Is God Really Omniscient? or What Does God Know about Pain?

Is God Really Omniscient? ormlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA W hat Does God Know about Pain? G EO RG E B. W ALLgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Der gute Bishop Berkeley, as Immanuel Kant was wont to refer to the eighteenth-century philosopher George Berkeley, developed one of the most novel, astonishing forms of theistic philosophy ever to hit Western man, a form of philosophy which, if it had ever taken root, would at the very least have had the salutary effect of providing strong job security for Berkeley, as well as all other bishops and cler­ gymen. That is, the position of bishop would be extremely tenuous in a world rampant with atheism. However, if Berkeley is right, athe­ ism is simply impossible, for according to Berkeley the world consists entirely of spirits and their ideas—no material objects whatsoever— including Infinite Spirit (God) and his ideas. Of the many astonishing views of Berkeley none is more astonish­ ing—at least at first glance—than his view of God's knowledge of pain, a view expressed in the following exchange between Hylas and Philonous, the two characters in Berkeley's RQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA T h r e e D ia lo g u e s . Hyl. But you have asserted that whatever ideas we perceive from without are in the mind [God] which affects us. The ideas, therefore, of pain and uneasiness are in God; or, in other words, God suffers pain: that is to say, there is an imperfection in the Divine nature: which, you acknowledged, was absurd. So you are caught in a plain contradiction. Phil. That God knows or understands all things, that He knows, among other things, what pain is, even every sort of painful 271 272 / WALLmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA sensation, and what it is for his creatures to suffer pain, I make no question. But, that God, though He knows and sometimes causes painful sensations in us, can Himself suffer pain, I posi­ tively deny. . . . God, whom no external being can affect, who perceives nothing by sense as we do; whose will is absolute and independent, causing all things ... it is evident, such a Being as this can suffer nothing, nor be affected with any painful sen­ sation, or indeed any sensation at all. We are chained to a body: that is to say, our perceptions are connected with corporeal mo­ tions. . . . This connexion of sensations with corporeal motions means no more than a correspondence in the order of nature, between two sets of ideas, or things immediately perceivable. But God is a Pure Spirit, disengaged from all such sympathy, or natural ties. No corporeal motions are attended with the sen­ sations of pain or pleasure in His mind. To know everything knowable, is certainly a perfection; but to endure, or suffer, or feel anything by sense, is an imperfection. The former, I say, agrees to God, but not the latter.1gfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Thus, Berkeley maintains that although God knows painful sensa­ tions, he never RQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA s u ffe r s them, for to suffer painful sensations, indeed, to suffer sensations of any sort—sight, sound, smell, taste, touch— is to be affected by something external. More exactly, to suffer sensa­ tions is to have sensations which are connected with the body, "with corporeal motions," as Berkeley quaintly puts it. (Corporeal motions are, as Berkeley reminds us, nothing but a certain order of ideas.) Obviously, since God does not have a body, "no corporeal motions are attended with the s e n s a t io n s o f p a in a n d p le a s u r e in h is m in d ” [italics mine]. Now a problem of interpretation arises here. Does Berkeley really mean to say that God h a s sensations of pain and pleasure? Does he mean to deny only that God s u ffe r s the sensations? That seems to be all Berkeley denies in the passage cited. (We may observe in passing that if corporeal motions are not connected with God's sensation of pain, then God's sensation of pain would apparently not be like our sensations of physical pain—pain in the neck, in the big toe, in the side, in a...