Do God's Beliefs about the Future Depend on the Future?

Journal of Analytic Theology ◽

10.12978/jat.2015-3.19-5113012424a ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 124-129 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

T. Ryan Byerly

Keyword(s):

Human Freedom ◽

Simple Solution ◽

Divine Foreknowledge ◽

Trenton Merricks ◽

Divine Omniscience ◽

The Future ◽

Beliefs About The Future

Trenton Merricks, among others, has recently championed in a series of papers what he takes to be a novel and simple solution to an age-old problem concerning the compatibility of divine omniscience and human freedom. The solution crucially involves the thesis that God’s beliefs about the future actions of human persons asymmetrically depend on the future actions of those persons. I show that Merricks’s defense of this thesis is inadequate and that the prospects for improving his defense of it would require him to enter the fray of articulating and defending a view about the mechanics whereby divine foreknowledge is achieved—something he and other advocates of the strategy he advances had hoped to avoid.

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Time and Foreknowledge: a Critique of Zagzebski

Religious Studies ◽

10.1017/s0034412500023325 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 101-103 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

L. Nathan Oaklander

Keyword(s):

Human Freedom ◽

Recent Book ◽

Divine Foreknowledge ◽

The Past ◽

The Future

One problem facing those who attempt to reconcile divine foreknowledge with human freedom is to explain how a temporal God can have knowledge of the future, if the future does not exist. In her recent book, The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge, Linda Zagzebski attempts to provide an explanation by making use of a fourdimensional model in which the past, present and future exist. In this note I argue that the model Zagzebski offers to support the coplausibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom is inconsistent with the A-theory of time she propounds.

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Becoming Politicized

Zeitschrift für Psychologie ◽

10.1027/2151-2604/a000311 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 225 (4) ◽

pp. 324-335 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Dimitrios Barkas ◽

Xenia Chryssochoou

Keyword(s):

Collective Identity ◽

Political Socialization ◽

Greek Society ◽

Economic Vulnerability ◽

The World ◽

The Future ◽

Identity Model ◽

Beliefs About The Future ◽

Of Greece ◽

The Way

Abstract. This research took place just after the end of the protests following the killing of a 16-year-old boy by a policeman in Greece in December 2008. Participants (N = 224) were 16-year-olds in different schools in Attiki. Informed by the Politicized Collective Identity Model ( Simon & Klandermans, 2001 ), a questionnaire measuring grievances, adversarial attributions, emotions, vulnerability, identifications with students and activists, and questions about justice and Greek society in the future, as well as about youngsters’ participation in different actions, was completed. Four profiles of the participants emerged from a cluster analysis using representations of the conflict, emotions, and identifications with activists and students. These profiles differed on beliefs about the future of Greece, participants’ economic vulnerability, and forms of participation. Importantly, the clusters corresponded to students from schools of different socioeconomic areas. The results indicate that the way young people interpret the events and the context, their levels of identification, and the way they represent society are important factors of their political socialization that impacts on their forms of participation. Political socialization seems to be related to youngsters’ position in society which probably constitutes an important anchoring point of their interpretation of the world.

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