What does Omniscience really mean?

[JamesCaruso]

We say that God knows all things. Does this not mean that He knows all things that exist? I can see that He knows the future that He Himself has determined. But I cannot see that He sees all of my future free will decisions. Those future decisions do not now exist. How can anyone know that which does not exist and which he has no power to make exist? God, by granting me free will, has no power to determine my future decisions. Past and present are only concepts. Only the present exists. So, to me God’s Omniscience means that He knows all that exists, not the free will future that does not yet exist. Oh, for sure He knows all the probabilities. That’s different. The argument that God is outside of time, as a way to explain how He knows future free will decisions seems like doubletalk. What being outside of time means to me is that He is unchanging, unaffected by time, not that He is also in the future. That does not make sense. He is only in the present, the infinite present. Am I making sense?

 

[Montrose]

Modern Catholic Dictionary:

OMNISCIENCE. God’s knowledge of all things. Revelation discloses that the wisdom of God is without measure (Psalm 146:5). And the Church teaches that his knowledge is infinite.

The primary object of divine cognition is God himself, whom he knows immediately, that is, without any medium by which he apprehends his nature. He knows himself through himself.

The secondary objects of divine knowledge are everything else, namely the purely possible, the real, and the conditionally future. He knows all that is merely possible by what is called the knowledge of simple intelligence. This means that, in comprehending his infinite imitability and his omnipotence, God knows therein the whole sphere of the possible.

He knows all real things in the past, present, and the future by his knowledge of vision. When God, in his self-consciousness, beholds his infinite operative power, he knows therein all that he, as the main effective cause, actually comprehends, i.e., all reality. The difference between past, present, and future does not exist for the divine knowledge, since for God all is simultaneously present.

By the same knowledge of vision, God also foresees the future free acts of the rational creatures with infallible certainty. As taught by the Church, “All things are naked and open to His eyes, even those things that will happen through the free actions of creatures” (Denzinger 3003). The future free actions foreseen by God follow infallibly not because God substitutes his will for the free wills of his creatures but because he does not interfere with the freedom that he foresees creatures will exercise. (Etym. Latin omnis , all + scire , to know.)

 

[Montrose]

The usual argument, that God is outside the time, and therefore both the past, the present and the future are actual for him is also absurd.

God is eternally present and does know everything. You may choose not to believe it but remember you are in a Catholic forum so please do not call a Church teaching absurd!

 

[neophyte]

But I cannot see that He sees all of my future free will decisions.

Nonetheless, he does. Not only that, he knows all of the decisions that you won’t make, and all of the possible consequences that would arise if you were to decide differently.

 

[Richca]

Omniscience means God knows all things. He possesses complete and infinite knowledge. He knows all things that exist and that can potentially or possibly exist. He knows absolutely all future free will decisions of humans and angels. If God didn’t know this He wouldn’t be omniscient. Sacred Scripture testifies to God’s infinite knowledge and his knowledge of the future and future free will acts. For example, Psalm 139, v.1-6:

O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me!
Thou knowest when I sit down and when I rise up;
thou discernest my thoughts from afar.
Thou searchest out my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.
Thou dost beset me behind and before,
and layest thy hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high, I cannot attain it.

All our free will acts and future free will acts depend principally on God as Jesus said “Without me, you can do nothing.” We depend on God’s action every moment of our lives for our very existence as well as all our actions that flow from our existence.

All of time and future time is present to God not as future, for there is no future in God, but as present. God’s eternity which is infinite encompasses all of time which is a finite creation. St Thomas Aquinas uses God’s eternity as one of his main philosophical arguments for God’s knowledge of future free will acts.

 

[Mythicalbio]

Christians don’t hold to this kind of libertarian free will. We are compatibilist, and things are determined to a degree. You are finite and God knows what you will choose, especially in the circumstances He placed you. There isn’t some unlimited amount of things a creature can do, to where he won’t know what they might choose.

