Think about this: our prayers tell on us. Every time we ask God for something, we’re confessing—often without realising it—what we think about His foreknowledge. If God’s knowledge of the future were partial or uncertain, prayer would be no more than sending hopes into the dark. Do we pray to a God who knows exactly what will happen, or to one who’s doing His best with incomplete information?

This isn’t abstract theology—it’s the foundation of biblical faith. Can we trust God’s promises if He might learn something new tomorrow? Can we find comfort in His sovereignty if unexpected events catch Him off guard? Scripture gives us a clear, resounding answer: God knows the future exhaustively and perfectly, down to every detail. The tiniest of them.

 

WHAT SCRIPTURE DECLARES ABOUT GOD’S KNOWLEDGE

Does God know the future? The Bible doesn’t whisper about God’s omniscience—it shouts. God Himself declares through Isaiah: “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done” (Isaiah 46:9-10). Notice the scope: not just major events, but “the end from the beginning”—everything.

David marvels “even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether” (Psalm 139:4). Before you speak, before you even form the thought, God knows not just what you might say, but exactly what you will say. John confirms this breathtaking truth: “God is greater than our heart, and knows all things” (1 John 3:20). All things. No exceptions, no limitations.

Luke records “known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18). God doesn’t learn about His creation as it unfolds—He has known every detail from eternity past.

 

PROPHECY: THE PROOF OF PERFECT FOREKNOWLEDGE

If God only knew possibilities and probabilities, Bible prophecy would be impossible. Yet Scripture teems with predictions so specific they could only come from exhaustive foreknowledge.

Daniel received visions detailing empires that wouldn’t rise for centuries, including precise timeframes for the Messiah’s coming (Daniel 9:24-27). Isaiah named Cyrus as Israel’s deliverer 150 years before Cyrus was born (Isaiah 44:28). These weren’t educated guesses—they were announcements of certainties.

Jesus demonstrated the same perfect foreknowledge. He told Peter exactly when and how he’d deny Him—three times before the rooster crowed twice (Mark 14:30). He predicted His own death, burial, and resurrection with stunning precision. He knew Judas would betray Him and exactly how it would unfold.

Could a God with merely probabilistic knowledge accomplish this? Could He stake His credibility on such specific predictions if there was any chance He might be wrong? Impossible.

 

WHY PERFECT FOREKNOWLEDGE FLOWS FROM GOD’S NATURE

Scripture teaches “I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3:6) and that with God “there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). This isn’t just about God’s character—it extends to His knowledge. A God who learns new information changes. A God who discovers unexpected developments is not the immutable God of Scripture.

More fundamentally, God exists in eternity, not time. “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). From God’s eternal perspective, all of history—past, present, and future—is equally present to Him. He doesn’t wait to see what happens next because there is no “next” in eternity.

This is why Paul can declare God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). God’s eternal decree encompasses every detail of history because His eternal knowledge encompasses every detail of history.

 

ANSWERING THE TOUGHEST OBJECTIONS

“But Doesn’t This Destroy Human Freedom?” This objection assumes divine foreknowledge eliminates human choice, turning us into robots following a predetermined script. But knowledge doesn’t equal causation. When you know the sun will rise tomorrow, your knowledge doesn’t cause the sunrise—it simply recognises a reality.

Scripture beautifully demonstrates this in Acts 2:23, where Peter declares Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” yet those who crucified Him were “lawless men” held fully responsible for their actions. God’s perfect knowledge of their choices didn’t eliminate their responsibility for making those choices.

Paul shows us how divine sovereignty and human responsibility work together: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). We make real choices, but God orchestrates even our choosing.

“Wouldn’t a God Who Learns Love Us More?” Some argue Open Theism—the view that God doesn’t know future free choices—makes for a more loving, relational God. After all, wouldn’t a God who genuinely responds to our unexpected decisions love us more than one who knew what we’d do all along?

This objection actually diminishes God’s love. Consider: loving human parents anticipate their children’s needs before they’re expressed. They know their children well enough to prepare for likely scenarios. Yet we’re asked to believe that perfect divine love involves less insight than imperfect human love?

