Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Kenny:

"Within classical theism, God is understood to be a necessary being who holds certain attributes, like being omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfec, etc., necessarily as part of His essence. If that is the case, then it would seem that there must be at least one sound ontological argument, even if we cannot give it or comprehend it, which demonstrates that God exists in all possible worlds and holds certain essential attributes necessarily."

I'm not too sure about that. There would certainly be an ontological argument with "God exists" as the true conclusion, if God is indeed omniscient, but whether this argument would be sound is a different question entirely.

In my experience, ontological arguments are usually the furthest arguments in the apologist's repertoire from soundness, and I personally suspect that none of them can be sound, partly because they all seem to make fundamental question-begging errors and partly because they all attempt to justify something synthetic a priori. I believe if there is good reason to suspect that no ontological argument is sound, then there is good reason to suspect God can't justify His belief to Himself that He is omniscient.

Arvel Joffi

I think to be ominscient, one would be aware not only of all things that are, were, and will be, but of all things are not, have not been, will never be, all relationships between all things and events, and all possible variations of every action and inaction arising the above. Assuming that the ominscient one had time to catalog all of this, it/he/she/ would undoubtedly realize that no fact or event is missing from its knowledge or experience.

What a godawful boring shoot me in the face existence that would be. I figure if there is such an entity, it's done itself in by now - as it knew it would from the beginning.

I'm only being somewhat facetious, here.

Kenny

If God exists, at least as God is understood by classical theism, then there must be a sound ontological argument. Since God is understood by classical theism to be a necessary being, it must be that denial of the proposition that “God exists” entails a logical contradiction, if classical theism is true, even if we are incapable of understanding how.

Since, conceptually, God is understood to be a necessary being, it must be true that if God exists, God necessarily exists. Furthermore, if God exists, then it must be logically possible for God to exist. Also, []G follows from G->[]G and <>G in modal logic S5. Consequently the following argument:

P1. If God exists then God exists necessarily.
P2. It is logically possible that God exists.

C1. Necessarily, God exists

must be sound if classical theism is true, since the premises are true and the conclusion deductively follows. Now, I admit that this argument isn’t very complete and that it isn’t likely to persuade anyone, but that isn’t the point. The point is that, on classical theism, it is sound, and since your argument is attempting to derive a contradiction with respect to God’s omniscience from within the assumptions of classical theism, it would seem that you would have to grant the basic assumptions of classical theism for the sake of argument and therefore would also have to grant, for the sake of argument, that this skeletal sketch of the OA is sound (at least structurally-- that is with respect to its being deductively valid and its premises being true).

If you want to deny that it is possible for any such argument to be sound, then you are free to do so, but in doing so it would seem that you would be outright denying the possibility that a necessary being exists, and therefore outright denying that classical theism is true. If you want to argue against classical theism along these lines then you are also to free to do so, but such an argument would be entirely different from the argument you present against classical theism in the OP.

It should be noted that the skeletal OA presented above is not formally circular because the conclusion is not stated in any of the premises. If the OA argument, as we now have it, is circular, then its circularity must be epistemic rather than structural (i.e it must be that the warrant for the premises depends entirely on the warrant one has for the conclusion, not that the conclusion is implicitly stated in one of the premises). That is arguably so, but just because that may be the situation as it now stands for us, that doesn’t mean that such is the situation as it stands for God. You could attempt to argue that the OA is necessarily epistemologically circular for all rational beings, even for God (thus not giving God any independent source of warrant for the proposition that He is omniscient), but that doesn’t seem very plausible on theistic metaphysics either.

With respect to OA’s as we now have them, they are typically accused of being epistemicly question begging, not with respect to the premise G->[]G (various arguments are put forth, from concepts such as maximal greatness or unlimitedness, for this premise), but with respect to the premise <>G. Presumably God would have a comprehensive idea of what concepts such as maximal greatness or unlimitedness or some other concept or attribute of being that implies a necessary existence claim would entail, so His understanding of just exactly how G->[]G and just exactly what essential properties define the subject G, with respect to the ontological argument, would not in seem to be problematic. So if the OA is epistemicly circular for God, then it must be because God doesn’t have an independent source of warrant for the premise <>G, but that also doesn’t seem very likely in the case of God, even if it is true in the case of ourselves, since presumably God would have a comprehensive understanding of what is and what is not logically possible.

To say that all existential claims are synthetic is simply to say that there is no being such that denial of the existence of such a being entails a logical contradiction. But to make such an assertion is simply to assume that there are no necessary beings, which begs the question both with respect to the OA and with respect to the metaphysics of classical theism. Perhaps you think that it can be successfully argued that the concept of a necessary being is incoherent, but that would be another argument against classical theism, not the argument you set forward in the OP.

But if classical theism is true, then it would seem there must be a sound OA, and it is plausible that, at least for God, this argument is neither structurally nor epistemologically circular. Whether denying the possibility that there could be a successful OA in itself is grounds for challenging classical theism is a matter that could be contended, but that is not the same argument that was put forward in the OP.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ November 09, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Bill Snedden

That's interesting; I rather thought that the issue posed in the OP was about warrant. It's phrased in terms of knowledge, but isn't it really a question about the epistemic foundation of God's knowledge of his omniscience?

That was the reason for my quip about CVT. According to him, human knowledge requires a transcendent foundation. CVT obviously believed that somehow God was exempt from such a constraint, but is that really a reasonable claim?

(As an aside, I wonder if CVT ever dealt directly with this question?)

I imagine that if I spent my entire life inside a box about 20 feet square that I would after some time come to believe that I was omniscient. Indeed, in terms of my environment it's not difficult to say that after a relatively short period of time, I would know all that there was to know about my "universe."

The question is, how does God know that he's not inside such a box, albeit a much, much larger one? He may certainly believe that he knows, directly and immediately, but upon what epistemic foundation does such knowledge rest?

That was also the reason for my point about circular reasoning. If it is true that in order to avoid such circularity, an external, transcendent epistemic foundation is required, how does God avoid this conundrum? Or can he?

Well, sure, it makes sense that if God exists then the OA is necessarily sound. But I'm not sure I understand what that has to do with the epistemic foundation of God's knowledge of his omniscience. It seems obvious that if there is such a thing as a "necessary being", then such a being must necessarily exist. However, is a necessary being necessarily omniscient?

How are true statements warranted "directly?" Upon what foundation does such warrant rest? You seem to be saying that God requires no foundation for warrant. Why then do we? To say "because God is omniscient" would seem to beg the question.

Huh? "God...has some way, independent of His omniscience..." What exactly does that statement mean? God's omniscience is his knowledge of everything. How can he know something "independently" of his knowledge?

Well, that's quite understandable.

I do agree that, within the bounds of theistic metaphysics, this seems the most reasonable response one can give. It does seem interesting to note that it necessarily follows by such a response that God requires no epistemic warrant for his knowledge (as we understand such a thing), something that seems to leave such a defense open to a claim of "special pleading."

Regards,

Bill Snedden

P.S. I must say, Kenny, it is always a pleasure to read your posts. You are one of the most engaging and articulate posters we have, theist or non-theist. I do hope that your new wife doesn't drag you away from us too often!

[ November 09, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Snedden ]</p>

Vanderzyden

Bill,

I would appreciate your critique of my last response to you, at the bottom of page 2. It would seem that your questions are addressed to a significant degree in that post. In particular, given what I have written there and what Kenny has written on this page, please answer:

What precludes God from knowing with certainty?


John

Thomas Metcalf

Kenny:

We're looking for a plausible way for God to justify His true belief that He's omniscient. As I see it, the only plausible idea of what form such an argument would take is some argument that would show (1) that only one being can have property F, and (2) that if a being has property F, then it is omniscient. And then God would know that He has property F, and therefore, know that He is the being mentioned in the argument.

As for the property F in question, the only property I can think of would be something like omnipotence. But even this property does not seem to require uniqueness. Let us take "omnipotence" to denote the ability to bring about any logically possible state of affairs that an agent can bring about. Now let us suppose that two beings, x and y, are omnipotent. What contradiction follows? x cannot countermand the orders of y, but (roughly) there is no logically possible state of affairs in which y's orders are countermanded. If x and y were both simultaneously to order P and -P, respectively, I suspect one can consistently say that nothing would happen. If P were the case, then P would remain, and if -P were the case, -P would remain. (Even if you demonstrated that only one being could be omnipotent, it would not be clear that if a being is omnipotent, it must be omniscient.)

