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[DJ Jazzy]

To gain new information means that there was a point where something was not known. Not only does this contradict "God is all knowing", it contradicts the claim that god exists outside of time. To not know something, and then to learn it requires two separate moments.

[jimwalton]

No, it just means that we have to define omniscience in a reasonable way, which I have attempted to do. If you read what I wrote, I've already covered this ground.

[Wombat]

> By omniscience we mean that God knows himself and all other things, whether they are past, present, or future, and he knows them exhaustively and to both extents of eternity.

Fine. omniscience- But why did he put the tree in the garden of eden if he knew the future, but neither Eve nor Adam understood the concept of good and bad?

[jimwalton]

Free will necessitates choice. You can't have free will that isn't free. If God protects them from the possibilities of negative choices, they don't really have free will.

Knowledge of what his creatures would do implies his ability to see, not his interference to force or determine them to do it. No matter how much I know, my knowledge doesn't make anybody do anything. If I were able to travel forward in time to see what you were going to write back to me, or to not even respond, my seeing that would not force you to write what you of your own free will choose to write, or even not to write at all. Knowledge is not causative, and even all-knowledge (omniscience) is not causative. Knowledge only sees or comprehends, it cannot coerce.

God knows all things because He can see all along the timeline. But His ability to see doesn't mean that He forced them to disobey, that He created them to disobey, that the system was rigged against them, that they were tricked, or that they had no free will. Knowledge is not causative. Only power is causative. God's ability to move forward in time to see what they would do doesn't mean God made them disobey. They had every option in front of them, and the power to obey or disobey. Their disobedience was theirs and theirs alone.

The Bible says that because God knew they would disobey, He had already designed a way to win them back in relationship to Himself, since He could not interfere with their free will. He knew they would disobey and so instituted a plan of restoration, redemption, and reconciliation. And even though He knew we would sin, He knew His power of redemption was stronger than our sin. As the old hymn says, "Grace that is greater than all our sin."

The only way people learn and can live their lives is by having choices and learning from the consequences of those choices. If God were to protect them from all harm (as is no different for us), we'd all be dumb as rocks and lazy as sloths.

Adam and Eve were rational beings before the violation. Gn. 2.15 says that they were given responsibilities. This clearly implies that they have brains to think, they are able to understand roles and functions, with the ability to evaluate and accomplish. They can be held accountable for what they are told because there is expectation of the capability to comply.

Gn. 2.16 lets us know that they had both moral capability and culpability. They were given great freedom in the blessing to eat of the trees of the garden. So we know they had and understood free will and the exercise of it. They understood their right and ability to choose.

Gn. 2.17 lets us know that they had an understanding of right and wrong, between permission and prohibition, and consequences for disobedience. God made obedience easy for them. They were in an ideal environment with great liberties in their choices. God had provided for their needs and warned them clearly of the consequences of disobedience. Evidence of moral law is built into creation.

So the "knowledge of good and evil" is not to assume that he was a clueless imbecile, but that they had not yet experienced intentional disobedience. They quite obviously had moral knowledge and understood the prohibition. Gn. 3.3 shows that Eve understood the morality of the decision and the consequences of disobedience. She knew full well that she was committing a sin before they did it.

In other words, they knew disobeying God was wrong. He had been explicit and clear with them (Gen. 2.17).

"The knowledge of good and evil" doesn't mean they didn't know anything about morality, obedience, godliness, or disobedience. In the ancient world, God was often associated with the concept of wisdom, and "the knowledge of good and evil" is a idiomatic way that they expressed that concept of wisdom. For instance, in the Gilgamesh Epic, the primitive Enkidu becomes wise (possessing reason) not by eating the fruit of a tree but instead by engaging in sexual intercourse with the prostitute Samhat, who was sent to entice and capture him. The tree in this story, therefore, is to be associated with the wisdom that is found in God (Job 28.28; Prov. 1.7). It's not that Adam and Eve didn't know about good and evil before this, but that God was inviting them to acquire wisdom (godliness) in the proper way at the appropriate time by obedience to him. "Good and evil" is a legal idiom meaning "to formulate and articulate a judicial decision (Gn. 24.50; 31.24, 29; Dt. 1.39; 1 Ki. 3.9; 22.18). The idea is that they would seek God's ways instead of their own. The tree corresponds to their ability to decide. What was being forbidden to the humans was the power to decide for themselves what was in their best interests and what was not.

So we can say with confidence that Adam and Eve had intrinsic knowledge of good and evil before eating the fruit. They knew full well what their choices were, and God was clear about what the consequences were. Unfortunately, what they chose was to be self-governed rather than God-oriented, relying on their own faulty "wisdom" rather than on the wisdom of God. God had a grand goal for them (abundant life), but that life could only be had by staying in relationship with God who is Life.

[DJ Jazzy]

> Does he evaluate propositions? Does he perceive? What about intuitions, reasoning, logic, and creativity?

These are all forms of knowledge. I don't see how they couldn't be.

Could you clarify for me how not having information and then gaining that information doesn't qualify as knowledge that God didn't have at one point? I'm not saying you didn't cover it, I just don't see it in your post. Thanks.

[jimwalton]

They are forms of knowledge. My point is not to declare what knowledge God has or doesn't have. My point is rather that knowledge itself is impossible to define, especially in the case of God, and that the definition of omniscience isn't a simple, "Uh, knows everything." There's far more to it than that for any thinking person and any reasonable definition, which is impossible to nail down. Therefore we can't be so quick to assert it's impossible for God to be omniscient, as the OP does, and possibly as you are wondering.

