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Omniprescience and Divine Determinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Richard R. La Croix
Richard R. La Croix
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Philosophy, State University College at Buffalo
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Extract

In this essay I will try to show that there are what would appear to be some unnoticed consequences of the doctrine of divine foreknowledge. For the purposes of this discussion I will simply assume that future events (while future) are possible objects of knowledge and, hence, that foreknowledge is possible. Accordingly, I will not be concerned with discussing such questions as the status of truth-values for future contingent propositions or whether knowledge is justified true belief. Furthermore, I will not be concerned with the issues involved in the claim that the doctrine of divine foreknowledge conflicts with doctrines concerning the properties of created beings, e.g., the doctrine of voluntary human action.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1976 , pp. 365 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

page 367 note 1 For an interesting discussion of God's immutability see Plantinga, Alvin, God and Other Minds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), pp. 173–80Google Scholar; and a critique of Plantinga in Tomberlin, James, ‘Plantinga's Puzzles About God and Other Minds’, The Philosophical Forum, I, 3 (Spring, 1969, new series), pp. 376–84.Google Scholar Subsequently Tomberlin amends part of Plantinga's argument to free it of some criticisms, in ‘Omniscience and Necessity: Putting Humpty-Dumpty Together Again’, The Philosophical Forum, II, I (Fall, 1970, new series), pp. 149–51Google Scholar and I argue that Tomberlin's amendment fails in my article ‘God might not love us’, International journal for Philosophy of Religion, v, 3 (Fall 1974), pp. 157–161.Google Scholar

page 369 note 1 Even if my confidence on this point turned out to be unjustified, the doctrine of God's eternity as timelessness, itself, has consequences as unacceptable to traditional theism as the consequences of the doctrine of divine omniprescience. For a comprehensive study of the doctrine of God as a timeless being see Pike, Nelson, God and Timelessness (New York: Schocken Books Inc., 1970)Google Scholar, here-after cited as ‘Pike’.

page 369 note 2 For a brief discussion of God's inability to perform certain temporal acts if he is timeless see Coburn, Robert, ‘Professor Malcolm on God’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 41 (August 1963), 143–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, hereafter cited as ‘Coburn’. See also a discussion of Coburn in Pike, pp. 121–9. These discussions develop points about timelessness and God's inability to perform certain acts which are similar to some of the points I wi11 develop about unending duration and God's inability to perform certain acts.

page 370 note 1 If God is timeless it would seem to follow immediately that God cannot decide, choose, etc. See Coburn, p. 155.

page 374 note 1 If God is timeless and everything is ‘all at once timelessly present’ to him, then all of his acts are timelessly present and there is no ‘time’ at which he could have acted differently. So, a similar consequence would appear to follow if divine eternity is understood as timelessness.

page 375 note 1 For a further consideration of the claim that God cannot be both omniscient and omnipotent see my article ‘The Incompatibility of Omnipotence and Omniscience’ in Analysis 33.5 and my article ‘Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Necessity’ in Analysis 34.2.

page 377 note 1 It is interesting to notice that divine determinism does not entail that it is impossible that God has performed an act which he might not have performed. But while any given act of God is an act he might not have performed (he might have been determined to act differently) that act is not an act he could have refrained from performing.

page 377 note 2 Perhaps what we should say here is that the term ‘act’ and, hence, the terms ‘good acts’, ‘malevolent acts’, etc. are as inappropriate when describing the effects of God as they are when describing the effects of gravity.

page 378 note 1 For an argument that God's goodness is logically incompatible with evil in the world if God could have refrained from creating altogether, see my forthcoming article Unjustified Evil, and God's Choice’ in Sophia (Australia) xiii (April 1974).Google Scholar

page 379 note 1 I will not deal with the possibility of rejecting one of the doctrines in the cluster because that alternative would seem to be just as unacceptable for traditional theism as adopting the doctrine of divine omniprescience.

page 380 note 1 For a discussion which represents this type of view see Taylor, Richard, ‘Deliberation and Foreknowledge’, American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 1964), pp. 73–80.Google Scholar

page 381 note 1 See Pike, pp. 54–5.