Define Omniscient

QUESTION: How do theologians define omniscient?

ANSWER:

“God knows everything—past, present, and future; He knows the actual and the possible; only the impossible (the contradictory) is outside the actual knowledge of God.”¹ – Geisler

"God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, and hell… Because God knows all things perfectly, He knows no thing better than any other thing, but all thing equally well. He never discovers anything. He is never surprised, never amazed. He never wonders about anything nor (except when drawing men out for their own good) does He seek information or ask questions.”² - Tozer

“Omniscience means that God knows everything, things actual and possible, effortlessly and equally well.”³ - Ryrie

Define Omniscient in a Believer’s life
“No talebearer can inform on us, no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us.”² – Tozer

“God knows every detail of our lives. There is nothing that escapes His attention. ‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered,’ Christ said (Luke 12:7)…Perhaps this is the most astounding fact about God’s omniscience: He knows every detail about us, yet He still loves us…He knew all about our sins, yet willingly gave His Son to die for us on the cross.”⁴ – MacArthur

“Since God knows everything, we can have confidence in Him and in His promises — not only for peace in this life, but an eternity of joy in the life to come. And aren’t you glad that he knows you, that He knit you together in your mother’s womb, that he fashioned you and knows exactly what you are designed to do — that all the days ordained for you are written in his book even before one of them came to be? Yes my friend, God does know all things.”⁵ - Hanegraaff

Footnotes:
¹ Geisler, Norman. Systematic Theology. (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2003), 180.
² Tozer, A.W., The Knowledge of the Holy. (New York: Harper and Row, 1978) 62-63.
³ Ryrie, Charles, Basic Theology. (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1986) 40.
⁴ MacArthur, John Jr., God: Coming Face to Face with His Majesty. (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1993), 52.
⁵ Hanegraaff, Hank, CRI (www.equip.org).

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