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Can God Forget?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Margaret Paton
Margaret Paton
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh
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Extract

As far as I am aware the topic of God's forgetting is unfamiliar philosophical terrain. It is a topic that has many ramifications and in seeking to plot some sort of map of the area, as I see it, I am conscious that I have by no means covered all aspects nor avoided all pitfalls and that my approach would not necessarily be that chosen by other would-be surveyors.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 35 , Issue 5 , October 1982 , pp. 385 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1982

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References

** I am grateful to my colleague, Dr. J.J.Jenkins, who generously took time to read a draft of this paper and from whose perceptive and constructive comments I have greatly benefited.

1 I am indebted to Dr. S. J. Waterlow for her suggestion that a comparison might be made with the paradox of omniscience.

2 Pike, N., ‘Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action’, Phil. Review, 1965, Vol. 74, pp. 27–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Whether God can be said to have beliefs at all is questionable; but if the concept of knowledge entails belief, it is odd to claim that in some cases God can be said to know a proposition X without believing it.

4 Psalm 13, v.l.

5 Jeremiah 31 v.34.

6 Isaiah 44 v. 22.

7 Isaiah 1 v. 18.

8 Boethius, , The Consolation of Philosophy. Loeb Classical Library (1973), Consolation V, p. 427Google Scholar.

9 Op.cit., p. 425.

10 Kneale, W. ‘Time and Eternity in Theology’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 1960/61, pp. 87–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Kneale, M. ‘Eternity and Sempiternity’, Proc. Arist. Soc, 1969/70, pp. 223–238CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Strawson, P. F., Freedom and Resentment, Methuen University Paperback, 1976, p. 6Google Scholar.

13 Hick, John, Evil and the God of Love, Macmillan, 1966, pp. 307–311Google Scholar.

14 Wisdom, John, ‘God and Evil’, Mind, Vol. XLIV, 1935, p. 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Hartshorne, Charles, The Divine Reality, Yale University Press, 1964, p. 44Google Scholar.

16 For example Andersen, Hans, ‘The Snow Queen’, Fairy Tales, The World's Classics, O.U.P., 1959, pp. 228–272Google Scholar.

17 If it was argued that God could cease to hold a person's misdeed against him without necessarily dismissing the thought of it from his consciousness, a reply would be that from our point of view if we believed that God had the ‘memory’ of our transgressing continually in the forefront of his mind we should never have the assurance of being absolved from our guilt.

18 Kolnai, Aurel ‘Forgiveness’, pub. posthumously in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1973–1974, pp. 91–106Google Scholar.

19 King, Martin Luther Jr., Strength to Love, Pocket Books, New York edit., 1968, pp. 42–43Google Scholar. I wish to thank Miss C. M. Clunie for drawing my attention to this quotation.

20 Aurel Kolnai, op. cit., p. 94.

21 Romans 7 vs. 19 and 24.

22 Weil, Simone, Gravity and Grace, Routledge Paperback, 1963, p. 3Google Scholar: ‘All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception.’