Plantinga's Point
PAUL HELM
Teaching Fellow, Regent College, Vancouver
NOVEMBER 01, 2012
HELM'S DEEP PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY
http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.hk/2012/11/plantingas-point.htmlIn a little-discussed paper of Alvin Plantinga’s, ‘Divine Knowledge,’ (in
Christian Perspectives on Religious Knowledge, edited by C. Stephen Evans and Merold Westphal (Eerdmans, 1993)), he discusses and defends the thesis that it is no objection to accepting the truth of
God knows that p that
We do not know how God knows that p. That we do not know how God knows some matter is a fragment of negative or apophatic theology. Accepting this fragment entails that when we refer to God’s knowledge this bears no better than an analogical relation to our own knowledge: the two possess points in common, which make each a case of knowledge; and have points of difference, (the negative theological fragment), which together ensure that the knowledge in question is either a case of our knowledge, or of God’s.
Such reserve with respect to God’s knowledge seems entirely biblical. Writing of the extent of God’s knowledge including his knowledge of his thoughts ‘from afar’ the Psalmist (Psalm 139) exclaims that ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it’. (v.6)
I shall try to offer an abbreviated account of part of what Plantinga says here, but then suggest that this is not a very stable outlook; that is, if our knowledge of God's knowledge is only analogical, and our knowledge of the other aspects of the mind is likewise analogical, this cannot be confined to the actual cases that Plantinga discusses. Plantinga’s point cannot be restricted to ameliorating those claims about God’s knowledge that we happen to accept or approve of, but
it applies equally well to those clams that we disapprove of. ...
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