- Nick
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Re: God and Free-Will
Scott wrote:
But would not your feelings about mushrooms otherwise preclude the mushroom steak from coming about?
Sure. But since, by your own admission, it doesn't seem to make the coming into existence of that mushroom steak (metaphysically or absolutely) impossible, then (the impossibility of something being the necessity of its contrary) the nonexistence of the steak also isn't necessary.
You're right, it doesn't make it metaphysically or absolutely impossible. I think I was being unclear by saying it's impossible. But it seems we're still disagreeing about our modals here. It seems to me that, if something under certain circumstances will never deviate from a behavior, it is (contingently?) necessary that it will never deviate from that behavior. Is stacking modals like that inappropriate? I'm pretty sure physical laws could be described the same way, and we describe those in terms of powers and passive potencies and so on too, therefore, etc.
- John West
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Re: God and Free-Will
I have a feeling John West might like to weigh in here when time permits.
As it happens, me too.
How does God know our free-choices?
I'll have to look at the rest later, because I think it's going to involve a longer reply.
For now, we ought to make sure we're drawing a distinction between predictivity (or foreknowledge) and necessitation (or determining). Consider an infallible barometer. The barometer perfectly predicts the weather. It never makes a mistake. But clearly the barometer doesn't determine the weather. It's just that if the weather were different, the barometer reading would have been different. So, insofar as divine knowledge of free choices is concerned, you're free to do anything you want. You're just not free to fool the barometer.
Incidentally, the distinction between predictivity and necessitation is so important as to be common coin in the free will debate, even among deterministic naturalists.
- Timocrates
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Re: God and Free-Will
... To repeat an example I used in another thread, if I'm asked in a restaurant whether I want mushrooms with my steak, I'm guaranteed to say "no" no matter how often the scenario is rewound and rerun in imagination (or in reality, if that were possible), because I hate mushrooms. That doesn't seem to make my choice any less "free"; there's a sense in which I could choose mushrooms, and I just didn't (and never will).
I had always suspected there was something irreducibly odd about you, Scott, and now I have the proof! 
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Re: God and Free-Will
Having skimmed through the posts a couple times now, there may be deeper problems based on the notions of free will being used to sort out first. For people under the huge but largely unrecognized influence of Ockham's voluntarist and nominalist view of man, an action is freely willed if and only if nothing (feelings, desires, natural ends, etc.) precedes Scott's choice; the will must be completely prior to all else. In contrast, for Thomists, an action is free if and only if nothing constrains the nature of the person from realizing his intrinsic teleological ends in making that choice. So, for Thomists, Scott's choice to not order the mushroom steak is free because it is Scott fully realizing his nature and nothing is placing a constraint (ignorance, weakness, external factors, etc.) on that.
The point I take Scott—a Thomist—to be making is, essentially, that denying the mushroom steak is free because it follows from his intrinsic nature, not from the influence of some external factor.
[1] I'm assuming that Scott means for mushroom dislike to be an essential property of Scott.
Last edited by John West (7/07/2015 2:27 pm)
- Nick
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Re: God and Free-Will
Having skimmed through the posts a couple times now, there may be deeper problems based on the notions of free will being used to sort out first. For people under the huge but largely unrecognized influence of Ockham's voluntarist and nominalist view of man, an action is freely willed if and only if nothing (feelings, desires, natural ends, etc.) precedes Scott's choice; the will must be completely prior to all else. In contrast, for Thomists, an action is free if and only if nothing constrains the nature of the person from realizing his intrinsic teleological ends in making that choice. So, for Thomists, Scott's choice to not order the mushroom steak is free because it is Scott fully realizing his nature and nothing is placing a constraint (ignorance, weakness, external factors, etc.) on that.
[1] I'm assuming that Scott means for mushroom dislike to be an essential property of Scott.
Just to be clear: the Thomist position is incompatible with libertarian free will, is it not?
- Etzelnik
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Re: God and Free-Will
For now, we ought to make sure we're drawing a distinction between predictivity (or foreknowledge) and necessitation (or determining). Consider an infallible barometer. The barometer perfectly predicts the weather. It never makes a mistake. But clearly the barometer doesn't determine the weather. It's just that if the weather were different, the barometer reading would have been different. So, insofar as divine knowledge of free choices is concerned, you're free to do anything you want. You're just not free to fool the barometer.
Incidentally, the distinction between predictivity and necessitation is so important as to be common coin in the free will debate, even among deterministic naturalists.
I've seen this point brought up by way of modern modals. It may have been IEP?
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Re: God and Free-Will
Just to be clear: the Thomist position is incompatible with libertarian free will, is it not?
Of the radical Jamesian variety, where actions are free only if they are mere twitches, I think so. I understand there are, however, species of libertarian free will that allow for reasoned choices. It's likely compatible with one of those.
Last edited by John West (7/07/2015 3:17 pm)
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Re: God and Free-Will
I've seen this point brought up by way of modern modals. It may have been IEP?
I'm not sure what the acronym stands for, but this is definitely a problem that gets chopped up in modal logic terms. I even wrote out a technical half to the comment that I held back (for various reasons, I've been trying to cut back on my use of formalisms in public philosophy).
Edit: Since you mentioned it, here it is: let L be the necessity operator and → be the conditional. In short
(1) q → Lp
is not the same as
(2) L(p → q)
(1) says that if q holds, then necessarily p holds. So, if God knows that I choose to go to the grocery store tomorrow, then I must go to the grocery store tomorrow. In contrast, (2) says that necessarily, if p holds, then q holds. So, necessarily, if I choose to go to the grocery store tomorrow, then God knows that. Divine "fore"knowledge entails (2), but not (1). In other words, exactly what I said with the barometer example (which, for the record, isn't my own, but I can't for the life of me remember where I first heard it).
Last edited by John West (7/07/2015 2:48 pm)
- TomD
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Re: God and Free-Will
I have a feeling John West might like to weigh in here when time permits.
As it happens, me too.
How does God know our free-choices?
I'll have to look at the rest later, because I think it's going to involve a longer reply.
For now, we ought to make sure we're drawing a distinction between predictivity (or foreknowledge) and necessitation (or determining). Consider an infallible barometer. The barometer perfectly predicts the weather. It never makes a mistake. But clearly the barometer doesn't determine the weather. It's just that if the weather were different, the barometer reading would have been different. So, insofar as divine knowledge of free choices is concerned, you're free to do anything you want. You're just not free to fool the barometer.
Incidentally, the distinction between predictivity and necessitation is so important as to be common coin in the free will debate, even among deterministic naturalists.
Okay here is the issue. Assuming a Barometer can be 100% correct, this is either due to luck or due to the fact that certain causes detectable in the present determine the weather. Now, God's foreknoweldge is not lucky. So this leaves us with the option that God knows all causes which determine the will. However, our wills are free, therefore, there should be no such causes.
This leads to two possibilities:
(1) Bite the bullet and accept the compatibility with determinism and free-will. I take it that this is the common understanding of the Thomistic view. Specifically, God's primary causation causally determines the will however it is free in the sense that there are no secondary causes which determine the will. Therefore, God knows our future free actions by knowing His own causal activity.
(2) Say that God knows our future free-choices by actually observing them. Since God stands outside of time, this is not a problem. However, it does involve a four-dimensionalist view of time (aka B-theory or eternalism). That is fine by me as I think any A-theory of time is demonstrably false. A more seroius problem however is that it entails God is passive with regards to our choices. His knowledge would then be dependent. This is something which needs to be addressed. I think it can be but I am interested in everyone else's opinions.
In any case, I do accept (2) rather than (1). However, I am interested in everyone's thoughts.
P.S. I do not list Molinism as an option because I think it falls prey to the serious probelms of both (1) and (2).
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Thread Starter- John West
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Re: God and Free-Will
Okay here is the issue. Assuming a Barometer can be 100% correct, this is either due to luck or due to the fact that certain causes detectable in the present determine the weather.
This just begs the question. It states that the only way perfect predictivity is possible is if determinism is the case[1]. I take it the whole issue here is whether perfect "pre"dictivity entails determinism. It might be okay to claim that it's temporally the case that if God knows q, then necessarily q occurs (well, actually, it's not okay, because God doesn't exist in time in the first place). But there is no reason to hold that this is the logical order (and, as my comment with the formalisms shows, logically we have no problem talking about omniscience without talking about determinism).
Unless what you're trying to ask is whether there is a conflict between free will and divine providence, and human freedom (and it sounds like you are). In that case, I take it Scott's answer is correct and the alleged conflict is based on the notion that every cause necessitates its effect. I take it that a cause brings about its effect, but that there is no obvious reason to assume that it does so with any particular kind of modality[2].
[1]There is a disjunct about luck in there, but I pretty clearly wasn't talking about luck.
[2]And historically, few if any classical theists have assumed this. The view that all causes necessitate their effects only really becomes dominant with Liebniz and Spinoza.
Last edited by John West (7/07/2015 4:30 pm)