Abstract: (418 Views)
Paul Helm believes that there are good reasons that divine omniscience - which includes the future - with human freedom understood in an incompatibilist sense is logically inconsistent. But this tension should not lead us to a reduced theory of divine foreknowledge, just as it should not negate human freedom and responsibility. Helm has argued that a Christian theist may accept a compatibilist sense of human freedom; first, the Christian doctrine of "God's grace" is compatible only with the compatibilist version of human freedom. Second because God is omniscient, it must be omniscient in a strong sense, and this is the case only if compatibilism is true. We will say that Helm's first argument will lead to the denial of some other accepted doctrines of religions, including Christianity, and his second argument falls into affirming the consequences. But Helm's third reason is that necessarily, if God knows x in advance (which He does), then x will necessarily occur. To avoid problems, he emphasizes that what he means by "necessity" is a historical and not logical necessity. But this argument only works when we accept that God is in time. Therefore, those who consider divine knowledge timeless can claim that all events exist in the divine mind in a necessary way and His knowledge is not necessary because it is in the past. It seems that Helm himself also accepts this problem.
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