God's Omnisapience and the Problem of Evil
Arguments from the Nature of God
When describing God’s greatness, most Christians recognize the three big omnis—God is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnipresent (all-present). Without too much effort, most of us would quickly accept a fourth omni—God is omnibenevolent (all-loving). Yet when it comes to concerns about God’s justice (e.g. why does an all powerful and all loving God allow evil?), these four attributes are insufficient to ease our doubts and heal our pain. The missing ingredient in our understanding of God’s divine nature is his fifth omni—God is omnisapient (all-wise).
So what is omnisapience? And how does trust in God’s infinite wisdom affect our experience of sorrow, pain, injustice, and suffering?
God’s Omnisapience Gives Us Peace in the Storm
Hope in God’s unbound wisdom offers comfort during troubled times, but sadly not all those who claim the name of Christ believe that God is all-wise. To explain the problem of evil, Open Theists like Clark Pinnock and Greg Boyd argue that because human’s have free will, God can’t predict what will happen in the future. God only knows everything that has already happened, but his knowledge of the future is limited. As Pinnock writes,
The God of the Bible displays an openness to the future (i.e. ignorance of the future) that the traditional view of omniscience simply cannot accommodate. — Clark Pinnock, Augustine to Arminius (25-26).
The problem with Open Theism is that because God’s knowledge is limited, therefore his ability to make wise decisions is limited. Even worse, God’s limited knowledge can lead him to make unwise decisions which contribute to the problem of evil. Tim Challies offers eight points that summarize well the limited god of Open Theism:
God’s greatest attribute is love. God’s love so overshadows His other characteristics that He could never allow or condone evil or suffering to befall mankind.
Man has libertarian free will. Man’s will has not been so effected by the Fall that he is unable to make a choice to follow God. God respects man’s freedom of choice and would not infringe upon it.
God does not have exhaustive knowledge of the future. Indeed, He cannot know certain future events because the future exists only as possibility. God is unable to see what depends on the choices of free will agents simply because this future does not yet exist, so it unknowable. In this way open theists attempt to reconcile this doctrine with God’s ominiscience.
God takes risks. Because God cannot know the future, He takes risks in many ways – creating people, giving them gifts and abilities, and so on. Where possibilities exist, so does risk.
God learns. Because God does not know the future exhaustively, He learns, just as we do.
God is reactive. Because He is learning, God is constantly reacting to the decisions we make.
God makes mistakes. Because He is learning and reacting, always dealing with limited information, God can and does make errors in judgment which later require re-evaluation.
God can change His mind. When God realizes he has made an error in judgment or that things did not unfold as He supposed, he can change His mind.
If the Open Theists are right, then God’s limited knowledge means his wisdom is also limited. God’s wisdom is not a guiding light along the dark path of life but a fading ember unable to hold back the cold shadows. If God’s choices are constrained by his ignorance, then he cannot fulfill love’s promise to bring justice to our world.
If the Open Theists are right, then your suffering is in vain. God cannot promise a better future and the Bible is full of empty hope. God’s actions may actually contribute to injustice.
Fortunately, we don’t need to trust in the wisdom of men like Pinnock and Boyd. The imagination of these broken theologians runs counter to the wisdom of Scripture which is far more trustworthy.
Proverbs teaches us that the purpose of wisdom is to avoid life’s mistakes (Prov. 1:33; 2:20) and that God’s judgments are indeed perfectly wise (Ps 19:7–9). So even though our suffering might blind us to God, God is not blind to our suffering. We can trust that God is all wise and able to work all things for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:28). In short, God’s perfect love for us casts out our fear of the unknown. God’s perfect love empowers us to trust in his omnisapience and shields us from the storm.
But trusting that God’s actions are all-wise is not the complete answer to the problem of evil.
"The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream." — Proverbs 18:4
God’s Omnisapience is Our Path Toward Justice
Wisdom is the power to direct our knowledge in order to achieve the greatest possible good in any circumstance. But what happens to moral good when God’s wisdom is blind?
If Open Theists are right, then God cannot give us wise counsel. The Bible is reduced to a collection of God’s best guesses and opinions based on his finite perceptions.
The moral implications of serving the near-sighted god of Open Theism are terrible. Contrary to Proverbs 6:23, God’s instruction are NOT the way to life. If God is not omnisapient, then His moral laws are filled with errors. And if God’s moral laws are filled with errors, how can we know which commands are just and which ones are unjust? If we cannot know what justice truly is, then how can we truly show love to our neighbor? What you and I think is evil may be good, and what we think is good may be evil.
But…. if God is truly all-wise, then the Bible shows us the sure path toward justice. If God is omnisapient, we can know that evil is evil and good is good.
The church, guided by the all-wise Spirit, becomes the righteous instrument of God’s perfect wisdom. Omnisapience gives the Holy Spirit the ability to guide the church toward the greatest possible good in any circumstance. Paul reminds us of just how powerful God’s wisdom truly is. God’s wisdom revealed in the Gospel gives us the power to overcome evil in our world.
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory (Ephesians 3:8–13).
Notice that Paul’s trust in God’s wisdom gave him hope that his own suffering was not in vain. Paul’s faith gave him hope that the Church would put into practice God’s wise plan of salvation. Even more, consider Paul’s doxology to the Church in Rome:
Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen (Romans 16:25–27).
We cannot reach the true knowledge of Christ unless we trust that Jesus himself gives us access to his omniscience. It is our trust in the all-knowing God that keeps us from being duped by the Open Theists, Satan, and the false teachers of our world. It is our true knowledge of Christ that gives us the wisdom needed to act with love, walk in holiness, and live in unity.
For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments (Colossians 2:1–4).
But evil does persist, in part, because the wisdom of God is denied by the Open Theists and all other minds darkened by false worldviews.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:6–8).
If you are broken by injustice…
If you desire to work for a better world…
Then trust that God’s love—perfected in you by the cross of Christ through the indwelling power of his Spirit—gives you the wisdom needed to find the path toward justice.
