“Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.”
Psalm 147:5
Here again is another attribute of God which only He can posses – perfect knowledge. He knows all there is to know. There is not a fact, statistic, law, principle, detail, which He does not fully know and understand. God cannot learn or discover anything. Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy points out, “Because God knows all things perfectly, He knows no thing better than any other thing, but all things equally well. He never discovers anything. He is never surprised, never amazed. He never wonders about anything nor (except when drawing men out for their own good) does He seek information or ask questions.” 1 Nothing is hidden or unknown to Him. He knows thoughts as well as actions. He must in order to be a fair judge. Hebrews 4:13 states, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to we must give account.”
Tozer writes further, “God perfectly knows Himself and, being the source and author of all things, it follows that He knows all that can be known.” 2 There are no mysteries to God. He knows perfectly all cause and effect, all laws that govern an object and make it be what it is. He can account for everything that has ever happened, is happening and is yet to happen. He cannot forget anything and does not have to call things into recollection. He simply exists there. He simply has all the knowledge. “From him and to him and through him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” – Hebrews 11:36
God knows the “Why?” – something science can never tell us. C S Lewis reminds us in Mere Christianity that science tells us only what happened in a specific setting when something was tested. Science shows us the pattern of behavior objects, animals, or plants obey – but never really why they obey. If science knew all there was to know in the universe, it could still not answer the question “why.” Science mostly answers the question “What happens when…,” but God knows why those things happen because He is the source and author of all things. Interestingly, this implies that the Bible (God’s written word) is a better source of explanation about why we exist or why the universe was created than science will ever be able to offer. Science also struggles to answer the question of “How” when applied to the origin of things. How did the universe come into being? How did all the plant species and animal species come into being? How did humans come into being? Science is held up in time always trying to answer the question after the fact of something happening. God lives outside of time and as C S Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, He has the ability to see all points in time at the same time. He can and does interact with all points of time simultaneously.
Herein lays the problem with discussing the doctrine of predestination, for God no such thing can exist as pre or post a given point in time. He lives in the eternal now and already knows perfectly what is going to happen for us in time because He is already there. So for God there is no foreknowledge there is only knowledge – perfect knowledge of all things. Now if we look at it from man’s point of view, then God foreknows everything about everything, but here we have lapsed back into treating God as if He were captured in time, which He is not. He knows all things before they happen, so from our point of view, we say he foreknows. See Romans 8:28-30 I Peter 1:1-2, and Ephesians 1:3-5.
Tozer points out the great fear or wonderful anticipation of mankind with the fact that God knows all the thoughts of a man before the man has them. “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.” - Psalm 139:1-4 For the evil, unregenerate man this is a terrifying thought. For the regenerated man this is an extremely comforting thought for God knows all my wrong doings and His judgments are suspended in Christ. For the unregenerate man, the terrifying thought of his impending judgment becomes too much to bear. “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” - 1 John 3:19-20
God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows the number of hairs on our heads, the thoughts inside our heads before we think them, our actions before we carry them out. He alone knows all the mysteries of the universe and the unsearchable riches of Christ – and He wants to share them with you. He wants to make known the deep mysteries of God. “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15
Oh Great and Mighty God, Source and Truth are found in only in You. Help us to embrace you whole-heartedly. Help us by Your Spirit to understand the deep things of God (1 Cor 2:9-16) and to marvel again at whom You are. Oh that One so highly exalted would willingly, lovingly choose to sacrifice for us and call us Your children and share with us Your secrets. Help us to understand the treasure we have in You – the very source of life, truth, knowledge and all that is good. Amen!
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” - Romans 11:33
Footnotes
1 Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 56. Print.
2 Tozer. 56.
References
All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.
Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. Audio.
Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Print.
