being with God's attributes can know.”
Job 36.4; Is. 40.13-14.; Is. 46.11 and 48.3-5; Jer. 38.17-23; Ps. 139.1-4
Test of a prophet demonstrates the biblical basis for God's omniscience
Deut. 18.21-22: Anything a prophet says that does not come to pass makes him a false prophet and his word is not from the Lord. Such a prophet is to be put to death. The only way a prophet of God could be certain that what they said would come to pass is if the God for whom they speak is all-knowing. Otherwise, God is only making”good guesses”. This prophetic test takes us one step further as well. When we consider the Christian claim that the Bible in it's entirety is the very Word of God, and the God who inspired it is omniscient, then it stands to reason that the Bible should be judged under the same guidelines as the prophet in Deuteronomy.
Biblical Prophecy and Omniscience
Regarding the life of Jesus Christ, the OT contains 332 predictions of the coming Messiah, all of which were fulfilled by Christ. Are these vague? Well here's a few: Born of a Virgin (Is.7.14; Lk. 1.26-35), Of the line of Abraham (Gen. 22.18; Matt. 1.1); Son of Isaac (Gen. 21.12; Lk. 3.23); Son of Jacob (Num. 24.17; Lk. 3.23); From the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49.10; Lk. 3.23); Of the family line of Jesse (Is. 11.1; Lk. 3.23); From the house of David (Jer. 23.5; Matt. 9.27); Born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5.2; Matt. 2.1); called Immanuel (Is. 7.14; Matt. 1.23); Betrayed by a friend (Ps. 41.9; Matt. 10.4); Sold for thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 11.12; Matt. 26.15); Hands and feet pierced (Ps. 22.16; Lk. 23.33) and crucified with thieves (Is. 53.12; Matt. 27.38). That's only a few, but as I said there are more than 300.
The prophecy of the fate of Tyre and Sidon in Ez. 26 From this chapter you get about 6 predictions that will befall the cities of Tyre and Sidon:
1. Nebucahdnezzar will destroy the city (8)
2. Many nations will come against Tyre (3)
3. The city will become bare rock (4)
4. Fisherman will spread their nets there (5)
5. The city will be thrown into the sea (6)
6. The city will never be rebuilt (14,21)
And, I'll add another one that comes from the prophet Amos when he says that the city of Tyre will be burned.
573 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar did in fact come to the city of Tyre. He besieged it for 13 years from afar. When he finally invaded the city he found that all the people that had remained had fled from the mainland city to an island fortress just off it's coast. Nebuchadnezzar had no Navy, so he couldn't reach them. Given his penchant for rage and being a sore loser, the king tore down every building and burned the city to the ground.
240 years later Alexander the Great arrived at the city of Tyre. He takes the rubble of the mainland city and has it thrown into the sea and uses it to build a causeway all the way to the island. Then charges the island besieges the city there. They never fully recover but briefly rebuild in 314 B.C. only to be destroyed again by Antigonus.
Today there is a small fishing village on the original site of the city of Tyre, and fisherman even today dry their nets there.
While Sidon was never prophesied to be destroyed, Ez. 28. 22-23, it was prophesied to have a bloody and pestilential existence. 40,000 people were burned alive in the city of Sidon in 351 B.C. When they tried to revolt against Persia, and since those days they have been captured and recaptured by Moslems, Druses and Turks. Historically it has suffered more bloodshed than almost any other city in history.
There is no other account in history of a prediction of this level of specificity having come true, and yet it is virtually ignored.
Problem Passages
Gen. 3: after the fall of Adam and Eve they hide from God. At this point God comes down and calls out “Where are you?” and after Adam tells Him that they were hiding because they were naked, God asks, “Who told you you were naked?” Are we to take from this passage that God didn't know where they were or that the serpent had lied to them?
I have five children, all of whom to various extents enjoy drawing. Not just on paper mind you but anywhere they can. Now my nine year old draws much differently than my five year old, and her much differently than my two year old, so when I walk into the bathroom and see a drawing all over the toilet seat, I already know who drew it. However, I will ask them all, “Who did this?” Why do you think I ask that? To attempt to illicit a response from them. I want them to accept responsibility in order to build a better character in them. In many cases in Scripture when we see God ask questions in this way it is to do the very same thing.
What about foreknowledge and free will?
The argument is that if God knows the future and what we are going to do, then we aren't really free to do anything other than that and therefore we're not free. If we're not free to act otherwise then we can't be blamed for what we do.
For us the future has not yet happened and therefore God telling us the future is foreknowledge. That's because of our perspective. From God's perspective it's just knowledge. Past present and future exist as one for Him, and although He seems to have the ability to be focused in the present, He sees all as one. What this means is that there is no determinism when it comes to our decisions. We are free to choose however we are inclined in that moment.
The other concept is known as middle knowledge. What middle knowledge states is that not only does God know the future but part of this knowledge is that He knows every decision we could possible make in every given circumstance and has placed us in our present position on the basis of His knowledge of all potential decisions. This means that we really could choose any way that we want but in know way will we choose anything that God does not already know the result of.
Take this a step further and it means that God knows everyone who will accept Him as Savior and therefore they have been placed in the circumstances in their lives to illicit that response. Therefore, no one who does not accept Christ ever would have given any different circumstances.
How The Shall We Live?
nothing within our own minds, hearts or actions goes without God knowing about it. You have not uttered a single sinful word, or thought that God does not know about.
The Psalmist has cried both that the Lord has cast our sins as far as the east is from the west and never brings them to mind again. This is only possible through the shed blood of Christ and His forgiveness of our sins. Are we free to keep sinning then? In the words of Paul, “God forbid.” No, we are to recognize the great gift with which we have been given and live with both the knowledge of God over us and His grace to forgive us anyway.
It's not just that God has the power to protect you, or carry you, or keep this world traveling on the path He has laid out. God has the supreme knowledge of everything about you. He knows your worries, your successes, your failures. He knows your past, your present and your future.
So when Peter tells us to “cast our cares upon the Lord for He cares for us” and when Jesus says our “Father knows what we need before we even ask Him” we have the guarantee that we need not bear so heavy a burden alone.
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