Show Notes
If God infallibly knows what you will do tomorrow, can you genuinely choose otherwise?
This is one of the deepest problems in the philosophy of religion: if God cannot be wrong about our future choices, in what sense are those choices truly free?
In this episode of The Prometheans, Ali Zaka speaks with philosopher Prof. Katherin “Kate” Rogers about her influential Anselmian approach to divine foreknowledge, eternity, and libertarian free will.
Drawing on the thought of Anselm and Boethius, Rogers argues that God does not “foreknow” our choices in the ordinary temporal sense. Instead, God exists eternally and knows all of time at once. On this picture, God’s knowledge does not determine our choices; rather, our genuinely free choices are what ground God’s knowledge of them.
But this raises an even more difficult question:
Can God’s knowledge depend on human choices without compromising divine omniscience, immutability, aseity, or classical theism?
We also explore:
• What exactly is the classical foreknowledge/free-will problem? • What did Anselm add to Boethius? • Was Anselm really an early four-dimensionalist? • What does it mean to say that past, present and future are equally real? • Can “consequent necessity” preserve libertarian freedom? • Why does Rogers reject Molinism and Open Theism? • What is William Hasker’s objection to the Anselmian solution? • Can our choices genuinely be the source of God’s knowledge? • Does divine knowledge “depend” on creatures? • What would we have to surrender if foreknowledge and libertarian freedom really were incompatible? • And ultimately, can divine providence coexist with genuine human freedom?
A conversation about God, time, freedom, responsibility, providence and the philosophical meaning of choice.
Guest: Prof. Katherin “Kate” Rogers Host: Ali Zaka (AZD) The Prometheans
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