God Knows Every Possible Future · A Theory of Everything [A Theory of Everything](/#contents) Chapter 2: # [God Knows Every Possible Future](/possible-futures) * [Complete Knowledge of Possibility](#complete-knowledge-of-possibility) * [What Is Not Fixed](#what-is-not-fixed) * [Knowing Is Not Making](#knowing-is-not-making) * [Where This Sits Among the Classic Views](#where-this-sits-among-the-classic-views) * [Notes](#notes) [Next: Divine Decree and Prophecy](/decree-and-prophecy) If agency is completely real, what does that mean for God’s knowledge? Scripture insists that God knows all things.[Moses 1:6](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/moses/1?lang=eng&id=p6#p6): “all things are present with me, for I know them all.” Compare [Doctrine and Covenants 38:2](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/38?lang=eng&id=p2#p2), “all things are present before mine eyes,” and [Doctrine and Covenants 130:7](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/130?lang=eng&id=p7#p7). Chapter Nine discusses how this model reads such passages. [↓](#note-1) This model agrees, but asks us to understand that knowledge carefully. ## Complete Knowledge of Possibility God knows every possible future completely: every possible sequence of choices, events, consequences, and outcomes, all the way to their completion. Not merely the next few steps, and not a rough forecast. Picture the whole of history not as a single road but as an unimaginably vast tree of possibilities. Every time a free agent chooses, the road forks. Every fork leads to further forks. God sees the entire tree, every path through it, and exactly what lies at the end of each one.To be precise about what this knowledge contains: for every complete set of choices free agents could make, God knows exactly what would follow, every consequence and downstream effect, every interaction with natural law and with other people’s choices, to the end of history. What the model does *not* say is that God knows, ahead of the choosing, which set of choices will in fact be made. The knowledge is complete over the whole tree; it is the actual path through the tree that is still being settled. [↓](#note-2) ## What Is Not Fixed What is not necessarily fixed is which of those possible futures becomes the actual history. That happens as agents make real choices. So God does not guess about the future. His knowledge of possibility is complete. He knows exactly what would happen under every possible set of choices. There is nothing anyone could do that would surprise Him, because there is no path through the tree that He has not already seen to its end. ## Knowing Is Not Making Knowing a future is possible is different from making that future actual. A person can know every route between two cities without choosing which one a traveler will take. God can know every possible destiny a person could choose while leaving that person completely free to determine which one becomes theirs. In that sense, God’s knowledge of possibility is eternally complete, while actuality unfolds through agency. This is a different picture from the one many people carry. In the common picture, God simply looks ahead and sees the one future that will happen, which makes it hard to see how anything could have happened differently.This is often called *simple foreknowledge*. The worry, raised against Origen and pressed ever since, is that if God infallibly knows I will do X tomorrow, I cannot do otherwise. Origen answered that knowledge does not cause: a thing does not happen because God knows it, but God knows it because it will happen (*Philocalia* 23; see “Echoes in Early Christianity”). This model goes further and removes the premise: there is no single known actual future yet to constrain anyone. [↓](#note-3) In this picture, God sees *all* the futures that could happen, and nothing about His seeing them closes any of them off. The closing off is done by choice. ## Where This Sits Among the Classic Views The model is easiest to see beside its neighbors. It is close to *Molinism* in giving God knowledge that shapes providence, but different in what that knowledge contains.**Molinism** is named for the sixteenth-century Jesuit Luis de Molina, who proposed that God has “middle knowledge”: He knows what every possible free creature *would* freely do in every possible circumstance, and can choose which circumstances to make actual. This model gives God complete knowledge of what would *follow from* any set of choices, not knowledge of which choice a free person would make. That sidesteps the “grounding objection” to Molinism, which asks what could make it true, before anyone exists, that a particular person would freely choose one way rather than another. [↓](#note-4) It shares the openness of the future with *open theism*, but rejects any suggestion that God is guessing.