Thomas Metcalf

In general, I can figure out which facts I know and which facts I don't know. I know what I ate for breakfast. I have no idea where the stock market will be ten years from now. I don't know what grade I'm going to get on the paper on Locke I just turned in, but I have a pretty good idea.

For God to be omniscient, He must believe all true propositions, and they must be justified for Him indefeasibly, under a fairly popular conception of knowledge. So for God to know He's omniscient, He must believe (indefeasibly justifiedly) that He indefeasibly justifiedly believes every true proposition.

So what is the justification for God's belief that He is omniscient? I assume He believes He is omniscient and believes that if He believes He's omniscient, He's correct, but I'm not sure this counts as justification, especially because the second belief seems to depend on the idea that He's omniscient in the first place. Why does God believe He's omniscient? How would He justify such a belief? And it would it be certain?

hinduwoman

Actually god does not have to believe he is omniscient. What he has to do is to persuadehis brainwashed followers that he is omniscient.

Amos

Hey Thomas, God doesn't believe anything because believers are not allowed in heaven or there would be churches in heaven. He also is not persuaded by the popular concept of knowledge whereupon beliefs are justified. He just looks at things subjectively and says, "see, I told you so," if you would ever dare to ask him this question.

Bill Snedden

You may be interested in <a href="http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/pgrim/exchange.html" target="_blank">Truth, Omniscience, and Cantorian Arguments: An Exchange between Patrick Grim and Alvin Plantinga</a> in which Grim sets out and defends an argument against omniscience based in Cantorian set theory. For those unfamiliar with set theory (like me), the math can be kind of tough going, but it's quite an interesting read.

As to your OP, I suppose God would just have to take it on faith...

Seriously, if omniscience means not only knowing everything there is to know, but also knowing that one knows everything that there is to know, then it seems to me rather doubtful that omniscience is possible. Epistemically speaking, for knowledge to be possible, there must be some "ground", or axiom upon which it can stand. As Goedel demonstrated, no formalized system can be proven consistent from within itself. Logically, therefore, knowledge must rest upon something outside of itself (if we accept that knowledge is the result of a formalized system; logic and reason). This would seem to me to indicate that while one could indeed know everything that there is to know, one could not know that one knows everything that there is to know.

At least, that's my $0.02 at 2345 EST...

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Bill Snedden:

"You may be interested in <a href="http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/pgrim/exchange.html" target="_blank">Truth, Omniscience, and Cantorian Arguments: An Exchange between Patrick Grim and Alvin Plantinga</a> in which Grim sets out and defends an argument against omniscience based in Cantorian set theory. For those unfamiliar with set theory (like me), the math can be kind of tough going, but it's quite an interesting read."

Thanks for the link. I do have some familiarity with Cantorian set theory, so it will be interesting to read what they have to say.

"Seriously, if omniscience means not only knowing everything there is to know, but also knowing that one knows everything that there is to know, then it seems to me rather doubtful that omniscience is possible. Epistemically speaking, for knowledge to be possible, there must be some 'ground', or axiom upon which it can stand. As Goedel demonstrated, no formalized system can be proven consistent from within itself. Logically, therefore, knowledge must rest upon something outside of itself (if we accept that knowledge is the result of a formalized system; logic and reason). This would seem to me to indicate that while one could indeed know everything that there is to know, one could not know that one knows everything that there is to know."

This is another very interesting approach. I have some familiarity with Gödel as well, and I need to think about this more before I say anything about it. Thanks for the food for thought.

Synaesthesia

Tsk tsk. You should know a divine mystery when you see one.

Amos

Or simply put, an omniscient being knows what he knows but does not know that he doesn't know everything. That's fair enough and is why I wrote "I told you so" if you would ask him if he knew. This means that the subjective perception foretells the objective search for truth.

Vanderzyden

Thomas,

I have to say that I appreciate the time you are taking to post these thought-provoking puzzles.

Let me see if I can attempt to address your questions, although in a way that you might not expect. It would seem that you are forgetting some critical attributes of God. Since the God of the apologist:

(a) is responsible for the existence of everything besides himself,
(b) forgets nothing,
(c) is eternal, and
(d) he knows himself,

it follows directly than nothing that is knowable is not known by him.

All true propositions are either intrinsic to himself or proceed from the things that he alone has created. God would have no need to consider his omniscience, and no justification is required, since he knows intuitively that he either contains or generates all true propositions.

John

[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Kenny

I really don’t have time right now to get deep into another discussion, but I would like to make a brief comment.

In classical theism, God’s omniscience is taken to be a property which God holds necessarily as part of His essence. In other words, it necessarily follows, in some sense, from God’s essence that God is omniscient and that it is logically incoherent for God to be otherwise. If that is case, then surely God is aware of just exactly how it follows, or what contradiction God’s failing to be omniscient would entail. Thus, it is quite conceivable that God is aware of a proof of His own omniscience.

We need not know what that proof might involve for this possibility to be viable, but we may already have a glimpse of what might be involved via various forms of the ontological argument. Many versions of the OA include omniscience as something characteristic of maximal greatness. Thus if God is aware of a successful OA in which is essence is defined in terms of maximal greatness and is also aware that maximal greatness entails omniscience, then God has a proof that He is omniscient. In fact, it is conceivable that we might even be able to reproduce that proof (regardless of whether or not this has been or ever will be done).

I don’t think Godelian considerations argue against this possibility because all Godel’s incompleteness theorem asserts is that it is impossible for a formal system to be both consistent (no contradictory theorems are derivable from it) and complete (all true theorems are derivable from it), but God is not a formal system; God is a self-conscious being. God need not derive His knowledge from any finite set of axioms combined with formal rules of inference, God simply knows all that He knows directly and immediately. I don’t see anything in Godel which would prove that such knowledge is impossible. As for Grim’s argument, I’ll let Plantinga do the counter-arguing.

God Bless,
Kenny

P.S. Thomas, I disagree with the characterization of knowledge you set forth here, but I suspect that’s a needless discussion for the current purpose.

[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]

[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Vanderzyden

Kenny,

I appreciate your intelligent post. I notice from your profile that you are a seminary student in Pasadena. Presumably, you are are at Fuller. If you don't mind my asking, what particular education are you pursuing?

Thanks,

John