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Divine Self-Limitation in Swinburne's Doctrine of

Omniscience
Avery Fouts
Religious Studies / Volume 29 / Issue 01 / March 1993, pp 21 - 26
DOI: 10.1017/S0034412500022010, Published online: 24 October 2008

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0034412500022010

How to cite this article:
Avery Fouts (1993). Divine Self-Limitation in Swinburne's Doctrine of Omniscience.
Religious Studies, 29, pp 21-26 doi:10.1017/S0034412500022010
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Rel. Stud. 29, pp. 21-26.

Copyright 1993 Cambridge University Press

AVERY FOUTS

DIVINE SELF-LIMITATION IN
SWINBURNE'S DOCTRINE OF
OMNISCIENCE
In his book, The Coherence of Theism,1 Richard Swinburne seeks to construct
a coherent doctrine of God. As a part of this endeavour he examines the idea
of omniscience in chapter 10. One of Swinburne's conclusions is that God as
an omniscient being must engage in cognitive self-limitation in order to
preserve the freedom of both divine and human future actions. In this paper,
I want to look at his argument as it is presented in this chapter. I will
conclude that Swinburne's position on divine cognitive self-limitation results
in an internal contradiction.
Swinburne rejects the Thomistic doctrine of God as a timeless entity
because 'it is clearly nonsense' to suggest that yesterday, today and tomorrow could be simultaneous with each other (pp. 220-1, page references
are to the reprinted edition, 1986). Moreover, Swinburne finds a timeless
God incompatible with much of theistic doctrine. For example, talk of God's
warnings and God's forgiveness 'without his doing these things at times
before or after other times (often, times on the human scale of time) seems
incoherent' (p. 221). For these reasons, Swinburne retains the notion of God
as a person 'existing in time' (p. 174).
Swinburne thinks that' in normal use, propositions about a named future
time (including claims about any future free actions) are true or false timelessly' (p. 175). And as an initial, working definition, Swinburne defines
an omniscient person as a person who at a particular time knows of every
true proposition that it is true (p. 162). Moreover, Swinburne thinks that the
notion of a person who knows all true propositions is coherent. He says that
it is coherent to suppose that there is an omniscient person. There would be no reason
why it is incoherent to suppose that a spirit, omnipresent and creator of the universe,
is omniscient. Such a spirit, if asked, could give you the answer to any question, if
he chose to do so. The state of the universe in the past and future would be so clearly
known to him maybe its whole history could be seen by him at glance and be held
in his mind - that he would not need to conduct an investigation to find out how
things had been years ago or would be in years to come (p. 166).
Swinburne asks whether the existence of a temporal God who knows all true
1
Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977; reprinted (as paperback), 1986).

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AVERY FOUTS

propositions at any particular time, including future-tensed propositions, is

compatible with human and divine freedom. Concerning human freedom,
Swinburne argues that the truth values of future-tensed propositions about
future free human actions cannot be known until the respective action occurs.
For example, if Jones possesses real freedom either to get married or not to
get married at t27, Swinburne would argue that the truth value of'Jones will
get married at t 27 ' cannot be known until t27. For Swinburne, it is 'of logical
necessity, if P is omniscient at t, he believes at t all true propositions' (p.
169).2 And 'if S is a free agent at tx and P is a person at t with beliefs about
everything describable by a true proposition, P will be in danger of having
one of his beliefs made false by the action of S at t x ' (p. 170). Thus, if God
foreknows 'Jones will get married at t 27 ', Jones will get married at t27. If
Jones decided not to get married at t27, God's foreknowledge would be
rendered incorrect. But an incorrect foreknowledge is an obvious contradiction. Swinburne's fear here is not so much that God will fail to be future
omniscient, but that humans will not be free.
The concern is all the more acute with regard to divine freedom. If God's
freedom be preserved, not only can God not be future omniscient, but God
cannot even justifiably predict divine future actions. In chapter 8, Swinburne
defines a perfectly free person as a person 'who is not influenced in his choices
by any causal factors' (p. 145). Moreover, he says that no one can 'be
justified in holding beliefs about the future actions of a perfectly free agent'
(p. 172). If I understand Swinburne at this point, even though humans are
not able to know the future, humans might be able justifiably to predict what
future human actions might occur because there is a causal connection with
the present; but, since there is no causal connection from the present to the
actions of a perfectly free agent, to say that God can even justifiably predict
future divine actions (without knowing them) implies that there is a causal
connection from the future action to the present belief. But this implies
backward causation which for Swinburne is incoherent (p. 172).3
Swinburne implies that if the Thomistic doctrine of God were coherent it
would resolve the problem of divine and human freedom because there
would be 'no question of God first believing something and then, later, there
occurring that which makes his belief true or false' (p. 173). But given, on
the one hand, the incoherence of the Thomistic doctrine of God and, on the
2

