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Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Does God Know Everything?

A fairly new teaching is circulating. It’s called the openness of God, and it alleges that God’s knowledge is limited. He doesn’t know everything, according to the proponents of the openness theory.

I’m not buying it. First John 3:20 insists that God “knows all things.” So what part of “all things” don’t the openness proponents understand?

God’s all-knowing characteristic—His omniscience—includes His knowledge of our needs (Matt. 6:8, 32), our thoughts (Psalm 94:11; 139:2), our days (Ps. 37:18), the secrets of our hearts (Ps. 44:21), our mortality and frailty (Ps.103:14), and the number of hairs on our head (Matt.10:30—in my case the accounting system has become very simple). He even knows the path we should travel through life (Prov. 3:5, 6; Isa. 30:21).

“Doesn’t God know what I am going through?” you might ask someone who subscribes to the openness of God theory. He might respond, “Maybe He doesn’t.” Try to squeeze some comfort and encouragement from that response! But for genuine comfort and encouragement, read what the apostle John wrote: “God knows all things.”