Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom

Is God’s comprehensive foreknowledge of the future incompatible with free will? Let’s see where reason takes us.

Here’s another argument that I didn’t cover in the video but which will be of interest to y’all:

(1) It is not under your control that God believed 1000 years ago that each of your actions would occur.
(2) Necessarily, if God believed 1000 years ago that each of your actions would occur, then each of your actions occur.
(3) If P necessarily entails Q, and P is not under your control, then Q is not under your control.
(4) So, the occurrence of each of your actions is not under your control.
(5) If (4), then you are not free.
(6) So, you are not free.

This argument is interesting. I would probably challenge premise (1). It is *precisely because* you are free in each of your actions that you *are* in control of past facts specifying what your free actions will be. In other words, while you don’t cause the past to be how it is, there’s a kind of counterfactual dependence of the past on your choices: *had* you chosen A instead of B, God *would have* foreknown that you chose A.

Here’s another example. Presumably, it was true before you were born that you would read this sentence today. And — by the same kind of reasoning that would presumably motivate (1) — this truth is not under your control (since you didn’t even exist to causally influence the past). And, moreover, this truth necessarily entails that you *do* in fact read this sentence today. So, it would follow from all of this that you are not free in reading this sentence! And we didn’t even need to invoke God’s foreknowledge here. All we needed was a truth prior to your birth.

Surely, then, the argument has gone wrong somewhere. I suggest — as I did in the case of the foreknowledge argument — that it’s simply false that you have no control over truths prior to your birth. Rather, it is *precisely because* you are free and in control of your present actions that you thereby have control over truths prior to your birth. The explanation of your actions doesn’t flow *from* the past truth *to* your actions; rather, it’s the opposite. Your actions *explain* the past truth. Don’t put the cart before the horse.

[gabri]

The problem with the christian God is that he isn't simply omniscient, but he also is omnipotent. So he isn't simply keeping track of the truths. He literally made the whole world with the foreknowledge of the outcome. So i can say that if god knows P, then necessarily P.

[wardandrew]

For those new to this subject, here are some thoughts on what it means for an action to be performed "freely". The apparently simplest analysis is (1): Jones is "free" to perform to action P if nothing prevents Jones from performing P. It's simple and concise, and eliminates from consideration any actions that are impossible for someone to perform. After all, having free will doesn't entail being able to anything; there are some actions no one can perform, either because those actions have an incoherent description or because they violate physical laws. But the problem with (1) is that it doesn't rule out actions that Jones did not choose to perform (eg: he's acting under a hypnotic suggestion, magical spell, suffers from a brain disorder, etc.). To be free with respect to an action requires that it is up to us whether or not we perform that action. So with this in mind, let's consider a more refined definition (2): Jones is "free" to perform action P if it is up to Jones to do P, and nothing prevents Jones from doing P. This seems to more closely approximate what we mean when we say that someone is free with respect to a certain action, but there's still a problem here. Consider the following example. Suppose Jones walks into a room with only one door and closes it behind him. He then has two options: to remain in the room, or to leave. He chooses to remain in the room. Now, it looks like Jones' decision to remain in the room meets the definition given in (2): Jones wanted to stay in the room and did exactly that. But suppose that, unknown to Jones, the door he entered the room through had automatically locked behind him, making it impossible for him to leave. Would his decision to remain in the room then have been a free one? That doesn't seem right. Our intuition is that for an act to be performed freely requires that we have at least one other option, and in this case there was no other option. It's true that Jones did what he wanted to do, but the fact remains that the choice he thought he had was an illusion; he could not have done anything other than what he did. So definition (2) needs some further refinement. This brings us to the definition philosophers often describe as "libertarian" free will: (3) Jones is free with respect to action P, if it is up to Jones at the time in question whether to perform P or to refrain from performing P; no antecedent conditions or logical laws determine that he either will or will not perform P. Now this definition certainly seems to be the one that most closely captures what we commonly mean when we say that someone is free with respect to a certain action, and it solves the problems we see in definitions (1) and (2). The question this raises though is what exactly gives rise to our desire to perform any given action? If those desires aren't the result of some antecedent causes, do they just materialize in our minds randomly? If so, what motivates us to act isn't free will, but random events over which we have no control. It may just turn out that the concept of free will doesn't even make sense.

[nccca]

I'd say God's omniscience doesn't make things necessarily true by fixing them as such across all possible worlds.
I'd say it makes things necessarily true by limiting which worlds are possible (in loose terms, "omniscience implies determinism").

Then, God knowing everything limits the possible worlds to just one, so that in a trivial sense "whatever God knows is necessarily true".


Btw, I'm missing a name for a concept here – something like "ultimately necessary":
• If P is necessary, then P is ultimately necessary.
• If P is directly contingent on Q1, ..., Qn, and all Qi are ultimately necessary, then P is ultimately necessary.

[Mirrormaxwelltherd]

I know I'm a bit late, but congragulations on you brothers marriage!

[wardandrew]

Among the material I've collected over the years about divine foreknowledge and human freedom is a little known argument by Nelson Pike, which may be of interest to some others here. The argument considers the question from a different angle, namely the immutability of the past. What Pike has in mind is that it is not within anyone's power today to do something that would change what was true yesterday. For example, if someone yesterday had believed that I would do P today, it is within my power today to either make his belief true or false by either doing P or doing ~P. But it is NOT in my power today to change what someone believed yesterday.

So to put things in the context of the present discussion, suppose that God believed 80 years ago that I would go golfing today. If I have free will (in the incompatibilist sense), then I must have the power today to go golfing or to refrain from golfing. But if God believed 80 years ago that I would go golfing today, then my having the power to do otherwise would entail having the power today to change what God believed 80 years ago. This possibility, Pike argues, violates our intuition that the past is fixed and immutable. The un-alterability of the past is something Pike regards as an a-priori truth, requiring no demonstration. So here we have a relatively straightforward argument which doesn't require understanding subtle concepts in modal logic or possible world semantics to comprehend. Comments?

[dustinellerbe]

If this world is on the list on possible worlds, and God's knowledge entails those details, then therefore it is necessary.

[markevans]

Funny, just finished reading Paul Manata’s “Free Will, Moral Responsibility and Reformed Theology” (for the third time lol) and he states that the divine foreknowledge attaches “accidental necessity.” He then goes on to quote Graham Priest saying that the “accidental necessity” argument does not commit the modal logic fallacy (as you have shown) page 62

[anglicanaesthetics]

On premise 3 of the argument in the comments, premise 3 would be false. For example, it might be the case that some demon knows whatever happens on earth; his knowing it is not under your control. This demon is such that it exists in all possible worlds, and knows all that happens necessarily. Thus, if the demon knows x, then x happened. Necessarily, the demons’ knowing x entails that x happened. But it doesn’t follow that x is not under your control

[quad]

Curious for your thoughts on this argument for libertarian free will:

1. If someone had ought to have done something, then they could have done that thing. (Ought implies can)
2. There are some instances of someone ending up doing something otherwise than what they had ought to have done. (A violation of some moral duty.)
Therefore,
3. There are some instances where someone could have done otherwise than what they ended up doing. (Sufficient condition for LFW)

I ran it by Russ Shafer-Landeau in an AMA and he seemed to like it.

[abs]

Layman here, but my issue is this:

The way I understand LFW is like this:

If there is a LFW choice at T, then there exists at least two metaphysically possible worlds that are identical prior to T and have different outcomes at T.

Now let's say God at T_0 knew infallibly that Joe is going to pick heads at T.

According to my understanding of LFW.
Joe at T can freely choose heads or tails means there exists two metaphysically possible worlds that are identical prior to T ( god knew prior to T that joe will pick heads) and one of them joe picks heads and the other joe picks tails.

So there exists a metaphysically possible world in which god infallibly knew joe would pick heads, but joe picked tails.

But that is absurd.

Please note that a possible world in which god knew that joe would choose tails is not identical prior to T.

Can someone please explain the fault in my understanding?

[ObsidianTeen]

(I now retract this comment.) I think free choices are just as incompatible with prior truths as they are with foreknowledge. If it was true yesterday I would eat an apple, then it's irreversible that it was true. I'm stuck with what's written. To be free, it has to be of indeterminate truth value what I will do.

"Your actions explain the past truth." The action does not exist.

"...precisely because..." Whether it can be free is the very thing in dispute. Suppose I say it's absurd for there to be a square circle. You say I'm begging the question b/c on your view, square circles aren't absurd. That's what I feel like is going on here. You assume free (RANDOM!) choices are compatible with past truths, then when absurdities are raised, you can just say the interlocutor is ?-begging.

[kravitzn]

A million years before I was born, God knew that I would choose X in the year 2022. How could I have chosen not-X?

Some theists think we can retroactively change or determine the past.

[chipperhippo]

I suppose my question when it comes to this discussion is whether or not God is aware of all possible worlds during the creation process. For example: I'm fine with the idea that my actions inform God's foreknowledge and this doesn't necessarily mean that I am not free to act differently (If I recall, Craig describes our actions as being logically prior to God's knowledge as opposed to temporally); but the issue for me is that as far as I can tell God's creating me is logically prior to my action. Could he have not created me in such a way that I would behave differently?

Idk I'm a layperson so there could be a flaw here, but essentially while like you, I've never found the objections rebutted in this video compelling (even if I can't articulate it as well as you have), It's not clear to me that there's a simple way to to square the issue I outlined above.

[ajhieb]

What if we skip the modality shift all together and look at it in a tensed sense? It seems to me the tense is significant since we are after all talking about divine _fore_ knowledge.

If God (infallibly) knows that P _will_ obtain then P can't fail to obtain.
conversely
If P can fail to obtain, then God can't infallibly know that P _will_ obtain.


Sure you can say, in this world God knows P so P will obtain, but in some other world, its possible that God knows ~P so P won't obtain, but that's kinda meaningless since I only occupy the actual world and if God knows P in this world, then in this world there is no possibility of ~P.

[ObsidianTeen]

(I now retract this comment.) "Had you chosen A instead of B, God would have foreknown [that]"

In that world-story, you couldn't choose B.

The following might be beyond my level, but I'll take a shot: I think modal logic in its current form actually *presupposes* that a possible world (with a complete history) can contain free/random events. This makes it very easy for people to exclaim "modal fallacy!" when it is correctly (on my view) argued that free will can't coexist with exhaustive divine foreknowledge.

I may have more to add later, but I'm sitting in a car right now...

[germancuervo]

Interesting. I would like to know why do you prefer modal logic over prepositional logic. Using the second one, it seems pretty straight forward true:
1. If God knows I will do X, then I will do X.
2. God knows I will do X
3. Therefore, I will do X.

[crabking]

Sorry I'm late, I only discovered this channel on the day I'm typing this. Technically if we were going by the features of the classical theistic god, wouldn't he not have foreknowledge due to him being timeless? Wouldn't he just experience all moments equally? In god's perspective, there technically wouldn't be an objective time for him. Correct me if I'm wrong on anything as I'm not a philosopher. This question might be dumb but wouldn't God being timeless lead to the B-theory of time and would it entail a lack of free will?

[kravitzn]

If God knows X, there is a fact about X. If I am genuinely free, there is no fact of the matter of what I will choose. Thus, God does not know (no one can know: there is nothing to know!) what I will choose.

[joop]

Imagine you are standing infront of an icecream truck. There are only 4 possible outcomes: youll choose either: vanilla, chocolate, strawbarry or banana.

In order to say that you can choose between all four options then each of them must have a chance of being chosen higher then 0%

If thats the case then there cannot be true propositions about which 1 you are going to choose. For the existence of such a proposition would cause the probabilities of 3 of the options to drop to 0%.

But if there are no true propositions about which flavor youre going to choose then how can God know which 1 youll choose?

How can God have foreknowledge if the universe is truly indeterministic?

But what if we dont start with the presumption that we have free will, what if we start with the presumption that God has foreknowledge.

God knows youll choose chocolate and hence the proposition "you will choose chocolate" is true

But the truth value of this proposition causes the probability of any other flavor being chosen to drop to 0%

Why? Because if x will not occur then the chance that it will occur is 0%

[jolssoni]

About the argument in the description: even though "act explains the foreknowledge" isn't as ridiculous as "action explains the why the laws and initial conditions (which imply facts of the past into the future) are what they are" so the move is available here unlike when arguing against the Consequence Argument, I still think your not being able to falsify the known fact bars freedom. Let's say God informs you that you will x at t2. "Can't I decide now at t1 to do y at t2 instead armed with this knowledge?" "No, since if you did y I would have known something else." You can swap x and y in a different possible world if your theology allows that. I don't see how this isn't just full-blown fatalism.