I am of the opinion that God cannot have infallible foreknowledge of creaturely libertarian free choices. I’d like to try to explain why I think this.
First, I should define my terms. By ‘infallible’ I mean the impossibility of error. By ‘foreknowledge’ I mean knowledge of an event that is temporally prior to that event. Thus, “S foreknows that event E will occur” means that at some time t S knows that E will occur at some time subsequent to t. By ‘knowledge’ here I mean merely non-accidentally true belief. By ‘true belief’ I mean one the propositional content of which corresponds to how things actually are. By ‘libertarian free choices’ I mean choices in which the agent has an unconditional power to choose otherwise immediately prior to the time of the choice.
Now, for knowledge to obtain requires that there be a proper sort of relation between knower and known. Since knowledge entails truth, and truth consists in correspondence with reality, knowledge requires that there be a correspondence between mind and world, between what is believed to be the case and what is the case. Furthermore, since knowledge entails that true belief be non-accidental, there must be something that grounds or secures the mind-world correspondence. The possibilities for this seem to be limited to the following:
- World determines mind (e.g., God knows what will happen because it does happen).
- Mind determines world (e.g., God knows what will happen because he decrees that it happen and ensures that that decree is fulfilled).
- There is a probabilistic, non-determining relation between mind and world.
- There is a brute, ungrounded correlation between mind and world.
If (1) is the case, then God can have infallible knowledge of creaturely libertarian free choices, but it cannot, strictly speaking, be “fore”-knowledge. Rather, since God’s knowledge on this scenario is grounded in the actual occurrences of the events themselves it is more aptly described as “post”-knowledge, for the events must already have happened before God can know about them. Proponents of divine timelessness will resist that way of putting it, but they too deny that God literally has “fore”-knowledge.
If (2) is the case, then God can have infallible knowledge of creaturely choices, but these choices cannot be free in a libertarian sense. If God knows that a creaturely choice will be made because he determines that it is made, then the creature cannot have unconditional power to choose otherwise. Instead, the creature will only have a conditional power of contrary choice – it is only IF God had decreed otherwise, that one could have chosen otherwise.
If (3) is the case, then God can have “knowledge” in the sense of non-accidentally true beliefs about what creaturely libertarian free choices will be made, but this knowledge cannot be infallible. Infallible knowledge requires not merely non-accidental truth, but also the impossibility of falsity.
Finally, if (4) is the case, then God can have true beliefs about what creatures with libertarian freedom will do, but not knowledge. The reason is that, on this option, the non-accidentality criterion for knowledge is not satisfied. That God’s beliefs about what will happen sync up with what does happen turns out to be sheer luck.
So something has to give. We have to reject either (a) creaturely libertarian freedom, or (b) exhaustive, infallible divine foreknowledge.
I agree, of libertarian freedom or God’s foreknowledge, one of these has to either be rejected or has to give in some way for one to be true. But both cannot exist in harmony together. For if God knows all that we will do before we do it then we do not have the free will to choose our actions. Hence if God has infallible foreknowledge then he knows all that I have written here in this response before I even started typing. Yet, if we all have the will to choose, free will, then all that I am writing here is new to God and he finds out what I am doing after I have done it. But again both cannot be the case, either one or the other is true. I am willing to hear others arguments opposing mine, if they can prove to me that both can work together, or even affirming my own arguments to give me an even stronger case.
I think that God has divine foreknowledge of how the universe will turn out, but as free thinking agents we have the ability to live in accordance with true libertarian free will (although i would argue that most people don’t readily exercise true libertarian free will, but rather allow outside forces–media, family, culture–dictate/influence how they act). Therefore, God doesn’t have infallible knowledge of everything, but can rather easily predict what types of things will take place among His free agents. A metaphor is adding cream to coffee. If I pour creamer into coffee, I know with a little motion the two will eventually mix into one. I don’t necessarily know exactly how the two will mix, or how long it will take, but I know for certain that the two will mix into one.
I think that infallible foreknowledge is what has to give a little here… I am gravitating toward God having true beliefs about what free agents will do. This seems to pose less problems than infallible knowledge while retaining God’s power as he predicts what will happen.
Okay, so far all of the commentators seem to endorse at least the basic thrust of my argument.
Nathan thinks that God knows what “types” of things will happen, but not, in full specificity, how things will turn out.
Shannon tentatively accepts the fourth option I mentioned, that God has true beliefs but not knowledge, strictly speaking, of future free actions. Question for Shannon: How does God come by these true beliefs? If it’s purely accidental (luck), then isn’t that effectively a denial of omniscience? In other words, if God just lucks into knowing all truths, then he could have had some false beliefs, in which case he wouldn’t be the greatest possible being since we could easily conceive of a being that was greater in that its beliefs weren’t so accidental.
