Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom | Dr. Taylor Cyr and Sean Clements

There's no use crying over spilled milk. The past is over and done with -- it's fixed. But if (i) you have no control over the past, (ii) God believed 1000 years ago that you would watch this video, and (iii) God's believing this entails its truth [since God is infallible], doesn't it follow that you have no control over watching this video? I'm joined by Dr. Taylor Cyr and Sean Clements to discuss this question and more.

Wanna dig deeper into Taylor's work on the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom? Check out:

And, of course, the usual links :)

[Nitroade]

Fascinating discussion. Joe's channel is a goldmine for these kinds of things. I almost gave up early on because I felt way out of my depth, but I'm glad I kept watching because it was a really interesting conversation.

[jacksonhoward]

Joe out here bringing us all the goods oh my gosh!! Love Dr. Cyr! He’s forgotten more about free will than I will ever know.

[felipedantas]

1) If complete and infallible divine foreknowledge is true, then every decision is fixed before its occurrence.
2) If libertarian free will is true, then at least some decisions are not fixed before their occurrence.


C) It is not the case that both complete and infallible divine foreknowledge and libertarian free will are true.

[justdavelewis]

Just watching for the first time, I am thinking about this subject at the minute and I was hoping to have it explored by people who are in the field.

A few points:

1) I don’t understand the distinction between omniscience and infallibility. If one is all knowing, then one is necessarily infallible, no? Unless knowledge doesn’t mean “true belief” (basically), that is, but when we talk about knowledge that’s what we mean?

If I know x to be the case, it means that x is necessarily the case, right? If x isn’t the case, then I was wrong and therefore I didn’t actually know it. Therefore, if know x it has to be that x is the case by necessity.

Does this make sense? I don’t see how it’s possible to be omniscient yet fallible, it seems like a contradiction to me.

2) I don’t fully understand these potential worlds, exhaustive and non-exhaustive (I can’t remember the acronyms).

The logic in the exhaustive world makes sense. How I see that is: if god knows all, and can’t be wrong, it’s impossible to have free will (that I could ACTUALLY do otherwise, not hypothetically) as I can’t choose something that god doesn’t know, even if it feels like I can - the feeling is merely an illusion, god knows exactly how I will feel so it’s impossible for me to feel any other way. Again, if I chose something different then that means god is fallible and therefore he didn’t actually know what I was going to choose.

The non exhaustive world troubles me, I think, because of the way I see omniscience and infallibility: I can’t currently comprehend a being that is all knowing but fallible, it just seems contradictory to me.

Maybe my definition and understanding of knowledge is wrong… but if there is a weaker definition of knowledge, one that doesn’t necessitate certainty, then I can see omniscience and fallibility coexisting.

The PROBLEM with that is, suddenly being all knowing doesn’t really mean much anymore. The claim has gone from “god is right all the time” to “god is right most of the time” or “god is almost always right” and that’s just much less impressive, why bother with the whole god malarkey?

I clearly don’t fully understand this non exhaustive world, that’s my issue, but as far as I see it, a god in a world where it’s not possible to know everything just isn’t truly omniscient.

In a world where it’s not possible to know everything (I’m guessing this is basically what non exhaustive means) then I’m guessing we are saying omniscience means “knows all it is possible to know”? - I suppose one could argue that definition is true regardless of the world (E or NE) but in E all knowledge is possible…

Why is this the case? Is it possible that some things aren’t knowable?

Are they unknowable because god isn’t powerful enough to know them? Or are they unknowable because it is logically impossible to know? Are there more options? Probably, I can’t think properly atm lol, my mind is racing

Anyway, the latter seems to be more likely if it is in fact the case we are in an NE world. Though there is potential Old Testament evidence in Job and the story of Isaac that god doesn’t know what choices we will make, imo the story of Isaac and his son makes no sense if god already knows the choices Isaac will make.

One could argue that it’s logically possible to know what choice a person will make, and therefore god can’t know our choices so free will (if it exists) is unaffected by gods omniscience. I’m not sure what the ramifications of that are though…

3) a third possible option is the one I mentioned above then, right?

The world is actually exhaustive, but god can’t know or chooses not to know everything about it. This would mean he’s either not omniscient, or he’s theoretically omniscient.

I suppose one argument could be made that god chooses not to know the choices we make as that would conflict with our free will. I don’t know if anyone has made that argument before.

It seems kinda ad hoc, but then again this entire argument feels ad hoc…

“God has omniscience only insofar as it doesn’t affect free will as I need both to be true”

This has been a journey, I’ve learned as I’ve typed out this essay, I hope it makes sense to anyone that reads it:)

Thanks Joe, I’m glad it was you that’s made this!

Extra info: i was making the argument that free will is incompatible with omniscience and I was hit with (in a basic form) “god knowing what choice you will make, doesn’t mean you don’t get a choice”

I hope I’m not straw manning, it just seems wrong to me for some of the reasons I mentioned above

[miniroundaboutinbrum]

This got interesting at 53 mins (roughly) I think the idea of PSO as a challenge to the assumptions of omniscience is thought provoking. Good discussion

[bigol]

I hope you talk about Molonism one day!

[greyback]

Will watch it later, comment for algorithm!

[tombrown]

Question about your opening sequence: it looks like it was shot with a drone, true? Also where was it shot and who shot it? Thanks.

[l.q.cincinnatus]

Am I wrong for thinking that a "pikean" responses to this problem can't apply to the god of classical theism? Given that every property of God is supposed to be identical with each other God can't be essentially omniscient but not essentially inerrant. If you talked about this in the video it means I fell asleep on the train at least once while watching this (fortunately I did not miss my station).

[alistairkentucky-david]

If God ever falsely believes p, then the proposition q = 'p is false' is true, and God's omniscience demands that he believes (and knows) q. But then God believes p and q which impugns His rationality. This is not acceptable, and plausibly, it would undermine the claim that God's belief in q is justified, meaning He wouldn't actually know q.

[Gonicksomestuff]

Have you read Kvanvig's book "Destiny and Deliberation" ?

[dustinellerbe]

It seems to me that the actual world would have to be one of the options of a possible world. In that case, I would be set and cant be altered. The only way around it is to say that actual world is just a random conglomeration of pieces of possible worlds that God lacks knowledge of. Therefore he isn't omniscient nor omnipotent nor omnipresent.

[jamesmarshel]

Does foreknowledge require justification?

[tombrown]

You three obviously know a LOT more about these arguments than I do. But here's an impression I get: it seems like you start out with a list of things you want to conclude and the PROBLEM is how to get there. For example: you want humans to be responsible for their choices, but you also want there to be an omniscient infallible god in some sense. The implication is you want a god to hold us responsible for our free choices which further implies that our choices are important to god. Wouldn't this all be a lot simpler if you assumed a deist god who doesn't care? Now god can be omniscient and infallible in any sense you like. You're not responsible to him because he doesn't care about you or what you do: no more so than any other swirling cluster of matter in the universe anyway, i.e. he may be intellectually curious about what you do, but he doesn't care about what you do one way or the other. Suddenly there's no problem to resolve.

[libertyfirst]

I love the idea, but unfortunately there’s no such thing as free will. Any and all will is overtaxed by the government!

[mohamedluqman]

All got books behind them but Joe got a door...maybe the door to your library? Lol