Divine foreknowledge and human freedom : the coherence of theism : omniscience /
| Main Author: | |
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| Corporate Author: | |
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Leiden ; New York :
E.J. Brill,
[1990]
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| Series: | Brill's studies in intellectual history ;
v. 19. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
Table of Contents:
- I. Theological fatalism
- A.N. Prior
- Nelson Pike
- II. Reduction of theological to logical fatalism
- III. Logical fatalism
- Richard Taylor
- Taylor's response to his critics
- IV. Suggested escapes from fatalism
- Denial of the principle of bivalence or the law of excluded middle
- Status of the principle of bivalence
- Grounds for denying bivalence of future contingent propositions
- Grounds for affirming bivalence of future contingent propositions
- Bivalence of all propositions
- Falsity of all future contingent propositions
- Logical form of future contingent propositions
- Unidentifiability of future individuals
- Timelessness of truth
- Tensed vs. tenseless truth-bearers
- Omnitemporal vs. atemporal truth
- Conclusion
- V. "Within one's power"
- Taylor on "within one's power"
- Necessitas consequentiae and personal power
- Conditions and consequences
- Fatalism about the past vs. fatalism about the future
- Changing the past vs. changing the future
- Causing the future vs. causing the past
- VI. Backward causation
- part I: The alleged logical impossibility of retro-causation
- Dummett's defense of backward causation
- The logical objection to backward causation
- Antony Flew
- Michael Scriven
- Richard Gale
- Richard Swinburne
- Assessment of the logical objection
- Two words of caution
- Assessment
- Logical and metaphysical modality
- Part II: Purported instances of retro-causation
- Neural physiology
- Particle pair creation/annihilation
- Classical electrodynamics
- Tachyons
- Superluminal particles and backward causation
- The reinterpretation principle
- The logically pernicious self-inhibitor
- A perspectival special theory of relativity
- Precognition
- Experimental evidence
- Retro-causal explanation
- Difficulties in retro-causal explanation
- Time travel
- A word of caution
- The possibility of time travel
- Stock objections to time travel
- The logically pernicious self-inhibitor
- Circular causation
- Part III: The metaphysical impossibility of retro-causation
- The A-theory and backward causation
- Superiority of the A-theory
- Application to purported instances of backward causation
- Conclusion.
- VII. "Within one's power" once more
- Power and counterfactual openness
- Failure of fatalism
- Conclusion
- VIII. Transition to theological fatalism
- Prior
- Pike
- Conclusion
- IX. Temporal necessity
- Contemporary debate from Pike to Plantinga
- John Turk Saunders vs. Nelson Pike
- Marilyn Adams
- John Fischer
- Alfred J. Freddoso
- Alvin Plantinga
- Assessment of the debate
- Toward understanding temporal necessity
- Backward causation and intuitions of the past's necessity
- Fatalism and ability
- Conclusion
- X. Newcomb's paradox
- The puzzle conditions
- Theological implications
- Nozick's dilemma
- Divine foreknowledge and the one-box strategy
- Objections to the one-box strategy
- Backward causation
- Backtracking counterfactuals
- Newcomb's paradox and freedom
- Conclusion
- XI. Foreknowledge and freedom of God
- Foreknowledge and human deliberation
- Foreknowledge and divine deliberation
- Conclusion
- XII. The basis of divine foreknowledge
- God's ability to know future contingents
- Knowledge vs. true belief
- Conclusion
- XIII. Middle knowledge
- The doctrine of middle knowledge
- Natural, middle, and free knowledge
- Theological ramifications
- Grounds for affirming middle knowledge
- Objections to middle knowledge
- Middle knowledge and passivity in God
- Middle knowledge and divine freedom
- Conclusion
- Appendix I: Is the special theory of relativity fatalistic?