Can God Be Surprised?

Men do not reject the bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them.

A commenter on Ray's blog points out yet another contradiction in the Bible, asking:

How is it that God is all-knowing yet still acts surprised when He finds Adam and Eve hiding behind a bush because they're naked?

A contradiction is a problem, because we know that both sides cannot be true. On the one hand, we have God who already knows everything, and on the other hand, we have God "surprised" by something that God does not already know.

Let's further investigate the idea that God is "surprised" to find Adam hiding, or that God is "surprised" that Adam has eaten the forbidden fruit and now knows he is naked. Or that God does not already know where Adam is hiding.

Are those ideas warranted from Scripture?

First, let's consider that God didn't have to put the forbidden tree in the middle of the garden. He could have put it somewhere Adam and Eve couldn't have gotten to. He did after all have the entire universe to hide it in.

Also, we note that God didn't give any warning to Adam (or Eve) that Satan (the serpent) had been allowed in the garden. God doesn't tell Adam and Eve that Satan will try to deceive them. God created Adam with free will, the ability to choose to obey or to disobey.

So, fast forward in the story, and Eve is deceived (why wasn't Adam there protecting Eve?), Adam and Eve both eat the forbidden fruit, discover they are naked, cover themselves with fig leaves, and attempt to hide from the presence of God.


To me, it all seems like God has purposefully created a pretty big setup. If God is "surprised" that Adam and Eve fall for the setup, well, that would seem to argue against God's wisdom.

But, I believe God knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew exactly what was going to happen.

But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9 (ESV)

Is this really God acting "surprised" (as the commenter would have us believe)? Does God not know where Adam is hiding?

I think the question we need to ask is: Did God have some other purpose in mind for his question? Is it possible that God's question is not "find out" something he doesn't already know?

Perhaps God does know exactly where Adam is. Perhaps the question to Adam isn't about something God doesn't know.

As an analogy, consider a schoolteacher that asks questions of her students often on quizzes and exams.  The schoolteacher's purpose is not to find out something they don't know. The schoolteacher's purpose is something else. The questions on the exam give the student an opportunity to show that they also know the answer that the schoolteacher knows.

We should consider the idea that God is not "surprised", and that God knows exactly where Adam is hiding. Perhaps God's question to Adam is much like the schoolteacher's exam question.



One might object that God is not all knowing, and cannot know where Adam is hiding.

I suggest that God can know and that God does know. I suggest this because Scripture reveals to us that God is all knowing. God tells us that he knows every hair on our heads. The Bible reveals that God is beyond the bounds of time and not constrained by time. God has a simultaneous view of the past, the present and the future. There is nothing that will happen in the future that God does not already know. (From our limited human vantage point, we have difficulty comprehending this. As humans, we are prisoners of time, trapped in the present, with limited knowledge.)