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Omniscience, Foreknowledge and Human Freedom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2020

Osmond G. Ramberan*
Affiliation:
38 San Francisco Avenue, Hamilton, ONCanadaL9C SN9

Extract

One argument for the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom runs as follows:

(a) God is infallible.

(b) God knows the outcome of human actions prior to their performance.

(c) Therefore, no human action is free.

In other words it is argued that if an essentially omniscient being (God) believes prior to the actual performance of a certain action that that action will be performed at a particular time the action in question cannot be a voluntary action. The crucial premise in the argument, it seems to me, is (b) the assumption that an essentially omniscient being can know the outcome of human actions in advance of their performance, or more simply put, that essential omniscience implies knowledge of future free acts. My purpose here is to argue that this assumption is self-contradictory.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1985

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References

1 A very similar argument is developed by Pike, Nelson in Chapter 4 of God and Timelessness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1970).Google Scholar

2 This point is influenced by Taylor's, RichardThe Problem of Future Contingencies,’ Philosophical Review, 66 (1957) 1ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 This point is influenced by and indebted to Prior's, A.N.The Formalities of Omniscience,’ Philosophy, 37 (1962) 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See King-Farlow, John and Christensen, W.N. Faith and the Life of Reason (Dordrecht-Holland: D. Reidel 1972) 114–17.Google Scholar