. . . the reluctance to accept a deity who could discover new “eternal truths and natural laws” is understandable, for God could then be surprised to discover laws and truths that make it impossible for him toe realize his purposes and plans. Faith certainly requires a more secure object of worship than a deity limited in knowledge of eternal truths and laws. However, this objection is based on a misunderstanding of what is entailed in the notion of contingent omniscience. The view of contingent knowledge does not claim that God continually learns new eternal truths and natural laws, for he knows all eternal truths, or truths that are either logically or ontologically necessary and thus true at all temporal moments of reality. God knows such truths either through his natural knowledge or through experience of things that have always existed. If God created natural laws, then he can now such laws through his free knowledge. If he did not create natural laws, then he can know them in the same way he knows eternal laws. Thus the concerns expressed by McConkie and the committee reviewing Roberts’s work can be met and satisfied.
Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes
of God (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2001), 299
