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Divine Knowledge and Divine Control: A Response to Gordon and Sadowsky

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

David Basinger
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Extract

To say that God is omniscient is normally to say that God knows all true propositions and none that are false. But what exactly is knowable? Some believe that God possesses only ‘present knowledge’ (PK). All that is know-able is that which is (or has been) actual and that which follows deterministically from it. Others believe that God possesses ‘simple foreknowledge’ (SFK). God can also know what will actually happen, including what humans will freely do. And still others believe that God possesses ‘middle knowledge’ (MK). God is able to know not only what will happen in the actual world or what could happen in all worlds but also what would in fact happen in every possible situation, including what every possible free creature would in fact do in every possible situation in which that creature could find itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 267 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 Basinger, David, ‘Middle Knowledge and Classical Christian Thought’, Religious Studies XXII, nos. 3–4, (1986), 407–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Gordon, David and Sadowsky, James, ‘Does Theism Need Middle Knowledge?’ Religious Studies XXV, no. 1 (1989), 75–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar All subsequent references to this article will be by page numbers in parentheses in the text.

3 Basinger, David, ‘Omniscience and Deliberation: A Response to Reichenbach’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion XX (1986), 169–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar