Infallibility?

Originally posted by whodey
I guess it all boils down to your vision of God. If there be a God, would not such a God only create what is known to him or would he haphazardly dabble in things over his head? It seems to me that the universe runs like clock work and, therefore, God must know what he is doing. However, the only thing out of order, so to speak, is our sin nature. Biblical ...[text shortened]... as found in Isaiah 53, tell me that God is not only in control, but anticipates our every move.

I'm not sure if this answers my question or not. It seems that you think God generally is in control and knows what he is doing; but do you think it is impossible for him to be mistaken or to err in judgment?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
"I'm saying that since God knows the valuation of every atomic proposition, any logical argument can be reduced to a tautology."

Nowhere do I say there that "the truth values of an argument's propositions [...] yield a tautology, like you claimed me to be saying.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
That would be my definirion, yes.

Okay, then what would be so special about an "infallible" account? According to your own definition, one example of an infallible account would be a newspaper article that has all its facts straight on some recent event.

Originally posted by LemonJello
but do you think it is impossible for him to be mistaken or to err in judgment?

I'm still having trouble to understand how such a mistake could come about without assuming that omniscience is bounded somehow (e.g. the knowledge about the strenght required to guarantee the truth of the judgment in question).

Originally posted by Palynka
I'm still having trouble to understand how such a mistake could come about without assuming that omniscience is bounded somehow (e.g. the knowledge about the strenght required to guarantee the truth of the judgment in question).

If somebody were to say "I know that P, but it's possible I am wrong", how are we supposed to interpret this? You could interpret this as his saying that it is a possible state of affairs both that he knows P and that his belief in P is false. But, that is simply not a logically possible state of affairs because it leads to a contradiction (his knowing P entails that P is true; and his mistakenly believing that P entails that P is false). Odds are, the person is a fallibilist, and you have just totally misinterpreted what he is actually trying to say.

It can come down to modal construal. Maybe the person means that, for example, his evidence for P is not entailing evidence. In other words, the evidence does not logically entail that P is true (evidence is taken to be propositional). Thus, in just this sense, he means it's "possible" that he is mistaken. Still, a lack of entailing evidence for P does not preclude knowledge of P, so he nevertheless knows P, say on the grounds of very good, though not entailing, evidence.

Basically, I don't disagree with your objection (if I understand it correctly), which boils down to saying that it is impossible for an omniscient being (actually, the being doesn't have to be omniscient for this to hold) to both know that P and to be mistaken in his belief that P.*** I totally agree because that leads to contradiction (P and not-P). But I simply don't find that interesting. What I would be interested in is alternative construals about what it means to be "possibly" mistaken even where you are knowledgeable. I'm sure I am not making myself clear, but I don't know how else to put it.

***Either that or your objection is that you don't see how an omniscient being could know that P and yet believe that not-P. If that's the case, then I agree with that as well. But, again, I do not think that is necessarily what is meant by saying that it is possible that an omniscient being could be mistaken (although maybe yours could be a reasonable interpretation).

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More than that, in this thread I was hoping to get those who hold that it is impossible for God to be mistaken to tell me what they mean by that.

Originally posted by LemonJello
If somebody were to say "I know that P, but it's possible I am wrong", how are we supposed to interpret this? You could interpret this as his saying that it is a possible state of affairs both that he knows P and that his belief in P is false. But, that is simply not a logically possible state of affairs because it leads to a contradiction (his knowing d that it is impossible for God to be mistaken to tell me what they mean by that.

Would you considering the possibility of bounding omniscience?

(i.e. there are things that are unknowable, hence knowledge about all "knowables" does not preclude mistakes about beliefs regarding "unknowables" )

Originally posted by Palynka
Would you considering the possibility of bounding omniscience?

(i.e. there are things that are unknowable, hence knowledge about all "knowables" does not preclude mistakes about beliefs regarding "unknowables" )

That's very interesting, but at first glance I don't think it would work.

Let's suppose, as you suggested, there are knowables and then also some non-empty set of unknowables. You're suggesting basically that an omniscient being could hold mistaken beliefs regarding the unknowables and still be omniscient because omniscience only requires complete knowledge of knowables. But here may be a problem: suppose X is a member of the set of unknowables. Would there be knowable propositions regarding the fact that considerations regarding X are unknowable (e.g., would it be the case that "X is unknowable" is knowable)? If so, then the omniscient being should already know that X is unknowable. Moreover, if the omniscient being did form any mistaken notions about the unknowables, this fact in itself should also be knowable, shouldn't it? So it's like the omniscient being would know that his own notions about the unknowables are mistaken. Sounds pretty strange.

Originally posted by LemonJello
That's very interesting, but at first glance I don't think it would work.

Let's suppose, as you suggested, there are knowables and then also some non-empty set of unknowables. You're suggesting basically that an omniscient being could hold mistaken beliefs regarding the unknowables and still be omniscient because omniscience only requires complete kno ...[text shortened]... ld know that his own notions about the unknowables are mistaken. Sounds pretty strange.

if the omniscient being did form any mistaken notions about the unknowables, this fact in itself should also be knowable, shouldn't it?

I'm not sure why this is necessarily so. If they are inherently unknowable then one could argue that it's not even possible to test them at all. Note that one just needs to argue that such an impossibility could be present for some of the unknowables.

Sounds pretty strange.
Metametaphysics. 😵