Grounding and Omniscience

Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 4 (1) (2012)
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Abstract

I’m going to argue that omniscience is impossible and therefore that there is no God. The argument turns on the notion of grounding. After illustrating and clarifying that notion, I’ll start the argument in earnest. The first step will be to lay out five claims, one of which is the claim that there is an omniscient being, and the other four of which are claims about grounding. I’ll prove that these five claims are jointly inconsistent. Then I’ll argue for the truth of each of them except the claim that there is an omniscient being. From these arguments it follows that there are no omniscient beings and thus that there is no God.

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Dennis Whitcomb
Western Washington University

Citations of this work

Against Grounding Necessitarianism.Alexander Skiles - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (4):717-751.
The Unity of Grounding.Selim Berker - 2018 - Mind 127 (507):729-777.
Grounding and the argument from explanatoriness.David Mark Kovacs - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (12):2927-2952.
Toward a Commonsense Answer to the Special Composition Question.Chad Carmichael - 2015 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (3):475-490.
The puzzles of ground.Adam Lovett - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (9):2541-2564.

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