The Kalam Cosmological Argument and Divine Omniscience: an Evaluation of Recent Discussions in Sophia
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The Kalam Cosmological Argument and Divine Omniscience: an Evaluation of Recent Discussions in Sophia Andrew Ter Ern Loke 1 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This article evaluates the discussion concerning the relationship between the Kalām Cosmological Argument (KCA) and Divine Omniscience in recent articles in Sophia (Erasmus and Verhoef Sophia, 54, 411–427, 2015; Loke Sophia, 55(2), 263–272, 2016; Erasmus Sophia, 57, 151–156, 2018a). I argue that, in his latest article, Erasmus is guilty of shifting the focus of the discussion from the KCA to the Infinity Argument (the argument that actual infinities cannot exist). I contribute to the discussion by replying to the four difficulties Erasmus Sophia, 57, 151–156, (2018a: 153) mentions against my defence of the notion that God has an undivided intuition of all reality. I show that Erasmus has failed to allay the worry that the redefinition of omniscience by Erasmus and Verhoef is unmotivated and problematic. Keywords Infinite God objection . Kalām cosmological argument . Abstract objects .
Omniscience
Introduction The relationship between the Kalām Cosmological Argument (KCA) and Divine Omniscience was discussed in a number of recent articles in Sophia (Erasmus and Verhoef 2015; Loke 2016; Erasmus 2018a). The KCA is a traditional argument for the existence of God, and it may be formulated as follows: 1. 2. 3.
Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. The universe began to exist. Therefore, there is a cause for the existence of the universe.
* Andrew Ter Ern Loke [email protected]
1
CEC902 Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University, 224 Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
A. T. E. Loke
Erasmus and Verhoef note that ‘by way of the conceptual analysis of the argument’s conclusion, the proponents of the argument attempt to illustrate that the cause of the universe must possess various God-like properties, such as being beginning-less, spaceless, immaterial, changeless, personal and extremely powerful’ (Erasmus and Verhoef 2015: 411). Erasmus and Verhoef also note that, traditionally, theists have held that God is both unlimited and infinite, and that several conceptions of the divine attributes involve a quantitative notion. In particular, Divine Omniscience is generally understood as implying a knowledge of an actually infinite number of things (such as propositions or truth values) (ibid, 413–414). In this paper, I shall evaluate this discussion from the perspective of a proponent of the KCA who affirms that the mode of God’s knowledge is an undivided intuition (Alston 1986).
A Brief Summary of the Background of the Discussion In the first article, Erasmus and Verhoef (2015) observe that many proponents of the KCA have argued for premise 2 of the KCA ‘The universe began to exist’ by using philosophical arguments. One of these arguments tries to show that the number of past events cannot be actually infinite by attempting to demonstrate that actual infinities cannot exist (Craig and Sinclair 2009; Erasmu
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