Boethius Flashcards
what does omniscience mean?
all-knowing
what schollars discuss Gods omniscience?
swinburne
botheius
schleiermacher
john sanders
what is providence?
Gods foreknowledge - knowing past, present and future all at once
what did boethius think about Gods omniscience?
- God experiences time different to humans, he experiences past, present and future in one moment all of the time.
- he must exist outside of time for this
- he has divine providence and doesnt experience the future so cannot know our actions
- time for God doesnt break into a continuim
- it is an indefintly persistent now. He is eternal and timeless.
what scholars discuss Gods eternal nature
swinburne
boethius
augustine
anselm
who argued for God being outsude of time
Boethius
Augustine
Anselm
why could boethius argue God is loving
- God it outside of time
- he knows everything
- but still gives us free will and doesn’t interfere with our actions , making him loving
- this gives him the power to be fair and loving in his judgements
for Boethius why might Go have a closer relationship with us?
- God experiences everyone and everything all of the time
- in human time we can only experience the present - it is without duration
- real duration is timelessness
- God can experience our past present and future all in the present moment making him build a closer relationship with us, he is with every part of us at once
- he has a greater emotive existence
for Boethius why might God be a just judge?
- because his existence is atemporal
- he has such a close relationship with u and experiences us all of the time meaning he knows us better than anyone and can make just decisions about us
- and becasue we have been given free will - our actions our own - our own conscious effort so it is fair - kant argued we can only choose roight and wrong with freedom
what does it mean for boethius to be a presentist?
he argues there is an absolute present moment
boethius quote
‘as though from a lofty peak’
what did boethius mean by simple and ncessary conditionality?
He agreed that God knowing our future actions made our actions necessary – but only conditionally necessary. he illustrate this rthough the example of someone walking.
boethius walking example
If you see someone walking, it is necessary that they are walking. However, that necessity is conditional on their having chosen to walk. The walker might not have chosen to walk, and then it would not have become necessary that they are walking. This is very different from the normal sort of necessity – simple necessity – which means something cannot fail to exist or occur, regardless of whatever choices people make.
how does simply and necessary conditionality mean we still have free will whilst God is omniscient?
- Everything we have done in our past, are doing in our present, and will do in our future, are all observed in God’s ‘eternal present’.
- Everything we do is ‘present’ to God. Therefore, our future actions have the same kind of necessity that the person walking has; conditional necessity.
- God sees our future actions and in his present they thereby become necessary, but only on the condition that we chose them.
- there is no incompatibility between omniscience and free will because God sees the results of our free choices and THEN they become necessary.
what is boethius book
’ the consolation of philosophy’
questions posed by botheius
- he asked how can God be free and God omniscience
- how can God judge fairly if humans are not free
summary a01 for boethius
- the theological dilemma of omniscient God and freewill and judgement
- humans exist within time
- they have fixed past and a future which is unknown to them, because future is uncertain they have free will
- God observes differently
- he doesnt have the same confinement within time
- he doesnt have past present/future
- transcend all change
- he lives in an eternal present, outside of time, giving him divine providence
- he experiences past present and future all at once he does not decide them
- his foreknowledge doesnt mean he is effected by human choices or surprised
- he further exemplifies this through necessary conditions
the time of humans
humans exist within time
- they have fixed past and a future which is unknown to them, because future is uncertain they have free will
what does as though from a lofty peak mean
- past present and future come together to form one eternal present
general strengths of Boethius theory
- Aquinas supported the timeless view and argued that if God was in time he’d be subject to the same laws (life and death) but this is not possible because he is perfect
- explain how we have free will and God knows everything
- kantian ethics maybe
- scriptural - LORD THOU KNOWEST EVERYTHING - JOHN
- knew judas would betray him at the last supper
WEAKNESSES OF BOETHIUS
- Swinburne - this is incoherent God exists as a sempiternal being
- But God does change - OT - NT
- God can be surprise suggesting he does not know all, for example when he asked abraham to kill his son to prove his faith, he realised he now knows it, suggesting he did not know it before
- process theology - God has a direct influence and interaction with the world
- God has already decreed people to the afterlife - the eternal decree calvin and augustine
god must have no start and no end to be an …
eternal refuge
what is Kenny’s critique of the eternal view?
Kenny claims that if God is eternal/timeless, then all events in history are happening at the same time for God, e.g. the battle of Hastings and the fire of Rome are happening at the same time as Kenny is writing his book. Kenny rejects that as ‘radically incoherent’. There a causal relation and sequence between events within time. The fire of Rome necessarily happened before Kenny wrote his paper. Yet if all things were perceived simultaneously, it seems an atemporal being could not know one happened before the other, but this seems to bring omniscience into question. Another example is that God would see Boethius writing his book at the same time as Boethius’ body lies in his tomb. That seems incoherent. Boethius’ view seems to wipe out the temporal distinction between events in time.
eternal vs everlasting
eternal = no beggining no end
everlasting - beginning no end
aquinas support
Aquinas argues that since God is perfect he cannot change, as any change for a perfect being would necessarily be a change away from perfection. Therefore God cannot change, and so he cannot be in time.
