GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE, HUMAN FREEDOM, AND THE ASYMMETRY OF OPENNESS
GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE, HUMAN FREEDOM, AND THE ASYMMETRY OF OPENNESS
Author(s): Adrian KuźniarSubject(s): Philosophy of Middle Ages, Contemporary Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, 13th to 14th Centuries
Published by: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL & Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II
Keywords: God’s foreknowledge; ability to do otherwise; compatibilism; fatalism; asymmetry of openness; Ockhamism;
Summary/Abstract: The paper defends a compatibilist solution to the problem of the relationship between divine and human freedom. It is argued that the asymmetry of ability constituted by our ability to foreknowledge influence the future and our inability to control the past results from the asymmetry of openness between fixed past and open future interpreted in terms of the asymmetry of counterfactual dependence. Therefore, if the asymmetry of openness is not true of some types of facts, then we may be able to control them even if they are facts about the past. It turns out that widely shared accounts of the nature and source of God’s foreknowledge entail that the asymmetry of openness does not apply to God’s past beliefs about future contingencies. Thus, it is unjustified to claim that we are unable to now do anything such that, if we were to do it, God’s past beliefs would have been different.
Journal: Roczniki Filozoficzne
- Issue Year: 71/2023
- Issue No: 2
- Page Range: 147-161
- Page Count: 15
- Language: English