PHL206H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Omniscience, Unmoved Mover, Omnipotence
Document Summary
What we"re worried about is god"s omnipotence posing problems for our understanding of basic features in the world around us. Augustine and boethius both versed it from the viewpoint of free will vs. divine foreknowledge, and aquinas put it a little diferently. Problem (boethius/augustine): if god"s will is necessary, then contingency in the world would be an illusion and have no basis. Proposed solution: one of the ways to deal with it is to say that god delegates all this creation to entities. Aquinas rejects this and denies that it is a solution. If god says i"m going to make these things through secondary causes, and the secondary causes become impeded, then it"s god"s fault because god planned everything (nuremburg principle!). He doesn"t deny that god delegates (which he does to give more variety and power to creatures) but it"s done as part of god"s plan.
