God is not always omniscient in the Bible

There is an interesting passage which I have discovered, 1 Kings 22:21-22. In it God has to ‘ask’ a spirit in his heavenly council how he would entice King Ahab. Surely the omniscient God would know what the spirit was going to say?

Though I am not denying that other passages do portray God as omniscient, such as Psalm 139:4, it is interesting that the Bible does contain this passage, since I do feel as though Open Theism (promoted by Greg Boyd) is a coherent explanation for the problem of evil, which I now think is no more heretical than saying that God ‘is’ omniscient.

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I really don’t see this scene as threatening to God’s omniscience in any way. God also asked Adam where he was when he hid in the garden of Eden, and it wasn’t because he didn’t know. It seems reasonable that when God interacts with spirits and humans who are not omniscient, he will cater to our ignorance in order for things to make more sense.

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I really don’t see why the spirit wouldn’t have understood God if he just told him the truth.

Perhaps you will like this summary chart courtesy of @ThomasJayOord:

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I elaborate on my views here (though my primary purpose is to address Judaism’s refusal to accept spiritual warfare in the Tanakh):

https://riderontheclouds.wordpress.com/2018/07/25/spiritual-warfare-in-the-tanakh/

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