"Scriptures that indicate God has limited His knowledge.
There are many passages in the Bible that indicate God does not necessarily know what man will do. The following are just a few of them. This picture of a creator who chooses to
not know what his creature will do shows up right at the beginning of the Bible in the creation account itself .
"Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam
to see what he would call them." Genesis 2:19
If God is all-knowing of what man will do, why was He so inquisitive of what Adam would do?
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord
regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth,...
for I regret that I have made them." Genesis 6:5-7
How can a wise God do something that He knows He will regret in the future? This passage clearly implies that, had God known when He created man that he would become as evil as he did, He would not have created him! Thus, He did not know. God knew it was a
possibility that man could turn toward ultimate evil. That is part of the risk He took in relinquishing control and giving man a free will. But that is not the same as knowing man
would become as evil as he did. God had higher
hopes for His creation.
But the Lord came down
to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, "
Indeed, the people are one and they all have one language..." Genesis 11:5,6
Gathering information again! And obviously, it was information He didn't completely possess before.
And the Lord said, "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now
and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know." Genesis 18:20,21
It sounds like He didn't know for sure and was going on a fact-finding mission again!
But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." And He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him;
for now I know that you fear God,
since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." Genesis 22:11,12
Again, "
now I know", as though He wasn't completely sure before.
Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, "
I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments." 1Samuel 15:11
How can an intelligent God do something He knew He would wish He hadn't done?
"And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them,
nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin." Jeremiah 32:35 (see also Jeremiah 7:31 and 19:5)
God said Himself that it never came into His mind!!
These are just a few of the highlights. There seems to be no end to the scriptural references that suggest man did something that was unexpected by God. Just the fact that it says God became
angry with men on numerous occasions, suggests that something different was
expected from them. If this were not the case, then God's display of anger was merely theatrics on His part... a lie. How can God be justifiably angry with someone for doing what He expected them
not to do, while at the same time He expected them to do it because He knew they would? The picture of an all-knowing God just doesn't stand to any plausible line of logic. God has taken a great risk in creating a being with a free will. The question is why? C. S. Lewis rightly put the answer this way;
"Why then did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having, A world of automata--of creatures that worked like machines--would hardly be worth creating."
(C. S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity p.49.)
The longing of God's heart for those who would love Him, and would demonstrate that love by obeying Him, is the very purpose God made man in the first place. Listen to His heart yearning in this passage.
"Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments,
that it might be well with them and with their children forever! Deut. 5:29
The Attributes of Deity
