CHAPTER TWO

REDUCTION OF THEOLOGICAL TO LOGICAL FATALISM

It seems clear from the foregoing exposition of the arguments of two prominent theological fatalists that they have fastened upon the medieval argument for fatalism based on the necessity of the past, which derives its inspiration from Aristotle's second formulation of the fatalistic reasoning.1 Most modern protagonists of theological fa­ talism would in the end probably agree, however begrudgingly, with D. C. Williams's judgement that Aristotle's argument is uso swagger- ingly invalid that the student can hardly believe he meant it."2 When Aristotle infers from 1. If every affirmation (or negation) is true or false, it is necessary for everything either to be the case or not to be the case that 2. Everything will or will not be of necessity and not as chance has it, he moves fallaciously from D (p D q) and ρ to G q. The insight already discerned by Boethius, that the consequent may follow necessarily from the antecedent without being itself necessary was expressed in the medieval distinction between nécessitas consequentiae and néces• sitas consequents. Hence, modern theological fatalists are quick to insist that their formulation of the problem does not blur this dis• tinction. For if it can be shown that it is not merely true that p, but necessarily true that p, then Aristotle's argument is valid. Accord• ingly, modern defenders of fatalistic reasoning nearly always appeal to the Aristotelian notion of temporal necessity in order to secure α p. In this case ρ is a proposition expressing some fact about a past event or state of affairs such as "God knew that g" or "God believed that g." Since, furthermore, "If God knew that q, then q" is a nec­ essary truth, it follows that q is necessary. Hence, the argument, in avoiding Aristotle's modal fallacy, cannot, it is claimed, be reduced to the purely logical argument for fatalism. The situation is not, however, so simple. It seems clear that the argument for theological fatalism is not simply the old Aristotelian argument dressed up in theological guise, for the two have a different logical form. Aristotle, as I read him, never appeals to the necessity of the past in order to justify α ρ, but reasons ρ', & (pD q)\ \~ u q. To that extent their arguments are distinct. On the other hand, it is not so 28 FROM THEOLOGICAL TO LOGICAL FATALISM clear that the role of God and divine foreknowledge, or indeed of any knowing subject, is not merely an unessential heuristic or illustrative device, so that the argument is reducible, if not to Aristotle's version, at least to some version of a purely logical argument for fatalism. This question is significant because should it prove to be the case that the argument is so reducible, then the problem is not unique to philosophy of religion but must concern any philosopher who believes that there are contingent propositions. Susan Haack has contended that the argument for theological fa­ talism is no more than "a needlessly (and confusingly) elaborated version" of Aristotle's argument in De interpretione 9; the addition of an omniscient God to the argument constitutes a "gratuitous de­ tour" around the real issue, which is the truth or falsify of future contingent propositions.3 The question raised by Haack is whether the temporal necessity ascribed to God's past belief might not be more simply ascribed to some past state of affairs constituted by a future-tense proposition's being true. Although a number of recent writers have disputed this reduction, their protestations seem to have little foundation. Calling logical fatalism a "pseudo-problem," Zag- zebski, for example, asserts that the truth or falsity of a proposition is not an event or state of affairs and has no causal effect on the world so as to prevent the causal contingency of events.4 But neither does divine foreknowledge causally constrain events (which fact only highlights the absurdity of fatalism); more importantly, a future con­ tingent proposition's being true (or false) most certainly is a state of affairs, and Zagzebski admits as much in her refutation of Aquinas's timelessness solution to theological fatalism. An examination of the typical arguments for theological fatalism bears out the validity of this reduction. Prior's own formulation of the argument omits all reference to God, depending merely on his (6), that if it was the case η time units ago that p, then necessarily it was the case η time units ago that p. And despite his protestations, it seems to me that Pike's version is also so reducible.5 For one could replace his (31) with 31*. If Jones does A at <2> then it was true at t\ that "Jones

does A at <2" or with

31**. If Jones does A at *2, then it was true at

will do A at *2"