Omniscience

Omniscience

Many philosophers have argued that either we can believe in an omniscient God – that is one that is all-knowing and therefore knows everything that we have done, are doing and will do in the future or we can believe that God is not all-knowing and that humans are in fact free.  Some people have argued that if it is the case that God is all-knowing then it must be that humans cannot be free to make their own choices if God already knows what they will do.  Some however, have argued that the notions of free will and omniscience are compatible and this seems to the strongest argument of the three.

Free Will

• Some philosophers have argued that humans do not have free will and that if fact they are determined allowing God to be all-knowing
• Locke – free will is an illusion
• Ted Honderich- God has moral responsibility (predetermination) not humans
• This would suggest that God not only knows what we are going to do but also has some power over our actions showing that he is both omniscient and omnipotent
• Kant said we must be free to make our own moral decisions and we are morally responsible, exercising free will ‘if we are not free we are not responsible and cannot be punished’
• Sartre – existence precedes essence
• The bible states that God gave humans free will and Augustine said that God gave himself epistemic distance so that he could not interfere and humans could be free to make their own choices.
• Therefore humans must have free will and therefore the issue of God’s omniscience must be explored

Arguments in favour of Omniscient

• Some philosophers have argued that God’s omniscience prevents free will
• Aquinas – knowledge is immaterial and not physical therefore God can know all as he is not the same as us
• The idea of predestination suggests that God has complete knowledge of us and our actions suggesting that we are not free
• This can be criticised by the view of a God who rewards and punishes – Kant would support this due to moral responsibility
• Whilst there are strong arguments in favour of God’s omniscience, the view of a God who knows all seems incompatible with free will
• Some philosopher’s have tried to negotiate between these views arguing against God’s complete omniscience, and suggesting that God knows all we have done (past) and all we are doing (present) but cannot know the future thus preserving our free will
• Schleiermacher – even divine foreknowledge cannot endanger free will – analogy of close friends
• Swinburne – God knows what we have done and what we are doing but is only aware of the logical possibilities of our futures.  This is known as the middle way
• An alternative view on this issue is to adopt a view of God as eternal rather than everlasting.  If God is eternal, then time is different for him, than it is for us – he is outside of time and space
• However this seems illogical, firstly because this would mean that events such as ww2 are happening at the same time this essay is written and secondly because it means he is unable to interfere in the world

Conclusion

Whilst it can be argued that God’s omniscience prevents us from having free will and that our lives are predetermined, arguments from Kant and Sartre would suggest that if humans were not free then we cannot be responsible for our actions, thus removing the need for a God who rewards and punishes. 

It could be argued that a stronger view is that of Boethius who argued that god is outside time and space and therefore has full knowledge of everything that happens however has distanced himself from us to allow us to exercise our free will therefore making it possible to have an omniscient God whilst humans still have free will