2. The Knowledge of God. (Scientia Dei.)
The men also know something. The heathen know God's righteousness (το δικαίωμα του -ϑεοϋ, God's law, Rom. 1:32; the work of the law stands written in their hearts,
sempiterna imice desidera. ... Transit mundus, perit terra, pereunt omnia, quae sunt in ea, sed deterius perit, qui corde adhaeret terrenis et transitoriis. [Google]
1392) Hollaz, Examen, cap. I, De Deo, qu. 50: Tremente diabolo et premente nos mundo erigamus mentes nostras spe aeternae gloriae. Nam momentanea levitas afflictionis nostrae iuxta excellentiam in excellentiam aeternum pondus gloriae operatur nobis; eo quod nos non spectamus ad ea, quae videntur, sed ad ea, quae non videntur; quae enim videntur, temporaria sunt; quae vero non videntur, aeterna. [Google] 2 Cor. 4:17-18.
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Rom. 2:16). The Christians know that man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ (Gal. 2:16). The angels, both good and evil, also know something. The devils know that there is one God, that Christ is the Son of God and that eternal torment is ahead of them (Jam. 2:19; Mark. 5:12; Matt. 8:29). The good angels know a lot. They know about the manifold wisdom of God (ή πολυποίκιλος σοφία τον ϑεον) according to the purpose from the world, which He has proved (έποίησεν) in Jesus Christ our Lord (Eph. 3:10-11). With their willing and intelligent service they accompany the Christian church until the Last Day (Hebr. 1:14; 1 Petr. 1:12; Matt. 4:11; Luke 16:22; Matt. 13:30, 39, 49).
The knowledge of God differs from the knowledge of creatures a. by the extent of the knowledge, that is, by the fact that God knows all things (omniscientia, Jn. 21:17: πάντα av οϊδας, 1 Jn. 3:20: ό ϑεός γινώσκει πάντα), thus also the future things hidden from all creatures and known to Him alone (praescientia, Is. 41:22, 23: "Declare to us what will come hereafter, and we will know that you are gods"), including possible things (scientia de futuro conditionata, 1 Sam. 23:12: When Saul comes to Keilah, the citizens will deliver David to Saul; Matt. 11:23: "If the deeds had happened in Sodom that happened in you [Capernaum], it would still be standing today").1393)
b. By the way of knowledge. Since God is omniscient, with God there can be no address of a progression of knowledge from one object to another and from the known to the unknown (as is the case with men), but God knows all things in one simple act referring to all things. Furthermore, God knows all things directly, that is, God's knowledge is not conveyed by images of the objects or by impressions which are produced by the objects (per species intelligibiles), but God knows all things directly, as they are in themselves, in their inner essence.
1393) The Latin expressions for the divine knowledge of possible things are not exactly beautiful, especially if we add the expressions scientia de futuribili, scientia media. [“knowledge of the future, middle knowledge”] But what is said against the matter is not wisdom, but contradiction against the scripture, as is clear from the cited passages.
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The ancient theologians say something like: Deus res non per species intelligibiles, sed in se sive in esse proprio cognoscit. Homo res adspicit, Deus perspicit. [“God does not know things through intelligible species, but in himself or in his own being.”] Therefore, the Scripture says that God knows the thoughts of men, even if men do not make their thoughts known by external signs (words, works, gestures). God knows the heart of all the children of men (1 Kings 8:39): God is the heart-teller, ο καρδιογνώστης ϑεός (Acts 16:8). Christ sees (ἰδών) the thoughts of men (Matt. 9:4); he knew what was in man (John 2:26).
What the Scriptures teach of the knowledge of God, they themselves use in manifold ways: a. for warning. We saw: it belongs to the description of the divine majesty that God alone knows the things to come (הַבָּא֖וֹת [HEBREW]), Is. 41:22-23. All who go to soothsayers or ask the dead transfer God's glory to men and devils. They are an abomination to the land. Under the theocracy of the Old Testament they had to be eradicated from the land, Deut. 18:9 ff; Deut. 20:6, 27. Furthermore: Only God knows what is in God. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wills to reveal it, Matt. 11:27. All who teach otherwise and do not stay with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 6:3), but instead of the words of Christ make their own "pious self-consciousness" or "experience" the source and norm of Christian doctrine, put themselves on God's teaching chair in God's house, and Scripture warns against them thus: "Do not obey the words of the prophets who prophesy to you! They deceive you, for they preach from the face of their heart and not from the mouth of the Lord," Jer. 23:16. Further, we all too easily forget the omniscient God in regard to our thoughts, words and works, with whom darkness is not dark, but the night shines like the day, Ps. 139:12. — But Scripture also uses the omniscience of God in manifold ways d. for comfort. God looks upon them that are of a broken spirit, and are afraid of his word, and delighteth to dwell with them with his grace, Is. 66:2; 57:15; Ps. 34:19; 51:19. And as for bodily need, Scripture reminds us that our heavenly Father knows what we need, Matt. 6:32. And when men wrong our righteousness, we may and should take comfort in the fact that God's eyes see the righteous cause," Ps. 17:1-3.
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Question: how does God's infallible foreknowledge relate to the unconstrainedness of the human will? One argues: If there is an infallible foreknowledge of God, then everything must happen as God foreknew it. With this, however, the unconstraint of the human will and the human responsibility cease. On the basis of this argument heathens (Cicero),1394) Socinians1395) and also newer theologians1396) either denied the omniscience of God completely or did not want to refer to the sinful actions of men.
What the Scriptures teach on this point can be summarized in the following sentences: 1. God's foreknowledge encompasses all things and is infallible. Everything happens as God has foreknown it. The contrary assumption nullifies the concept of God.1397) 2. but the Scriptures do not represent the omniscience of God, which extends to all things without distinction, as acting or producing these things; rather, omniscience conceptually (notionaliter) presupposes the things which are its object or of which it takes notice as already existing. Thus, in the description of divine omniscience, Ps. 139:1-4, "Lord, thou searchest me and knowest me I sit or stand, thou knowest; thou understandest my thoughts afar off. I walk or lie down, you are around me and see all my ways. For, behold, there is not a word on my tongue that thou, Lord, knowest not all things." And when it is said of the congregation at Laodicea, Revelation 3:16, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot," this state of the congregation is represented as already existing, not as having been wrought by divine knowledge. Therefore, the Formula of Concord, in describing the divine omniscience, says quite correctly:1398) "The providence of God (praescientia) also sees and knows evil beforehand, but not in such a way that it would be God's gracious will that it should happen.... The beginning and cause is not God's providence (for God creates
1394) The quotations in Gerhard, Loci, L. De Natura Dei, § 248.
1395) Sozinus, Praei. Theol., c. 8-11: Nulla ratio, nullum Scripturae testimonium proferri potest, ex quo aperte colligitur, Deum mala ex voluntatibus hominum dependentia scivisse, antequam fierent. [Google]
1396) Report in Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 459 f.
1397) This is also stated by Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 459 f., against Socinians and newer theologians (Rothe, Weiße).
1398) M. 705, 6. 7. [Trigl.. 1065, 6-7 🔗]
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and does not work evil, neither helps nor promotes it), but the evil and perverse will of the devil and of men." Likewise, the Epitome states:1399) "The providence of God (praescientia Dei) is otherwise nothing, but that God knows all things before they come to pass." Conceptually distinct from the omniscience of God, which extends over both evil and good, is the knowledge, knowing, and cognizance of God, which relates only to certain objects and is described as setting or bringing forth His object, as Amos 3:2 states in reference to the nation of Israel: "Out of all the generations on earth I have known only you" (רַ֚ק אֶתְכֶ֣ם יָדַ֔עְתִּי [HEBREW]]), and of the Galatians, Gal. 4:9, it is said that they were known by God (γνωσϑέντες υπό ϑεov) when and in that God converted them. This is the so-called nosse cum affectu et effectu, or the "concise" use of the words "know," "recognize," etc."1400) 3. But even if we hold to the concept of mere divine foreknowledge without binding with it the concept of the effect or bringing forth of the things foreknown, thus saying with the Formula of Concord, "The providence of God is otherwise nothing, but that God knows all things before they come to pass," there still remains for our human apprehension a difficulty which we cannot remove. God's infallible foreknowledge, on the one hand, and the unconstrainedness of human will and human responsibility, on the other, are two truths that we must hold to on the basis of Scripture, without it being possible for us in this life to know how the two can coexist. If it stands firm — and it does stand firm — that everything happens as God has foreseen, then, in attempting to harmonize them in a rational way, we shall either, with Cicero, the Socinians, etc., abandon the infallible omniscience of God, or, with the Stoics, etc., reject the unconstrainedness of the human will and human responsibility for sin. Here only the way that follows the Formula of Concord helps. First, it emphasizes very firmly that everything certainly happens and will happen as God has foreknown. Secondly, it warns just as seriously against all brooding about what God, according to his omniscience,
1399) M. 554, 3rd [Trigl. 833, 3 🔗]
1400) Cf. the further elaboration in the doctrine of eternal election, Vol. III, 550 ff.
