“My Jesus knows just what I need.” Christians do not have to question God’s wisdom or ability to care for them because God’s knowledge is perfect. He knows all things. He knows all things that have been. He knows all things that will be. Who better to trust than the God who has perfect knowledge? The traditional or historic position of Christian theologians is that God is omniscient or that God knows all things without limit.[1] As Bavinck affirmed, “Scripture nowhere even hints that anything could be unknown to him.”[2]
Since God is the Creator he must have perfect knowledge of his creation and the future of his creation. God is the one who stands outside time and space Creator. As Charnock said, “The differences of time cannot hinder a knowledge of all things by him who is before time, above time, that is not measured by hours, or days, or years.”[3] Bavinck, again, offered the historic Christian understanding when he said, “True, the manner in which he obtains knowledge is sometimes stated in striking anthropomorphic language (Gen. 3:9ff.; 11:5; 18:21; etc.), but he nevertheless knows everything. The notion that something should be unknown to him is dismissed as absurd.”[4]
WHY I BELIEVE GOD KNOWS ALL THINGS
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY GOD KNOWS?
What does God know?
· The most minor and insignificant details (Matt. 6:8, 32; 10:30);
· the most deeply concealed things: the human heart and mind (Jer. 11:20; 17:9–10; 20:12; Ps. 7:10; 1 Kings 8:39; Luke 16:15; Acts 1:24; Rom. 8:27);
· thoughts and reflections (Ps. 139:2; Ezek. 11:5; 1 Cor. 3:20; 1 Thess. 2:4; Rev. 2:23);
· human origin, nature, and all human action (Ps. 139);
· wickedness and sin (Ps. 69:5; Jer. 16:17; 18:23; 32:19);
· the conditional (1 Sam. 23:10–13; 2 Sam. 12:8; 2 Kings 13:19; Ps. 81:14–15; Jer. 26:2–3; 38:17–20; Ezek. 3:6; Matt. 11:21); and
· the things of the future (Isa. 41:22f.; 42:9; 43:9–12; 44:7; 46:10),
· He knows everything (1 John 3:20).[5]
The Psalmist, in the 139th Psalm, described God’s knowledge this way: “you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I get up; You understand my thoughts from far away.” (Ps. 139:1) He went on to say, “Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, LORD, you know it all.” Since our God knows everything with certainty, even the future before it occurs, we can have confidence in him and his providential care. The Psalmist went on to say that because God knows all things perfectly “You have encircled me behind and in front and placed your hand upon me” (Ps. 139:5).
GOD KNOWS ALL FUTURE THINGS
Perhaps someone might say that God knows all things that have happened, and he knows everything that might possibly happen but not which future will actually occur. Claims such as this one are often presented to preserve God’s perfection against the problem of evil in the world and to preserve a libertarian free will against fatalism. Is this a position which is compatible with Scripture?
Psalm 139:4 says, “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, LORD, you know it all.” Notice what must be true from this Scripture: 1) God knows what every person will say before they say it and 2) God knows exactly what that word is an not just all the potential words which might be said. Since God knows every word which will be said, then he must also know every situation in which those words will be said. From this one Scripture then, the perfect knowledge of God of everything before the event actually occurs is proven.
Likewise Isaiah 46 challenges the reader to remember God’s transcendent nature. There is no one like God (Is. 46:9). One way in which no one is like God is his knowledge. Instead of just knowing every possible reality, God is the one “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying my plan will be established, and I will accomplish all My pleasure” (Is. 46:10). Again, God claimed that he not only knows all potential realities but he “declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not yet been done.” For this to be true, God must have certain knowledge of the future. So, God knows the future perfectly and does not learn what will happen. Furthermore, God must know exactly what will happen rather than what future could possibly be actualized.
Finally, God must know all future because God is the one who “fashions the hearts of them all,” and “understands all their works” (Ps. 33:15). Aquinas rightly said, “Now the works of men are contingent, being subject to free will. Therefore God knows future contingent things.”[6] In other words, since all things people do are contingent upon what comes before them God must know all future actualities because God both fashions their hearts and “understands all their works.” As these causes and effects continue throughout created reality, God must know each of them eternally. Aquinas said, “And although contingent things become actual successively, nevertheless God knows contingent things not successively, as they are in their own being, as we do; but simultaneously. The reason is because His knowledge is measured by eternity, as is also His being; and eternity being simultaneously whole comprises all time.”[7]
GOD’S KNOWLEDGE IS INFINITE
God’s knowledge is described as infinite. To be infinite is to be without limit. If there was a limit to God’s knowledge, then God would not be omniscient. If there was a limit to God’s knowledge, then God’s knowledge would not be unfathomable, beyond limit, or unsearchable. As Charnock explained,
“If he be ignorant of any one thing that is knowable, that is a bound to him, it comes with an exception, a but; God knows all things but this, a bar is then set to his knowledge. If there were anything, any particular circumstance in the whole creation, or non-creation, and possible to be known by him, and yet were unknown to him, he could not be said to be omniscient, as he would not be almighty if any one thing that implied not a repugnancy to his nature did transcend his power.”[8]
But the Bible does describe God’s knowledge as limitless. There is nothing God does not know. God’s greatness, in total, is “unsearchable” (Ps. 145:3). The Bible describes God’s knowledge as “unsearchable” (Is. 40:8). His understanding is “beyond measure” (Ps. 147:5). His judgments are “unsearchable” and his ways are “unfathomable” (Rom. 11:33).
GOD MUST KNOW ALL FUTURE THINGS AS THE FIRST CAUSE
Furthermore, if God did not know some future event, then that event would have some ultimate cause other than God. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Since God created all things, it is reasonable to say that he knows what all things will do. If he did not know what all things will do, then there must be some imperfection in God as Creator or in God’s intellect.
Now, creatures can act contrary to God’s will. This has been described as secondary causation. However, the fact that creatures act of their own divinely given will in ways in which God would not have them to act does not invalidate God’s perfect knowledge of what they will do as their Creator. So, If God knew what his initial creation would do, he must also know what will follow, and what will follow those events. In this way God knows all of time because he is the first Cause. If there is something that God did not know, then that thing must have some cause other than God. If there is some cause other than God, then there must be some other first cause or some other god.
Since God knows perfectly “the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12) and every word that will be said before it is said (Ps. 139:4), then God’s perfect knowledge of all things in the past, present, and the future must be confessed. If there is some future of which God is not certain, then he must not be the ultimate cause of that future and he must not know the “thoughts and intents” of the people in that future and he must not know the words of that future before they are spoken. However, the Scripture must not be broken. No ignorance in God can be affirmed.
GOD’S OMNISCENCE IS LINKED TO HIS IMMUTABILITY
Alongside God’s omniscience is the doctrine of God’s immutability or his unchanging perfection. Historically, Christians have affirmed that God does not change in any way. With God, James said, “there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Js. 1:17). God is eternal (“his years have no end”), and throughout that eternity God is the same (Ps. 102:27; Heb. 1:12). God is the “I AM” (Ex. 3:14-15). God is not the I will be or the I was. God is “the LORD” and he “does not change” (Mal. 3:6).
Since God does not and cannot change in any way, his knowledge cannot change.[9] In contrast with humanity, God does not have regret (1 Sam. 15:29; Num. 23:19). God cannot change his mind because God cannot change. Humans experience constant change. Every person is different from year to year. God, on the other hand cannot change. His knowledge remains eternally perfect. He neither learns nor forgets.
CONCLUSION
God knows. He knows the future. He knows exactly what will happen and he has eternally known everything that will happen. Stephen Charnock said, “‘His understanding is infinite.’ You may not imagine how he can call all the stars by name, the multitude of visible being so great, and the multitude of the invisible being greater; but you must know that as God is almighty, so he is omniscient; and as there is no end of his power, so no account can exactly be given of his understanding: ‘his understanding is infinite.”[10] We are thankful “the Lord knows those who are his” (2 Tim. 2:19). We can trust his word. We can trust his providential care. We can trust when he promised to bring us home.
[1] Although God is at times presented as not knowing the future or learning, these descriptions must be understood to be anthropomorphic. These anthropomorphisms are given to us in Scripture so that the reader better understands the narrative and the relational qualities which God would present between himself and his creation. If the descriptions of God learning or regretting are not anthropomorphic, then Scripture contains great contradictions. Either God’s understanding is boundless and he knows every word before it is spoken or God must literally wait to see what Abraham will do with Isaac. Anthropomorphic language allows us to see different truths communicated about God without contradiction in the Scriptures.
[2] Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 192.
[3] Stephen Charnock, The Complete Works of Stephen Charnock (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson; G. Herbert, 1864–1866), 477.
[4] Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 192.
[5] Adapted from Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:192
[6] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I q.14 a.13 s.c.
[7] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I q.14 a.13 resp.
[8] Stephen Charnock, The Complete Works of Stephen Charnock (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson; G. Herbert, 1864–1866), 467.
[9] This is especially true of God who is noncorporeal and “pure intellect.”
[10] Stephen Charnock, The Complete Works of Stephen Charnock (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson; G. Herbert, 1864–1866), 459.