A careful reading of ‘The Omniscience of God by Roger K. Terry’

In the Religious Educator Vol. 7 No. 2 from 2006 Roger K. Terry attempts a theological treatise on the Latter-day Saint belief of God’s omniscience. A friend shared it with me after we discussed whether God has a future. I believe Roger reads verses and quotes loosely on this topic, and I hope to offer some commentary on his argument. Below is Roger’s article on the left, with my commentary on the right.

The Omniscience of God

As Latter-day Saints, we believe in an omniscient, or all-knowing, God.

Comments 1–2

1 Scripture does not use the word omniscient. I would go so far as to say that this word shouldn’t be used when discussing scripture.

Interestingly enough, Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon does use omnipotent (see Mosiah 3:5 and 5:2) while never referencing omniscient.

2 All-knowing* isn’t used either. The phrase “knoweth all things” is used often, but it still isn’t commensurate with all-knowing:

2 Nephi 9:20
2 Nephi 2:24
Words of Mormon 1:7
D&C 38:2

We also believe that Jesus Christ has attained a similarly exalted degree of glory and intelligence. The Lord Himself and His prophets and Apostles declare this doctrine unequivocally: “Thus saith the Lord your God, even Jesus Christ, . . . the same which knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes” (D&C 38:1–2).

Comment 3

This verse says “all things,” which is not well defined in church language. In most of my conversations, I hear people say, “It says all things, so it has to be ALL. Everything in the past, present, and future.” However, “all things” doesn’t carry that reach on its own.

I prefer Joseph Spencer’s definition:

The phrase “all things” (which appears almost six hundred times in scripture!) seems most often to be a simple phrase referring to the whole of what God created. Even where “all things” doesn’t have an explicit link to creation…

— Joseph M. Spencer (posting as “joespencer”), “2 Nephi 2:11 – Opposition!” Lehi’s Discourse (blog), February 17, 2013, section “All Things”

So we can hear “God knoweth all things” to mean God knows the whole creation he made, rather than as an abstract philosophical claim about every possible fact.

President Spencer W. Kimball says, “God is omniscient. There are no corners so dark, no deserts so uninhabited, no canyons so remote, no automobiles so hidden, no homes so tight and shut in but that the all-seeing One can penetrate and observe.”[1]

Comment 4

Notice that President Kimball’s quote defines the word omniscient, and his definition is fully spatial:

God knows everything that is happening everywhere in the universe.
It refers back to the depth of his knowledge about his creation as well.
It says nothing about the future.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell wrote, “Few doctrines, save those pertaining to the reality of the existence of God, are more basic than the truth that God is omniscient.”[2]

Comment 5

Elder Maxwell appears to be the driving force behind the modern church’s adoption of a timeless belief in omniscience.

This quote doesn’t explicitly state that God knows the future. Elder Maxwell makes that claim in other places.

These statements of fact inevitably lead to two fundamental questions: What exactly does omniscience mean? Why should we concern ourselves with it? Let us look at these two questions in reverse order.

Why Should We Concern Ourselves with God’s Omniscience?

Isn’t it enough to merely accept the fact that God knows everything? Isn’t questioning it just a waste of time, an intellectual game, the needless pursuit of a tangent? No, it isn’t. “And this is life eternal,” said the Savior in His great Intercessory Prayer, “that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Knowing God and His Beloved Son certainly includes knowing as much as possible about Their attributes, Their perfections, and the kind of life They live.

Comment 6

I agree with Roger’s argument. However, I struggle with it at times.

It appears that God has let this doctrine float around with varied understandings across scripture, Judaism, Christianity, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We should study His attributes intently, but some of them are open enough to interpretation that no single belief keeps you in or out of the faith.

In Lectures on Faith, the contents of which were approved by and presented under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith,

Comment 7

This argument is a bit weak.

The Church has posted an article on the provenance of the Lectures that highlights that Sidney Rigdon wrote them.
The Lectures were printed with the revelations from Joseph Smith in LDS scripture.
However, we have other cases, like Oliver Cowdery’s article on marriage, that were approved and presented under Joseph Smith’s direction but later removed.

These aren’t revelation, and they aren’t Joseph Smith’s words.

we read the following: “Let us here observe, that three things are necessary in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation. First, the idea that he actually exists. Second, a correct idea of his character, perfections, and attributes. Third, an actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing is according to his will.”[3]

Comment 8

These are noble desires and necessities, but they are not unique to our faith. In fact, this language fits the Protestant language of the day.

Why is a correct idea of God’s character, perfections, and attributes necessary? “Without the idea of the existence of these attributes in the Deity, men could not exercise faith in him for life and salvation, seeing that without the knowledge of all things God would not be able to save any portion of his creatures. For it is the knowledge which he has of all things from the beginning to the end that enables him to give that understanding to his creatures by which they are made partakers of eternal life. And if it were not for the idea existing in the minds of men that God has all knowledge, it would be impossible for them to exercise faith in him.”[4] In short, if we misunderstand what is meant by omniscience, our faith in God will be incomplete, and our understanding of our own eternal potential will perhaps be incorrect.

Comments 9–10

9 Sidney Rigdon was a Campbellite before joining the Mormon faith. Paragraphs like the one above feel much more like Campbellite beliefs seeping into Joseph’s restoration revelations than the teachings of God through Joseph Smith.

10 The phrase “from the beginning to the end” also feels like an interpretation that is taken for granted. Around the same time the Lectures on Faith were written, Carl von Clausewitz wrote:

Theory demands, therefore, that at the commencement of every war its character and main outline shall be defined according to what the political conditions and relations lead us to anticipate as probable. The more, that according to this probability its character approaches the form of absolute war, the more its outline embraces the mass of the belligerent states and draws them into the vortex, so much the more complete will be the relation of events to one another and the whole, but so much the more necessary it will also be not to take the first step without thinking what may be the last.

— Carl von Clausewitz, On War

This quote highlights how I read references to God knowing the beginning from the end:

He does not make arbitrary decisions today.
He has a plan, and his first step is as intentional as his ending step.
It does not require a timeless knowledge of the future.

What Does Omniscience Mean?

Some Church members harbor erroneous beliefs about God’s omniscience.

Comment 11

My argument is that he is one of them.

I hear evidence of these false ideas from time to time in talks, lessons, and comments. Basically, all of these beliefs proclaim in one way or another that God does not actually know “all things,” that He is somehow limited.

Comment 12

God does know all things! As described above, he knows all of his creation. He knows all things that are knowable.

Some people, for instance, believe that He gathers some information from angels who go out ministering and then report back to Him. Others believe God knows “all that is now known” in the universe, and that there is knowledge yet to be discovered that God does not yet know. Still others believe that God knows only the larger picture or the main events in our lives but does not concern Himself with the tiny, insignificant details.

Comment 13

This is a rephrasing of Bruce R. McConkie’s “The Seven Deadly Heresies,” which also doubles down on the Lectures on Faith being from Joseph Smith.

McConkie was corrected for this talk, but it isn’t clear which doctrinal portions were discussed beyond declaring heresies of the church.

One rather subtle misconception has to do with God’s knowledge of the future. For instance, I once thought God’s grasp of the future was a predictive sort of knowledge. In other words, God knows what I will do next Wednesday at 4:23 p.m. because through our lengthy premortal association and His observation of me in mortality, He knows me perfectly, He knows everyone else perfectly, and He knows how the elements will respond to the various forces that act upon them. Because of this vast reservoir of knowledge, He can account for all variability and randomness and can predict perfectly what I will do. This theory has obvious limitations, the most significant being that it is not true. God does not predict the future. In some way we cannot fathom, He actually sees it.

Comment 14

Here he is going after James E. Talmage and his writing in Jesus the Christ:

Our Heavenly Father has a full knowledge of the nature and disposition of each of His children, a knowledge gained by long observation and experience in the past eternity of our primeval childhood; a knowledge compared with which that gained by earthly parents through mortal experience with their children is infinitesimally small. By reason of that surpassing knowledge, God reads the future of child and children, of men individually and of men collectively as communities and nations; He knows what each will do under given conditions, and sees the end from the beginning. His foreknowledge is based on intelligence and reason. He foresees the future as a state which naturally and surely will be; not as one which must be because He has arbitrarily willed that it shall be.

— James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, chapter 3

It is fascinating that he takes McConkie’s BYU talk and the Lectures on Faith as doctrine but rejects this one fully. I tend to see Talmage’s argument leading to determinism, and I don’t agree with it.

He even tells us so. As quoted above, “All things are present before [His] eyes.”

Comment 15

Once again, he is stretching this verse to get the meaning he wants.

I also believe we sometimes underestimate God’s knowledge simply because we do not take Him at His word. We do not really think seriously about what “all things” means. We somehow assume His view of the universe is sort of like ours—only a bit more expansive. Perhaps we cannot really begin to understand His omniscience until we take a closer look at our own limited perspective and realize He is not limited at all.

Comment 16

To repeat what I said above, drawing on Joseph Spencer: we can hear “God knoweth all things” to mean God knows the whole creation he made, rather than as an abstract philosophical claim about every possible fact.

Past, Present, and Future

In Doctrine and Covenants 93:24, we read, “Truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come”—that is, knowledge of past, present, and future.

Comment 17

This verse interests me, and I have written about it previously. I don’t think it should be read as timeless knowledge of the future.

I would read it as God stating that we can know the truth that will exist in the future—not every last arbitrary choice that will be made in the future.

God possesses a fulness of truth, so we may say to ourselves, “He’s one up on us because we know only past and present.”

But such thinking is rather presumptuous and self-congratulatory. I think I can make a good argument for the fact that God is more than “one up on us” and that, indeed, we do not really know the past or the present, let alone the future.

Comment 18

God’s knowledge is amazing. He does know all of space and history, and it seems reasonable that he knows each individual’s history well. That is amazing. I barely know my own history and have only a faint idea of my children’s.

We do not know the past? Yes, we have memory, but memory is quite different from knowing the past. Memory is limited by two facts. First, it is incredibly unreliable. I believe I have a better-than-average memory, although it tends to be a bit selective; but when I look now and then in one of my old journals, I find that what I wrote at the time does not always correspond with the way I remember certain events. Something has happened in the intervening years, and my mind has altered its perception of what actually happened. The second limiting factor is that we do not know the present, and if we do not know the present, then our memory is filled with bits and pieces of something other than reality.

We do not know the present? No, we do not. Anyone who has ever talked with another human being should know that no two people see the world in just the same way. That is why we have disagreements. We see things differently. Each person has a unique perspective on what goes on around him or her, and that perspective is limited by one of the constraints placed on all mortals: we can focus on only one thing at a time. Our view of the present is colored by what we choose to bring to the foreground of thought, and our perception can be shaded by anything from what we ate for breakfast to whether we are in love. Beyond this, our perception of life is filtered by our most cherished beliefs and prejudices, some of which we do not even recognize.

When we consider that our view of the present includes only a minuscule slice of infinite space and that our view of that tiny slice is far from comprehensive, perhaps we can gain some appreciation of how truly insignificant our perspective is compared with God’s. I think we can safely say that God experiences life far differently than we do. In fact, we cannot even imagine what reality must look like to Him. He sees the sparrow fall, numbers the hairs of our heads, and knows all our thoughts and feelings—at every instant. We do not really understand the meaning of the word omniscient. How could we without having experienced it? We find it incredible that God can know the future, but even more incredible is the notion that He can know everything at the present moment—everything. There is no limit to His awareness of the universe. At any given instant, God knows not only everything that is happening but also everything that has ever happened and everything that will happen, for eternities without end. That is eternal life—the fact that God experiences and comprehends an eternity in any given instant. Eternal life, then, is not merely a life of endless duration; it is a particular quality of life that is eternal or infinite in its very nature.

Speaking of God’s omniscience, Elder Bruce R. McConkie explains: “He has all wisdom, all knowledge, and all understanding; he is the All-Wise One, the All-Knowing One. There is no truth he does not know, no wisdom hidden from his view, no laws or powers or facts for him to discover in some distant eternity. His wisdom and knowledge are absolute and have neither bounds nor limitations. He knows all things now; he is not progressing in knowledge; he is not discovering new truths; there are no higher spheres than the one in which he now walks. His mind is infinite; his knowledge comprehends all things, and he is in fact the source and author of all truth.”[5]

Comment 19

Once again, a McConkie quote. This quote seems focused on scientific and factual knowledge. It does not focus on timeless knowledge of the future; it focuses on a comprehensive knowledge that applies to the future.

For example, each of us can know that gravity will exist in the future, and even how to handle it when its effects shift in space.

