Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:52:29.953Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Theism Need Middle Knowledge?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

David Gordon  and
S. J. James Sadowsky
David Gordon
Affiliation:
Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, U.S.A.
S. J. James Sadowsky
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Fordham University, New York, U.S.A.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

David Basinger, in ‘Middle Knowledge and Classical Christian Thought’, has claimed that whether the concept of God's middle knowledgeis coherent ‘cannot be dismissed lightly or ignored by those interested in classical Christian thought. For what is at stake is the very coherence of Christian theism itself’ (p. 422).

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 1989 , pp. 75 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 75 note 1 Basinger, David, ‘Middle Knowledge and Classical Christian Thought’, Religious Studies, XXII, Nos. 3–4 (Sept.–Dec., 1986). 407–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar All subsequent references to this article will be by page numbers in parentheses in the text.

page 75 note 2 An issue we do not raise in the paper is what is required for certain knowledge. Suppose, e.g. that one believes something on the basis of extremely strong evidence and one's belief is in fact true. The truth of this belief is, however, not logically necessary. Do these circumstances suffice for knowledge with certainty? In this paper, we assume, with Basinger, that God does not possess certain knowledge of a state of affairs unless he perceives it directly or deduces it from the existence of other states of affairs he knows with certainty.

page 79 note 1 We do not here assume the truth of this interpretation of quantum mechanics.

page 86 note 1 One might claim that it can be known that someone's character would make him more likely to choose one alternative than others or, with Suarez, that the chooser has a property (habitudo) for freely choosing one alternative. But either the character or property brings it about (i.e. causes or entails) that given the circumstances, the person will choose the alternative, which negates the hypothesis of freedom. Or it does not: and then God cannot by knowing the person's character or his potentiality for choice know the choice. The choice that would be made, if the possible circumstances of choice were actual, designates nothing, unless only one choice is possible. The question, what would happen if the possible circumstances were actual, is redundant and contributes nothing to our problem.