blog




  • Essay / Foreknowledge and free will: are they incompatible?

    We can now establish that foreknowledge and free will are incompatible due to two factors: The first arises from the idea that having free will is a matter of having a choice over the certainty of our actions, and that having a choice depends on the presence of real options. This dilemma is present in Peter Kreeft's analogy of history, here the presence of an omniscient author (God) does not allow real choice if our actions are truly determined by the outcome of history and not by our own choice. The second factor arises from the idea that truth and the presence of predetermination mean that we do not significantly cause our actions and that our actions are not ultimately controlled by us. In other words, we do not have the capacity for self-determination. This dilemma is present in Augustine's later notion of massa damnata: here, God, because of our tendency to sin, has already predetermined who will be sinners and who will be saved, a controversial notion that only compounds the fact that foreknowledge and free will are