Omniscience

Keywords:

Timeless: God is outside of time and space

Everlasting: Exists in time

Omniscience: All-seeing

The debate:

• Does the concept of God's omniscience cooperate with theories on human free will and the other attributes associated with the Christian version of God?
• If god is outside of time (timeless) and space then God can experience time all at once and is not bound by time.
• God needs a complete full understanding of everything that goes on in the world.

Schleiermacher:

• God knows what we will do as he knows us as people (for example you can guess what your best friend will do.)

Boethius:

• Boethius was keen to figure out how God can be all-knowing and preserve our free will. This idea was crucial to Boethius as if humans don't have free will, he cannot judge us fairly.
• The solution Boethius proposes:
• God is eternal (outside of time).
• God is in the simultaneous present, viewing everything at the same time. Knowledge doesn't control the state of affairs.
• Actions are a conditional necessity, our actions are conditional on our decision to choose to act that way. God knows what we will do but doesn't cause us to do it.
• This solution preserves God's omnibenevolence as God's "foreknowledge" does not exist before our action as God is outside of time. God therefore has no control over our actions, preserving our free will and his omniscience.

Criticisms:

If our actions are known by God, they are fixed. If God knows what we are going to do, we cannot do otherwise.

• Boethius would respond to this by distinguishing between simple and conditional necessities. A conditional necessity is conditional on us choosing to act in a certain way, conditional on our choice. A simple necessity is something that has to happen regardless of choice, for example, death.
• Just because God knows what we will do, he does not control what choices we make.

Anselm:

• Anselm adopts a four-dimensionalist approach to God's omniscience.
• God is "that that which none greater may be conceived" and will therefore not experience time the same way as humans.
• Anselm believes that God still has a relationship with time, all time is within God. All time is within God and he is therefore eternally present, time is another dimension to God.
• Eternity to Anselm is the fourth dimension.
• As we exist in space, we relate to things in a relative manner, in a way that makes sense to us. God does not have the same relativity as he does not exist within space.
• God therefore learns our future actions by being with them in eternity, in order to preserve our free will. Despite learning our actions (which some might argue goes against the power of omniscience) in eternity, our actions always existed.

Anthony Kenny:

• Kenny critiques Anselm's and Boethius' eternal view by arguing that God experiencing time all at once is incoherent and not logical. This would imply that God sees all the world's major events happening at the same time, this would bring God's omniscience quality into question.

Swinburne:

• Swinburne adopts an everlasting view of God's omniscience.
• God has to exist within time in order to interact with his creation, an immutable god would not therefore be loving.
• God in the Old Testament is continually interacting with humans, for example in the 10 plagues of Egypt, God reacted to human action by sending several plagues to see if the Pharaoh would let the Jews go.
• If we didn't have free will, we wouldn't be able to make good decisions.
• God has to be within time to respond to prayers.

Aquinas:

• The purpose of prayer is to make people feel closer to God psychologically.

Nelson Pike:

• The eternal view does not solve the problem of divine foreknowledge as God knows now what we will do in 100 years

John Locke:

• Choosing to stay in a room that's locked is still freedom. (However, when the definition of freedom is the ability to choose between different actions this argument fails- you need to possibility of choosing the other action)

Gaylen Strawsen:

• To be in control of who we are to be held responsible for what we do.
• Issues with moral responsibility: can we be held to account for our actions
• Undermines the purpose and potential of Prayer.

Norman Kretzmann:

• A perfect God has to be unchanging, timeless and all knowing→to be all-knowing would mean to have knowledge of time→Having knowledge of time→change in knowledge/perspective. Conclusion: God cannot be unchangeable.