{"id":11785,"date":"2010-03-05T18:31:47","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T18:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/03\/05\/is-divine-simplicity-consistent-with-contingent-divine-knowledge\/"},"modified":"2010-03-05T18:31:47","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T18:31:47","slug":"is-divine-simplicity-consistent-with-contingent-divine-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/03\/05\/is-divine-simplicity-consistent-with-contingent-divine-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Divine Simplicity Consistent With Contingent Divine Knowledge?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The day before yesterday<\/font><\/a>, I sketched the problem mentioned in the title.  Today I offer a more rigorous presentation of the problem and examine a solution.  The problem can be set forth as an aporetic triad:<\/font><\/p>\n

1. Every free agent is a libertarianly-free (L-free) agent.<\/font><\/p>\n

2. God is ontologically simple (where simplicity is an entailment of aseity and vice versa).<\/font><\/p>\n

3. There are contingent items of divine knowledge that do not depend on divine creation, but do depend on creaturely freedom.<\/font><\/p>\n

Each limb of the above triad has a strong, though not irresistible, claim on a classical theist's acceptance.   As for (1), if God is L-free, as he must be on classical theism, then it is reasonable to maintain that every free agent is L-free.  For if  'could have done otherwise' is an essential ingredient in the analysis of 'Agent A freely performs action X,' then it is highly plausible to maintain that this is so whether the agent is God or Socrates.  Otherwise, 'free' will mean something different in the two cases.  As for (2), some reasons were given <\/font>earlier<\/font><\/a> for  thinking that a theism that understands itself must uphold God's ontological simplicity inasmuch as it is implied by the divine aseity.  An example of (3) is Oswald's shooting of Kennedy.   The act was freely performed by Oswald, and the proposition that records it is a contingent truth known by God in his omniscience.<\/font><\/p>\n

But although each of (1)-(3) is plausibly maintained and is typically maintained by theists who uphold the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS), they cannot all be true.  Therein resides the problem.  Any two limbs imply the negation of the third.  Thus:  (1) & (3) –> ~(2); (1) & (2) –> ~(3); (2) & (3) –> ~(1).  <\/font><\/p>\n

To illustrate, let us consider how (1) and (3), taken together, entail the negation of (2).  Being omniscient, God knows that Oswald freely chose to kill Kennedy.   But Oswald's L-freedom precludes us from saying that God's knowledge of this contingent fact depends solely on the divine will.  For it also depends on Oswald's L-free authorship of his evil deed, an authorship that God cannot prevent or override once he has created L-free agents.  But this is inconsistent with the divine aseity.  For to say that God is a se<\/em> is to say that God is not dependent on anything distinct from himself.  But God has the the property of being such that he knows that Oswald freely chose to kill Kennedy, and his having this property depends on something outside of God's control, namely, Oswald's L-free choice.  In this way the divine aseity is compromised, and with it the divine simplicity.<\/font><\/p>\n

It seems, then, that our aporetic triad is an inconsistent triad.  The problem it represents can be solved by denying either (1) or (2) or (3).  Since (3) cannot be plausibly denied, this leaves (1) and (2).  Some will deny the divine simplicity.  But an upholder of the divine simplicity has the option of denying (1) and maintaining that, while God is L-free, creaturely agents are free only in a compatibilist sense.  If creaturely agents are C-free, but not L-free, then Oswald could not have done otherwise, and it is possible for the upholder of divine simplicity to say that that Oswald's C-free choice is no more a threat to the divine aseity than the fact that God knows the contingent truth that creaturely agents exist.  The latter is not a threat to the divine aseity because the existence of creaturely agents derives from God in a way that Oswald's L-free choice does not derive from God.  <\/font><\/p>\n

See Jeffrey E. Brower, <\/font>Simplicity and Aseity<\/font><\/a>, for this sort of solution.  I cannot see that the solution is entirely satisfactory, but it is worth considering.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The day before yesterday, I sketched the problem mentioned in the title.  Today I offer a more rigorous presentation of the problem and examine a solution.  The problem can be set forth as an aporetic triad: 1. Every free agent is a libertarianly-free (L-free) agent. 2. God is ontologically simple (where simplicity is an entailment … Continue reading “Is Divine Simplicity Consistent With Contingent Divine Knowledge?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,301,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-divine-simplicity","category-free-will","category-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}