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#Post#: 260-------------------------------------------------- |
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God's Omniscience? |
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By: ClassicalLiberal.Theist Date: October 28, 2021, 2:57 pm |
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Not sure if anyone still chats here, but if you're reading this, |
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good to "see" you. I'm having a hard time working through |
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Aquinas' (and Feser's) demonstration of God's omniscience. |
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Feser appeals to the PPC in order to prove God's omniscience |
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(since God is the cause of all things, all things must exist in |
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God in some way); however, I don't see why we need to ground |
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things in God by way of knowledge. Meaning, can't we just say |
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that all things exist in God because of his omnipotence, his |
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capacity to do all things? That seems just as good to me. For |
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example, when a robot creates something, that thing must exist |
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in some way in the robot, but we don't say it has knowledge. |
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Rather, the robot just possesses the ability to create that |
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thing. This line of argument, as far as I can tell, can be |
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applied to God as well. |
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As for Aquinas, he states that immateriality is the |
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knowledge-making-property of beings. He then continues, since |
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God is the highest degree of immateriality, he must also be |
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omniscient. But this doesn't seem right to me. I think that |
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knowledge entails immateriality, but I don't know if this |
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necessarily works the other way around. |
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Hopefully someone has some answers. Thanks! |
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#Post#: 261-------------------------------------------------- |
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Re: God's Omniscience? |
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By: theophilius Date: November 9, 2021, 7:14 am |
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Hello ClassicalLiberal. |
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Keep in mind that a robot does not create something but |
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"assemble", "produce", something. The act of creation, properly |
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speaking, can be said of a God's act only because only God can |
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create without any existing thing (creatio ex-nihilo). Therefore |
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when God creates, necessarily knows what create, as a composer |
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knows what music he is composing. Now, since nothing can exists |
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without the act of existance and the act of existance is God's |
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first cause, it follows that God knows everything that exists or |
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can exists. |
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