Does God's Foreknowledge Preclude Human Free Will? Philip Swenson vs. Taylor Cyr

Christian philosophers Philip Swenson (left) and Taylor Cyr (right) have different answers to the question of whether God's foreknowledge precludes human free will. In this live discussion, they air out some of their differences and, in the process, introduce us to a flourishing dialogue happening in academia.

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#FreeWill #God #Foreknowledge

[andrewmoon]

Btw, one thing about these two is that they're not just philosophers of religion or apologists. They are also writing cutting edge research on philosophy of free will and publishing in the highest journals that are respected by secular philosophers. I thought that might be underappreciated, so I'm sharing this.

[TSMistudios]

Taylor Cyr was one of my professors in undergrad!

[noahlee]

That’s my professor! Professor Swenson taught my intro philosophy class at W&M!

[cosmicnomad]

I think the main problem is that people often view God as being in time in some way. God being eternal doesn’t simply mean an infinite succession of moments in time, but rather the infinite possession of life in one eternal now. So God can see all of creation in one gaze and all of creation, which includes all times, is present to him at once. I think if you hold to this view of God, then lots of problems are either solved or become easier. I think it’s faulty to think of God as having foreknowledge, because foreknowledge seems to imply that he is in one time looking forward at another time. If God is truly timeless then this is not how it works. Rather all moments are present to him at once. And in this case I don’t see why free will isn’t compatible because humans can still act as free agents and God’s knowledge still would have no possibility of change because he can see it all in one present moment.

[NomadOfOmelas]

As an atheist and longtime follower of this channel, this is probably one of my favorite conversations! The free will issue (with issue of foreknowledge being a part of it) has long been what I've found the most detrimental argument against some version of an Abrahamic all-judging God. I'm curious if the two interlocutors would agree that more intuitions would be conserved by accepting that there is no (libertarian) free will, putting aside for a moment the arguments in favor of God that they likely wouldn't be able to conserve if they did accept this (as I presume they are stronger for them and outweigh the free will issue).

In other words, would the bayesian prior for such a God's existence go down in light of the issue of free will (or seemingly lack thereof)? One could of course say yes while still be convinced of God for other reasons, but it seems like this conversation at least highlights it as one of the better points against such a God existing, and therefore needs to be rationalized as opposed to used as an argument in favor of such a God.

Another question that might help. Do any of them think libertarian Free Will would be possible in a world without God?

[johnbatts]

It's been over 3 decades, but I distinctly remember my Attic Greek professor at Queen's College (CUNY) leading the class in a discussion of the ancient Greek understanding of the concept of eternity. According to him, it didn't refer to forever or time unending. Rather, it referred to timelessness. He said the ancient belief was that God saw all time at once. Since then, I've listened to numerous mathematicians and theoretical physicists state the linear time, as humans experience it, doesn't actually exist. To me, these two ideas seem to work well together in explaining our free will and God's omniscience. In our linear experience, we view our lives as past, present and future. In God's view, the true reality of time, there is no difference. Whatever we choose to do at any given time is exactly what God sees from His eternal, divine perspective. Am I all wet? Have I been misinformed?

[dennyanthonymusic]

The problem of evil is only understandable to me in the context of free will. This means that to the degree we are capable of choosing for God's will, we must also must have the capability of choosing against God's will. Otherwise how free is my will? Love absolutely must give free-will to all subjects of creations, it is simply what is natural to Love. Love by nature advocates for freedom (never coercion). Also, predestination doesn't mean that every action we actually do was predetermined, rather, my freedom to do so was predetermined. We are simply predestined to be like Jesus. Before God created anything, he chose to create Humanity and decided the purpose of creating Humanity. He decided why a human being would exist before he created the habitat. We make it all personal and very individualistic, but dies it need to be? It is clear in the NT that God sees humanity as being One Man (Ephesians 2:14-15). So why personalize it? And God is Omniscient... This does mean that he has to know every choice we will make, rather, it simply means God knows every possible choice I could possibly make. This way, no matter which one I actually choose, God knew that I could choose that before I chose that. 🤔 This doesn't mean that God can't calculate the variables in our choices to determine what we will actually choose with our free will because sometimes God does this, "Before the cock crows, you will have denied me thrice". The correct interpretation of Scripture is always the one that leads us to Father's Heart. This may not be the same interpretation that leads each of us to understanding Father's Heart, but I don't think that it matters much to Father... as. Long as we are his and we've reached his Heart. 🙏🏽

[TheBrunarr]

Does there even need to be a debate on this? Of course they aren't mutually exclusive. The fact that God knows what I will do in itself assumes that _I_ will be the one doing it. It's not that God's knowing what I will do causes me to do it necessarily, it's the fact that I will freely do X given the actualization of some possible world, and God knows this.

[jazzmankey]

Which action necessarily, temporally, or logically would take place first? A. You deciding to raise your hand today, or B. God knowing (1, 000 years ago) that you would decide to raise you hand today?

