306 RELIGION, MORALITY, FAITH, AND REASONDeterministic views
Fatalism: determinism based on logical necessity
Fatalism is the view that these two things are true:
1 Every truth is a necessary truth.
2 Every falsehood is a necessary falsehood.
If one holds that God exists, and is a fatalist, one will think that God exists is a
necessary truth and also that it, plus various necessary truths about God’s
nature, will explain other necessary truths about the existence and history of
the world.
There can be no such thing as explaining why a particular necessary truth N
is true rather than false – its having been false is logically impossible and there
is no need to eliminate a non-possibility. There is no possibly being false to
rule out. One can put the point here by contrasting a necessary truth like Even
an omnipotent being cannot fiat the actions of a libertarianly free person and
a contingent truth like Boston’s National Basketball franchise is named the
Celtics. The necessary truth concerning omnipotence and freedom can be
explained by making its meaning clear; a detailed explanation of libertarian
freedom is offered later in this chapter. But explaining the truth of a necessary
truth amounts either to giving an account of its sense or offering an account of
necessary truth generally – a theory of necessity such as Necessary truths are
grounded in abstract objects. Neither of these is a matter of describing some
conditions that might have obtained and the obtaining of which would make
the necessary truth in question false. There are no such conditions. The
contingent truth about the Celtics can be explained in terms of the history of
the franchise; what makes it true is a series of events that might never have
occurred, so this explanation is a matter of accounting for the fact that it is true
rather than false. Even, then, if one is a fatalist – in which case one will deny
that there are any logically contingent truths or falsehoods – it is baffling how
the truth of one necessary truth could explain the truth of another.
Nonetheless, setting this problem aside, consider a monotheistic version of
fatalism. On this view, Necessarily, God exists is true, as are each of the
following: Necessarily, God has all and only those properties definitive of
God’s nature; Necessarily, God’s choices are entirely determined by God’s
nature; Necessarily, whatever is true is true because God chose that it be true.^5
Then consider the consequences.
One consequence is that God’s existence and nature entirely
determine God’s choices, which in turn determine everything else. But it