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Questions tagged [omniscience]

Omniscience (mainly in religion), is the capacity to know everything that there is to know.

Omniscience (mainly in religion), is the capacity to know everything that there is to know. In particular, Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) believe that there is a divine being who is omniscient. An omniscient point-of-view, in writing, is to know everything that can be known about a character, including past history, thoughts, feelings, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing".

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What is the point of creating for an omniscient being?

I read a book about determinism and free will that argued an all knowing / all powerful God and free will are incompatible, because if God knows our future then our actions are determined, hence no free will possible. My question, however, is this.…
Matas Vaitkevicius
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Is omniscience possible in a universe with quantum mechanics?

Today this argument against the existence of an omniscient being occurred to me. Can someone point out the flaws? Can someone point me to writings about arguments like this one? If an omniscient being exists, there exists knowledge about the…
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How can an omniscient being prove it 's omniscient and not just delusional?

Let's assert the existence of an omniscient being for the sake of this question. (Questioning possibility of existence is e.g. done here.) By its very nature, the being knows it is omniscient. It also knows that it knows etc. But is there any way…
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What other theistic positions support open theism besides Christianity?

Open theism is a libertarian view of free will claiming that God’s omniscience does not extend to knowing the actual choices of free human agents. It is a theory of “dynamic omniscience”. This concept became popular in 1980 with Richard Rice’s…
Frank Hubeny
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What is the "simple logical truth" that makes omniscience self-contradictory?

Patrick Grim claims in "Problems with Omniscience" that there is a "simple truth well established as a logical theorem", which shows that omniscience is a contradictory concept. I am failing to see the contradiction. What is the "simple truth" and…
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Is God free to make decisions?

God is omniscient, that means He knows the only one future. The only one future will become the only one past after some time. Thus we are sure that this future is really only one. It will be identified later. Being free of making decisions means…
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Does god know what comes after his death?

If god is omniscient, then he can see into everyone's future, including his own. If god is omnipotent, then he could in theory end his own existence at any moment. Would his omniscience include knowing what would happen after he ceases to…
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How far can compatibilism go: God as active creator with perfect foreknowledge and free will

One of the main arguments of compatibilists trying to save free will from God's foreknowledge seems to be that free will is still possible in the face of perfect foreknowledge as long as God only knows what will happen but does not coerce people…
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Can you be omnipotent and still change your mind?

Have been reading discussions about omnipotence and omniscience and got lost in the arguments. To me it seems there is no consistent definition of omniscience or omnipotence. But one thing struck me. Surely, if you are 'all powerful' and 'all…
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Is this really an omniscience vs free-will paradox?

Thought experiment: let there be an omniscient being who knows the future and an agent with free will. They are playing a simple game: there is a table with 2 cards and the free agent asks the omniscient being the following question: Which card will…
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Does Plantinga view God as knowing precisely what a human being will choose to do?

This question has been bothering me since I attempted an answer to Dmitry Ornatsky’s question about God’s omniscience: How does Plantinga's defense of free will align with omniscience I think Plantinga would say that God does not know precisely what…
Frank Hubeny
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Can God know every fact, or are there some facts that logically/mathematically/etc cannot be known?

Kurt Goedel proved there may be some things that are true but that cannot be mathematically proven. But God, being infinite, can know everything, even things that cannot be proven. Or can he?
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Does omnipotence entail omniscience?

Twice this week, in academic works, I came across the "idea" that omnipotence implies omniscience. I don't remember the first place I encountered it (I'm trying to remember, and if I do I'll add it to my question), but it was mentioned in passing so…
Adam Sharpe
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How to understand omniscience and omnipotence in order both can go side by side?

My question is based on what I know from this link where the question is Are omniscience and omnipotence mutually inconsistent? And in the link there is The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, where in short : If God is omniscient then He is not…
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What is a simplistic definition of Boethius' Consolation with Philosophy?

The specific extract is where he asks Lady Philosophy about the correlation of omniscience and free will having a coherent existence together. I know the extract well, but I struggle to define it simplistically without writing about two pages. And…
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