What say the rest of you? Any defenders of the compatibility of free will and detailed foreknowledge out there?
Would God’s true beliefs be based merely on luck though? After today’s lecture, I am inclined to think that God has full knowledge of what a free agent could do, might do and might not do. So that God truly believes all possibilities, and humans are free to make their choice. Personally, I have no problem denying complete omniscience for God. I also don’t necessarily think God’s foreknowledge takes away free will. He can know something will happen, but not cause it directly to happen.
Hi Shannon,
Let’s distinguish ‘omniscience’ from ‘meticulous foreknowledge’. To say that God is omniscient is usually understood to mean that God believes all and only truths. (Hasker defines omniscience differently, he thinks that God knows all that can be known and thinks that there are some truths that cannot be known.) To say that God has meticulous foreknowledge means, I take it, that for any possible future event E and any future time T, God knows either ‘E will occur at T’ or God knows ‘E will not occur at T’.
Now, you propose that God truly believes all possibilities – could’s, might’s, might not’s, etc. – and that humans are free (presumably you mean this in a libertarian or indeterministic sense). I agree with all that, so does Hasker. The point of debate is whether there is such a thing as “the actual future” – a complete, unique sequence of events of which in advance that it ‘will’ happen – and, if so, whether that actual future is in principle knowable or not.
Hasker thinks there is an actual future, but he believes that it’s partly unknowable, even for God. For my part, I don’t think there is such a thing as “the” actual future. Hence, there is nothing there for God or anyone to know. So, on my view, God is unqualifiedly omniscient, but he does not have meticulous foreknowledge.
You seem to comfortable with “denying complete omniscience” and also comfortable with the view that foreknowledge is compatible with free will. But if you’re a compatibilist on the foreknowledge/free will issue, then there must be some other reason that leads to think that God’s omniscience my need to be qualified. I’m wondering what that other reason might be. Perhaps you can fill me in.
Hmm, I’m new here, and if this is a private discussion, just ignore me – I just wanted to raise my hand as a “defender of the compatibility of free will and detailed foreknowledge.”
I’d fall into your category of “proponents of divine timelessness,” I suppose, but I wanted to point out that outside of time, “fore” has no meaning. Looking at God’s knowledge from our perspective within time, however, it is really foreknowledge.
To clarify- I do not believe that there is an “actual” future also, but if there was and God could know it, then yes, our free will would be in danger. But I do not think that God can know every decision that I have yet to make. Hence, my being comfortable with denying God’s complete omniscience. I do think God has foreknowledge of all the possible directions a free agent can go. Hence, being comfortable with foreknowledge and free will. Perhaps I did not clarify, it is indeed a limited foreknowledge of the future. God is good at predicting.
There does exist a problem here. For God to have Divine knowledge of future events and for him not to be able to be wrong then it seems those events are then necessary and cannot be otherwise. I find the easiest way out of this problem is changing our concept of God to one in which I actually believe. We seem to be free in a libertarian sense so it must be the knowledge of those events that are different. We can do what we want and do otherwise and there is nothing making us want a certain thing. God I believe does not have any foreknowledge because I do not believe in a timeless God. God can be within time and change along with us. He can still be omniscient and know everything there is to know. He just knows everything there is to know at this moment. If he has no necessary knowledge of future events then it is not necessary that that event takes place. In this case our existence and decisions are not necessary or predetermined and God is infallible and omniscient, we are just all within the same timeline.
This is an old post, and I am not part of your class, so this may be ignored, but…. It seems to me that notion that exhaustive divine knowledge of the future conflicts with human freedom falsely presupposes that knowledge is a cause. Knowledge doesn’t cause anything. Events cause things, and acts of volition cause things, but knowledge causes nothing. To illustrate, consider the following: What if time travel was possible, and we invented a machine that could take us back in time. So today, I decided to go back to March 19, 2009 and boldly proclaim to all the earth-dwellers living in that time that the Colts would play the saints in Super Bowl XLIV, and the saints would win. Does my advance knowledge of this event make me the cause of the event? Absolutely not. So why think God’s advance knowledge of contingent human acts determines those acts?
While it is true that the future is fixed because God perfectly knows all that will happen in the future, and His knowledge cannot be mistaken, this does not mean God fixes the future. As William Lane Craig has argued, we do not do what God foreknows, but rather God foreknows what we will do. In other words, God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of our actions; our actions are the cause of God’s foreknowledge. While God’s knowledge of all future contingent acts may be chronologically prior to those acts, the acts themselves are logically prior to God’s knowledge. While God knows for certain what will happen in the future, our free choices inform the foreknowledge of which He is certain. His foreknowledge does not necessitate/determine our choices. If we would have freely chosen to do X rather than Y, God would know X for certain rather than Y. But in God’s foreknowledge He knows we will freely choose Y, and thus is certain that we will choose Y.