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God's propositional omniscience: a defence of the strictly restricted account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2018

MOHAMMAD SALEH ZAREPOUR Open the ORCID record for MOHAMMAD SALEH ZAREPOUR [Opens in a new window]
MOHAMMAD SALEH ZAREPOUR*
Affiliation:
Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB3 9AL, UK
*
e-mail: msz26@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

By discussing three different understandings of the notion of God's propositional omniscience from a theistic point of view, I show that the strictly restricted account (SPO) – according to which God knows all true propositions that He can know – is preferable to the two other candidates as the standard interpretation of God's propositional omniscience. To establish this conclusion, I argue that Pruss's argument that strictly restricted omniscience (SPO) entails full omniscience (FPO) fails because it relies on a flawed construal of the former thesis. I propose an alternative construal for strictly restricted omniscience and defend it against some potential objections.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 473 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018

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