I think to provide a convincing defense of God's justification for His belief that He is omniscient, you would have to make it seem likely that some property F (that God would know He has) exists that would make (1) and (2) above seem likely. So: What's a property that only one being could have, that requires omniscience to possess? Or, why should we believe it's likely that such a property exists?

The only way I could see you arguing is that F would be "is perfect" or "possesses all perfections." But for God to know He has F in this case, He must know already that He is omniscient. It just doesn't seem likely that a suitable property F would exist. Perhaps only one being can have "all perfections," but that does not entail that only a being with all perfections can have, say, omnipotence, unless only one being can have omnipotence.

"Presumably God would have a comprehensive idea of what concepts such as maximal greatness or unlimitedness or some other concept or attribute of being that implies a necessary existence claim would entail, so His understanding of just exactly how G-&gt;[]G and just exactly what essential properties define the subject G, with respect to the ontological argument, would not in seem to be problematic."

I must take issue with this. I do not believe "It is necessary that necessary being S exists" is an intelligible sentence. A comprehensive understanding of what is and is not logically possible would confirm G --&gt; []G to God if G --&gt; []G, but I don't think G --&gt; []G is a true sentence, per se. That is, I do not understand the sentence "If a being that exists in all possible worlds exists, then it is necessary that a being that exists in all possible worlds exists."

Kenny

Bill,

I’m not quite sure what you mean here. Most epistemologists define knowledge as “warranted true belief,” such that ‘warrant’ is what ever it is that must be added to true belief for that belief to constitute knowledge. Of course, figuring out just what exactly warrant entails is what keeps food on epistemologists’ tables So, as far as I can see, the issues of warrant and knowledge are virtually identical. If a proposition is not warranted for a rational being (whether God or any other rational being), then that proposition is not knowledge regardless of whether that proposition is true or whether said rational being believes it. Consequently, it follows that if God knows that He is omniscient, God’s belief that He is omniscient is warranted; and if God’s belief in His omniscience is not warranted, then God doesn’t know that He is omniscient.

I think so. As I understand what CVT was saying (and I make no claims to be a CVT scholar or expert), the reason that human knowledge requires a transcendent foundation is because of human finitude and the derived nature of the creature. There are a number of reasons for this, but for now, one of the reasons is because there are certain propositions about reality -- which are necessary for any sort of meaningful knowledge -- that pertain to the nature of reality as a whole (such as whether or not the principle of induction holds) which it would be impossible for a finite being to know without receiving warrant (though Van Til, as a pre-Gettier and Continental philosopher did not use this term) for such propositions form a transcendent source. Of course, God, being infinite and having knowledge which encompasses the whole of reality, does not find Himself in the same position in this respect that finite creatures such as ourselves do.

Yes, I would say it’s at the very heart of his thought. For Van Til, all knowledge begins with the Triune God’s own self-understanding. God possesses His knowledge innately by means of compressive self-understanding, and since God is the transcendent source of all other reality external to Himself, God’s knowledge is what defines all of reality. The task of human beings is to think “analogically” (what exactly did CVT mean by that? – well, that’s a matter of debate) God’s thoughts after Him and thereby gain a derivative knowledge of which God is the ultimate source. Thus, God’s knowledge differs from creaturely knowledge in much the same way that God’s being differs from creaturely being – the former is something God possesses innately within in Himself; the later is derived from God Who gives it to creatures by grace.

But, CVT, his transcendental argument, and how that all relates to contemporary discussions of epistemology, though a subject I find very interesting, is one that is somewhat removed from the thread topic, so I do not wish to spend too much time on it here.

True, but what if you were somehow uniquely related to being in such a way that precluded the possibility of there being anything outside of your box without you willing it to be so, and what if you somehow knew that such were the case, and what if you knew that there were no aspects of your box that could possibly escape your notice? Or, what if you were aware somehow of a logical proof that you and your box were the only things in existence unless you willed it to be otherwise and that you possessed comprehensive knowledge of your box. That would likely be a little more analogous to the situation God finds Himself in (though God’s infinite nature is hardly analogous to a box of 20 square feet!).

