Omniscience Argument Revisited

[MindForgedManacle]

excuse me, I misinterpreted you when you said this:

certainly if it is supposedly stated by God himself. God can only assume his omniscience, he could never know it, even in principle.

Completely skipped the 'certainly if' bit again? As I've said for the 3rd time, I'm saying that it doesn't matter WHO said it, even if it was God, they cold not be rational in affirming that he's omniscient.

yes, but he can't rule it in either. it would not be possible or impossible knowledge, it would be what they call indeterminate.

And did I not say he would have to be agnostic about it?:

You're not quite getting it. The fact that God can't rule it out, yet it's still POSSIBLY TRUE and knowable, God has to remain agnostic on this issue.

thus was something I took from one of your positions. let me see if I can lay it out for you.
1. a. you claim it is possible God is the greatest being, and b. it is possible he is not.
2. if he is not the greatest being then it is possible for him to know of this being.
3. if he is the greatest being then it is impossible for him to know whether he is the greatest being.
4. 1b combined with 2 equates to "it is possibly possible God knows..." 1a combined with 3 equates to "it is possibly impossible God knows..."
5. therefore 1a and 1b can't both be true.

1. I don't recall saying God could have been created by a 'greater' being, but a higher one in the sense that it's existence is causally prior to God's. After all, humans have the potential to (and have actualized, in fact) create things far greater than themselves, i.e advanced machines.

2. What I said was it's possible that God's potential creator created God in such a way as not to realize his limitations and such, like the existence and whereabouts of his creator, unless said creator allowed for such to happen. After all, we can impose limitations on our computational creations despite them outstripping our capacities in many ways.

3. This seems right.

However, I see where you're going wrong with the rest. What I'm saying is that if my #1 is true (and the possibilty is not denied, I presume?), then it follows with #2 that God could have been created in such a way as to be unaware of his inability to know particular things (such as that he was created) unless his potential creator allowed him to. So in other word (to repeat myself), I'm not merely saying it's simply impossible, but impossible from a certain perspective, i.e God's.

it's axiom S5 of modal logic used to reduce redundancies of modal operators. just because it seems apparent to you doesn't mean it's not useful.

I'm aware of what it is. Vinny and I had a 6 or 7 page long discussion on it in the Religion section. My point was it's meaningless in something like this. It's exactly equivalent to saying "If something is not true in any possible state of affairs, then it's not true in any possible state of affairs". Woop de doo, HOW do you know it's not possible in any possible state of affairs is what's in question when trying to apply modal logic in this way.

so you're saying you can't use epistemic possibility to find metaphysical possibility?

Epistemic possibility is just 'as far as I know, X is possible' while metaphysical possible is 'what is actually possible'. The unavoidable error in things like Plantinga's MOA - which Plantinga himself notes is why his argument doesn't establish God's existence - is that it trades on epistemic possibility alone. After all, I can craft a valid modal argument for the truth of metaphysical naturalism (and have in fact in that thread with Vinny) yet I'm still only using epistemic possibility.

It's only when X has been demonstrated to be the case that metaphysical possibility can even enter the fray (and even then, there are potential problems). But if you could demonstrate God's existence is the case, why would you need an ontological argument? The process here is entirely backwards.

or in. if God can't determine one way or the other, then whether the knowledge is possible for him to know or impossible for him to know is indeterminate. it's not automatically possible.

I'm quite sure I didn't say it was.

there are several differences between our situation and God's.
1. we know our limitations, God knows none.

Yes he does, and you've admitted one: He knows that he can't know he is omniscient. Further, he has other limitations:

-He knows he cannot sin
-He knows he cannot not be God
-Depending on your theology, he cannot know the future
-He cannot (or refuses to) infringe on our free will (again, depending on your theology)

There are all sorts of limitations God has.

2. we know we're going to die.

How does God know he's not going to die - or the equivalent of it - fade from existence? Do you think God has perfect knowledge of the future?

3. we have no control over the world, God has unlimited control over the world.

We have some degree of control over the world, not total of course. But then again, the limitations I mentioned earlier limit God's control over the world (can't usurp free will, etc.)

and no, I didn't say "God can't access if he was created..." I said "God can't access if he wasn't created." it is impossible for God to know if there is or is not a greater being than he if there isn't one.

What I mean is you have to make a strange epistemic distinction between we and God. To make this clear: How does God know it is absolutely the case that he wasn't created?

right, I forgot you took a skeptical position on this matter.

It's cool.

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Further, you seem to be trying to weasel out of actually trying to tell me how you know he's omniscient (if you do). And I have a feeling the reason you're doing such is because if it's possible for you to establish God's omniscience through reasoning, then clearly God could do so too, but you've already agreed that's not possible.

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there's a more indirect method of determining his omniscience, though I know bringing it up will start a huge tangent so i'm refraining from bringing it up.

I hope it's not Plantinga's ontological argument? And I likewise hope it isn't abduction, because that used improperly can result in clear question-begging.
I don't mind you bringing it up, because it's very much in line with this discussion.

whether he knows he is omniscient or not does not mean he is not, so this doesn't go against the ontological argument.

If you or God can't even establish God's omniscience as knowledge, then I think that creates more problems for ontological arguments, which they don't need any more of.

the information is preprogrammed. the don't store new information, but that doesn't mean the don't have information.

No, it isn't. Again, calculator's don't store all the mathematical information they output to you, they PERFORM the operations you input. Otherwise, you're essentially saying both calculator have infinite (mathematical) information, and so do humans. We don't have all that information, we perform the necessary operations to complete the equation input.

they would compute for an answer, which would be similar to us thinking about the answer to a test question. and yes, I already stated that there are advanced operations that calculators can't do. but because there aren't an infinite amount of operations, it shouldn't be difficult to conceive how God could know all of them.

There ARE an infinite amount of possible operations. The number of natural numbers alone is infinite, and there are even greater infinities than that. An interesting example is that there are more ways to climb an infinite staircase than there are stairs in that staircase. These kinds of infinites drove the mathematician George Cantor insane. So again, unless you think actual infinities exist, God cannot have all mathematical knowledge (no computer does, to be sure).