The Mortal Test

Time, as we know it, is strictly a mortal phenomenon and is necessary for the test we came here to experience.

Comment 20

The bold assumptions he states without any references are overwhelming. There are many references to time existing outside of mortality. Celestial time, from Facsimile 2, explanation of Figure 1, seems valuable for this conversation:

Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit. One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of this earth…

For us, time is one-dimensional, and it runs unimpeded from past to future. The fact that time is one-dimensional for us explains our inability to know past, present, and future.

Comment 21

This “one-dimensional” sentence seems to imply that God does not live in linear time. Once again, he offers no quote or justification—just a bold statement.

We can start with Abraham 3:4:

Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.

I can find no scripture that says God’s experience of time is anything other than one-dimensional.

This restriction limits us to focusing on only one thing at a time; and, as mentioned above, this condition severely restricts our perspective of what is going on around us in mortality.

Comment 22

Notice how he has switched the use of the word time:

In the previous sentence, time is duration.
In this sentence, time is event.

I affirm my belief that God’s ability to comprehend all events at any given moment is impossible for me to understand, but it does align with scripture.

God is obviously not so limited. His mind is able to grasp an infinite amount of information at any instant. He can watch a million sparrows fall simultaneously on a million worlds, number the hairs on all the heads in the universe, count the stars in the sky, hear and answer the prayers of all His children, and still have an infinite awareness of everything else yesterday, today, and forever. Does He know what the blood pressure of the president of the United States will be at exactly five minutes after midnight on October 1, 2020? Does He know where a grain of sand that is now blowing across the Sahara Desert will be in exactly ten hours, fifty minutes, and fourteen seconds?

Comment 23

In discussions of time, there are different types of future and history:

We have near history and distant history, and the same structure exists for the future.
Humans have little ability to handle distant history or the distant future.
However, we do pretty well with near history and the near future.

Our knowledge of the near and God’s do seem different. From Nephi’s revelations, it does seem that God knows some parts of the future even a thousand years ahead or more. At no point am I saying he can’t know near-future events.

Does He know at this instant what my grandchild who is not yet born will be praying for on her sixteenth birthday? If we take Him at His word, the answer can only be yes.

Comment 24

But I do think he is taking it too far here. His knowledge of the future, contingent on free-will choices, is at best probabilistic.

There is no way the “answer can only be yes”; our faith has a much broader belief that says the answer could just as well be no.

God experiences no surprises. This is what it means to be omniscient, and it is far beyond our limited mortal comprehension. But because He is omniscient, we can have perfect faith in Him.

Comment 25

I think God can be surprised. It depends on which sense of surprise we mean:

“To attack unexpectedly” or “to take unawares”: maybe not. God is not overwhelmed by an event he couldn’t handle.
“To strike with wonder or amazement especially because unexpected”: this third definition seems possible.

Elder Holland seems to think that this type of surprise is exactly what happened to Christ when interacting with the Brother of Jared.

We might well ask, given what we do know about God’s awareness of His creations, why we, His children, are so limited. Hugh Nibley suggests an answer: “But why this crippling limitation on our thoughts if we are God’s children? It is precisely this limitation which is the essence of our mortal existence. If every choice I make expresses a preference; if the world I build up is the world I really love and want, then with every choice I am judging myself, proclaiming all the day long to God, angels and my fellowmen where my real values lie, where my treasure is, the things to which I give supreme importance. Hence, in this life every moment provides a perfect and foolproof test of your real character, making this life a time of testing and probation.”[6]

It is our one-dimensional experience with time that provides our test.

Comment 26

No. Our experience with a physical body and the full laws of God provides the test. It is a test that matters because an eternal sequence of time with a physical body is the reality we will experience. What better test than one that represents our future?

We must constantly choose what we will think about. Sometimes we do not choose at all, or so we suppose. We let our minds wander, but this is a choice also. If we had complete comprehension of reality, as God has, it would negate the purpose of our mortal probation. In fact, a mind that encompasses and comprehends all things at all times is simply incapable of wandering. Where could it go?

Comment 27

I don’t even understand why this paragraph is needed. How could we even know this fact? He seems to be making up attributes at this point.

Apparently, to prove we can be trusted with such an infinite and all-encompassing view, we must demonstrate that we can learn to be focused and consecrated and strictly obedient in an environment where our choice of what to think about is complicated by a multitude of enticing alternatives and made truly meaningful by the necessity we often face of choosing not just between good and evil but also between good and good.

