1 of 1- RomanJoe
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How does omniscience work for AT?
I know in the AT tradition when arguing for omniscience there is often an appeal to God's causal relationship with all secondary members. But how does one get from merely a causal relationship to an epistemic relationship with the world? I'm sure one can appeal to God's immateriality and its causal relationship for the existence of secondary members but is that really sufficient for establishing an epistemic relationship?
- Greg
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Re: How does omniscience work for AT?
Read through I q. 14. Of course a mere causal relationship is not enough. Lots of causal relationships are not epistemic relationships. Articles 8 and 16 are especially interesting. God's knowledge of created things is practical knowledge, the sort of knowledge a craftsman has of what he makes, or the sort of knowledge you have of which words are written on the blackboard when you write them with your eyes closed: knowledge which is the cause of what it knows. God knows created things through his making them.
Of course, if someone were in doubt as to whether God is intellect or whether God has knowledge of any sort, this isn't an argument against that. More would have to be said, which would depend on where things stand dialectically and how much natural theology one has developed. But that is the picture in view, anyway.
If one takes it as established that God knows himself, then one can try to argue that God would not really know himself unless he knew himself as cause. Or one could argue that the sort of activity which creation must be has to be an intellectual activity. If you plumb the nearby questions of the Summa, you could probably find the materials for an argument that would satisfy you, or which is supposed to satisfy you, whether or not you find it satisfying in fact.
- RomanJoe
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Re: How does omniscience work for AT?
Greg wrote:
Read through I q. 14. Of course a mere causal relationship is not enough. Lots of causal relationships are not epistemic relationships. Articles 8 and 16 are especially interesting. God's knowledge of created things is practical knowledge, the sort of knowledge a craftsman has of what he makes, or the sort of knowledge you have of which words are written on the blackboard when you write them with your eyes closed: knowledge which is the cause of what it knows. God knows created things through his making them.
Of course, if someone were in doubt as to whether God is intellect or whether God has knowledge of any sort, this isn't an argument against that. More would have to be said, which would depend on where things stand dialectically and how much natural theology one has developed. But that is the picture in view, anyway.
If one takes it as established that God knows himself, then one can try to argue that God would not really know himself unless he knew himself as cause. Or one could argue that the sort of activity which creation must be has to be an intellectual activity. If you plumb the nearby questions of the Summa, you could probably find the materials for an argument that would satisfy you, or which is supposed to satisfy you, whether or not you find it satisfying in fact.
Very interesting. I glanced over the material but will read it more in depth later. I'm guessing that one needs to hold to an AT type of hylemorphism with forms inhering themselves in individuating matter in order to talk of God as intellectually bearing those forms, right?
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Thread Starter- Greg
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Re: How does omniscience work for AT?
I'm guessing that one needs to hold to an AT type of hylemorphism with forms inhering themselves in individuating matter in order to talk of God as intellectually bearing those forms, right?
Well, yes, the particular account is one whereby the thing an artificer makes is the actualization of the intelligible form he knows: his activity is the instantiating of that form in matter. The account is specifically an Aristotelian one. That isn't to say that someone with different commitments could not adapt the view.
But also read I q. 15. Per divine simplicity, Aquinas will have to argue that each of God's ideas are in fact God, which is not the case, of course, with the human artificer.
- Camoden
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Re: How does omniscience work for AT?
I think this is derivable from God being perfect. By virtue of God being perfect, and God’s essence just being His act of intellection, it follows God knows Himself perfectly. Now God has power, so God knows His power perfectly. And by virtue of knowing His power perfectly, God knows where His power extends to perfectly. Therefore God knows Himself perfectly and all that exists outside of Him perfectly, as God is the cause of all being.
God possessing intellection can be argued quite easily a priori. God is fully unparticipated and fully truth (by virtue of His status as the First Being). Truth is a certain relation between the intellection and being. But God cannot receive His truth from elsewhere, or else He would be a participated truth (and to deny truth is absurd). Therefore God’s Truth just has to be His Intellection, which just has to be His Being. This is why I am convinced it is probably possible to derive all of God’s attributes from the transcendentals.
Now how God possesses intellection is unknown. We don’t know truths about God in His essence. But it does follow that God possesses knowledge perfectly in a causal way we can’t comprehend. How this relates to other problems is obvious. God by virtue of knowing His power also knows the extent to which He imminently contains causal perfections. But all things that can be contain a certain perfection (which a stain determinatness towards existence). Therefore God knows possibles perfectly. Now some of the possibles in question are creaturely essences of the free variety. There are true counter factuals about what free creaturely essences would do if they were instaniated in certain state of affairs. Therefore God possesses middle knowledge, albeit in a non propositional way.
Now we can argue that God possesses the content of all true propositions in a sense, but in a non propositional way. We can’t pervade how this is true, but God does possess it. God also possesses knowledge of future contingents, but in a causal way.
1. God knowledge is the cause of all that exists (because it it weren’t God wouldn’t be the absolute creator, and God just is His intellection)
2. Future contingent truths have been caused
3. Therefore God has knowledge of future contingents by knowing His will perfectly.
Now God’s knowledge is causal in the sense that because God knows something it will be. Because God knows that a thing exists at time t2 (which is future), that thing will exist. Just as God has proper knowledge of the accidents of things by virtue of being their cause, God has proper knowledge of a things accidental properties of endurance. Therefore contra Craig and others, there isn’t a discursion on God’s part. It just isn’t a true fact for God. God just isn’t conditioned by anything that exists.