neo-x wrote:Jac, following from you can I say that God has no sense of time the same way we do? I ask this because other then that I see no reason to have tenseless knowledge.
Correct.
Jac, free will exists in you. For instance, the potential to put in a gold teeth is there but that does not mean it is there now because equally true is that the potential to not put the gold teeth in your mouth, and is CONTINGENT on your decision. So in a tenseless way, God can say Jac (could) want to have a gold tooth, but the other potential(grounded into reality) existence is also equally true that Jac (could) not want to have a gold tooth. Why? because Jac has not yet decided on it. I am curious how do you get rid of the "could" factor? to me it exists temporally.
the way I see it, unless you decide, God most certainly cannot say atemporally "Jac has a tooth of Gold" or "Jac doesn't have a tooth of Gold" in a tenseless way unless it corresponds to reality to us. Both are tenseless but both can't be true together in a way.
Sure He can. God can say, "On 7/3/2013, Jac has no gold tooth." That's true whether He said it to Moses, whether He says it to me today, or whether He says it to you next year. And if I get a gold tooth tomorrow, He can say, "On 7/4/2013, Jac has a gold tooth." Again that would be true if He said it to Moses, if he says it to me tomorrow, o to you a year from now. He knows
all things in a tenseless manner.
As far as God's knowledge of what I will do being contingent on what I actually do, that's a serious problem that philosophers have debated. Jeffrey Brower, for instance, [url=
http://web.ics.purdue.
edu/~brower/Papers/Simplicity%20and%20Aseity.pdf]argues that there is no way to get around what you are arguing here[/url], but the evidence for divine simplicity is far too overwhelming to deny, so he opts for compatibilism. I, however, (and, again, most classical theists) don't think we need to go that far. The answer is rather simple--God causes everything to happen
according to its nature. So determined effects He brings about in a determined manner, a free effects He brings about in a free manner. Of course, we would have to dig into that, and we can a lot if you want. But that's the bottom line. God causes me to
freely get the gold tooth. There's no illusion to freedom here. It's real freedom, and it has to be. The only alternative, by the way, to this is NOT to deny divine simplicity or to deny God's knowledge of the future beyond our choices. If you say that God cannot bring about our free choices in a free manner, then we have to say that we bring about effects apart from God. But if we say that, then God is no longer the First Cause, at least, not of everything. We would literally be uncaused causes. Moreover, that would mean that God's knowledge of our choices is contingent on us, meaning that God Himself is contingent on us, which means (again) that God is not the First Cause. It would also mean that God does not exist
a se. It would mean that God learns, which means that His knowledge is not perfect. It would mean that He can change, but no mutable, changeable thing can, again, be the First Cause.
In short, you only have two options here: either you affirm that God can bring about free effects in a free manner and thereby preserve God as the First Cause and all the other biblical doctrines about God; or you deny that God can bring about free effects in a free manner and thereby deny that God is the First Cause and multiple other biblical doctrines about God.
But, of course, if you affirm that God can bring about free effects freely, then there's no difficulty with the question you ask above. God knows everything tenselessly, including what I will do tomorrow, and He brings those things about such that I freely cause it to happen.
Jac, I don't get you, are you saying that REAL possibilities are = potentialities? Why is my stepping onto the road and being killed, not a real possibility or a potentiality?
Your stepping on the road and getting killed IS a potentiality. Real possibilities are potentialities. I'm saying that the problem here is that the term "potentiality" has important connotations that the term "possibility" does not. In short, all potentialities have real existence; not all possibilities do. For instance, I can say, "It's possible for unicorns to exist," put there is no potential for that in our universe, because the only things with potentiality really exist. Possibility just has to do with how we think. Potentiality has to do with what could actually come about in reality because of what things ARE. When God knows all potentialities, He's not just knowing a possibility. He is knowing
real existence. The question is simply whether or not that existence is actualized.
Again, to emphasize, the term "potentiality" is a MAJOR word in Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy. It is not identical to our word "possibility." It has LOTS of connotations. If you have a spare $10, but
this book. Install the free kindle app on your computer and read the first chapter. It has an excellent discussion on the importance of these terms.
Then God does not know what temporal feels like the same way he can feel like a fish, because he can't know facts in a tensed way.
