Sunday, September 28, 2008

Propositional knowledge and omniscience

Some theologians define divine omniscience as God's knowing all and only those propositions which are true. I call this the 'propositional' conception of omniscience. I think it's crap. Why?

Think of the widely different kinds of knowledge human beings have. I know that there was a French revolution. I know my wife. I know how to play guitar. I know where my school is. So, though I certainly do have 'propositional knowledge' (knowledge that something is or isn't the case), that is only a tiny piece of my knowledge. Much of my knowledge is in fact skill at navigating the world, or a certain relational one-ness with the object of my knowledge.
I can form propositions about my wife if I have to, but my knowledge of her is primarily a function of my having lived with her day to day for the past 3+ years.

So what happens when traditional epistemologists privilege propositional knowledge? Well, they take it to be the only form of 'true' knowledge, and therefore attribute IT and only IT to God (since God is, after all, a perfect being--wouldn't want to attribute improper forms of knowledge to the deity, right?). And what we end up with then, is a picture of God 'knowing' the world, and 'knowing' us at arm's length. God knows us propositionally.
But think about how omniscience could better be described relationally. Instead of my relationship with God being mediated by those pesky propositions, God could know me immediately, like I know my friends and my world. Propositions are a byproduct of the world and of thought, not the primary instance of knowledge. Therefore God's omniscience isn't primarily a doctrine about God's relationship to the set of all true propositions, but is rather a doctrine about God's relationship to the world.

God is all-loving, therefore God knows all, and this kind of knowledge is also presence with--God knows us because God lives in our midst, so to speak. God's omniscience is not the knowledge of a distant sovereign, but is rather the deep knowledge of love. God loves us and the whole Creation. Therefore God's omniscience cannot be divorced from God's omnipresence (both are aspects of God's love for the world). Propositional renderings of omniscience however, assume that God's knowledge of the world and presence in it and with it can be separated.

The truth is much more beautiful.

Peace,
-Daniel-

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