Faith and Philosophy

Volume 4, Issue 1, January 1987

Hasker on Omniscience

I contend that William Hasker’s argument to show omniscience incompatible with human freedom trades on an ambiguity between altering and bringing about the past, and that it is the latter only which is invoked by one who thinks they are compatible. I then use his notion of precluding circumstances to suggest that what gives the appearance of our inability to freely bring about the future (and hence that omniscience is incompatible with freedom) is that, from God’s perspective of foreknowledge, it is as if the event has already occurred, but that as if conditions do not tell us about the conditions under which the act was performed (whether it was free or not).