@ACB,
ACB;107592 wrote:Either the future is predetermined (in which case I have no free will) or it is not (in which case the underlined phrase above makes no sense to me). If I am free to choose, how can there possibly exist a fact about my choice before I choose? How can facts about the future exist already if the future is still open?
To answer "Because God is omniscient about the future" would beg the question. It may be the case that future facts do not already exist, in which case God cannot be omniscient about the future. Do you see my point?
Why cannot it be a fact that the Sun will rise tomorrow (if it rises)? Of course future futures do not exist. But (as Russell points out) past futures do exist. God was (and is) omniscient about them, and is omniscient about future futures too. The future is still open, but that does not mean that what happens in the future does not happen. And God is omniscient about what happens in the future. Indeed, it may be that for Him, it is no different from being omniscient about the past.
---------- Post added 12-02-2009 at 02:28 PM ----------
ACB;107605 wrote:I think part of the problem is due to carelessness with tenses. I would argue that if Paul has two sons, it is true that he didn't have to have at least one son, but false that he doesn't have to have at least one son.
Obviously. It is a logical truth that if A has two sons he has one son. But it is not a logical truth that he has one son.
---------- Post added 12-02-2009 at 02:37 PM ----------
Zetherin;107607 wrote:Oh, I see. Didn't because he didn't have to knock up his wife in the first place. But because he did in fact knock up his wife, he does have to have at least one son now (because he now has two sons). Is that what you're getting at?
That's not what they're getting at, though, I don't think. The professor here is making a point regarding 1.) Logical necessity and 2.) Contingent truths. Neither of which I really understand.
It is logically necessary that if A knows that p, then p is true. But it is not logically necessary that if A knows that p, that it is logically necessary that p is true. In other words, we can know other than logically necessary truths. Even if it is logically necessary that if we know something, that something is true.
That isn't (it seems to me) hard to understand.