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may have foreseen with regard to us and others, because at this point we enter the realm of divine mysteries not revealed to us and therefore inscrutable to us. Instead, the Formula of Concord calls us to remain in the use of the means to which God has directed us in this life. It says:1401) "There is no doubt that God most exactly and certainly foresaw before the time of the world, and still knows, which of those that are called will believe or will not believe; also which of the converted will persevere [in faith] and which will not persevere; which will return after a fall [into grievous sins], and which will fall into obduracy [will perish in their sins]. So, too, the number, how many there are of these on either side, is beyond all doubt perfectly known to God." Then it goes on to say, "However, since God has reserved this mystery for His wisdom, and has revealed nothing to us concerning it in His Word, much less commanded us to investigate it with our thoughts, but has earnestly discouraged us therefrom, Rom. 11:33ff , we should not reason in our thoughts, draw conclusions, nor inquire curiously into these matters, but should adhere to His revealed Word, to which He points us." Those who have tormented themselves with useless and dangerous musings about God's infallible foreknowledge, and have heard of others who were in the same hospital and were driven almost to despair, will follow the counsel of the Formula of Concord. Admittedly, this is not a "scientific" solution to the difficulty. But after all, it is more scientific to answer a question with nescio than to deceive oneself and others with an alleged solution or to continue hopeless voyages of discovery. Further, which belongs here, is to be explained with the doctrine of the divine providence and the eternal election.
Furthermore, the question has always been raised how, with regard to the omniscient God, for whom there is neither a past nor a future, one can speak of a foreknowledge (praescientia) at all. The answer can only be: God ascribes praeseieutia to himself in his Word in contrast to the idols. Is. 46:10: "I declare beforehand what is to come afterward." This is done in condescension to our human capacity. Because we men cannot have any idea of the eternal indiscriminate "today",
1401) M. 715, 54 f. [Trigl. 1081, 54 f. 🔗]
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but are bound with our addresses to the time or the succession, God condescends to our human power of comprehension and speaks in such a way of himself that his knowledge, in contrast to the human knowledge, also extends to the future things. Thus Luther and the dogmatists.1402)
Particularly in the present time the question arises again and again, whether a foreknowledge of future things is not to be ascribed also to men and angels or spirits. The scripture denies this most decidedly by describing the foreknowledge, as we already saw, as belonging to the divine majesty and belonging to God alone. Then it still expressly denies praescientia to men and angels. The angels do not know the Last Day.1403) If men and angels in individual cases have known future things and have communicated them to men, then this happened as a result of a divine revelation which had been granted to them for these special cases.1404) What men say about the future always remains in the field of conjecture and
1402) Luther to 1 Petr. 3:19. 20. St. L. IX, 1245 [Ed.- not in Am. Ed.]: "It goes (in the human life on earth) always from foot to foot successively up to the Last Day, but before God it stands all in one moment. For before him find a thousand years as one day." Therefore, Luther says, we on earth cannot comprehend this life (with God and before God). We men see things lengthwise, but God sees "by the way." Gerhard, Loci, L. De Nat. Dei, § 243: Quod praescientia Deo tribuitur, id iit respectu nostri; ipsi enim omnia sunt praesentia, quae nobis adhuc futura. Jn. Adam Osiander,, Colleg. Theol. I, 290: Ut in Deo non habet locum postscientia, etsi noverit praeterita, ita, accurate loquendo, sub futurorum in tempore cognitione Deo tribui non potest praescientia. The division of divine knowledge according to the various objects stands in the service of God's gracious condescension to the weak human faculty of comprehension. At the same time, God takes care that we do not transfer the divine knowledge divided for us Pastors according to the different objects to God's being by describing Himself as being above space and time, Ps. 90:4, etc. Therefore the dogmatists, e.g. Gerhard 1. c., say: Scientia Dei non inest ipsi per modum habitus essentiae superadditi, sed tribuitur ei ut purissimus actus ... una simplici intellectione, nec in tempore et cum motu, sed uno aeterno et immutabili intelligendi actu et uno momento omnia intuetur.
1403) Matt. 24:36. On Mark. 13:32 cf. vol. II, 180 ff.
1404) Thus the angel Gabriel, Luke 1:19: "I am Gabriel, who stand before God, and am sent to speak with you, that I may declare these things unto you." So also Daniel. He reveals to Nebuchadnezzar what is to happen in future times, but protests that this is to be ascribed to His wisdom, Dan. 2:27-28, 45.
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calculation. The same applies to the devils when they allegedly reveal the future through "fortune tellers". The good angels, of course, don't put up with this blasphemous interference with God's prerogative.