We often hear of God's unlimited powers such as omnipotence, omni benevolence, omniscience, and who knows what omni-else. Where did God get these marvelous powers? Why, he got them the same way that Superman got his powers--by the stroke of a pen! Ancient theologians were obsessed with the kinds of qualities a perfect being ought to have, and they eventually came up with this list in an age that knew of no scientific limitations, an age that imposed no restraint on human imagination.
Do these powers actually mean anything or are they just an incoherent or contradictory collection of words signifying nothing? Take the case of omniscience, the power to know all that is logically possible to know.
God can only know those things that he does know. That seems trivial until you realize the hidden implication that God cannot know that he knows everything! He cannot know that he is omniscient. That would require God to know that there are facts he is unaware of. You can't know about something that you are unaware of, even if you are God! Of course, if this gap in God's knowledge can be deduced from things God knows there is no problem. We know that we can't read Chinese (if that is the case) because we know about Chinese newspapers filled with Chinese characters. Thus, the stage is set for a story about omniscience.
In this story God created the heavens and earth, including all the basic kinds of plants and animals. God has also taken a special interest in Homo sapiens, at least a little tribe of them. Moreover, God has no beginning and no end, and it seems to him that he can do anything that is not logically impossible. God knows of no rival. However, unbeknownst to God there exists a higher, more powerful being who has secluded itself in a higher realm beyond Gods perception. This being also has no beginning and no end, but it did not create our universe and it takes no interest in human affairs.
If God is supposed to be omniscient, then he cannot exist. He doesn't know about this higher being. But wait! This higher being has the same problem! It seems that no being can be sure of detecting gaps in its knowledge unless they can be deduced from existing facts. One could define gaps out of existence but that just begs the question. How can a lack of knowledge be detected if there are no clues? Since no being could be certain that there are no gaps in its knowledge, no being could be omniscient.
I do realize that omniscience is hardly a burning issue among us atheists, being that we generally have a very sensible view about those omni-powers, namely that they are so much philosophical poop delivered with questionable odors, but the problem here is intriguing. If sound, it could be a neat, little debating point.
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Well it is certainly the death of free will.
Yeah the idea that there is a god that knows everything and the final outcome makes me wonder why bother to create anything. It's like watching a movie and knowing the end, it isn't worth the trouble.
mykcob4,
An excellent point! There would seem to be no point in creating anything.
The proposition of omnipotence is really the scapegoat of all belief systems, as well as it's undoing. The irony of such systems is that they need not exist at all when omnipotence is professed by the global consciousness of apologists. It's a paradox in stained glass.
I can't follow your knowledge. If there was ever an instance that idea that perception is reality was most fitting it would be with God. God is omniscient if he makes the claim that everything he knows is all there is to know. If he really was omniscient there wouldn't be anything to not know and so there would be nothing to assume he didn't know. If God and his followers are operating under the context that there is nothing God cannot know than there is no point in mentioning things that God cannot know because they cannot exist in their world view.
The problem with that is that we already know more than this god could have ever known. Therefore this god is not omniscient.
If you believe that everything is predetermined then there is really no reason to go on. You can't believe in predetermination and free will.
I can't follow your logic. If there was ever an instance that idea that perception is reality was most fitting it would be with God. God is omniscient if he makes the claim that everything he knows is all there is to know. If he really was omniscient there wouldn't be anything to not know and so there would be nothing to assume he didn't know. If God and his followers are operating under the context that there is nothing God cannot know than there is no point in mentioning things that God cannot know because they cannot exist in their world view.
Bransen,
Doesn't this just beg the question? The question is "Can God be omniscient?" An objective analysis must begin with the possibility that such holes may or may not exist. One cannot begin such analysis by assuming what should be the conclusion. How would God recognize holes in his knowledge? You don't notice something missing unless the surrounding context provides a clue. That would not be the case since God sees himself as omniscient. He would not, in this scenario, be aware of a lack of knowledge. But he would have to wonder "Am I missing something?"
If someone handed you a deck of cards, no jokers, and you counted only 51 cards, you would conclude that a card is missing. Further inspection might indicate that the 7 of diamonds was missing. You know something is missing because you know what must be there. The missing item is linked to what you can know. But suppose someone handed you an odd deck of 42 cards with different symbols on them. Not knowing how many cards should be in the deck, and not seeing any pattern in the symbols, there is no way for you to recognize that two cards are missing. Without contextual knowledge even God could not know if there are gaps in his knowledge. The irony is that even if God actually knew all the facts he would still be short one additional fact--he would not know that he is omniscient. He could never be sure.
@ Brenson - That is precisely the point. One world view does not make up fact. If you profess God exists and he is omniscient then that claim suggests he knows everything. But he cannot know what he does not know. Its just that you have to take his word on the fact that he knows everything there is to know. However unless he has the ability to learn something that he does not know he cannot know whether there is something that he knows or does not know.
I can gauge my level of knowledge based on what I know but more so on what I do not know and I realise how lacking my knowledge is because I have the ability to learn what I do knot know.
God obviously cannot learn new things (He is a moron that way). Thus he cannot gauge how much he does not know and so there may be a lot he does not know. Since theist will take his word for it (which by the way is the word of someone who just cannot learn) it means their world view is limited.
Absolutes defy logic. However if you can provide proof of omniscience then we would deforced to believe but until then its absurd. making God irrelevant.