Does God Know Everything?

[Tom Wetmore]

Originally Posted By: Tom Wetmore

But what does it mean to be all knowing?

That's a good question.Seems like once we start questioning God's omniscience we would naturally need to question His ability to predict future events,His ability to know enough to create something from nothing, His complete knowledge of the human make up,ect...ect... Seems like we'd then need to move on to questioning His Eternal existence, and so on, and so on.

Are you afraid of those questions? What would be so bad about seeking answers to them?

The question is an honest question about the meaning of a oft repeated phrase.

If we say that God sees the future, what does that mean? If he knows the end from the beginning, what does that mean?

Try to answer it as if you were talking to someone that has no concept of God, has never read the Bible or anything religious.

[John317]

... Doesn't all prophesy rest on that supposition? Isn't that the test of who the Real God is?

Yes, it does, according to Isaiah 40-46.It says clearly that what distinguishes the living God from all false gods is that the living, true God knows the future.

Example:

Isaiah 41:21-26

Set forth your case, says the Lord;

bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob.

[22] Let them bring them, and tell us

what is to happen.

Tell us the former things, what they are,

that we may consider them,

that we may know their outcome;

or declare to us the things to come.

[23] Tell us what is to come hereafter,

that we may know that you are gods;

do good, or do harm,

that we may be dismayed and terrified.

[24] Behold, you are nothing,

and your work is less than nothing;

an abomination is he who chooses you.

[25] I stirred up one from the north, and he has come,

from the rising of the sun, and he shall call upon my name;

he shall trample on rulers as on mortar,

as the potter treads clay.

[26] Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know,

and beforehand, that we might say, "He is right"?

There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed,

none who heard your words.

[John317]

If we say that God sees the future, what does that mean? If he knows the end from the beginning, what does that mean?

Try to answer it as if you were talking to someone that has no concept of God, has never read the Bible or anything religious.

It means that God knows what will happen in the future. For instance, He knew the exact day and hour when Christ would die, over 500 years before it happened. It means that we can have confidence that what God has said will happen, will indeed happen. Just as God was right about Christ's first coming and His death and resurrection, God will also prove to be right about Christ's second coming and the resurrection of the righteous.

If I were talking to someone who had never read the Bible and had no concept of God, I would tell him that the true God knows the future like we know the past. It is something like seeing a film of Kennedy being assassinated. As we know ahead of time what is going to happen in the film, God knows ahead of time what is going to happen. He doesn't cause it to happen any more than our knowledge causes Kennedy to be killed.

I would tell them that while this is not an exact analogy, it comes close to showing God's ability to know the future.

Then I would show them prophecies in the Bible, such as Daniel 2 and Ezekiel 26, etc.

[John317]

Ellen White says that Christ came to this world "at the risk of eternal loss." That is what got me to thinking, years ago.

And yet there are many promises and statements in the Bible that indicate God knows the future in detail and that God knew Christ would be successful in saving people.

However, is it possible that all those promises were conditional-- based on Christ's successful completion of His mission? Since Christ was a free moral agent, He had the freedom to choose to go against God. Had that happened, the entire plan of salvation would have failed, and Jesus of Nazareth would have been eternally lost along with the entire human race.

Was this a serious possibility?

Does God literally know the future--- or is God simply a very good and wise guesser, since He knows human nature and knows what He Himself will do?

(When I was taking a class from Richard Rice in 1976, that is how he expressed it to us.)

[Tom Wetmore]

The essential question is how does he know the future? Is the future fixed and unchangeable?

If it is, Calvin was right. We have no free will. If not, how then does God predict the future?

Has God ever changed course? Can God seeing the future perfectly, change it?

How do are actions and choices in the present effect the future?

[doug yowell]

Are you afraid of those questions? What would be so bad about seeking answers to them?

The question is an honest question about the meaning of a oft repeated phrase.

If we say that God sees the future, what does that mean? If he knows the end from the beginning, what does that mean?

No, I've never said that questioning the existence and nature of God was something that needed to be avoided.I think I made that clear on another thread. Just trying to put into perspective the importance of the omniscience question when it's explored by those already professing to believe in Him. It is, in fact, a question which God Himself poses throughout the Bible and lies at the heart of being a Seventh-day Adventist.I prefaced my previous comments by 100% agreeing with you ("that's a good question")and I'm sticking by that.

[doug yowell]

Isaiah 41:21-26

Set forth your case, says the Lord;

bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob.

[22] Let them bring them, and tell us

what is to happen.

Tell us the former things, what they are,

that we may consider them,

that we may know their outcome;

or declare to us the things to come.

[23] Tell us what is to come hereafter,

that we may know that you are gods;

do good, or do harm,

that we may be dismayed and terrified.

[24] Behold, you are nothing,

and your work is less than nothing;

an abomination is he who chooses you.

[25] I stirred up one from the north, and he has come,

from the rising of the sun, and he shall call upon my name;

he shall trample on rulers as on mortar,

as the potter treads clay.

