Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Reformed Theology - Analytic ...

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Paul L. Manata © 2011
that there is a difference between the two cases, it is incumbent upon him
to explain why. 86
Thus foreknowledge seems to be quite the threat to libertarian freedom. By
responding that RT does not imply a specific type of determinism, like
nomological determinism, this does not entail that Reformed theology still isn’t a
kind of determinism. If one thinks otherwise, what is the answer to Widerker?
More generally, apart from Widerker, how will a Reformed theologian answer
the foreknowledge argument? How can it be that, given God’s knowledge that
Penny will eat pizza today at noon, Penny actually has the power to do
otherwise? What Reformed answer can be given? Will middle knowledge be
appealed to? 87 Ockhamism? 88 Simple foreknowledge? 89 These views do not allow
that God’s foreknowledge of what happens is based on his decree and ultimately
grounded in him. 90 To say, as Scotus does, that God does know only based on his
will gets him involved in determinism and seems to makes his view inconsistent. 91
86 David Widerker, “Responsibility and Frankfurt Examples,” in Oxford Handbook of
Freewill (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 328, emphasis original.
87 Inconsistent with WCF 3.2, also see Travis Campbell, “Middle Knowledge: A
Reformed Critique,” Westminster Theological Journal 68 (2006): 1–22.
88 David Widerker, “Troubles With Ockhamism,” The Journal of Philosophy, v. 87, 9
(Sept. 1990).
89 Inconsistent with WCF 3.2, also see William Hasker, "Why Simple Foreknowledge
is Still Useless (In Spite of Dave Hunt and Alexander Pruss),” JETS 52/3 (September
2009) 537–44.
90 On Molinism, we have something we might call the transfer of groundlessness
principle. For God’s free knowledge is grounded in part in his middle knowledge, the
latter of which has no grounds, and certainly is not grounded in God. So God’s
knowledge is in part grounded in the groundless.
91 See William Lane Craig, The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Human
Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez (Brill Academic, 1997, ch. 5); and Christopher
Kosciuk, Human Freedom, in a World Full of Providence: An Ockhamist Molinist
Account of the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Free Will (U Mass-­‐
Amherst, diss. 2010). As to the inconsistency, see e.g., Marilyn McCord Adams in
William Ockham: Predestination, God’s Foreknowledge, and Future Contingents
(Appleton, Century, Crofts, 1969), p. 50; and Anthony Kenny, who claims the view