Divine omnipotence and divine omniscience: A reply to Michael Martin

Sophia 46 (1):69-73 (2007)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, Michael Martin argues that to posit a God that is both omnipotent and omniscient is philosophically incoherent. I challenge this argument by proposing that a God who is necessarily omniscient is more powerful than a God who is contingently omniscient. I then argue that being omnipotent entails being omniscient by showing that for an all-powerful being to be all-powerful in any meaningful way, it must possess complete knowledge about all states of affairs and thus must be understood to be omniscient.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,386

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Is omniscience impossible?Rik Peels - 2013 - Religious Studies 49 (4):481-490.
Omniscience and omnipotence: How they may help - or hurt - in a game.Steven J. Brams - 1982 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 25 (2):217 – 231.
Omniscience and maximal power.Thomas Metcalf - 2004 - Religious Studies 40 (3):289-306.
Divine incoherence.Michael Martin - 2007 - Sophia 46 (1):75-77.
A new cosmological argument.Richard M. Gale & Alexander R. Pruss - 1999 - Religious Studies 35 (4):461-476.
Timelessness, Omniscience, and Tenses.Laura L. Garcia - 1993 - Journal of Philosophical Research 18:65-82.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
94 (#179,520)

6 months
6 (#512,819)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Atheism, a Philosophical Justification.Michael Martin - 1993 - Religious Studies 29 (4):543-553.
The Divine Attributes.Joshua Hoffman & Gary S. Rosenkrantz - 2005 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (3):742-745.
Omnipotence.Joshua Hoffman & Gary Rosenkrantz - 1997 - In Charles Taliaferro & Philip Quinn (eds.), A Companion to Philosophy of Religion. Blackwell. pp. 229-236.
The Magnitude of Omnipotence.Charles Taliaferro - 1983 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (2):99 - 106.

Add more references