Doctrine of God (Part 14): Two Problems of Omniscience

3.a.2. (b) Two Problems of Omniscience

The study of divine omniscience involves two problems which are very much discussed and to which we want to now address ourselves.

1. Compatibility of Foreknowledge and Freedom

The first of these is the famous question of divine foreknowledge and human freedom. The objection arises here that if God knows in advance everything that happens, every choice that you will ever make, then isn’t everything fated to occur? For example, if God knows in advance and predicts that Peter will deny Christ three times, then when the time arrives isn’t Peter fated to deny Christ three times? Isn’t it necessary that Peter deny Christ three times? How could he do anything else, since God knows and has predicted that he would do so and God cannot err? It would seem that if Peter could do anything else, then God could be mistaken, which is impossible. Doesn’t it follow from God’s complete foreknowledge of the future that fatalism is true? Fatalism is the doctrine that everything that happens happens necessarily. Since God infallibly foreknows the future isn’t fatalism true?

Some Christian theologians agree with this. Martin Luther, for example, believed that in virtue of divine foreknowledge of the future there is no human free will – that human freedom is illusory. Others in the Reformed theological tradition have said that God’s foreknowledge of the future is based upon his foreordination of everything. Because God foreordains unilaterally everything that will ever happen, then of course by knowing his own will and his omnipotent ability to bring about whatever he ordains, God thereby knows the future. On these views, there really is no human freedom to do otherwise. Everything that happens happens necessarily. Even the fall of man into sin, on this view (since it was foreknown by God) happens necessarily and therefore is part of what God has foreordained to happen.

But this, I think, is a serious theological mistake. If we say that everything that happens happens necessarily in virtue of God’s foreordination, then that makes God the author of sin. It means that man falls into sin because this is what God determines to happen unilaterally, and man couldn’t possibly have done otherwise. That would make God the author of sin, which would seem to make God himself evil. So this equation between divine foreknowledge of the future and divine foreordination of the future is one, I think, that we ought not to accept.

How then could we defend the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom? I think in the first place we want to break that equation between foreknowing something and foreordaining something. Those are not the same things. God knows in advance all of the choices that people will freely make, but that doesn’t mean that he determines those choices. In fact, quite the opposite. If we want to speak of determination, it is the choices that determine what God foreknows, not vice versa. It is not that because God foreknows you will do something that you do it, it is because you will do it that God foreknows it. If there is any determination going on here it is the event that determines what God foreknows, not that what God foreknows determines the event.

In understanding this, I think it is very helpful to distinguish between two types of priority. Chronological priority would be something being earlier in time. If something is chronologically prior to something else, it is earlier than it in time. Logical priority is where something is explanatorily prior to something else. These are not the same thing. Something can be logically prior to something else without being chronologically prior to it. For example, in mathematics, the axioms are logically prior to the theorems deduced from them, but they are not chronologically prior to them. I think that is exactly what we have in the case of divine foreknowledge and the events foreknown by God. Chronologically God’s foreknowledge comes before the event. First God foreknows it, then the event occurs. So the foreknowledge is chronologically prior to the event foreknown. But logically the event is prior to the foreknowledge. God’s foreknowledge is what it is because the event is what it is. It is because you will choose pizza for lunch that God foreknows it. It is not that you eat pizza for lunch because God foreknows it. That is to confuse chronological priority with logical priority.

As long as we understand that the object of God’s foreknowledge is logically prior to what he foreknows, it doesn’t really matter that God’s foreknowledge is chronologically prior to the event foreknown. What that implies is that if the event were to be different, then God’s foreknowledge would be different. Those of you who have been with us the last few weeks will recognize there a subjunctive conditional, right? If the event were different then God’s foreknowledge would have been different. You will choose pizza for lunch, let’s suppose. But you don’t have to. You are free to choose something else. If you choose Panda Express instead, then God will foreknow that. So if we were to choose Panda Express, God would have foreknown that instead of knowing that you will eat pizza for lunch today. God’s foreknowledge tracks your choices like an infallible barometer. The barometer doesn’t determine the weather, even though chronologically the reading of the barometer may be first. The barometer infallibly tracks what the weather will be in the same way God’s foreknowledge infallibly tracks your choices. If your choices were to be different, then God’s foreknowledge would have been different.

Thus God’s foreknowledge doesn’t prejudice anything. When the time comes you are completely free to do something other than what you will do. It is just that if you were to do that other thing, then God’s foreknowledge would have been different instead.

So God’s knowledge of the future doesn’t fate anything to occur. Think about some events here on the timeline. Let’s imagine a line that is time, and let’s imagine here some event E which is foreknown by God. God is in time and he knows in advance that E will take place. God’s knowing that E will take place is not a causal connection between God and E. Merely knowing something about something doesn’t cause E to occur. The causes of E will be the prior events in the timeline that bring about E. For all we know E could be a completely contingent event. It might be the decay of a subatomic particle or a free-will decision of a human being, and therefore with respect to the events earlier than E, E may be causally indeterminate. It could happen or it could not happen. How does God’s merely knowing about the occurrence of a causally indeterminate event make that event fated to occur? How can that event occur necessarily simply in virtue of God’s knowing about it? Imagine God didn't know about it. Let’s suppose God didn’t know E will occur. What has changed with respect to E? Nothing! There is no causal connection between God and E that has been removed. Everything remains as before. Yet the theological fatalist who thinks foreknowledge implies fatalism would have to say that now E is not fated to occur. Now E doesn’t occur necessarily because it is not foreknown by God. But merely adding God’s foreknowledge, as I say, doesn’t do anything to affect E. So how could E be contingent and free in the one case and yet fated and necessary in the other?

I think fatalism posits a constraint upon human freedom which is simply unintelligible and therefore really makes no sense at all. If an event is not causally determined to occur, then that event occurs freely or randomly, and God’s merely knowing about it doesn’t do anything to make it occur necessarily. Fatalism posits a constraint on human freedom which is simply unintelligible.

So long as our free choices are logically prior to what God foreknows, then there is nothing about the chronological priority of divine foreknowledge that prejudices human freedom and implies that everything that happens happens necessarily.