Is God omniscient? Does He know all things: past, present and future? Well, of course! He’s “God” after all! I suggest that the Biblical record is not so clear on the matter.
Let’s start at the beginning. Well, the second beginning. There are two creation stories, the first one by the Elohim in Genesis chapter 1 and the second by the Jewish god Yahweh in chapter 2 (see post #1). In the chapter 2 version Yahweh creates a man but then creates animals, expecting Adam to find a suitable helper (mate?) among them. Not finding a suitable helper among the animals, Yahweh then forms a woman from one of Adam’s ribs. So, Eve is kind of an afterthought? Did Yahweh really expect Adam to find a suitable helper among the animals? Surely an omniscient god would have known up front that Adam would need a female of his own species. But the story is not told that way. Did the ancient story tellers think that God had to figure things out along the way, rather than having complete foreknowledge? It certainly reads that way. Then there is the situation with Adam and Eve disobediently eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Did Yahweh know they would do that? If so, why did He set them up for failure? But note what happens after the event (Genesis 3:8f): Yahweh goes walking in the Garden to find them, calling out, “Where are you?” And when Adam explains why they were hiding Yahweh asks, “Who told you that you were naked?” Of Eve He asks, “What is this that you have done?” Maybe this is all for dramatic effect, but it sounds like this Yahweh version of God is not all-knowing and is surprised by their responses. Maybe these story tellers did not think of God as being omniscient as we think of it.
Jump ahead to Noah and the flood, starting in chapter 6. First there is the curious passage about the sons of God mating with the women of earth, spawning a race of giants (v.1-4) (see post #6). Things get so bad that Yahweh decides He has to start over with a new primal family. In fact, v. 6 literally says that Yahweh was sorry or “repented” that He had made man [Heb: nāḥam]. Really? Didn’t He see this coming? What kind of omniscience is this? We see the same sort of shortsightedness in evidence after the flood: After Noah offers up some burnt offerings, Yahweh smells the sweet aroma (a rather human trait?) and then declares that “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.” So, people are evil from their youth, and destroying humankind except for Noah’s family really didn’t accomplish anything, did it? Read on and you will see that Noah and his sons start the sin cycle all over again. Couldn’t God see that wiping out humanity wasn’t going to solve the problem? This does not seem to fit the textbook definition of omniscience.
You may know the story of the Tower of Babel, where they tried to build a tower to reach up into heaven. God objects, and confuses them by having them speak different languages. You may have overlooked this statement: “Now Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower which the men had built” (Genesis 11:5). Why did Yahweh Himself have to ‘come down’ to inspect the situation? Didn’t He already know all about it? A similar situation occurs in Genesis 18, in which God says, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. I will go down now and see whether they have done entirely as the outcry, which has come to Me indicates; and if not, I will know.” (Genesis 18:20, 21) He then sends two angels to personally investigate the situation. This does not sound like a god who is truly all-knowing. He knows something, but not all the details of what is going on. In this case He needs on-site reconnaissance to know for sure what is going on. It seems to me that the ancient story tellers thought of God has great and mighty, but not omniscient in the way we think of it. I wonder if this is behind the idea of personal angels. If God did not know the details of what was going on in Sodom and needed the help of his angels, how can He know the details of all the prayers being sent up all over the world? Ah, He has angels acting as His agents, to hear and transmit our prayers! That may relate to why Paul says in 1st Corinthians 11:10 that when women are praying, “the woman should have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” It is the angels listening to our prayers, not God Himself; He has more important things to do, presumably.
Consider the story of Balaam in Numbers 22. There it says, “Then God came to Balaam and said, ‘Who are these men with you?’” (v. 9). Again God seems to need an on-site visit to check things out. In the prose prologue in the book of Job it has Yahweh twice ask Satan, “From where do you come?”, first in 1:7 and then again in 2:2. Once more there is the idea that God does not know all, in this case what Satan was up to, and has to ask.
God commanded the Israelites to wipe out all the pagans in the Promised Land. Supposedly He did not want Israel tainted by the false religion and evil practices of those people. Yet He must have known that they would not accomplish this. In fact, the people of Israel were said to become just as bad as or worse than those they displaced: read 1st Kings 14:24 and 2nd Kings 21:9, for example. Surely omniscient God would have foreseen this? So, what was the use of all the slaughtering described in the book of Joshua? Apparently it just replaced one set of sinners with a God-approved set of sinners. Now, some counter, “But they didn’t wipe out all the pagans as instructed! That was the problem!” (See post 19 for more on that.) But as I pointed out, God had already tried wiping out all the sinners with the Great Flood, and that didn’t work. Is God a slow learner? The ways of God certainly are mysterious.
