What is the difference between God's omniscience and His omnipotence?

Question

We know that God is Almighty and all-knowing.....no one can hide from Him.

But don't these 2 words mean pretty much the same thing?
What is the difference between them?

God is perfect folks....He does NOT make mistakes.

Answer 1

They look alike at first glance but omniscience is more of a passive word....all knowing....not requiring action. Knowing all that has been, all that is, and all that will be.

Omnipotence on the other hand is more of an action word....God can....All power but with a will to be able to do anything. As in God is the God of the impossible because He can do miracles and make things work against the laws of nature, like the sun standing still for Joshuah or going back 10 degrees in the days of King Hezekiah. Or in present times, He heals things that dr.s say are incurable.

Answer 2

Omniscient= knows everything

Omnipotent= can do everything

A paraplegic knows about running, but certainly can't do it. In the same way, if God were Omniscient and not Omnipotent, maybe He'd know about Heaven, but couldn't bring anyone there.

Answer 3

Omniscience means all-knowing.

Omnipotence means all-powerful.

God doesn't have either. He felt remorse for creating the humans and animals, and was going to destroy them all, until he met Noah.

But he didn't threaten to destroy the sea creatures, cause he knew he couldn't drown them, and he couldn't just then think of any other way to kill them.

The Bible god has neither omniscience or omnipotence. Study your Bible.

Answer 4

You could know everything, but be powerless to alter any of it. (Omnicognicent)

You could be able to do anything, but be unable to see the consequences. (Omnipotent)


To me it is impossible to believe in an omnicognicent, omnipotent, loving god. The world as we see it does not support this hypothesis in any shape or form.

Omni means all, totally. To be aware of all the atoms, quarks and energy of the universe and their movement throughout all of time, and the knowledge of how to affect them to have ANY outcome that you want, combined with the ability to rearrange them into any form at any point, including the moment of the start if the universe can only mean that if this god exists he wanted everything to happen exactly as it has.

Every war, every tsunami, every volcanic eruption, every miscarriage, every death of a baby has been planned by this god.

We may have free will, but if god is omnicognicent he must know what decisions we will make and can plan accordingly.

Answer 5

Omniscient means "all knowing"
Omnipotent means "all powerful"

However, both these supposed aspects of god's nature are refuted by the Bible itself, which shows god to have incomplete knowledge, (for example, not knowing that man would go and sin again after the flood) and limits to his power.(for example when he was unable to destroy chariots made of iron)

Answer 6

All powerful would include all knowing in it, but all knowing wouldn't include all powerful. So they could just stick with the all powerful rating, but I think they want you to understand that god, if he actually existed, would know what you are doing all the time so that all knowing attribute gets tacked on just to reinforce it. So that tinfoil hat isn't going to protect you from him.

Answer 7

Man just racks his mind trying to describe the grandeur of God and never quite finds the appropriate word.

Answer 8

I can imagine "knowing everything" without being able to do anything about it. Or having lots of power but little knowledge. But when you move from "lots" to "infinite," the rhetoric can get squirrely.

Answer 9

omniscience is knowing everything

omnipotence is power over everything

So... not exactly the same, although they are related.

Answer 10

Science and Potency. Not the same. To know everything and to be able to do anything.