(c) God's omnipresence is not necessary but free.—We reject the pantheistic notion that God is bound to the universe as the universe is bound to God. God is immanent in the universe, not by compulsion, but by the free act of his own will, and this immanence is qualified by his transcendence.
God might at will cease to be omnipresent, for he could destroy the universe; but while the universe exists, he is and must be in all its parts. God is the life and law of the universe,—this is the truth in pantheism. But he is also personal and free,—this pantheism denies. Christianity holds to a free, as well as to an essential, omnipresence—qualified and supplemented, however, by God's transcendence. The boasted truth in pantheism is an elementary principle of Christianity, and is only the stepping-stone to a nobler truth—God's personal presence with his church. The Talmud contrasts the worship of an idol and the worship of Jehovah: “The idol seems so near, but is so far, Jehovah seems so far, but is so near!” God's omnipresence assures us that he is present with us to hear, and present in every heart and in the ends of the earth to answer, prayer. See Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible, 10; Bowne, Metaphysics, 136; Charnock, Attributes, 1:363-405.
The Puritan turned from the moss-rose bud, saying: “I have learned to call nothing on earth lovely.” But this is to despise not only the workmanship but the presence of the Almighty. The least thing in nature is worthy of study because it is the revelation of a present God. The uniformity of nature and the reign of law are nothing but the steady will of the omnipresent God. Gravitation is God's omnipresence in space, as evolution is God's omnipresence in time. Dorner, System of Doctrine, 1:73-“God being omnipresent, contact with him may be sought at any moment in prayer and contemplation; indeed, it will always be true that we live and move and have our being in him, as the perennial and omnipresent source of our existence.” Rom. 10:6-8—“Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down:) or, Who shall descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart.” Lotze, Metaphysics, § 256, quoted in Illingworth, Divine Immanence, 135, 136. Sunday-school scholar: “Is God in my pocket?” “Certainly.” “No, he isn't, for I haven't any pocket.” God is omnipresent so long as there is a universe, but he ceases to be omnipresent when the universe ceases to be.
2. Omniscience.
By this we mean God's perfect and eternal knowledge of all things which are objects of knowledge, whether they be actual or possible, past, present, or future.
God knows his inanimate creation: Ps. 147:4—“counteth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names.” He has knowledge of brute creatures: Mat. 10:29—sparrows—“not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father.” Of men and their works: Ps. 33:13-15—“beholdeth all the sons of men ... considereth all their works.” Of hearts of men and their thoughts: Acts 15:8—“God, who knoweth the heart”; Ps. 139:2—“understandest my thought afar off.” Of our wants: Mat. 6:8—“knoweth what things ye have need of.” Of the least things: Mat. 10:30—“the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Of the past: Mal. 3:16—“book of remembrance.” Of the future: Is. 46:9, 10—“declaring the end from the beginning.” Of men's future free acts: Is. 44:28—“that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure.” Of men's future evil acts: Acts 2:23—“him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” Of the ideally possible: 1 Sam. 23:12—“Will the men of Keilah deliver up me and my men into the hands of Saul? And Jehovah said, They will deliver thee up”(sc. if thou remainest); Mat. 11:23—“if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would have remained.” From eternity: Acts 15:18—“the Lord, who maketh these things known from of old.” Incomprehensible: Ps. 139:6—“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me”; Rom. 11:33—“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.” Related to wisdom: Ps. 104:24—“In wisdom hast thou made them all”; Eph. 3:10—“manifold wisdom of God.”
Job 7:20—“O thou watcher of men”; Ps. 56:8—“Thou numberest my wanderings” = my whole life has been one continuous exile; “Put thou my tears into thy bottle” = the skin bottle of the east,—there are tears enough to fill one; “Are they not in thy book?” = no tear has fallen to the ground unnoted,—God has gathered them all. Paul Gerhardt: “Du zählst wie oft ein Christe wein', Und was sein Kummer sei; Kein stilles Thränlein ist so klein, Du hebst und legst es bei.” Heb. 4:13—“there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all [pg 283]things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do”—τετραχηλισμένα—with head bent back and neck laid bare, as animals slaughtered in sacrifice, or seized by the throat and thrown on the back, so that the priest might discover whether there was any blemish. Japanese proverb: “God has forgotten to forget.”
(a) The omniscience of God may be argued from his omnipresence, as well as from his truth or self-knowledge, in which the plan of creation has its eternal ground, and from prophecy, which expresses God's omniscience.
It is to be remembered that omniscience, as the designation of a relative and transitive attribute, does not include God's self-knowledge. The term is used in the technical sense of God's knowledge of all things that pertain to the universe of his creation. H. A. Gordon: “Light travels faster than sound. You can see the flash of fire from the cannon's mouth, a mile away, considerably before the noise of the discharge reaches the ear. God flashed the light of prediction upon the pages of his word, and we see it. Wait a little and we see the event itself.”