[DJ Jazzy]

Maybe a definition of knowledge will be helpful: facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. I'm having a hard time coming up with anything that doesn't fall within this definition. Facts, information, experience, skills....theoretical or practical. Proposition and non-propositional knowledge is contained in this definition. If God has all knowledge, a priori, posteriori, explicit, tacit, propositional and non-propositional, knows everything that has and will happen....what is left?

God doesn't have beliefs. He knows what is true and what isn't true. To say that he has beliefs (or opinions) is to say that he is fallible...which contradicts the most commonly expressed claim of God's traits.

I disagree that knowledge is "impossible" to define. It may be impossible for us to agree on definitions, but it makes no sense to declare God as being omniscient, and yet also declare it is impossible for him to define "knowledge".

I am not wondering whether or not God is omniscient, or asserting it's impossible.

[jimwalton]

> Maybe a definition of knowledge will be helpful

A "dictionary" definition of knowledge really doesn't help. It is neither complete nor nuanced enough. I'm sure you know there is an entire discipline called epistemology, where the definition of knowledge and the nature of knowledge is under continual debate with little agreement.

> God doesn't have beliefs. He knows what is true and what isn't true.

This seems to be an odd statement to me, as if "belief" is something not known. I believe you and I are having a rational conversation—which we are.

[DJ Jazzy]

I've always taken belief to be less certain than knowledge. Because belief can be wrong, or subjective. I agree with you about our rational conversation. But I could, hypothetically, disagree and say it is far less rational than I would like. We both hold a belief about our conversation. Belief and opinion overlap quite a bit, and quite often.

While philosophers, and us, debate the nuances of knowledge I believe it's impractical to continually avoid agreeing on some basic definitions, for the simple reason that it constantly derails conversations. We could start off talking about what constitutes God's knowledge, veer off into defining knowledge and then never come back to the topic at hand. I think it's helpful to start with a wider definition and bring up the nuances as they apply.

I'm looking for a good reason for why I shouldn't consider God's omniscience as including all forms of knowledge. By definition that's what it means "complete or maximal knowledge". I don't see why some things should be left out.

[jimwalton]

> I've always taken belief to be less certain than knowledge. Because belief can be wrong, or subjective.

I use faith, as I believe Hebrews 11.1 does: Confidence based on evidence. Here's my explanation:

In the Bible, faith is evidentiary. I define Biblical faith as "making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make that assumption reasonable." In my opinion, belief is always a choice, and is always based on evidence. When you sit down in a chair, you didn’t think twice about sitting down. You believe that the chair will hold you. Faith? Yes. You've sat in chairs hundreds of times, but you can't be absolutely sure it will hold you this time. Things do break on occasion. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption, and you sit down. That's faith, and it was a conscious choice based on a reasonable body of evidence.

Almost all of life works this way because we can never know what lies ahead. Every time you turn a door knob you are expressing faith, because 10,000 times you've turned a door knob, and it opened the door. So you turn the knob and move forward. Does it always work that way? No. Sometimes you turn the knob and the door doesn't open. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption, and you walk forward in faith.

We know chairs hold people. That's past experience and learning. We know turning door knobs open doors. We know that when we turn a key a car starts. But every time we turn a car key, we do it because we believe it will start. The evidence is compelling, and it was a conscious choice. We don't know for sure that the car will start, and unfortunately sometimes it doesn't. Then we use our knowledge to try to figure out what to do about it. We dial our phone (as an act of faith, assuming it will work and help us reach another person), and try to get help.

You'll notice in the Bible that evidence precedes faith. There is no "close your eyes and jump off a cliff and good luck to ya!" God appears to Moses in a burning bush before He expects him to believe. He gave signs to take back to Pharaoh and the Israelite people, so they could see the signs before they were expected to believe. So also through the whole OT. In the NT, Jesus started off with turning water into wine, healing some people, casting out demons, and then he taught them about faith. And they couldn't possibly understand the resurrection until there was some evidence to go on. The whole Bible is God revealing himself to us all—and I mean actually, not through some exercise of faith.

My faith in God is a conscious choice because I find the evidence compelling. It's an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for me to make that assumption. When you read the Bible, people came to Jesus to be healed because they had heard about other people who had been healed. They had seen other people whom Jesus had healed. People had heard him teach. Their faith was based on evidence. Jesus kept giving them new information, and they gained new knowledge from it. Based on that knowledge, they acted with more faith. People came to him to make requests. See how it works? My belief in God is based on my knowledge of the credibility of those writings, the logic of the teaching, and the historical evidence behind it all. The resurrection, for instance, has evidences that give it credibility that motivate me to believe in it. My faith in the resurrection is an assumption of truth based on enough evidence that makes it reasonable to hold that assumption. Jesus could have just ascended to heaven, the disciples figured out that he had prophesied it, and went around telling people He rose. But that's not what happened. He walked around and let them touch him, talk to him, eat with him, and THEN he said, "Believe that I have risen from the dead." The same is true for my belief in the existence of God, my belief that the Bible is God's word, and my understanding of how life works.

There's nothing true, from a biblical perspective, that belief and opinion overlap more than belief and knowledge.

> I'm looking for a good reason for why I shouldn't consider God's omniscience as including all forms of knowledge. By definition that's what it means "complete or maximal knowledge". I don't see why some things should be left out.

As I concluded in my original post, perhaps we best can define God's omniscience as: (1) Having knowledge of all true propositions and having no false beliefs, and (2) Having knowledge that is not surpassed or surpassable.