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Omniscience is impossible.
- Thread starter Cary Cook
- Start date
JoshuaTree
Flowers are red?
With God all things are possible. 
Axe Elf
Prophet
I don't see why it's an infinite regression. If God knows how He knows everything, then that already includes EVERYTHING, including that. So there's no need to go chasing rabbits; knowing how He knows everything is just a part of the "Everything" that He already knows, you know?
Parenthetically, I don't see why infinite regression is impossible, either. Isn't that why we have calculus?
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but people define omniscience in various ways....
Human logic cannot define what and how God is God. Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence are fallible human descriptive terms of what is believed to be the nature of God, the eternal unknowable 'Source' of our existence some call God(s).
Infinite protraction (Infinite Regression)? please explain the problem. On the surface this appears to a rather mundane human descriptive math concept of infinite closed sets.
Infinite protraction (Infinite Regression)? please explain the problem. On the surface this appears to a rather mundane human descriptive math concept of infinite closed sets.
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It's not that tautologies and infinite regressions are necessarily wrong or untrue, it's that they don't allow one to explain anything. Same with thinks like division by zero, a colorless color, and lots of other "paradoxy" things.
That we think something is an infinite regression means that we probably don't understand it well enough to make sense.
Which I think pretty much describes ideas like omniscience, omnipotence and so on.
That we think something is an infinite regression means that we probably don't understand it well enough to make sense.
Which I think pretty much describes ideas like omniscience, omnipotence and so on.
Satans_Serrated_Edge
Deicidal
That is logically true.
It's also true that were he omniscient, he could not also be omnipotent. If he knows how every detail of the future pans out that means he is incapable of changing anything. An omniscient god is more like an observer watching a movie.
Samantha Rinne
Resident Genderfluid Writer/Artist
Your concept of omniscience is limited.
Let me demonstrate.
Suppose I were to know everything. There is are one of many events that will happen tomorrow. Four people are involved.
Person #1: A housewife, and mother of three. She is a widow, and raising kids alone. She needs eggs before the weekend because she's low on them, but it's Wednesday.
Person #2: A logger. His wife is cheating on him. He owns a big wood truck. He has yet to find out about it.
Person #3: The wife. She is debating whether or not to see her lover. They are driving to a secluded spot to meet up near the highway.
Person #4: The lover. He is feeling guilty and considering telling the logger himself.
There are AT LEAST five scenarios that can play out, just for four people.
Scenario 1: Nothing happens. The housewife stays home and sleeps in. The logger never finds out about the lover, the wife repents and resolves to remain faithful, they snuggle together. The lover backs off.
Scenario 2: As #1, except the lover gets jealous, and comes over to the house to make trouble.Someone possibly gets hurt.
Scenario 3: As #1, except the wife tells the logger about the thing. This can subdivide several ways, like the logger taking revenge, the wife and logger breaking up, or even the two working secretly to screw over the lover.
Scenario 4: The housewife drives out to get eggs. Nothing happens, and nobody crosses paths.
Scenario 5: The housewife stays home. The logger picks up the phone that day and hears the wife talking to her lover. He gets in his big logging truck, and plows into the lovers along the road.
Scenario 6: Housewife drives out to get eggs. She gets hit instead while the logger drives angry.
Scenario 7: Everyone involved in this scenario. The lovers get killed. The widowed housewife almost gets crashes into the logger. The logger calms her down, and they hook up somehow.
Branched causal reality. If you only believe in one reality, no ability to make decisions, this is a pretty stupid and limited way of looking at the world. Basically, you're dumbing down reality in order to declare omniscience impossible.
I've actually explained this before. Omnipotence involves the ability to add or take away power. Otherwise, it cannot be said that you are omnipotent, because there is something you cannot do (limit yourself).
Let me demonstrate.
Suppose I were to know everything. There is are one of many events that will happen tomorrow. Four people are involved.
Person #1: A housewife, and mother of three. She is a widow, and raising kids alone. She needs eggs before the weekend because she's low on them, but it's Wednesday.
Person #2: A logger. His wife is cheating on him. He owns a big wood truck. He has yet to find out about it.
