God’s omniscience means that God’s knowledge is perfect, eternal, and immediate. This can be both convicting and comforting.
My kids seem to have the mistaken idea that I know everything. When we’re getting ready to go somewhere, I hear, “Mom, where are my shoes?” Every time they start to play, I hear, “Mom, have you seen my toy gun?” or whatever other item they need to complete their game. Whenever they want to know some obscure trivia fact, they ask me. Like I know when Babe Ruth started playing baseball or how a pinball machine works. They even ask me some pretty deep theological questions, like if people will look the same in heaven. It’s humbling how many times per day I have to say, “I don’t know.”
As humans, our knowledge is obviously limited. We’re limited in how much we can learn. No matter how many books we read or how many degrees we earn, we can never learn everything there is to know. We don’t have that much time. We are also limited in what we are capable of learning. There are some things I just can’t understand, no matter how hard I try. Even if I had the time to learn everything, I’m just not smart enough.
That is not true with God, though. God does know everything. He is omniscient, which simply means “all knowing.” God is infinite, or limitless. His omniscience means that He is limitless in knowledge. He never has to say, “I don’t know” because He knows everything.
There are several aspects to God’s knowledge that we need to understand.
God’s knowledge is perfect.
God Knows Himself
God knows Himself perfectly. Our knowledge is so limited that we don’t even understand ourselves sometimes. I’ll ask one of my boys why they did something, and they’ll respond “I don’t know.” We don’t always understand why we react or behave or feel a certain way. Why did that movie make me cry? Why did I get so angry just because she said that to me? Why am I so depressed today? We may not always know what’s going on in our own head.
God, however, always knows what’s going on with Himself. He always knows what His motives are for any decision. God always behaves in keeping with His character, so He never responds illogically or overemotionally, and He never has to ask, “Why did I that?” He knows Himself perfectly.
That’s not easy, if you think about it. We’ve already established that God is infinite. Even in His limitlessness, He understands Himself completely. That’s true between the persons of the Trinity, as well. The Son knows the Father and the Spirit perfectly. The Spirit knows the Father and the Son, and the Father knows the Son and the Spirit. There is always perfect harmony and unity within the Trinity, as these verses illustrate:
- 1 Corinthians 2:11: “For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”
- Matthew 11:27: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
- John 10:15: “…just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.”
God Knows Creation
He knows animals and nature.
God also knows His creation perfectly. That’s because He created it all. Every year scientists are making new discoveries about the world around us. I Googled “new discoveries in science in 2021.” The National Science Foundation has a series of articles of all the latest scientific discoveries, which includes everything from new star formations to the behavior of blood-sucking flies to the importance of kelp in the California ecosystems.[1] New information is coming to light constantly in every branch of science, because we just don’t know all there is to know about the earth.
There’s even been seven new animals discovered in 2021, according to Discover Magazine, such an octopus named the Dumbo octopus that lives 4000 feet underwater, or the B. Nana, which is a chameleon found in Madagascar that’s barely larger than a fingernail, probably making it the smallest reptile known to science.[2] Even after all the years that people have been exploring the earth, there are still creatures that no one has ever seen.
But God has seen these animals. God knows every single creature in the deepest part of the ocean, and He knows the tiniest creatures on the face of the earth. God created all of these “new” things that scientists are so amazed by. There are no new discoveries for God. He never has to learn anything or figure anything out. He already knows it all, according to these verses:
- Matthew 10:29: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”
- Psalm 147:4-5
- Job 12:10: In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”
He knows mankind.
God’s limitless knowledge of creation also includes His knowledge of mankind. He knows every single thing about you and about me. Matthew 10:30 says that God has the hairs on our head numbered. That would be challenging for me, because I shed a lot. But God doesn’t have to constantly keep counting to keep up with my hair loss. He just knows instantly how many hairs on my head at any given time, and on your head and on the heads of every single person in the entire world.
Psalm 139:1-4 is probably the key text when it comes to God’s knowledge of man:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
God sees you all the time. He knows your thoughts before you think them, your actions before you do them, and even your words before you speak them. He knows your likes and your dislikes, what makes you happy and what pushes your buttons. God knows your favorite food and TV show and every other minute little detail about your life. God knows more about you than any other person, even those you’re closest to, and He even knows you better than you know about yourself.