For Swinburne, knowing x entails believing x. Moreover, he uses ' believe' to refer to ' both those
propositions which we are ordinarily said to believe and also those propositions about the truth of which
we are convinced or have no doubt' (see p. 169 n. 9). Thus, as far as I can tell, God's beliefs, as one who
knows all true propositions, are the same as God's knowledge.
3
This seems immediately problematic. True, God is not necessarily influenced by causal factors as
humans are, but is not God causally effected by God's own nature and will? And if so, it seems that even
if God does not know true future-tensed propositions, justifiable predictions could be made by God about
God's own future actions without threatening God's freedom. Moreover, since for Swinburne God acts
without influence from non-rational factors (pp. 146-8), it seems all the more likely that, given the nature
of God and God's purposes, given a particular state of affairs in the world, and given standard canons
of rational behaviour, God's actions could be sometimes justifiably predicted.

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DIVINE SELF-LIMITATION

23

other hand, the problem of reconciling a temporal God's future omniscience

with free actions, Swinburne argues that theists should modify their definition of omniscience. His modified version is:
A person P is omniscient at a time t if and only if he knows of every true proposition
about t or an earlier time that it is true and also he knows of every true proposition
about a time later than t, such that what it reports is physically necessitated by some
cause at t or earlier, that it is true (p. 175).

This modified definition of omniscience is a result of divine self-limitation.

God limits God so that only those true propositions about physically necessitated future occurrences are acceptable for God to know. Knowledge of the
latter does not impinge on freedom and contingency. Swinburne says:
That God is omniscient only in the attenuated sense would of course - given that he
is perfectly free and omnipotent have resulted from his own choice. In choosing to
preserve his own freedom (and to give others freedom), he limits his own knowledge
of what is to come. He continually limits himself in this way by not curtailing his or
men's future freedom (p. 176).
For a person would not be less worthy of worship if he voluntarily limited his
knowledge in order to allow himself and some of his creatures to determine their own
destiny (p. 178).
Yet to maintain his freedom, he limits his knowledge of his own future choices
(p. 178).

(Swinburne defines future omniscience as comprised of true propositions

concerning both human and divine actions. For the sake of clarity, I will
discuss human and divine actions individually. Also, I will assume that
Swinburne is right in saying that a future-tensed proposition can be true and
as long as God does not know it the event to which the proposition refers
remains undetermined.)
Swinburne is not explicit about the nature of this choice to engage in
cognitive self-limitation. So, let's assume for the sake of the discussion that
there was a specific time when God limited God's knowledge and that God
foreknew all true propositions before that specific time. Concerning human
action, it seems that future human action would still be determined after the
self-limitation. In other words, if'Jones will get married at t 27 ' were ever
foreknown as true, and thus determined to happen, God's self-limitation
could do nothing to a/zdetermine it. If it were ever determined, it could not
become undetermined since, by Swinburne's own admission, the idea of
backward causation is incoherent. If God foreknows at t 'Jones will get
married at t 27 ', and if God engages in self-limitation at t3, one would have
to maintain both that Jones must still get married at t27 so that God's
omniscience at t will not be falsified and that God's self-limitation renders
'Jones will not get married at t 27 ' as a real possibility.
Concerning future divine action, the problem is more severe. God could

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never freely become future ignorant after ever being future omniscient since
future omniscience determines all subsequent divine actions.
It is clear from the foregoing that at any time there is a free human or
divine action, God could never have been future omniscient up to that point.
Freedom is not just a matter of God's not knowing the future, but rather a
matter of God's never knowing the future up to the time of any particular free
action. In other words, it is not a matter of God simply permitting free actions
at any particular time irrespective of God's decisions throughout the everlasting past. Since all true propositions are timelessly true, God could never
have been omniscient of all true propositions. On this basis, Swinburne must
say that God has been everlastingly self-limited so that there has been no
particular time that true future-tensed propositions were ever known. That
is, God can know that future omniscience would render the future determined without actually knowing any particular true future-tensed propositions. God has thus chosen at each moment of everlasting time not to be
future omniscient thereby preserving future free actions. I think something
like this is what Swinburne means. But while this position seems coherent
with regard to human actions, it seems incoherent with regard to divine
actions.
The coherence of everlasting, cognitive self-limitation toward future human actions rests on the fact that it is a conditional necessity that God engage
in such limitation. That is, on the condition of human freedom, God has
never been future omniscient up to the time of free human action, and at
each moment of everlasting time, God has had to engage in cognitive selflimitation. But God could actually have chosen to be future omniscient at
any one of those moments, even though it would have been at the expense
of human freedom.
The coherence of everlasting, cognitive self-limitation breaks down when
divine action enters the picture. It may seem that future omniscience with
regard to divine actions is also a conditional necessity. That is, God chooses
at each moment of everlasting time not to know future divine actions as if,
as in the case of human actions, God actually could choose to be future
omniscient. But, in God's case, God is necessarily free; God is not free because
God chooses not to be future omniscient. That is tantamount to saying that
God is free because God freely chooses not to know the future. Swinburne
himself defines a 'personal ground of being' as inclusive of being 'eternally
perfectly free' (p. 224). In chapter 14, he argues for the coherence of God's
being necessarily a 'personal ground of being'. He argues that it is necessary
on, what he calls, criteria [A], [B], [C], [D] and [E] (p. 269). For our
purposes here, we need only look at criteria [A], [B] and [D].
Criterion [A]:
A proposition is necessary if and only if it is analytic (p. 235).
Criterion [B]:

