NOTES
Introduction
1. Thoroughly enumerating the options, and the literature, on the problem of human freedom and divine foreknowledge is beyond the scope of the present work. A good place to start is Zagzebski, âForeknowledge and Free Will.â
2. The Molinist will object to this way of putting things. I will argue later that the objection does not have as much force as might first appear.
3. DâHolbach, System of Nature, chap. 11, âOf the System of Manâs Free Agency.â
4. McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of God, chap. 10.
5. Some might prefer explananda to be facts rather than events. For these theorists, I will assume that explaining the fact that E occurred is tantamount to explaining E.
6. Many libertarians will say, for instance, that free choices have explanations, namely, the reasons for the choices, and are not mere brute contingencies. It is just that such explanations are not of the entailing sort I am calling âcomplete.â If one prefers, I can say that TD allows for more explanations (why one should make this choice rather than the alternative) or better ones (entailment rather than some less demanding notion).
7. Van Inwagen, âThe Place of Chance in a World Sustained by God,â 229.
8. As I have defined it, TD is compatible with a God of limited knowledge, so some consequences of his will might even be unforeseen. This would be a peculiar and unmotivated version of TD, however.
9. McCann, in Creation and the Sovereignty of God, defines âlibertarianismâ in a way that renders it compatible with some forms of TD. This definition, however, strikes me, as well as several reviewers of his book, as idiosyncratic.
10. I believe the terminology of leeway vs. source incompatibilism traces to Pereboom, âSource Incompatibilism and Alternative Possibilities,â186, although the basic contrast can be found in earlier writings.
11. Some important questions are raised by Wolterstorff in âGod Everlastingâ and by Swinburne in The Coherence of Theism. One principle motivation for denying divine eternity involves making space for human libertarian free will, but for an advocate of TD, this motivation naturally has no force. My own views can be readily inferred from what I say later. The main lines of Helmâs Eternal God and McCannâs Creation and the Sovereignty of God, chap. 3, are also constructive replies to the major objections.
12. G. Strawson, âThe Impossibility of Moral Responsibility.â
13. For Pereboomâs views about free will and moral responsibility, see, inter alia, his Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life. There are passages in this book in which Pereboom discusses applications to the philosophy of religion, but for more focused discussions see his âFree Will, Evil, and Divine Providenceâ and âLibertarianism and Theological Determinism.â
14. Couenhaven, âThe Problem of Godâs Immutable Freedom,â 305.
15. An interesting comment on this topic, citing Dean Zimmerman, can be found in DeRose, âCalvinism âA Report.â Zimmerman speculates that while pastors and theologians work in largely religious environments, Christian philosophers are in more secular environments and thus have to deal more closely with the problem of evil as a challenge to faith. Libertarian free will seems like an attractive route out of that problem.
16. See Hunt, âDivine Providence and Simple Foreknowledge,â 400, n. 6.
17. The locus classicus is Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, chap. 9. It is hard to overestimate the impact of this argument by Plantinga on the subsequent philosophy of religion.
18. In other words, one might defend a position about the divine will analogous to the Ockhamist solution to the problem for human free will posed by divine foreknowledge.
19. See Koons, âDual Agency,â and Grant, âCan a Libertarian Hold That Our Free Acts Are Caused by God?â
ONE. Divine Action
1. I am hardly the first to use this analogy. Among others, see McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of God, 45, and Ross, âCreation II,â 126â27.
2. The concepts in this paragraph are covered in Markosian, âTime.â Stump and Kretzmann, in âEternity,â and Rogers, in Anselm on Freedom, 181ff., advocate views on divine eternity compatible with A theories of time.
3. OâConnor, Persons and Causes, 52â55. A different point: most agent causation theorists are libertarians, but compatibilist versions of agent causation are outlined in Markosian, âA Compatibilist Version of the Theory of Agent Causation,â and in Nelkin, Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility, chap. 4. Since the point of this paragraph is that I have no brief either for or against agent causation in this work, I wonât explore the different varieties of it.
4. A timeline and references can be found in Lee, âOccasionalism.â
5. Baker, âWhy Christians Should Not Be Libertarians.â
6. Many actual advocates of the Depravity Argument are not likely to think God lacks any providential control here. My point is that the Depravity Argument does not rule out such a lack. This just means that the divine sovereignty assumed by its actual proponents has a source other than that found in the Depravity Argument. Flint levels a critique of Thomism along these lines in Divine Providence, 90â91.
7. This paragraph, and the next two, are strongly influenced by Pruss, âOmnirationality.â
8. Raz, âPractical Reason and Norms,â 39.
9. Actually, this principle needs refinement, in that the means need to be known, and a few other factors. But the refinements donât affect the cogency of the objection or of the reply to it.
10. Stump, âPetitionary Prayer,â 81.
11. Peterson et al., Reason and Religious Belief, 177.
12. Prayers could cause events in the ordinary way. For example, loud ones can cause annoyance. Conceivably, via some butterfly-effect type mechanism, prayers could cause events which fulfill them. There is no reason to think this is true, however, nor do I know of anyone who believes it, so I shall leave this possibility aside.
13. We could cast this point in terms of divine immutability. Nothing brings about changes in God, and petitionary prayers donât either.
14. It also has the problem that the causation has to come about âin the right way.â Hursthouse, âIntention,â argues effectively (in another context) that there is no way to specify when such causes happen âin the right wayâ except by appeal to final causes or teleology.
15. This is the main problem treated in Stumpâs article.
16. Pascal, Pensees, section 513, echoing Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.22, 23.
17. OâConnor, âAgainst Theological Determinism,â 138. Emphasis original.
18. I am not absolutely sure on this point. If God can create various kinds of creature-creature causal relations, might he be able to create special kinds of creatorcreature causal relations?
TWO. Why Believe Theological Determinism?
1. Jeremiah 3:20. See Boyd, God of the Possible, for many more passages along these lines.
2. Mark 14:30.
3. Jeremiah 38:17â18.
4. Ephesians 1:11.
5. Couenhaven, Stricken by Sin, Cured by Christ, 101.
6. Ibid., 104 and n. 72.
7. Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 159 and 175.
8. Pasnau, Aquinas on Human Nature, chap. 7.4.
9. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, 80â81.
10. Helm, John Calvinâs Ideas, 125.
11. Ibid., 161.
12. Edwards, Freedom of the Will, 24.
13. Edwards, The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended, 223.
14. Schwenkler, in âUnderstanding Practical Knowledge,â section 3, explains the idea well with reference to the thought of Aquinas, in the context of interpreting Anscombe, Intention.
15. Variations on this theme can be found in Geach, Providence and Evil; Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge; Pinnock, The Openness of God; and Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism.
16. Beilby and Eddy, Divine Foreknowledge, 133. Craig actually says âinnate ideas,â but he clearly wants these to be propositions, so I think âa priori knowledgeâ is a charitable interpretation.
17. McCann makes a related set of objections to middle knowledge. See Creation and the Sovereignty of God, 86ff.
18. Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy.
19. A point made strongly by Hasker in God, Time and Knowledge, 59â63, and Flint, Divine Providence, 84.
20. This way of conceptualizing it I owe to the âmany-stageâ version of simple foreknowledge in Zimmerman, âThe Providential Usefulness of Simple Foreknowledge.â Hunt, in âDivine Providence and Simple Foreknowledge,â has ...