Sophia

, Volume 53, Issue 4, pp 427–434 | Cite as

Restricted Omniscience and Ways of Knowing

Article
First Online:
  • 150 Downloads

Abstract

Recently, several philosophers have moved from a classical account of divine omniscience according to which God knows all truths to a restricted account of divine omniscience according to which God knows all knowable truths. But an important objection offered by Alexander Pruss threatens to show that if God knows all knowable truths, God must also know all truths. In this paper, I show that there is a way out of Pruss’s objection for the advocate of restricted omniscience if she will define her view in terms of ways of knowing rather than in terms of logical possibilities.

Keywords

Restricted omniscience Alexander Pruss Classical omniscience Omniscience 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Adams, R. W. (1977). Middle knowledge and the problem of evil. American Philosophical Quarterly, 14(2), 109–117.Google Scholar
  2. Alston, W. (1986). Does God have beliefs? Religious Studies, 22, 287–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Goldman, A. (1979). What is justified belief? In G. Pappas (Ed.), Justification and knowledge. Reidel: Dordrecht.Google Scholar
  4. Hasker, W. (1989). God, time and knowledge. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
  5. Korcz, Keith Allen (2010) The epistemic basing relation. In Standford encyclopedia of philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. Available from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/basing-epistemic/.
  6. Nagasawa, Y. (2007). A new defense of Anselmian theism. Philosophical Quarterly, 58, 577–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Nagasawa, Y. (2008). God and phenomenal consciousness: a novel approach to knowledge arguments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Pappas, George (2005) Internalist vs externalist conceptions of epistemic justification. In Standford encyclopedia of philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. Available from http://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/basing-epistemic/.
  9. Pruss, A. (2011). From restricted to full omniscience. Religious Studies, 47, 257–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Swinburne, R. (1977). The coherence of theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  11. van Inwagen, P. (2008). What does an omniscient being know about the future? In J. Kvanvig (Ed.), Oxford studies in philosophy of religion, I (pp. 216–230). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Regent UniversityVirginia BeachUSA

Personalised recommendations