omniscient

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Omniscience ( /ɒmˈnɪʃəns/;^[1] omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing".

Definitions

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There is a distinction between:

• inherent omniscience - the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known.
• total omniscience - actually knowing everything that can be known.

Some modern theologians argue that God's omniscience is inherent rather than total, and that God chooses to limit his omniscience in order to preserve the freewill and dignity of his creatures.^[2] John Calvin, among other theologians of the 16th Century, comfortable with the definition of God as being omniscient in the total sense, in order for worthy beings' abilities to choose freely, embraced the doctrine of predestination.

Controversies

Omnipotence (unlimited power) is sometimes understood to also imply the capacity to know everything that will be.

Nontheism often claims that the very concept of omniscience is inherently contradictory.

Whether omniscience, particularly regarding the choices that a human will make, is compatible with free will has been debated by theists and philosophers. The argument that divine foreknowledge is not compatible with free will is known as theological fatalism. Generally, if humans are truly free to choose between different alternatives, it is very difficult to understand how God could know what this choice will be.^[3] Various responses have been proposed to this argument. One possible solution is that God could know every possible life one might live, but allows for free will according to laws set in place that cannot be contradicted. God would know all possible ways to live and all the outcomes, but a human being with free will would choose which specific life to actually live out, one decision at a time. God would allow for the ability to choose, and to not have full power over all in what was chosen by a human being each step of the way. God would be all-knowing in terms of infinite specific details of every possible life you could live.

God created knowledge

Some theists argue that God created all knowledge and has ready access thereto. This statement invokes a circular time contradiction: presupposing the existence of God, before knowledge existed, there was no knowledge at all, which means that God was unable to possess knowledge prior to its creation. Alternately if knowledge was not a "creation" but merely existed in God's mind for all time there would be no contradiction. In Thomistic thought, which holds God to exist outside of time due to his ability to perceive everything at once, everything which God knows in his mind already exists. Hence, God would know of nothing that was not in existence (or else it would exist), and God would also know everything that was in existence (or else it would not exist), and God would possess this knowledge of what did exist and what did not exist at any point in the history of time.

The circular time contradiction can suppose anything concerning God, such as the creation of life, meaning before God created life, he wasn't alive. Moreover to assume any more attributes, to then say God is merciful, but before the creation of mercy, he wouldn't have been merciful, and before the creation of the concept of negation (meaning to assume something as not), no one would have any concept of what is not. These apparent contradictions, however, presuppose that such attributes are separately defined and detached from God, which is not necessarily so. It is not a given that attributes which can be assigned to or used to describe mankind, can be equally (or even similarly) ascribed to God. Take good and evil for example: goodness is biblically defined as that which is of God; it is intrinsic to his being and is revealed most prominently through his provision of Old Testament Law, the keeping of which is the very definition of goodness and the neglecting of which (on even the slightest of grounds), is the epitome of evil. A similar argument could be laid down concerning God's omniscience (i.e. knowledge). It even eludes the idea a lot more even to assume the concept of "nothing" or negation was created, therefore it is seemingly impossible to conceive such a notion where it draws down to a paradox.

To assume that knowledge in Plato's sense as described to be a belief that's true, it then means that before everything came into being, it was all to be conceived as total imagination by God until the set of truth. One verse "God created man in his own Image" states that God imagined the form of humans, taking image as a root word for imagine, mistakenly understood as man to look like God.

The above definitions of omniscience cover what is called propositional knowledge (knowing that), as opposed to experiential knowledge (knowing how). That some entity is omniscient in the sense of possessing all possible propositional knowledge does not imply that it also possesses all possible experiential knowledge. Opinions differ as to whether the propositionally omniscient God of the theists is able to possess all experiential knowledge as well. But it seems at least obvious that a divine infinite being conceived of as necessary infinitely knowledgeable would also know how, for example, a finite person [man] dying feels like as He [God] would have access to all knowledge including the obvious experiences of the dying human. There is a third type of knowledge: practical or procedural knowledge (knowing how to do). If omniscience is taken to be all knowledge then all knowledge of all types would be fully known and comprehended.

The Omniscience paradoxes

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The Omniscience Paradox can be defined by these questions,

• "Can an omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, timeless, boundless, limitless, and uncontained Entity create that which it doesn't already know?"

• "If information is the substance and causation to all that exists, would an omniscient entity not literally be everything and anything in, or of existence?"

Well if such an entity is boundless and limitless to which is uncontained, its omniscience would thus need to be infinite. Thus saying it could create that which it doesn't already know makes no sense as there is nothing that such a being does not know. A being that is omniscient without bounds or limits would also be omnipotent, boundless and limitlessness. The seeming paradox is easily resolved when one considers that such a being would be personal. In this respect, the omniscient being would freely choose what to create and instantiate in reality. If information theory is correct, the sum of all total would be best characterized as the "contents" of the divine being's "mind", when the words used in quotes represent analogical terms due to the limits of human language and epistemology.

This also brings us to the question of how one can "know" how to create the following, which also seems to be the foundation of cause to our own existence. That is, how can an entity design and bring all the following listed objects or concepts into existence if information is so central to existence? The answer to this question lies in the fact that such a creative being (i.e. omnipotence) is not merely an accumulation of 'facts' that are added to one another but rather an ontological quality that is its very nature. In this regard, any attempt to reduce such a being to a collocation of information would be false as the very being is the actualization of the "information" comprised in the quality of omniscience. Without the being actualizing such information as an intrinsic aspect of its very nature (not some added attribute as falsely assumed by this alleged paradox) there would be no information to begin with.

Certain religious documents as evidenced in theological literature address attributes such as omniscience. We can explore these ideas in religious ideologies such as Christianity (as an example amongst others). In Orthodox Christianity there is a set of specific attributes to which they use to describe their God with. Among these attributes are as follows:

St John of Damascus, The Fount of Knowledge:

Abstract 1:
"The uncreate, the unoriginate, the immortal, the boundless, the eternal, the immaterial, the good, the creative, the just, the enlightening, the unchangeable, the passionless, the uncircumscribed, the uncontained, the unlimited, the indefinable, the invisible, the inconceivable, the wanting nothing, the having absolute power and authority, the life-giving, the almighty, the infinitely powerful, the sanctifying and communicating, the containing and sustaining all things, and the providing for all all these and the like He possesses by His nature. They are not received from any other source; on the contrary, it is His nature that communicates all good to His own creatures in accordance with the capacity of each."

Abstract 2:
"And yet again, there is His knowing of all things by a simple act of knowing. And there is His distinctly seeing with His divine, all-seeing, and immaterial eye all things at once"

1. Omniscient
2. Boundless
3. Unlimited
4. Uncontained
5. The containing and sustaining of all things
6. Timeless
7. Omnipresent

These seven attributes have been defended by many theologians and philosophers such as Richard Swinburn, William Craig and Donald Wacome ^[4][5][6]

Omniscient syllogism from a designer's perspective (This as if you are the Omniscient Entity about to design and create something into existence, such as a human being.)

I =: reference to the designer that is contemplating creation

1. I'm omniscient
2. I have an idea of something I want to build, construct, or make existent
3. I know infinitely everything about this thing, person, or place infinitely before, and infinitely after I have constructed it, or even thought of it.
4. I would know in my design everything it will infinitely ever do.
5. I would know everything about my design's essence or being to the point of actually, and literally being that of my design (object, entity, thing, or place) in every infinitely literal way. (and we must pay close attention to the term infinite)
6. I would know all the above infinitely in the past, present, and future.
7. This thing I designed would only be able to do what it was designed to do, and what I already infinitely know it will do.
8. Even if I wanted to state that I am only omniscient to which is knowable, 5, 6 (past, and present), and 7 would all be knowable. Omniscience would allow the said entity I to be the source of existence itself in the best case possible and everything else being the by-product of the designer's willful activity.

In this regard, we see how an omniscient being creative actions actualize his omniscience and instantiate a reality that is distinct from the being's "mind". Prior to the act of creation, all possibly created entities are said to be part of the omniscient being's mind. With the free act of creation, created beings are thus actualized (in the case of our world, in a physical form) and are thus distinct from their creator. Without the act of creation, seeming paradoxes might ensue, but the being creative action and self-limitation makes reality and individuation possible as the very act of creation is the acti of individuation itself.

Omniscience vs free will

See : Determinism, Freewill and argument from free will

Anterograde omniscience

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Anterograde omniscience is the type of omniscience used to incorporate complete knowledge of the future into God.

A common objection towards free-will is the fact that God knows the future, and what is already known is not considered part of free-will, thus is considered predestination. Such objections however are very controversial and have been refuted by proponents of Divine Omniscience. The alleged paradox arises from a misunderstanding of Divine knowledge. The common misconception is that God predicts the future. This however is a false assumption. The Divine Being who is Eternal does not predict human actions but rather post-dicts them from the future. As such human free will is actualized without any paradoxes.

If the future was given the definition of Physics, it can be drawn down to this. The past is something that's known, the future is something that is not known but may have an infinite series of possible branched time-lines and the present is the eliminator of possibilities. God knowing the future does not determine it as his knowledge is not a deterministic process emanating from the past but rather a knowledge that exists in the present and future actualized by human free action. The future exists as a web of possibilities whose outcome is known by the Omniscient Being but not predictively from the past, but rather post-dictively from the present and future. The mistake that is often made here is to confuse the human being's understanding of his actions and of physical phenomena with the knowledge possessed by the Diving Being. The two are not the same and once this is understood, all seeming claims of paradox are resolved.

Another possible response is to state that God knows the future but does not influence it. One may posit that God knows all possible future events, meaning that he would see an infinite number of timelines laid out on a plane, and such time lines would still remain to exist even if not chosen. Such a God would know every possible way of how something was going to be. He would know all the mathematical probabilities for example of obtaining event A and would also know if a free agent like a human being would cause A to happen. By virtue of self-control God allows humans to shape and morph their lives on their own accord. This way any seeming paradoxes are resolved as one can have a world with an Omnipotent, Omniscient and Free God, while simultaneously actualizing the possibility of free agency within the created order such as that seen in human beings.

Non-theological uses

Game theory studies omniscience; here it is not necessarily advantageous if one's omniscience is known. For example, in the game of chicken, two people each drive a car towards the other. The first to swerve to avoid a collision loses. In such a game, the optimal outcome is to have your opponent swerve. The worst outcome is when nobody swerves. But if A knows that B is in fact omniscient, then A will simply decide to never swerve since A knows B will know A's logical decision and B will be forced to swerve to avoid a collision — assuming that each player is logical and follows optimal strategy.^[7]

The field of literary analysis and criticism can discuss omniscience in the point of view of a narrator. An omniscient narrator - almost always a third-person narrator - can reveal insights into characters and settings that would not be otherwise apparent from the events of the story and which no single character could be aware of.

Discussion of omniscient technology can take place with reference to a context of (say) political surveillance rather than one of theology.

The word "omniscient" characterizes a fictional character in the Devin Townsend album "Ziltoid the Omniscient".

Theological representations

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The concepts of omniscience can be defined as follows (using the notation of modal logic):

x is omniscient =_def

In words, for total omniscience:

x is omniscient =_def For all propositions p: if p (is true), then x knows that p (is true)

For inherent omniscience one interprets Kxp in this and the following as x can know that p is true, so for inherent omniscience this proposition reads:

x is omniscient =_def For all propositions p: if p (is true), then x can know that p (is true)

But a critical logical analysis shows that this definition is too naive to be proper, and so it must be qualified as follows:

x is omniscient =_def

In words:

x is omniscient =_def For all propositions p: if p (is true) and p is (logically) knowable, then x knows [/can know] that p (is true)

The latter definition is necessary, because there are logically true but logically unknowable propositions such as "Nobody knows that this sentence is true":

N = "Nobody knows that N is true"

If N is true, then nobody knows that N is true; and if N is false, then it is not the case that nobody knows that N is true, which means that somebody knows that N is true. And if somebody knows that N is true, then N is true; therefore, N is true in any case. But if N is true in any case, then it is logically true and nobody knows it. What is more, the logically true N is not only not known to be true but also impossibly known to be true, for what is logically true is impossibly false. Sentence N is a logical counter-example to the unqualified definition of "omniscience", but it does not undermine the qualified one.

Unfortunately, there are further logical examples that seem to undermine even this restricted definition, such as the following one (called "The Strengthened Divine Liar"):

B = "God does not believe that B is true"

If B is true, then God (or any other person) does not believe that B is true and thus doesn't know that B is true. Therefore, if B is true, then there is a truth (viz. "B is true") which God doesn't know. And if B is not true (= false), then God falsely believes that B is true. But to believe the falsity that B is true is to believe the truth that B is not true. Therefore, if B is not true, then there is a truth (viz. "B is not true") which God doesn't know. So, in any case there is a truth that God does not and cannot know, for knowledge implies true belief.

While sentence N is a non-knower-relative unknowability, B is a knower-relative unknowability, which means that our concept of omniscience apparently needs to be redefined again:

x is omniscient =_def

In words:

x is omniscient =_def For all propositions p: if p (is true) and p is (logically) knowable to x, then x knows [/can know] that p (is true)'

Omniscience in Buddhist India

The topic of omniscience has been much debated in various Indian traditions, but no more so than by the Buddhists. After Dharmakirti's excursions into the subject of what constitutes a valid cognition, Śāntarakṣita and his student Kamalaśīla thoroughly investigated the subject in the Tattvasamgraha and its commentary the Panjika. The arguments in the text can be broadly grouped into four sections:

• The refutation that cognitions, either perceived, inferred, or otherwise, can be used to refute omniscience.
• A demonstration of the possibility of omniscience through apprehending the selfless universal nature of all knowables, by examining what it means to be ignorant and the nature of mind and awareness.
• A demonstration of the total omniscience where all individual characteristics (svalaksana) are available to the omniscient being.
• The specific demonstration of Shakyamuni Buddha's non-exclusive omniscience.^[8]

See also

References

1. ^ "omniscience". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 3rd ed. 2001."
2. ^ John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology SPCK/Fortress Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8006-3153-6
3. ^ For a clear example of this incompatibility argument, see http://www.valdosta.edu/~rbarnett/phi/free.html
4. ^ Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism
5. ^ William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith
6. ^ http://www.tyler.net/triddorus/omniscience.html
7. ^ dubious-discuss
8. ^ McClintock, Sara L. (2010). Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason. Wisdom Publications.

External links

• Omniscience entry by Edward Wierenga in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy