The omniscient God from a Mormon perspective

The omniscience of God, or Heavenly Father, is a consistent theme in Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.As Merriam Webster defines omniscient, it is, “knowing everything: having unlimited understanding or knowledge.” If God is omniscient, the argument goes, one must submit his or her will to God’s will. (Of course the great debate in the world is over exactly what God’s will is.)

In my religion, the LDS faith, the omniscience of God includes our Heavenly Father knowing exactly what choices we are going to make while we are on earth. In other words, if I cheat my neighbor, God knew I was going to do it. If I do something good, God knew I was going to do it. That’s always been a difficult doctrine for me. I accept it as a teaching, but it seems like the deck is already stacked — for or against — us while we are on earth.

The doctrine reminds me of predestination, the John Calvin idea that God has already selected which humans are going to heaven or hell. I still regard that doctrine as very flawed, but it took me years to understand that predestination is, at its heart, just another way for mortals to try to understand why evil things happen. While it’s fair to say — although I’m sure many will argue — that Mormonism teaches a very distant cousin to predestination, the Mormon’s omniscient God is very distinct.

A key distinction is that God’s omniscience arrives, in part, from our premortal existence. As the result of rearing children through a first pre-mortal estate, he knows us well enough to anticipate our decisions as mortals. This Mormon doctrine is well explained in the book, “All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience,” by the late LDS Apostle Neal A. Maxwell. (Here)

Maxwell writes: “Personality patterns, habits, strengths, and weaknesses observed by God over a long period in the premortal world would give God a perfect understanding of what we would do under a given set of circumstances to come. Just because we cannot compute all the variables, just because we cannot extrapolate does not mean that He cannot do so. Omniscience is, of course, one of the essences of Godhood; it sets Him apart in such an awesome way from all of us even though, on a smaller scale, we manage to do a little foreseeing ourselves at times with our own children even with our finite and imperfect minds.

“Ever to be emphasized, however, is the reality that God’s ‘seeing’ is not the same thing as His ‘causing’ something to happen.”

In Maxwell’s opinion, the “stumbling block” that myself, and others, have with this doctrine derives from a humanistic desire to “equalize everything, rather than achieving justice.” Maxwell goes further, and criticizes individuals who think they need a relationship with God. He asserts we already have a relationship with our Father in Heaven, and our chief responsibility is to get closer to our Father through worshiping him and living as He teaches us. Maxwell also asserts that we don’t own ourselves, rather we are in debt to Jesus Christ for providing a means for us to return to God. It is a debt everyone will acknowledge one day, Maxwell adds.

Mormonism teaches that earth is a second stage of our existence. The first state, premortal, was for cognitive learning. As Maxwell says, it was likely a much longer time frame. He writes: “The second estate, however, is one that emphasizes experiential learning through applying, proving and testing. … We have moved, as it were, from first-estate theory to second-estate laboratory. It is here that our Christlike characteristics are further shaped and our spiritual skills are thus strengthened.”

If God knows me so well that he can anticipate every move I make, he knows that I’m still wondering why billions and billions of his children live lives that are completely divorced from Christianity and any knowledge of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. To my admittedly mortal mind, this can seem anti-egalitarian.

Maxwell stresses in his book that our mortal minds cannot comprehend what God sees and knows. I can accept that, while at the same time understanding why a skeptic would regard that claim as manipulative. And I believe this statement. “Because of His omniscience and foreknowledge, God is, therefore, able to see His plan unfold safely. If He were less than omniscient and did not, in fact, operate out of perfect foreknowledge. His plan of salvation would by now be in shambles.” If one believes in God, one believes that virtue will triumph.

I believe God tolerates, even encourages, minds that want to wrestle a while. To absorb a doctrine without questions seems counterproductive. Ultimately, however, it’s fair to say a believer must submit his will to an omniscient God. To do otherwise is to deny the God’s deity and power over us.

Mormonism is unique in that we also believe that there are 15 men who are called of God as ecclesiastical presidents and apostles. Consequently, we are taught that they occasionally speak the will of God. Unlike the omniscient God, however, His representatives on earth sometimes eventually change their minds, and inspire debate.

-- Doug Gibson

Originally published at StandardBlogs