[alexxandermedeiros]

I just watched two Christians argue about free will without citing one word from scripture, yikes...

[Mark-cdwf]

Short answer: no. There is no causal relation between God knowing what we will freely do and our doing it. To quote C.S. Lewis, to watch someone doing something is not the same thing as making him do it.

So many skeptics get it backwards. God’s foreknowledge does not determine our actions. Rather, our free choices inform God’s foreknowledge.

[adrianvasian]

Just talking about God knowing is not enough, God knows everything that has and will happen but He ALSO MADE EVERYTHING. The idea that someone simply "watching and knowing is not the same as influencing" is fine and dandy, but HE MADE US. If a watchmaker can make a watch with perfect precision and know the watch's future in advance perfectly, then it follows that all the inherent properties the watch has, will determine it's future, it's properties are already known and are made so intentionally with no doubt so it's future is sealed... God could make the watch different so that it would be redeemed and be a good watch, but he can also make the watch faulty and eventually stray from it's purpose. GOD not just knows, he also made it's creations the way they are ...

[spiritandtruth]

The Calvinist and Arminian, Provisionist etc say that God has foreknowledge, that God knows the future. But the question is HOW does God know the future, how does God know what is going to happen tomorrow for example? The Calvinist says that God knows what will happen because God has decreed it to happen. That's HOW He knows. God's foreknowledge is based on his decree, based on what he has foreordained and predetermined to happen. My question for the non-Calvinist is HOW does God know what will happen if he hasn't decreed it to happen? Cheers.

[trevoradams]

I’m a little confused on Taylor’s position. Can anyone help clarify? So is he simply a deterministic compatibilist? It seems he wanted to defend a sourcehood position of free will early on, which is compatible with LFW but later on in describing his own position he moved more towards just basic compatibilism.

[dgjesdal]

I would say the person is free, for just because someone knows an actual, they would know the free choice. This free choice will then become a certainty but will not necessarily happen because it is known. Basically what is known (pass tense) is a true fact freely done.

[billj]

Analytic philosophers seem so enamored with words and definitions that they seem to think words have the power to define a divine attribute into being, with no concern HOW metaphysically some attribute can be possible.

On a model where God is in time, where the future is not decided, where there is genuine libertarian free will, it seems to me metaphysically impossible for God to have such knowledge. Just defining God as omniscient through greatest being theology doesn't resolve the contradiction. At most it just points to a different model of God or human freedom.

On a more classical theist view of God's relationship to time and human action, God can reasonsbly know all human decisions because they're in some way real, present to him or in him and dependent on him. But to suggest God just has a psychic access to future events that are as yet truly nonexistent and non determined seems metaphysically impossible.

Backwards causation and truth makers etc. just sounds like trying to conjure a metaphysical reality into existence through the rendering of logically possible definitions in the mind.

[firefalcoln]

My answer to the debate question of, “Does God’s Foreknowledge preclude human freewill?”

As far as we can understand God’s foreknowledge and human freewill, yes, they’re incompatible.

If we aren’t meant to understand one or both of the components than we want to analyze, (or are meant to accept that not sufficiently understanding them, is understanding them) then it’s always going to be impossible to prove that the claim being analyzed is correct or incorrect. And that’s same criteria could be applied to avoid finding ANY claim to be wrong. Literally ANY claim can be treated as acceptable under that framework.

[padraicmkelly]

The way i see it is that God's knowledge of the future is totally based on the events that actually happen in the future, He can see exactly what actually happens in the future and so His knowledge of the future is perfect.
'(1) God believed a 1, 000 years ago that i would raise my hand at t' only if i actually will raise my hand at t. God has the power to create creatures with free-will and that is what He did.

[xaviervelascosuarez]

The way I see it, this discussion is pointless because it's tainted by an insurmountable flaw from the get go. Premise one is incorrect: God DOES NOT have foreknowledge; GOD HAS ETERNAL KNOWLEDGE. What's the difference? Foreknowledge is not a positive quality because it implies the basic limitation of time. In order to foreknow something that will happen in the future, you must know it as not happened yet in the past. There's little that we can know about it, but one thing is sure: there's no past nor future in eternity. From God's perspective —making due allowances for the possibility that applying such vocable to God might be wholly inappropriate—nothing has already happened and nothing is waiting to happen. The one thing that will always remain elusive to us, the ever vanishing present, God possesses it fully and perfectly.

[jholts]

Now say I presume divine simplicity. Under these assumptions free will seems unproblematic. For given divine simplicity God's knowledge of contingently actualized facts is based on Him being relation to the causes He entails namely the world existing. On this externalist view there is no problem if a person chooses X vs Y because that changing of God's knowledge isn't changing God. Moreover, remember on this view God knows via relation to His causal entailments therefore the entailed entities, namely us, can cause God to know something new without changing God.