Man will continually reveal his theological roots at every turn. Man apart from God believes that he can prevent the impossible. Their motto is "With man all things are possible." When something devastating occurs, they believe that it could have been somehow averted. In other words, they believe that man can be omniscient. This is the height of arrogance. This is because man believes that he is God.
Only the true God possesses the attribute of omniscience. Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines "omniscience," as, "The quality of knowing all things at once; universal knowledge; knowledge unbounded or infinite. Omniscience is an attribute peculiar to God." If this definition is true, and it is, then only God possesses all knowledge. This means that not only does He possess knowledge of all that will transpire throughout all history and eternity, He also has a determining element in all of it.
That determining element is that good will always triumph over evil. This fact has been preordained by God. Only God can bring about good amidst evil. This is the message of Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." God overrules all evil. No evil can overcome what He foreordains. This means that man sees things one way, while God sees it and determines it from a totally different perspective.
Possessing omniscience enables one to perform the supernatural. This is what the natural man covets above all else. This is a demonic pursuit and futile. It is something that will never transpire. It is tantamount to wasting time. It ends up accomplishing nothing. Man attempts to create utopia and ends up with hell and for all eternity, the lake of fire. Satan attempted to be God and failed. This is the message Ezekiel 28:14-19, "Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 16By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. 18Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. 19All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." Evil was the result of Satan’s arrogance and attempt to be God. It failed miserably.
Like all of God’s creation, Satan lacks omniscience. All of man’s education is designed to be exhaustive in nature. This is an exercise in vanity. Only God possesses such knowledge. Man does not need to have exhaustive knowledge. He just needs to have true knowledge. Only the Bible, both Old and New Testament, contains the essential truth that man needs to know. What is paramount is not this present life, but the hereafter. This is the message Paul conveyed in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 18While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." He was comparing the temporal with the eternal. The eternal won out easily. This makes total sense. If we live for temporary gain at the expense of the eternal, then we will live in abject spiritual poverty.
The Lord Jesus Christ expressed this condition of the temporal over the eternal in Mark 8:36-38, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? 37Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 38Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." Eternal thinking is therefore foremost above all. Its impact has greater consequences than anything else. What we believe about the future will determine what we do in the present. This is an extremely important point.
Short term thinking leads to disastrous results. It does not take into account the ramifications of one’s actions. It ignores what Paul said in Galatians 6:7-10, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. 9And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.." Sowing to the flesh is tantamount to short term thinking, whereas, long term thinking is represented by sowing to the Spirit. This makes sense because the Spirit is eternal and the flesh is temporal. Both are diametrically opposed to one another and will lead to different results. Becoming weary and fainting show signs of weakness and lack of durability. These are the ones who will not endure to the end. They cannot be counted on when the going gets tough.
Man can obtain to a measure of omniscience, if we will avail ourselves of the truth of the Bible. Cornelius Van Til expressed it this way, "We must think God’s thoughts after Him." If we do this, by definition, we will have God’s results. Since we know that God is omniscient, if we think His thoughts, then it follows that we have attained to a level of omniscience. This is only because God has revealed it to us.
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