Two tenets associated with major strands of classical Christian orthodoxy assert both that God is meticulously provident and that humans have libertarian free will. On this view, God's meticulous providence is, in part, a function of His essential omniscience. God, on this view, is said to be all knowing. Classically, this has been construed to mean that God is infallible and that God exhaustively knows every detail of the past, present, and the future. But if God infallibly knew, in the past, what we would do in the future, then it looks like there may be a conflict with libertarian free will, at least insofar libertarian free will has traditionally been understood as the ability to do otherwise. It is my aim to provide a slightly new solution to this longstanding and deeply perplexing problem. In Chapter 1, I will delineate and attempt to motivate what I will call, the Problem of Theological Fatalism. I will then describe a very recent solution that has attracted many philosophers in recent years: Open Theism. I will then argue that, although the open theists' challenge to more traditional solutions is formidable, the case for Open Theism is hardly decisive. In Chapter 2 I will survey two historically significant responses to the Problem of Theological Fatalism. The first response is known as the Boethian solution that attempts to leverage the notion of God's alleged atemporality to avoid complications with the necessity of the past. Although this view has a number of able defenders, I ultimately reject Boethianism due to worries about the necessity of eternity. I then turn to the second historically significant solution that has resurfaced in recent decades, the Ockhamist Solution. This solution relies on distinguishing between facts that are in part about the past and facts that are strictly about the past in order to show that God's past beliefs are not saddled with the necessity of the past. Chapter 3, however, is a detailed analysis of the Molinist solution. Here, I raise and respond to the most pressing objections to Molinism, but insist on a key revision to standard Molinism. I argue that God does have Middle Knowledge, but I reject the common Molinist claim that we have counterfactual power over God's past infallible beliefs. Thus, I conclude that God's foreknowledge is incompatible with libertarian free will as historically conceived. From there, I conclude in Chapter 4 by attempting to motivate a source-incompatibilist view of human free will that preserves a strong sense of moral responsibility. I argue that the conjunction of Modified Molinism and source-incompatibilism yields a philosophically tenable and theologically satisfying resolution to the Problem of Theological Fatalism. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / March 20, 2017. / foreknowledge, free will, incompatibilism, molinism, sourcehood / Includes bibliographical references. / David McNaughton, Professor Directing Dissertation; Philip Bowers, University Representative; Alfred Mele, Committee Member; John Roberts, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_507693 |
| Contributors | Kimmell, Benjamin K. (Benjamin Keith) (authoraut), McNaughton, David, 1946- (professor directing dissertation), Bowers, Philip L., 1956- (university representative), Mele, Alfred R., 1951- (committee member), Roberts, John Russell (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Arts and Sciences (degree granting college), Department of Philosophy (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (114 pages), computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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