An assignment for Philosophy 215. It discusses various philosophical explanations for divine foreknowledge.

Richard Taylor has argued that there is a fundamental contradiction between the foreknowledge of god and human agency. If god is omniscient then he has all knowledge of past, present and future, and thus complete foreknowledge of all things. Further, if god foreknows that M will do X, then it is the case that ‘M will do X’ is necessarily true. If it is the case that ‘M will do X’ is true, then it is impossible for M not to do X. If M has free will then he must be able to choose whether or not to do X. Thus, divine foreknowledge and human free will cannot both exist.

One explanation of the above problem is simply that god is not omniscient in the traditional sense. Because of his incomprehensible intelligence, he has a very good idea of what may happen in the future, but he is not absolutely sure. He does not know, with absolute certainty, what choice a man will make in the future. By insisting on god’s ignorance of the way things must be, true libertarian freedom is maintained.

This is view is espoused by open theists and explained by Clark Pinnock, “Decisions not yet made do not exist anywhere to be known even by God. They are potential--yet to be realized but not yet actual. God can predict a great deal of what we will choose to do, but not all of it, because some of it remains hidden in the mystery of human freedom ... The God of the Bible displays an openness to the future (i.e. ignorance of the future) that the traditional view of omniscience simply cannot accommodate." (Pinnock, "Augustine to Arminius,” 25-26)

In accord with Pinnock’s claim that this god is the “God of the Bible” it is interesting to note that biblical prophesies don’t definitively set out what any specific man will necessarily do. God often prophesies about what he will do or what he will instruct men to do, but never explicitly foretells a specific action by a specific person. Even in the most extreme case of the Atonement, it is logically possible that God had prepared another should Jesus have failed.

The view of the open theists is perhaps the most controversial of the approaches because of its heretical view of god. It denies the traditional conception of god’s omniscience outright. It doesn’t, however, rule out any possibilities of omniscience. It is possible to redefine ‘omniscience’ in such a way that includes knowledge of all things that presently are before him. Even still, such a definition is contrary to the traditional view of god as knowing all things, past present and future.

Another similar approach begins with a redefinition of omniscience, or rather, another interpretation of a traditional definition. This approach starts with the traditional idea that god’s omnipotence is limited to that which is logically possible to be done. For example, god cannot create a five-sided square or a married bachelor. Such things are without the logical bounds created by language. Similarly, god’s omniscience would be limited to that which is logically possible to know. Because our idea of libertarian agency requires absolute unfettered freedom, it is logically impossible that there should exist anything that could limit it.

God’s absolute foreknowledge creates a problem here. If god knows, unconditionally, exactly what choice a person will make in the future, it follows that it is not possible for the person to do otherwise. Though it’s something of an abstract idea, this inability for a person to act otherwise than god knows he will do presents a limitation on what he can do. This limitation contradicts the definition of libertarian agency and thus constitutes what can be considered logically impossible given libertarian agency. Because such foreknowledge comprises a logical impossibility, it is thus the case that it is not necessary that god have such knowledge in order to be omniscient.

One objection to this idea suggests that it is indeed logically possible for god to know the future. As Alvin Plantiga points out, god’s knowledge of the future may mean that when he knows will take place, but it doesn’t mean that it will necessarily take place. It is not impossible that the future will be otherwise that god foresees it, it is simply the case that it won’t be otherwise. The difference between the two is found in a difference between what must happen and what simply will happen. Though god knows what will happen in the future, he does not know that it must be the case that it be so.

Another possibility suggests that god knows beforehand what man will do, but included in his knowledge of what will happen is the knowledge that man will make that choice freely. This is the option that St. Augustine suggested when he stated that “God compels no man to sin, though he sees beforehand those who are going to sin by their own will.”

Because god’s knowledge includes the fact that man will make a given choice by free will, the man’s agency is in no way limited to make the choice. He can freely choose all he wants because god knows that he will freely choose. Because there are no option outside of “freely choosing” it does not contradict agency to say that god knows man will “freely choose”. The only additional element in the equation is that god knows what the free choice will be. Though god knows the outcome of the decision, his knowledge that the decision will be freely made insures the agency of the individual.

