Question:

My inlaws and I had a talk last night about “Does God know everything before it happens?” – Dad is a science teacher.  He believes in God but says God probably doesn’t care about what we had for lunch or know in advance what choices we make. Your thoughts on an omniscient God?

Answer:

If I understand God correctly, he exists outside of space and time.  The way Jesus put it, “Before Abraham was born, I AM.” (John 8:58).  When asked who he should say had sent him, God told Moses to tell then that “I AM” (yhwh in Hebrew) sent him.  In other words, God has the property of existing.  He simply IS.  Time is irrelevant to God, as is space.  God is not in any particular place.  God simply IS.  Therefore there is no place we can go to hide from God and God knows already all that has and will happen.  This idea is expressed in Psalm 139:6-10.  It is also proved by the amazing prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled hundreds and even thousands of year later in wonderful and specific detail.  This proves that God know what will happen before it happens.  If you want to give your father material to support this claim, I suggest you get my book Reasons for Belief, available at www.ipibooks.com.   This book has three chapters about the claims of Jesus and the fulfillment of historical prophecy.

I disagree with your father on God knowing what we will do before we do it.  God is presented as omnicient in the Bible and the prophecies in the Bible, as well as many other evidences prove it to be true.  But I agree with him that God probably does not care what we eat at any particular meal.  He cares about our happiness and our joy and our relationship with him and with one another, but I do not believe that he cares who wins a football game or what the current style for women’s clothes are.  He does not change traffic lights to get us to work on time and he normally lets nature take its own course, without intervening.  On the other hand, God knows every hair on our head (Matthew 10:30).  Matthew 6:25-34 is a good passage to explain what God considers important and what he considers not to be important.

John Oakes