#816 God’s Subjective Viewpoint

Dr. craig’s response

I should say that God, as a personal being, quite definitely has a subjective viewpoint. Indeed, as a Trinity of persons, God has three subjective viewpoints, each associated with a divine person. Only the Father knows that “I am the Father,” and only the Son knows that “I am the Son,” and only the Spirit knows that “I am the Spirit.” Similarly, only the Son knows that “I died on the cross,” and only the Spirit knows that “My coming was foretold by the Son.”

This subjective, self-knowledge on God’s part requires us to differentiate between God’s propositional knowledge and His non-propositional knowledge. What you call God’s “objective take on reality” is His propositional knowledge, His knowledge of all and only true propositions, or His factual knowledge. Traditionally, omniscience is defined in terms of God’s propositional knowledge.

But in addition to this propositional knowledge, God must have appropriate self-knowledge. This is a sort of non-propositional knowledge which can be grasped only by the person involved from his subjective, first-person perspective. It is not propositional precisely because it is not objective and shareable. The Son can know, for example, that “You are the Father,” but he cannot know that “I am the Father.”

So each divine person has only the appropriate non-propositional self-knowledge. It would be a cognitive defect, not a perfection, for God to believe that “I am Napoleon.” As a perfect being, God has all propositional knowledge and appropriate non-propositional, self-knowledge.