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Human Freedom in a World Full of Providence: an Ockhamist-Molinist Account of the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Creaturely Free Will" (2010)

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Human Freedom in a World Full of Providence: an Ockhamist-Molinist Account of the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Creaturely Free Will University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 2-2010 Human Freedom in a World Full of Providence: An Ockhamist- Molinist Account of the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Creaturely Free Will Christopher J. Kosciuk University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Kosciuk, Christopher J., "Human Freedom in a World Full of Providence: An Ockhamist-Molinist Account of the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Creaturely Free Will" (2010). Open Access Dissertations. 153. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/153 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HUMAN FREEDOM IN A WORLD FULL OF PROVIDENCE: AN OCKHAMIST—MOLINIST ACCOUNT OF THE COMPATIBILITY OF DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE AND CREATURELY FREE WILL A Dissertation Presented by CHRISTOPHER J. KOSCIUK Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2010 Philosophy © Copyright by Christopher J. Kosciuk 2010 All Rights Reserved HUMAN FREEDOM IN A WORLD FULL OF PROVIDENCE: AN OCKHAMIST—MOLINIST ACCOUNT OF THE COMPATIBILITY OF DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE AND CREATURELY FREE WILL A Dissertation Presented by CHRISTOPHER J. KOSCIUK Approved as to style and content by: ________________________________________ Lynne R. Baker, Chair ________________________________________ Gareth B. Matthews, Member ________________________________________ Vere C. Chappell, Member ________________________________________ Arthur F. Kinney, Outside Member ________________________________________ Phillip Bricker, Department Head Department of Philosophy ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank my advisor, Lynne Rudder Baker, for her invaluable guidance, cheerful encouragement and inexhaustible patience all throughout the writing of this dissertation. Thanks are also due to Gary Matthews, Vere Chappell and Arthur Kinney for generously agreeing to sit on my committee. I also want to thank Ed Gettier, Fred Feldman, Phil Bricker, and Bob Sleigh, all of whom have had an enormous influence on my philosophical development. I especially want to thank Tony Murphy for taking me under his wing as an undergraduate and for opening what must have seemed like an hermetically sealed mind. Very special thanks to Kate Ussailis for giving me the space to write and for much needed formatting help. Thanks, of course, to my mom and dad, for bringing about the exemplification of my haecceity and for bearing with me while I exercised my creaturely freedom in all sorts of interesting ways. Thanks, finally, to God, for weakly actualizing the circumstances in which I would freely complete this dissertation. iv ABSTRACT HUMAN FREEDOM IN A WORLD FULL OF PROVIDENCE: AN OCKHAMIST—MOLINIST ACCOUNT OF THE COMPATIBILITY OF DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE AND CREATURELY FREE WILL FEBRUARY 2010 CHRISTOPHER J. KOSCIUK, B.A., ST. BONAVENTURE UNIVERSITY M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Lynne R. Baker I defend the compatibility of the classical theistic doctrine of divine providence, which includes infallible foreknowledge of all future events, with a libertarian understanding of creaturely free will. After setting out the argument for theological determinism, which purports to show the inconsistency of foreknowledge and freedom, I reject several responses as inadequate and then defend the ‚Ockhamist‛ response as successful. I further argue that the theory of middle knowledge or ‚Molinism‛ is crucial to the viability of the Ockhamist response, and proceed to defend Molinism against the most pressing objections. Finally, I argue that a proper understanding of the Creator-creature relationship accounts for why no explanation can be given for how God’s middle knowledge comes about. v CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... v CHAPTER PREFACE .......................................................................................................................... 1 1. THE PROBLEM OF THEOLOGICAL DETERMINISM ......................................... 6 1.1. Providence and Foreknowledge ......................................................................... 6 1.2. Perfect Being Theology and Foreknowledge .................................................... 9 1.3. The Libertarian Conception of Creaturely Freedom ..................................... 11 1.4. Formulating the Argument for Theological Determinism............................ 18 1.5. Theological Determinism and the Fixity of the Past ...................................... 24 1.6. The Saga of Smith the Sniper............................................................................. 28 2. HOW NOT TO RESPOND TO ATD ....................................................................... 35 2.1. Open Theism ........................................................................................................ 35 2.2. The Frankfurtian Objection to (PAP) ............................................................... 39 2.3. Considerations on Logical Determinism ......................................................... 50 2.4. Eternal Propositions and Eternal Knowledge ................................................. 59 2.5. Against Eternalism (Part 1) ................................................................................ 66 3. OCKHAMISM AND THE RECONCILIATION QUESTION .............................. 77 3.1. Against Eternalism (Part 2) ................................................................................ 77 3.2. The Past Isn’t Quite So Fixed ............................................................................. 84 3.3. Causal Power and Counterfactual Power ....................................................... 88 3.4. The Bare Truth About the Future ..................................................................... 94 3.5. How Would You Like Your Facts? ................................................................... 97 3.6. Ockhamism Applied to ATD ............................................................................ 99 3.7. Are God’s Beliefs Hard or Soft Facts? ............................................................ 103 3.8. Just Another Kind of Compatibilism? ............................................................ 122 vi 4. MOLINISM AND THE SOURCE QUESTION .................................................... 126 4.1. The Source of God’s Foreknowledge ............................................................. 126 4.2. The Role of the Divine Will ............................................................................. 130 4.3. The Theory of Middle Knowledge ................................................................. 141 4.4. The Reconciliation Question Revisited .......................................................... 153 4.5. Objections to Molinism .................................................................................... 160 4.5.1. ‚Not True Soon Enough‛ .......................................................................... 161 4.5.2. The Grounding Objection ......................................................................... 169 4.5.3. Hasker’s Anti-Molinist Argument ........................................................... 184 5. THE MYSTERY OF MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE ..................................................... 200 5.1. Middle Knowledge and Individual Essences ............................................... 202 5.2. Molina’s Problematic Approach ..................................................................... 208 5.3. Idea-Models ....................................................................................................... 216 5.4. The Suarezian Solution .................................................................................... 220 5.5. The Metaphysics of Participation ................................................................... 225 5.6. Entitative Participation and Supercomprehension ...................................... 234 5.7. Objections and Replies ..................................................................................... 239 NOTES ........................................................................................................................... 244 APPENDIX: MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE AND THE SUFFERING OF CHRIST .... 248 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 253 vii PREFACE Almighty God, whose never-failing providence governeth all things both in heaven and earth, hath so wisely and mercifully ordered the course of this world (Book of Common Prayer).1 When God, in the beginning, created man, he made him subject to his own free choice (Sirach 15.14).2 One of the beliefs that must certainly be considered essential, indeed central, to the major traditions of Western theistic religion3 is the conviction that God
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