Monday, October 30, 2006

Middle Knowledge; From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

3 comments:

Will Kratos said...

Actually, I'm looking for some people's views on middle knowledge.

Thoughts, Vic?

- Jim

Victor Reppert said...

It's been awhile since I looked at that stuff, but my inclination is to be skeptical for approximately the reasons given by Hasker.

Jason Pratt said...

I'm finally going out of state tomorrow (twice this week), and probably won't be in much position to comment on middle knowledge until Moday at the very earliest.

As far as I can tell, God should have direct knowledge of all points of space/time within a system simultaneously (from His perspective). In that case there would be knowledge and action at 'right angles' (so to speak, borrowing an electromagnetic field parallel) to the natural system; indeed, the knowledge would itself (I expect) be a function of God's direct action in keeping any point of reality in existence. As derivative creatures we experience the reality as a sequence of space/time instead.

If I could compose a novel all at once (from my perspective) instead of sequentially, and totally create it (in the sense that nothing is real except what I think to include and maintain), that would be the beginning of a parallel illustration.

(Whether this counts as having _middle_ knowledge in some way, I don't exactly know. I expect it counts in some ways, but not in others. {shrug} I would like to go over the encylopedia article and do a comparison, to satisfy my own curiosity and get a better handle on the topical relations.)

This principle would involve pantheism, and thus no true creation--_unless_ God is enacting a kind of death in regard to His action, so that the reality will be something intrinsically other than Himself. Which has numerous implications across the board, to say the least!

But this is working at the metaphysics somewhat backward, still. Numerous other positions would have to be concluded first, and in my experience one of those crucial positions would be positive instead of privative aseity.

Anyway, I'll check in next week and see what other people have written in with. I doubt what I've written here will really be of much help. (Sorry, Jim. {s} It isn't your fault.)