by Brian Bosse, Copyright March 24, 2008, all rights reserved. 31 views
In the first post in this series (here), I introduced modal logic and possible world semantics which will be the vehicles for our analysis. In this post, we will state the three assumptions as given by Dr. Laing in his article "Middle Knowledge".
Assumption 1
"First, it is assumed that for an action to be free, it must be determined by the agent performing the action. This means that God cannot will a free creature to act in a particular way and the act still be free. Free actions must be self-determinative. This assumption may appear self-evident to some, and quite controversial to others. While it must be admitted that God could certainly desire a creature act in a particular way and the choice remain free, it is difficult to see how He could cause the choice and it still be free in a meaningful way. Proponents of middle knowledge do not deny that God may influence a free choice or persuade an agent to act in a particular way, but such influence and persuasion cannot be determinative if the action performed is to be free. In addition, middle knowledge requires freedom of a libertarian nature. That is, free creatures have the ability to choose between competing alternatives, and really could choose one or the other of the alternatives."
Regarding this, I put forth the following two definitions:
Definition (free action): Person A performs action X freely if and only if all influences not intrinsic to person A's will do not constitute a set of influences sufficient to cause person A to perform action X. (Note: All influences not intrinsic to person A's will is going to be referred to as C, which stands for the complete set of circumstances apart form the person's will.)
Definition (libertarian free will): Person A freely performs action X given circumstance C with libertarian free will if and only if there exists a possible world where Person A freely performs action ¬X given circumstance C.
Back in the summer of 2007 Dr. Laing and I corresponded several times via email. In an email dated 6/15/2007, Dr. Laing stated that my definitions "capture the idea." He went on to recommend Peter van Inwagen's An Essay on Free Will as a more thorough treatment of the matter.
Assumption 2
"Second, it has become customary to speak of a logical priority in divine thoughts. This is not to deny the simplicity or omniscience of God, or to say that He gains knowledge that He did not previously possess. Rather, it is simply to acknowledge that dependency relationships exist between certain kinds of knowledge. It is also to acknowledge that something analogous to deliberation may take place in the divine mind. For example, in order for God to know that one plus one equals two, He must first comprehend the meaning of the concepts represented by the numbers, mathematical symbols, and formulaic expressions; they serve as a basis by which the truthfulness of the formula may be evaluated. But this is not to say that there was a time when God did not know 1+1=2. Thus, a relationship of logical priority, but not necessarily temporal priority exists between some of the content of divine knowledge."
This is rather straightforward, and certainly is necessary for a God whose existence is independent of time.
Assumption 3
"Third, proponents of the doctrine of middle knowledge believe that things could have been different than they, in fact, are."
Essentially, this states that there are events that are contingent (not necessary). For example, God could have chosen not to create the world. I could have stayed home today rather than going to a spring training baseball game between the Diamondbacks and the Giants. (Diamondbacks won 6-5.) This is why possible world semantics is such a good tool when analyzing Middle Knowledge. It accounts for these possibilities.
Of these three assumptions, pay particular attention to assumption 1. This is critical in our examination.
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