AMONG all theories and philosophies about the nature of life and existence, those which have found sufficient evidence to warrant the assumption of a First Cause as the basis of all things,—one God, who is Spirit, who is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, wholly good, and who is sole creator,—these present the fewest intellectual difficulties, though in many of them there are difficulties, and they are far and away the most productive of desirable practical results in the lives and experiences of those who hold them. This statement might be considered at length, and innumerable proofs of its truth offered; but all classes of Christians will admit its verity, and it is to those who are professed followers of Christ that we would speak.
All Christians admit that God created all things, that He knows them as they are. and that all things are as they are because God so made them. Hence God's knowledge of all things is not primarily dependent upon the nature of the things, but the nature of the things is dependent upon God's creative thought and will, both as to origin and as to present existence; for nothing has power to exist of itself, but all things are sustained by God. Paul says, "All things were created by him, and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." Thus God's knowledge of things is not relative to the things or the forms thereof, but all things and the forms thereof are relative to God's creative and sustaining knowledge, and that knowledge is primitive and absolute. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."
Let it be repeated: Since God created all, and since He is omniscient. He knows all things as they are, and His knowledge is absolute. Evidently there is no other way of knowing things except as they are; any concept or belief about things as they are not, is not knowledge but illusion. Hence, if man knows anything, he knows it as it is, as God knows it, and all beliefs, speculations, and philosophies which fall short of knowing things as they are, to the degree that they thus fall short are mistakes, delusions,—without truth, reality, or value. If knowledge is defined as it ought to be defined, as understanding consistent with the facts, there is only one body of knowledge, one way of thinking or knowing about all things, and that is the way in which God thinks about or knows them. This is what Paul evidently means when he says, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God." Because Christ Jesus understood as God understands, and knew that there is no other understanding, no other knowledge, he spake such words as these: "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do." "I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things." "I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak." So if the knowledge of God is absolute, the knowledge possessed by Christ Jesus was absolute; for he was at one with the Father in understanding.
