Abstract
Christians typically say that God is all-knowing. Clearly this is because the Bible seems to describe God in this way:
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. (Ps. 139:1–6)
And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (Heb. 4:13)
God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:20)
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Notes
See Edmund Gettier, ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’, Analysis, 22 (1963) pp. 121–3.
Nelson Pike, God and Timelessness (New York: Schocken Books, 1970) pp. 89–95.
Paul Helm, ‘Timelessness and Foreknowledge’, Mind, vol. 84, no. 336 (Oct. 1975) p. 513.
Brian Davies, ‘Kenny on God’, Philosophy, vol. 57, no. 219 (Jan. 1982) p. 110.
Hector-Neri Castaneda, ‘Omniscience and Indexical Reference’, Baruch Brody, Readings in the Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1974) p. 381.
Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford University Press, 1977) p. 165.
Anthony Kenny, The God of the Philosophers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979) p. 47.
John Lachs, ‘Professor Prior on Omniscience’, Philosophy, vol. 38 (Oct. 1963) p. 362.
See A.N. Prior, ‘Rejoinder to Professor Lachs on Omniscience’, Philosophy, vol. 38 (Oct. 1963) p. 365.
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© 1983 Stephen T. Davis
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Davis, S.T. (1983). Omniscience. In: Logic and the Nature of God. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06352-9_3
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