A. God knows ALL facts in a tenseless manner (a tenseless fact)
B. God does not know tensed facts as tensed facts (a tenseless fact)
C. God is not omniscient because he does not know anything temporally (a tenseless fact) So even if he knows the facts, he does not know their tense.
Now you touched on it before as:
He knows tensed facts in a tenseless fashion. Some (like William Lane Craig) argue that takes away from God's omniscience, but that isn't true, because omniscience is about what is known, not about the manner in which it is known.
But I think its not the manner but a state of time that God does not know, a tense. Its missing.
And that's a common argument from analytical philosophers today. WLC, who you don't listen to alot, likes it and uses it when discussing this issue. But I think it fails for the reasons I've already cited. God also can't know subjective facts in a subjective way. He knows subjective facts in an objective way. Here, let me give you a real example. My favorite comic book is
Spawn. Lots of other great ones, too, but Spawn is my favorite. Therefore, I can say, "I know that my favorite comic book is Spawn." That's a subjective fact. And now that I have told you that, you can say, "I know that Jac's favorite comic book is Spawn." That's an objective fact. What you CANNOT say is, "I know that my favorite comic book is Spawn," where "my" in the sentence refers to ME (Jac). You can only say it if "my" in the sentence refers to YOU (Neo)--and if the statement is true, that is, that your favorite comic is Spawn, too.
Now what is true of you here is also true of God. God cannot know that my favorite comic is Spawn
in a subjective manner. He cannot say, "I know my favorite comic is Spawn." He does know it in an objective manner. He says, "I know Jac's favorite comic is Spawn." So does the fact that He knows ALL facts in an objective manner mean that He is not omniscient because He doesn't know a great many facts in
in a subjective manner? Of course not.
The important thing, then, is that the fact is known, not the manner in which it is known. And so it is with tenses. God knows ALL FACTS in a tenseless manner. He knows the tense insofar as He knows the tense from my perspective (and that in an objective manner). He can say, "I know that on 7/3/2013, Jac has no gold tooth and will get one on 7/4/2013." I would just say that in a subjective, tensed fashion as, "I know I'm getting a gold tooth tomorrow." In both cases, the content of knowledge is the same. It's only that I know the fact in one way, and God knows it in another.
Does that mean God's knowledge of tense is contingent upon you? But this does not mean that God knows it if you didn;t exist. Further, His self is his knowledge and therefore his knowledge is not in tense, therefore when we are in tense, he can not make a distinction in the two unless YOU have a tense to define it.
For instance. God knows that you don't have a gold tooth, he knows it in a tenseless way. There is no future, no past. Now lets say you have one tomorrow since we are temporal beings. Then will God update his knowledge that you have a gold tooth tomorrow? No. So does God knows in a tenseless way that you have a gold tooth? but then that is not true today, it will only be true tomorrow. Two opposite things in a tenseless way can not both be true.
See my comments above on contingency and God's knowledge.
Jac this means that his knowledge of a creature's feelings depends upon the creature, God can't think like a fish if no fish exists. God can have knowledge of a fish only if being fish = being God. But that is absurd.
As I've written elsewhere:
- What this demonstrates is that there is no reason to think of God’s properties (e.g., “being omniscient,” and “being perfect”) as abstract objects that exist independently of God. Rather, they are different ways of thinking about the same act of God. By the very act of causing everything, God can in one way be said to be all powerful, in another way said to be all loving, in another way said to be all knowing, etc. This is even true of the various ideas that God knows. Plantinga, for instance, argues that “the property of being a horse is distinct from that of being a turkey and both are distinct from God and his essence.” But if everything—including being a turkey or horse—is similar to God insofar as it exists, then God, by virtue of knowing His own nature (a single idea) would simultaneously comprehend what it would mean to be a turkey or horse. Thus, even these ideas, when considered in themselves are distinct, yet when considered as to how they are known by God are one and the same.
Fishes exist only because God willed them, and to the extent fishes exist, they are like God, because God IS existence. Fishes are just existence defined a particular way. When God knows totally and completely undefined existence, He simultaneously knows all ways that existence can be defined and limited, including that definition we call fishes. But since God also CAUSES their existence, then He is contingent on Himself alone, since if He had not chosen to cause their existence, then there would have been no fishes to know (He simply would have known that fishes could have POSSIBLY (not potentially!) existed.)