Quote

From email correspondence with a professor after his recent lecture and follow up Q & A (I think this sums up what awes me about him--his intelligence and his way of challenging the way I typically think about God):

"God knows things -- all things -- as they happen. God exists outside of time in a kind of eternal present in which all time -- past, present, and future -- exists to Him. So, what are future events for creatures that exist in time (like us) are present to God, just as the past is present to God. God does not know things before they happen because God does not exist in time: God "sees" all of history in an eternal now which is beyond the categories of temporal succession. Thus, God's transcendence means that God is beyond the categories not only of time, but also of space, and of any dimension. [If God were to exist in time there would be yet-to-be realized features of His existence: new realities which, when they occurred, would change God's knowledge -- but God as perfect being does not change.] Thus, it is not appropriate to say that God has foreknowledge; God simply knows.

Thomas Aquinas discusses the various features of what it means to be God (including God's existing outside of time and God's omniscience) in the first part of the Summa theologiae, beginning with question 4. You might also look at Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, which Thomas also uses on this subject."