Ultimately, all of God’s knowledge rests in someway upon God’s own comprehensive self-awareness. God knows all that there is to know about Himself and from this self-knowledge, all of God’s other knowledge is derived. With respect to how God knows that there are not things external to Himself that He is not aware of, two (perhaps related) possibilities have been suggested on this thread, both of which may be true. The first possibility (the one which I think is most likely, but more difficult to defend philosophically) is that God, in the depth of His self-understanding, is aware of some fundamental relationship He has to being which precludes with certainty the possibility that there is anything external to Himself which He did not create and is not aware of. The second possibility is that God is aware of a sound ontological argument which demonstrates that necessarily an omniscient being exists, and that God has some other means, which do not require that God know that He is omniscient, to know that He is the being described in that proof. As I have argued, both possibilities seem plausible on theistic metaphysics.

Most versions of the ontological argument do not just set out to prove that some sort of necessary being exists without specifying the attributes of said being. Most versions of the OA set out to prove that a particular type of being necessarily exists with a particular set of attributes – such as omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection. It is argued that these predicates follow from some other predicate such as “unlimitedness” or “maximal greatness.”

Since, in classical Christian theism, God is understood to both to be a necessary being and to hold attributes such as omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection necessarily, it follows that there must be at least one sound ontological argument which describes a being with such predicates as necessarily existing. If God has some means of identifying Himself as the being described by that proof, God has a proof that He possesses all the attributes attributed to Him by that proof -- including omniscience.

That’s not what I’m saying. When I assert that all true statements are warranted “directly” for God, I mean that they are warranted non-inferentially for God (i.e. God does not have to infer what He knows via a formal reasoning process from other propositions that He knows). Another way of saying this is that, for God, all true propositions are properly basic with respect to warrant. Now, that doesn’t mean that God’s knowledge of all true propositions isn’t grounded in some source anymore that it means that properly basic propositions with respect to human beliefs aren’t grounded in some source. As I see it, for all rational beings (God or otherwise), all warranted true propositions with respect to the beliefs of a particular rational being, whether properly basic or inferential, in some sense (albeit indirectly in most cases for most rational beings), are warranted for that rational being by virtue of that being’s belief in said propositions being causally grounded in the reality that those propositions truthfully describe. With respect to the causal foundations of God’s knowledge, those foundations reside in God’s comprehensive self-awareness.

That’s what I get for writing too fast. What I meant to say was “independent of God’s knowing that He is omniscient.” In other words, if God has some way of identifying Himself as a being described in a proof which entails that said being is omniscient, without having to first know that He is omniscient to know that He is that being, then God has a non-circular way of proving to Himself that He is omniscient. Anyway, pay attention to what I mean not what I write

Thank you very much Given the respect that I, in turn, have for you as a poster on this board, I consider that very high praise. I’ll do my best to live up to it!

Well, I definitely can’t agree with you there. I rather enjoy it when she drags me away

God Bless,
Kenny

[ November 10, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Kenny

Essentially that is what I’m proposing as a plausible possibility on theistic metaphysics.

I agree that there may be ways to work it out such that two omnipotent beings could reside in the same possible world under certain circumstances under certain conceptions of omnipotence. However, I think that there may be an even more powerful reason for suspecting that, with respect to God, no other being could be omnipotent in the sense that God is omnipotent. If something like the ontological argument is sound then God’s omnipotence, along with all of God’s other attributes, are functions of some predicate such as maximal greatness. There is some intuitive plausibility in the supposition that if God’s divine fiats could be frustrated by the will of another omnipotent being, even in just the sense of such being a logical possibility, then God would fail to be maximally great. Thus, it may not be the property omnipotence alone which precludes the logical possibility of there being two omnipotent beings, but omnipotence as it functions in the context of maximal greatness. Since, under theistic metaphysics, God is maximally great in all possible worlds, this aspect of God’s nature may crowd other types of conceivably omnipotent beings out of the logic space by virtue of those beings being incompatible with God’s maximal greatness.

Given the above discussion, I think there may be plausible reasons to suggest that omnipotence, as it functions in the context of maximal greatness, is a property that only God could possess. Another property that I have mentioned as a possibility is God’s ability to create something out of nothing; something traditionally held in theistic metaphysics to be the prerogative of God alone. Why would it be the prerogative of God alone? – most likely it would have something to do with God’s unique relationship to being as understood by theistic metaphysics. God alone is the ground of all being and thus God alone has the power to impart being to other possible existents. The fact that God alone has this power might also be related in some way to God’s maximal greatness in such a way that any other conceivable beings with this power are crowded out of the logic space by God’s necessary existence in a similar fashion as this may be true of God’s omnipotence.

