Omniscient
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📖 Definition: To be omniscient is to know everything. This often refers to a special power of God.
If you combine the Latin roots omnis (meaning “all”) and scientia (meaning “knowledge”), you’ll get omniscient, meaning “knowledge of all.” It would be nice to be omniscient: then you would know absolutely everything in the world. Many religions have a god who is all-powerful and omniscient. This is how a god is supposed to know when you sinned, or what’s going to happen in the future.
That’s pretty much what we expect. But for a look at what it means with the God of the Bible, we need to be more specific, so let’s dig deeper.
✏️ The Bible portrays God’s knowledge as unlimited, comprehensive, and perfect in every way; God is omniscient (the Latin term scientia means “knowledge,” and the prefix omni- means “all”; hence omniscient means “all-knowing”). In contrast to our knowledge, which arises from the passive conformity of our minds to given truths or objects, God’s perfect knowledge follows from his active willing as the Creator of all. Consequently, God not only knows that which he wills but also that which he does not will. In other words, God knows all states of affairs, both actual and possible. [mfnStratis, J. (2018). God’s Omniscience. In M. Ward, J. Parks, B. Ellis, & T. Hains (Eds.), Lexham Survey of Theology. Lexham Press.[/mfn]
God’s Omniscience.
You’d think Christians could agree on more that that. But not. It’s not happening. Once someone decides something’s got to change about some element of theology – do many other things also need to change, otherwise it doesn’t all fit together.
To that end, my way-too-long to-do list has more on it now, to explain the differences, why that happened, and oftentimes – the impact that have on our view od God.
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