Questions and Answers

Is God present everywhere, sees all things, and knows all things?

It is easy to accept the teaching that God is everywhere present and sees and knows all things. So let's consider the instances in Genesis that are cited: Genesis 3:8 - How could one hide from God? Why does God need to ask this question? First, what Adam and Eve could have hid from is merely the visible and special manifestation of the Lord. As for God's seeming ignorance, anyone with children can recognize the utility of such questions. If a child is known to have broken a lamp, it is better to question the child than to simply accuse her. The former approach enables the child to take an active role in her wrong-doing, and allows for her to apologize. Note that God asked several questions: "Where are you?....Who told you that you were naked?....Have you eaten of the fruit of the tree?" Note the response. Instead of begging for mercy and confessing their sins, both the man and woman justified themselves and sought to put the blame on another. So typically human! By asking these questions, God enabled the man and woman to either freely repent or to firmly establish their sinfulness. Genesis 11:5 and Genesis 18:20-21 These look like common human notions of someone coming down to check out what is going on. And perhaps, that's how the writer of these accounts understood God. But perhaps there is also another layer to the account. Obviously, it teaches God's transcendence. But it also demonstrates God's interest. He is not an aloof sky-god. And he doesn't watch from afar. He gets right down into human history. But there is more. Maimonides once noted that just as the word 'ascend', when applied to the mind, implies noble and elevated objects, the word 'descend' implies turing one's mind to things of lowly and unworthy character. Thus, God is not "coming down" in a physical sense, but in a "mental" sense, where he turns his attention to the sinful activity of men and invokes judgment. Of course, it is hard to describe God in human language, but I think the above account is not unreasonable. Since these supposed contradictions depend on a particular interpretation which is (or at the very least may be) in error, no contradiction has been established.

    God is everywhere present, sees and knows all thingsGod is not everywhere present, neither sees nor knows all things