Program / Course 8: God, Trinity, and Creation / Lesson 2.4
What you will learn
- State what omniscience means and what the problem of foreknowledge and freedom is.
- Distinguish libertarian and compatibilist views of freedom.
- Describe the main responses: the Boethian answer, Molinism, Calvinist compatibilism and open theism.
- Identify which responses are tied to particular traditions and which cut across them.
The big idea
Christians have said from the beginning that God knows all things, including what will happen. They have also said that people are responsible for what they do. The puzzle is how both can be true. If God knows today what a person will choose tomorrow, can the person choose otherwise? Different answers have been given. Some change what freedom means, some change how God knows, and some change what God knows. None is without cost, and each is held by serious Christians.
Key terms
- Omniscience
- The attribute of knowing all that can be known.
- Foreknowledge
- God’s knowledge of what will happen before it happens, from a human point of view.
- Libertarian freedom
- The view that a free act is one where, in the same circumstances, the person could really have done otherwise.
- Compatibilism
- The view that a free act is one done from a person’s own desires and character without outside compulsion, even if it was certain beforehand.
- Determinism
- The view that every event is made certain by prior causes.
- Middle knowledge
- Knowledge of what a free creature would do in any possible situation, a concept defended by Luis de Molina.
- Open theism
- The view that God knows all that is real and all that is possible but not the exact future free choices of creatures.
- Counterfactual
- A statement of what would have happened if something had been different.
Background
The Bible says that God knows the future. Isaiah 46:10 speaks of the Lord declaring the end from the beginning. Psalm 139 says God knows the words before they are on the tongue. Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times (Matthew 26:34). Yet Scripture also holds people responsible, from the command in Deuteronomy 30:19 to choose life to the judgment scenes of Matthew 25. The tradition has never doubted either claim, but it has long asked how they fit.
The question appears early. Augustine argued in On Free Choice of the Will that God’s foreknowledge does not take away freedom, since God knows what will be freely done by the person who does it. Boethius, writing in prison, answered from God’s timeless eternity, which is taken up below. In the Middle Ages Aquinas held that God’s knowledge is the cause of things and that God moves free creatures without destroying their freedom.
The Reformation sharpened the issue. Luther, in The Bondage of the Will, argued that human choices are fixed by God’s will. Calvin held that God ordains all things while people remain responsible. Arminius and later Wesley argued for a freedom that is real and not fixed by God’s decree. The Catholic Church, in the Counter-Reformation debates, saw Dominicans and Jesuits dispute the matter for decades, and Rome eventually allowed both schools to continue without a ruling.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: The problem stated
Here is the argument in short form. If God knows today that Anna will do X tomorrow, then Anna will do X. God’s knowledge cannot be wrong. So Anna cannot do otherwise than X. But if she cannot do otherwise, her act does not seem free. Therefore either God does not know in advance, or Anna is not free.
Most replies find a weakness in the argument. Some say the argument confuses what is necessary with what is certain. Some say it makes a wrong assumption about how God knows. Some say it misunderstands freedom. A good student can learn to find where each reply says the argument goes wrong.
Step 2: Answers that change how God knows
The Boethian answer says that God is not in time and so does not strictly know in advance. God sees all events as present, in the way a person watching a parade from a tower sees all the marchers at once. Seeing an act does not make it happen. Boethius and Aquinas held this view. Its weakness, say critics, is that it depends on timelessness, which is itself debated, and that a timeless vision of a fixed future may still fix the act.
Molinism, named for the Spanish Jesuit Luis de Molina in the sixteenth century, adds that God knows what any free creature would do in any possible circumstance. God then chooses to make a world in which those free choices lead to the outcomes God wants. This keeps libertarian freedom and God’s control. Critics, including many Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox, ask what makes such counterfactuals true if the creature has not yet chosen, and whether God’s control still undermines freedom.
Step 3: Answers that change what freedom means
Compatibilism holds that freedom does not require that a person could have done otherwise in exactly the same situation. It requires that the act flow from the person’s own will and not be forced from outside. On this view, a person whose act is certain because of God’s plan can still act freely, since the person does what they want. Luther, Calvin and Jonathan Edwards held versions of this. Aquinas is read by many as compatibilist about some questions and not others, and scholars dispute this reading.
Critics respond that this makes moral responsibility strange, since the person’s wants are themselves fixed by God. Defenders answer that Scripture teaches both, citing Genesis 50:20, where Joseph tells his brothers that they meant evil but God meant it for good, and Acts 2:23, where Peter says Jesus was delivered by the determinate counsel of God and crucified by wicked hands. Both are said to be true at once.
Step 4: Answers that change what God knows
Open theism says that if free acts are not yet settled, they are not yet knowable, so God does not know them in advance. This is no limit on God’s knowledge, they say, because there is nothing there to know. God knows all possibilities and is not surprised, being able to bring about his purposes however creatures choose. Clark Pinnock, John Sanders and Gregory Boyd are among its Protestant defenders.
Most Christian churches have rejected this view. The Catholic, Orthodox and most Reformed and Lutheran traditions hold that God knows all future events, and they read texts like Isaiah 46:10 as clear teaching. Open theists respond that texts of God testing or learning, such as Genesis 22:12, show an open future, and that the older view was shaped by Greek thought. Defenders of the older view respond that these texts are written in human terms.
- Do I believe I could have done otherwise in my past choices? What does that mean to me?
- Does the thought that God knows my future comfort me or trouble me?
- Which claim would I give up first: that God knows the future, or that I am free as I understand freedom?
- How do I read the story of Peter’s denial in this light?
- What does Joseph’s statement in Genesis 50:20 say about divine and human action?
- Which answer do I find the weakest, and what makes it weak?
Examples
The parade
A person on a tower sees the whole parade, the front and the end, at the same moment. The marchers on the road see only what is near them. The viewer’s seeing does not cause the marchers to march. Boethius’s answer uses a picture like this for God’s view of time.
Peter’s denial
Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times before the rooster crows. Peter protests, and then denies Jesus anyway. Compatibilists say Peter acted out of his own fear and was responsible. Libertarians say that Jesus’ knowledge did not remove Peter’s ability to have done otherwise. Open theists say Jesus spoke with great certainty about what he judged would happen.
Joseph and his brothers
Joseph’s brothers sold him out of envy. Years later he tells them that God turned their evil to good (Genesis 50:20). The text shows human wrongdoing and divine purpose together, and each tradition reads it as support for its account of how they fit.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching holds that God knows all things, including future free acts, and that human beings are truly free. The Church has not declared a single theory. The Dominicans, following Domingo Banez, held that God moves the will by a physical premotion. The Jesuits, following Molina, held middle knowledge. After a long dispute in the early seventeenth century, Rome allowed both schools to continue.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology holds that God knows all things and that humans are free. It generally avoids detailed theories, stresses that God’s knowledge does not cause human sin, and treats the question as a mystery. Many Orthodox writers use the Boethian picture of God seeing all time at once, and some speak of synergy, the cooperation of divine and human action.
Reformed and Lutheran
Reformed theology teaches that God foreordains all things and that this is compatible with human freedom in the compatibilist sense. The Westminster Confession says that God ordains whatever comes to pass, yet not so that violence is done to the will of creatures. Lutheran teaching holds God’s foreknowledge and speaks of election while placing the blame for sin on humans alone.
Arminian and Wesleyan
Arminians hold libertarian freedom together with simple foreknowledge: God sees what free people will choose without causing it. Arminius himself considered middle knowledge but the tradition after him has differed. Wesley taught that God’s grace enables a free response.
Open theist and scholarly views
Open theists hold that the future free acts of creatures are not yet settled. Most scholars of philosophy of religion consider the problem unresolved and hold that each solution costs something. Some secular philosophers think the problem shows an incoherence in the concept of God, while others see a puzzle with workable answers.
Why it matters
How a person answers this question affects prayer, repentance, guilt and hope. If God has settled everything, why pray? If God does not know the future, can God be trusted with it? Anyone who tries to hold both responsibility and providence meets this puzzle. Studying it shows that the church’s firm claims can coexist with open questions, and that thoughtful Christians have taken different roads.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Foreknowledge means God causes everything that happens.
Correction: Knowing is not the same as causing. Augustine and many others hold that God knows the free act because it will be done, not that the act is done because God knows it. Calvinists do hold that God ordains events, but they get that from teaching about providence, not from foreknowledge alone.
Misunderstanding: Open theism denies that God is all-knowing.
Correction: Open theists say God knows everything that can be known. They argue that future free choices are not yet knowable. Most other traditions disagree and think this limits God, but the open theists do not mean to deny omniscience.
Misunderstanding: Calvinists deny human freedom entirely.
Correction: They deny libertarian freedom but affirm a compatibilist freedom and human responsibility. Whether this is enough is the point of dispute with Arminians and others.
Misunderstanding: The church has settled this question.
Correction: The church has settled that God knows all things and that humans are free. It has not chosen one theory. Catholics allow Thomist and Molinist schools. Protestants hold different confessions.
Knowledge check
State the basic puzzle of foreknowledge and freedom.
If God knows now what a person will do tomorrow, God cannot be wrong, so the person will do it. It then seems the person cannot do otherwise, and an act that cannot be otherwise seems not to be free. The puzzle asks how God’s knowledge and human freedom can both be true.
What is the difference between libertarian freedom and compatibilism?
Libertarian freedom holds that a person must be able to do otherwise in the very same circumstances. Compatibilism holds that an act is free when it comes from the person’s own desires and character without outside force, even if it was certain beforehand. The two views differ on what freedom requires.
What does Molinism add to the discussion?
Molinism says that God has middle knowledge, which is knowledge of what any free creature would do in any possible circumstance. God then creates a world in which those free choices serve his purposes. It tries to keep both libertarian freedom and God’s control. Critics ask what makes such truths true.
Why do most churches reject open theism?
They believe Scripture teaches that God knows the future, for example in Isaiah 46:10, and that the older tradition read it that way. They also think that denying foreknowledge limits God. Open theists answer that they respect God’s knowledge by holding that unsettled choices cannot yet be known, and that texts of God testing support them.
Think it through
- Which answer fits best with how you read Joseph’s words in Genesis 50:20?
- Does your view of freedom change how you think about forgiveness and blame?
- What would you say to a friend who says that if God knows the future, nothing they do matters?
Independent assignment
Four answers in a table
In your own notebook, draw a table with four columns: Boethian, Molinist, Compatibilist and Open. In each, write what the view says about God’s knowledge, what it says about freedom, and the strongest objection to it. Then write about 250 words saying which column seems strongest to you and which seems to be held by your own tradition. Do not send this to anyone.
Further study
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read Part I, Question 14, on the knowledge of God, and Question 22 on providence.
- Augustine of Hippo, The City of God See Book V, chapters 9 to 10, on foreknowledge and free will.
- Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will A classic Protestant case for the bondage of the will.
- James Arminius, The Works of James Arminius Read selectively for the Arminian account of predestination and foreknowledge.
- Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil Read for a rigorous treatment of free will.
- Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning.
- Matthew 26:34 Jesus foretells Peter’s denial.
- Acts 2:23 Determinate counsel and wicked hands.
- Genesis 50:20 You meant evil; God meant it for good.