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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 9/1/2004 10:39 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Originally posted by TGB
Mark: There's still a logic to the possibilities open to you and to their possible consequences which God can know as it is - he can know the range of things open to you, and can know what sorts of things follow from certain choices. It's only the actual choice itself which cannot be known.
Tom: Oh, for sure. Yeah, that much is agreed upon. I thought the issue was: if the possibilities he knows are infinite because the future goes on infintely, then how does this not amount to his knowing an actual infintite (i.e., that set of truths defines as "All the possibile futures running infinitely into the future"). We agree he knows them. The question is how he knows them if actual inifites are impossible.
Tom
Because the possibilities aren't stricly related to the time variable? that the time merely provides a dimension in which certain types of possibility can operate in a potentially infinitely complex number of ways? I don't know....the time's the quantity thing, but it's more the quality thing that needs to be known?
Just been thinking about what would be a deterministic process...someone counting out one by one the digits of pi, I haven't been able to work out how God would know what was going to happen....say he decreed that if a certain series of digits were to be counted in succession he would sing the national anthem....would there be any way for him to know in advance whether he would ever have to sing it? even though it's a deterministic thing....
I don't know. Perhaps not... :eek:
Perhaps it's better to look at his omniscience a bit like his omnipotence....as a power which is available to him and which can be excercised in certain ways, but never to an infinite degree? | | Back to Top | | |
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rossfadeinout
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428
| Posted 9/2/2004 7:06 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey guys,
I was reading an article online by a guy named Dr. Phil Fernandes. Here is the link www.biblicaldefense.org/Research_Center/articles.htm
Click on the Apologetics section and then click the article "The Cosmological Argument."
A section of his article caught my attention.
quote:
Secondly, when using the kalaam cosmological argument (as was utilized by Bonaventure) the Christian apologist should not argue against the existence of an actual infinite set. For the Christian believes that God is all-knowing (omniscient). This is usually understood to mean that God knows an actual infinite number of things. Therefore, an actual infinite set does exist (though only in the mind of God). Hence, the Christian apologist is incorrect when he argues against the existence of an actual infinite set. The kalaam argument for God's existence loses no force by merely arguing for the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite set (this is all that Zeno's paradox proves). That would be enough to prove that the universe had a beginning and, therefore, needs a Cause. Or, the apologist may argue for the impossibility of an actual infinite set existing outside the mind of an infinite God.(76)
FOOTNOTE 76 I discussed the rejection of this premise ("the impossibility of an actual infinite set") in a November, 1994 telephone conversation with Dr. J. P. Moreland, professor of philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology. Moreland used this premise in his book Scaling the Secular City. Moreland agreed that it is probably best to no longer use this premise in the kalaam cosmological argument, and that the premise "the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite set" would be sufficient in establishing the beginning of the universe. Dr. Moreland also related that the premise of the kalaam argument could be changed to "the impossibility of an actual infinite set in the concrete (outside the mind) realm." This premise could be proven by showing the contradictions that would arise if actual infinite sets existed outside the mind. Some of these contradictions have already been discussed in this chapter. What the Christian should not argue for is the impossibility of an actual infinite set existing in the abstract (inside a mind) realm. For if an actual infinite set cannot exist in a mind, then God cannot know an actual infinite number of things. But, if an actual infinite set exists in a mind, this mind would have to be an infinite Mind (an omniscient Being). Only an infinite Mind can know an infinite number of things. Since it is impossible to traverse an actual infinite set, finite minds will never know everything an infinite Mind knows even if the finite mind continues to learn more and more throughout eternity.
For what it's worth....
Peace, Ross
"Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite." -Thomas Reid | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 9/4/2004 9:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks Ross,
Whilst I can understand the point that he's making there, I think that it's one with which I'm going to have to disagree, I'm not sure that I can make that kind of concession just to guard particular intuitions I might have about the knowledge of God. I don't think that the idea of an actual infinite is a coherent concept, and I can't then go and say, 'ah yes, but God's knowledge is infinite, so I'll make an exception there' (yes, I realise it's a bit more subtle than that) because I don't think that works - the problem has to be approached in other ways.
I've been looking a bit at what Craig has to say about this sort of thing, and I'm not sure exactly where he stands, he is very careful with his terminology e.g.
"Matson's error here lies in thinking that (2.11) means to assert the logical impossibility of an actually infinite number of things. What the premiss expresses is the real or factual impossibility of an actual infinite."
note the distinction between the different types of impossibility, and also the preciseness of the term 'an actually infinite number of things'
but also, in another article I found
"Finally, someone might wonder, “But isn’t God supposed to be infinite? Your argument shows that the infinite cannot exist. So how can God exist?” In fact, the argument was that an infinite number of things cannot exist. God is not a collection of an infinite number of things. As a nonphysical being, he doesn’t even have parts. When theologians speak of God’s infinity, they are thus using the term in a qualitative not a quantitative sense. They mean that God is absolutely holy, uncreated, self-existent, all-powerful, all-present, and so forth. It’s not a mathematical concept. Thus, there’s no contradiction."
(although he doesn't refer to omniscience there....) he also says
"But this objection does not work. First, not all mathematicians agree that actual infinities exist even in the mathematical realm. They regard series such as 0, 1, 2, 3, . . . as merely potentially infinite; that is to say, such series approach infinity as a limit, but they never actually get there. Second, existence in the mathematical realm does not imply existence in the real world. To say that infinite sets exist is merely to postulate a realm of discourse, governed by certain axioms and rules that are simply presupposed, in which one can talk about such collections.#65279; . . . Third, the real existence of an infinite number of things would violate the rules of infinite set theory."
so here, he seems to be quite doubtful of the existence of an actual infinite, even in the abstract realm. | | Back to Top | | |
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