To contemplate the omniscience of God is to be drawn into a wonder so vast it overwhelms the imagination. He is not limited to knowing only what is or what was. He knows what could be, in every possible world and every possible unfolding.
“Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.”
— Psalm 147:5
The human mind struggles to balance even a few variables, such as the speed of the wind, the angle of the sun, or the pull of the moon upon the ocean. Yet to God, each of these is just one thread among countless others in a tapestry where no detail is lost.
He knows every raindrop suspended in the air, the way light bends through it into a prism of color, and how that prism might fall differently if a cloud shifted a fraction of a second sooner. He knows the orbit of every planet and star and the hidden path of every atom, every quark, every vibration of the smallest particle.
He sees the butterfly’s wing before it moves and knows how that small motion might ripple across centuries, shaping the rise of empires, the birth of nations, or the beating of a single human heart. He knows the counterfactual, what would happen if that butterfly never flew, if the storm never formed, if the seed fell on stone instead of soil, if the fisherman cast his net slightly to the right. To Him, every “if” and every “then” is not speculation but certainty.
“Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.”
— Psalm 139:4
Picture reality as an equation with countless variables: light, time, gravity, heat, will, choice, and chance. For us, even a few unknowns can confuse us. For Him, the total sum of all possibilities, every configuration of matter and thought, every collision of stars, every reflection of water, every heartbeat, is perfectly clear. What would take eternity to calculate, He understands in an instant.
He not only sees the path we walk but also the endless branches of paths we never took. The lives we might have lived, the words we might have spoken, and the choices we might have made are all before Him. Every possibility is as visible to Him as the actual, every “what if” transparent, every hidden potential known with the same certainty as the real.
And it is not only the vast things, the galaxies colliding, the supernovas blazing, and the oceans shifting, that He holds with ease. It is also the smallest details, the way a drop of dew trembles on a blade of grass, the way light reflects around it, and the way a bee’s wings cut through that glimmer and change its flight by the slightest degree.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”
— Matthew 10:29
To us, such things are invisible, lost in noise. To Him, they form the harmony of a perfect song.
If the universe were a library of infinite books, each page describing a world that might have been, He has read them all. Every page, every book, every library, and every word are known to Him instantly and without confusion. For God, the possible is as vivid as the actual, the unreal as clear as the real. And still He is never overwhelmed, for all knowledge to Him is one, perfectly whole and perfectly ordered.
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”
— Romans 11:33
At this point, the human mind must fall silent because such comprehension is not just greater than ours. It belongs to another order entirely. Our mathematics, our probabilities, and our theories of cause and effect are only a child’s rough sketches beside the boundless architecture of His wisdom.
To speak of God’s knowledge of counterfactuals is to approach a horizon that never ends. Every combination of every variable across all time, all space, all matter, and all thought is completely seen, perfectly understood, and absolutely clear.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
— Isaiah 55:9
And this is but one facet of His mind.