divine foreknowledge

A detailed Summary of divine foreknowledge


Nelson Pike wrote the article Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action as an

elaboration of Boethius' Divine Foreknowledge and Freedom of the Will. Pike thought that

Boethius had a valid, logical argument that was just not thought out fully. Boethius stated that

perhaps there is a lack of free will if God already knows what is and will happen. However, in

order for this argument to be valid, some assumptions need to be made.

The first assumption is that God exists. Second is the view of God as omniscient. God

knows everything that has ever occurred, is occurring, or will occur. God is never wrong.

Finally, is the view of God as perpetual, not eternal. This means that at any point in time, God

exists. God has a temporal relationship with the universe, as opposed to having a timeless

relationship. Pike uses these assumptions as the basis for his arguement.

To begin with, what God believes is the same as what God knows, whereas believing and


God's belief three days ago so that it coresponds to today's action, thereby making God correct in

God is omniscient and also thinking that free will exists. It seems to be logically incorrect to

God his belief three days ago could not be changed now.

Third, the belief held three days ago was wrong. That entails that the person who held

at the last possible moment about something, yet God already knows of those changes, and the

Second, if God is never wrong, there is no way to take action now that would change

be done. This absence of choice equals the absence of free will.

One cannot do something that logically contradicts itself. For example, one is not able to



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Approximate Word count = 650
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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