Philosophy Research Seminar - Tuesday 15th of March 2016 - Title: Just-left-of-the-middle knowledge: Freedom, foreknowledge, and the problem of evil
| Dates: | 15 March 2016 |
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| Times: | 15:00 - 17:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Speaker: | Chris Ovenden |
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Dear all,
Date and time: 3 - 4.45pm Tuesday 15 March
Speaker: Chris Ovenden (Manchester)
Venue: Zochonis A
Title: Just-left-of-the-middle knowledge: Freedom, foreknowledge, and the problem of evil
Abstract: Is freedom compatible with God's omniscience?
According to one well known argument, if God knows today what I will do tomorrow, then I have no choice over what I will do then and so am not free in whatever I end up doing.
So, either (i) God does not know the future, or (ii) there are no free actions. In this paper, I present a novel response to this dilemma:
God knows every possible future, and so by extension knows our actual future. What God does not, and cannot, know is which possible future will be actualized (because given the indeterminism required for freedom, there is no fact of the matter about this).
I argue that this need not remove God's omniscience and, in fact, leaves God in a position to know all that could possibly be known about an indeterministic, world including how it will tend.
Along the way I explain how God's knowledge of these tendencies helps us to solve a problem for the free will defence against the problem of evil.
Everybody is welcome.
Speaker
Chris Ovenden
Role: Speaker
Organisation: University of Manchester
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Zochonis A
Zochonis Building
Manchester
