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Philosophy / Re: Gods knowledge and the senses
« on: February 28, 2020, 06:43:41 pm »
Thanks very much Atno for your detailed response.
There is a great mystery in it all. I think in this life at least, we can only try our best to understand God, but quite obviously there’s going to be some things that are left mysterious.
You raise some important points. It would seem odd if red was not in someway present in God. Surely he knows what it is like to see it, perhaps even without seeing it (in the same way we do). If red were material, wouldn’t it have a form of sorts? Surely God would have to know all the accidental properties possible for every substance too.
Another question I hope you can help me out with. By the PPC, how do we explain matter? Is it virtually, formally, eminently present in God? God is obviously not material, so in what was is matter present in him? Likewise, I struggle to see how you could ever get potentiality out of something that is Pure Act from all eternity.
I do recall Oderberg noting there is phenomenology to our reasoning. I think he’s correct. Knowing seems to imply consciousness. It what sense could an unconscious thing ever be said to ‘know’. Yet whenever I try to focus on the sensation of knowing, it’s always very dull. It’s different to all the other senses. It’s more determinate. We usually associate active knowledge with auditory thoughts, at least I do. And yet intuitively, without any effort, we just grasp the concepts that are associated with said words. I’d imagine in God, there is an unimaginable clarity and vividness in his grasping of forms we can only hope to experience.
There is a great mystery in it all. I think in this life at least, we can only try our best to understand God, but quite obviously there’s going to be some things that are left mysterious.
You raise some important points. It would seem odd if red was not in someway present in God. Surely he knows what it is like to see it, perhaps even without seeing it (in the same way we do). If red were material, wouldn’t it have a form of sorts? Surely God would have to know all the accidental properties possible for every substance too.
Another question I hope you can help me out with. By the PPC, how do we explain matter? Is it virtually, formally, eminently present in God? God is obviously not material, so in what was is matter present in him? Likewise, I struggle to see how you could ever get potentiality out of something that is Pure Act from all eternity.
I do recall Oderberg noting there is phenomenology to our reasoning. I think he’s correct. Knowing seems to imply consciousness. It what sense could an unconscious thing ever be said to ‘know’. Yet whenever I try to focus on the sensation of knowing, it’s always very dull. It’s different to all the other senses. It’s more determinate. We usually associate active knowledge with auditory thoughts, at least I do. And yet intuitively, without any effort, we just grasp the concepts that are associated with said words. I’d imagine in God, there is an unimaginable clarity and vividness in his grasping of forms we can only hope to experience.