Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Omniscience

God knows all things — himself, all actual things past, present, and future, and all possible things — completely, immediately, and eternally.

Latin omnis ('all') + scientia ('knowledge').

Psalm 139:1–6; 147:4–5; Job 37:16; Isaiah 40:13–14; 46:9–10; Matthew 10:29–30; Hebrews 4:13; 1 John 3:20 ('God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything').

Universally held; the debated frontier is whether God's exhaustive knowledge includes the future free choices of creatures. Isaiah 41:21–23 and 46:9–10 make detailed predictive knowledge the test that distinguishes the true God from idols.

God's knowledge is not learned or inferred; he knows all things in knowing himself and his will. His knowledge of the future grounds prophecy and providence.

Open theism denies exhaustive foreknowledge of free acts (the free future is not there to be known); Molinism adds 'middle knowledge' of what free creatures would do; the classical traditions affirm simple exhaustive foreknowledge.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.