Abstract
Unlike versions of open theism that appeal to the alethic openness of the future, defenders of limited foreknowledge open theism (hereafter LFOT) affirm that some propositions concerning future contingents are presently true. Thus, there exist truths that are unknown to God, so God is not omniscient simpliciter. LFOT requires modal definitions of divine omniscience such that God knows all truths that are logically knowable. Defenders of LFOT have yet to provide an adequate response to Richard Purtill’s argument that fatalism logically follows from the omnitemporality of truth. Hasker believes a distinction between hard and soft facts prevents fatalism, but I argue that his defense fails in light of arguments involving divine necessity. Additionally, I point out that Hasker’s philosophy of language concerning divine names faces problems that cannot be overcome, given the versions of the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge that motivate LFOT. Thus, contra Hasker, Swinburne, and van Inwagen, open theism necessitates the alethic openness of the future.
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Notes
To clarify, I do not include Boyd, Rhoda, or Tuggy among those who defend LFOT even though they defend bivalentism about PCFC by maintaining that all PCFC are false (building on the work of A.N. Prior). Thus, the argument of this essay in no way impugns what I label open future open theism, which defends the alethic openness of the future. My argument here hinges on the affirmation that at least some PCFC are presently true, yet unknown to God. The idea of different paths, or “roads”, which all arrive at open theism was first suggested in Tuggy (2007).
By the omnitemporality of truth I mean the doctrine that any statement which is true at any time is true at all times previous to and all times subsequent to that time (Purtill 1988, p. 185).
Purtill calls this the unchangeability of the past. “By the unchangeability of the past I mean the doctrine that there is nothing which we can do now which will make any statement about the past either true or false, the past is beyond our control” (Ibid.)
(FW) N is free at \(T\) with respect to \(A=_{df}\) It is N’s power at \(T\) to perform \(A\), and it is in N’s power at \(T\) to refrain from performing \(A\) (Hasker 1989, p. 66).
So as to ensure that I do not misrepresent LFOT, I will quote Hasker frequently, and often at length. I ask forgiveness from readers who find this cumbersome. Although I quote principally from Hasker, I take his arguments to represent the same position held by Swinburne and van Inwagen, whom I will cite in footnotes to show where they note agreement on key elements of LFOT.
For the precise formulations of the DFF that concern Hasker, see chapter four, “Two Arguments for Incompatibilism” of (Hasker (1989), pp. 64–74).
I should also note that at the time of writing God, Time, and Knowledge, Hasker believed that divine timelessness, were it true, would offer a genuine solution to the DFF. He has since changed his mind and now denies that divine timelessness offers such a solution. Cf. Hasker (2002).
Any open theist who defends divine infallibility of knowledge, and also maintains that God has beliefs (as does Hasker, contra Alston) must go on to conclude not only that God doesn’t “know” the truth-values of PCFC, but also that God does not even have beliefs about future contingents, for infallible beliefs constitute knowledge for God, and knowledge is enough to generate the very dilemma to which open theists respond by denying that God possesses exhaustive foreknowledge. Cf. Alston (1987) and Hasker (1988a).
Cf. Aristotle (De Interpretatione, chap. 9). For a lucid interpretation of Aristotle’s understanding of an argument for fatalism, see Anscombe (1956).
Hasker, like Purtill, refers to this as the omnitemporality of truth. He defends this view against alternatives, including the idea that PCFC are neither true nor false, noting that those views are quite controversial and that his position “seems not to lend itself to further argument as readily as the considerations that arise if the existence of truths about the contingent future is granted” (Hasker 2001, p. 112, n. 10). Cf. (Hasker (1989), pp. 107–108 and 122–125), as well as (Tuggy (2007), p. 48, n. 18). In that footnote, Tuggy details an equivocation on the part of Hasker, which can only be cashed out if Hasker abandons the “narrow road” and travels along the “wide road”, which I label OFOT.
Swinburne agrees, noting, “All statements have an invariant truth-value; if true, they are always true” (Swinburne 1994, p. 100). For additional agreement on this point, see Van Inwagen (2008).
My argument owes much to Purtill (1988). Himself a defender of OFOT, Purtill concludes against LFOT, as do I. Nonetheless, I seek to advance the discussion by showing exactly why it is that Hasker’s position fails to address the problems raised by Purtill. This involves a more detailed examination of hard facts and soft facts than Purtill offers in his article, which is important because Hasker believes that a distinction between hard facts and soft facts is the key to avoiding fatalism.
I limit the extent of just how much LFW is eliminated just in case someone wishes to suggest that not all truths are omnitemporal.
(Hasker (1989), p. 107). For Hasker, “making it the case” cannot in any sense entail causation or exerting causal influence, for he denies any sort of backward causation, counterfactual or otherwise.
Ibid., p. 120. Hasker is careful to clarify in a footnote: “If someone brings about E’s occurrence, it will no longer be true that E will occur—but this is not the sort of “change in the future” that is in question” (Ibid., p. 120, n. 5). Cf. Mavrodes (1983).
(Hasker (1989), p. 121). Hasker offers a more precise definition of what he means by temporal asymmetry. “It is often in our power to determine which of two [or more] ways the future shall be, but it is never in our power to determine which of two [or more] ways the past shall be. The past and the future are in this way fundamentally asymmetrical” (Ibid., p. 123, emphasis in original).
Ibid., pp. 121–122, all emphasis in original.
Advocates of LFOT are forced to embrace the possibility of changing the omnitemporal truth-values of propositions because of their affirmation of LFW and the principle of alternative possibilities (or PAP). PAP demands that in order for an agent \(A\) to be free with respect to some action \(S\), at minimum, it must be within \(A\)’s power to do \(S\) and it must also be in \(A\)’s power to refrain from doing \(S\).
Cf. (Sanders (2007), pp. 225–236), who notes that there are at least five views on this matter available to open theists.
Cf. (Purtill (1988), pp. 188–189).
To clarify, I am not suggesting that alternatives to open theism such as Ockhamisn, Molinism, divine timelessness, or even compatibilism as the correct understanding of free will are obviously false and that there is consensus on this matter. Although this may be the case within the community of open-theists, it’s an opinion that I don’t share because I am not an open theist. Nonetheless, I mean here only to argue that LFOT faces problems that OFOT can avoid.
A similar view is expressed in Tuggy (2007).
Thanks are due to Patrick Todd for helping me understand this point.
The problem of Molinism is especially serious for LFOT because rejections of middle knowledge are frequently based on grounding objections. But LFOT falls prey to these same issues, at least so long as LFOT’s contention that future contingents are genuinely indeterminate because the future is metaphysically open.
There now exists a rather long literature on hard facts and soft facts. The best introduction to that literature is (Fischer (1989), pp. 1–56). Also of significant interest are the following essays which have been collected together, along with others in Fischer (1989), Freddoso (1983), Hasker (1985, 1988b), Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1984), Widerker (1989), and Zemach and Widerker (1987).
(Hasker (1989), p. 82). One might alternatively consider, instead of (2), the following: it was true yesterday that I will leave work tomorrow at 5:00 p.m.
Ibid., 86. Hasker’s argument is inconclusive for at least two reasons. First, why should we suppose that God is essentially everlasting? Not all theological compatibilists suppose that God is essentially everlasting; rather, some continue to defend divine timelessness, despite its contemporary unpopularity, and others defend divine temporality, but deny that such is essential to the divine nature. Second, if God is timeless, there is nothing that any proposition necessitates (metaphysically speaking) concerning the existence of future times. This is so because no proposition about the past requires that God continue sustaining the universe (or time). Hasker begs the question against divine timelessness by presupposing the necessity of divine temporality as well as a number of positions concerning the metaphysics of time (i.e., time was created at the beginning of the universe, etc.). And, all of this stands regardless of whether or not God necessarily exists.
