- June 24th, 2021, 10:13 am
#388424
An example I think of often is the migration of Monarch butterflies which is a cycle that spans four generations. No individual ever completes the round-trip route in its lifetime, and in fact no individual butterfly ever has physical association or contact with another individual that has traveled the route, yet they 'know' how to get to the exact place that their grandparent or great-grandparent had been. Examples like this can be found throughout nature - though some animals do learn, others just know. As far as I'm aware, science has never been able to completely explain the mechanism by which this knowledge is passed between individuals. And this extends even down to the quantum level with what scientists are calling entanglement - there seems to be some way that information is passed between entities that isn't bound by the limitations of distance in space or time.
Given all these examples that we can see, it just seems to me that an omniscient God is certainly a possibility, even if the means to explain it is something that is still far beyond our ability to comprehend.
AverageBozo wrote: ↑June 23rd, 2021, 11:47 am Asked differently: how is God omniscient?
I guess I don’t believe God can be omniscient. I am therefore wondering how it is that many say that God is omniscient.I think these are interesting questions - how could someone or something actually be 'all-knowing? As humans, we tend to think of knowledge as being associated with the acquisition of data or facts or skills - something that we learn and store in our brains over time, that we can access at will or on command in order to demonstrate that we 'know'. In that sense, it seems an impossibility that anyone could acquire the totality of all knowledge. But I've come to believe that a brain-centered view of knowledge may not be the entire picture.
An example I think of often is the migration of Monarch butterflies which is a cycle that spans four generations. No individual ever completes the round-trip route in its lifetime, and in fact no individual butterfly ever has physical association or contact with another individual that has traveled the route, yet they 'know' how to get to the exact place that their grandparent or great-grandparent had been. Examples like this can be found throughout nature - though some animals do learn, others just know. As far as I'm aware, science has never been able to completely explain the mechanism by which this knowledge is passed between individuals. And this extends even down to the quantum level with what scientists are calling entanglement - there seems to be some way that information is passed between entities that isn't bound by the limitations of distance in space or time.
Given all these examples that we can see, it just seems to me that an omniscient God is certainly a possibility, even if the means to explain it is something that is still far beyond our ability to comprehend.
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
— Epictetus
— Epictetus
Favorite Philosopher: Robert Pirsig + William James
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