podcast 80 – Foreknowledge, Freedom, and Randomness

If God foreknows all that you’ll do, doesn’t that imply that you have no control over how your life turns out? It just is going to happen as it’s already been known, right? And conversely, if you have any degree of control over how your life turns out, then how can God already know, with certainly, every last event that will compose your life? Two sorts of Christians have agreed that this idea of exhaustive and unchanging divine foreknowledge and (what philosophers call “libertarian”) human freedom are logically incompatible: Calvinists, and open theists. Calvinists simply deny that we have this sort of freedom, whereas open theists complicate their views about divine providence and foreknowledge to be logically compatible with it. Needless to say, there are serious scriptural disputes involved, but all I’ll say for now is that both sides think that they can make a strong case that their view fits with what the Bible teaches.

What’s open theism? Dr. Gregory Boyd does a good job explaining the basics of this theological and philosophical outlook here:

I’ve long been convinced that open theism is the better option, biblically, theologically, and philosophically. In my 2007 paper “Three Roads to Open Theism,” I explain my view that statements about future free actions are neither true nor false in advance, contrast it with some different open theist views, such as the view that all such statements are false.

The common accusation against open theists is that we “deny God’s foreknowledge.” There have been open theists who’ve said that God willingly declines to know some future facts, but open theists like Boyd, Hasker, Rhoda, and I affirm that at any given time, God knows all that can possibly be known – what has been, what is, and what will be. But we think that he’s allowed “what will be” to be incomplete. “The future” is to a large extent a realm of possibilities and (in-between) probabilities. Of course, God know all those as well. But here’s the point: the contents of God’s perfect knowledge change, as the reality he created changes, as some possibilities are ruled out and others are ruled in (become actual).

In this episode, you’ll hear my October, 2014 presentation at the Randomness and Foreknowledge Conference in Dallas, Texas. I had a great time at this conference getting to know (or to know better) various open-theists and anti-open-theists. In the presentation, I explain my view that arguments from truth are a greater threat to human freedom than are arguments from foreknowledge, and I argue against the all-false view about statements about future events that (as of now) may or may not occur. It’s a talk by a philosopher, for philosophers… sorry about that! You’ll want to view the Youtube version of this episode (below) if you can (and go full-screen), because it has all of my presentation slides, with some added information too. It is also available, of course, audio-only, in the usual places.

Thanks is due to the sponsor of this conference, the Randomness and Divine Providence project at Calvin College, and their sponsor, the John Templeton Foundation, and also to the conference organizer Dr. Thomas Oord.

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Links for this episode:

• Dr. Alan Rhoda (blog, papers) – in my view, Dr. Rhoda has done the most important recent work on open theism, especially on topics like time, truth, and providence.
• Dr. William Hasker’s book God, Time, and Knowledge gives penetrating critiques of traditional attempts to show how freedom and divine foreknowledge are compatible, and argues that they are not. Dr. Hasker has done more than anyone to show the importance of open theism to problems of evil, in his books The Triumph of God over Evil: Theodicy for a World of Suffering and Providence, Evil and the Openness of God
• Pinnock, et. al. The Openness of God is the classic source on open theism – it addresses biblical, theological, and philosophical concerns.
• Dr. Greg Boyd’s 2000 book God of the Possible (kindle) is an excellent biblical and theological introduction.
• Dr. Jack Copeland on Dr. A.N. Prior (1914-67) re-discoverer and inventor of temporal / tensed logics, at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Dr. Scott Davison, “Prophecy” at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – see this on Ockhamism, and how the various views about foreknowledge deal with biblical prophecies.
• Dr. Norman Swartz, “Foreknowledge and Free Will” at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Dr. John Laing, “Middle Knowledge” (on the view called “Molinism“) at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Papers by Dr. John Martin Fischer – see the Philosophy of Religion section for his work on Molinism
• A well-known proponent of Molinism in Dr. William Lane Craig, e.g. in his book The Only Wise God. Like some other American evangelicals, Dr. Craig has been harshly critical of open theism, and specifically of my and Rhoda’s work.