Omniscience and ignorance
God’s omniscience generates certain puzzles, not least regarding how such omniscience is compatible with human free will. One option in this regard is to impose limitations on the scope of God’s knowledge, but that then poses the further question of how such limitations can be compatible with God’s...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | Brasil |
| Institución: | Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) |
| Repositorio: | Veritas (Porto Alegre. Online) |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ojs.revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br:article/41050 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/veritas/article/view/41050 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Epistemology God Ignorance Omniscience Philosophy of Religion Epistemología Dios Ignorancia Omnisciencia Filosofia de la religión Epistemologia Deus Ignorância Onisciência Filosofia da Religião |
| Sumario: | God’s omniscience generates certain puzzles, not least regarding how such omniscience is compatible with human free will. One option in this regard is to impose limitations on the scope of God’s knowledge, but that then poses the further question of how such limitations can be compatible with God’s nature as a perfect being. I offer a novel way of approaching these questions, which appeals to what I claim is an independently motivated distinction between lacking knowledge and being ignorant. In particular, it is contended that God’s omniscience is best understood not as a complete knowledge of all truths, but rather as a kind of deliberate non-knowing (such that the non-knowing does not indicate any cognitive lack on God’s part) that excludes ignorance. God might not know all truths, but that’s not because of any cognitive lack, and there is certainly no truth about which he is ignorant. |
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