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Why God's Foreknowledge Might Be Thought to Conflict with Freedom of the Will


God might be thought to be omniscient, and God's omniscience might be thought to include the foreknowledge of all occurrences that have happened, are happening, or will happen. This leads to an apparent conflict between God's foreknowledge and human freedom of the will. If person X is confronted with a choice between action A and action B at time t, and if God already knows that person X will choose action A at time t, then person X must choose action A at time t; he is not free to do otherwise. He cannot defy God's foreknowledge, after all.

(There is a difficulty here with the term "foreknowledge." If God is thought to exist within time, then "foreknowledge" is an appropriate word to use for his prior knowledge of all occurrences; however, if God is thought to exist outside of time, then the "fore-" part of "foreknowledge" has to be understood in some way other than as temporal priority. But as long as one can say, of every choice of action a human being makes, that God knows it and that God's knowledge does not depend on when it occurs--that God isn't in a state of ignorance as to its occurrence until it happens, only then finding out about it--the argument for an apparent conflict between God's knowledge and human freedom of the will may seem to have force, and I will go on speaking of God's knowledge as "foreknowledge.")

In more detail--although it needs no more detail to be readily understood--the argument is as follows:

(1) God infallibly foreknows all occurrences in spacetime.
(2) God infallibly foreknows that person X will perform action A at time t.
(3) Therefore, person X will perform action A at time t.
(4) Were person X not to perform action A at time t, it would conflict with God's foreknowledge.
(5) Therefore, person X is not logically free not to perform action A at time t.
(6) Therefore, person X not only will but must perform action A at time t.
(7) Therefore, person X lacks freedom of the will with respect to action A at time t.
(8) But the same argument applies to any action person X may take at any time whatsoever.
(9) Therefore, person X has no freedom of the will at all.

Stripped down, the argument runs simply this way:

1) God infallibly foreknows that person X will perform action A at time t.
2) Therefore, person X will perform action A at time t.

How is this argument to be escaped? See here.

(© 2007 by Keith Brian Johnson)

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