Comment 28

This conclusion rests on an assumption with no foundation. I think choosing what to think about will be as complicated in eternity as it is now.

In spite of these mortal limitations, now and then God gives certain mortals a partial glimpse of His perspective, and their accounts are both enlightening and inviting, enticing us on toward an eternal perspective, an existence not trammeled by the necessary restrictions of mortality. These views are glorious and give us hope that we may one day partake of that same glory. Moses, for instance, was shown the earth, “even all of it, and there was not a particle of it which he did not behold, discerning it by the spirit of God. And he beheld also the inhabitants thereof, and there was not a soul which he beheld not; . . . and their numbers were great, even numberless as the sand upon the sea shore” (Moses 1:27–28). This view teaches us not only that God is able to reveal to us such unlimited visions but also that within us we already have the potential, when the mortal veil is lifted, to enjoy such exalted views. We truly do have within us the seeds of eternal life.

Comment 29

I don’t think this revelation in Moses has the reach he implies. A strict reading does not imply seeing the future: Moses is shown the full space of the earth at that time, and the verses can be read that way.

All Possible Futures

One fascinating aspect of God’s omniscience can been seen in President Wilford Woodruff’s remarks concerning the 1890 manifesto ending the practice of plural marriage. “The Lord showed me by vision and revelation,” said President Woodruff, “exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice.”[7] He then described some of the consequences the Saints would have faced had they not ceased practicing plural marriage. From this experience, we can conclude that God knows not only what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen but also what would happen if we were to make different choices than the ones we actually make. And apparently He knows this in more than a theoretical manner. He can show others in vision what we might call an alternate future, one that never will exist, except as a possibility that is prevented by our use of agency.

Comment 30

The technical phrase for this idea is “contingent revelation.” God reveals potential futures that can occur based on his children’s contingent choices. He showed President Woodruff a future that could exist based on the choice to keep or drop polygamy. He did not show him one that never could have existed.

The alternate-future view seems to cut against his timeless-omniscience arguments from previous paragraphs. I agree that God can see probabilistic possibilities of the future and that he uses that knowledge in love to maximize our potential partnership with him.

And if God knows the alternate future that would occur because of one choice that is never made, He certainly knows all the possible futures based on all possible choices His children might make.

Comment 31

Wow. This is grandiose. We have one example of one contingent choice, and that now means he can know all possible futures?

I don’t think the example leads to that kind of certainty. I worry that a Dr. Strange view of possible futures is no different from fixed-future knowledge.

Yes, this, too, is part of God’s omniscience. It must be, for it is indeed knowledge, and an omniscient God must possess all knowledge.

Comment 32

Once again, all knowable knowledge is a must for God. A future of contingent choices made by intelligent beings is uncreated and therefore doesn’t exist to be known as fact.

Besides, if He did not know these possible futures that will never come to pass, how could He warn us of the consequences of our choices, as He warned President Woodruff? If the stories that appear in the Ensign are an accurate reflection of what Church members experience, the Lord has undoubtedly prevented numerous automobile accidents by having the Spirit prompt drivers to stop or slow down or change lanes—all because He knew what would have happened.[8]

Comment 33

Go back to the idea of near versus distant knowledge of the future. We have fantastic computational algorithms that can predict future accidents and change a car’s current behavior to avoid an accident, but they’re based on a predicted future, not a fixed future.

He can warn us of consequences because of his historical experience.

All Wisdom

Thus far we have talked about God’s omniscience primarily in the sense that He sees everything and has all information present before Him. But all the knowledge in the universe would not make our Heavenly Father a perfect or even helpful God without His other attributes, such as love, justice, mercy, goodness, patience, and kindness.

Comment 34

I would spend most of an article like this focusing on love, or omnibenevolence. His love makes any knowledge useful. Love drives all of God’s attributes.

One attribute in particular that enables Him to use His infinite knowledge to bless His children is His wisdom. Wisdom is actually an important aspect, or product, of God’s knowledge. Wisdom, we might say, is knowing how to apply knowledge correctly.

Thus, because He has perfect wisdom, God always knows which choice will create the greatest eternal good for His children. His wisdom prevents Him from ever misapplying His knowledge, as we imperfect mortals often do.

