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Objecting to Theological Fatalism
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Objecting to Theological Fatalism
The argument for theological fatalism:
If it is necessary that God believed X, then X
It is necessary that God believed X
Therefore, it’s necessary that X
Under theological fatalism, God’s belief is necessary and his belief necessarily implies the truth of the belief. Therefore, any belief God has is true and any action I take is not free since I could not have done otherwise. I will argue that free will and omniscience can still intelligibly be compatible with this view. However, we may need to change our conception of free will. Even if omniscience removes free will (as the ability to do otherwise), we remain morally responsible and free in bringing about X. If omniscience does not remove the ability to do otherwise, then we still remain free. The obvious way to go about this is to deny that it was necessary for God to believe X and to deny that, even if we could not have chosen otherwise, the nature of what brings that choice about (I.e. – freely deciding or being forced to do so) determines the moral calculus of responsibility, blameworthiness, and praise—factors that are not necessarily erased altogether.
One could assert that the belief of X or not X is neither true nor false until it comes to pass and therefore God would not have a belief about it and we remain free. At some point when the other possible worlds where the belief is false shrink, the belief would become impossible to avoid and God would then believe it, but only after it could have been otherwise in a different possible world. When X comes or does not come to pass, some of the relevant hard facts that necessarily connect and influence how and when X came or did not come to pass are then up in the air until other possible worlds fade away and X or not X becomes inevitable. If X were to be forced, it seems that the conception of God that theological fatalism bases itself on would accurately take into account all the relevant factors of the person X is thrust upon. Was X something they desired? Did they do everything they could to prevent it? What external factors beyond their control determined X and their unique disposition to it? It seems that ignorance, knowledge and the nature of that ignorance and knowledge (I.g. how it came about and so forth), as well as moral luck would play a large role in the analysis of a person’s responsibility, praise, or blame regardless of the inevitability of X or not X. Some aspects of the person that God would take as a relevant factor in determining their moral worth would have to be present even if many external factors remove freedom in a variety of aspects. In conclusion, it seems the argument for theological fatalism is not devastating for free will or at the very least for moral responsibility.
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