I was listening to a Stand to Reason podcast, hosted by Greg Koukl. As I listened to the podcast, Koukl stated the simple and precise definition of omnisicence is "God knows and believes all true propositions." A proposition can succinctly be defined as a statement regarding a subject.
My question for Koukl is whether it is possible for God to know "false propositions." My reason for this is, if God is not able to know false propositions then there is information that it is impossible for God to know. An example of this would be a lie, which by definition is a false proposition. Although it would be possible for God to know that a person lied, as the event occurring would be a true proposition, it would not be possible for God to know the contents of the lie. Perhaps, God would be able to know the information if there was a statement made about the lie. For example, although Brian ate the cookie, he told his mother, "No mommy, I didn't eat any cookies"! The problem then becomes by knowing the statement about the false proposition God now knows the false proposition, which goes against the initial proposition regarding omniscience.
Using Koukl's definition of omniscience (which has been used by many others before him) I wonder if there is a means by which God is able to know false propositions or if the definition should be reworked to state, "God knows both true and false propositions, but only believes true propositions."
TSB VIII
2 months ago
7 comments:
Hey Dave,
I'm glad you're thinking critically about apologetics....just like we talked about "gotcha" apologetics the other day.
I think that Koukl would answer your question by saying that knowing true propositions has the necessary corollary of knowing about (or of) false ones. While I am tempted to say, as you do, that God does know false propositions an analytic philosopher would probably want us to sharpen our language. If knowledge is "justified, true belief" then by definition one cannot know things that are false. If I know that I have 35 books on my shelf, but then count and find that I only have 34, then I really didn't know I had 35 books because I was wrong. (This is the standard for knowledge developed by modernity and why historical studies fall outside the realm of knowledge and why Paul Ricoeur and Wolfhart Pannenberg are so important for theological studies!)
So, we would have to say that God knows *of/about* false propositions. To use your example, God knows that people lie and God knows the specifics of their lies, but God does not know their lies. That would be a contradiction of omniscience by my definition of knowledge.
Second, I'd take issue with your conclusion, "If God knows the statement about the false proposition, then God now knows the false proposition."
This is not the case. Let me offer a counterexample.
False Proposition (FP): Toronto is a city in Quebec.
Statement about FP (SFP): "Toronto is a city in Quebec" is false.
I can know SFP without knowing FP. I would know of this FP, but I would not know it itself precisely because I know SFP.
What do you think?
I agree that with Koukl's definition God can only know of/about FP's, and not know the Fp's themselves.
In regards to your counter example I thought the same things at first that this would be how one would get around knowing the contents of a FP without knowing the FP through SFP. The difficulty I find is how is one to know FP exist, if all one knows is True Propositions (TP)?
It would be the equivalent of me saying A is false. What is A? I have no way of knowing A only that it is false because I cannot know FP. Thus to make a statement regarding FP would be nonsensical. It would be the equivalent of me saying adsfasge43 is false. Perhaps, I can recognize the individual letters just as I can recognize, in your example, "Toronto is a city" and the independent words "in" and "Quebec," but as soon as I put them together they become unknowable because they form a FP. What are your thoughts?
P.S. I'm glad someone other than my Mother is reading my blog.
No offense Mum!
WELL!!!
Koukl says "knows and believes". We can know that a fact or feeling is not true, without having an intimate knowledge.
Intimate knowledge is knowing and also believing.
God can do what ever he wants. His omnisicence is not bound by man's explanation of it.
I am happy to say that, though I have a headache from comprehending this discussion, I DID comprehend it, and I am no where NEAR the theological brains that y'all are. I guess I just deal with simplicity. If I believe that God knows everything, the said and the unsaid, then I have to believe that God knows my lies, knows the contents of my lies, my reasons, everything. To say that God doesn't know the content of something about me is to negate His omniscience. I know that's rather surface compared to what y'all are getting into, but it's been a long day, and I can't put too much thought into anything right now, hence the headache in the first place...
Well put Tammy.
Sometimes theology needs simple fresh air.
I don't think it's because the statement itself is unknowable, but by the very definition of knowledge. There is no problem knowing the contents of a false proposition but not knowing the false proposition itself. There is not trouble knowing of false propositions if one knows all true propositions because all false propositions can become true simply by negating them.
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