God exists outside of space and time. This is an simple dogma to lay out but it is a complex concept to wrap a finite mind around, as it should be. Because God exists beyond space and time, there has never been a time or place that the God has not existed, i.e. He is eternal.
Furthermore, because the empirical universe, nature as we know it, finds its existence within the parameters of time and space, there has never been a time or place when and where the universe has not existed. This does not mean that the universe is eternal, but rather that the universe was created simultaneously with the establishment of space and time. “Prior” to creation, there was not a time or space for the universe not to have existed.
All of that goes to lay the groundwork for God’s omniscience. If God’s existence is beyond the bounds of time and space, then His knowledge must be beyond what is known from within the system.
I labor on the previous statements partly in order to emphasize that one of the major efforts in the human experience is a striving to distance one’s self from other objects or events in order to understand them more comprehensively.
We know this to be true in the case of physical objects; we understand the dynamics of a process by looking at the whole rather than its individual mechanisms. We distance ourselves in space; we literally step back and look at it from a farther perspective.
Likewise, with events, in order to understand why our actions were either good or bad in a given circumstance, it often tends to make sense only after long periods of reflection. We distance ourselves in time; we literally wait for an extended amount of time in order for our perspective to reach a position in which it can analyze a situation without being as biased.
How much greater is God’s knowledge of His creation! His knowledge cannot arise from a better perspective because it is not limited in space or time. The One who does not abide in the realm of space and time has no need to hesitate or to question. He sees the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end.
One conclusion to be drawn is that it is impossible for God not to know. He knows the future because he is the ultimate future; at the end of the age all thing will be insofar as they are in Him. He cannot know on the basis of our decisions. It is not as though God “looked down the corridor of time” and saw decisions we would make and how things would be and then based His knowledge on those results. That would put finite men as the primary movers in the mind of an infinite God. His eternal knowledge cannot be derived from temporal creatures. Man cannot have preeminence over Deity.
As the Transcendent One who is outside the system, He sees all and knows all. As the Sovereign Ruler, He governs and ordains all infallibly because past, present, and future occur to Him as an eternal and immediate copresent. As the Righteous Lord, He directs and orders things in such a way as to result primarily in His glory and secondarily, though no less intentionally, for our good.