Isaiah reveals God’s superior love: “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24). God’s love is demonstrated not by His ignorance of our needs, but by His perfect preparation to meet them.

Moreover, how could we trust promises from a God who might learn something that changes His plans? When God promises that “all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28), His ability to keep that promise depends entirely on His comprehensive knowledge and control of “all things.”

“Don’t Conditional Prophecies Prove God Changes His Mind?” Critics point to prophecies like Jonah’s declaration that Nineveh would be destroyed in forty days, noting that God “relented” when the city repented. Doesn’t this prove God didn’t know what would happen?

Not at all. God Himself explains the principle behind conditional prophecies in Jeremiah 18:7-10: “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.”

God wasn’t expressing uncertainty about Nineveh’s future—He was using Jonah’s preaching as the ordained means to achieve His planned end. God knew Nineveh would repent, and He knew that Jonah’s message would be the instrument of their repentance. The “conditional” nature of the prophecy was part of God’s design, not evidence of His ignorance.

“Doesn’t This Make God the Author of Sin?” If God knows all future sins exhaustively, didn’t He decree them? And if He decreed them, isn’t He responsible for them?

Scripture maintains a crucial distinction between God’s knowledge of sin and His causation of sin. James declares that “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man” (James 1:13). Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery with evil intent, yet Joseph could later say, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). The same event carried different moral qualities depending on the agent’s intent.

God’s exhaustive foreknowledge allows Him to incorporate even sinful human choices into His perfect plan without being the author of that sin. He knows what evil choices free agents will make and weaves those choices into His sovereign purposes while holding the agents fully responsible for their evil intentions.

 

THE PRACTICAL POWER OF PERFECT FOREKNOWLEDGE

Prayer with Confidence: When you pray, you’re not updating God on breaking developments or hoping to change His mind about something He hasn’t considered. You’re participating in the means He has ordained to accomplish His predetermined ends. Your prayers matter not because they inform God, but because God has ordained them as part of His perfect plan.

Comfort in Suffering: When tragedy strikes, you don’t serve a God who’s saying, “Well, I didn’t see that coming.” Every trial, every loss, every heartache exists within the scope of God’s comprehensive knowledge and sovereign purpose. “The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble” (Proverbs 16:4). This doesn’t minimise the reality of pain, but it anchors it in divine purpose.

Confidence in Salvation: The golden chain of salvation in Romans 8:29-30 begins with God’s foreknowledge: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son… And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Your salvation isn’t dependent on your ability to persevere, but on God’s perfect knowledge of those who are His.

Jesus promises: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28). The security of salvation rests on God’s perfect, unchanging knowledge of His people.

Motivation for Evangelism: Far from discouraging evangelism, God’s exhaustive foreknowledge motivates it. When Paul was discouraged in Corinth, the Lord appeared to him in a vision: “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:9-10). God’s knowledge of who would believe motivated Paul’s continued preaching, not hindered it.

 

THE GLORY OF PERFECT DIVINE KNOWLEDGE

The doctrine of God’s exhaustive foreknowledge isn’t a philosophical puzzle to solve—it’s a truth to worship. When Paul contemplates the depths of divine knowledge, he bursts into doxology: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36).

A God who knows all the future perfectly is worthy of complete trust, absolute worship, and total surrender. He is never surprised, never confused, never caught off guard. Every promise He makes is backed by comprehensive knowledge. Every plan He announces will certainly come to pass.

When we pray tonight, let’s remember: we’re not speaking to a God who’s learning as He goes. We’re addressing the One who has known from eternity exactly what we would say, exactly what we need, and exactly how He will answer according to His perfect will. That’s not a limitation on prayer—that’s the foundation that makes prayer meaningful.

Does God know the future? All of it, perfectly? Scripture’s resounding answer is yes. And in that truth, the believer finds unshakeable hope.

