I understand from the Bible that God can know the future. But the Bible shows us that when He does, He determines it. When He determines it, He makes it happen. Therefore, He can know that it will happen, but that does not mean that He knows it because He looks into the future to know it.
As some of you know, the Hebrew word nacham, repent, is used in the Bible in reference to God over 30 times. The one that really affected me greatly was found in Deuteronomy, but I prefer the passage in Exodus where it shows God repented of stated harm because of Moses’ prayer. Ex 32:9-14 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 So the LORD repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
From this and many other passages with that Hebrew word relating to God, I have drawn this conclusion. If God was outside of time and saw the future actions of men, God could never be wrong about predictions. I also believe: If the future actions of men are unknowable because they have not been decided, our all knowing God would not know them. None of them actually exist, so there is nothing to know.
God always exists in time. But, time is no restraint to Him like it is to us. We need to rest at times. But He doesn’t. We are growing old. He is always the same it that attribute. Most of us have deadlines to keep and other time responsibilities that are measured by time. With God, time is no burden. I see time as the measure between two events. Since God can control every event, if He so desires, time is never a burden to Him at all. He created the universe. We haven’t even seen the farthest galaxy in this tremendous universe. When God created it, it seems like it was instantaneous. Read some of my articles on my biblicalanswers.com site. I do not believe the future exists.
In Christ,
Bob Hill