Does God know all things?
Christ said, "Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." Matthew 6:8
Yet, Christ calls us to repent, to make a choice for Him. He tells He chose us, but He also calls people hypocrites (which is really strange if they don't have a choice about what they do.)
By far the most important thing to realize before addressing this topic, which really is a very high theological question, is that
we cannot understand God. His ways are not our ways, nor are His thougts our thoughts. Trust in the Lord and
lean not on your own understanding.
Once a person has established a faith which puts trust in God before their own logic or reasoning, then this issue almost becomes childlike in simplicity.
Question: How does God know what we will do, and yet give us free will? How does He use all our actions for the good of those who love Him in line with His perfect plan, yet allow us to make the choices which cause those actions?
Answer: (and it's really easy)
because He's God.
That little "um this isn't logical" in your mind cannot apply to a God who is all powerful and above and beyond all things. Christ isn't logical either. Justice and Mercy as the same being really don't make sense from a human standpoint. It's called a
paradox , and you'll find God is full of them. Just look at His nature...the Trinity...its not
logical, but, the crazy part is that if you accept it on faith its starts to make sense! It can't be argued to an atheist, but to those who have the Spirit inside it can be described with pictures and words.
My favorite picture in regards to predestination and free will and God's knowledge, which helps me, is this...but if it doesn't help you, don't worry about it...it's just my words and they are very fallible.
Imagine that at the beginning of life we all start at the middle of a circle, and begin running away from it. God is at the middle, but we, as sinners, do everything we can to get as far away from Him as possible. The only problem is that He's also our source of energy and life, so the farther we get, the harder it is to keep going, so we trip and fall. For a while we can pick ourselves up, and the most determined, the most self-confident and prideful often can pick themselves up for their entire lives. But there are some of us who are weak, we're poor and we're know it and we don't like it. And we get to a pointwhere we fall and we just can't get up any more. That's where God comes in. He picks us up. He gives us strength, and He turns around to face Him again, and says, Come to me. Now, we have a choice, though its not a choice made by our own strength. We can come to Him, or we can turn around and use that strength to escape Him again. Now, God knows the choice we'll make, but He still gives us the chance
and the strength to make that choice. In this way, we have both free will, yet it is only because God has picked us up, and known we will come, that we come.
That's just one illustration. And it won't hold up against intense scrutiny, but it may help one see a paradox in a Spiritual light.
Yet, we must remember, free will and God's omnipotence is a paradox, and the only way to truly understand it is to know that we are simply incapable of understanding it. Be still, and know that He is God, and His Spirit will teach you all that you need to know.
Peace to all who seek it,
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