Omniscience is impossible.

[dfnj]

Sure you can. For instance, I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no elephant in my nose.

What you can't prove is there will never ever be an elephant stuck inside your nose. The important point, just like God, it is very unlikely given the evidence we know so far. That is the size of your nose and the size of elephants.

You can't prove omniscience doesn't exist because you don't know at some future point in time it might exist for some being you haven't met. As an idea, omniscience is certainly possible. And you can certainly have an opinion that it is unlikely it exists. But you can't prove it will never exist.

 

[Curious George]

As an idea, omniscience is certainly possible.

Not really, see sources in my earlier post.

Philosophy of Religion » Problems With Divine Omniscience

Omniscience (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I cannot really imagine anyone holding onto omniscience in any entity.

You need some major mental gymnastics to accept omniscience.

 

[Axe Elf]

What you can't prove is there will never ever be an elephant stuck inside your nose.

Well, I didn't say I could prove EVERY negative, I just provided one example of a negative that I CAN prove, to contradict your claim that I couldn't prove a negative. That implies that I can't prove "any" negatives (unless of course you were talking about one specific negative that I couldn't prove, but I doubt it), so I only have to provide one counterexample (and obviously, there are a virtually infinite number of other examples of negatives that CAN be proven) to disprove your claim.

You can't prove omniscience doesn't exist because you don't know at some future point in time it might exist for some being you haven't met. As an idea, omniscience is certainly possible. And you can certainly have an opinion that it is unlikely it exists. But you can't prove it will never exist.

And I think it would be foolish to try. For me, omniscience is an axiomatic property of God--no being that is not omniscient could be no God, no way, no how; no matter how they try.

EXTRA CREDIT: How many negatives can't be proven there?
BONUS EXTRA CREDIT: How many negatives can't not be proven there?

 

[JoshuaTree]

This just in: JOSHUATREE DECLARES THE BIBLE TO BE LIES!

"I form the light, and create darkness. I make peace, and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things." --Isaiah 45:7

I think a more accurate translation for Isaiah would be "calamity/disaster" rather than "evil" in the spiritual sense. Consider Job's words, shall we accept only good and not trouble from God? That's the context in which Isaiah was speaking. Calamity, disaster, trouble are all part of God's perfect plan to those with faith that God is in absolute control of all that was, all that is, and all that ever shall be.

 

[dfnj]

Not really, see sources in my earlier post.


You need some major mental gymnastics to accept omniscience.

If you accept the existence of a pantheistic type God, and you accept the idea our Big Bang is the result of star collapsing to a black hole in a previously existing space-time dimension, then when you take into account the trillions of stars in our Universe that will become black holes, with this larger idea of Time, then the only conclusion you can come to is over this larger view of Time every possible quantum state that is achievable will eventually get realized. If you accept the definition of God being the sum total of every space-time dimension with every possible quantum state realized over what can only be described as an infinite amount time then the word God represents an omniscient being.

 

[JoshuaTree]

Well, I didn't say I could prove EVERY negative, I just provided one example of a negative that I CAN prove, to contradict your claim that I couldn't prove a negative. That implies that I can't prove "any" negatives (unless of course you were talking about one specific negative that I couldn't prove, but I doubt it), so I only have to provide one counterexample (and obviously, there are a virtually infinite number of other examples of negatives that CAN be proven) to disprove your claim.



And I think it would be foolish to try. For me, omniscience is an axiomatic property of God--no being that is not omniscient could be no God, no way, no how; no matter how they try.

EXTRA CREDIT: How many negatives can't be proven there?
BONUS EXTRA CREDIT: How many negatives can't not be proven there?

extra credit: an odd number of negatives.

bonus extra credit: an even number if negatives.

 

[Axe Elf]

I think a more accurate translation for Isaiah would be "calamity/disaster" rather than "evil" in the spiritual sense. Consider Job's words, shall we accept only good and not trouble from God? That's the context in which Isaiah was speaking. Calamity, disaster, trouble are all part of God's perfect plan to those with faith that God is in absolute control of all that was, all that is, and all that ever shall be.

Absolutely, and the specific word really makes no difference; those are the kinds of things for which people hold God responsible as an evil monster anyway--because he lets babies and puppies drown in hurricanes, get squashed in collapsing buildings, and sometimes be forced to listen to the Bay City Rollers for hours upon hours without respite--who could worship a God that would let THAT happen?

