The Incompatibility of Free Will and Infallible Foreknowledge

By Blake T. Ostler
The foreknowledge of God has seemed to many persons to be incompatible with human
free will. How can God know with certainty what might or might not happen? The survey of
answers to the source of Gods infallible foreknowledge of contingent events such as free human
choices suggests that any way a person can come up with that satisfactorily explains how God
can know human choices with certainty before those choices have actually been made will not be
compatible with genuine human freedom. However, it still remains possible, in some persons
views quite likely, that there is much about the nature of divine knowledge which escapes our
ability to understand. For such persons, due deference to human ignorance requires a very
limited conclusion about how God can know future contingent events with certainty, i.e., we just
dont know how God knows such things. For such persons, a demonstration of incompatibility of
free will and divine foreknowledge is required to settle whether God can consistently know
contingent events with certainty.
An Unsound Argument for Incompatibility
The question of the compatibility of human free will and infallible foreknowledge
approaches the problem from a different angle. A well know statement of the incompatibility
question was given by Augustine in his De libero arbitrio:
Surely this is the question that troubles and perplexes you: how can the following two
propositions, that [1] God has foreknowledge of all future events, and that [2] we do not
sin by necessity but by free will, be made consistent with each other? If God foreknows
that man will sin, you say, it is necessary that man sin. If man must sin, his sin is not
the result of the wills choice, but is instead a fixed and inevitable necessity. You fear now
that this reasoning results either in the blasphemous denial of Gods foreknowledge or, if
we deny this, the admission that we sin by necessity, not by will.
The compatibility question, as framed by Augustine, is thus, whether:
Argument A
( A 1 ) God foreknows with certainty that an agent A will sin
is incompatible with
( A 2 ) A will sin freely.
The problem of free will and foreknowledge, as outlined by Augustine, seems to be stated
as follows:
( A 3 ) If God foreknows that A will sin, then it is necessary that A will sin.
( A 4 ) If it is necessary that A will sin, then A is not free to refrain from sinning.
( A 5 ) If A is not free to refrain from sinning, then A is not free.

From ( A 1 ) and ( A 3 ) through ( A 5 ), it follows that ( A 2 ) is false and, thus,

foreknowledge is incompatible with human freedom. I am not certain how Augustine responded
to this argument; he seems to have rejected each of ( A 2 ), ( A 3 ) and ( A 5 ) at one time or
another in his writings. However, we need not look far for a definitive response to this argument.
Aquinas suggested that premises such as ( A 3 ) are ambiguous:
This proposition, Everything known by God must necessarily be, is usually distinguished,
for it may refer to the thing (de re) or the saying (de dicto). If it refers to the thing, it is
divided and is false; for the sense is, Everything which God knows is necessary. If
understood of the saying, it is composite and true, for the sense is, This proposition, that
which is known by God is necessary.
Aquinas suggests that ( A 3 ) could be understood as either
(3a) Necessarily, if God foreknows that A will sin, then it follows that A will sin;
or
(3b) If God foreknows that A will sin, then A will sin is necessarily true.
The argument for incompatibility requires the truth of (3b), but (3b) is manifestly false. It
is in fact necessarily true as (3a) suggests that if God knows that A will sin, then it logically
follows that A will sin. However, it does not follow that A will sin is a necessary truth as
suggested by (3b). The notion of necessity at issue is that of semantic necessity or necessity in
virtue of the meaning of the words employed. It may also be identified as a statement whose
predicate adds nothing to the subject because the meaning of the predicate is (covertly) contained
in the subject, such as this square has four sides. A statement is semantically impossible only if
its negation involves a contradiction such as this bachelor is married. However, no such
contradiction is entailed by the assertion that Rock does not rob the 7-Eleven. For example, if
God knows that Rock is a bachelor, it follows that Rock is a bachelor. However, it does not
follow that Rock is necessarily a bachelor. It follows that Rock is married is a false
proposition; it does not follow that it is a necessarily false proposition. The proposition that
Rock is married is certainly not semantically impossible and, though Rock is a bachelor in the
actual world, it is easy to envisage a possible world in which Rock is married even if God
knows that Rock is a bachelor. Premise (3) is thus not sound and Argument A for
incompatibilism fails.
A Sound Argument for Compatibilism from the Necessity of the Past
However, there is another, much stronger, argument for incompatibilism which provides the
missing element required to show that an act (res) is necessary because it follows from Gods
past knowledge. In fact, the argument was suggested and accepted as sound by Aquinas himself.
Aquinass argument proceeds from the past necessity of Gods knowledge to the necessity of the
things (res) known by God: