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Albert


Alright, guys, here are my thoughts ...

Obviously, for reasons I've already alluded to, which derive from my nominalism, I think it is logically impossible for a being to possess omniscience in the sense of knowing all true propositions. What I want to raise is the question, does the Bible assert that God knows all true propositions? That is the important question. We can squabble about the definition of "omniscience", but the issue is what the Bible actually teaches.

As I have pointed out earlier, there are very different meanings for the word "knowledge". In particular, there is propositional/representational knowledge, and there is "direct apprehension" which is non-representational, but is knowledge of the thing as it is in and of itself. The definition of knowledge as "justified true belief" applies only to propositional knowledge. It does not apply to direct apprehension. Direct apprehension knowledge requires no justification, and is not propositional.

Now I assert that the Biblical concept of knowledge is primarily NOT propositional knowledge (justified true belief). That is the Greek concept of knowledge. In fact, the definition of knowledge as justified true belief was first made explicit in the writings of Plato. It is a Greek view of knowledge. The Biblical view of knowledge, in both Old and New Testaments, is a Hebraistic view of knowledge. Hebraistic knowledge is (mostly) direct apprehensional knowledge. Let me give a few examples of verses which, I think, clearly don't refer to propositional knowledge:

"And Adam knew Eve his wife" (Gen. 4:1).

"And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD (Jer. 31:34).

"and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God" (Eph. 3:19).

I could go on citing verses, but you get the point. The Bible passages dealing with God's knowledge, like the one I quoted last time, seem to me to clearly refer to direct apprehensional knowledge of the creation. They do not assert anything about propositional knowledge, which is a Greek concept, and I think alien to the Biblical writers. The reason discussion of omniscience in theology has become so confused, is because Plato's definition of knowledge as justified true belief has absolutely permeated Western philosophy and thought. So to answer Greg's question, you say that omniscience means "all knowledge", I say, what do you mean by knowledge? I think the Bible only asserts direct apprehensional knowledge, and I think that's the only kind of knowledge that's coherent to attribute in exhaustive form to God, and the only kind which he could necessarily possess. So why am I not justified in defining omniscience in that way? What good is an incoherent definition (it's like saying "I define a glink to be a cat that is not a cat").

I can't here and now elaborate in full all the reasons for why I don't think propositional knowledge can ever be complete. They do depend in the main on the truth of nominalism. Can I just use an analogy, though. Suppose I came over to the US and gave you a one month intensive course, going through absolutely everything I could think of, about what it is like to live in Australia. At the end of it, would you know what it was like to live here? In one sense, yes, you would know. But in another equally important sense, you would not (assuming you've never lived here). Only by actually living here would you get this other kind of knowledge. A doctor who knows everything about a particular illness, but who has never had it, still lacks an important aspect of knowledge about the illness. Not one that affects his work in any way, but one that is nonetheless real. The knowledge the doctor has, is "Greek" knowledge. The knowledge the patient has, is "Hebraistic" knowledge.

As I sit here, I have a visual impression of a computer screen. I now know that visual impression (not the computer screen itself, only the visual impression/qualia in my mind) by direct apprehension, in a way that propositional knowledge could never give me. But my knowledge of it is direct, unmediated, non-referential and non-representational. It is of the thing in and of itself.

Tom asks how we are in a position to know that most of the information he thinks is in God's mind would be useless. In fact, it is very easy to know. The created world is finite. The potential propositional information is infinite. Hence, most of it is useless.

Why don't I believe that God could be personal if he has all this information? Well, can I ask the question, does God have this information necessarily, or by choice? That is an important question, Tom, for you and Greg to answer. Did God chose to know it? People make choices for reasons. They have motives. God would clearly be under no moral obligation to know all this stuff, and neither would it be of any possible practical benefit whatsoever. So my question to you is, what was his motive for choosing to know it? Did he really have a choice, or did he "have" to know it? If he wanted personal relationship as his central aim, why would he choose to know a whole lot of irrelevant stuff? And if you claim that God possesses such knowledge necessarily, the question I have is, why would it be necessary? Even if you think my God is not truly omniscient, he still certainly seems logically possible. You have to demonstrate to me why God would just exist with a whole lot of propositions in his head. And it is hard to see how a being whose mental content was all a determined, unchosen, necessary given, could really be said to be a person, because a person's mental content is at least partly an expression of their will. A corollary of my position is that God's entire mental content he has by virtue of his own free choice. He knows the actual world by direct apprehension by virtue of its existence; but that existence was something freely chosen by him. He also knows those propositions that he chooses to know.

On your view, every proposition would have to be expressed in each of the infinite number of possible languages in God's mind, otherwise he would not know what the proposition was when expressed in a particular language (that is, there is a true proposition about what a given proposition is like expressed in possible language X). So to know even one proposition, would require infinite mental space on your view. From here, it can easily be shown again that most of God's knowledge would be useless.

Let me say what I think is the basic problem. From what does God derive his glory? Is it because he is awesomely powerful? Is it because it is awesomely intelligent? I answer, no. God derives his glory because of his moral qualities, that he is perfect love, which is expressed only in personal form. I think that too many well-intentioned Christians, desiring to maximally glorify God, think that they therefore have to magnify his power and knowledge as much as they possibily can in their thought. But the problem is, you get to a point where magnifying the glory of his power and knowledge, takes away from his moral glory. That is expressed in most extreme form in Calvinism, but it is still a problem with your view in my opinion.

Greg says: But possibility is distinct from actuality precisely because it is not "total fullness." The actual always introduces an element of novelty.

Albert says: if that is so Greg, then I do not think that you can uphold omniscience either. I think you are formally contradicting yourself at this point. Also, I'd be interested to know how you deal with mutually exclusive possibilities (i.e. possibilities where one is logically incompatible with the other). Do the laws of logic not apply to "indefinite" things?

Greg, I don't think there would be a moral problem with God knowing that a person could turn away from him. But I think there is a moral problem with him thinking that through further, imagining it, and forming ideas and intentions about it. I don't think a God like I describe, who was all-powerful, all-knowing in my sense, and had unlimited computational power, could fail to achieve his ends. I know that many people have claimed that God could not fulfil prophecy on the open view, but I think, ironically, that the God of their imagination is too small, and they haven't fully comprehended the implications of the word "omnipotent". I think that your argument that God would be morally deficient if he didn't plan for bad outcomes, is invalid, because God cannot do evil, even if it is to achieve a good and desirable outcome. I think that in situations like you describe, as a general rule, that God sees the person's heart and knows *well before* they overtly reject him, that they are on their way away from him. So I think he can start planning at that point. Not, however, before. But that is an ethical/moral argument which we can leave aside I think.

Tom, we do know the possibilities in a relationship, but unless we are rather wierd, we only think them through insofar as it is pragmatically related to the relationship itself. I am saying that's what God does. Furthermore, I am saying that even if we do sometimes think through possibilities about (say) our wife doing something awful, that we ought not to. In other words, we are sinning by doing that. We should not do it.

Tom, I am saying that the persons of the trinity express love to each other in ever new ways. Love is not a "thing" but expressed action. The point is, that if every expressed action were already known in fulness in advance, there would be no possibility for further expression. I think that the persons of the trinity constantly suprise each other. I think their understanding of each other's love grows, as it is expressed in more and more new and different ways.

Tom, you are right that God knows some propositions. But I don't need to revise point (b), because it doesn't deny this. It just denies that he knows all true propositions. But you go completely wrong after that. You describe my position as follows: "You want to affirm that God knows all propositions describing “things” or “entities” ...". But that is absolutely NOT what I am saying. I am saying God knows all things (existing entities) NON-PROPOSITIONALLY by direct apprehension. I hope you can see how you've misunderstood me at this point.

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