Omniscience Argument Revisited

[Rational AKD]

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, as I said I misinterpreted it.

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.

first, that's really a side issue rather than the big point of the argument. second, if the being who created God is capable of giving him all his knowledge, then he must have all that knowledge plus more making him greater. third, calling advanced machines greater things than the humans that designed them is a matter of opinion and value, not fact. biology shows we are more complex than the machines we build.

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.

I thought that's what you've said all along. but again, you can't say that's a possibility or an impossibility due to the conclusions of the argument. God either exists as the greatest being and it is impossible for him to know it for sure, or he exists with a being who created him, and it is possible for him to know this via interaction which would have to be intended by this said creator. one says it's possible knowledge and the other says it's impossible, it can't be both so the existence of said creator must be determined before you say this knowledge is possible for God.

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.

yes, but that doesn't go against God's omniscience or his existence. God could still be omniscient, you have not made a case that omniscience is impossible as defined in the argument. God can still be a necessary being rather than a created one, you haven't made against that. you're simply saying God can't truly know whether he is omniscient, which I agree with.

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.

the point of axiom S5 was to fit into the argument I made a little later. it can't be possible for God knowledge for God to know if there's a higher being who created him if it's possible it doesn't exist.

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.

i'm not here to discuss the MOA as I will probably discuss it in more detail at a different time in a different place. but I do think modal logic discusses more than just epistemic possibility. modal logic can show certain things impossible and thus their negations necessary, not just epistemically, but metaphysically (such as square circles are impossible, thus non-square circularity is necessary for all things). if things can be shown impossible and necessary metaphysically, then some things based off them can be shown possible metaphysically (such as circularity is possible for some things). in the case of God, there is a separate argument for his metaphysical possibility which I will not be discussing here.

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.

there is another way, but again this is off topic.

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

that's not what I would call a limitation. logical absurdities only exist as nonsense in speech. to say "God can't create a square circle therefore that's a limit" is nonsense since a square circle isn't a thing it's just a pair of words with no meaning when put together in that form. the same when applied to knowledge of a higher creator. it would be impossible for God to know he is omniscient if he is, so that's not a limitation.

-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)

1 is shown not a limit as seen above. 2 is not true, he knows he can but he can't know he is. 3 I disagree with, and I don't know any theology that would agree. 4 is a self limitation he imposes on himself thus would count as a limit on his ability. it's no more than a limit on God than a person playing touch football. they don't tackle because they choose not to, not because they can't.

How does God know he's not going to die - or the equivalent of it - fade from existence?

God doesn't know he is going to die, we do. that's the big difference.

Do you think God has perfect knowledge of the future?

certainly of his planned future of his creation. he can't know his fate if he has one.

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.)

as I said before, that's a self imposed limit not a limit in ability. God could create us without free will but chooses not to.

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?

it doesn't matter. God does know it is absolutely the case he created us and the world we live in. that's all that really matters unless this said higher creator actually involves himself with us and God.

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.

I would like to bring it up more formally on a different thread. I like to present new arguments in their own threads, I can inform you when it's up so you can be aware of what argument can confirm his omniscience.

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.

first, the MOA argues for a maximally great being, MGB, which is not necessarily the Christian God. second, you haven't made a case against the possibility of omniscience, so P1 of the MOA stands. it doesn't create any problem to the argument.

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.

I would say capability to know something counts as knowledge of it. I may not know what 5^8 is, but with some simple mental math I can tell you it's 390625. so I still have knowledge of it, it just take me a bit to think what it is. as they would say "I know the answer just give me a moment."

There ARE an infinite amount of possible operations. The number of natural numbers alone is infinite, and there are even greater infinities than that.

no, there aren't. there may be an infinite number of operations applied to numbers all together, but if you took one number like 1 you have a limited number of operations you can perform with just the number 1. in simple math it's multiplication, division, subtraction, and addition. you get more with higher maths, exponents, logarithms, sin, cos, tan etc. but the number is still limited.

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.

yes, with an infinite number of stairs and more than one way to climb one stair, there would be infinite plus ways to climb the staircase all together. I know the paradox, but i'm saying there's a limited number of operators, not operations. in comparison, i'm saying there's a limited number of ways to climb each stair so the ways to climb up one stair is finite. same for 2, 3 etc. the paradox thus only applies to operations, not operators.

So again, unless you think actual infinities exist, God cannot have all mathematical knowledge (no computer does, to be sure).

already answered, see above.