In general, it is traditionally understood in classical theism that there are certain things only God is capable of doing or certain properties that God alone has -- with these unique characteristics on the part of God being associated with God’s worship worthiness and thus associated with God’s maximal greatness. If that it the case, then it is entirely plausible to think that God’s necessary existence conditions the logic space in such a way that such attributes belong solely to God, not only in the actual world, but in all possible worlds.

With respect to the question of why God having a property such as omnipotence, or some other property that God might posses which it is impossible for more than one being to have, would entail that God is omniscient, I think, once again, the answer lies in the fact that these attributes are held in the context of maximal greatness. If there is a proof that there is exactly one being in all possible worlds which possesses all perfections, and there are certain perfections which it is impossible for more than one being to posses in any logically possible world, then it follows that any being possessing such unique-to-one-being perfections, possesses all other perfections.

First of all, I don’t understand why you would interpret the sentence G -&gt;[]G in this manner. The most straight-forward interpretation, with respect to the ontological argument would be, “If a God-like being exists at all, a God-like being necessarily exists.” I don’t see any problem with the meaningfulness of that statement. Second, I don’t see why you think the phrase you associate with that sentence is incoherent. Since, in modal logic, ‘exists in all possible worlds’ translates to ‘necessary’, your sentence is equivalent to: “If a being necessarily exists, then it is necessary that a necessary being exists.” The most plausible symbolic interpretation of that sentence would be something like: “[]G -&gt;[][]G” (not “G -&gt;[]G") But, that’s just Becker’s fourth postulate (shared between modal logic S4 and S5)! So, I am uncertain as to what your objection is here.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Apikorus

What does "greatness" entail?

Thomas Metcalf

Kenny:

"There is some intuitive plausibility in the supposition that if God’s divine fiats could be frustrated by the will of another omnipotent being, even in just the sense of such being a logical possibility, then God would fail to be maximally great."

It does not seem likely that any being could make choices that omnipotent beings could not undermine or prevent, and so this does not seem to be a consideration within maximal greatness. That is, the maximum greatness conceivable need not provide for the ability to make decisions immune to other omnipotent beings' activities.

"God alone is the ground of all being and thus God alone has the power to impart being to other possible existents."

Even so, the connection between being the ground of all being and the ability to create ex nihilo is not particularly useful; yes, the theist has a story by which God can create ex nihilo, but we need a way to show that a being without maximal greatness couldn't also create ex nihilo.

I must also add that I think a case can be made that non-uniqueness is a great-making property. A great being would be greater if it made copies of itself, I think.

"If there is a proof that there is exactly one being in all possible worlds which possesses all perfections, and there are certain perfections which it is impossible for more than one being to posses in any logically possible world, then it follows that any being possessing such unique-to-one-being perfections, possesses all other perfections."

So far, we've seen reasons to think there is no more than one maximally great being, but I think it's still unclear that there is at least one.

If God exists, then yes, there is a sound ontological argument. It could take the form "If P, then a maximally great being exists; P; therefore, a maximally great being exists," where P is any obviously true fact or logical truth. Such an argument would be sound. But the only way to discover that the first premise is true, I think, is through something like material implication, and this would not be available to God.

The alternative is that there is a more sophisticated ontological argument lurking somewhere, one that does not require this antecedent "guilty knowledge" of the maximally great being's existence, but I think most philosophers of religion would say this is doubtful.

As for the modal ontological argument: If we say "G" denotes a being with all of God's properties that may or may not be necessary, then I don't think anyone could ever confirm G --&gt; []G. And if we try to introduce necessity, we'd have something like []G --&gt; [][]G, which reduces to []G --&gt; []G, also not very promising.

So. The way for God to know He is omniscient is to know He is maximally great, and the way for God to know He is maximally great is to know that there is exactly one maximally great being, and that God has a great-making property that no other being could have. I think my objections provide reasons to doubt there is at least one maximally great being (doubts about a sound ontological argument that God has reasons to accept), and that there can be a great-making property that no other being can have (doubts about omnipotence and the ability to create ex nihilo.