Comment 35

He gets close, but he trims the definition so he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of time and an uncertain future. In “The Elements of Wisdom: Overview and Integrations,” Birren and Fisher provide some succinct definitions of wisdom:

Wisdom … does not exist in a vacuum. … a wise person has a highly developed personality, can transcend narcissism, and is aware of his or her limitations. … wisdom is best conceptualized as being the result of an interaction between three systems of behavior: cognition, affect, and conation. The matter cannot rest there, however, since time plays a role.

— p. 327

Generally, wise persons are thought to project the consequences of their solutions far into the future: … what is good for the greatest number of people for the long run is presumably the most wise decision.

— p. 322

Wisdom shows a willingness and exceptional ability to form sound, executable judgments amid the relative indeterminacy and unpredictability of the future. You can read more of my thoughts on God and wisdom.

President Marion G. Romney, First Counselor in the First Presidency, wrote:

Since knowledge is an “acquaintance with, or clear perception of, facts”; and “wisdom is the capacity of judging soundly and dealing broadly with facts; especially in their practical” application “to life and conduct,” it follows that wisdom, although more than, is nevertheless a product of, and is dependent upon knowledge.

The Book of Mormon specifically relates God’s wisdom to his knowledge. Speaking of God’s plan for the salvation of men, Lehi says, “All things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things” (2 Nephi 2:24). Thus, . . . God’s perfect wisdom is a product of His knowledge of all things.[9]

Certainly, His wisdom is a product of His knowledge, but it is also a product of His goodness, for knowledge alone does not automatically produce wisdom. Lucifer had great knowledge, but that knowledge did not lead to wisdom. Indeed, Lucifer’s unwise choices prevented him from attaining greater knowledge. It is God’s perfect knowledge combined with His perfect goodness that makes His perfect wisdom a reality. And because God has perfect wisdom to apply His perfect knowledge, He is able to perform His work and enjoy the associated glory in bringing “to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).

Comment 36

This is a nuanced point. I don’t believe that the definitions of attributes differ for God and his children. The definition is the same; however, their abilities may differ.

Wisdom fundamentally depends on making a choice with limited knowledge. It is about making an optimal choice in the face of that uncertainty.
I do believe that God knows all the past and present.
To exercise the attribute of wisdom, something needs to be unknown.

Free choices in the future seem like the best context for giving God the attribute of wisdom. The Book of Mormon seems to double down on this idea as well.

He Is Our Judge

Not only does God see and know everything in the physical universe but also He knows everything in the private inner universes of all His children. In some way that we cannot understand, He knows us. He sees through our eyes, feels our emotions, understands our motives, and comprehends our imperfect perception of our own circumstances. If it were not so, He would be unable, even unfit, to judge us. If He were merely an outside observer, He would not qualify. But He is not limited to merely viewing our actions. God knows our thoughts and attitudes and the intents of our hearts—as if they were His own. It is because He does know us better than we know ourselves that He can judge us. And He judges us with wisdom and love.

Our Eternal Father is not a vindictive, cynical being who laughs at what He sees. He is a merciful, loving Father, whose infinite powers are focused on saving our souls without encroaching on our agency. And someday, if we choose well in this life and seek both goodness and wisdom, we will be able to be the same kind of loving, understanding parents to our spirit children.

Comment 37

Two of my favorite paragraphs of the article. He does leave “without encroaching on our agency” to float as a rule, but he never explains how his view of fixed-future omniscience doesn’t encroach.

Conclusion

Returning to the question addressed at the beginning of this article, why should we concern ourselves about our Eternal Father’s omniscience? His goal for us—and our objective in coming to earth—is that we learn to become more like Him. But how can we do this if we do not know Him or understand His perfections and attributes?

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (3 Nephi 12:48). “Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily, I say unto you, even as I am” (3 Nephi 27:27). Certainly, the more we know about our Savior and His Father, whose life and character Jesus perfectly reflected, the greater will be our reverence and love for Them and the more able and eager we will be to emulate Their character and follow Their teachings.

Comment 38

Amen!

Comments 1–2 of 38

1 Scripture does not use the word omniscient. I would go so far as to say that this word shouldn’t be used when discussing scripture.

Interestingly enough, Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon does use omnipotent (see Mosiah 3:5 and 5:2) while never referencing omniscient.

