Philosophy: The Nature of God: God, Eternity and Free Will

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Free Will
The belief that human beings may freely choose their own actions
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Predestination
The idea, largely associated with St Augustine and Calvin, that because God knows all our future actions, we have no freedom of the will
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Boethius' view on divine eternity and divine action in time
argues that god is eternal- outside of time and unaffected by it. God livrd in his own eternity, outside time: for him, everyhting is now. like aquinas later, boethius wanted to distinguish the eternity and everlasting existence (aristotle)
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criticisms of Boethius' view
the problem that arises is a double one. is Boethius' notion of eternity coherent(logical and consistent) and, if it is, how can the eternal interact with the temporal(within time)?
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Kotarbinski's arguement
time is the duration of objects, not something seperate. objects do not exist within time- there are abjects, they last, so time is their lastingness. if there are no objects, there is not empty time and space, but nothing at all. shows that if god
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Kotarbinski's arguement cont
is not an object then he cperhaps there us room for saying he would be outside the time process, if time is simply the duration of things.
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Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
time may not be the unchanging thing that our everyday experience might suggest. the language we use sometimes treats time as a process, like wave erosion. but if the continuity of time is an illusion, what does this mean for our understanding of it?
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Can God change the past
Boethius, Stump and Kretzmann all argue thatt he cannot alter the past as we know what god has doen has been and gone, but he can alter an event if it is not in the past. this leads to questions about how god can act in the present or future worlds.
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Boethius on divine foreknowledge
He addresses the problem that if god knows what we are going to do, then why is he not at least partly to blame for the evil do ne. If god has foreseen something, he cannot be surprised, so what he has foreseen cannot not happen, like someones choice
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Calvin's view
calvin believes that this shows that we have no free will as gods knowledge is fixed so whether we think we have a choice we are always going to do what gohas seen or knows we are going to do
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Boethius on divine foreknowledge: free will (two types of necessity)
boethius distinguishes the difference between knowing what someone will do and causing that to happen. i know a US election will happen in 2020 but my knowledge of this does not cause it. god may know what i'll do in 2020,he does not cause it.
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simple and conditioned necessity
simple: something that has to be the case, like a mortal simply has to die. Conditioned: the necessity follows from choice- choosing to walk- the walking is a necessary consequence of choosing and now actually walking
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Boethius' conclusion
we still have free will. we are the ones who choose, and have the experience of choosing
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Swinburne + Plantinga
god is in time. only way to make sens of scripture. maintains true free will. a world with free will is better than one without.
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Anselm
timeless god. god is in a different dimension. not to be thought of in human sense of time. we retain free will
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Boethius
god is outside of time. everyhting present to god? distinction between simple and conditional necessity. we have free will
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Calvin
qe are prediestined- no free will.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

Predestination

Back

The idea, largely associated with St Augustine and Calvin, that because God knows all our future actions, we have no freedom of the will

Card 3

Front

Boethius' view on divine eternity and divine action in time

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

criticisms of Boethius' view

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

Kotarbinski's arguement

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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