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

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Paul L. Manata © 2011
consistency between “God’s omniscience . . . and the creatures’ indeterminist
freedom of the will.” 95 However, the foreknowledge argument is meant to show
any alleged compatibility is impossible. Scotus never takes the Bible and
demonstrates by exegesis his particular view of the metaphysics of human
freedom. If he had, perhaps he could deflect the foreknowledge defeater by an
appeal to the authority of God’s word. But all we have at this point is Scotus’
argument that indeterminist human freedom is compatible with God’s
foreknowledge and the foreknowledge argument that attempts to show that it is
not. Without an explanation of how the two can be compatible it seems to simply
ignore the argument and moves us no closer to resolution. Scotus has his
argument that the two are compatible, I have my argument that they are not,
and why they cannot be.
E.4 The Upshot
Here’s the upshot regarding this appeal to synchronic contingency: if the
contingency is only a human epistemic one, then that fits with determinism and
compatibilism. If the contingency needed is that of secondary causality, that fits
with determinism too—so long as the secondary cause cannot do otherwise
given the same prior conditions, and so long as the secondary cause is not the
ultimate source or originator of its actions. If the contingency needed is supposed
to be logical, that fits with determinism too (determinism simpliciter, not logical
determinism). This has been the point of the Augustinian-­‐Calvinist-­‐Reformed
perspective. Paul Helm states that “[the Augustinian-­‐Calvinist-­‐Reformed] hold
that the divine decree by which all things come to pass is logically contingent.
95 James Frank, “Duns Scotus on Autonomous Freedom and Divine Co-­‐Causality,” in
Medieval Philosophy and Theology. Vol 2. Ed. Norman Kretzmann, et al. (University of
Notre Dame Press, 1992), p. 164.