Omniscience

Understanding Omniscience

• Omniscience refers to God’s ability to know everything that can be known, including every detail about the past, present, and future.
• This attribute is often associated with monotheistic religions like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, where God’s knowledge is seen as infallible and complete.

Omnisicence and Divine Foreknowledge

• God’s foreknowledge of all events is emphasised under the attribute of omniscience, which raises complex philosophical and theological discussions.
• The balance between God’s foreknowledge and human free will is often debated. The question arises on whether God’s knowing our future choices equates them being predetermined.

Different Types of Divine Knowledge

• Natural knowledge, which refers to God’s knowledge of all possibilities.
• Middle knowledge, a concept proposed by Luis de Molina, suggests God’s omniscience includes knowledge of hypotheticals (what anyone would do in any given circumstance).
• Free knowledge, which includes God’s knowledge of actualities (including future events).

Omnisience and Other Divine Attributes

• Omnsicience often goes hand in hand with attributes like omnipotence (all-powerful) and omnibenevolence (all-good), contributing to the comprehensive concept of an all-perfect God.
• Findings from modern science have brought about new questions regarding God’s knowledge and the nature of reality, particularly through concepts like quantum physics and the theory of relativity.

Theological and Philosophical Debates

• The Boethian view suggests God exists in an eternal ‘now’, with all of time present to him simultaneously.
• The Open Theism approach proposes God doesn’t know precisely what the future holds since it is contingent upon human free choices.

Key Scholars and Theologians

• Anselm of Canterbury saw God’s omniscience as all-encompassing, including not just factual knowledge, but also knowledge of experiences, emotions and perspectives.
• Thomas Aquinas held the view that God’s omniscience encompasses all that has happened, is happening and will happen.

Implications of Omniscience

• Belief in divine omniscience can represent a source of comfort for the faithful, indicating the world is under God’s control and justice will prevail.
• However, it may also present challenges in understanding free will, moral responsibility, and the existence of evil, often referred to as the problem of evil.

Critical Thinking and Analysis

• There are philosophical challenges to omniscience, including its compatibility with libertarian free will, and whether complete knowledge of future outcomes negates the possibility of freely chosen actions.
• Critics can question whether an omniscient God can still allow genuine human independence and complexity.