T. M. Rudavsky

Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy: Islamic, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives

Introductory.- Divine Omniscience, Omnipotence and Future Contingents: An Overview.- Nos Ipsi Principia Sumus: Boethius and the Basis of Contingency.- Islamic Perspectives.- Wrongdoing and Divine Omnipotence in the Theology of Ab? Is??q An-Na???m.- Can God do What is Wrong?.- Divine Omniscience and Future Contingents in Alfarabi and Avicenna.- Some Reflections on the Problem of Future Contingency in Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes.- Jewish Perspectives.- The Binding of Isaac: A Test-Case of Divine Foreknowledge.- Philosophical Exegesis in Historical Perspective: The Case of the Binding of Isaac.- Providence, Divine Omniscience and Possibility: The Case of Maimonides.- Divine Omniscience, Contingency and Prophecy in Gersonides.- Christian Perspectives.- Divine Omnipotence in the Early Sentences.- Divine Knowledge, Divine Power and Human Freedom in Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent.- The Dialectic of Omnipotence in the High and Late Middle Ages.

Galileo and Spinoza: The Science of Naturalizing Scripture

In their respective examination of the relation between science and religion, both Galileo and Spinoza use Joshua 10:12–14 and Isaiah 38:7–8 as proof-texts to support their Scriptural hermeneutics, but to different ends. That the Copernican system ran counter to the world-view presented in Scripture is well known. One of the most pressing problems centered on how to interpret the alleged miracle expressed in Joshua 10:12–14. By denying the alleged miracle of the sun standing still in the sky, supporters of Copernicanism ran the risk of denying God’s intervention in the natural world, leaving no room for Divine intervention and presence in the natural order. The text itself reads as follows. Joshua and his men are worried that there will not be sufficient time to defeat the five Amorite kings, and so Joshua prays to God to extend the day:

Understanding Prophecy: Four Traditions

INTRODUCTION For untold generations, whenever Jews gather in worship to read from the Torah and the Prophets, they praise God for having given them a “Torah of truth” and for having “chosen good prophets and taken pleasure in their words, which were spoken truthfully.” At a minimum, these words expressed a widespread confidence that the scrolls about to be read contained no falsehoods, lies, or outright fabrications about God, about divine interactions with humanity in general and Israel in particular, about what God requires as expressed in the commandments of the Torah and the teachings of the prophets, and, finally, about the worthiness and truthfulness of God’s chosen messengers. For many, no doubt, this generalized confidence was a matter of the deepest conviction. For others, however, there appeared to be grounds for skepticism about various claims; from time to time, they evidently expressed their doubts, difficulties, and occasionally even outright denials. This may be inferred, in part, from the strictures recorded in the Mishnah, Sanhedrin, chapter 10, regarding those who have no share in the world to come, from the wide range of interpretive problems recorded in the Ancient Questions Concerning the Bible from the Cairo Genizah, and from the objections of Hiwi of Balkh regarding the propriety and credibility of numerous passages from the Torah. Even so, people’s underlying confidence in the truthfulness of the Torah and the Prophets remained largely, if unevenly, intact until the advent of modernity.