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The same Aquinas also proved that the notion that God's omniscience contradicts human free will is based on an error in the placement of a modal modifier.
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This is why I only acknowledge a portion of his reasoning. In fact many of the justifications that he puts forward are with, if I may say so, very weak support and justification.
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According to those who want the contradiction, this entails "Tom is necessarily sitting in a chair"; that is, 'necessarily' is modifying 'sitting'. But this is wrong. What the statement 'God knows' entails is simply "Necessarily, Tom is sitting in a chair". And this does not contradict free will.
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So we get into a problem with the definition of omniscience. Its not simply that god has knowledge of the future, moreover that he has absolute knowledge of everything. From the beginning of the universe (and presumably what occurred before that) to the eventual end of the same universe (now this brings into question, what happens when the universe ends? Does god simply create a new one or does he decide to put up his preverbal sword and retire to a nice place in the country side? But thats a discussion for another thread). He knows the course of every quantum proportion of every entity in existence.
Now, going from that, we also have the idea of creation. I don't think people actually think that god creates every living being, rather that god created everything (this is where Aquinas comes in) and set into motion the system of cause and effect that I mentioned earlier. Meaning that he created what was the beginning - whether that be the Adam and Steve (sorry Eve) story, or the intelligent design theory (I assume that this was proposed very early on but since I'm reading Rauhut right now, I'll reference him).
I prefer the intelligent design theory so I'm going to go with that (I find the incestual connotations that go with the Genesis story a bit nauseating so I'll stay away from it). So here's the scenario, god creates the universe. He spreads atoms this way and that, and creates planets, stars, black holes and the like. While doing this he is in essence shaping the course of history. Because, using our definition of omniscience, and that of omnipotence, we know that god has
full knowledge of every consequence of every action that he takes and that of every consequence of every action of the initial set of consequences and actions. Using his so called omniscience, he therefore
plots the actions and consequences of every quantum of every entity in the scope of universal existence.
What that means is that, while we may think and imagine that we have what we call free choice of action and thought, everything we do, including believing or not believing by the way, is all part of god's master plan. And in fact has, as I said earlier, by simple cause and effect, been plotted since the beginning of time. Everything that happens in life, from the wonderful gifts of charity and benevolence that we see from some people, to the horrible and retched abuses of living beings that we've also been the unwanting witnesses to, can be associated with god.
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That is, knowledge in the philosophical sense; justified true belief.
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While I'm writing this I should be writing a paper on a selection from Plato's
Theaetetus on the definition of knowledge, in which Sacrates effectively disproves that particular definition of knowledge.
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Finally, Mr Zen, I think we had a thread on "God create rock?" a while back that you might be interested in.
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Funny thing is, the contradictory nature of omnipotence doesn't really interest me anywhere near as much as the contradictory nature of the 'omni' prefex itself...
k, now I know why my girlfriend calls me a dork and tells me to shut when I talk about philosophy.
Ah, well, what can you do?
