In the Light of His Word: Pondering God’s Omniscience
The scriptures provide a vast supply of information on who God is and what He is like. Often this area if study is discussed under makeshift parameters such as “the attributes of God”, the “personhood of God”, or in explorations of God’s “nature”. One of the attributes that scripture conveys as a key part of God being God is His omniscience, which is His being all-knowing. This can be a difficult concept for we finitehuman beings who must exert ourselves (some more than others) to retain finite amounts of knowledge over comparatively short periods of time. How can someone know everything always all the time? Yet scripture most certainly declares this to be an attribute of God. Which leads to a question that might seem blasphemous to some and superfluous to others; can God choose to not know something? Can an all-knowing God not know something if He wishes to not know it?
As we read commentaries and listen to teaching and preaching that attempt to render deeper understanding of God’s attributes, particularly in relation to His dealings with man, we often hear limitations placed upon God in certain regards. For example, one will not have to search far and wide to come across teachers employing summary statements such as “God CANNOT look upon sin”, “God CANNOT lie”, “God CANNOT have fellowship with sin”, etc. Some of these are based upon plain statements in scripture (e.g. God the Holy Spirit plainly stating something about Himself, such as found in Titus 1:2 -“…which God, that cannot lie…”) and some are based on peripheral statements that seem to indicate God being unable in a particular regard. However, even with the example of lying, which is arguably the clearest “inability” of God expressed in scripture, Titus 1:2 does not stand alone on this, that is in its statement that God “cannot lie”. In Numbers 23:19 and 1 Samuel 15:9 we are given additional information on God’s inability to lie, being told in Numbers 23:19 that “God is not a man that He should lie…or that He should repent” and in 1 Samuel 15:9 again that God “does not lie or change his mind for he is not a man that he should change his mind”. An honest assessment (which would include a review of additional passages – to name but a few – in Genesis, Exodus, 1 Kings, Psalms, Daniel, 1 Thessalonians that we do not have time to get into in this study) of what scripture reveals on this paints a picture that is more accurately conveyed as God being unwilling to stoop to lying when speaking for Himself as true. In short, it is not a chink in the armor of God’s all-powerful nature – something He is UNABLE to do; rather, to the contrary, it is a testament to His unlimited power in that He maintains the ability by will to be true when He says He will be no matter what external circumstances might seem to make that IMPOSSIBLE for God based on His other attributes (Holiness, Omniscience, Love, Justice, etc).
Thus we arrive back at the original query: is the all-knowing God ABLE to not know something? If God is ABLE to not know a thing, is He willing to cease knowing? In what instance or sense might He do so if indeed able and willing? The most pertinent (perhaps crucial would be the better term) issue in regard to God’s ability and willingness to forget as far as we are concerned would be in relation to our sinfulness. Looking at a few passages dealing with God’s omniscience as He employs it rather than as He possesses it might be an encouraging warm-up exercise to engage in briefly, prior to assessing what scripture says about the broken relationship between God and ourselves due to our sin. As we look to scripture for examples of God being able and willing to suspend His knowing in accordance with His purposes, a few interesting accounts are worth consideration.
Most bible students are familiar with the scenario of Job. The story of Job is centered on a man whom God points out to Satan as being pleasing to God and “righteous”, to which Satan replies by asserting that if God removes His blessings and protection from Job and evil befalls Job then Job will turn against God and curse God to his face (Job 1:11). God accepts Satan’s challenge and gives Satan leave to afflict Job. What we have here in Job is the omniscient God who states elsewhere that He knows “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10) and “none resists His will” (Romans 9:19) acting as if He doesn’t know how this will play out. In the beginning of the story, God even asks Satan where he is coming from after Satan arrives in heaven (Job 1:7, 2:2), AS IF God doesn’t know where Satan has been and what he has been doing. Satan answers, AS IF God doesn’t already know. It goes on in like manner from there. What we have in Job is a demonstration that, despite the very plain truth conveyed in scripture regarding God being all knowing all the time for all time (omniscience), there is at least a situational possibility that God may act AS IF He does not already know.
A similar situation in found in the account of Abraham being tested with the command to sacrifice his son Isaac, which is not only given as a narrative in Genesis 22 but commented on further by the Holy Spirit in Romans 4, Hebrews 11, and James 2. God, knowing the end from the beginning, would have known what Abraham’s response would be, yet God says to Abraham after Abraham obeyed God and was about to slay Isaac, in Genesis 22:12 “…now I know that thou fearest God , seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.” Abraham appears to have been given an opportunity by God wherein God allowed Abraham to demonstrate his faith which results in a benefit for Abraham. While God in His omniscience knew the end from the beginning with respect to Abraham and Job, the fact is that neither Abraham nor Job themselves were privy to any of what God was doing behind the scenes – God acted AS IF He didn’t know one way or the other so that Abraham and Job could, in the end, be benefited by their testing.
The examples of Abraham and Job, among many others, demonstrate something that is crucial to the possibility of any of us having any sort of a relationship with God. The most profound instance of God acting AS IF He doesn’t know something that is found in scripture occurs in regard to sin. While we may, and must, believe – placing faith in God’s word to us – that because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross nearly 2000 years ago God now views we sinful men as without sin, how often do we stop and consider the impossibility that God has overcome in so doing? God, knowing every thought any one of us has ever had, every deed, every secret, has promised to treat us AS IF none of that were true based on the sufficiency of the blood of Jesus Christ shed on our behalf. Not only has God chosen to forget our sins, He has promised to know us as something we are not – as perfectly righteous as was His only begotten Son Jesus Christ. As stated in 2 Corinthians 5:21:
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
God, for our benefit, did something by His Son Jesus Christ, that only an all knowing (omniscient) AND all powerful (sovereign) God could do. To put it as He Himself does via Paul in Romans 4:17, God made things that “are not as though they were”. In this statement we have confirmation that God, both omniscient and sovereign, can will that which is not to be and likewise will that which is to be not – and all the while not departing from His perfect truth in the accomplishing of these things. It would do us good to meditate on these things, and to appreciate, through his wonderful word, the mercy and grace shown to us by our omniscient and sovereign God, manifested in Jesus Christ.
wisdomspout-November 2021
(all scripture references KJV unless otherwise noted)
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