Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge

Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge
Author: John Martin Fischer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2015
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199942390

This book collects sixteen previously published articles on fatalism, truths about the future, and the relationship between divine foreknowledge and human freedom. It includes a substantial introductory essay and bibliography. Many of the pieces collected here build bridges between discussions of human freedom and recent developments in other areas of metaphysics, such as philosophy of time.

Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom

Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom
Author: William Lane Craig
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 390
Release: 1991
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789004092501

The ancient problem of fatalism, more particularly theological fatalism, has resurfaced with surprising vigour in the second half of the twentieth century. Two questions predominate in the debate: (1) Is divine foreknowledge compatible with human freedom and (2) How can God foreknow future free acts? Having surveyed the historical background of this debate in "The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge" and "Future Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez" (Brill: 1988), William Lane Craig now attempts to address these issues critically. His wide-ranging discussion brings together a thought- provoking array of related topics such as logical fatalism, multivalent logic, backward causation, precognition, time travel, counterfactual logic, temporal necessity, Newcomb's Problem, middle knowledge, and relativity theory. The present work serves both as a useful survey of the extensive literature on theological fatalism and related fields and as a stimulating assessment of the possibility of divine foreknowledge of future free acts.

The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge

The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge
Author: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 1996-04-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0195355407

This original analysis examines the three leading traditional solutions to the dilemma of divine foreknowledge and human free will--those arising from Boethius, from Ockham, and from Molina. Though all three solutions are rejected in their best-known forms, three new solutions are proposed, and Zagzebski concludes that divine foreknowledge is compatible with human freedom. The discussion includes the relation between the foreknowledge dilemma and problems about the nature of time and the causal relation; the logic of counterfactual conditionals; and the differences between divine and human knowing states. An appendix introduces a new foreknowledge dilemma that purports to show that omniscient foreknowledge conflicts with deep intuitions about temporal asymmetry, quite apart from considerations of free will. Zagzebski shows that only a narrow range of solutions can handle this new dilemma. A compelling contribution to the field, The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge will appeal to students and scholars of theistic philosophy and the philosophy of religion.

The Mechanics of Divine Foreknowledge and Providence

The Mechanics of Divine Foreknowledge and Providence
Author: T. Ryan Byerly
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2014-08-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 162356686X

How exactly could God achieve infallible foreknowledge of every future event, including the free actions of human persons? How could God exercise careful providence over these same events? Byerly offers a novel response to these important questions by contending that God exercises providence and achieves foreknowledge by ordering the times. The first part of the book defends the importance of the above questions. After characterizing the contemporary freedom-foreknowledge debate, Byerly argues that it has focused too narrowly on a certain argument for theological fatalism, which attempts to show that the existence of infallible divine foreknowledge poses a unique threat to the existence of creaturely libertarian freedom. Byerly contends, however, that bare existence of infallible divine foreknowledge cannot threaten freedom in this way; at most, the mechanics whereby this foreknowledge is achieved might so threaten human freedom. In the second part of the book, Byerly develops a model for understanding the mechanics whereby infallible foreknowledge is achieved that would not threaten creaturely libertarian freedom. According to the model, God infallibly foreknows every future event because God has placed the times that constitute the history of the world in primitive earlier-than relations to one another. After defending the consistency of this model of the mechanics of divine foreknowledge with creaturely libertarian freedom, the author applies it to divine providence more generally. A novel defense of concurrentism is the result.

Free Will and Classical Theism

Free Will and Classical Theism
Author: Hugh J. McCann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2017
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190611200

The articles in the present collection deal with the religious dimension of the problem of free will. Together they provide a historical and contemporary overview of problems in the theology of freedom, along with recent work by some important philosophers in the field aimed at resolving those problems.

Time, Change and Freedom

Time, Change and Freedom
Author: L. Nathan Oaklander
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2005-08-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1134851723

Written in an engaging dialogue style, Smith and Oaklander cover metaphysical topics from a student's perspective and introduce key concepts through a process of explanation, reformulation and critique.

The Metasphysics of Free Will

The Metasphysics of Free Will
Author: John Martin Fischer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 294
Release: 1995-10-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1557868573

The Metaphysics of Free Will provides a through statement of the major grounds for skepticism about the reality of free will and moral responsibility. The author identifies and explains the sort of control that is associated with personhood and accountability, and shows how it is consistent with causal determinism. In so doing, out view of ourselves as morally responsible agents is protected against the disturbing changes posed by science and religion.

The Open Future

The Open Future
Author: Patrick Todd
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2021-09-02
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0192897918

In The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are all False, Patrick Todd launches a sustained defense of a radical interpretation of the doctrine of the open future. He argues that all claims about undetermined aspects of the future are simply false. Todd argues that this theory is metaphysically more parsimonius than its rivals, and that objections to its logical and practical coherence are much overblown. Todd shows how proponents of this view can maintain classical logic, and argues that the view has substantial advantages over Ockhamist, supervaluationist, and relativist alternatives. Todd draws inspiration from theories of ''neg-raising'' in linguistics, from debates about omniscience within the philosophy of religion, and defends a crucial comparison between his account of future contingents and certain more familiar theories of counterfactuals. Further, Todd defends his theory of the open future from the charges that it cannot make sense of our practices of betting, makes our credences regarding future contingents unintelligible, and is at odds with proper norms of assertion. In the end, in Todd's classical open future, we have a compelling new solution to the longstanding problem of future contingents.

The Cambridge Companion to Boethius

The Cambridge Companion to Boethius
Author: John Marenbon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2009-05-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139828150

Boethius (c.480–c.525/6), though a Christian, worked in the tradition of the Neoplatonic schools, with their strong interest in Aristotelian logic and Platonic metaphysics. He is best known for his Consolation of Philosophy, which he wrote in prison awaiting execution. His works also include a long series of logical translations, commentaries and monographs and some short but densely-argued theological treatises, all of which were enormously influential on medieval thought. But Boethius was more than a writer who passed on important ancient ideas to the Middle Ages. The essays here by leading specialists, which cover all the main aspects of his writing and its influence, show that he was a distinctive thinker, whose arguments repay careful analysis and who used his literary talents in conjunction with his philosophical abilities to present a complex view of the world.