In the book of 1st Samuel we see the people of Israel get a king, Saul being the first. But when Saul does not carry out the command to completely slaughter the Amalekites Yahweh says, “I regret [Heb: nāḥam] that I have made Saul king.” It is the same term used in the flood story, implying being sorry, or repenting. And as with the flood story it seems strange that an omniscient being could feel regret for something He had done, as if He could not see what was going to happen. Did the story tellers simply not think that deeply about the implications, or did they instead believe that our free will is so strong that even God cannot predict the outcomes and can be surprised and disappointed by them? It seems like almost a partial deist point of view: God can intervene and do things in the world, but then He lets things run their course and is sometimes disappointed in the outcomes.
There is a story in the New Testament that really bothers me. In the Gospel of Matthew some mysterious magi are seeking the new King of the Jews, and despite the star leading them right to the very house (2:9) they find it necessary to stop in Jerusalem and ask for directions. This alerts King Herod to a possible rival to his throne. After the magi find Jesus God warns them not to return to Herod (Matthew 2:12). The result is that Herod gets mad and orders the slaughter of all the male toddlers in Bethlehem. Did God not see this coming? Well, apparently He did at some point, because He warned Jesus’ family to flee, but unfortunately for the other families in Bethlehem He didn’t warn them. It seems like an omniscient god would have known Herod’s reaction and therefore been able to figure out a better solution that did not involve children being massacred. For example, simply letting the magi report back to Herod, because the family would already be gone by the time the soldiers got to Bethlehem. But maybe this story is less about omniscience and more about God simply not caring about the other families in Bethlehem. Wait. That doesn’t sound right! Luckily, there is no evidence that this slaughter took place. It seems to be an invention by Matthew to invoke Jeremiah 31, as if it is a prophecy of the event. Read that chapter – it has nothing to do with the Bethlehem story. It is actually a call for hope, that the children will be restored, not killed! The passage in Jeremiah continues:
Thus says the Lord,
“Restrain your voice from weeping
And your eyes from tears;
For your work will be rewarded,” declares the Lord,
“And they will return from the land of the enemy.
There is hope for your future,” declares the Lord,
“And your children will return to their own territory.”
Jeremiah 31:16, 17
The passage is about the ‘children’ of Israel being taken into captivity, but have hope! They will return! It’s not about children being slaughtered. But Matthew is not one to let proper exegesis get in the way of his ‘prophecies.’
Jesus did not claim omniscience. When speaking of the end of the age, he specifically said, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Mark 12:32). So, there was knowledge God the Father had which Jesus did not claim to have. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus prays in the garden before his arrest, “Remove this cup from me.” If the gospel writers believed Jesus had divine omniscience I do not think they would put such words on his lips. He would have known it was not possible to change the coming events since the impending crucifixion was absolutely essential to God’s plan. Interestingly, when the Gospel of John was written later it had a loftier view of Jesus and this prayer request is removed and instead Jesus prays for his disciples. On the other hand, the Gospel writers did assign Jesus some predictive ability. He predicted the destruction of the temple (Mark 13:2) although that may have just been an astute political observation, but he also appeared to predict Judas’ betrayal (Matthew 26:20-25) and Peter’s denial (Mathew 26:34). So, Jesus was seen as having keen insight, perhaps divine in nature, but that does not equate to omniscience. Mind you, these events were written down decades later, so it is impossible to know if Jesus actually made these predictions, or if later disciples wove them into the story in order to portray him as divinely gifted.
There are a variety of philosophical issues that come with the idea of an omniscient supreme being. One issue would be the implication that if a god can see all the future then that implies the future is set and unchangeable. On the other hand, if the future is not already pre-determined, then how can God know it? Is true omniscience simply knowing that which can be known, but not that which cannot be known, such as a yet-to-be-determined future? Can God know something that doesn’t even exist yet? I sometimes ask, Does God know my daughter’s name? I don’t have a daughter, so how could He know it?! How can any being know something that doesn’t exist?
If God can see my future, can I do anything to change it? If He sees that I am going to end up lost, what chance do I have? Yet the god of the Bible seems genuinely surprised by certain outcomes. He urges people to repent, which suggests that they can change their future. A good example is the story of Jonah, who is told to preach to the city of Nineveh, “Forty more days, and Nineveh will be overthrown!” But the people are moved to repentance and God relents; Nineveh is not overthrown, causing Jonah to throw a fit! Was that an empty threat: did God already know Nineveh would repent and not be destroyed? I think the tellers of that story believed God can and does change His mind according to human actions; the future can change.
Whether there is a supreme being or not, I think of the world as an uber-complex chess game. A masterful player can look at a chess board and see the possibilities, but when an unexpected move is made it opens up a whole new set of possibilities. Perhaps you think God is making moves to advance the game along in the direction He wants, but doesn’t that leave open the possibility that we can make our own unexpected moves in response? Why bother playing the game if you already know all the moves that will be made and the outcome? (Some sports channels replay old games, but our channel guide often reveals the surprise outcome: “…in which the Packers score a last-minute touchdown to pull off the upset.” Well, why bother watching once I know the outcome?!)
Playing chess with death, from The Seventh Seal (1957)
(Can we ever win?)
Why would a wise and benevolent god toy with us and give us the illusion of free choice and a flexible future if in fact He can see the future laid out before Him and knows what we will do and how it will end? Why would He even create this world already knowing the outcome of all things? Just cut to the chase, the final judgment, and drop the illusion that our lives and our choices mean something.
A final tidbit, based on a class I heard taught by scholar James Tabor.[1] You may be familiar with the time God (Yahweh) revealed His name to Moses:
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” [“I AM” being the root of the tetragrammaton name YHWH (Yahweh)]
Exodus 3:14
Dr. Tabor pointed out that a more literal translation would be, “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.” I may be putting too much into this alternative translation, but I wonder if that better encapsulates how the ancients thought of God: not that He is so immutable and unchangeable as people assume but rather He is flexible and will be and will do what is necessary depending on circumstances. I find that more reasonable than the idea that God is so static that even He does not seem to have free will. Theologians and philosophers get carried away with the concept of an unchangeable god. As one example is the bizarre doctrine of predestination, taught by Reformation theologian John Calvin. The Belgic Confession (or Confession of Faith) of 1561, a foundational document of some Christian sects, affirmed that God “delivers and preserves” from perdition “all whom he, in his eternal and unchangeable council, of mere goodness hath elected in Christ Jesus our Lord, without respect to their works” (Article XVI). This doctrine assumes that God is so high and mighty and unchangeable that He not only knows the eternal fate of all souls but also that He has determined in advance their fates; we puny humans have no say in the matter. Don’t they realize that if God is unchangeable then He does not have free will? How bizarre! And how perverse to think that a supposedly benevolent god would bring into existence billions of souls just to doom them to eternal punishment. “God is love?” Not according to that inane doctrine. “God is monstrous” would be more appropriate.
There are many verses in the Bible which praise God for being all-knowing, but I find it interesting that the stories do not always reflect that. Did God regret (repent of) creating humans at the time of the flood? Was He truly sorry that He made Saul king? Did He really need angels to do His reconnaissance in Babel and Sodom? Skeptics might say that the God of the Bible reflects human traits because He was invented by humans. The faithful may instead believe that the stories simply reflect the difficulty of humans trying to describe mysterious divine actions. What do you believe? Is your god truly omniscient? Is the future fixed or flexible? Can God see it or is He waiting to see how it plays out, perhaps influencing it along the way? Or is omniscience just an imaginative hypothetical construct that does not really exist, even for God?
Thinking exercises:
1. Some philosophers, scientists and theologians believe that free will is an illusion and everything is already set and unchangeable, determined by the laws of physics or the unchangeable will of God. What would be the point of life if everything has to run its exact course and we have no choice but to go along with it? What happens to personal responsibility and accountability if we are all just running the course predetermined for us? Are we responsible for sin, or is the god who predetermined it? And if so, why then are we subject to judgment rather than God?
2. Do you believe that the future is pre-determined or is it possible that exercising our free will constantly changes the future, like an uber-complex chess game?
3. Do you think God is ever surprised by your actions? Give an example.
[1] “Five Forgotten Concepts from the Book of Genesis” is available on James Tabor’s YouTube channel as of this writing.