T. Ryan Byerly: The mechanics of divine foreknowledge and providence: a time-ordering account

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One major aim of the book is to articulate a view of the mechanics of infallible divine foreknowledge that (i) avoids commitment to causal determinism, (ii) explains how infallible foreknowledge is compatible with human freedom, and (iii) explains how God’s divine providence is compatible with human freedom and indeterministic events. The modest epistemic goal is to articulate a view that enjoys a not very low epistemic status. But even with such modest goals, I think the view cannot credibly be said to offer (ii) or (iii). In fact, at critical moments when (ii) and (iii) are in question, we find very little detailed discussion. There is another epistemological goal in the book. It is to show that we are not in an epistemic position to know that causal determinism provides the basis for explaining how God knows the future and so (the author contends) we are not in a position to know that God’s infallible foreknowledge is incompatible with human freedom (p. 1). But if infallible foreknowledge does not depend on causal determinism, it certainly doesn’t follow that the world is safe for human freedom. Infallible foreknowledge itself (quite apart from questions of causal determinism) might entail theological fatalism—as virtually everyone working in the area construes the problem of infallible foreknowledge—and there is not much reason to believe that theological fatalism depends on causal determinism. In chapter 1, the author develops a version of the foreknowledge argument that is due to Linda Zagzebski (TheDilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge, 1996). It is odd that the author develops the accidental necessity version of the argument rather than the causal necessity version, given the earnest contention that the argument depends on causal determinism. The author formulates the foreknowledge argument as a conditional proof, which generates some concerns about its validity. Conditional proofs