Definition 4: God part 3.

Apologies. I'm getting a bit cavalier with my choices of titles and numbers. This section is a continuation of this. Feel free to apply a more elegant numbering scheme in your head.

Omniscience and Omnipotence

A few words on these two concepts before we get to the meat.

First things first. Strictly speaking, just because you are capable of something it does not necessarily follow that you must demonstrate that capability. I know the words to the Spice Girls' "Wannabe". I am not necessarily going to sing it.

However, I would argue that when you claim a capability, it is only a useful claim if you can provide evidence of that capability. As an example to illustrate this, it is fairly common for the leaders of personality-driven cults to make claims of supernatural powers: healing, knowledge of the future, even the ability to fly. It is not unusual, when challenged on these claims, for the individuals to then claim that they choose not to use their powers. A very handy cop out.

If I were challenged on my knowledge of the lyrics to "Wannabe", I could sing the song. If I were to simply say "I choose not to sing it" then the challenger would be well within their rights to doubt my claim or even label me a liar. (it may simply be that I am generous and thick-skinned; I may prefer to be thought a liar than to inflict my interpretation of the Spice Girls on the world.)

Bottom line: one cannot easily disprove the claim "I have this power but I choose not to use it", but, I would argue, it is completely irrelevant. Capabilities that are never demonstrated have, almost by definition, no effect on the rest of the universe. Have I overstated this yet?

Back to the point. Does the Old Testament claim that God is omniscient and omnipotent? Some references ... not involving Isaiah this time.

A quick search for the term 'Almighty' on Bartleby brings up lots of references to 'the Almighty' and 'Almighty God'. If you accept 'almighty' and 'omnipotent' to be synonymous then that should be enough to verify that the Bible labels God as omnipotent.

In terms of God's actual claims to power, Job chapters 40, 41 and 42 provide a nice example. This is essentially a list of tasks that are beyond the abilities of a mere man such as Job, but which God claims to be capable of performing. And then we get the meat in Job 42:2

"I know that thou canst do every thing,
and that no thought can be withholden from thee."

Job acknowledges that God can do every thing. That's a pretty direct statement of omnipotence. He also acknowledges that God can see all thoughts, which is a substantial part of omniscience as well.

What about the rest of omniscience? I struggled to browse my way to this, even with the help of Bartleby, so I 'cheated' and googled and lo and behold there is an entire psalm (139) dedicated to the fact that God is omniscient (and also omnipresent).

So ... according to the Old Testament, God is capable of seeing everything and doing anything.