Divine Knowledge: Comparisons and Contrasts with Human Knowledge

Abstract

Can we understand divine knowledge by analogy with human knowledge? This essay approaches the question by examining two forms of human knowledge: knowledge by creation and by understanding of classes of things. It is suggested that two other forms of human knowledge, memory and inference, may be less helpful as analogies for divine knowledge: if God knows future choices of free agents, this entails knowledge by experience. The essay examines the implications of divine knowledge of the future for human freedom and discusses the question of ‘middle knowledge’ of non-actual free choices. Certain problems raised by knowledge of temporal events suggest (but do not entail) that God is timeless.