if God knows the future... are we free?

You might object that while God knows what choices you will make, he doesn't make those choices for you. That may well be true, but it's irrelevant because you are free to do something only if you can refrain from doing it. If your doing something is inevitable-- as it must be if God foresees it-- then your doing it cannot be a free act.

--Theodore Schick, Jr., Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg College, in the chapter "Fate, Freedom, and Foreknowledge" of The Matrix and Philosophy

I've actually been through this before several times on this blog, but a very lengthy comment exchange between myself and blogger USinKorea (check out his fine blog here) has convinced me that I need once again to set out the logical problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom. It's an interesting topic to explore.

Please note, from the outset, that this argument focuses purely on the logical aspects of the question of divine foreknowledge. Believers who are secure in their faith won't be bothered by a logical attack on God, because their faith will be rooted in something deeper than logic. So I'm not trying to tear God down so much as I'm trying to deconstruct a faulty and self-contradictory conception of God.

At issue is whether human beings are free if God knows the future down to the minutest detail. The answer is no: humans are not free if God has such knowledge. Why? Because if God knows that event A is going to happen, then event A will happen exactly as God knows it will.

Before we go further, we need to clear up what "freedom" means. Most (not all) philosophers take human freedom to mean the ability to do other than what one has done. In other words, a situation might play out one way, but if we rewound to a crucial moment and hit "play" again, the situation might play out differently. Freedom entails openness and possibility.

Let's say I'm agonizing over whether I will order pizza or Chinese food tonight. God, who knows all, knows that I'll order pizza (he also knows I'll agonize over the menu). If God's knowledge is infallible, then I will indeed order pizza. Can I have done otherwise? No: God knew I was going to go for the pizza. He knew this five billion years ago. Or he knew it while "outside of time." It matters little; the point is that God's knowledge is infallible. I will order a pizza. I will not do otherwise. I cannot do otherwise. Why? Because if I could do otherwise, then God couldn't be said to have infallible knowledge of the future.

Did God cause me to order the pizza? Is God's knowledge somehow causal? That's an interesting question, but not really relevant here. The reason God knows event A (my ordering the pizza) will happen is that event A is somehow there to be known. You cannot know what is not there to be known. This is the only fact that counts.

When talking about knowing, we can divide the act/event into (1) the knower, (2) the act of knowing, and (3) the thing known. If God knows the future, then the future exists from God's point of view: it is there to be known. We should also note that knowing has two senses: a strict sense and a loose sense. If I say, for example, that "I know my dog will beg for food tonight," that's knowing in the loose sense. It is not the same as infallible knowledge, and therefore not relevant to this discussion.

Why isn't it relevant? Because I don't really know for a 100% certainty that my dog will beg for food tonight. I base my guess (and that's what this is: a guess) on previous experience. If my dog gets shot before dinner, this invalidates my claim to knowledge. If my dog gets sick or gets distracted by the bitch in the next yard, this also invalidates my claim to knowledge. If the future is not predictable, I cannot claim to know it. If the future is predictable, then its inevitability (true predictability implies true inevitability) justifies my claim to knowledge.

If I know for a moral certainty that my friend Jack always buys a Cherry Coke whenever we go to a convenience store, then I haven't demonstrated how Jack is free. If anything, my ability to predict his behavior is evidence of his lack of freedom. If you counter that Jack might someday choose a different drink, then I obviously didn't know what I thought I knew about Jack.

So: freedom precludes foreknowledge, because if we are truly, objectively free, then the future is not written. If the future is not written, it is not there for God to know it. If it's not there to be known, God doesn't know the future.

By the same token: if God truly knows the future, this can only be because the future is there to be known-- i.e., it is already written, already actual to God. Infallible knowledge is tied to inevitability, otherwise it isn't infallible knowledge. Causality isn't relevant.

All of which is to say: you can have one or the other, but not both. If you take freedom seriously, then there's no divine foreknowledge. The future is open, unwritten. If you take divine foreknowledge seriously, then there's no freedom. If God knows the future in intimate detail, you're not free. This line of thinking quickly becomes uncomfortable: if you're not free, you're not responsible for your actions. If you're not responsible for your actions, it is unjust for God to reward or punish you for what you could not help doing. In this worldview, the one where God knows the future, choice is an illusion.

---

NB: In Christian theology, there is a theological notion called "middle knowledge" that attempts to reconcile the above contradiction. In my opinion, it fails to accomplish its goal. I've written on it a couple times, and have to thank Dr. Hodges (and William Lane Craig!) for initially providing me with readings on the topic.

Middle knowledge is a fascinating concept, but in my opinion it merely pushes the logical problem back a step because it deals with conditionals-- the "ifs" of a situation. It is impossible to allow for conditionals and counterfactuals while still claiming that God knows the actual future.

While we're on the subject of theism and theology, I should also note that many theists have no trouble with the idea that we are all somehow predestined. Strict Calvinism holds to this notion. Most Muslims also affirm that all that happens, including human action, is the will of Allah. The "problem" of human freedom is not a problem for all believers.

In the comments to that previous post, USinKorea made an interesting remark: "I wonder, if [the critique of divine foreknowledge] is a matter of simple logic, why I have not heard before that everyone generally agrees that logic dicates there can be no God as defined by the [Judeo-]Christian and Islamic tradition and free will at the same time. If logic has proven the two cannot exist at the same time, I would have thought those three religions would have taken a much bigger hit in the world than they have as of yet."

First, we should note that the problem of freedom and foreknowledge is an ancient one, and is well known. Second, we should note that religion is more about faith than logic, so there's little reason for the faithful to feel threatened by logical argument. Religion is, for many, a deep-rooted conviction or orientation; reasoned arguments against religion are rarely persuasive for most believers, so it's unsurprising that certain religions have flourished in the face of blistering logical critique.

I don't want to sound condescending with the above. My point is not that religious folks are all benighted, irrational fruit loops. Most of my closest friends have some sort of religious conviction. My point is that logical arguments can only deal with the logical elements in a person's religious worldview, and that's it. I can't use logic to prove or disprove the existence of God, for example, but if people insist on making specific claims about God's nature, I can subject those claims to logical critique. That seems only natural.


_