**Open theism** is a movement associated with writers such as Clark Pinnock and Gregory Boyd, who hold that the free future is not yet settled and conclude that God’s knowledge of it is partly a matter of likelihoods. This model shares the openness but not the uncertainty: God’s knowledge of the space of possibilities is total, so nothing that happens is unanticipated. [↓](#note-5) That raises a fair question. If God does not know which future will become actual, is there something He fails to know? The model’s answer is that before a free choice is made there is no fact yet about which way it will go, so nothing is missing from God’s knowledge.Put more formally: knowing all truths is compatible with there not yet being a truth about what a free person will choose. Philosophers debate whether statements about future free choices have a truth value now; the question goes back to Aristotle’s “sea battle” example in *On Interpretation* 9. Whether this answer fully satisfies the scriptural language of foreknowledge is one of the questions this book keeps open; see “Open Questions.” [↓](#note-6) ## Notes 1. [Moses 1:6](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/moses/1?lang=eng&id=p6#p6): “all things are present with me, for I know them all.” Compare [Doctrine and Covenants 38:2](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/38?lang=eng&id=p2#p2), “all things are present before mine eyes,” and [Doctrine and Covenants 130:7](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/130?lang=eng&id=p7#p7). Chapter Nine discusses how this model reads such passages. [↑](#ref-1) 2. To be precise about what this knowledge contains: for every complete set of choices free agents could make, God knows exactly what would follow, every consequence and downstream effect, every interaction with natural law and with other people’s choices, to the end of history. What the model does *not* say is that God knows, ahead of the choosing, which set of choices will in fact be made. The knowledge is complete over the whole tree; it is the actual path through the tree that is still being settled. [↑](#ref-2) 3. This is often called *simple foreknowledge*. The worry, raised against Origen and pressed ever since, is that if God infallibly knows I will do X tomorrow, I cannot do otherwise. Origen answered that knowledge does not cause: a thing does not happen because God knows it, but God knows it because it will happen (*Philocalia* 23; see “Echoes in Early Christianity”). This model goes further and removes the premise: there is no single known actual future yet to constrain anyone. [↑](#ref-3) 4. **Molinism** is named for the sixteenth-century Jesuit Luis de Molina, who proposed that God has “middle knowledge”: He knows what every possible free creature *would* freely do in every possible circumstance, and can choose which circumstances to make actual. This model gives God complete knowledge of what would *follow from* any set of choices, not knowledge of which choice a free person would make. That sidesteps the “grounding objection” to Molinism, which asks what could make it true, before anyone exists, that a particular person would freely choose one way rather than another. [↑](#ref-4) 5. **Open theism** is a movement associated with writers such as Clark Pinnock and Gregory Boyd, who hold that the free future is not yet settled and conclude that God’s knowledge of it is partly a matter of likelihoods. This model shares the openness but not the uncertainty: God’s knowledge of the space of possibilities is total, so nothing that happens is unanticipated. [↑](#ref-5) 6. Put more formally: knowing all truths is compatible with there not yet being a truth about what a free person will choose. Philosophers debate whether statements about future free choices have a truth value now; the question goes back to Aristotle’s “sea battle” example in *On Interpretation* 9. Whether this answer fully satisfies the scriptural language of foreknowledge is one of the questions this book keeps open; see “Open Questions.” [↑](#ref-6) [PreviousAgency](/agency)[NextDivine Decree and Prophecy](/decree-and-prophecy) A Theory of Everything · Draft edition, 2026 × [A Theory of Everything](/) * [Before the First ChapterIntroduction](/introduction) Part One · The Model * [Chapter 1Agency](/agency) * [Chapter 2God Knows Every Possible Future](/possible-futures) * [Chapter 3Divine Decree and Prophecy](/decree-and-prophecy) * [Chapter 4God Collapses the Mission, Not the Person](/mission-not-person) * [Chapter 5Providence as Global Constraint](/providence) * [Chapter 6Three Case Studies](/case-studies) * [Chapter 7Miracles Without Micromanagement](/miracles) * [Chapter 8Wave-Function Collapse as an Analogy](/collapse) * [Chapter 9Time as Actualization](/time) * [Chapter 10The Atonement Across Time](/atonement) * [Chapter 11The Light of Christ](/light-of-christ) * [Chapter 12A Unified View of Providence](/unified-view) Part Two · Companions * [Companion AEchoes in Early Christianity](/early-christianity) * [Companion BThe Forty-Day Ministry](/forty-days) * [Companion COpen Questions](/open-questions)