Post Edited (HumanHypostasis) : 2/7/2008 12:27:07 AM (GMT-6)

Corey:  Am I in a bad way?

Tom: You’re definitely going to hell now.  

My question to Alan was along those lines too. Are realists and nominalists committed to fundamentally different understandings of omniscience?

I’d be interested in your reasons for preferring nominalism.

I’m basically a realist because it seems to follow from theism. In the simplest form, the argument asserts that before God creates X, God conceives of X. However, if God can conceive of X without X actually existing, then it follows that the possibility of X is independent of the actuality of X. So if God created our world (of particular objects), and God in some sense conceived of that world prior to creating, then that in itself entails some notion of universals existing apart from particular objects. Like Augustine, I posit those universals in the mind of God. Universals just are God’s own conceiving of or imagining all the infinite possibilities he grounds, all the things God ‘can’ do. God envisions the world, contemplates its possibilities, and his infinite actuality is the ground of those possibilities. Realism follows.

But that’s a philosophical/theological argument. I wouldn’t know how to construct a ‘biblical’ argument for realism. So if realism and nominalism are both consistently biblical/Christian positions, how does the Church construct an understanding of ‘omniscience’ that’s compatible with both?.

 I think that’s what Alan has in mind.

Tom

PS Alan's post for some reason is extra WIDE and screwed up the layout of the page. $&%#)

Post Edited (HumanHypostasis) : 2/8/2008 7:49:44 AM (GMT-6)

Alan & Tom;

I may post a few more comments over this weekend; however, as you read the rest of this post I think you will see that I personally believe that the argument over omniscience is senseless.

Tom there is no theory of knowledge that doesn't beg the question. All knowledge (even logic) is plagued by the Problem of the Criterion which states that: In order for us to know what knowledge is we must have some criteria to judge an instance of "knowledge" by; however, in order to have an instance of knowledge we need to have the criteria to judge it by, and in order to have the criteria, we need to have an instance of knowledge judge it by, and the circle never ends. Attempts to jump out of the circle (Particularist and Methodist) have failed. Within this "circle of knowledge” (no pun intended) the "leading theory" of truth is the correspondence theory which in its own way further begs the question.

The correspondence theory states that a proposition is true in virtue of its "fitting the facts" or its relation or correspondence to reality or truth. Yet the very thing we are searching for is "truth or the facts" - do you see how this begs the question? Our propositions posits "truth" yet to justify this "truth" we need to point to "Truth", the very item of debate...

Additionally the correspondence theory is of no use with regards to necessary truths or a falsehood...Another leading theory is the Coherence theory; but the circularity of this theory is too obvious for most of us to stomach.

You raised a valid concern in that how can we begin to discuss God's knowledge when we can't even punch our way out of our own circle? Can we justify a claim of God's knowledge when we can't even define knowledge of the human domain without begging the question or getting stuck on an infinite regress? I don't think we need to introduce Gettier at this juncture; suffice it to say that the tripartite JTB view of kowledge don't cut the mustard neither. (By the way I think an externalist or reliabilist view of knolwedge would accept that omniscience could know the future while maintaining that the future is contingently free).

There is another classic problem in philosophy viz. The Problem of Other Minds. The question is simply: Can we assume we know what or how someone else thinks or knows without; let us say in a loose sense "privileged access” to their minds? So even after all of the ciphering, and logical proofs and theories have been posted...we still have not dealt with these two fundamental issues of knowledge that doesn't beg the question or gets caught on the infinite regress, and the problem of Other Minds viz. God's mind to be specific. Additionally it seems as though every theory of omniscience proffered by man assumes that God’s knowledge is restricted to the domain of human knowledge (empirical, a priori); or some other way, regardless; how defendable of a presupposition is this? How can we step outside the domain of our humanity and understand God? A God who has said His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts, His knowledge is inifinte and without limits... To put forward a theory of omniscience such as the one Alan just posted, or my theory that God "somehow unknown to us" knows the truth value of a future contingent; is no more or less cogent or justifiable than the other. We all try to marshall the laws of logic to our side; but ultimately, the issue of omniscience is well beyond logic or any human reasoning.

It is quite humorous, in that as sophisticiated as all of this talk of epistemology sounds, the impressiveness of the logical notation...it is all build on presuppositions that can't be justified, and knowledge that is circular. As concerned over "soundness" as we seem; we all overlook that fact that the very essense of these logical and epistemic arguments are tained with circularity. Jesus would call this "Endless geneologies" and a "Houses built on the sand" (at least with regards to the attempts to understand the infinite with the finite mind). We need to realize that much of the abstract issues of God need to be accepted as a mystery or "unknowable" to us as humans. On ocassion one might receive "revelation knowledge; yet this too is unexplainable.

Fear God and keep his commandments, feed the poor, take care of widows and orphans,

Chaz

Post Edited (Chaz Finney) : 2/8/2008 12:32:02 PM (GMT-6)

Tom that is not what I am arguing;

My point is not that "I am claiming to have knowledge that we have no knowledge". I hold to a pragmatic or commonsense approach of epistemology and therefore I am willing to accept that we do indeed have knowledge despite the fallacious reasoning that I have to accept that comes with the notion of knowledge. 

The points I was making were that in light of these issues, if we can’t come up with a concept of knowledge or truth (In the human domain) that aren’t beguiled with circulatory or infinite regress, how can we expect to understand divine knowledge? I don’t believe that the arguments that are put forth by Open Theists are consistent with a pragmatic or a commonsense approach, I have noted the issues that would be acceptable to a commonssense approach that the Open Theist refutes; the theology seemingly postures itself as a bulwark against fallacy, yet the concepts of knowledge and truth are laiden with circular reasoning.

Would anyone on this BB rely on someone's view of divine knowledge when this individual couldn't give you a definition of knowledge and truth that are not beguiled with circular reasoning?

This was my point,

Alan;

I think this may have answered your question in part. The reason I brought the issue up on the BB was:

1. To show that one need not go to multi-valued logic to defend free will 

2. Often advocates of a particular thology will put forth their arguments as though they are logically and epistemically air-tight. My goal was to show that this isn't the case and that to try to understand omniscience, noble as it may be is an excercise in futility. We need to settle the issues of knowledge - before we can even hope to understand God's knowledge.

3. I don't think that the issues that I raised are those of a skeptic, they are problems that have caused many to "walk away" from epistemology and are acknowledged by many in the ranks of the common-sense camps.

Chaz

Post Edited (Chaz Finney) : 2/8/2008 3:56:27 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Chaz Finney) : 2/9/2008 12:25:38 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Corey) : 2/14/2008 1:09:56 PM (GMT-6)

---

Am I even answering the question? Does the realism/nominalism debate even pertain to what God knew sans creation? Hey, I'll speak plainly: I'm way novice on this stuff.

Post Edited (Corey) : 2/14/2008 1:53:18 PM (GMT-6)