God’s knowledge is eternal and immediate.
By this we mean that God has always known everything. Even from before time began, from way back in eternity past, God has known everything. He has never learned anything new or gained any new information. His knowledge will also extend into eternity in the future, meaning that He’ll never forget anything.
According to Joel James:
There is a whole category of words in the English language that don’t apply to God. He has never had to investigate or inquire…God has never had to experiment, search for something He has lost, or check His notes before going into a meeting. He has never had to look up a phone number or research a historical fact. God’s knowledge doesn’t result from observation, and, although He is eminently reasonable, He doesn’t reason His way to a conclusion based on a series of logical deductions like Sherlock Holmes. He just knows everything instantly. God is never confused, perplexed, or bewildered. God has never remembered something, simply because He never forgot it in the first place.
What God knows now, He has always known and He always will know. That’s because God Himself is eternal. He is outside of time, so He can see all of time all at the same time. That’s how He can declare the end from the beginning, because He’s at the end and the beginning at the same time.
His knowledge is also immediate, meaning all of His knowledge is always in His mind all the time. We women pride ourselves in multitasking, and we may be able to be thinking about a couple or even several things at once. But there’s a limit to how many thoughts we can have in our heads at one time. Not God. He has every thought in His head simultaneously. He’s the master multitasker.
Implications of God’s Omniscience:
It can be convicting because we can’t hide anything from God.
The fact that God knows everything can be convicting because God knows even those little pet sins that you’ve hidden, and that I’ve hidden, so well from anyone else. He knows our past mistakes and regrets. He knows our every selfish or prideful or hateful thought or word. We can’t hide our sin from Him, or hope that He just wasn’t paying attention that one time, so maybe we got away with something. We can’t even depend on Him to forget our sins, because God is not capable of forgetting anything. It’s impossible to hide our true selves from God.
It can be comforting because we don’t have to hide anything from God.
But it’s also comforting, because we don’t have to hide our true selves from God, even though we often feel like we need to hide from others. There’s a Casting Crowns song called “Stained Glass Masquerade.” It’s all good, but especially like the second verse and the chorus:
Is there anyone who’s been there?
Are there any hands raised?
Am I the only one who’s traded
In the altar for a stage?
The performance is convincing
And we know every line in my heart
Only when no one is watching can we really fall apart
But would it set me free
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
You imagine me to be
Or would your eyes be opened
Or would you walk away
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay?
Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles that hide our pain
But the invitations open
To every heart that’s been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain
On our stained glass masquerade
We often feel like we need to wear a mask with each other. We’re ashamed or embarrassed to let people see our sin and our struggles. The pretense can be exhausting. We may not feel like we can take off our mask with a single person in this world, but we can take it off with God. He sees beneath the mask anyway. We’re not fooling Him, so we may as well be honest with Him. He knows everything about us and still He loved us and chose us. We don’t have to worry about His reaction. He won’t be shocked or offended. He’ll forgive us and love us and comfort us, no matter what sin we confess to Him.
We can trust God to always know the right thing to do.
Because God knows everything, He always knows the best course of action in any situation. He never doubts or second guesses Himself. Hindsight for us is 20/20, but with God, His foresight is 20/20. He always makes the right decision, so we can trust Him with any problem that we’re facing.
This post is part of a series entitled Seeking God’s Face: Discovering the God of the Bible, which is based on a Bible study I’m teaching at my church. In this study, we’ll be rethinking our impressions of God by searching the Scriptures to find out who He really is. You can find other posts, as well as additional Bible study resources, here:
SEEKING GOD’S FACE: DISCOVERING THE GOD OF THE BIBLE
The information in this post was based on the following resources:
None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us by Jen Wilkin
Taste and See that the Lord Is Good: A Study of the Attributes of God by Joel James
The Attributes of God DVD by Steven Lawson
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[1]https://www.nsf.gov/news/index.jsp?news_type=99
[2]https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/7-new-animals-discovered-in-2021-so-far
