divine foreknowledge

Omniscience, Substance Dualism, and Private Access

I recently attended a seminar on God and Time with William Lane Craig (view my post on it here). One topic (among many) that caught my interest was Craig’s denial of one of the arguments for substance dualism, namely, the “private access” of some truths.

J.P. Moreland argues for private access in his work The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism. He argues that mental states have an “ofness or aboutness–directed towards an object” which is “inner, private, and immediate to the subject having them” (20, emphasis his). Basically, the claim is that even were someone else to know everything about J.W. Wartick, they could not say that they know what it is to say “I am J.W. Wartick”, because they are not J.W. Wartick. Certain truths and facts are such that only the knower can know them. I cannot say I am Abraham Lincoln, because I am not him. Nor could I say that I was Abe Lincoln even were I to comprehensively know everything about Abe Lincoln from the events that occurred in his life to the exact synapses in his brain. There is something about a phrase like “I am Abe Lincoln” which only Abe Lincoln can know.

Interestingly, Craig denied that there was such a thing as “private access.” He argued that, were this the case, it would mean God is not omniscient.

Why should it follow that God is not omniscient? Well, Craig defines omniscience as “Knowledge of any and all true statements” (definition from my lecture notes). Due to the fact that God would not know true facts which have private access, argued Craig, there is no such thing as private access. This seemed like an odd way to go about denying private access in regards to substance dualism. The argument seemed to be:

1) Omniscience =def.: God knows any and all true statements.

2) God is omniscient.

3) Truths available only through private access would entail truths God does not know

4) Either God is not omniscient or there are not truths available only through private access (1, 2, 3)

5) God is omniscient (2)

6) Therefore, there are no truths available only through private access (4, 5)

The argument would work, if one agrees with the definition of omniscience in (1). But I find it more likely that omniscience is analogous to omnipotence, which is defined as God’s ability to do anything logically possible. Why should it not be the case that God can only know things which are logically possible to know? On such a view, then, private access would not challenge omniscience whatsoever, because it would be logically impossible for God to know truths only knowable to their subjects.

I brought this up to Craig, and he responded by saying that my definition of omniscience made it into a modal property, and omniscience is not a modal property. I don’t see why omniscience could not be a modal property. In fact, it seems to me as though it is necessarily modal. Omniscience entails that any being which is omniscient would have to know all possible truths about all possible worlds (for any being who did not know truths for all possible worlds could be outdone by a being which knew about more possible worlds), which is clearly a modal claim. So it seems to me omniscience is clearly a modal property, and there is no problem revising Craig’s definition to:

(7) Omniscience=def.: A being is omniscient if it knows everything it is logically possible to know.

Further, a denial of (7) would seem obviously contradictory because one who denies (7) would have to assert:

(7`): Omniscience=def.: A being is omniscient if it knows everything, including things it is logically impossible to know.

And this would lead to contradictions about omniscience. So I don’t see any reason not to revise Craig’s definition of omniscience to note that God can only know that which it is logically possible to know (for a denial of this would imply God’s knowledge could be contradictory). But then private access provides no challenge to omniscience, and Craig’s denial falls apart.

Finally, “private access” seems like an intuitively obvious feature of knowledge. How could one deny that there are truths such as “I am J.W. Wartick”? It seems clear that only I can experience what it is to be J.W. Wartick. So I think it is necessary to modify Craig’s definition and simply deny his argument, both because God cannot know or do the logically impossible, and because “private access” is such a well-established phenomenon.

Edit: See the interesting discussion in the comments below. I am forced to modify the definition I presented in this post in the comments below due to an insightful comment by Midas. Those interested can read below or just read my modification here: “A being is omniscient iff it knows all truths which are not delineated by private access [of others] or experiential knowledge [of others].”

SDG.

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The Compatibility of Human Freedom and Omniscience

Note: The following argument is largely directly derived from William Lane Craig’s “The Only Wise God”

How is it that we have freedom if God already knows our action before we do it?

The main thing to understand here is that the so-called problem here is based more on fatalism than anything else.

The premise is this: If God is omniscient, then anything He knows is true, by necessity. So, if He knows the future, then we do not have free choice because we cannot make something He knows be wrong. Therefore, if He knows, say, that I will post this, then I MUST, I simply cannot do anything else, because God cannot err.

The simplest way to answer this, is to address the argument itself and prove that this argument is actually a logical fallacy.

The syllogism can be stated as follows (Craig):

1. Necessarily, if God foreknows x, then x will happen.

2. If God is omniscient, God foreknows x.

3. Therefore, x will necessarily happen.

Now this seems like common sense. But, let’s look at another syllogism that is based on the same logic.

1. Necessarily, if I am a bachelor, than I am unmarried.

2. I am a bachelor.

3. Therefore, I am necessarily unmarried.

So now we see the logical fallacy, for it is obvious that I, as a bachelor, am not unmarried BY NECESSITY, but because I simply have not chosen to marry yet. In fact, I hope to marry someday, but according to this syllogism, which is constructed exactly the same as the first, I would not, by necessity, EVER be married.

It should then be obvious that there is a complete logical fallacy in asserting the former syllogism.

In this brief discussion, I have only one more point to make. That is this kind of theological fatalism, which asserts the first syllogism, is no different from Greek philosophical fatalism. Adding the “omniscience of God” into the equation is just a substitute for knowledge in general.

For example, there is no difference in saying that “If God is omniscient and has foreknowledge, then what He knows MUST happen” and “If there is a true statement about the future, that statement MUST happen.”

Substituting God for a true statement about the future is just a way to add another layer of confusion into this fallacious assertion of fatalism (Craig). In a syllogism, I could put it as follows:

1. Person A knows that it is true that Person B will do X.

2. It would be a contradiction to say that “It is both true and false that Person B will do x”

3. Therefore, person B must do X.

Plugging God into the equation is, in my opinion, more of a scare tactic for fatalism than anything else. A logical fallacy is a logical fallacy, no matter who is involved. The syllogism could also be:

1. It is true that person B will do X.

2. It would be a contradiction to say that “It is both true and false that person B will do x”

3. Therefore, person B must do X.

These statements fall to the same fallacy as the one with God’s knowledge being necessarily true. The point is that ANY true statement is true, so it can’t be false.

Therefore, human freedom IS compatible with divine foreknowledge, because knowledge of something’s factual status does not determine the fact.

This is already longer than I wanted it to be, if anyone wants more I’d be glad to expand on it.

Source:

Craig, William Lane. “The Only Wise God.”