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For the album by Swans, see Omniscience (album). Omniscience is a live release by the New York No wave band Swans.

Omniscience (or 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 monotheism, this ability is typically attributed to God. For the Celtic Frost album see Monotheist (album In Theology, monotheism (from Greek grc [[wiktμόνος μόνος]] God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity. This concept is included in the Qur'an, where God is called "Al-'aleem" on multiple occasions. The Qur’an ( القرآن, literally "the recitation" also sometimes transliterated as Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran This is the infinite form of the verb "alema" which means to know. In the Bible, God is referred to often as "The Great I Am," among other similar names, which also incorporates His omnipresence and omnipotence. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin Omnipresence is the ability to be present in every place at any and/or every time unbounded or universal presence Omnipotence ( Omni Potens: "all Power " is unlimited power In Hinduism, God is referred to as sarv-gyaata (omniscient), sarv-samarth (omnipotent) and sarv-vyapt (omnipresent); where sarv-gyaata means sarv (all) gyaata (knowing).

Contents

Definition

There is a distinction between:

and

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. [1] Certain theologians of the 16th Century, comfortable with the definition of God as being omniscient in the total sense, to rebuke created beings' ability to choose freely.

Controversies

Nontheism often claims that the very concept of omniscience is inherently contradictory. Nontheism is a term that covers a range of both religious and nonreligious attitudes characterized by the absence of&mdashor the rejection of&mdash Theism or any belief in a

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. In short, God's mind would be the equivalent of an inalterable textbook which would contain all knowledge of everything in history within it, albeit an infinite one.

It should be added that the above definitions cover what is called propositional knowledge (knowing that), as opposed to experiential knowledge (knowing how). Descriptive knowledge, also declarative knowledge or propositional knowledge, is the species of Knowledge that is by its very nature expressed in Experiential knowledge is Knowledge gained through Experience as opposed to a priori (before experience knowledge 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 e. g. 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). Procedural knowledge is the knowledge exercised in the performance of some task If omniscience is taken to be infinite then all knowledge of all types would be fully known and comprehended.

A related but distinct ability is omnipotence (unlimited power). Omnipotence ( Omni Potens: "all Power " is unlimited power Omniscience is sometimes understood to also imply the capacity to know everything that will be.

Foreknowledge and its compatibility with free will has been a debated topic by theists and philosophers. The question of free will Theism, in its most inclusive usage is the belief in at least one Deity. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language The argument that divine foreknowledge is not compatible with free will is known as theological fatalism. Theological fatalism is the view that all our actions are pre-determined because of God's forknowledge of them and that therefore we have no free will If man is truly free to choose between different alternatives, it is very difficult to understand how God could know in advance which way he will choose. [2] Various responses have been proposed:

Non-theological uses

Omniscience is also studied in game theory, where it is not necessarily an advantageous quality if one's omniscience is a published fact. Game theory is a branch of Applied mathematics that is used in the Social sciences (most notably Economics) Biology, Engineering, For example, in the game of chicken: two people each drive a car towards the other. The game of Chicken, also known as the Hawk-Dove or Snowdrift game is an influential model of conflict for two players in Game theory. 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 — this is assuming each player is logical and follows optimal strategy.

Omniscience is also used in the field of literary analysis and criticism, referring to the point of view of the narrator. An omniscient narrator is almost always a third-person narrator, capable of revealing 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.

Theological representations

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

x is omniscient =def \forall p(p \Rightarrow Kxp)

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 \forall p((p \land \Diamond Kp) \Rightarrow Kxp)

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. A modal logic is any system of formal logic that attempts to deal with modalities. 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 (= "Nobody knows that this sentence is true") 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 \forall p((p \land \Diamond Kxp) \Rightarrow Kxp)

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)

See also

References

  1. ^ see eg John Polkinghorne Science and Theology for a discussion of his position and that of other scientist-theologians
  2. ^ For a clear example of this incompatibility argument, see http://www.valdosta.edu/~rbarnett/phi/free.html
  3. ^ See also Divine Providence versus the concept of Fate
Omnibenevolence is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "unlimited or infinite Benevolence " Omnipotence ( Omni Potens: "all Power " is unlimited power Omnipresence is the ability to be present in every place at any and/or every time unbounded or universal presence Impassibility (from Latin in-, "not" passibilis, "able to suffer experience emotion" describes the theological Doctrine A pantomath means etymologically a person who knows everything Predestination (also linked with Foreknowledge) is a religious concept which involves the relationship between God and His creation In the Philosophy of religion and Theology, the problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of Evil or Suffering in the world Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge John Polkinghorne, In Theology, Divine Providence, or simply Providence, is the sovereignty superintendence or agency of God over events in people's lives and throughout Destiny refers to a predetermined course of events It may be conceived as a predetermined future whether in general or of an individual

Dictionary

omniscience

-noun

  1. The capacity to know everything.
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