7
our actions if God knows exactly how we will act on every occasion in the future. Thomas
Morris poses the problem in this way,
If God already knows exactly how we shall act, what else can we possibly do? We must
act in that way. We cannot diverge from the path that he sees we shall take. We cannot
prove God wrong. He is necessarily omniscient. Divine foreknowledge thus seems to
preclude genuine alternatives, and thus genuine freedom in the world.
21
This is what is known as the foreknowledge-freedom problem.
22
Now it is at this point that open theists offer a solution to the foreknowledge-freedom that
is logically consistent, yet a departure from traditional Christian belief. Their view is known as
"presentism." Presentism strongly insists that God knows everything there is to know God is
truly omniscient.
23
But then presentism adds this very critical point: it is precisely future free
actions of people that are impossible to know. Given libertarian freedom, they insist, it is
impossible for anyone, including God himself, truly to know what people will do since there are
no antecedent sufficient conditions which decisively incline a person's will in one direction over
another. Thus, in upholding a libertarian view of human freedom, open theism denies that God
can know the future free actions of human beings.
24
What are some of the implications of such a view? As has already been stated, the God of
open theism is a risk-taker.
25
Accordingly, the implication is not only that God lacks exact and
infallible knowledge of the contingent future, but also that, as David Basinger argues, "It can no
21
Ibid., 89.
22
See Morris, Our Idea of God, 91, for the basic argument:
(1)
God's beliefs are infallible. Thus,
(2)
For any event x, if God believes in advance that x will occur, then no one is in a position to prevent x.
(3)
For any event x, if no one is in a position to prevent x, then no one is free with respect to x.
(4)
For every event x that ever occurs, God believes in advance that it will occur. Therefore,
(5)
No one distinct from God is free with respect to any event. And so,
(6)
Human free will is a complete illusion.
23
In this regard, listen to the definition of omniscience given by Richard Swinburne, a proponent of present
knowledge, when he states, "omniscience is knowledge of everything true which is logically possible to know" (The
Coherence of Theism [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977], 175).
24
For a further description of "presentism" see William Hasker, "A Philosophical Perspective," in The Openness of
God, 136-38, 150-51 and God, Time, and Knowledge (Ithaca: Cornell, 1989), 186-190, as well as the article by Clark
Pinnock, "God Limits His Knowledge," 143-62, and Richard Rice, God's Foreknowledge and Man's Free Will
(Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1985). Also see David Basinger, "Divine Control and Human
Freedom: Is Middle Knowledge the Answer?" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 36 (1993), 55-64.
25
For examples of this kind of language from those who defend present knowledge see Clark Pinnock, "God Limits
His Knowledge," 143-62; William Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge, 186-205; J. R. Lucas, "Foreknowledge and
the Vulnerability of God," in The Philosophy in Christianity, ed. Godfrey Vesey (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989), 119-28.