2 All-knowing* isn’t used either. The phrase “knoweth all things” is used often, but it still isn’t commensurate with all-knowing:

2 Nephi 9:20
2 Nephi 2:24
Words of Mormon 1:7
D&C 38:2

Comment 3 of 38

I prefer Joseph Spencer’s definition:

The phrase “all things” (which appears almost six hundred times in scripture!) seems most often to be a simple phrase referring to the whole of what God created. Even where “all things” doesn’t have an explicit link to creation…

— Joseph M. Spencer (posting as “joespencer”), “2 Nephi 2:11 – Opposition!” Lehi’s Discourse (blog), February 17, 2013, section “All Things”

So we can hear “God knoweth all things” to mean God knows the whole creation he made, rather than as an abstract philosophical claim about every possible fact.

Comment 4 of 38

Notice that President Kimball’s quote defines the word omniscient, and his definition is fully spatial:

God knows everything that is happening everywhere in the universe.
It refers back to the depth of his knowledge about his creation as well.
It says nothing about the future.

Comment 5 of 38

Elder Maxwell appears to be the driving force behind the modern church’s adoption of a timeless belief in omniscience.

This quote doesn’t explicitly state that God knows the future. Elder Maxwell makes that claim in other places.

Comment 6 of 38

I agree with Roger’s argument. However, I struggle with it at times.

Comment 7 of 38

This argument is a bit weak.

The Church has posted an article on the provenance of the Lectures that highlights that Sidney Rigdon wrote them.
The Lectures were printed with the revelations from Joseph Smith in LDS scripture.
However, we have other cases, like Oliver Cowdery’s article on marriage, that were approved and presented under Joseph Smith’s direction but later removed.

These aren’t revelation, and they aren’t Joseph Smith’s words.

Comment 8 of 38

These are noble desires and necessities, but they are not unique to our faith. In fact, this language fits the Protestant language of the day.

Comments 9–10 of 38

10 The phrase “from the beginning to the end” also feels like an interpretation that is taken for granted. Around the same time the Lectures on Faith were written, Carl von Clausewitz wrote:

Theory demands, therefore, that at the commencement of every war its character and main outline shall be defined according to what the political conditions and relations lead us to anticipate as probable. The more, that according to this probability its character approaches the form of absolute war, the more its outline embraces the mass of the belligerent states and draws them into the vortex, so much the more complete will be the relation of events to one another and the whole, but so much the more necessary it will also be not to take the first step without thinking what may be the last.

— Carl von Clausewitz, On War

This quote highlights how I read references to God knowing the beginning from the end:

He does not make arbitrary decisions today.
He has a plan, and his first step is as intentional as his ending step.
It does not require a timeless knowledge of the future.

Comment 11 of 38

My argument is that he is one of them.

Comment 12 of 38

God does know all things! As described above, he knows all of his creation. He knows all things that are knowable.

Comment 13 of 38

The above is a rephrasing of Bruce R. McConkie’s “The Seven Deadly Heresies,” which also doubles down on the Lectures on Faith being from Joseph Smith.

McConkie was corrected for this talk, but it isn’t clear which doctrinal portions were discussed beyond declaring heresies of the church.

Comment 14 of 38

Here he is going after James E. Talmage and his writing in Jesus the Christ:

Our Heavenly Father has a full knowledge of the nature and disposition of each of His children, a knowledge gained by long observation and experience in the past eternity of our primeval childhood; a knowledge compared with which that gained by earthly parents through mortal experience with their children is infinitesimally small. By reason of that surpassing knowledge, God reads the future of child and children, of men individually and of men collectively as communities and nations; He knows what each will do under given conditions, and sees the end from the beginning. His foreknowledge is based on intelligence and reason. He foresees the future as a state which naturally and surely will be; not as one which must be because He has arbitrarily willed that it shall be.

— James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, chapter 3

Comment 15 of 38

Once again, he is stretching this verse to get the meaning he wants.

Comment 16 of 38

Comment 17 of 38

This verse interests me, and I have written about it previously. I don’t think it should be read as timeless knowledge of the future.

I would read it as God stating that we can know the truth that will exist in the future—not every last arbitrary choice that will be made in the future.

Comment 18 of 38

Comment 19 of 38

For example, each of us can know that gravity will exist in the future, and even how to handle it when its effects shift in space.