Nelson Pike provides a strong case for the problem with this approach. Though the idea sounds good in writing, the actual occasion that god knows with a certainty what man will freely choose is contradictory in nature. With the same line of thought that says that it is logically impossible for god to know what man will freely choose, it is impossible for god to know that will be freely chosen. Thus, the logical impossibility of god’s foreknowledge of agentive choice works against this theory, much in the same way that it worked in support of the previous one.

Another explanation gives up libertarian freedom in favor of soft determinism. This view says that we are “determined” by our character. Or the choices we make are decided by our character, and we cannot do otherwise than it is our character to do. Because god knows our character thoroughly, he knows what choices we will make in the future.

Frederich Schleiermacher compared the idea of one man intimately knowing his friend. Because one man may know his friend’s character thoroughly, it is appropriate that he might say that he “knows” what his friend will do in a given situation – and he’ll usually be right. The idea is transferred from man, who has limited knowledge, to god, who has all knowledge and knows our character much more intimately than any human friend. If a close friend can accurately guess how we might behave, it only goes to show how much more accurately god can predict exactly what choices we will make.

The problem with this argument lies with the need to be accurate at all. If god is merely guessing, then it must be the case that he doesn’t actually know what choices we will make. Pike effectively argues that, since one of the pillars of the problem of the divine foreknowledge of god involves the fact that “truth is analytically connected with god’s beliefs,” this argument fails in that the idea of intimately knowing the character of another doesn’t constitute an analytic truth – one the necessarily must be. Either god knows man’s future actions absolutely or he does not. If he doesn’t know them absolutely, then he cannot be considered traditionally omniscient and if he does, then man cannot be considered to have a free will.

The best solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge is founded in the idea that god is outside of time completely. He is a being that exists in a dimension unreachable by time – a state of timelessness. In his state of timelessness, he sees the temporality of the world before him all at once. Thus, he sees past, present and future at the same time. From a specifically LDS perspective, D&C 130:7 states that, “all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord.” It would seem to suggest that god sees all at once in one sphere of understanding.

Because god is timeless and sees the temporality of the world as a whole, it is false to conclude that he has foreknowledge of people’s future choices. Rather, he simply observes the choices that people freely made. Because he is timeless, it may appear to us, who are in time, that he knew our choices before we did, but his timelessness just allowed him to see at once.

I think the issue is best defended with the idea of time travel. If I were to travel back in time, with no ability to affect the world around me, I could say that I “know” what a given person were to do at a given time. That knowledge, however, in no way binds that past person to make the decision. It is merely a report of what did happen. In much the same way, god only knows what will happen because he has already seen it in his timelessness.

The solution presents its own problems, however. One objection might be that the god of the Bible exists in time. He interacts with men in time and makes prophesies about events to occur in time.

While the biblical understanding of god shows us that god does interact within time, god does not make determining claims or actions within time. Much like the argument from openness, there is no presentation of the future in either the Bible or the Book of Mormon that states that things will necessarily be as they are. It is fully possible that, in all accounts of the future, they are things as they may be if men do not change their ways. While god sees the temporality of the world before him, his interactions within the world at any given point are limited to what he will do and what man may do in the future.

Another argument specifically problematic for the LDS perspective involves the corporality of god. Part of the success of the timelessness argument rests on the fact that the existence of time requires the existence of matter and that time could cease to exist were there no matter. The LDS doctrine of god’s corporality seems to fail to pass this requirement.

To this objection it is significant to note that although LDS doctrine claims that god does indeed have a body of flesh and bones, there is no specific account of what kind of materials that flesh and bones is made of. If it is the case that god’s body is made up of a “finer matter” that we do not know or comprehend, it is also possible that this finer matter is not subject to the same laws of nature that matter as we know it is subject to. Simply stated, we cannot say that god’s body is of the same matter that we hold to enforce the existence of time.

Apr. 28, 2004