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A proposition is necessary if and only if it is incoherent to suppose that

the individuals in fact picked out by the referring expressions in the
sentence which expresses it do not have the properties and/or relations
claimed by the proposition (p. 236).
Criterion [D]:
A proposition p is necessary if and only if it is true, but the truth of what
it states is not (was not, or will not be) dependent on anything, the
description of which is not entailed by p (p. 250).
Swinburne argues on these grounds that the proposition 'If there be a
Personal Ground of Being, this Personal Ground of Being is not eternally
perfectly free' is incoherent. On criteria [A] and [B], freedom is necessarily
a predicate of' God', or ' Personal Ground of Being'. On criterion [D], God's
freedom is necessary in the sense that it does not depend on anything
including God's own choices. (Criterion [A] is logical necessity for Swinburne, and criterion [D] is ontological necessity.) So, Swinburne himself
supports the predication of God as necessarily free.
Given Swinburne's position that future omniscience of all true propositions
is not compatible with freedom, it must be concluded that God necessarily
does not know the future. The necessity arises not because God is everlastingly ignorant of the future, but rather because there is no moment of
everlasting time at which God could do otherwise. For Swinburne to say that
God could do otherwise is to make freedom an accidental property of God
rather than an essential one. God's knowledge is necessarily limited by God's
essential freedom.
Moreover, Swinburne says a perfectly free person is a person who 'can
only perform an action if he believes that there is no overriding reason for
refraining from doing it' (p. 159; see also chapter 8). Assuming that a free
God is more rational than a determined God, in every logically possible
situation there would always be an overriding reason to refrain from foreknowing all true propositions. It seems to me that this in itself would make
the refraining a necessity. Swinburne himself says there is a logical limit on
God's freedom that is, God 'will never do an action if he acknowledges
overriding reasons for refraining from doing it' (p. 148). But to speak in such
a way presupposes, as Swinburne does, that God has the power to become
future omniscient even though God never does so because of this logical limit.
But if God is necessarily free, God does not possess the power to become
future omniscient. Swinburne's definition of omnipotence is:
A person P is omnipotent at a time t if and only if he is able to bring about the
existence of any logically contingent state of affairs x after t, the description of the
occurrence of which does not entail that P did not bring it about at t, given that he
does not believe that he has overriding reason for refraining from bringing about x
(p. 160).

Given this definition, God does not possess the power to become future

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omniscient since a personal ground of being lacking eternally perfect freedom

is not only not a logically contingent state of affairs but, on the above criteria,
is neither logically nor ontologically possible at all. Again, it is a necessity
that God not know the future because God does not possess the power to do
so.
If my argument be correct, there is no point in talking of a ' choice' as if
God had an alternative. Since God can never choose future omniscience,
God does not choose not to be future omniscient. Moreover, if future knowledge is of one piece comprised of knowledge both of divine and human free
actions, it follows that God is necessarily limited of both types of knowledge.
Swinburne thinks it is coherent to suppose that God can be both omniscient in the sense of knowing all true propositions and perfectly free. He says
that an omniscient person 'if asked, could give you the answer to any
question, if he chose to do so' (emphasis mine; see above quotation from p.
166). It seems to me that Swinburne wants to retain in his doctrine of God
the notion that God is capable of knowing all true propositions. This much of
the classical Thomistic God Swinburne wants to preserve. In other words,
'self-limitation' means more than God merely creating a world with free
actions as opposed to creating a world where all actions are determined.
Since an omniscient person who knows all propositions is coherent for
Swinburne, he retains the notion that God is able to be such a person but
chooses not to be such a person for the sake of freedom. But, again, if my
argument be correct, on Swinburne's own grounds, it is not coherent to
suppose that a perfectly free God can be omniscient. Swinburne's God simply
cannot know the future.
In summary, given Swinburne's position that future omniscience of all true
propositions is incompatible with free acts, future omniscience never has
occurred and, more importantly, can never occur. Thus, talk of'choice' and
a self-limiting God becomes highly problematic. Swinburne's God seems to
be a God for whom future omniscience is neither a logical nor an ontological
possibility.4
Department of Religion,
Claremont Graduate School,
Claremont,
California
Thanks are due to Stephen T. Davis, John Hick and Keith Ward for reading drafts of this paper

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