Actually, this part isn’t doctrine; in fact, it’s a debated topic whether God knows counter-factuals.
Not precisely. The way you’ve stated it implies that His knowledge is gained through observation – that is, that He learns. God doesn’t learn; He simply knows. So, no ‘observation’ is necessary for His knowledge.
I see your point. I would say that He certainly doesn’t know counterfactuals in the same way He knows reality, but He presumably knows more than we do about the variables that go into things that could happen but don’t.Actually, this part isn’t doctrine; in fact, it’s a debated topic whether God knows counter-factuals.
Hmm, perhaps I have misunderstood the use of “the knowledge of vision” to describe God’s knowledge of the actual future, then. I definitely agree that God doesn’t need to learn or gain knowledge, but I think it’s important to distinguish between “He knows all things, even those that to us have yet to happen” and the common misconception of “If He knows before I do it, then that forces me to do it.” My understanding was that the solution is to say that he knows what we, in fact, do, analogously (though not necessarily identically) to a time traveler watching us tomorrow, rather than a puppetmaster arranging things so that we do what he foresaw.Not precisely. The way you’ve stated it implies that His knowledge is gained through observation – that is, that He learns . God doesn’t learn; He simply knows . So, no ‘observation’ is necessary for His knowledge.
Right. But, knowing my mind and its workings, in terms of whether I marry or not, is different than knowing the color of the eyes of the child that I never have.
The reason that this is a ‘problem’ is that it’s a single statement that’s attempting to encompass two radically different frames of reference. On one hand, we have humans, who experience reality from within the universe and therefore within its temporal framework. On the other hand, we have God, who experiences everything eternally, and is not bound by the temporal framework of the universe. So, when we attempt to say that God knows something “before”… well, we’re talking gibberish. (The problem is that, for some folks, there’s not the realization that it’s gibberish.) It’s nonsensical because we’re attempting to talk about God’s perspective as if it exists within the temporal framework. It doesn’t.
While your above statement is correct, yet hides the crux of the matter and can confuse those who are not familiar with Catholic Soteriology and may erroneously believe people sometimes reject efficacious graces which is never happen.Latin:
Except when God showers us with grace and we freely choose evil in spite of God’s grace.
And yet it has always been a concept in the Catholic tradition and religious philosophy, and while the bible itself presents an amphomorphic expression of God, the Catholic idea of God implicitly presents a being that transcends space-time and is the cause of it.
These are all anthropomorphic concepts. Human existence and saying I am is a human perception of what it means to exist in time. To create something requires time and God is outside of time. The idea of eternal life is an anthropomorphism also, because first of all it is not eternal, since eternity has no beginning and no end. And to use the word life implies what we know as life on earth.
That’s a nice retort, to try and save face, but I’m not seeing it.
God Himself asserts that He created all of the universe; that’s not a human concept. Nor does it it “require time”. God spoke… and it simply was.
So… ‘eternal life’ is a human concept because… it’s not human. Uhh… right.
You misunderstand what ‘anthropomorphic’ means, then.
God is beyond human comprehension. Your description of God comes from human concepts of power, love, existence, time, speaking and wisdom and therefore may be said to be anthropomorphic in some sense.
What did God say? What language did God use when He spoke and thereby created the universe? Do you claim that God - speaking words 13.8 billion years ago in a language that did not even exist at that time - is not an anthropomorphism?
Surely you know that Genesis is inspired poetry, and when we say God spoke we are not talking about literalist human language. You know that right?Gorgias:
God is beyond human comprehension. Your description of God comes from human concepts of power, love, existence, time, speaking and wisdom and therefore may be said to be anthropomorphic in some sense.
What did God say? What language did God use when He spoke and thereby created the universe? Do you claim that God - speaking words 13.8 billion years ago in a language that did not even exist at that time - is not an anthropomorphism?
God.
Actually, you’re conflating ‘anthropomorphism’ with ‘analogical speech’. Aquinas would say that everything we say about God is ‘analogical’ – it doesn’t precisely describe Him (since, after all, He transcends our understanding), but it comes as close as we can do. And, it does it by analogy. But, that doesn’t mean that perceive of God as if He were a human (which is what anthropomorphism means, in this context); it means that we use human language to aid in an understand of God (that is, analogical speech).
sigh.
It’s figurative language, not anthropomorphism. I’m not saying that God literally caused words to form from a mouth He doesn’t have.You are defining words differently from how the dictionary defines the word. Anthropomorphism: the attribution of human form or behaviour to a deity…
Fine.
So…
I thought that speaking was an example of human behavior.
Gorgias:
I thought that speaking was an example of human behavior.
Sorry… where do you see ‘speaking’ in these examples that I provided to you?
