Question of the Week #911: God’s Timeless Knowledge of Events in Time
Oct 31, 2024
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Delve into the intriguing relationship between God's omniscience and His existence outside of time. Discover how He perceives possible worlds and the actual reality without being bound by temporal constraints. The discussion highlights the complexity of God's knowledge of future events as contingent upon the moment of creation, contrasting timeless understanding with the lack of foreknowledge regarding tensed truths prior to creation. Prepare for profound theological and philosophical insights!
God's omniscience operates in a tenseless context, lacking tensed truths about future events until creation occurs.
God's understanding of possible worlds is based on tenseless propositions, differentiating between truths of the actual world and hypothetical scenarios.
Deep dives
God's Timelessness and Knowledge
In the view presented, God exists in a timeless state prior to creation, meaning that concepts of time and tense do not apply to Him until the act of creation itself. As a result, God's knowledge lacks tensed truths, and propositions regarding future events simply do not hold any truth value in the timeless phase. For instance, the statement about Adam naming the animals transitions from false to true only at the point of creation, highlighting the absence of foreknowledge in the classical temporal sense. Therefore, while God is omniscient, this omniscience must be understood in the context of tenseless knowledge rather than tense truths during His timeless existence.
Differentiating Between Possible Worlds
The speaker explains that God's understanding of possible worlds relies on the concept of tenseless propositions, which are true both in a timeless context and once time exists. When considering various scenarios in different possible worlds, God distinguishes between what is true about the actual world and falsehoods associated with hypothetical situations. For example, God could know tenseless propositions, like 'in world W, Columbus drowns on his voyage,' because it relates to a specific indexed event rather than a non-indexed future belief. This approach allows God to maintain an awareness of actual historical events without engaging in belief about non-actual futures, aligning with the idea of His timeless knowledge.
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Exploring God's Omniscience and Timeless Knowledge