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Human Freedom and Theistic Hypothesis

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Human Freedom and Theistic Hypothesis Human freedom and theistic hypothesis Studies and essays TOWARZYSTWO NAUKOWE KUL Human freedom and theistic hypothesis Studies and essays TOWARZYSTWO NAUKOWE KATOLICKIEGO UNIWERSYTETU LUBELSKIEGO JANA PAWŁA II LEARNED SOCIETY OF THE JOHN PAUL II CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF LUBLIN Źródła i monografie / Sources and monographs 479 SINCE 1934 Human freedom and theistic hypothesis Studies and essays Edited by Andrzej P. Stefańczyk and Roman Majeran Translated from the Polish edition by Roman Majeran and Barbara Kulicka Lublin TOWARZYSTWO NAUKOWE KATOLICKIEGO UNIWERSYTETU LUBELSKIEGO JANA PAWŁA II Reviewers Prof. Dr. hab. Marcin Karas Dr. hab. Tomasz Kupś, Prof. UMK Edited and computer-typeset by Stanisław Sarek Cover design Szymon Strużyński The project was financed by the National Science Center as part of the OPUS 8 research project: UMO-2014/2015/B/HSI/00406 © Copyright by Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL 2019 e-isbn 978-83-7306-843-8 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18290/2019enIf_God_exists Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego Jana Pawła II ul. F. Chopina 29/11, 20-023 Lublin tel. 81 525 01 93, tel./fax 81 524 31 77 e-mail: [email protected] | www.tnkul.pl Marketing and distribution tel. 81 524 51 71 TABLE OF CONTENTS ( Introduction A NDRZEJ P. S TEFAŃCZYK .......................................... IX P ART O NE HISTORY: FROM S T . AUGUSTINE TO JOHN LOCKE The Augustinian Sources of the Controversy Concerning Predes- tination A GNIESZKA K IJEWSKA ............................................ 3 Scandal of Evil: “If There Really Is a God, What Is the Source of Evil? But What Is the Source of Good, if There Is Not?” A GNIESZKA K IJEWSKA ............................................ 37 Gottschalk of Orbais’ Teaching on Predestination A NDRZEJ P. S TEFAŃCZYK .......................................... 63 John Scotus Eriugena: An Adherent of Augustine or Pelagius? A GNIESZKA K IJEWSKA ............................................ 83 The Power of God and the Freedom of Rational Being: The Case of a Devil — Is the Devil’s Fall Free or Necessary? A NDRZEJ P. S TEFAŃCZYK .......................................... 113 Robert Grosseteste and His De Libero Arbitrio A GNIESZKA K IJEWSKA ............................................ 133 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Will, Knowledge, Action — God’s Grace: Thomas Aquinas on Divine Predestination and Divine Causality A NDRZEJ P. S TEFAŃCZYK .......................................... 151 The Problem of Predestination of Human Beings according to John Duns Scotus M ARTYNA K OSZKAŁO ............................................ 189 William of Ockham on Free Will in God and in Man E LŻBIETA J UNG ................................................. 221 Determinism and Freedom in Thomas Bradwardine’s View E LŻBIETA J UNG ................................................. 243 The Problem of Divine Causation and Human Free Will: An Outline of the 16th Century Controversy between Thomism and Molinism A NDRZEJ P. S TEFAŃCZYK .......................................... 275 Luis de Molina — Freedom of Man and God’s Knowledge: The Doctrine of “Middle Science” Media Scientia A NDRZEJ P. S TEFAŃCZYK .......................................... 313 Spinoza: The Critical Discussion of the Concept of Free Will P RZEMYSŁAW G UT ............................................... 343 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Freedom and Determinism P RZEMYSŁAW G UT ............................................... 363 John Locke on Will and Freedom M ARCIN I WANICKI .............................................. 379 P ART T WO PRESENT T IME: FROM CHARLES HARTSHORNE TO ALVIN PLANTINGA The Religious and Metaphysical Conception of God in Charles Harts- horne’s Process Theism P IOTR G UTOWSKI ............................................... 401 Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom: N. Pike contra A. Plantinga M ARCIN I WANICKI .............................................. 425 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS William Hasker’s Open Theism and the Problem of Evil D ARIUSZ Ł UKASIEWICZ ........................................... 463 Foreknowledge, Free Will, Retrocausality M ARCIN T KACZYK ............................................... 525 Bibliography .................................................... 557 Index of Names ................................................. 611 vii INTRODUCTION ( ANDRZEJ P. S TEFAŃCZYK STRICT DETERMINISM OR FATALISM as a theory of reality can be suggested by diverse considerations: natural, theological, ontological or logical. The logi- cally generated problem of fatalism arises when the assumption is made that true propositions concerning temporal events remain always true re- gardless of how they are indexed with respect to time; in particular, propo- sitions correctly describing future contingent events are true even before the described events take place; in fact they have always been and will al- ways remain true, even though their tense index changes in the course of time. However, if this assumption is true, contingent temporal events appear to be have already been determined before their actual cccurrence, since it has always been true that they should happen thus and so and, consequent- ly, they cannot happen otherwise. Yet if all apparently contingent facts are in fact predetermined, there is no true contingency in the world and thus no freedom (since contingency is a necessary precondition of freedom). The great concern of philosophers in various historical contexts was the ques- tion how to reconcile true, and not merely apparent, human freedom with the apparently plausible assumption that propositions correctly describing future contingent states of affairs possess the value of truth. The problem of fatalism as logically grounded (often referred to as logi- cal fatalism) becomes compounded and acquires a new dimension when placed in a theological context and related to God’s eternal and infallible omniscience which necessarily extends to every minute events in the world, whether truly or only seemingly contingent. Thus the problem of theologi- cal determinism or fatalism includes the problem of logical determinism while adding to it new, specifically theological dimensions. Determinism ix ANDRZEJ P. STEFAŃCZYK or fatalism can also be variously defined depending on what factor is regard- ed as the ultimate ground for all determination in reality, and thus we have a mechanistic (causal), physical (nomological), teleological and other kinds of determinism. Yet whatever kind of determinism may be in question, the par- amount philosophical problem facing those who consider it is whether, given the presence of the determining factors in reality, we, humans, can still legit- imately regard ourselves as free and responsible beings, endowed with true freedom of choice. The volume we present to the reader is a kind of record of a great debate that has been going on in history of philosophical thought, and is still continued in contemporary philosophical reflection, on whether and in what measure, in the face of nature’s inflexible laws and all-powerful and omniscient God, before the tribunal of reason, we can affirm ourselves to be truly and not merely apparently free and to possess real freedom of choice, in a certain measure at least. The present introduction to this volume consists of two parts. (i) In the first part the core problem of the debate on free will versus determinism in the specific context of the assumption of God’s existence is restated in gen- eral terms. In this part also the key is provided to the organisation and divi- sion of the volume, which consists of two criteria: chronology (past — pre- sent) and the way the discussed problem is treated and a solution to it pro- posed, and in particular, the way the problem of future contingents, crucial- ly involved in the question of determinism, is tackled: whether its solution is attempted or the whole question is dismissed as specious. (ii) In the second part various approaches to the problem of future contingents are briefly presented complete with examples taken from texts by some of the authors discussed in this volume. I. NATURALISM is a theory affirming all events and facts found in the world to be natural states of affairs. What does it mean? Among other things it means roughly that the whole universe of things and events is empirically knowable (albeit with more or less adequacy) and ulimatelly explainable by means of methods and procedures used in natural sciences. The unque- stionable successes of natural sciences in the domain of explanation and prediction of natural phenomena account for the fact that the naturalist conception of the Universe and all things contained therein (including hu- x INTRODUCTION man beings) has become so appealing to contemporary minds that in the eyes of many it has superseded and rendered anachronistic all other con- ceivable conceptions of the world. Thus some traditional philosophical pro- blems and solutions thereof may appear to some as no longer relevant and of no more interest to the contemporary man than as relics of outmoded ways of thinking, a fit study for the archaeologists of human thought. And yet, there are gross oversimplifications involved in such an attitude, as exem- plified by the theory of physical determinism which seeks to replace the clas- sical conception of a plurality of kinds of causal determination with only one sort of causation: the physical determination.1 However, physical determin- ism has proved itself unable to provide adequate explanation for human be- haviour as well as for the assumptions crucially
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