How We Could Have Libertarian Free Will even if God Were a Total Know-It-All about the Future
Publication Date
1-1-2025
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Canadian Journal of Philosophy
DOI
10.1017/can.2024.36
Abstract
We argue that libertarianism (roughly, the thesis that we have indeterministic, libertarian free will) is compatible with God's infallible foreknowledge. We use eternalism (roughly, the thesis that reality is a 4-dimensional block and that past, present, and future objects exist) as an explanatory stepping stone between libertarianism and God's foreknowledge: eternalism entails that (and comes close to explaining how) an omniscient God would know what we decide in the future even if we have libertarian free will. This account also explains what is wrong with standard fatalist arguments for the incompatibility of free will and God's foreknowledge.
Department
Philosophy
Recommended Citation
Mark Balaguer and Rebecca Chan. "How We Could Have Libertarian Free Will even if God Were a Total Know-It-All about the Future" Canadian Journal of Philosophy (2025). https://doi.org/10.1017/can.2024.36
