Attributes of God - Charnock - XXII - Chapter 8 (God's knowledge) commenced

Required reading
Attributes of God by Charnock (Available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Commence Chapter 8 (A discourse upon God's knowledge) by reading up to the paragraph beginning 'II. The second thing, What God knows; how far his understanding reaches.' (Yes, this is a short reading but the reading in the week after it will be rather long and make up for it).

My summary
Today Charnock begins his discourse on God's omniscience.

Firstly we are given a brief exposition of Psalm 147:5: 'Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite'.

Then the doctrine is defined: 'God hath an infinite knowledge and understanding; all knowledge.'

Then Charnock gives us his first point about the doctrine by showing what kind of knowledge or understanding there is in God:
(i) a knowledge of sight (sense) and understanding (the mind);
(ii) speculative and practical knowledge;
(iii) knowledge of approbation and apprehension.

What grabbed me
Charnock gave us a good warning for why we must affirm God's omniscience: 'We must then ascribe a universal knowledge to God. If we deny him a speculative knowledge, or knowledge of intelligence, we destroy his Deity, we make him ignorant of his own power: if we deny him practical knowledge, we deny ourselves to be his creatures; for as his creatures, we are the fruits of this his discretion discovered in creation: if we deny his knowledge of vision, we deny his governing dominion. How can he exercise a sovereign and uncontrollable dominion, that is ignorant of the nature and qualities of the things he is to govern? If he had not knowledge he could make no revelation; he that knows not, cannot dictate; we could then have no Scripture. To deny God knowledge, is to dash out the Scripture, and demolish the Deity. '

So many things depend on God's all-knowing.  And thankfully he does know all.

Next week's reading
Continue Chapter 8 (A discourse upon God's knowledge) by reading up to the paragraph beginning 'III. The third thing is, How God knows all things?' (Yes, a long reading but the short one this week makes up for it).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.