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Divine Omniscience and Human Freedom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Stephen T. Davis
Stephen T. Davis
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Claremont Men's College, Claremont, California
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Extract

Theists typically believe the following two propositions:

(1) God is omniscient,

and

(2) Human beings are free.

Are they consistent? In order to decide, we must first ask what they mean. Roughly, let us say that a being is omniscient if for any proposition he knows whether it is true or false. Since I have no wish to deny that there are true and false propositions about future states of affairs (as some philosophers have done), omniscience includes foreknowledge, which we can say is knowledge of the truth value of propositions about future states of affairs. For example, I believe the proposition ‘Davis will wear shoes tomorrow’ is true today, and if it is true today, i.e. if I will wear shoes tomorrow, an omniscient being knows today that it is true – and, if this being is eternally omniscient, he knew it millions of years ago.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 303 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

page 304 note 1 I am indebted to Alvin Plantinga for this procedure. See God, Freedom, and Evil (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), p. 25.Google Scholar

page 305 note 1 That is, ‘(i) Gbp; (2) ˜ ◊ (Gbp & ˜ p); (3) ∴ ˜˜ ◊ ˜ p’ is invalid.

page 305 note 2 That is, ‘(I) Gbp; (2) Gbp ⇒ ˜ ◊ ˜ p; (3) ∴ ˜ ◊ ˜ p’ is valid by modus ponens.

page 306 note 1 Pike, Nelson, ‘Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action’, Philosophy of Religion, edited by Cahn, Steven (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), pp. 68–88.Google Scholar

page 306 note 2 Plantinga, , God, Freedom, and Evil, pp. 69–73.Google Scholar

page 308 note 1 Pike, Nelson, ‘Divine Foreknowledge, Human Freedom, and Possible Worlds’, The Philosophical Review, LXXXVI, 2 (April 1977).Google Scholar

page 308 note 2 Ibid. p. 216.

page 311 note 1 It should also be noted that whatever forcefulness this argument possesses has nothing whatever to do with essential omniscience or even with omniscience. In fact, all one must do is omit the words that God knew at T1 in premises (32), (35), (37), and (38), and one produces an equally forceful argument for fatalism. But this argument too is unsound, as Pike will be quite prepared to admit.

For it is his claim that determinism is produced only by foreknowledge of an essentially omniscient being. Foreknowledge by a contingently omniscient being or by a non-omniscient being does not produce determinism, nor (I am sure he would say) does an argument for non-theological fatalism.

page 313 note 1 Pike, , ‘Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action’, p. 77. (But Pike admits that he does not really understand what the doctrine means.)Google Scholar

page 314 note 1 Summa Theologica (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1947), 1, 14, 9 (italics added).Google Scholar

page 314 note 2 Ibid. I, 14, 8.

page 315 note 1 Taylor, Richard, ‘Deliberation and Foreknowledge’, in Berofsky, Bernard (ed.), Free Will and Determinism (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), pp. 277–93.Google Scholar