Divine Cognitive Power

Standard analyses of omniscience are advanced in terms of a being's knowing the truth value of propositions. For example, Kenny writes that 'The doctrine of omni-science is easy to formulate precisely: it is the doctrine that for all p, then God knows that p.1 Richard Swinburne proposes that 'To say of a person P that he is omniscient at time t is to say that at t P knows of every true proposition that it is true') Sometimes such standard accounts are modified to avoid the problem of supposing a being knows future contingencies, namely propositions concerning what a free being will do in the future. Hence Swinburne identifies limited or modified omniscience as: 'A person P is omniscient at time t if and only if he knows of every true proposition about t or an earlier time that it is true and also he knows of every true proposition about a time later than t, such that what it reports is physically necessitated by some cause at t or earlier, that it is true') One also finds modified accounts of omniscience that avoid claiming God knows the truth value of propositions containing ostensible indexical properties like 'now' or 'being me' as used by a different subject. In what follows I argue that none of the standard analyses or their modifications identify sufficient conditions for being omniscient. Some version of the standard account may be essential to identifying the scope of an omniscient being's knowledge, but I believe that the standard account fails because it does not identify the omniscient being's requisite cognitive power. Even if my argument does not establish unequivocally that the standard analyses are insufficient in characterizing omniscience per se, I believe the considerations I raise at least provide good reason for rejecting the standard versions as sufficient accounts of the omniscience attributed to God in classic theism. I suggest that the classic theistic claim that God is omniscient involves the claim that it is metaphysically impossible for there to be a being with greater cognitive power, The notion of cognitive power can be readily illustrated. When I know certain things to be the case, say that I now see something green or I am hearing music, I am exercising cognitive power or ability. I have certain cognitive powers with respect to my sensory states so that I can grasp truths about the world, or at least …