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My overall claim in this paper is twofold: Firstly, the activity of developing arguments in favour of the existence of the Christian God is tenable and worthwhile and, secondly, the “infinite God objection” fails to undermine the kalam cosmological argument. Concerning the former, it is often claimed that the very activity of developing arguments in favour of God’s existence is futile. I argue, however, that such theistic arguments play an important role in the philosophy of religion, natural theology, and apologetics. Concerning the latter claim, I will attempt to show how the infinite God objection fails to undermine a notable theistic argument, namely, the kalam cosmological argument. As regards this objection, the proponents of the kalam cosmological argument face a dilemma – either an actual infinity cannot exist or God’s knowledge cannot be infinite. More specifically, this objection claims that God’s omniscience entails the existence of an actual infinity with God knowing an actual infinite number of future events and mathematical truths. My solution to this problem is that (1) God’s omniscience should be understood as maximal knowledge; (2) the existence of abstract objects (such as numbers and propositions) should be denied; and (3) God’s knowledge is non-propositional in nature. / MPhil, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This research project makes a contribution to the discourse on the theodicy problem by examining the position adopted by Gregory Boyd known as open theism. Boyd would argue that an open view of God is in a better position to deal with the problem of evil because the traditional understanding of God’s attributes fails to vindicate God of guilt or responsibility for evil and should, therefore, be abandoned in favour of the attractive openness model. Boyd claims that God cannot be held responsible for evil and suffering because the future cannot be known to God. He articulates this perspective from the process thought position that the future is not a reality therefore, cannot be known. Thus, God took a risk when he/she created human being with free will because any free will future actions and thoughts cannot be known by God. God is therefore surprised by the actions and sufferings of human being and therefore has to change his/her plans to meet with the free will actions of human beings. Boyd in articulating his open theism theodicy does so by reconstructing the classical understanding of the attributes of God namely: God’s omniscience, immutability, and omnipotence to give an answer to the theodicy problem. Evangelicals understand the attributes of God to be part of God nature, therefore any changes in the attributes of God means changes to God him/herself. Because of Boyd’s claim to be an evangelical, this project examines the attributes of God as reflected in the works of the early church father to the reformers and influential evangelical scholars in contrast with the work of Boyd. In presenting an evangelical understanding on God and suffering this study concludes that the position adopted by Boyd is a radical departure from evangelicalism and orthodoxy faith and is more consonant of a deistic presentation of God in his/her relation to the world.

My overall claim in this paper is twofold: Firstly, the activity of developing arguments in favour of the existence of the Christian God is tenable and worthwhile and, secondly, the “infinite God objection” fails to undermine the kalam cosmological argument. Concerning the former, it is often claimed that the very activity of developing arguments in favour of God’s existence is futile. I argue, however, that such theistic arguments play an important role in the philosophy of religion, natural theology, and apologetics. Concerning the latter claim, I will attempt to show how the infinite God objection fails to undermine a notable theistic argument, namely, the kalam cosmological argument. As regards this objection, the proponents of the kalam cosmological argument face a dilemma – either an actual infinity cannot exist or God’s knowledge cannot be infinite. More specifically, this objection claims that God’s omniscience entails the existence of an actual infinity with God knowing an actual infinite number of future events and mathematical truths. My solution to this problem is that (1) God’s omniscience should be understood as maximal knowledge; (2) the existence of abstract objects (such as numbers and propositions) should be denied; and (3) God’s knowledge is non-propositional in nature. / MPhil, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The problem of how one can reconcile the omnipotence and omniscience of God with human freedom has penetrated a good deal of philosophical and theological thought. On occasion it has even been reduced to a unsolvable problem unworthy of consideration. Saint Augustine, however, clearly did not think this was the case. Augustine defends human freedom as a good which must be preserved even if it does allow for the possibility of evil. David R. Griffin, on the other hand, maintains that men cannot exert their own will, when they are considered to be subject to the will of an omnipotent.God and that the occurence of evil in the world must ultimately be allowed by God. William L. Rowe also maintains that there is a problem in claiming that human beings are free, but this time, because of God's omniscience rather than His omnipotence. Rowe argues that since whatever God foreknows must necessarily happen and He knows that evil will happen, man's decision to sin is not one of freedom but of necessity. These are generally considered the two main arguments for opposing Augustine's Free Will Defense, and although Rowe eventually shows the inadequacies of the 'omniscience argument', his presentation of the traditional view is most valuable. It is the contention of this paper that neither divine omnipotence nor omniscience, when considered independently, present sufficient evidence to seriously jeopardize Augustine's position, and this, can only partially be achieved by combining these divine attributes and pitting them against the possibility of human freedom. This thesis is defended by a demonstration of the weaknesses of the independent arguments which are overcome, or at least strengthened, when combined. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Née d’un esprit critique qui la rapproche du Nouveau Roman français, l’oeuvre de l’écrivain argentin Juan José Saer (1937-2005) constitue l’une des tentatives de renouvellement des formes narratives les plus importantes dans la littérature latino-américaine de la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle. Ce renouvellement concerne tous les aspects du récit, en particulier celui de la fonction narratrice et, à l’intérieur de celle-ci, la figure du narrateur sous toutes ses formes. Le présent travail a pour objectif d’étudier les différentes manières dont cette instance est mise à l’épreuve d’un questionnement et d’une recherche intenses, donnant comme résultat des textes d’une grande complexité. Divisé en trois parties, il s’occupe, dans la première, de quelques cas de narrateurs impersonnels, en mettant l’accent sur leur rapport à la convention de l’omniscience, tandis que dans la deuxième il analyse des narrateurs personnels en les reliant à des expériences de voyage et d’immobilité. Enfin la troisième partie aborde quelques exemples de narrateur au second degré, considérés comme l’un des multiples moyens dont l’auteur se sert pour construire une réflexion autoréférentielle à l’intérieur de l’oeuvre. Dans tous les cas, le narrateur se trouve redéfini comme un outil privilégié de l’exploration du réel qui est au coeur du projet littéraire de l’auteur. / Arising from a form of critical thought that approximates him to the french Nouveau Roman, the work of the Argentine writer Juan José Saer (1937-2005) demonstrates one of the most important attempts to renew the narrative form in Latin-American literature within the second half of the twentieth-century. While this renewal concerns all aspects of the story, this dissertation will closely analyze the narrative function in particular and within this, the figure of the narrator in all of his forms. The present work aims to study the ways in which intense questioning and investigation have put this body of work to the test—a practice that has resulted in highly complex texts in which the narrator is redefined as a valuable tool to explore the idea of reality that is at the heart of the author’s literary project. The work is divided into three sections: the first deals with impersonal narrators by focusing on their relationship to the conventions of omniscient narration. The second section analyzes the personal narrators by studying their experiences with travel and immobility. The third section studies some of the many cases of second-degree narrators by treating them as one of the several means used by the author to construct a self-referential reflection within the work itself.

Masters of Art / Zora Neale Hurston is a significant figure in American fiction and is strongly associated with the Harlem Renaissance, the period noted for the emergence of literature by people of African-American descent. Hurston worked as a writer of fiction and of anthropological research and this mini-thesis will discuss aspects of her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, first published in 1937. While the novel traces the psychological development of the central female character, Janie Mae Crawford and, thus, demonstrates several features of a conventional Bildungsroman, the novel also contains some intriguing innovations in respect of narration and voice. These innovations imply that the novel can be read in terms of the qualities commonly associated with the Modernist novel. This contention becomes significant when it is understood that a considerable degree of critical responses to the novel have discounted these connections. The novel is widely accepted to be a story about a woman’s journey to self-actualisation through the relationships she has with the men in her life. Much of the criticism related to the novel is based on this aspect of it, with many stating that Janie’s voice is often silenced by the third-person narrator at crucial moments in the text and that, as a consequence, she does not achieve complete self-actualisation by the end of the novel. This thesis will examine the significance of the shifts between first-person and thirdperson narration and the manifestations of other voices or means of articulation, which give the novel a multi-vocal quality. The importance of this innovation will also be considered, particularly when it is taken into account that Hurston sought to incorporate some elements associated with the oral tradition into her work as a writer of fiction.

