Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion

Author(s): Ramjee Singh
Publisher: Parshwanath Shodhpith Varanasi

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Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion
son's knowledge about the future action of an intimate friend of his is at most a good guess and not a definite knowledge. To say that a man is free to do something which without knowing that it is within his power to do otherwise is not freedom but ignorance. What is foreseen is necessary and what is necessary is outside the scope of ethics. However, if it is said that “it is not because God foreknows what he foreknows that men act as they do, it is because men act as they do that God foreknows what he foreknows,'2 will create awkward situation in which man's actions will determine God's knowledge. But suppose if it is the case of human omniscience it will mean that the knowledge of the omniscient being is not unfeterred but determined by the actions of other men. But since different people perform different actions, it will create a difficult situation for the cognising mind. To say that the omniscient being believes in an infinitely large number of true synthetic propositions is vague and self-contradictory, for this depends upon the belief at least in one proposition : “Nothing is unknown to him". But this is to admit his omniscience and hence it is like arguing in a circle.3
(5) Validation and Vindication
But such a 'Vicious circularity'' as Fugel says, we cannot escape when we cannot validate any fundamental principle or ideal like this. J. S. Mill also says that “questions
1. Fred Newman : “Omniscience is possible”, Australasian
Journal of Philosophy, Sydney, Vol. 42, No. 1, May 64. 2. Nelson Pike : "Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action",
The Philosophical Quarterly (Cornell University ), Vol.
LXXIV, No. 1, Jan, 65, p. 32. 3. F. Newman makes a distinction between two senses of
omniscience : necessary and actual like Buddha's distinction between dispositional and unqualified omniscience and
Jainas distinction between potential and actual. 4. Sellers, W. and Hospers, J. (ed.): Readings in Ethical
Theory ( New York Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953 ). Fugel