Dan Chapa

This post is a response to Mark Linville's argument against the way Occhamists and Molinists reconcile God's foreknowledge with human freedom in his article "Occhamists and Molinists in Search of a Way out". Linville’s Agument Using Hasker’s arguments based on the combination of the necessity of the past and God’s essential omniscience, Linville concludes Occhamists cannot hold counterfactual power over the past (i.e. if I do X, the past would have been different). Rather Occhamists must hold to actual power over the past (i.e. I have the ability to move from the possible world I am in to a different one with a different past). Linville concludes this is the only valid way for Occhamists to reconcile God's foreknowledge with libertarian freewill.  However,  'actual power over the past' lets compatiblists off the hook on the consequence argument, since the consequence argument 1 is based on the inalterability of the past. But Molinists are commit...

Below are two recent exchanges I had with Paul Manata and Ron Di Gacomo on foreknowledge and freedom; specifically the argument from the necessity of the past. In both I argued that the classic argument based on the necessity of the past conflates truths and the basis of truth; there's a difference between me and propositions about me. In Paul's case I asked him to try to reformulate the argument, but he declined. In Ron's case I tried to reformulate the argument for him and he rejected my reformulation. Either way, these exchanges lead me to be more convinced of my hunch that the classic formulation is a train wreck in light of the distinction between truth and the basis of truth. I will be in blue; Paul and Ron in red. Exchange with Paul: The ability to do ~A being consistent with God's forebelief that you will A strikes me as obviously false given the foreknowledge argument. In the least, that's what is up for debate. Apparently, what you mean is that you hav...