 

[tafan2]

@JamesCaruso You logic ascribes a temporal dimension to God that does not exist. God knows our future actions, even though we will choose them via free will because God has no future. It’s all there for Him to know.
A rough analogy is that you know the free actions you took yesterday, or the action you are now taking, because in present and past cases, time does not prevent us from knowing. Time does not prevent God from knowing what you will do tomorrow.

 

[Mythicalbio]

How is it not free? We believe in efficacious and prevenient grace, both of which are not dependant on will. We believe in prophecy, which isn’t dependant on will. The antichrist can not choose to become a Saint, it will not happen. The mystery of grace can not be resolved until we die. Read Fr. Reginald Garrigou LaGrange for more information.

 

[Mythicalbio]

That’s how you have chosen to define it. Also it is called a mystery by those superior to me (Fr. Reginald, saints, etc). There can’t be multiple beings with the same type of free will, at least in the same sense.

 

[Richca]

Well, it is also an official teaching that God’s knowledge is unconditional or absolute or sovereign. In other words it is not contingent upon the physical reality, and not contingent upon our actions.

God’s knowledge is absolute and sovereign, but I know of no official teaching of the Church that God’s omniscience or eternity knowledge of created contingent causes such as free will acts is not contingent in some manner upon the creaturely free will acts which are second causes but which depend on Him as the first cause. If God’s eternal and certain knowledge of created future free will contingent acts is contingent upon the creature in some degree, God knows by his transcendent intellect and in his eternity what that creature will do as well as through his own causality. Either way, unconditional or conditional and contingent, God knows. And God certainly knows what he is causing, whether that be through necessary second causes or contingent second causes.

 

[BlueMaxx]

We say that God knows all things. Does this not mean that He knows all things that exist? I can see that He knows the future that He Himself has determined. But I cannot see that He sees all of my future free will decisions. Those future decisions do not now exist. How can anyone know that which does not exist and which he has no power to make exist? God, by granting me free will, has no power to determine my future decisions. Past and present are only concepts. Only the present exists. So, to me God’s Omniscience means that He knows all that exists, not the free will future that does not yet exist. Oh, for sure He knows all the probabilities. That’s different. The argument that God is outside of time, as a way to explain how He knows future free will decisions seems like doubletalk. What being outside of time means to me is that He is unchanging, unaffected by time, not that He is also in the future. That does not make sense. He is only in the present, the infinite present. Am I making sense?

13 I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

He created time, he is not bound by it…He is the three big O’s…

Omniscient
Omnipresent
Omnipotent

 

[goout]

You can’t place limitations on God, by definition.
The mistake that is always made in these discussions is to address God as though God is subject to time like human beings are.

The words future, past, present, do not apply to God. Eternal means “without time” not “a long long time”. It is common to say “if God knew xyz, then why did God do xyz…” If/then statements are meaningless when pondering God’s omniscience because if/then implies the passage of time and the subjection of God to the passage of time.

If you start with the correct foundation then it opens the door to God’s vision, to the extent we are able to comprehend.

 

[BlueMaxx]

goout:

You can’t place limitations on God, by definition.

So God is able to create married bachelors. God knows the contents of a book which has never been written.

The words future, past, present, do not apply to God. Eternal means “without time” not “a long long time”.

Without time there can be no action, there can be no event of “creation”. There can only be a changeless, frozen “stasis”.

God’s omniscience is refuted by the experiment that God reveals my future actions to me, and I purposefully invalidates the prediction by doing something else.

How can you not understand this, is beyond me.

I am really confused with a lot of what you have written, but I can say it borders on heresy.

God’s omniscience is refuted by the experiment that God reveals my future actions to me, and I purposefully invalidates the prediction by doing something else.

That, gentle person, is impossible

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

To know “everything” would include even knowing the contents of book, which has never been written - which is clearly a logical absurdity. A non-existent entity cannot be “known”.

Since God created everything, He knows the extant that things can work.

