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    A perfect being could be omniscient without knowing all t... — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    A perfect being could be omniscient without knowing all truths.

    Divine Attributes
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.A stronger version of perfect being theology holds that God has a maximally consistent set of the divine attributes of knowledge, power, and benevolence.
      ?

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    • 2.Knowing all truths might reduce the amount of power or benevolence the being could possess.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Anselm's conception of God as 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived' entails no cognitive limitation whatsoever.
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    • 2.Any being lacking knowledge of some truth is conceivably surpassable by a being possessing that truth, violating the definition of perfection.
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    • 3.Therefore, omniscience as total truth-knowledge is analytically contained in perfect being theology, not merely one attribute among tradeable others.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Aquinas argues in Summa Theologiae I.14 that God's intellect and essence are identical, making divine knowledge coextensive with all being itself.
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    • 2.If divine knowledge were less than total, God's essence would be metaphysically incomplete, contradicting divine simplicity and aseity.
      ?

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    • 3.The trade-off model presupposes attributes are separable modules, which classical theism's doctrine of divine simplicity explicitly rejects.
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    Divine Attributes

    Related

    A stronger version of perfect being theology holds that God has a maximally cons...Anselm's conception of God as 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived'...Any being lacking knowledge of some truth is conceivably surpassable by a being ...Aquinas argues in Summa Theologiae I.14 that God's intellect and essence are ide...
    +4 moreShow less
    If divine knowledge were less than total, God's essence would be metaphysically ...Knowing all truths might reduce the amount of power or benevolence the being cou...The trade-off model presupposes attributes are separable modules, which classica...Therefore, omniscience as total truth-knowledge is analytically contained in per...

    Similar

    A being who could not possibly fail to be omniscient could not possibl...84%A being could know all truths only if there were a set of all truths.82%A perfect being's maximal knowledge plausibly includes not merely beli...82%In every possible world in which God exists, the essential predication...81%

    Source

    AI-extracted3/3 agreementValid
    SEP: omniscience
    View source passageHide passage
    Several recent discussions of omniscience have attempted to defend a more restricted account than offered by the preceding definitions. For example, Langtry (2008: 39) suggests that God is omniscient just in case, for every true proposition p, “either God knows that p, or else he does not but his knowing that p is not precluded by any defect or limitation in his intrinsic cognitive capacities.” Nagasawa (2017) claims that a stronger version of perfect being theology would hold that God has a “maximally consistent set” of the divine attributes of knowledge, power, and benevolence. This would al...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The passage explicitly states Nagasawa's argument that a perfect being could be omniscient without knowing all truths if knowing all truths would reduce power or benevolence, and the extracted premises accurately capture the reasoning presented.

    Confidence: Clearly articulated argument attributed to Nagasawa.

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit