Omniscient + Omnipresent
Omniscient
God knows everything that has every happened, existed, and will come to pass. No information is outside His knowledge; He knows all truth and believes no falsehood. He has not chosen to limit His knowledge, and knows all things perfectly, all at once, seeing the past, present and future effortlessly (Isaiah 46:10). In perfect wisdom He does all things according to perfect knowledge and the highest possible perspective, for His counsel stands and His will is perfect (Ephesians 1:11). His plan is the best-of-all-possible plans and leads to the best-of-all-possible eternities.
Omnipresent
God is everywhere present all at once; no-where is He not (Psalm 139:7-8; Jer. 23:23-24). Because He has no limits (infinitude), He can be both completely ‘here’ and ‘there’ all at once. While our finite languages categorize space and locations, He cannot be adequately described this way.
February 10th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Since this seems to be a subject that you are very interested in… Matt 24:36 seems to suggest that “He has not chosen to limit His knowledge” does not apply to all three of the Godheads eternally without exception. Therefore, how would you define the extent of God’s omniscient? Are you statements only in reference to the Father, or Godheads-while-not-in-human-form or is there another way to interpret this verse that I am not aware of?
February 11th, 2008 at 7:02 am
Kris,
I added the wording “He knows all truth and believes no falsehood. He has not chosen to limit His knowledge” after discussion and defense of my statement in class last week. I wanted to further distance myself from Open Theology (Open Theism), which teaches that God does not have all knowledge, and does in fact believe some (potential) falsehoods, modified by most adherrents to mean that God chose to do so, and it was within His own power. That last caveat is apparently meant to separate God’s limited knowledge from His nature and couple it with Creation — God limited Himself before creating.
But on to your statement, you are correct that I should modify it more, since the Son willingly laid aside His divine prerogatives (Phil. 2:5-8) while incarnate. Joyful submission, not inequality, was the paradigm of His earthly life, in my humble opinion.