Omniscience and free will

what does Augustine say God is?

Maximally great being

3 main attributes of God

omniscient, omnipotent, benevolence

whats the difference between everlasting and eternal

everlasting is lasting through time without beginning or end whereas eternal is existing outside of time.

in order to be omniscience God must have what knowledge…

direct and propositional (indirect) knowledge

what is the problem of immutability of God’s omniscience and time

A perfect being is not subject to change because it is immutable and it is omniscient so it knows everything. A being that knows everything knows what time it is. So a being who knows the time would be subject to change because time changes so the knowledge of time of that being changes. Therefore, a perfect being that knows everything is subject to change, being subject to change means the being is not perfect, therefore there is no perfect being.

problem of free will and God being omniscient (premises form)

This argument claims that omniscience and free will are incompatible

p1. if God is omniscient he knows everything possible there is to know including every action I perform and what I will perform before I even do it.

p2. For me to do an action freely, I must be able to do it or choose not to do it,

c1. Therefore, I could not refrain from performing the action God knows I am going to do as this would make God wrong and challenge his omniscience

c2. therefore, if God is omniscient then i cannot perform actions freely

Solution 1 to the problem of free will being incompatible with omniscience:

God is not eternal but everlasting. This means he exists within time throughout time without beginning or end. Therefore, God does not know what we will choose because it is impossible to know what a free agent will choose but God is omniscient as he know all that is possible to know.

Solution 2 to the problem of incompatibility between free will and omniscience (ambiguity)

This shows that God knows what I will do before I do it and yet I can act freely. To say that ‘If God knows what I will do before I do it, then it must be true that I do that action’ is ambiguous. This is because 'if God knows x, then x is true’ this conditional is necessarily true because no one can know what is false, but to say ‘if God knows x, then x is necessarily true’ would be false. That is because our actions are contingent as ‘I will do x’ does not mean ‘I must do x’ otherwise i can’t refrain from x. Since i can refrain from x, doing x is a contingent truth so it is not true I must do it only that I will.

objection to solution 2 (about god’s knowledge of the future)

this challenges God’s knowledge of the future as an omniscient being. It states that God’s knowledge is supposedly infallible and complete. Therefore he has complete knowledge of my character and what I will do e.g. if im so kind then ill help this lady cross the street. Yet my action is free so I could do otherwise, so knowledge of my character is not enough to predict my future. If God knows this, this suggests that the future is fixed and everything is predetermined, but if not, then how could God know the future? This shows that God’s omniscience is restricted in that he does not know what I will do.

is future knowledge even possible? what does an Aristotelian view of future knowledge say?

it is neither true nor untrue that the future will occur. If so, then God cannot have this knowledge of the future as they are not true yet.

solution 3 (strongest) to the issue of free will being incompatible with omniscience

An eternal being’s existence is timeless existing outside of time with no beginning or end because those ideas only make sense in time so atemporal, whereas an ever-lasting being exists throughout time so temporal with no beginning or end. Stump and Kretzmann propose 2 concepts of simultaneity. T-simultaneity is 2 events/beings existing at the same time and this is temporal simultaneity whereas E-simultaneity is when 2 events or beings exist at one and the eternal present and this is eternal simultaneity. God is E-T simultaneous with every point in time, so God is present at every point in time while every event happening in time also occurs in the eternal present. Therefore every event that is future to us is the ‘present’ to God so God is aware of the future and our present at the same time but he does not know anything ‘NOW’ in time as his knowledge is not in time. Hence God does not know what I do before I do it because God’s knowledge is E-T simultaneous with any temporal event. This is compatible with free will as knowing what I am doing (T-simultaneity) doesn’t stop my actions from being free.