In all fairness, Hasker takes up the question of divine timelessness later in Hasker (1989), specifically chapters eight, “Is ‘God is Timeless’ Intelligible?” (pp. 144–170) and nine, “Is God Timeless?” (pp. 171–185). As mentioned, at the time of writing God, Time, and Knowledge, Hasker believed that divine timelessness would solve the DFF, were it true. Of course, Hasker rejects divine timelessness on other grounds. However, because he fails to discuss the issues involved in divine atemporality as they relate to hard facts and soft facts, the points I make above are crucial to understanding how LFOT is mistaken regarding hard facts/soft facts and the omnitemporality of truth.
Cf. Hasker (2005).
Consider, for example, the most recent defense of divine timelessness, offered by Helm (2010). Despite his lucid defense of divine timelessness, Helm is an incompatibilist, but not an open theist. Rather, Helm concludes against our possessing LFW. For a sampling of recent literature supporting the idea that divine timelessness does eliminate the DFF, see Green and Rogers (2012), Rogers (1996); Rogers (2007a, b, 2008), Rota (2010a); Rota (2010b).
For a more extensive discussion of the transfer of necessity, see (Zagzebski (1991), pp. 7–9).
I am careful to say “for as long as time has been around” rather than everlastingly true, or eternally true, for saying such likely entails various metaphysical commitments concerning the nature of time that are not required for the central thesis of this essay to succeed. Readers who favor one view of time over another should make any necessary substitutions to make them happy without worry of any damage done to my argumentation.
For instance, (Zagzebski (1991), pp. 27–28). “A proposition is not tied to moments of time as an event is. Its truth is usually thought to be either timeless or omnitemporal. If omnitemporal, then if true at one time, it is true at all times, and there is no asymmetry between past and future. If timeless, then it is not true at moments of time at all and, again, there is no asymmetry between past and future. So there is not, or at least should not be, a temptation to think of propositions as becoming fixed [i.e., becoming accidentally necessary] at some point in time as there is with events. ... I do not mean to say there is no reason at all to fear that the past truth of propositions is now accidentally necessary, but rather that God’s past beliefs are not nearly as easy to exclude. And that is why the argument for theological fatalism is more serious [than the argument for logical fatalism].
It seems to me, then, that past truth does not threaten fatalism to the extent threatened by divine foreknowledge. This is because past truth is not an event or state of affairs that becomes ‘fixed’ once it occurs or obtains, or if it is an event/state of affairs, it is so only marginally or ambiguously. The argument for logical fatalism, then, does not seriously threaten [anyone’s actions] with accidental necessity.” Note that this is not the same as Hasker’s appeal to a distinction between hard and soft facts as a means of avoiding a logical problem of fatalism.
Of course, given virtue ethics, my power to bring it about that I spoke falsely does not mean I have the power to bring it about that I lied, for virtue theory takes intention into account in determining the moral status of some action, such as (6). However, given the deontological and/or consequentialist positions, it seems that my freedom with respect to leaving work at 5:00 p.m. does entail my possession of the power to bring it about that I lied in (6). Perhaps the open theist is committed to virtue ethics as a result of his denial that we possess any kind of power over the past, but this seems a strange route to take in concluding thusly.
Interestingly, one defender of LFOT, Peter van Inwagen, acknowledges the validity of modal ontological arguments even if he worries that epistemic matters leave us unsure of their soundness. See Van Inwagen (1977).
Regarding (7) and (8), as well as the other numbered propositions in this section, I utilize Hasker’s exact wording. Only the numeration has been changed.
(Hasker (1989), p. 93). (H6) taken from ibid., p. 89.
For a more detailed account of conversational implicature, see (Grice (1989), pp. 269–282).
Contemporary New Testament scholarship also supports the claim that Jesus is rightly identified as the Incarnation of Yahweh. See Bauckham (2008).
Special thanks to Justin Grace for numerous conversations in which he helped me grasp the issues related to the philosophy of religious language. His dissertation was also quite helpful, especially as it relates to the semantic function of divine names (Grace 2011).
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Arbour, B.H. Future freedom and the fixity of truth: closing the road to limited foreknowledge open theism. Int J Philos Relig 73, 189–207 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-013-9397-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-013-9397-2