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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
If libertarianism is true, then there is a sense in which agents have it within their power to bring it about that some world is actual. Against recent arguments for the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom, I offer an account of power over the past which takes this implication of libertarianism into consideration. I argue that the resulting account is available to Ockhamists and that it is immune to recent criticisms of the notion of counterfactual power over the past. But I contend that it is not an option for Molinists and that this fact leaves that position vulnerable to incompatibilist arguments.
1 Hasker, William, God, Time and Knowledge (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 96–143.Google Scholar
2 God, , Freedom, and Evil (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), pp. 65–73Google Scholar; ‘On Ockham's Way Out’, Faith and Philosophy, 111 (1986), 235–69.Google Scholar
3 God, Time and Knowledge, p. 109.
4 Ibid.
5 Cf. ‘On Ockham's Way Out’, p. 257.
6 Thomas Flint, ‘In Defense of Theological Compatibilism’, Faith and Philosophy, VIII (1991), 237–43.
7 Ibid. p. 240.
8 David Basinger has offered a similar formulation of a similar principle in a similar context. I am using his formulation as a model. See Basinger, David, ‘Middle Knowledge and Human Freedom: Some Clarifications’, Faith and Philosophy, IV (1987), 334.Google Scholar
9 ‘For instance, my having the power to draw a triangle certainly entails my having the power to draw a plane figure, in spite of the fact that “I draw a triangle” and “I draw a plane figure” are not equivalent.’ Hasker, God, Time and Knowledge, p. 110.
10 VanInwagen, Peter, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).Google Scholar
11 Fischer, John Martin, ed., Moral Responsibility (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 9–61.Google Scholar
12 Alston, William, ‘Divine Foreknowledge and Alternative Conceptions of Human Freedom’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, XVIII (1985), 19–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Fischer, John Martin, God, Foreknowledge and Freedom (Stanford University Press, 1988), p. 259.Google Scholar
13 Mavrodes, George, ‘Is the Past Unpreventable?’, Faith and Philosophy, 1 (1983), 131–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Freddoso, Alfred, ‘Accidental Necessity and Power Over the Past’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, LXIII (1982), 54–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Freddoso, , ‘Accidental Necessity and Logical Determinism’, Journal of Philosophy, LXXX (1983), 257–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14 Hasker, , God, Time and Knowledge, p. 106.Google Scholar
15 I develop this argument in ‘Divine Foreknowledge and the Libertarian Conception of Human Freedom’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, XXXIII (June, 1993), 165–86.Google Scholar
16 That is, the libertarian who is also willing to talk about possible worlds as logically maximal states of affairs appears to be committed to such an account.
17 ‘Sleigh's Fallacy’ or the confusion of the necessity of the consequence with the necessity of the consequent.
18 Freddoso, Alfred, ‘Introduction’, in De Molina, Luis, On Divine Foreknowledge, ed. and trans. by Freddoso, Alfred (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 6.Google Scholar
19 Ibid. p. 74.
20 Ibid. p. 75.
21 God, Time and Knowledge, pp. 50–1.
22 On Divine Foreknowledge, p. 77.
23 David, Basinger, ‘Middle Knowledge and Human Freedom: Some Clarifications’, Faith and Philosophy, IV (1987), p. 334.Google Scholar
24 Ibid.
25 Thanks to David Werther, Ed Martin, Charles Taliaferro, Ed Langerak and Keith Yandell for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this paper.