Philosophy of Religion Research

Dynamic Omniscience: A Critique of John Sanders’s View of Divine Omniscience and Human Free Will

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

1 Assistant Professor at Philosophy Department, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Kharazmi University Tehran, Iran

2 M.A. in Philosophy of Religion, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

In his book, The God Who Risks, John Sanders tries to reach an adequate resolution to the conflict between divine foreknowledge and human free will. He admits God’s omniscience but denies  His exhaustive definite foreknowledge of future events. Sanders calls this “dynamic omniscience”. According to this view, future events are not knowable and are epistemologically open; So, divine foreknowledge is not logically possible. God knows all there is to know, but omniscience does not require foreknowledge. God may give a forecast of what he thinks will occur based on his exhaustive knowledge of past and present factors, but such predictions are always open to the possibility that God might be mistaken about some points. Just as omnipotence is not denied by saying that God cannot do the logically impossible, so too omniscience is not denied by saying that God cannot foreknow the logically unknowable.  This article is an exposition and critical evaluation of Sanders’s view.

Keywords

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Philosophy of Religion Research
Volume 17, Issue 1 - Serial Number 33
May 2019
Pages 111-132