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’