RELIGION AND MORALITY 335A parenthetical cross-cultural suggestion
In this chapter, we have considered a dispute between a monotheistic
compatibilist determinism and a monotheistic libertarianism over
whether, if monotheistic determinism is true, created persons are free,
and indeed whether there can even be created persons. In Chapter 12,
we considered a dispute between Jainism and Buddhism concerning
the nature of persons. From the monotheistic libertarian perspective,
on the monotheistic compatibilist determinist account, persons reduce
to states of affairs that lack freedom and genuine personhood. From
the Jain perspective, on the Buddhist account, persons reduce to
bundles of momentary states of affairs that lack memory,
responsibility, and genuine personhood. The monotheistic
compatibilist determinist, and the Buddhist, at least initially, claim
that they can retain the ordinary or commonsense view of freedom,
memory, responsibility, and personhood. The monotheist libertarian,
and the Jain, denies this. So, concerning monotheism, does Spinoza,
and, concerning Buddhism, so does absolutistic Mahayana Buddhism.
A suggestion: reflection on these cases is a philosophically
informative enterprise.
Divine foreknowledge and human freedom
Here is a standard argument to the conclusion that divine
foreknowledge is incompatible with human freedom; it (and the
analogous argument below) are concerned only with logically
contingent statements. If successful, this argument would show that
(i) libertarian monotheism is logically inconsistent, or (ii) that future
tense statements are neither true nor false and so cannot be
foreknown, or (iii) that for some other reason God does not know the
future. Since (ii), as we will see, seems plainly false, we would be left
with (i) and (iii).
1 If God knows today what Sally will do tomorrow, then Sally is
not free regarding what Sally does tomorrow.
2 If God is omniscient, then God knows today what Sally will do
tomorrow.
3 God is omniscient. So:
4 God knows today what Sally will do tomorrow (from 2, 3). So:
5 Sally is not free regarding what Sally does tomorrow (from 1, 4).