Board index ‹ God

[Boxes]

I am currently questioning my religion and trying to be more curious about it. If God is omniscient, or all-knowing, does he know what it is like or what it feels like to commit a sin? For example, does God know what it is like to be a thief or to steal? This is just an example but you could apply the same concept to any other sins or transgressions.

[jimwalton]

When we say that God is omniscient, we are undeniably talking about all things that are proper objects of knowledge. For instance, God doesn't know what it's like to learn, he doesn't know what it's like not to know everything, he doesn't know what would happen if an unstoppable force met an immoveable wall. These are absurdities. By omniscience we mean that God knows himself and all other things, whether they are past, present, or future, and he knows them exhaustively and to both extents of eternity. Such knowledge cannot come about through reasoning, process, empiricism, induction or deduction, and it certainly doesn't embrace the absurd, the impossible, or the self-contradictory.

To complicate the problem of defining omniscience, it can't be established what knowledge really is and how it all works. What are the principle grounds of knowledge, and particularly of God's knowledge? Does he evaluate propositions? Does he perceive? What about intuitions, reasoning, logic, and creativity? We consider knowledge to be the result of neurobiological events, but what is it for God?

But let's continue on to the true issue at hand: Is an omniscient being capable of thought? Of course he is, because thoughts are more than just knowledge, and they are more than just evaluating propositions, and the Bible defines God's mind as...

• creating new information (Isa. 40-48)
• showing comprehension
• gaining new information (Gn. 22.12, but it's not new knowledge)
• He orders the cosmos (Gn. 1)
• He designs (viz., the plan for the temple)
• He deliberates (Hos. 11.8)
• He can reason with people (the whole book of Malachi; Gn. 18.17-33)
• He can change a course of action (Ex. 32; 1 Sam. 8-12)
• He remembers (all over the place)

None of these conditions negates His omniscience. Generation of thoughts is not a process that negates His omniscience. If God is going to be responsive to human free will, which the Bible indicates He is (Jer. 18.1-12, Jonah 3), then thought does not imply a change of divine characteristics.

Is God's omniscience propositional or non-propositional? Can God have beliefs (since beliefs can be true, and beliefs are different than knowledge)? Are God's beliefs occurrent or dispositional? As you can see, this can all get pretty deep pretty quickly. At root, a cognitive faculty is simply a particular ability to know something, and since God knows everything, his cognitive faculties are both complete and operational. Perhaps we can define God's omniscience as:

• Having knowledge of all true propositions and having no false beliefs
• Having knowledge that is not surpassed or surpassable.

[Nuclear]

For instance, God doesn't know what it's like to learn, he doesn't know what it's like not to know everything

This isn't an absurd thing to know.

After all, I know what that's like, and an omniscient entity ought to at least know everything I do.

[jimwalton]

You only know what it's like because your knowledge is both incomplete and flawed at times. An omniscient being doesn't need to rise to that standard.

[Nuclear]

He doesn't, but he should know what it would be like if he did.

[jimwalton]

And what might make you think He is incapable of such speculative hypothetical situations and their potentials?

[Nuclear]

> Such knowledge cannot come about through reasoning, process, empiricism, induction or deduction, and it certainly doesn't embrace the absurd, the impossible, or the self-contradictory.

Then how does God know that his knowledge is accurate?

[jimwalton]

Pure knowledge has no other avenue but accuracy. The other alternative is false knowledge, which isn't knowledge at all, but rather deceit and departure from the truth.

[Nuclear]

Doesn't answer the question. How does God know that his beliefs are true, and not false beliefs that he incorrectly thinks he knows?

Also, how does he know that there aren't further truths that he doesn't know that he doesn't know?

[jimwalton]

It does answer the question. True knowledge can only be factual.

> how does he know that there aren't further truths that he doesn't know that he doesn't know?

When one's knowledge is complete, this question is an absolute absurdity. You might as well ask, "Can red really be water if the wall is not a wall?"