Omniscience

Test your knowledge with free interactive questions on Seneca — used by over 10 million students.

The Nature of God: Omniscience

Omniscience means that God knows everything. Nothing is hidden from Him. Anything He knows must be true.

“Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord” (Psalm 139:4).

The theory of omniscience means that God knows the future.
- If God knows the future, this brings up some problematic questions:
- If God knows the future, why does He not intervene to stop bad things from happening?
- If God knows the future, does this mean humans don't have free will?
- Can God judge us fairly if we don't have free will?

God is everlasting (sempiternal).
- This is the modern view (Swinburne).
God created the world.
Time only began to exist when God created the world.
- This means that the past is the past for God as well.
- This means that God does not know the future either.

God is timeless (atemporal).
- This is the classical view (Aquinas, Augustine & Boethius).
- This suggests that God is 'outside' of time (transcendent).
God does not see time in the linear fashion we do.
God is not bound by time since He created time.
God can be and is everywhere at once.

There are different ideas about God's omniscience and relationship with time.

The view that God is timeless gives Him strength.
The view that God is timeless arguably makes God greater than an everlasting God.
The view that God is timeless maintains God as a being with unchanging nature.

The view of a timeless God limits our free will and leads to problems around predestination.
- Can God judge us fairly if we can’t choose actions for ourselves?
The view of a timeless God leads to problems with God’s benevolence.
God can see the ‘future’ but doesn’t intervene in cases like the Holocaust.
- Does this make God malevolent?
In the Bible, God is shown to act in time – e.g. curing a leper.

The idea of a timeless God comes from the ancient Greeks.
- The idea of a timeless God can be found in Plato’s Theory of Forms and Aristotle’s Prime Mover.
The idea of the Christian God being timeless was promoted by Aquinas.
Aristotle's Prime Mover is not moved by anything, whereas the God from the Bible is moved by people's prayers.

The idea of an everlasting God is based on the Bible.
There are examples of God responding to prayers.
- One example is the curing of a leper after the leper prayed for God to help.
The idea of an everlasting God makes the concept of prayer relevant.
- 'Ask and you shall receive' (Matthew's Gospel).
God responds to prayers.
God is benevolent.
The idea of an everlasting God preserves the idea of the free will of humans.
- God learns about our actions as we do them, not in advance.

The idea that God is eternal means that He has always existed.
- If God has always existed, what was He doing before He created time?
The idea that God is all knowing doesn't necessarily preclude the idea of free will for humans.
- If God has knowledge from the beginning of time, He may just be able to correctly predict the future.
- The idea that God is able to correctly predict the future doesn't mean that humans don't have free will.