The Attributes of God
Omniscience
Isaiah 46:9-10
Remember the former things of old,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,’
God’s omniscience means that God knows everything. But what does that mean? Imagine a computer that contained every fact about the universe. But despite knowing everything it lacked self-awareness. That machine despite having all the facts would not posses all knowledge. In fact, since the computer’s database is limited to everything in the universe it doesn’t have any information outside of the universe. God, who created everything, knows all the facts about the universe and everything outside the universe, namely, himself.
The knowledge of God encompasses not only all static facts but also all contingencies. As finite humans we can wonder about what would have happened if. What if I had stayed home instead of going out to where I met my wife? From my human perspective I can only make the vaguest guesses about what might have been. For God all might have beens are known as completely as everything that actually happened.
Matthew 11:21
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Here Jesus states a, might have been, as a fact. Tyre and Sidon would have repented if they had seen the miracles that Chorazin and Bethsaida saw. This is sometimes called counterfactual knowledge or middle knowledge. It is the knowledge of exactly what will eventuate given any set of facts and choices.
Furthermore, God’s knowledge encompasses the future. As we saw in Isaiah God knows the end from the beginning. We see Jesus’ knowledge of the future in Luke 21:5-6, “Then, as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations, He said, “These things which you see—the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.”
Isaiah 42:9
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
And new things I declare;
Before they spring forth I tell you of them.
Does God’s complete foreknowledge mean that everything is fated? Is human freedom illusory? Would that make God the author of sin?
Foreknowing is not fore-ordaining. It is our choices that God foreknows. There is chronological priority and logical priority. Chronologically, God knows what we will do before we do it. But logically what we choose to do is what God foreknows. If the choice were different then God’s foreknowledge would have been different. The barometer doesn’t cause the weather but it knows what the weather is.
In Genesis 16 Hagar calls God, El Ro-ee, the God who sees.
Genesis 16:15
Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?”
Psalm 139
O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
One of the most difficult things to attain in this world is a relationship with another person who really understands you. Even if you have such a relationship and a good deal of self-knowledge there is still much about life that is unknown. What we have in Christ is one who understands us completely, yet still loves us completely.
John 4:5-26 The Samaritan woman.
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
Jesus well knew this woman, all her past, all her hurts. He knew how to speak to her to encourage her. Her defensiveness, ignorance and sinfulness were all insurmountable barriers to her conversion but nothing is impossible with God.
In a human court the prosecution and the defense bring forth evidence that supports their case and the judge or jury have to depend on what they say. When God with perfect knowledge judges there will be no mistrial, no appeal, no special pleading. He knows not only what happened but why it happened and everything that could have been had other choices been made. God’s omniscience makes his judgment perfect.
Revelation 20:11-15
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
brotherpayne 