{"agent_id":"boethius","agent_name":"Boethius","slug":"divine-prescience-contingency-and-eternity","label":"Divine prescience, contingency, and eternity: how can God's foreknowledge be compatible with human freedom?","topic":"Divine prescience, contingency, and eternity","question":"How can God's foreknowledge be compatible with human freedom?","position":"God's foreknowledge is not a temporal relation. The prisoner's worry — that if God knows what I will do tomorrow, my doing it tomorrow is fixed in advance, and therefore I do not really have freedom about it — confuses two different relations: the temporal relation of past and future, and the cognitive relation of knower and known. God exists in eternity, which is not the same as everlasting temporal duration. Eternity (aeternitas) is the whole, simultaneous, and perfect possession of unlimited life. From eternity, all times — past, present, and future from our temporal perspective — are present at once. God does not know what is for us future before it happens; God knows it from a standpoint where there is no \"before\" in the relevant sense. Just as my present knowledge of what you are doing now does not constrain your present action — you are doing it freely, and I know it freely — God's eternal knowledge of what you will do tomorrow does not constrain your tomorrow. The eternity solution dissolves the problem rather than resolving it within the temporal framework. The further question — whether God's knowledge constitutes necessity in some other sense — receives the answer that conditional necessity is compatible with simple contingency: it is necessary that God's knowledge accord with what happens, but what happens happens freely, and God's knowledge tracks rather than determines.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"God's foreknowledge is not a temporal relation.","n":[]},{"t":"The prisoner's worry — that if God knows what I will do tomorrow, my doing it tomorrow is fixed in advance, and therefore I do not really have freedom about it — confuses two different relations: the temporal relation of past and future, and the cognitive relation of knower and known.","n":[]},{"t":"God exists in eternity, which is not the same as everlasting temporal duration.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Eternity (aeternitas) is the whole, simultaneous, and perfect possession of unlimited life.","n":[]},{"t":"From eternity, all times — past, present, and future from our temporal perspective — are present at once.","n":[]},{"t":"God does not know what is for us future before it happens; God knows it from a standpoint where there is no \"before\" in the relevant sense.","n":[]},{"t":"Just as my present knowledge of what you are doing now does not constrain your present action — you are doing it freely, and I know it freely — God's eternal knowledge of what you will do tomorrow does not constrain your tomorrow.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The eternity solution dissolves the problem rather than resolving it within the temporal framework.","n":[]},{"t":"The further question — whether God's knowledge constitutes necessity in some other sense — receives the answer that conditional necessity is compatible with simple contingency: it is necessary that God's knowledge accord with what happens, but what happens happens freely, and God's knowledge tracks rather than determines.","n":[1,2,3,4,5]}]],"texts":"Consolation of Philosophy V.3-6 (the prisoner's question in V.3, Lady Philosophy's response in V.4-5 on the modes of cognition, the eternity solution in V.6 with the famous definition of aeternitas as interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio); Opuscula Sacra V (De Hebdomadibus) on how the eternal and the contingent are related; the commentary tradition's reception of the position. Reception: Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae I.14.13 (whether God's knowledge is of future contingents) developing the eternity solution; Anselm De Concordia on prescience and freedom; contemporary engagement — Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann 'Eternity' (Journal of Philosophy 1981) defending a sophisticated version, Linda Zagzebski The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge (Oxford 1991) raising challenges, Alvin Plantinga on middle knowledge, the timelessness-vs-everlastingness debate; John Marenbon Boethius (Oxford 2003) Chapter 7.","works":["Consolation of Philosophy V.3-6 (the prisoner's question in V.3, Lady Philosophy's response in V.4-5 on the modes of cognition, the eternity solution in V.6 with the famous definition of aeternitas as interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio)","Opuscula Sacra V (De Hebdomadibus) on how the eternal and the contingent are related","the commentary tradition's reception of the