7. Philosophical inquiry into the ideas of the divine omnipotence and omniscience, however, discloses many difficulties. The Biblical assertion that nothing is impossible to God will not stand the test as soon as we ask seriously whether God can make the untrue true,—as making two times two to equal five—or whether He can declare the wrong to be right. Obviously He cannot overturn the laws of mathematical truth or of moral truth, without at the same time losing His nature as the Source and Essence of all truth. Nor can He abrogate the laws of nature, which are really His own rules for His creation, without detracting from both His omniscience and the immutability of His will. This question will be discussed more fully in connection with miracles, in chapter [XXVII].
Together with the problem of the divine omniscience arises the difficulty of reconciling this with our freedom of will and [pg 095] our moral responsibility. Would not His foreknowledge of our actions in effect determine them? This difficulty can only be solved by a proper conception of the freedom of the will, and will be discussed in that connection in chapter [XXXVII].
Altogether, we must guard against applying our human type of knowledge to God. Man, limited by space and time, obtains his knowledge of things and events by his senses, becoming aware of them separately as they exist either beside each other or in succession. With God all knowledge is complete; there is no growth of knowledge from yesterday to to-day, no knowledge of only a part instead of the whole of the world. His omniscience and omnipotence are bound up with His omnipresence and eternity. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”[239]
Chapter XV. God's Omnipresence and Eternity
1. As soon as man awakens to a higher consciousness of God, he realizes the vast distance between his own finite being limited by space and time, and the Infinite Being which rules everywhere and unceasingly in lofty grandeur and unlimited power. His very sense of being hedged in by the bounds and imperfections of a finite existence makes him long for the infinite God, unlimited in might, and brings to him the feeling of awe before His greatness. But this conception of God as the omnipresent and everlasting Spirit, as distinct from any created being, is likewise the result of many stages of growing thought.
2. The primitive mind imagines God as dwelling in a lofty place, whence He rules the earth beneath, descending at times to take part in the affairs of men, to tarry among them, or to walk with them.[240] The people adhered largely to this conception during the Biblical period, as they considered as the original seat of the Deity, first Paradise, later on Sinai or Zion, and finally the far-off heavens. It required prophetic vision to discern that “the heavens and the heavens' heavens do not encompass God's majesty,” expressed also in poetic imagery that “the heaven is My throne and the earth My footstool.”[241] The classic form of this idea of the divine omnipresence is found in the oft-quoted passage from Psalm CXXXIX.[242]
3. The dwelling places of God are to give way the moment His omnipresence is understood as penetrating the universe to such an extent that nothing escapes His glance nor lies without His dominion.[243] They are then transformed into places where He had manifested His Name, His Glory, or His Presence (“Countenance,” in the Hebrew). In this way certain emanations or powers of God were formed which could be located in a certain space without impairing the divine omnipresence. These intermediary powers will be the theme of chapter [XXXII].
The following dialogue illustrates this stage of thought: A heretic once said sarcastically to Gamaliel II, “Ye say that where ten persons assemble for worship, there the divine majesty (Shekinah) descends upon them; how many such majesties are there?” To which Gamaliel replied: “Does not the one orb of day send forth a million rays upon the earth? And should not the majesty of God, which is a million times brighter than the sun, be reflected in every spot on earth?”[244]