In any case, it's clear that God IS unashamedly responsible for all kinds of things that we call "evil" for no other reason than that they affect us adversely.

 

[JoshuaTree]

extra credit: an odd number of negatives.

bonus extra credit: an even number if negatives.

My son once asked me how to tell if a millapede was boy or girl. I say count legs. He say why? I say boy millapede has odd number of legs. lol

 

[JoshuaTree]

Absolutely, and the specific word really makes no difference; those are the kinds of things for which people hold God responsible as an evil monster anyway--because he lets babies and puppies drown in hurricanes, get squashed in collapsing buildings, and sometimes be forced to listen to the Bay City Rollers for hours upon hours without respite--who could worship a God that would let THAT happen?

In any case, it's clear that God IS unashamedly responsible for all kinds of things that we call "evil" for no other reason than that they affect us adversely.

Faith doesn't and shouldn't insulate us from empathy, even Jesus wept.

 

[Axe Elf]

Faith doesn't and shouldn't insulate us from empathy, even Jesus wept.

Of course not. But I see the tragedies resulting from hurricanes and earthquakes and tornadoes and so on not as evidence of an evil God, but as evidence of a God who cared enough for the greater good to give us a planet with an atmosphere and environment necessary for humans to thrive on it overall, even if there are some localized disasters.

 

[JoshuaTree]

Of course not. But I see the tragedies resulting from hurricanes and earthquakes and tornadoes and so on not as evidence of an evil God, but as evidence of a God who cared enough for the greater good to give us a planet with an atmosphere and environment necessary for humans to thrive on it overall, even if there are some localized disasters.

Blessings to you and yours!

 

[Curious George]

If you accept the existence of a pantheistic type God, and you accept the idea our Big Bang is the result of star collapsing to a black hole in a previously existing space-time dimension, then when you take into account the trillions of stars in our Universe that will become black holes, with this larger idea of Time, then the only conclusion you can come to is over this larger view of Time every possible quantum state that is achievable will eventually get realized. If you accept the definition of God being the sum total of every space-time dimension with every possible quantum state realized over what can only be described as an infinite amount time then the word God represents an omniscient being.

And if you define god as a potato even the most staunch atheists will admit that a god is real. But it doesn't make sense to call a potato a god.

 

[Axe Elf]

And if you define god as a potato even the most staunch atheists will admit that a god is real. But it doesn't make sense to call a potato a god.

I dunno; they have eyes everywhere...

 

[Koldo]

That's not my name, and I don't speak French.

Google that.
Voltaire went to great lenghts, even writting a book titled Candide, to make fun of Leibniz when the notion of this being the best of all possible worlds was proposed.
You can find it in english.

 

[Buddha Dharma]

Omniscience does seem rather problematic and raises a lot of questions. One problem that a philosopher might raise against it is that knowledge is acquired by experience. If there is no transcendent nature to knowledge> then only through experience is it gotten.

That would be very problematic for Christians because it would require God to do everything in existence to have gotten the knowledge about it.

Further, one could as a weaker argument raise the following paradox:

To know all: God must know what non-existence is like. How could he know that?

Omniscience just raises a lot of seemingly irreconcilable problems, as all the Omnis do. Even if I was a monotheist, I don't think I could believe God was omni-anything because I understand the problem with these premises per philosophy.

Omnipotence is arguably the only one possible, but even that wouldn't be limitless power. It could only 'reasonably' be the 'most power'. I know Christians often say faith isn't reasonable though...

Maybe this doesn't change a Christian's mind at all.

 

[Axe Elf]

Google that.
Voltaire went to great lenghts, even writting a book titled Candide, to make fun of Leibniz when the notion of this being the best of all possible worlds was proposed.
You can find it in english.

Anybody can write a book, just like anybody can post on these forums. If I could educate Voltaire too, I would.

 

[Koldo]

Anybody can write a book, just like anybody can post on these forums. If I could educate Voltaire too, I would.

That won't do.
I am afraid that one more ignorant than Voltaire, on this subject, couldn't possibly educate him.

 

[Axe Elf]

That won't do.
I am afraid that one more ignorant than Voltaire, on this subject, couldn't possibly educate him.

That's why I said I would.

 

[Koldo]

That's why I said I would.

This post is exactly why you couldn't.

 

[Axe Elf]

This post is exactly why you couldn't.

Oh no, you are under no obligation to understand the education intended for Voltaire.