The coherence of Omniscience: A defense

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion

Volumn 41, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 25-34

  Abbruzzese, John E ^a  

^a BROWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 52849095245     PISSN: 00207047     EISSN: 15728684     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1002973432493     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. Hereafter 'MPB'. I shall avoid using the term 'God' since it connotes any of a considerable array of theologies and I wish here to consider a narrow representation of such a deity, i.e. one that possesses all perfections (and only perfections) in the highest degree. But despite the fact that 'perfect' is an incomparable, and hence does not admit of a modifier such as 'most', I shall nevertheless retain the commonly used title. I shall also retain the traditional pronoun 'He' for its stylistic advantages, even though it is neither politic nor coherent to speak of an incorporeal entity having a gender.
2. Patrick Grim, 'Against Omniscience: The case from essential indexicals', Nous 19 (1985): 151-180.
3. See also John Perry, 'The problem of the essential indexical', Nous 13 (1979): 3-21.
4. Hector-Neri Castañeda, 'Omniscience and indexical reference', Journal of Philosophy 64 (1967): 203-210. Richard Swinburne has also embraced this account.
5. Hector-Neri Castañeda, 'Journal of Philosophy Ibid., p. 210.
6. I am indebted to Nicholas Ingham, O.P. for the use of the term 'self', a modification that greatly refines my response.
7. One might object, however, that sometime after the incident, I may remember my fall and the fact that I had those feelings of guilt and embarrassment, and therefore feelings are indeed included in the knowledge of the fall. To this I reply that, certainly, if I recall my tripping, I will also recall, as a part of the factual knowledge of the fall, that I felt those feelings. But this does not entail that the feelings are knowledge; on the contrary, my knowledge is still purely factual, for it is knowledge that I felt such and so. What I actually recall is the objective fact that I felt these emotions, not the subjective feelings themselves. This objective knowledge, furthermore, can certainly be known by an omniscient being.
8. One may nevertheless object that the MPB could not know - or, more properly, could not feel - those feelings of embarrassment and guilt that my knowledge of falling elicited, and so He could not be omniscient. To this we can reply, simply, that even if one would consider these feelings to be knowledge, they are in themselves imperfections. To experience a feeling of embarrassment or guilt, a being would have to have committed some gaucherie or malefaction. Such actions, however, are logically impossible for the MPB to perform, for, by definition, He is perfect.
9. Patrick Grim, 'Some neglected problems of omniscience', American Philosophical Quarterly 20 (1983): 267-268. I explicate Grim's Argument with the mere change of 'God' to 'MPB'.
10. Patrick Grim, 'There is no set of all truths', Analysis 44 (1984): 206-208.
11. The basics of the 'Cantorian' argument appear first in Bertrand Russell's Principles of Mathematics (New York: W.W. Norton, 1903), pp. 527-528.
12. Many of the arguments that follow derive from Mar, as well as Keith Simmons, 'On an argument against Omniscience', Nous 27 (1993): 22-33
13. and Alvin Plantiga and Patrick Grim, 'Truth, Omniscience and Cantorian arguments: An exchange', Philosophical Studies 71 (1993): 267-306. I take the following formalization, with minor grammatical changes, from Mar, Op. cit.
14. This premise is ambiguous. While Cantor's theorem is true in traditional Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, it fails in W. V. Quine's New Foundational Theory (Mar, p. 431). I will assume, for the sake of argument, the Zermelo-Fraenkel theory.
15. Alvin Plantiga and Patrick Grim, 'Truth, Omniscience and Cantorian arguments: An exchange', Philosophical Studies 71 (1993): 267-306.
16. Simmons, ', Philosophical Studies Op. cit., p. 28.
17. Georg Cantor, 'Letter to Dedekind (1899)', in From Frege to Gödel: A source book in mathematical logic, ed. by Jean van Heijenoort (Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 113-117.
18. Georg Cantor, From Frege to Gödel: A source book in mathematical logic, Ibid., pp. 437-439;
19. Plantiga, From Frege to Gödel: A source book in mathematical logic, Op. cit., p. 297.
20. Mar, From Frege to Gödel: A source book in mathematical logic, Op. cit., p. 438.
21. Mar, From Frege to Gödel: A source book in mathematical logic, p. 438. Ibid.
22. I wish to thank Nicholas Ingham, O.P. for his generous guidance, which greatly helped in refining this essay.