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht das sogenannte logische Allwissenheitsproblem' (Logical Omniscience Problem) der epistemischen Logik und schlägt einen neuen Ansatz zur Lösung des Problems vor. Die epistemische Logik, die ursprünglich als eine Teildisziplin der philosophischen Logik entwickelt wurde, findet heute Anwendung in so unterschiedlichen Gebieten wie Philosophie, Sprachwissenschaft, Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Informatik. In der Informatik und der Künstlichen Intelligenz ist die epistemische Logik einer der Hauptformalismen zur Wissensrepräsentation und zur Spezifikation von Multiagentensystemen geworden. Allerdings ist es eine sehr umstrittene Frage, ob die epistemische Logik für diese Anwendungen geeignet ist. Kritiker behaupten, daß die epistemische Logik die Begriffe des Wissens und des Glaubens nicht adäquat erfassen kann und folglich für die Repräsentation von Wissen ungeeignet ist. Ihre Behauptung gründet sich auf der Tatsache, daß die meisten Systeme der epistemischen Logik sehr starke Idealisierungen hinsichtlich der logischen Fähigkeiten der epistemischen Subjekte (englisch: agents) machen. Es wird z. B. angenommen, daß die epistemischen Subjekte alle logischen Wahrheiten kennen, oder daß sie alle logischen Konsequenzen einer Aussage kennen, wenn sie diese Aussage glauben. Dieses Problem is als das logische Allwissenheitsproblem' (Logical Omniscience Problem) bekannt. Es gibt in der Literatur eine Reihe von Ansätzen, dieses Problem zu lösen. Fast alle vorgeschlagenen Lösungen verfolgen die Strategie, schwächere modale Systeme zu betrachten. Ich werde zeigen, daß diese Lösungen unbefriedigend sind: in dieser Weise kann logische Allwissenheit vermieden werden, aber viele Intuitionen über die Begriffe Glauben und Wissen gehen verloren. Also können auch die schwächeren epistemischen Systeme die genannten Begriffe nicht adäquat erfassen. Ein anderer Lösungsansatz wird vorgeschlagen. Ich werde argumentieren, daß sich die Hauptprobleme der epistemischen Logik in einem statischen Rahmen nicht lösen lassen. Um diese Probleme zu lösen, müssen wir auch die Denkaktivitäten der epistemischen Subjekte in Betracht ziehen. Zur Modellierung von Wissen (und Glauben) brauchen wir eine dynamische epistemische Logik. Ich werde zeigen, daß Axiome der epistemischen Logik die folgende Form haben muß: wenn alle Prämissen einer gültigen Schlußregel gewußt (geglaubt) werden und wenn das Subjekt die notwendige Folgerung vollzieht, dann weißt (glaubt) es auch die Konklusion. Um diese Idee zu formalisieren, schlage ich vor, die epistemische Logik zu d.h., eine dynamische Komponente in die Sprache einzuführen. An einem Beispiel wird erläutert, wie die Dynamisierung' der epistemischen Logik realisiert werden kann.

We propose in the paper a new solution to the so-called Logical Omniscience Problem of epistemic logic. Almost all attempts in the literature to solve this problem consist in weakening the standard epistemic systems: weaker systems are considered where the agents do not possess the full reasoning capacities of ideal reasoners. We shall argue that this solution is not satisfactory: in this way omniscience can be avoided, but many intuitions about the concepts of knowledge and belief get lost. We shall show that axioms for epistemic logics must have the following form: if the agent knows all premises of a valid inference rule, and if she thinks hard enough, then she will know the conclusion. To formalize such an idea, we propose to \dynamize' epistemic logic, that is, to introduce a dynamic component into the language. We develop a logic based on this idea and show that it is suitable for formalizing the notion of actual, or explicit knowledge.

Philip K. Dick was a seminal science fiction author with much interest in theological and philosophical questions. This essay is interested in what Dick’s novel Counter-Clock World expresses about two themes: “time and eternity” along with “omniscience”. The purpose is to come closer to an understanding of the theology expressed in the novel, in relation to the theology of Augustine and Eriugene, who are two of the theologians mentioned in the novel. In the analysis a hybrid text-centered method of hermeneutics is used with some regards to the authors point of view, a method inspired by professor of literature Torsten Pettersson.  The result of the analysis shows that the resurrection described in the novel is central in the matter of time perception. Augustine’s presentism is clear. The characters have been part of eternity and God while being dead, which is related to Eriugene’s thought about the close relationship between the created and the uncreated. The contemplative knowledge of God is recurrent. The resurrected have received a part of God’s secret and by extension his omniscience. The head character, the anarch Thomas Peak, is a clear example of this. Moreover, Augustine’s thought of the divine gaze is recurrent.  The essay argues that academic scholars can find inspiration from fiction. Fiction authors have the possibility to explore theological questions in a way that scholars may have a hard time doing. This because there are neither requirements for coherence in fiction nor a need for responsibility in terms of the consequences of the concepts being explored. This is a creativity that can give fuel to a stagnated theology.