Quick re-examination of omniscience: Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Philosophy of Religion » Quick re-examination of omniscience » Quick re-examination of omniscience

Quick re-examination of omniscience
and consequences pertaining to free will

Quick re-examination of omniscience

jorndoe
Investigator

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 06, 2008
Location: Canada,Denmark

Total Topics: 23
Total Posts: 721

Posted 09/06/09 - 07:41 PM:
Subject: Quick re-examination of omniscience

Brief examination of some consequences of pairing omniscience with timelessness.

(some of this stuff have been brought up before in various guises and contexts, apologies for the repeat)

Definition: God is a-temporal (or part of it's a-temporal-verse).
Theorem: God cannot be an observer of our reality (which is temporal).
Proof:

Anything that's a-temporal is inherently unchangeable; change and time go hand-in-hand.
No causal chain can affect something a-temporal; otherwise you'd be able to change something unchangeable, which is nonsense.
That is, anything that's a-temporal cannot, in part or whole, contain (or be) an effect of a cause.
For something to be observed, the observer is subject to causal chains; e.g. light reaches the eyes of an observer, and things happen.
Hence, an observer is, by definition / implicitly, subject to causality/changes, namely the observations.

Corollary: God is not omnipotent (follows from "cannot" in the theorem above).
Corollary: If God is omniscient, it cannot be by observation (follows from the theorem above).

Thus, "God may be talking, but sure aint listening" (source of quote unknown).

How, then, may such exhaustive knowledge exist?

Deterministic, predictable evolution; causal determinism; there is but one possible history/future.
Alternate, complete, a-temporal representation (co-existing with, or being identical to, said God); "foreknowledge".

Note, these two may be one and the same, for example if the representation, [2], is in the form of laws of nature.
Some laws of nature have been discovered through the rigors of science, so this isn't completely conceptually alien or unfounded.
It may be worthwhile noting that foreknowledge in itself, does not imply causal determinism (which would have seemed to rule out any common notion of "free choice"); [2] does not imply [1].

Some ideas describe "knowledge" as identity; that is, the "knowledge" is not separate from the subject matter.
We'll just skip over these here.

Definition: God is a-temporal and omniscient (by the representation, [2], mentioned above).
Theorem: "Genuine free will" can be ruled out.
Proof:

The representation is invariable (per definition).
Logical determinism necessitates all aspects of the future, as per the representation.
At any (given) moment, including this very moment, any future state of affairs are logically bound.
I cannot freely choose anything tomorrow, different from the representation, which is exhaustive.
Effectively, I only ever have a single choice, and thus course of life.

Hence, omniscience plus timelessness appears to be incompatible with free will.
This consequence also have intuitive support, though this is not a justification.

Rebuttals/flames/complaints/comments/less cryptic formulations anyone?

People are to themselves what they think; people are to others what they do.
∞
∑ 1/i² = π²/6
i=1

unenlightened
everything is...

Usergroup: Administrators
Joined: Aug 10, 2007
Location: Wales

Total Topics: 36
Total Posts: 3286

Posted 09/06/09 - 08:53 PM:	#2
jorndoe wrote: Anything that's a-temporal is inherently unchangeable; change and time go hand-in-hand. Its a very clear argument, but premises like this, I find a bit suspect. I don't think it makes sense to call what is a-temporal 'unchangeable'. I don't even accept that it makes sense to talk of the existence of anything a-temporal; existence tends to imply time and space. Our language and conceptions just don't work properly in relation to God, and to attempt to reason out limitations or proofs one way or another always seem to rely on depriving ordinary concepts of their usual characteristics. There does seem to be the possibility of change for God, because He is reputed to move in mysterious ways. (Perhaps orthogonally to our dimension of time?)
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

jorndoe
Investigator

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 06, 2008
Location: Canada,Denmark

Total Topics: 23
Total Posts: 721

Posted 09/08/09 - 06:10 PM:	#3
Those concepts, "timelessness", "unchangeable", have been around for a while — agreed (for the most part) they remain dubious. Augustine was one proponent of the view that, with change comes imperfection, so, God, being perfectly perfect and all, is changeless. Aquinas supported an a-temporal God for various reasons (and used it in the kalam / cosmological argument). Back in Bible class years ago, I seem to remember changelessness being more about attitude though. Kind of along the lines of, God does not change his mind on a whim like humans, is steadfast in his plans for everyone, etc etc. Maybe just a variant intended for impressionable youngsters. Certainly most concepts and language constructs (implicitly) operate in a space plus time context. It may be possible to argue for some notion of invariance, though, under some assumptions. If it is justifiable (via the usual methodologies) to arrive at some law of nature, ƒ, that describes some phenomena within some domain, then ƒ itself may be seen as invariable. All phenomena that can be described by ƒ, have ƒ in common if you will, and that commonality does not change in any observable sense. Sort of Husserl'ian I s'pose, a tad bit on the abstract side, but certainly familiar to anyone with some interest in science (or philosophy). But of course we do not observe ƒ "in itself", we observe the phenomena that we describe with ƒ. Does it make any sense to speak of a cause of ƒ (in a metaphysical sense)? Well, if ƒ is eternal/unchangeable/invariable, then there was no time when ƒ could have become an effect of something else. Is ƒ a cause (of anything)? I'm guessing most people of think of it that way, but what warrants ontologizing ƒ so? Either way, I think it's reasonable to call ƒ knowledge (justifiable, epistemic). Such an ƒ is not quite Spinoza's "God" (or Bergson's élan vital), at least I don't think so, but there seems to be some similarities; maybe ƒ is more like "God's will" (or one of them)? There may be some undefined or implicit relations among terms like "temporal", "change", and "variability" (and their negated/opposite counterparts). Are they (implicitly) defined in terms of each other? Can time be reduced to something else? Is time a generalization or quantification of change? (personal take on this cruft over here). I think most people use "time" and "change" somewhat interchangeably. "Moving orthogonally to our dimension of time" suggest multiple temporal dimensions. As far as the terms "change" and "simultaneity" are concerned, does it lead to anything intelligible? Possibly. Though probably not what the canonized theologians of old had in mind. Could a looong discussion on it's own (there has been several lengthy threads about this stuff). On the other hand, I'm more skeptic of the idea behind unenlightened (#2) wrote: Our language and conceptions just don't work properly in relation to God, and to attempt to reason out limitations or proofs one way or another always seem to rely on depriving ordinary concepts of their usual characteristics. To me, that seems analogous to insisting on defining the undefinable, anthropomorphizing the incomprehensible, claiming knowledge of the unknowable. Sure, unknowables may exist in some manner, but the kind of ontologization that some people entertain (in extension) is not tenable. Besides, this can only serve to avoid the diallelus, and does not really add to our understanding, well, other than perhaps the Socratic "wisdom is limited to an awareness of our ignorance".
People are to themselves what they think; people are to others what they do. ∞ ∑ 1/i² = π²/6 i=1

Sorry, you don't have permission to post. Log in, or register if you haven't yet.