Further Reflections on Theism 239His doubts are due to what he acknowledges as the implausibility of suppos-
ing that truth is restricted to what we can determine, and to the force of the
idea that there is a way the world is, independent of our conception of it.
What is called for is a way of giving content to transcendent truth and to
a comprehensive and non-perspectival conception of reality.
Herein lies Berkeley’s revenge. Realism, as that corresponds to the
common-sense belief that the world is independent of our conception of it,
is only intelligible if we suppose, as Berkeley himself did, that what eludes
our conceptual powers and cognitive grasp or those of other finite minds,
is nevertheless comprehended by an omniscient mind. Put in an idiom that is
not Berkeley’s: statements can be understood to be objectively true whether
or not we are in a position to comprehend their truth conditions only because
we may presume that God knows the truth-makers of every true statement. We
can presume that there is a world independent of our experiences, thoughts
and utterances only in so far as we are also willing to suppose that this world
is known to God. To quote Dummett:
[H]ow things are in themselves is to be defined, and can only be defined, as
how they are apprehended by God, or as how God knows them to be.... What
so much gives us the idea that there is an ultimate level at which no such
distinction [as that between appearance and reality] can any longer be drawn?
Only by referring to God’s knowledge of reality can that idea be vindicated....... This is not to say that the [realist’s] absolute notion of how things are in
themselves is incoherent: merely that it can be given sense only be equating it
with how they are known to God.^19
In summary, while metaphysical realism is intuitively compelling, in the
form in which it is most often held it is ultimately incoherent. Unintelligible
too, however, is the thesis that reality cannot outstrip the powers of cogni-
tion, unless this is recast within a context of omniscient realism. Now, how-
ever, there is a further twist: for God’s knowledge of the totality of facts
should not be thought of as arising from a continuous scanning of a reality
independent of the Divine mind. As Aquinas reminds us, rather than God’s
knowing being logically posterior to its objects it is the creative cause of them
- scientia Dei est causa rerum. God knows reality as a writer knows his narra-
tive: not by being an attentive reader but by being a deliberative author. That
being so, the argument from anti-realism to theism also leads to the conclu-
sion that ultimately and strictly speaking realism is false and that Berkeley
was correct: to be is to be known –by God.
Some may be wary of this line of reasoning. Certainly in its pure Berkeleian
form it amounts to the incredible view that all that exist are ideas and the
minds that create or are acquainted with them. But this subjective idealism