Comment 20 of 38

Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit. One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of this earth…

Comment 21 of 38

This “one-dimensional” sentence seems to imply that God does not live in linear time. Once again, he offers no quote or justification—just a bold statement.

We can start with Abraham 3:4:

Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.

I can find no scripture that says God’s experience of time is anything other than one-dimensional.

Comment 22 of 38

Notice how he has switched the use of the word time:

In the previous sentence, time is duration.
In this sentence, time is event.

I affirm my belief that God’s ability to comprehend all events at any given moment is impossible for me to understand, but it does align with scripture.

Comment 23 of 38

In discussions of time, there are different types of future and history:

We have near history and distant history, and the same structure exists for the future.
Humans have little ability to handle distant history or the distant future.
However, we do pretty well with near history and the near future.

Comment 24 of 38

But I do think he is taking it too far here. His knowledge of the future, contingent on free-will choices, is at best probabilistic.

There is no way the “answer can only be yes”; our faith has a much broader belief that says the answer could just as well be no.

Comment 25 of 38

I think God can be surprised. It depends on which sense of surprise we mean:

“To attack unexpectedly” or “to take unawares”: maybe not. God is not overwhelmed by an event he couldn’t handle.
“To strike with wonder or amazement especially because unexpected”: this third definition seems possible.

Elder Holland seems to think that this type of surprise is exactly what happened to Christ when interacting with the Brother of Jared.

Comment 26 of 38

Comment 27 of 38

I don’t even understand why this paragraph is needed. How could we even know this fact? He seems to be making up attributes at this point.

Comment 28 of 38

This conclusion rests on an assumption with no foundation. I think choosing what to think about will be as complicated in eternity as it is now.

Comment 29 of 38

Comment 30 of 38

Comment 31 of 38

Wow. This is grandiose. We have one example of one contingent choice, and that now means he can know all possible futures?

I don’t think the example leads to that kind of certainty. I worry that a Dr. Strange view of possible futures is no different from fixed-future knowledge.

Comment 32 of 38

Once again, all knowable knowledge is a must for God. A future of contingent choices made by intelligent beings is uncreated and therefore doesn’t exist to be known as fact.

Comment 33 of 38

He can warn us of consequences because of his historical experience.

Comment 34 of 38

I would spend most of an article like this focusing on love, or omnibenevolence. His love makes any knowledge useful. Love drives all of God’s attributes.

Comment 35 of 38

Wisdom … does not exist in a vacuum. … a wise person has a highly developed personality, can transcend narcissism, and is aware of his or her limitations. … wisdom is best conceptualized as being the result of an interaction between three systems of behavior: cognition, affect, and conation. The matter cannot rest there, however, since time plays a role.

— p. 327

Generally, wise persons are thought to project the consequences of their solutions far into the future: … what is good for the greatest number of people for the long run is presumably the most wise decision.

— p. 322

Comment 36 of 38

This is a nuanced point. I don’t believe that the definitions of attributes differ for God and his children. The definition is the same; however, their abilities may differ.

Wisdom fundamentally depends on making a choice with limited knowledge. It is about making an optimal choice in the face of that uncertainty.
I do believe that God knows all the past and present.
To exercise the attribute of wisdom, something needs to be unknown.

Free choices in the future seem like the best context for giving God the attribute of wisdom. The Book of Mormon seems to double down on this idea as well.

Comment 37 of 38

Comment 38 of 38

Amen!

No comment on this passage.

Notes

[1] Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), 5.

[2] Neal A. Maxwell, All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979), 6.

[3] Joseph Smith Jr., Lectures on Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), 33; emphasis added.

[4] Smith, Lectures on Faith, 77.

[5] Bruce R. McConkie, New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), 52–53.

[6] Hugh Nibley, Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1978), 264.

[7] “Excerpts from Three Addresses by President Wilford Woodruff regarding the Manifesto,” following Declaration 1 in the Doctrine and Covenants.

[8] I am the editor of “Latter-day Saint Voices,” the department of the Ensign that features these stories. The Ensign receives many such stories that are never published. The Lord is very active in warning people about disasters that never happen because these individuals listen to and follow the promptings they receive and thus prevent the very event the Lord is warning them about.

[9] Marion G. Romney, “Converting Knowledge into Wisdom,” Ensign, July 1983, 5.