Omniscience: Does God Learn?

Related posts: Omniscience; Immutable, Omnipresence; Whence God? Talking about God; Creation ex nihilo

Does God Learn?

If you were to ask a typical Mormon the question “Does God learn?” you would most likely get a negative response. Mormons today tend to believe in what is called the neo-classical view of God, which as it applies to divine learning means that God knows everything.

However, this was not always the case. During the 19th century the common belief among Mormons was that God is forever progressing to greater knowledge. In 1857 Apostle Wilford Woodruff (who became 4th president of the church in 1889) said, “God himself is increasing and progressing in knowledge, power, and dominion, and will do so, worlds without end” (JD 6:120). Brigham Young said, “The greatest intelligence in existence can continually ascend to greater heights of perfection” (JD 1:93).[1] George Q. Cannon (Apostle; d. 1901) said, “There is progress for our Father and for our Lord Jesus…It is endless progress, progressing from one degree of knowledge to another degree” (Gospel Truth: Discourses and Writings of President George Q. Cannon, p. 92). General Authority B.H. Roberts (Seventy; d. 1933) wrote, “God is [not] Omniscient up to the point that further progress in knowledge is impossible to him; but that all knowledge that is, all that exists, God knows” (Seventy’s Course in Theology, vol. 4, p. 70-71).

Though God’s knowledge is greater than ours, even he operates within the bounds of law—this is uncontroversial for most Mormons. But does God learn?

Can God’s knowledge change?

This brings me to an illustration of a way God might learn. First, suppose truly random processes exist. Most scientists would concede this is predicted by quantum mechanics but I will use the illustration of “random” dice. Consider the outcome of a role of a six-sided dice, and suppose I get six. If the dice is truly random I cannot say there was a reason I got six. It could easily have been one or two, three, four, or five. There was no cause for that particular outcome. It is, after all, random.

If randomness is outside God’s foreknowledge then he can learn at such-and-such a time, at such-and-such a place, Troy rolled a six.

Taking this idea further, what if I base some of my decisions on a random quantum device (RQD)? — such a device could be designed utilizing electron spin. When I push a button my RQD randomly lights up a yellow or red light. So when decide to walk to school or ride the bus I push the button. If I get yellow I take the bus. If I get red I walk. Because my choice is based on a random outcome it’s impossible to foreknow what it will be.[2] If it is not possible for God to foreknow the outcome then he would learn on that particular morning I shall walk to school.

But we can develop the point further. Here is a well known example of one type of divine learning.

Are you sitting down?

Suppose I am sitting. Then surely at that moment God knows Troy is now sitting. This can only be known while it is true because only true propositions are knowable. God cannot know Troy is now sitting while I am standing because it’s not true. When I sit God goes from not knowing that Troy is now sitting to knowing that Troy is now sitting.

[color-box]If God’s knowledge is subject to change then it is at least partially temporal.[3][/color-box]

But further, doesn’t God know that he knows what he knows? For example, I know that 1 + 0 = 1. And I know that I know 1 + 0 = 1.[4] If God’s knowledge has any change then what God knows about himself also changes. So if any of God’s knowledge is temporal then God discovers himself.

Mechanization

The idea that God cannot progress in knowledge also intersects with ideas about free will. What if God knows me completely, absolutely, and totally? Then God knows all my future actions? It seems to follow that if God knows me totally I am a type of mechanism. Like a human pocket watch. If my “free will” is completely knowable it too is mechanistic. It seems inconsistent to believe God knows all my future actions and yet does not know me completely.

If I accept that my unforeknowable free will exists then it seems like I have to also accept that God cannot know me absolutely. If God can’t know me completely then obviously I don’t know myself completely.

But this brings up another point. Can God know himself completely? If God cannot increase in knowledge then we knows himself completely, totally, and absolutely. So is God a mechanism? Should we worship a mechanism? It seems if any being is to be non-mechanistic then total and comprehensive knowledge of it must be impossible, both to itself and to others. This requires rejecting traditional omniscience and embracing the belief that God learns. It also means there is no positive description of free will since random “choices” are also unforeknowable.

Hidden intentions and free will

But could there be any way for God to know exactly what I will do even if my intentions are hidden? Consider this example. Here is another well known concept related to the freewill debate. Every morning I choose either to walk to school or to ride the bus. And on one particular morning the bus breaks down several blocks from my house, but I had already chosen to walk to school without knowing this. God knew the bus would break down—He is, after all, an ace mechanic. So he knew with certainty I would walk to school I freely chose to walk to school. Though only one choice was available, Fate didn’t find me. I encountered it. And my choice need not be mechanistic—it could have been based on the outcome of my RQD; the issue of mechanization needn’t arise. All God needs to know is that I intend to go to school (one way or another) and that nothing shall prevent me from going to school and that the bus will break down.

But instead of a random choice it come have come from my unforeknowable free will. Simply put, God can foreknow that I walk to school and I can choose freely to walk to school.

But what if I had waited for the bus? Eventually I would have been forced to walk to school. So this illustrates only that some choices can be made freely and also be compatible with foreknowledge.

Having said that, I find it hard to believe something like the above example applies to all my free choices. What if there are two identical pieces of cake to choose from? And my choice is based on the outcome of my RQD? Or my unknowable will? That choice would be truly unforeknowable.

Why reject omniscience?

But there are more solid ground for rejecting traditional omniscience.

Patrick Grim has come up with an intriguing argument against omniscience that I find fascinating.

If we think of what an omniscient being knows as a set that comprises all truths then it follows–according to Grim–that there can be no omniscient being. I will simplify his arguments.

Suppose there exist only three truths in the universe and they constitute the set S = {T1, T2, T3}. One could argue an omniscient being will know all truths in the universe, all truths contained in S. S is, after all, the set of all truths. From this set a power set can be formed. The power set consists of every possible combination of the three truths of S including the empty set: {}, {T1}, {T2}, {T3}, {T1, T2}, {T1, T3}, {T2, T3}, {T1, T2, T3}. I can then ask, “Is T1 in the first element? No. Is T1 in the second element? Yes. Is T1 in the third? No,” etc. What I end up with is more truths than those in the so-named set of all truths.

This proves by contradiction that there can be no set of all truths. The overall conclusion is that if there is no set of all truths then there can be no omniscient being–This is an application of the diagonal argument.

If an omniscient being did know all truths it is always possible to generate more from the power set. (The power set is always larger than the original set.) Moreover, the argument works equally well with an infinite set of truths and analogues to this argument can be made for other ways of explicating omniscience.

Maybe the above example is true. At the very least it shows there is no cogent description of omniscience. But does this necessitate abandoning the very idea of omniscience? Perhaps not. In an exchange with Patrick Grim, Alvin Plantinga responded:

Suppose you are right: what we have, then, is a difficulty, not for omniscience as such, but for one way of explicating omniscience…A person who agrees with you will then be obliged to explain this maximal perfection in some other way; but she won’t be obliged, at any rate just by these considerations, to give up the notion of omniscience itself. (“Truth, Omniscience, and Cantorian Arguments: An Exchange,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 71, 1993)

Conclusions

Personally, I have no strong objections to omniscience or to soft fatalism; nor do I have any special attachment to them. Scripture can support either view.[5] A typical argument for traditional omniscience relate to confidence in God’s power to save. But I don’t see how that holds up. Suppose God knows everything except, say, how many dust particles existed in some uninhabitable, unobservable part of the universe six billion years ago? Would it matter to my salvation? I can’t see how. It’s always possible to come up with some factoid that has nothing to do with salvation.

Though traditional omniscience is very important to the God of the philosophers—If you want to say God is a being “than which nothing greater can be imagined” you must have omniscience—I don’t like the theological baggage that comes with it: pessimism, the fated future, seeing myself as a mechanism. Moreover, I don’t believe omniscience has any serious soteriology. If omniscience were essential to salvation then every fact no matter how trivial has salvific value or is necessary to another fact that has salvific value. And I can’t see how that’s true.

Either way you go on this subject, it will make no difference to your salvation. But it is fun to work through the arguments.

End Notes________________________
[1] The Apostle Orson Pratt taught that God could not progress in knowledge. This was denounced by Brigham Young who said on 13 January, 1867, “Some men seem as if they could learn so much and no more. They appear to be bounded in their capacity for acquiring knowledge, as Brother Orson Pratt, has in theory, bounded the capacity of God. According to his theory, God can progress no further in knowledge and power; but the God that I serve is progressing eternally, and so are his children: they will increase to all eternity, if they are faithful” (JD 11:286). Wilford Woodruff wrote in his journal, “Prest Yound said I corrected O. Pratt to day I did not way that God knows all things comprehends all things had has a fullness of all that He will ever obtain that moment eternity seases you put bound to Eternity & space & matter and you make an end and stopping ploease to it.” (4 March, 1860; qtd. in “The Mormon Concept of God” by Blake Ostler. See footnote 38 on page 77).

[2] LDS scientist Henry Eyring made a similar observation:

More recently, we have been obliged to give up the old determinism of classical mechanics as well as the idea of indestructibility of matter. Mechanical determinism meant that if one were given the state of the universe at any instant of time, a sufficiently expert mathematician could calculate the state of things at all times to come. This left no place for the great religious principle of free will. Then quantum mechanics brought with it the uncertainty principle. This principle eliminates the possibility of predicting the future exactly and tends to confirm that fundamental Christian tenet that man enjoys free agency as a divine gift. (Improvement Era, vol. 51, no. 2, February 1948)

[3] See Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 1975, ‘God Everlasting’ in God and the Good: Essays in Honor of Henry Stob.’

[4] “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3).

[5] One from the Book of Mormon reads, “But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men; for behold, he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words” (1 Nephi 9:6). Preparations imply acting in time, and possibly accounting for contingences. Knowing all things “from the beginning” doesn’t necessarily imply knowing all things to their end. And Nephi didn’t say God has infinite power, but power to bring about his will. Also, “the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes” (Alma 37:7). And when the scriptures say “the Lord knoweth all things” (1 Nephi 9:6) and “the Lord knoweth all things which are to come” (WoM 1:7) it means that God knows the past, present, and all possible futures. Also, when God says, “my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil” (D&C 10:43; 3 Nephi 21:10), it sounds like God outsmarts the devil, which could imply temporality to God.

Scriptures supporting the traditional view of omniscience are: “all things are present with me, for I know them all” (Moses 1:6); “[I am Alpha and Omega,] The same which knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes” (D&C 38:2); “But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning” (1 Nephi 9:6; I quoted this one in the above paragraph).