God and Time

1
God and Time

• The tension between Gods Omniscience and
  Free-Will
• If God knows what you will do, then you are not
  free.

2
God is Eternal

• We can debate whether
• Gods foreknowing causes the future events
• OR
• The future events cause Gods foreknowing.
• Either way, Boethius thought, freedom is still
  threatened. So, the second is not a solution.

3
God is Eternal

• The problem concerns the fixed nature of the
  future.
• If Gods foreknowing causes the event, then
  it is fixed.
• If the truth of the future events happening
  causes God to foreknow, then it is fixed.
• Either way, the event is fixed.

4
God is Eternal

• Why is this a problem?
• Because it makes what happens in the future look
  NECESSARY.

5
God is Eternal

• How? Is this a bad inference on the fatalists
  part? Is fatalism based on a fallacy?
• Even if it is TRUE right now what will happen in
  the future, that does not make it NECESSARILY
  true.
• Necessarily P does not follow from P.

6
God is Eternal

• What kind of necessity does B. have in mind?
• Possibilities
• Logical necessity
• Physical necessity p is P-necessary when p must
  be true in all worlds relevantly like ours (laws
  of physics hold). I.e. In all possible worlds
  where the laws of physics hold, p is true.
  (Alternatively, not-P involves the breaking of
  physical laws of the universe.)

7
God is Eternal

• B. cannot have in mind logical or physical
  necessity.
• What could Boethius have in mind?

8
God is Eternal

• When I know P is the case, then P necessarily is
  the case.
• When I know P will happen, then P will happen of
  necessity.
• The bad inferences have to be understood as
  claims about the difference between KNOWLEDGE and
  other cognitive states.

9
God is Eternal

• Everything MUST be as KNOWLEDGE understands it.
• Knowledge has a kind of CERTAINTY which is
  something like REAL NECESSITY

10
God is Eternal

• Real Necessity P is REALLY necessary just in
  case P cannot be otherwise in the actual world.
  (Not-P is true only in some other possible
  world.)
• When you know some truth about the world it has
  this sort of necessity. (Maybe something like
  Practical Necessity.)
• If this does not seem like necessity, consider
  truths about the past. They are fixed, you cant
  change them.
• Truths about what will happen or IS happening,
  would then have this sort of necessity. (They
  cannot be made false.)

11
God is Eternal

• So, this type of necessity when applied to human
  actions does threaten freedom.
• Boethius also has in mind other problems in the
  background

12
God is Eternal

• 1. IF God does NOT know the future then we are
  holding a sacrilegious view, b/c then divine
  cognition would be no different IN KIND from
  human cognition.

13
God is Eternal

• But,
• IF we are not free, then there are a bunch of
  problems
• 1.We are mistaken about reward and punishment.
• 2.Vices are brought about by God but God is
  supposed to be Good. How could a perfectly good
  being create these bad things?
• 3.Prayer is pointless. No point in HOPING,
  b/c things are already fixed.

14
God is Eternal

• Lady Philosophy gives the answer
• What you apprehend depends upon the nature of the
  apprehending subject.

15
God is Eternal

• Similar to what Kant says in his Critique of Pure
  Reason The Copernican-like Revolution in
  Philosophy/Metaphysics concerns understanding
  knowledge not in terms of how beings GAIN ACCESS
  to an EXTERNAL WORLD, but rather by understanding
  how beings COGNIZE the world.
• Idea the perceiving subject places a sort of
  structure or framework on the world it perceives.
  What it cognizes, depends on that nature of that
  structure.

16
God is Eternal

• Different MODES of cognizing
• 1. Sense cognizing matter only (primitive
  perception, just stimulus-response)
• 2. Imagination cognizing shape without matter
  (primitive thought, e.g. avoid x things)
• 3. Reason cognizing individuals falling under
  universals (conceiving of things AS something)
• 4. Understanding Cognizing FORM itself
  (understanding what it is to be F)

17
God is Eternal

• This forms a Hierarchy of Capacities.
• Idea is that each higher capacity grasps
  something that was apparent in the lower capacity
  (so each higher capacity contains what is in each
  lower capacity, just in a more refined way)

18
God is Eternal

• In sensing, certain things are APPARENT, but
  not GRASPED
• In imagining, UNIVERSALS are apparent to the
  imagination, but not GRASPED by it.
• In knowing, you are grasping SPHERICAL-NESS and
  other universals and employing those concepts in
  your cognition, but only insofar as it applies to
  individuals.
• In understanding, you are grasping SPHERENESS
  itself, independent of any individuals.

19
God is Eternal

• Once we become aware of this hierarchy, we can
  see that we should be more critical of our own
  cognitions. Because there is a divine being we
  should question whether our way of cognizing the
  world is in some way failing to grasp something.

20
God is Eternal

• The mollusk and the other animals (with only
  sense or imagination) would claim that there are
  no UNIVERSALS.
• They do not grasp a universal SPHERICALNESS
  shared by a bunch of things, all of which we can
  call SPHERICAL.
• So, they would deny that these things exist.

21
God is Eternal

• Apply this to time
• The human mind, when thinking of the Divine Mind
  knowing the future, thinks of time, the future
  and the divine beings cognizing of the future in
  the same way that she (the reasoning human mind)
  cognizes time/the future.
• But, in order to understand the relationship
  between the divine minds knowledge of the future
  and human freedom, we need to understand the
  divine mind.

22
God is Eternal

• The divine mind is ETERNAL
• Different from IMMORTAL (not dying)
• Different from being IFINITE (existent forever)
• For B., whats eternal is not in time. (Does not
  have a past present and future.)

23
God is Eternal

• What would cognition be like for such a mind?
• Beings inside time cannot grasp the entire
  duration of their life at once.
• The eternal mind can.
• The eternal mind simultaneously grasps the
  past, present and future.

24
God is Eternal

• Gods foreknowledge should be understood as
• Providentia (looking forward spatially)
• Not
• Praevidentia (looking forward in time)

25
God is Eternal

• How does this solve the fatalism problem?
• God can see both our actions and all other events
  and still distinguish the different natures of
  things.
• A man walking is voluntary and
• And the sun rising is necessary.

26
God is Eternal

• A future happening which is necessary when
  viewed by divine knowledge, seems to be wholly
  free and unqualified when considered in its own
  nature.
• Simple necessity All men are mortal
• Conditional necessity If you are aware of a man
  walking, then he must be walking.

27
God is Eternal

• The necessity applied to actions (in virtue of
  Gods knowing them) is conditional necessity.
• This means that such truths are necessary b/c
  they are part of Gods knowledge.
• But, WHAT he knows concerns our CHOICES.
• God knows what we will CHOOSE.

28
God is Eternal

• The innate nature of the act is free. (No
  positive argument for why the nature of the act
  is free. Boethius is just pointing out that
  Gods knowledge is not inconsistent with our
  actions being free. But, thats all that is
  required to argue against the fatalist.)

29
God is Eternal

• Imagine that God sees the world as one big
  painting, all at once.

30
God is Eternal

• Against the fatalist
• 1. The argument from divine foreknowledge (that
  we are NOT free), requires the notions of past,
  present and future. From Gods more perfect
  perspective there is no future (or past),
  everything is happening at once. So, the
  argument cannot maintain that God sees what WILL
  happen. He sees everything happening. (Lessens
  the threat.) Shows there is no inconsistency
  between Gods knowing and our being free.
• 2.Everything is determined in the sense that it
  is one big happening, but it is just that -- a
  HAPPENING an action of sorts. WE are the
  authors of our actions even though the actions
  can only take one course.