[26] Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know,

and beforehand, that we might say, "He is right"?

There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed,

none who heard your words.

Good stuff!!

[doug yowell]

[Does God literally know the future--- or is God simply a very good and wise guesser, since He knows human nature and knows what He Himself will do?

(When I was taking a class from Richard Rice in 1976, that is how he expressed it to us.)

Heard him around 1980,81 also explain why God DOESN'T ACTUALLY KNOW EVERYTHING using this same reasoning. I found Tom's question of how (does He know what He knows)a very appropriate one. (Wish Tom had been there to ask it)Each of RR's answers kept requiring the following question of "How did God know that?"

[Tom Wetmore]

Thanks for clearing that up. (Happy dance time! We agree!) I do agree it does open the door to more questions. We have built so much on the foundation of a traditional pat answer that God is all knowing. But we haven't really thought that through to understand how it might actually be so. Once you start rearranging the bricks in the foundation you have to do some work on what is built on that foundation.

The more dogmatic we get on God knowing the future perfectly as though fast forwarding a video that remains unchanged, the closer you get to hard core predestination. Something I was contemplating is the predestination roots in universalism and once-saved-always-saved and the idea that there is an unpardonable sin (or its ugly catholic step child - excommunication) that eternally damns a person while they are still alive with no more hope of redemption. They all make a mockery of free will. And they also put God in a small box.

I think Open Theology actually makes God out to be much wiser and more powerful and more in control than other theological constructs. Just seeing an unchanged future that even God cannot change just makes God out to be a super-computer that has in memory all that was, is and ever will be but unable to do much of anything about it. It is the difference of trekking on foot though the uncharted wilderness vs. riding a train set on rails though that wilderness.

[Tom Wetmore]

Here is how I see it.

God is all-wise with super comprehensive and highly detailed knowledge of all things past and present. He can analyze perfectly all variables including the choices each and every one of the creatures and all the forces of man and nature and super-nature interacting continuously. His predictive analysis must be updated every nano second continuously. Every little detail can make a difference. The future is ever changing. But God still can see all the possible outcomes and which are most probable.

Now know that God still has a plan working through all of that and despite all of that. The one certainty of the future is that God's plan will happen. That is the most certain of his foretelling of the future. The rest is conditional prophecy. People do and say the darnedest things. So God sometimes has to revise his plan to adapt to the free will of mankind messing with the variables and the devil throwing a monkey wrench in the works at every opportunity. But God's infinite wisdom can easily meet those challenges so that his plan will work in the end.

[John317]

I don't really have a disagreement with that, but we have to deal with the Bible texts which show that God knows details about the future and even knows who will be born long before they are conceived:

Isaiah 45:1

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,

whose right hand I have grasped,

to subdue nations before him

and to loose the belts of kings,

to open doors before him

that gates may not be closed:

Ezekiel 26:3-5

therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves. [4] They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers, and I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock. [5] She shall be in the midst of the sea a place for the spreading of nets, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. And she shall become plunder for the nations,

Isaiah 53 shows that God knew over 700 years beforehand how Christ would be killed and where He would be buried. He even knew who would betray Him and how many pieces of silver the betrayer would be paid.

Yet there are passages in the Bible, such as in Zechariah, which teach us that the Jewish nation had a genuine choice whether to accept their Messiah, and that if they had accepted Christ, many things would have gone differently.

[phkrause]

John I've always been taught that God knows the beginning to the end. That he doesn't always know the path we take to get there, but that he knows the final outcome! Does this agree with what you've heard or learned from your studies? Just curious.

[John317]

Yes, it does. I have no doubt that God knows the end from the beginning. But what does this mean in detail. You know what they say about the details-- that's where the problems in understanding are. So we're just dealing with a lot of unknowns, too.

For instance, the Bible teaches that God already knew who would be saved. The names of the saved have been written since the beginning-- that's long before any of us were even born.

The question is, do we take this literally, as referring to individuals? Or do we take it to mean that God has known from the beginning that all who truly accept Christ will be saved?

I believe it means God has known from the beginning who would be saved and who would be lost, and that His knowledge does not interfere with human freedom to choose. God didn't make people choose Him or reject Him.

ESV--Rev. 13:8

and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.

NOTE: This verse is sometimes translated as "... written in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world."

ESV--Rev. 17:8

The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.

Ephes. 1:3-4

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, [4] even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Ephes. 1:11

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

There is more than one way that these verses, particularly the last two, may be understood.

[Robert]

But what does it mean to be all knowing?

He knows what will happen with human free will.

[phkrause]

John that seems to be my understanding to what I've always been taught and have believed.

[miz3]

Originally Posted By: Tom Wetmore

But what does it mean to be all knowing?

That's a good question.Seems like once we start questioning God's omniscience we would naturally need to question His ability to predict future events,His ability to know enough to create something from nothing, His complete knowledge of the human make up,ect...ect... Seems like we'd then need to move on to questioning His Eternal existence, and so on, and so on.

[miz3]

Originally Posted By: olger

Let me clarify. I have a difficult time envisioning that when Satan made his challenge re Job, that God "peeked" into the future and saw that the outcome would be favorable and then entered into the contest with the enemy. I think it more likely that God took a real risk in the outcome of the trial of Job.

Why? Don't forget it was God Himself Who instigated the whole situation. Can you think of an example where God got it wrong? Doesn't all prophesy rest on that supposition? Isn't that the test of who the Real God is?

[miz3]

Ellen White says that Christ came to this world "at the risk of eternal loss." That is what got me to thinking, years ago.

Not Biblical. The Bible does not support this view.

[miz3]

Thanks for clearing that up. (Happy dance time! We agree!) I do agree it does open the door to more questions. We have built so much on the foundation of a traditional pat answer that God is all knowing. But we haven't really thought that through to understand how it might actually be so. Once you start rearranging the bricks in the foundation you have to do some work on what is built on that foundation.

The more dogmatic we get on God knowing the future perfectly as though fast forwarding a video that remains unchanged, the closer you get to hard core predestination. Something I was contemplating is the predestination roots in universalism and once-saved-always-saved and the idea that there is an unpardonable sin (or its ugly catholic step child - excommunication) that eternally damns a person while they are still alive with no more hope of redemption. They all make a mockery of free will. And they also put God in a small box.

I think Open Theology actually makes God out to be much wiser and more powerful and more in control than other theological constructs. Just seeing an unchanged future that even God cannot change just makes God out to be a super-computer that has in memory all that was, is and ever will be but unable to do much of anything about it. It is the difference of trekking on foot though the uncharted wilderness vs. riding a train set on rails though that wilderness.

Thus, when the Bible says that "nothing is impossible with God" it doesn't mean it? The Bible actually means a "qualified" God that is limited in His ability to do anything? I would call that a "very small box". An extremely small box indeed.

[miz3]

Human "free will" does make for a sticky issue when discussing God and the fact that God can "do anything", God "knows everything",. That is on top of the fact that the Bible does not support "human free will".

It really boils down to whether existence is "God centric" or "human centric".

"Free will" believers are "human centric". That is with a big bold unmistakeable sign which says, "it is all about me".

[John317]

"Free will" believers are "human centric". That is with a big bold unmistakeable sign which says, "it is all about me".

You're free to believe what you like. We will have to agree to disagree.

[miz3]

Originally Posted By: miz3

"Free will" believers are "human centric". That is with a big bold unmistakeable sign which says, "it is all about me".

You're free to believe what you like. We will have to agree to disagree.

OK.

[Gail]

Time now for a group hug?

[doug yowell]

The more dogmatic we get on God knowing the future perfectly as though fast forwarding a video that remains unchanged, the closer you get to hard core predestination. Something I was contemplating is the predestination roots in universalism and once-saved-always-saved and the idea that there is an unpardonable sin (or its ugly catholic step child - excommunication) that eternally damns a person while they are still alive with no more hope of redemption. They all make a mockery of free will. And they also put God in a small box.

I think Open Theology actually makes God out to be much wiser and more powerful and more in control than other theological constructs. Just seeing an unchanged future that even God cannot change just makes God out to be a super-computer that has in memory all that was, is and ever will be but unable to do much of anything about it. It is the difference of trekking on foot though the uncharted wilderness vs. riding a train set on rails though that wilderness.

The biggest problem I see with our views of God lie(lays?) in the fact that we spend so little time in actually studying what God has already revealed about Himself in the Bible.That, in my opinion, should be the starting point of any discussion of God's eternal nature.Reasoning from the Bible rather than from a theological/philosophical highground should be much more helpful in discovering what God has been attempting to convey to us all along.

Since the question at hand is "Does God Know Everything?" I would start with a study of exactly what God says He does know. I would then move on to a study of what He seems to know but hasn't said so explicitly.After exploring what we can reasonably know about what He knows we could then (if necessary)explore the possibilities of what we think He may or cannot know.In exploring these questions we would need to have a good Biblical reason why we arrive at our conclusions or demonstrate how one aspect of God's word reasonably contradicts another part of His word that we have previously employed to demonstrate the opposite.

[miz3]

The biggest problem I see with our views of God lie(lays?) in the fact that we spend so little time in actually studying what God has already revealed about Himself in the Bible.That, in my opinion, should be the starting point of any discussion of God's eternal nature.Reasoning from the Bible rather than from a theological/philosophical highground should be much more helpful in discovering what God has been attempting to convey to us all along.

Since the question at hand is "Does God Know Everything?" I would start with a study of exactly what God says He does know. I would then move on to a study of what He seems to know but hasn't said so explicitly.After exploring what we can reasonably know about what He knows we could then (if necessary)explore the possibilities of what we think He may or cannot know.In exploring these questions we would need to have a good Biblical reason why we arrive at our conclusions or demonstrate how one aspect of God's word reasonably contradicts another part of His word that we have previously employed to demonstrate the opposite.