A short essay written for Saints, Heretics, and Atheists: An Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. The essay that attempts to explain Augustine’s reconciliation of God’s Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will.
Unfortunately, as noted by the feedback Chaney left, I did not have a good understanding of Augustine’s writing and position. It appears, based on reading some other people’s thoughts of Augustine, that Augustine does not believe in “libertarian” free will, but another form of free will. Thus, the analysis I provide is rooted in a misunderstanding of Augustine as should not be taken as an accurate representation of Augustine’s views.
In “On Free Choice of Will,” Augustine articulates the following challenge:
How is it that these two propositions are not contradictory and inconsistent: (1) God has foreknowledge of everything in the future; and (2) We sin by the will, not by necessity? (74)
Explain what the prima facie difficulty is here, and then briefly explain one possible response to it (which might be – but doesn’t have to be – Augustine’s own).
In Book Three of On Free Choice of the Will, Augustine lays out his theodicy, arguing that God is not responsible for the existence of evil. Augustine addresses a conundrum, whereby God’s omniscience makes him culpable in mankind’s sins. The argument goes: if God gave humans free will, and humans used free will to commit sin and evil, and God knew that this would happen, then God is responsible for evil. However, Augustine makes a series of subtle arguments in order to resolve this dilemma. There are two parts. First, that God is not responsible for any actions humans take under their own free will. Second, that God’s foreknowledge does not affect this first statement.
Augustine argues that God is not responsible for any actions humans take as a result of their own free will. To illustrate, Augustine contrasts a person’s choice to sin to a rock’s will to fall. The latter is necessary; the former is not. Compare someone picking up a rock off the ground and letting it go to God giving humans free will and letting them go. The person is responsible for lifting the rock off the ground. God is responsible for giving humans free will. The rock falls out of necessity—it is a direct result of physical laws. However, in the second scenario, the human does not sin out of necessity as free will does not necessarily lead to sin. A human’s actions are not determined by a physical law, but rather they are being driven by free will. Thus, Augustine claims that free will does not implicate God.
Next, Augustine addresses whether God’s foreknowledge affects the previous argument. Augustine argues that God’s foreknowledge does not affect free will nor does it cause sinning to become necessary. He offers the following line of reasoning: if you know beforehand that someone is going to act in a particular way in the future, your foreknowledge does not force that person to act in that particular way. Or, using the previous analogy of dropping a rock, it does not matter whether you know or do not know the outcome of dropping the rock, the rock’s behavior is determinate. Similarly, it does not matter whether God knows or does not know whether someone is going to sin. Because the sin is a result of free will, God is not the cause of the sin.
Thus, Augustine concludes that there is no contradiction. God can have given humans free will. Humans can sin as a result of having free will. God can know that humans will sin as a result of having free will. Yet, God does not have to be responsible for humans sinning because the responsibility lies in human’s usage of free will.