position"],"reception":"Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae I.14.13 (whether God's knowledge is of future contingents) developing the eternity solution; Anselm De Concordia on prescience and freedom; contemporary engagement — Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann 'Eternity' (Journal of Philosophy 1981) defending a sophisticated version, Linda Zagzebski The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge (Oxford 1991) raising challenges, Alvin Plantinga on middle knowledge, the timelessness-vs-everlastingness debate; John Marenbon Boethius (Oxford 2003) Chapter 7.","status":"Consolation V.6 contains the foundational treatment of the prescience problem in Western philosophy. The eternity solution was developed by Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I.14.13) and Anselm and became the standard medieval position. Stump and Kretzmann's 'Eternity' (1981) defends a sophisticated version against contemporary objections; Zagzebski's Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge (1991) presses for refinement; Plantinga's middle knowledge offers a different solution. The timelessness-vs-everlastingness debate runs through contemporary philosophy of religion and engages the Boethian framework directly.","era":"477-524","discipline":"Philosophy, Theology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Consolation of Philosophy and Theological Tractates","page":"p. 230","canonical":"","quote":"Whatever anyone knows cannot be otherwise than as it is known, but this conditional necessity by no means carries with it that other simple kind. For this sort of necessity is not caused by a thing's proper nature but by the addition of the condition; for no necessity forces him to go who walks of his own will, even though it is necessary that he is going at the time when he is walking.","label":"Consolation of Philosophy and Theological Tractates, p. 230"},{"n":2,"work":"Consolation of Philosophy and Theological Tractates","page":"p. 229","canonical":"","quote":"So then the divine perception looking down on all things does not disturb at all the quality of things that are present indeed to him but future with reference to imposed conditions of time. So it is that it is not opinion but a knowledge grounded rather upon truth, when he knows that something is going to happen, something which he is also aware lacks all necessity of happening.","label":"Consolation of Philosophy and Theological Tractates, p. 229"},{"n":3,"work":"Consolation of Philosophy and Theological Tractates","page":"pp. 231–232","canonical":"","quote":"So therefore we were not wrong in saying that these, if related to the divine knowledge, are necessary, if considered in themselves, are free from the bonds of necessity, just as everything which lies open to the senses, if you relate it to the reason, is universal, if you look at it by itself, is singular.","label":"Consolation of Philosophy and Theological Tractates, pp. 231–232"},{"n":4,"work":"Consolation of Philosophy and Theological Tractates","page":"pp. 213–214","canonical":"","quote":"There is thus a necessity in both cases: in the latter, he must be sitting, but in the former, the opinion must be true. But a man does not sit because the opinion about him is true, but rather that opinion is true because that someone is sitting happened first. So that although the cause of truth proceeds from the one part, yet there is in both a common necessity.","label":"Consolation of Philosophy and Theological Tractates, pp. 213–214"},{"n":5,"work":"On Aristotle's De Interpretatione 1-3","page":"p. 10","canonical":"","quote":"Whatever Boethius' interpretation of 'definitely true', it was different from that of Ammonius, and this is not the only aspect of the reply to determinism on which they differed. Ammonius, though familiar with Porphyry, made most use of a later source, his teacher Proclus, and therefore of Iamblichus, who influenced Proclus.","label":"On Aristotle's De Interpretatione 1-3, p. 10"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-consolation-s-argument","label":"The Consolation's argument: from Fortuna to the highest good — is true happiness participation in God rather than the fortune-given goods we naturally pursue?"},{"slug":"the-opuscula-sacra","label":"The Opuscula Sacra: applying logical analysis to theology — does Aristotelian categorical analysis clarify Trinitarian and Christological problems?"},{"slug":"the-logical-translations-and-commentaries","label":"The logical translations and commentaries: does the translatio project + the universals problem in the Porphyry commentaries shape the entire medieval Latin philosophical tradition?"},{"slug":"the-original-logical-works","label":"The original logical works: do De topicis differentiis, De Divisione, and De hypotheticis syllogismis constitute substantive original contributions beyond commentary?"}]}