 

DOES GOD KNOW THE FUTURE? RELATED FAQs

What do the leading Reformed voices today say about God’s foreknowledge? Contemporary Reformed theologians like John Frame, Michael Horton, and K Scott Oliphint strongly affirm exhaustive divine foreknowledge as essential to classical theism. Frame argues God’s knowledge is “coextensive with reality itself”—He knows all true propositions about the past, present, and future. Horton emphasises divine foreknowledge flows necessarily from God’s eternal, unchanging nature. This makes Open Theism incompatible with biblical Christianity. These scholars maintain any limitation on God’s knowledge compromises His perfection and trustworthiness.

• How does Arminian “simple foreknowledge” differ from the Reformed view, and why is it problematic? Arminians typically affirm God knows all future events, including free human choices, but deny that this knowledge is based on His eternal decree. They argue God simply “looks ahead” and sees what people will freely choose. However, this creates logical problems: if God’s knowledge depends on creaturely choices, then creatures determine God’s knowledge, making Him dependent on His creation. Scripture teaches God’s knowledge flows from His sovereign will (Ephesians 1:11), not from observing independent human decisions. The Arminian view inadvertently makes God reactive rather than sovereign.
• What is “middle knowledge” (Molinism) and how do we respond to it? Middle knowledge, developed by Luis de Molina, claims God knows what any free creature would do in any possible circumstance (called “counterfactuals of freedom”). Molinists argue this preserves both human freedom and divine sovereignty by allowing God to actualise the world where His purposes are achieved through genuinely free choices. Reformed scholars like William Lane Craig’s critic, Paul Helm, argue middle knowledge is incoherent because it assumes creatures have libertarian freedom—the ability to do otherwise in identical circumstances. If choices are truly free in this sense, they cannot be objects of certain knowledge, even for God.

Does God’s exhaustive foreknowledge include knowledge of His own future actions? Yes, God knows His own future actions perfectly, but not because He “foresees” them—rather, because He eternally wills them. Since God exists outside time, He doesn’t deliberate about future decisions the way we do. His knowledge of His future acts is simply His eternal awareness of His unchanging will. This is why Scripture can speak of God’s plans being established “from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8) and why Jesus could be called “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”—God’s redemptive actions were eternally certain in His divine decree.

• How does Reformed theology treat verses that seem to show God changing His mind? Passages like Genesis 6:6 (“the LORD regretted that he had made man”) use anthropomorphic language to communicate divine emotions in terms we can understand. Reformed scholars distinguish between God’s hidden counsel (His eternal, unchanging purpose) and His revealed will (how He relates to us in time). When Scripture says God “repents,” it describes the change in His relationship to His people from their perspective, not a change in His eternal knowledge or plan. Numbers 23:19 confirms: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.”
• If God knows who will be saved from eternity, why does Scripture command evangelism? This question misunderstands the relationship between God’s ends and means. God doesn’t just decree who will be saved—He also decrees the means by which they’ll be saved, namely through the preaching of the gospel (Romans 10:14-17). Paul demonstrates this perfectly: he labours to save some (1 Corinthians 9:22) precisely because he knows God has elect people in every city (Acts 18:10). God’s exhaustive foreknowledge doesn’t eliminate secondary causes; it ordains them. The certainty of God’s plan motivates evangelism because we know the gospel will not return empty (Isaiah 55:11).

What about Process Theology’s claim that God grows and learns with creation? Process theologians like Alfred North Whitehead argue God experiences temporal becoming and learns from His interaction with the world, making Him more loving and relational. However, this view directly contradicts Scripture’s teaching about divine immutability and perfection. If God can learn, He was previously ignorant; if He can grow, He was previously incomplete. Malachi 3:6 declares “I the LORD do not change,” and James 1:17 says God has no “variation or shadow due to change.” A God who develops cannot be the eternal, perfect being Scripture reveals, nor can He provide the unchanging foundation believers need for ultimate security.

 

DOES GOD KNOW THE FUTURE? OUR RELATED POSTS

• God’s Foreknowledge: Far More Than Mere Foresight
• Can God Be Truly Sovereign and Man Be Free? The Biblical Perspective
• The Calvinist-Arminian Debate
• Challenges to Calvin’s View, and the Calvinist Response
• Why Does God Choose Some and Not Others for Salvation?
• Calvinism vs Molinism: A Deep Dive into the Debate