God's attributes: Omniscience, Immutability + Free will - AS Philosophy

boethius' response

God knows all future occurrences by being outside of time. God 'foresees' the future and so it necessarily occurs. It is irrelevant whether God's knowledge causes our actions or that our actions cause God's knowledge because whatever God sees will happen. Human choices are for God's outcomes that will necessarily come about.

Aquinas

God knows what will happen in the future from his position outside of time, this does no necessitate human actions. Knows timelessly what we will freely do.

Criticism of Boethius

His contradiction of 'free choices' that are necessary. Real choices by nature should be contingent and possible to change. If its my free choice that leads me to do action X it must be within my power to refrain from doing X also. But for Boethius, actions necessarily come about given God's foreknowledge, therefore these actions cannot be free.

Kenny's objection to Aquinas

If God's timeless knowledge is simultaneous with my action them it seems that all of God's knowledge is simultaneous with all events and thus all (past, present and future) events become simultaneous with each other. God is not omniscient because he doesn't know what I will do before I do it. God only has knowledge of continuous present.

Response 1

It does break God's immutability. Tower example. Either I will cease to know the height or I will change my belief.

Objections to Kretzmann 1

1. If God's foreknowledge constantly changes to know what time it is, this is only a change in knowledge, not a change in God, therefore he is still immutable.

Objections to Kretzmann 2

Because God is eternal he knows what time it is from a position outside of time. He knows what time it is at all times as a constant present.

Response 2

Breaks God's omniscience. God becomes incapable of knowing what is happening now, in the present, because everything that has ever happened or will happen is experienced at once.

omniscience and free will

We hold human beings as free moral agents and able to make their own choices in life. If God knows exactly how we are going to behave then do we have a choice if God is not to be proved mistaken or not all knowing?

omniscience and immutability

kretzmann - God's omniscience is incompatible with his immutability. 1. A perfect being is not subject to change. 2. A perfect being knows everything. 3. A perfect being always knows what time it is 4. This means they are subject to change. Therefore there is no perfect being as their attributes contradict one another.