Issue 3: The Nature of Free Will
Hasker argues that in order to avoid theological fatalism, the Ockhamist must claim that one has the power to bring about the past, worse than that, the "power to bring about past events that have not occurred."10 Hasker is willing to concede for the sake of argument the power to bring about actual past events, but "What needs to be explained, but has not been explained, is how it is possible that God has always believed a certain thing, and yet it is in someone's power to bring it about that God has not always believed that thing."11 Hasker thinks the Ockhamist must hold that S has the power to bring it about that whereas it was true at t1 that God had always believed p, it was no longer true at t2 that God had always believed p. Thus, S must have the power to eliminate the past fact of God's believing p, which is the power to alter the past, an evident absurdity.
Hasker recognizes that Ockhamists protest that they assert no such power, and this fact, which bewilders him, leads Hasker to infer that Ockhamists have a different concept of power and freedom than the standard libertarian analysis. When Hasker speaks of power,
The power in question is the power to perform a particular act under given circumstances, and not a generalized power to perform acts of a certain kind. . . . In general, if it is in N's power at T to perform A, then there is nothing in the circumstances18 that obtain at T which prevents or precludes N's performing A at T.
----------
18 It will be recalled that the circumstances that obtain at T comprise all and only the hard facts with respect to T.12
In this sense of power, one does not have it within his power to act differently than God foreknows one will. In a different sense of power, in the sense of general abilities, "I may perfectly well have a power . . . to do something even though it is either logically or causally impossible that I exercise the power under the circumstances that obtain at a particular time."13 But the problem with this sense of power, he argues, is that it is insufficient for libertarian free will. In this sense of power,
. . . Peter can have the power to refrain from sinning even though it is logically impossible that he should exercise that power under the existing circumstances. But if one has the 'power to do otherwise' only in that sense--the sense in which having the power does not guarantee that it is possible for the power to be used--then the central idea of libertarianism . . . has been lost. Once again, we see that the compatibilist on foreknowledge cannot consistently affirm libertarian free will.14
It is remarkable how clearly the echoes of Richard Taylor's fatalism resound through these passages.15 Hasker's analysis of the notion of "within one's power"--which Taylor complained his critics never understood--is virtually the same as Taylor's and is thus infected with the same deficiencies.
The best way to get at this problem is by drawing some helpful distinctions which were well-known to medieval discussants of these issues. Foremost is the distinction between the sensus compositus and the sensus divisus of a proposition. Hasker's failure to differentiate these senses leads him into muddles. For example, consider the problem of the unchangeability of the past and future. Hasker tries to explain that the unchangeability of the past is not a mere tautology and the changeability of the future not a self-contradiction because the past is a concrete totality which is, while the future is a realm of mere possibilities.16 This affirmation of an A-theory of time does not, however, bring any clarity to the logical issues raised. Utilizing the medieval distinction between the senses, however, consider the proposition
2. A future event can fail to occur.
In sensu diviso, (2) means
3. Possibly, an event, which is future, will fail to occur
and is true if the event is contingent. But taken in sensu composito, (2) means
4. Possibly, an event which is future will fail to occur,
which is necessarily false. Thus, what is at issue with regard to the misleading notion of "altering the future" is whether one has the power to prevent a future event in sensu diviso. One can prevent the event, but were one to do so, then the event would not be future. To say that one cannot prevent a future event in sensu composito is merely to assert that one cannot bring it about that the event both will and will not occur--hardly a restriction on human freedom! Now consider
5. A past event can have failed to occur.
In sensu composito, (5) means
6. Possibly, an event which is past has failed to occur,
which is a self-contradiction. In sensu diviso, (5) means
7. Possibly, an event, which is past, has failed to occur.
It is clearly this latter sense that is at issue when Hasker raises the question concerning the "power to bring about past events that have not occurred"--otherwise, this phrase would be as self-contradictory as "square circles." The so-called unalterability of the past in sensu composito amounts to nothing more than the logical impossibility of bringing it about that an event has both occurred and not occurred. This trivial sense is irrelevant to considerations of power and freedom. The really interesting question is whether we have it within our power to postvent a past event in sensu diviso. In such a case one can bring it about that an event, which is past, did not occur, but were one to do so, then it would not have been a past event.
In so far as such postvention of the past relies upon retro-causation, we may certainly agree with Hasker that considerations of time and objective becoming rule out causal postvention of the past. But Hasker seems to have forgotten that the "bringing about" relation is non-causal. In this weak sense of "bring about," we do according to (PEP5), have power over the past, for as Freddoso has shown, we bring about the past truth of future-tense propositions by bringing about the truth of present-tense propositions which entail them.17 It was Taylor's failure to discern this power over the past in sensu diviso that proved fatal to his fatalism.
But is there not a similar fatal fallacy in theological fatalism? Consider
8. An event foreknown by God can fail to occur.
In sensu composito, this means
9. Possibly, an event which is foreknown by God will fail to occur,
which is self-contradictory. But in sensu diviso, (8) means
10. Possibly, an event, which is foreknown by God, will fail to occur,
which may be true. Thus, my ability to prevent the event is not the ability the bring about the self-contradictory state of affairs that God foreknew the event and the event does not occur. It is the power to prevent the event, which is foreknown by God, and were I to do so, it would not have been foreknown by Him.
On the assumption of (PEP5), the above implies that one has it within one's power to bring it about that the past should be different than it is, in that one can bring it about that God should have different beliefs than He has. This is not the power to alter or eliminate past events in sensu composito, which is absurd, but the power to bring it about that the past would have been different. For by acting differently now, one brings about the truth of different present-tense propositions and indirectly the past truth of different future-tense propositions. Since God is essentially omniscient, one thereby indirectly brings it about that He believed different propositions than He does. What is objectionable about that?
Hasker would reply that it is not within my power under the circumstances to act differently now. But the fallacy in in this reply may be seen by means of a second distinction, closely related to the first, which the medievals discerned, that between necessitas consequentiae and necessitas consequentis or the necessity of a hypothetical inference versus the necessity of the consequent of the hypothetical. Thus the proposition
11. If God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter cannot refrain from sinning,
properly understood, means
12. Necessarily, if God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter does not refrain from sinning.
Hasker is misled by (11) into asserting a necessitas consequentis which he interprets as a abridgement of Peter's personal power. But what is impossible is not Peter's refraining from sin, but the composite state of affairs of God's foreknowledge of Peter's sin and Peter's refraining. That is to say, the proposition
13. Peter can refrain from the sin which God foreknew he would commit
is false in sensu composito, but true in sensu diviso.
Of course, (13)'s truth in sensu diviso implies that a backtracking counterfactual is in order here, in that since the composite state of affairs is impossible, Peter's power to refrain implies that were he to refrain, the circumstances (God's foreknowledge) would have been different. Such a counterfactual is justified since there are no possible worlds in which God errs. Of course, Hasker will insist, as the footnote in the above citation reminds us, that the circumstances he is talking about involve exclusively hard facts so that while the Ockhamist solution works for logical fatalism, it fails for theological fatalism. But such a reply only throws us back to the question of whether God's past belief is a hard fact, and we have seen that Hasker's inadequate analysis of that notion failed to provide any convincing argument against the Ockhamist position.
In short, the Ockhamist does not at all operate with a non-libertarian understanding of power or freedom. Once the proper distinctions are drawn, we see that Hasker has in no wise shown that one does not have the power to bring it about that God should have believed differently than He did.
II. Middle Knowledge
The doctrine of middle knowledge plays a foundational role in discussions of divine prescience, providence, and predestination. But Hasker lodges four objections against the doctrine of middle knowledge:18 (i) What, if anything, is the ground of the truth of counterfactuals of freedom? (ii) Crucial counterfactuals of freedom, if true at all, are necessarily true, which is incoherent. (iii) Counterfactuals of freedom cannot guide God's creation of the world because it is only by deciding which world to create that God settles which world is actual and therefore which counterfactuals are true. (iv) Either the truth of counterfactuals of freedom is brought about by the relevant agent or not. But it cannot be brought about by the agent; and if it cannot be brought about by the agent, then the agent's freedom is obviated. Therefore, there are no true counterfactuals of freedom. Let us consider then each of these objections.
Read more:
http://173.199.151.173/rfapp/schola...ker-on-divine-knowledge.php#top#ixzz1kDb6IML0
