Solving the omniscience problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter coolduude
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
It amazes me that people still think of God as someone who thinks like us outside of this physical world watching us.
 
  1. Omniscience entails an extension ad infinitum of the realisation fo the genus of knowlege; therein - all things knowable are known.
  2. The extension of the genus of knowlege (above) into the act of contextualising said knowlege (via omnipotence) can lead God to be empathic would he so wish.
  3. Divine foreknowlege is not causally related to the free acts of agents; and thus does not compel them.
  4. This presumes God’s intellection is tied to the object-formation of our own intellection; this is not the case. God’s understanding is intrinsic and encompasses the will. Not only does God know the influences upon our intellect; but he also knows the elections of our volition or nolition. For; the genus of Knowlege extends to these - as the genus of Knowlege is not constrained to our capacities - which would cease at object formation and reflection (not the act). Therefore, if one holds the premise that God is omniscient, it entails a contradiction to say that middle knowlege is impossible.
👍
 
This touches on something I heard Jimmy Akin say on CA Live awhile back. In response to the question why does God create people He knows are going to wind up in Hell? Jimmy said:
Yes, God is omniscient but He is outside time in the eternal Now. Just as He cannot create a square circle or a rock so big that He can’t lift it, He can’t know what choice a person with free will He hasn’t created yet will make.
So God doesn’t have contingent knowledge? What does that do to the idea of a Divine Plan?
 
didymus said:
This touches on something I heard Jimmy Akin say on CA Live awhile back. In response to the question why does God create people He knows are going to wind up in Hell? Jimmy said:
Yes, God is omniscient but He is outside time in the eternal Now. Just as He cannot create a square circle or a rock so big that He can’t lift it, He can’t know what choice a person with free will He hasn’t created yet will make.
So God doesn’t have contingent knowledge? What does that do to the idea of a Divine Plan?
Click to expand...
I find that answer by Jimmy Akin to be deficient. My answer to that question would be “I don’t know.” While God exists outside of time in the eternal now, he also exists inside of time because he is omnipresent. When God existed in time as fully human and fully God, Jesus Christ, he displayed accurate knowledge of the future. He correctly predicted that Peter would deny him 3 times. He also displayed knowledge of the thoughts of others. His disciplines clearly believed that he had “knowledge of all things”.

Knowledge of x, doesn’t change or alter x.
You can insert anything you want for the variable (the future, the past, the present, an apple, a can of soda, etc).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top