Person #3: The wife. She is debating whether or not to see her lover. They are driving to a secluded spot to meet up near the highway.
Person #4: The lover. He is feeling guilty and considering telling the logger himself.
There are AT LEAST five scenarios that can play out, just for four people.
Scenario 1: Nothing happens. The housewife stays home and sleeps in. The logger never finds out about the lover, the wife repents and resolves to remain faithful, they snuggle together. The lover backs off.
Scenario 2: As #1, except the lover gets jealous, and comes over to the house to make trouble.Someone possibly gets hurt.
Scenario 3: As #1, except the wife tells the logger about the thing. This can subdivide several ways, like the logger taking revenge, the wife and logger breaking up, or even the two working secretly to screw over the lover.
Scenario 4: The housewife drives out to get eggs. Nothing happens, and nobody crosses paths.
Scenario 5: The housewife stays home. The logger picks up the phone that day and hears the wife talking to her lover. He gets in his big logging truck, and plows into the lovers along the road.
Scenario 6: Housewife drives out to get eggs. She gets hit instead while the logger drives angry.
Scenario 7: Everyone involved in this scenario. The lovers get killed. The widowed housewife almost gets crashes into the logger. The logger calms her down, and they hook up somehow.
Branched causal reality. If you only believe in one reality, no ability to make decisions, this is a pretty stupid and limited way of looking at the world. Basically, you're dumbing down reality in order to declare omniscience impossible.
I've actually explained this before. Omnipotence involves the ability to add or take away power. Otherwise, it cannot be said that you are omnipotent, because there is something you cannot do (limit yourself).
siti
Well-Known Member
Infinite regression is not really the problem - the real problem with omniscience is that to be omniscient it would be necessary to know what it is like to be profoundly ignorant - to know nothing (about anything) - it would also be necessary to know what it is like to have partial knowledge of something. If God, being omniscient, doesn't even know what it is like not to know what is for dinner tonight, then we all have knowledge that is unavailable to God. If God does know what I'm going to have for dinner tonight then he does not know what it is like to be ignorant like me. But if God doesn't have that knowledge then he is not omniscient after all. Either way God is not omniscient. But I don't suppose he's too worried about it.
These philosophical omni- descriptions of attributes of God make no sense whatsoever. These are invented by the mind of humans. Using them always ends up in getting twisted up in mental gymnastics as you note.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I wonder what kind of things?With God all things are possible.
That's not really a problem, since nothing is nothing to know.
I don't get your argument. Why could an omniscient being not also know why they are omniscient with infinite protraction and etc., etc..
shmogie
Well-Known Member
There is a school of Christian thought that holds that God is not omniscient, it is called the Open View of God. Though not knowing what hasn´t happened yet ( except when He reaches into history as in prophecy). He is perfectly prepared to deal as he chooses with what could occur. He knows every possibility, every option, every reaction. His purpose cannot be thwarted by whatever occurs, In addition, he knows humans, their thought processes their propensities, perfectly. Finally, his omnipotence can be used to manipulate events as he chooses to bring about the results he chooses. If God knows everything before it occurs, free will is an illusion, one must do exactly as God knew one would do a trillion years before. Everything is a movie God has seen before, it doesn´t change.
That isn't a regression issue thats just knowing what why and how. Different apsects of the same knowledge.
Also, only god knows why. I mean that seriously its not just a kid rock song.
Cary Cook
Member
That works when your concept of God is pantheistic.
Pantheism has another epistemic problem. It embraces logical contradiction, thereby making epistemology non-existent for all practical purposes - or everyone can make up whatever epistemology they want. There are no rules in pantheism but arbitrarily chosen rules.
Not sure if you're serious or joking here, tbh.
Cary Cook
Member
You're claiming not only omniscience, but magic omniscience.
And "why" is not part of the issue.
Cary Cook
Member
We have 2 choices: figure out the mental gymnastics, or just assume that God can't be over-flattered, and dogmatically assert whatever we like. A God who wants people to figure out reality would have no use for that ****.
There is only one premise which is oneness, starting from a singularity to what we call the "uni"verse. The logical implications easily follow.