 

[BlueMaxx]

I am afraid this has turned into a circular discussion/disagreement using semantics to lessen the glory of God…
I pray the best for you, and bid you good day…
M

 

[neophyte]

So, if God would come down and predict what my future free actions will be, all I would have to do is deviate from the prediction - and that would refute omniscience.

If.

So then you admit that you can’t refute God’s omniscience, other than by appealing to your own complete lack of it. That’s an incredibly unconvincing argument.

 

[Usagi]

The usual argument, that God is outside the time, and therefore both the past, the present and the future are actual for him is also absurd. Existence is no observer dependent. The observer may not have information about an event (outside the light-cone, or inside a Schwarzshield radius) but the event is still there. We just cannot get the necessary information to know.

My own physics education is admittedly elementary, but some of the things I learned helped to reinforce the idea that there could indeed be a meaningful concept of “outside of time” and knowing, without determining, what is future to us. I refer to the notion of spacetime as a unified thing and of every particle tracing a “world line” through spacetime that encapsulates its entire existence from beginning to end.

What if it’s we, with our experience of the ever-advancing present, that are lacking in necessary information, while God is effectively looking “down from above” on the whole of spacetime and thus sees all of existence, including all of time, as a completed thing?

That still doesn’t mean God (or any such observer) determines our free choices, though he would indeed know of them “before” we do them. Ultimately, at every choice point, there is only one thing we do choose, one thing that becomes real in the actual universe. The other options may have been real options, but much like those books never written, we didn’t choose to make them real. God sees the whole, complete pattern, while we’re stuck in the middle of it somewhere.

 

[Usagi]

God’s omniscience is refuted by the experiment that God reveals my future actions to me, and I purposefully invalidates the prediction by doing something else.

Only if God would actually do that. It’s the revealing part that breaks things, not the knowing.

If I observe what you do today, without interfering or doing anything to affect your actions, and then I step into a time machine and visit you yesterday, I will know what you are going to do the next day, without having caused or forced you to do it in any way. I know just because I watched what you actually did. Now, yes, if I try to tell you that you will eat a hot dog for lunch the next day, then we get to find out what our time travel rules are – did I just change the past by telling you and now my observations are invalidated? Or are you “stuck” doing what I already saw you doing, causing a crisis of your belief in your own free will? But as long as I don’t tell you, my just knowing for certain what I already watched you do doesn’t break anything.

 

[BlueMaxx]

BlueMaxx:

I am afraid this has turned into a circular discussion/disagreement using semantics to lessen the glory of God…

I see it differently. There is an incorrect concept of God, which needs to refuted. It is not a good idea to spread disinformation about God.

I am Catholic.
I follow the Church and it’s teachings.
I take very seriously these traditions and teachings.
I believe in God, who is the unknowing God, but for our sake came down from heaven to rescue man.

There is an incorrect concept of God, which needs to refuted.

You are on a Catholic website expressing that we have an incorrect concept of God.

We the Church do not have an incorrect view, WE are founded by Christ Himself…The True Church.

Take your heresies elsewhere, and please do not respond as this is my last contribution to this thread.

May God have mercy on you…

Acts 17:22-31 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)

22 But Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.

23 For passing by, and seeing your idols, I found an altar also, on which was written: To the unknown God. What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you:

24 God, who made the world, and all things therein; he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

25 Neither is he served with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing; seeing it is he who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things:

26 And hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation.

27 That they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us:

28 For in him we live, and move, and are; as some also of your own poets said: For we are also his offspring.

29 Being therefore the offspring of God, we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man.

30 And God indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declareth unto men, that all should everywhere do penance.

31 Because he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in equity, by the man whom he hath appointed; giving faith to all, by raising him up from the dead.

 

[JamesCaruso]

There is a difference between what a man might do and what he will do. Do you want to rephrase that? While God man know all the possibilities of what a man might do, the question is, does he know what he will actually do?