Notes on Divine Foreknowledge and Freedom

What is omniscience?

Most classical conceptions of God view God as omniscient. Most religious believers would struggle to accept a God that was ignorant of some states of affairs or certain important facts about the world or our selves. That God be omniscient therefore seems right; however, the notion of omniscience is more problematic than it first appears. Take an initial question: what does God being omniscient actually mean? In other words, what does God have to know to be omniscient?  

One of the biggest challenges to the coherence of omniscience concerns the compatibility between omniscience and human freedom or free will. Suppose that tomorrow you decide to eat pizza for lunch. It follows that there is now a true proposition to the effect that you will eat pizza for lunch tomorrow. Propositions of this kind are known as future contingents. If God is omniscient, and if omniscience requires knowledge of all true propositions (as many would argue it does) then God now knows that tomorrow you will eat pizza for lunch. But if God now knows that you are going to eat pizza for lunch then you cannot do so freely for if this decision were free then you could refrain from making it. But, if you were able to refrain from making such a decision then you would be able to make it the case that God has a false belief. However, you are not able to make it the case that God has a false belief for that would be inconsistent with the fact that God is omniscient, and essentially so. The dilemma then is this: either God isn’t omniscient or genuinely free action is not possible. Most religions require the possibility of free agency and so this problem of foreknowledge and freedom threatens to require theists to reject God’s omniscience.

Here are two of the most common attempts to resolve the problem. The first response takes issue with the assumption that there are propositions about future contingents. According to this line of thought, first popularised it seems by Aristotle in his sea-battle argument and adopted now by the contemporary philosopher of religion Richard Swinburne, if the future is genuinely open, in other words to revert to our earlier example, if it is now possible for you to eat pizza for lunch and also possible for you to refrain from such a decision (i.e. by choosing to have soup for lunch instead) then it is not the case that there is now a true proposition to the effect that tomorrow you will eat pizza for lunch. And so it follows that if there is no such proposition then there is nothing for an omniscient being to know (or for that matter, fail to know). It is only when you actually consume pizza for lunch that the relevant proposition comes into existence.

From a theological perspective, does this argument make sense? One of the problems with this argument is that if future contingents fall outside the scope of God’s knowledge, then creation was a huge gamble, for God didn’t know what human beings would do with their capacity for free agency. But if Einstein is right that God doesn’t play dice with the universe, this argument seems unsatisfactory from a theological perspective.

The second response to the problem seeks to contest the notion of foreknowledge itself. The problem of foreknowledge and freedom presupposes that God is temporally bound or located in time just as we are. This view of course requires that some events take place in God’s present, others take place in God’s past and still others take place in God’s future. Many theists have argued that this view is mistaken and that God’s relationship to time is utterly unlike our own. Boethius, famously argued, for example, that God’s eternity consists in the ‘complete possession of an endless life enjoyed as one simultaneous whole’.

The argument here is that God is not like humans who exist wholly at each finite moment in time and endure through time. A human possess his or her life only in a small finite window which we call “now” – the past life is no longer possessed but gone, the future is not yet realised. Since our human life is lived in a finite “now”, it is never full and complete but is fragmented. God, however, is perfect and God’s life is not fragmented like the life of a temporally enduring human. He lives in the eternal “now”. His “now” streteches over our past, present and future. Our finite present is representative of God’s eternal present, but our finite present is only a faint and imperfect model.

This view of God as existing outside of time holds that God’s properties are not indexed to particular times in the way in which our properties are. We have properties at particular times – for example, you have the property of being asleep at some times but not at others- the atemporalist argues that God does not have properties at particular times. God no more has a history or a future than abstract entities such as numbers do. Just as it is incoherent to ask how long the number eight has been in existence or to wonder how long it will continue to exist, so too the atemporalist thinks that such questions are incoherent when asked of God. Let’s reflect for a second on how this atemporalist account of God could solve the problem of foreknowledge and freedom. To revert to our earlier example, suppose that you do indeed have pizza for lunch tomorrow. This event occurs in the future relative to your current temporal perspective, but it is not and never was, future relative to God’s perspective, for God has no such perspective. God is only ever aware of the temporal relations between events in absolute terms. Now to be clear, God is aware of the order in which various events occur, for example, God knows that you eat pizza for lunch a day after you read this blog post, but on the atemporalist account, God does not cognize this event as occurring in the past or the future.

Are there any problems with this account? Some have argued that the atemporal conception threatens God’s omniscience for there appear to be certain things that only a temporally located creature can know. Could an atemporal God know what time it is now? Many have argued not, on the grounds that one can grasp temporally indexed claims (such as ‘it is now 9 a.m.’) only if one is in time, and by hypothesis an atemporal God is not in time. I am not sure this objection is decisive. Any facts that can be represented indexically can also be represented non-indexically. Suppose, for example, that you ask yourself: ‘what time is it now?’ on 1 January 2019. Arguably, this fact is captured by the non-indexical proposition, ‘On 1 January 2019 you asked yourself, ‘what time is it now’?’ and even an atemporal God could know that proposition. In other words, the atemporalist might grant that although certain ways of representing temporal facts are unavailable to God, there are no temporal facts that are beyond God’s ken.

There is, however, a more serious theological objection to the atemporal account. The atemporal account seems difficult to reconcile with the claim that God is personal. Grace Jantzen, for example, argues: ‘a timeless and immutable God could not be personal because he could not create or respond, perceive or act, think, remember, or do any of other things which persons do which require time’.

Review: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An absolute delight. Muriel Barbery’s ‘The Elegance of a Hedgehog’ is a wonderfully innovative and highly erudite work of literary fiction that speaks to the power of fiction and its ability to find meaning in the seemingly banal monotony of human experience. “The Elegance of the Hedgehog,” written in French and translated into English by Alison Anderson, revolves around three characters, Renée, Paloma, and Ozu (the latter of whom features less prominently but whose appearance remains central to the novel’s plot and significance). More than half of the book centers on the confessions of Renée, a middle-aged, widowed, and rather unattractive (Renée describes herself as “short, ugly and plump”) concierge in a Parisian block of luxury apartments. What makes Renée special is that beneath her stereotypical working-class persona lies an autodidact of incredible sophistication and highly refined taste. When free of the tasks that otherwise occupy her in her concierge day job, Renée reads Tolstoy, listens to Bach and reflects on the beauty of Japanese aesthetic sensibility. Paloma is much younger than Renée; she is a precocious 12 year old whose family also live in the luxury block of apartments in which Renée serves as concierge. Paloma is unlike other 12-year-olds. She is highly intelligent for her age and spends a lot of her time populating her notebook with ‘profound thoughts’. Unfortunately, Paloma believes that the world is meaningless and so has decided to commit suicide when she turns 13. Our last main character is Mr. Kakuro Ozu, a tremendously rich Japanese gentlemen who decides to purchase one of the vacant apartments in the luxury block in which Renée and Paloma live. The first part of the novel depicts daily life in the apartment building as it is observed through the vision of Renée and Paloma. Their meditations on daily life are inspired by the great works of philosophy and art and carry tremendous depth of meaning. The second half of the book brings all three characters together and their interactions and the experiences that result drive the plot until the end of the novel.

It would be somewhat of an understatement to describe the book’s critical reception as ‘mixed’. Apparently, readers either love the book or detest it. One recurring criticism takes issue with the apparently ‘pretentious’ spirit of the book. The philosophical ruminations that permeate the book are critiqued for their redundancy and are alleged to undermine the believability of the characters themselves. I think these criticisms are seriously off the mark. The philosophizing that takes place throughout the novel is absolutely central to the book’s structure and literary effect and so the charge of redundancy does not stick. Also, if all philosophically-laden books are to be deemed ‘pretentious’ what are we to do with Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ or other similarly-structured literary works. Barbery succeeds admirably in ensuring that her erudition doesn’t detract from the literariness of this philosophy-laden work of fiction. Her reflection, via the characters, on philosophy as it applies to daily life is rich with insight and carried out with a lightness of touch that helps to preserve the readability of the novel. In fact, Barbery has a wonderful sense of humour and as one reviewer puts it, it is this sly wit, ‘which bestows lightness on the most ponderous cogitations, [that] keeps her tale aloft’.


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Review: Ashoka in Ancient India

Ashoka in Ancient India by Nayanjot Lahiri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a voluminous body of scholarship that readers and students can turn to, to learn more about India’s experience under colonialism or its more recent history since the achievement of Independence. Unfortunately, if you have any interest in pre-modern or ancient Indian history, the primary source of such information are highly technical and specialist journals that are not aimed at wider, non-specialist audiences. While things are changing, it remains the fact that there are very few readable and accessible histories of ancient India that readers can turn to today. Seen in this light, N. Lahiri’s ‘Ashoka in Ancient India’ is a highly welcome addition to the scholarship on Ashoka and the Mauryan empire more generally. Lahiri’s study is highly readable and her scholarship is original and persuasive. Lahiri’s excellent account of Ashoka’s edicts and her attempt to understand the man ‘underneath the edicts’ distinguishes her biography from the few existing accounts of Ashoka that are available. There is a particularly insightful section of the book where Lahiri brings attention to what appears to be an increasingly authoritarian streak that emerges in Ashoka’s inscriptional presence. Her finely textured and intricate study of the edicts and the literary accounts of his life helps to bring Ashoka to life and gives readers a tangible sense of what king and kingdom must have been like.

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Review: Why I am a Hindu

Why I am a Hindu by Shashi Tharoor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tharoor’s latest book is an eminently readable and highly persuasive critique of Hindutva, the ideology underpinning contemporary Hindu nationalism. Why I Am A Hindu does not purport to constitute a scholarly treatise on Hinduism. Indeed it isn’t one. The first section of the book in which Tharoor introduces his conception of Hinduism to readers is well-written and highly readable but lacking in scholarly rigor. Tharoor repeats platitudes often found elsewhere regarding Hinduism’s tremendous capaciousness and tolerance of diversity and plurality. While Tharoor is surely right that Hinduism respects and embraces plurality in ways that rival traditions have historically not, the book could have benefited from a more thorough and searching analysis of the basis of this tolerance and open-mindedness. There is of course a prior question that Tharoor’s book hints at but does not adequately resolve and that is what does Hinduism actually mean? There is a serious danger that fuzzy and non-scholarly attempts at presenting Hinduism have the unintended effect of rendering the category vacuous and hopelessly incoherent. By way of example, let’s think of Hinduism’s supposed respect for plurality a bit more deeply. Tharoor claims that Hinduism holds that all religions are equally true and equally valid paths to God/Salvation/Liberation. Is this right? The overwhelming majority of Hindu religious and theological traditions that fall within the umbrella of Hinduism would surely not accept this claim. After all, the great Vedantic theologians such as Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva expended great energy and intellectual effort in arguing with one another about the correct interpretation of scripture: they would not possibly endorse the view that all religions were equally true or equally valid. While it is surely true that the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts, more work needs to be done to explore this tension between the apparent inclusiveness of Hinduism and the emphasis on correct doctrine in the respective theological traditions that make up Hinduism. My view on the issue is that one can, without contradiction, uphold the primacy of one’s own theological view while conceding the soteriological value present in other religious traditions: this approach allows us to respect other traditions and encourages us to consider the various ways in which we can learn from them in deepening of our own commitment to truth and piety. It doesn’t however require that we commit ourselves to the incoherent view that all religions are equally true or valid.

The best and most rewarding part of Tharoor’s book is his account of the political philosophy that underpins Hindutva and Hindu nationalism more generally. Tharoor argues persuasively that Hindu nationalism impoverishes Hinduism in its homogenized and diversity-denying presentation of the religion. Tharoor’s critique is both well-informed and balanced: his presentation reflects the nuances that distinguish the main ideologues of the Hindutva tradition (V.D. Savarkar, Golwalker, and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya) and he is prepared to concede where his ideological interlocutors have good arguments (i.e. Upadhyaya’s commitment to humanism and poverty alleviation). All in all, this is an important and timely book and is worth reading for anyone interested in Hinduism, Indian political philosophy and contemporary India.

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Review: When The Moon Shines By Day

When The Moon Shines By Day by Nayantara Sahgal
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Aside from her literary achievements, Nayantara Sahgal is well known in India for her forceful and unrelenting critique of Hindu Nationalism. In 2016, Sahgal returned her Sahitya Akademi Award to protest what she described as increasing intolerance in India and the Akademi’s indifference to attacks against rationalist thinkers. She thinks of the BJP and Modi in particular as ‘fascist’ in orientation and has displayed courage throughout her career in combating the right-wing nationalisms of the Sangh Parivar. This is the political womb, so to speak, from which her latest novel emerges. The novel has been described as a political satire and this seems to me an apt description. The novel’s setting is a dystopian India (which Sahgal believes has already arrived) in which racial segregation, book-burning fiestas, and state-sanctioned torture all feature. As regards its literary merit, the books disappoints for many reasons. The plot is disjointed and not easy to follow; the characters that populate her novel lack depth and the novel, more generally, seems to have been hastily produced solely to inflict as much reputational damage as possible to the current political dispensation. Be that as it may, Sahgal’s short novel serves as a chilling commentary on disquieting developments in contemporary India that are increasingly unleashing illiberal instincts in multiple Indian constituencies. It takes just 30 minutes of watching Indian news channels to see how bitter and coarse India’s political discourse has become. As the space of liberal expression seems to be shrinking and as minorities continue to be reminded of their precarious position in Indian society, literary activism of Sahgal’s sort is required to remind us of the true dystopia that awaits us should we allow the present illiberalism to gather steam and percolate throughout the country.

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