[True Disciple]

Re: Divine omniscience is an un-Scriptural heresy.

Brother Bible Student, I'm with you on this. Surely God knows everything, and your Scripture quotations prove that.

Though I highly respect you, Pastor Isaac, I must disagree with you on several points.

Surely an omniscient Being could have seen the problem there. Since I had to have the old house childproofed for my children and the current house childproofed for my grandson, I could have seen the problem there.

Well, then obviously God somehow intended the Fall of Man to happen, didn't He? after all, God creates evil:

Isaiah 45:7:
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

If God creates evil, it is quite obvious that He could have also brought into motion the process of bringing the very first evil into the world.

The presence of Eve in the story brings me to my second point.

Genesis 2:18-22: And the LORD God said, [It is] not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought [them] unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that [was] the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

That is, God had to engage in trial and error to find the help meet for the man whom He had just gotten through creating. Once Help Meet 1.0 turned out to be unsuitable, He had to make Help Meet 2.0.

Well, the Bible doesn't explicitly say here that God created these animals as helpmeets, does It? God brings the animals to Adam to "see what he would call them," not to see if he would choose as a helpmeet from among them.

The Bible then says that Adam didn't find a helpmeet, not that God intended for him to have found one at that point. Adam simply didn't realize that God hadn't yet arrived at the point of creating a helpmeet.

God tests us

That is, He actually has to test us. Not especially the words “now I know” in Genesis and “to know whether” in Deuteronomy, hardly consistent with Divine omniscience.

As we all know, Salvation™ is attained by faith and through works. God knew that Abraham had faith, but because of his deed of the attempted sacrifice of Isaac, his faith was officially "shown through his works." After all, faith has to be shown through works:

James 2:20-22:
But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

And as we see, this is how Abraham was justified. Therefore, when God said to him "now I know," he meant that Abraham's faith, now that it was shown through his works, was now officially accepted by God ("known" to Him).

Amen, Pastor.

Also, let's not forget that prior to Sodom and Gomorrah God comes down to the earth to see for Himself to see if the things He is hearing are true.

Genesis 18:20-21 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

Pastor, you might notice that God already says that "the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is very grievous," which shows that He already knows everything about it. The "if not" part simply says that the cities, like Nineveh in later days, still can change their ways, and that God will know it if they do. In short, this only supports His Omniscience!

In the story of the Tower of Babel, God comes down to look at what He sees the Babylonians doing. He didn't already know.

Genesis 11:4-7 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

I'm sorry, Pastor, but I can't see where Scripture says that God "didn't know" that this tower was being built. It only says that He was coming down. Maybe He was just coming down for a nice stroll in His Creation, like He often did in the Garden of Eden. We don't know why He came down, only that He did. There is no reason to assume divine ignorance in this respect.

I think in your haste you forgot about the scripture that indicates that God changes his mind. I know it's hard to accept, but surely an omniscient being would never need to change His mind, right?

Well, I disagree with you on this. Of course God can change His Mind: being omnipotent, He can do everything. He can create a rock He cannot lift Himself, He can subsequently lift that rock, and He can change His Mind. The very definition of "omnipotence" requires that He can do all those things.

So, in short, God does change His Mind, and because of His Omniscience, He already knows He is going to change His Mind beforehand. So when God created man, He already knew that He would eventually repent that He had made him.

Just another quick aside. If the Lord knew he'd be sorry for making Saul king, why would He do it in the first place if he was omniscient?

God's ways are mysterious, and it is not wise to question His Motives. Why did He do that? We can't possibly know with our tiny mortal minds.

Nevertheless, if I might throw a hunch, then maybe God did it to punish the Amalekites, or to punish the Israelites for asking a king in the first place. That might be possible.

In conclusion, I would like to refer again to Brother Bible Student's excellent quotations that prove beyond doubt that God is indeed omniscient. Praise the Lord!