Restitutio 303 Foreknowledge and Free Will 1 (Dale Tuggy Introducing Open Theism)
Today we are beginning an exciting new series on one of the most interesting ongoing controversies within Christian theology. Does God have exhaustive foreknowledge of the future? Does he know everything that is going to happen before it happens? If so, what does that mean for human free will? What are the various options within Christian theology and philosophy that well-meaning bible students have taken over the years?
Now, I’ve been working hard on getting competent representatives from various backgrounds so that you can hear the major options to chose from. As such, I’ve got interviews with an Open Theist, an Arminian, and a Calvinist, resulting in a six-part series on foreknowledge and freewill.
To begin with Dr. Dale Tuggy will give us a lay of the land, going through seven different ways that Christian philosophers have understood divine foreknowledge and human free will. He makes the case that the notion of exhaustive foreknowledge makes libertarian free will impossible. After all, if we are unable to do other than what God knows we are going to do, then we don’t really have the freedom to chose, right? See what you think.
Dr. Dale Tuggy served as Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Fredonia for 18 years. He has taught courses in analytic theology, philosophy of religion, religious studies, and the history of philosophy. Tuggy has a PhD from Brown University. He has authored about two dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters relating to the Trinity and other topics in analytic theology and philosophy of religion.
—— Notes ——
Options for Foreknowledge and Freewill
- God’s foreknowledge does not cause you to act, rather he foreknows something because you are going to do it (Origen)
- Divine Timelessness: God is timeless. He timelessly exists. Any kind of change is impossible for God. God is outside of time. His knowledge is timeless as well (Boethius, Thomas Aquinas)
- Middle knowledge. God knows all necessary truths (like 2 + 2 = 4). He also knows all contingent truths b/c he knows what people will freely choose in any circumstances. (Luis de Molina, William Lane Craig)
- Determinism, no libertarian free will (Calvinism)
- Your free will changes past facts and changes God’s knowledge. Causation occurs from the future to the past or from the present to eternity
- It’s a mystery. God knows what I’m going to do and yet in the moment, I could have chosen otherwise and have free will. (Arminianism)
- The future does not yet exist. God knows everything that can happen and everything in the past and present, and everyone’s inclinations, and everything that he has planned to do. (Open Theism)
—— Links ——
- See other episodes in this series on Foreknowledge and Free Will
- Check out the 6 part Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate between Blake Cortright and Jacob Rohrer
- More about Dale Tuggy at Trinties.org
- Also check out these six episodes from the Trinities podcast about God and time: