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NowAgnostic
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Just got through reading this train-wreck of a thread: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=355228&page=28 on whether Plantinga’s “Free Will Defense” response to the logical problem of evil was sound. In my view the FWD only succeeds by rejecting a fundamental principle of orthodox monotheism, so in that sense it fails.
To start with though, it seems to me, everyone was arguing around in circles because divine omniscience was presumed but its application was left unspecified. Specifically, the relation between free acts and divine foreknowledge. We’ll stipulate that either God exists “outside of time” (whatever that means) or else some kind of B-theory of time but in any event God can see all of time. And we’ll stipulate a libertarian version of free will (which the FWD needs; if choices can be pre-determined, God can predetermine them, and the FWD immediately fails). But, while there is going to be no **temporal **priority in this framework, there still can be **logical **priority. There are two possibilities, which are absolutely irreconcilable with orthodox monotheism. (BTW, I do not think the logical problem of evil is a sound argument, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the FWD is a sound rebuttal.)
To start with though, it seems to me, everyone was arguing around in circles because divine omniscience was presumed but its application was left unspecified. Specifically, the relation between free acts and divine foreknowledge. We’ll stipulate that either God exists “outside of time” (whatever that means) or else some kind of B-theory of time but in any event God can see all of time. And we’ll stipulate a libertarian version of free will (which the FWD needs; if choices can be pre-determined, God can predetermine them, and the FWD immediately fails). But, while there is going to be no **temporal **priority in this framework, there still can be **logical **priority. There are two possibilities, which are absolutely irreconcilable with orthodox monotheism. (BTW, I do not think the logical problem of evil is a sound argument, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the FWD is a sound rebuttal.)
- Our acts are logically prior to divine foreknowledge. That means, God knows our choices because we make them. Once we make them, they can’t change. No problem for the FWD defense here. There is a logically possible world in which everyone chooses right, but it’s not one God can actualize with 100% probability because he doesn’t “know” prior to the choice being made what it will be. One could argue probabilities here, but that would not be relevant to a **logical **problem of evil.
- Divine foreknowledge is logically prior to our acts. This assumes Molinist middle knowledge where God knows, not only the actual choices, but also hypothetical ones: what every possible individual would do in every possible situation. These hypothetical choices are unexplained and unexplainable brute facts; otherwise, they would be necessary truths. Libertarian free will denies that it is logically necessary for agent A to do B in situation C (a necessary truth); hence, that A would in fact do B in situation C (regardless of whether A and situation C are ever instantiated) is just an unexplained brute contingent fact. It can’t be said that this fact is “explained” by A actually doing B because this fact is true even if A is never instantiated (in a Molinist libertarian framework, that is). So there are contingent facts logically prior to the instantiation of any world by God, which to me is modal nonsense, but assuming this to be the case, again the FWD can work. There may not be a contingently possible world God can actualize in which everyone chooses right. Nevertheless though, note that even though our actual actions are logically posterior to God’s foreknowledge (due to the choice of world he actualizes) our hypothetical actions are not. God knows our hypothetical choices because we would hypothetically make them. So there is still something logically prior to divine foreknowledge.
