Monday, May 20, 2019

Does God know the future?

Peter van Inwagen is one of the most brilliant philosophical theologians of his generation. I'd say he's the equal of Alvin Plantinga. He's a freewill theist, and here he concedes that libertarian freedom is incompatible with knowing the future:

https://www.closertotruth.com/series/does-gods-knowledge-quash-free-will#video-48360

2 comments:

  1. Well, he's a consistent libertarian. It's strange to see what people are willing to give up in order to avoid determinism. I wish more libertarians would grow concerned with the amount of libertarian philosophers that come to that understanding(Swineburne, Tuggy, Inwagen).

    I asked a question to you about open theism on a previous post. I think you probably were busy. But I was talking to an open theist about Exodus 32-33. He argued that the classical theist interpretation leads to an issue. If God knew he was never going to destroy the people, then he seems to be lying. This also builds into their notion of God "changing his mind".

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    Replies
    1. Divine threats are often implicitly or explicitly conditional: change course or else! In addition, God uses reverse psychology.

      As far as lying, how can an open theist deity make good on his promises?

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