RELIGION AND MORALITY 337Sally’s doing B tomorrow. An omniscient being will have no need to
make such inferences in order to know anything.
2 As a probability grid or its product. It is possible to think along
these lines: if Sally does B freely tomorrow then her doing B is
unpredictable other than probabilistically; if her doing B tomorrow
is unpredictable other than probabilistically, then there is some
chance that she not do B tomorrow; if X knows now that Sally will
do B tomorrow, it follows that Sally will do B tomorrow; so if X
knows now that Sally will do B tomorrow, then her doing B
tomorrow is not to be understood probabilistically; so if X knows
now that Sally will do B tomorrow, her doing B tomorrow is not
free. But a monotheist who holds both that God has foreknowledge
of human actions and that those actions are free is not thinking
along these lines nor would or should she think in terms of a
probability grid. That S does A freely does not entail That S does A
is in principle unpredictable or S’s doing A is only very probable or
the like. Nor is an omnipotent being in the position of having to be
content with probabilistic knowledge. Perhaps a being who learned
what would happen in the future would suffer this limitation, but an
omniscient being has no learning to do.^29
Truth and the future
Since it does not appeal to the idea that God causes whatever is true to be
true, what force the above argument for the incompatibility of divine
foreknowledge and human freedom had is also captured by this argument.
1 Every true future tense statement is now true.
2 If every true future tense statement is now true, then determinism
is true. So:
3 Determinism is true.
This argument could in principle be given at any time, regarding all
future time. If it was always sound and valid, then determinism would be
true.
An argument regarding premise 1
The first premise assumes that (1*) Future tense statements can be true.
This claim can be defended as follows: