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Foreknowledge: Nelson Pike and Newcomb's problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Dennis M. Ahern
Dennis M. Ahern
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, The University of Maryland
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Extract

The problem of foreknowledge and freedom presents a challenge to the defender of traditional Western theism. Nelson Pike has argued that the existence of an essentially omniscient God who possesses foreknowledge is incompatible with human freedom. Pike's opponents in this matter, among whom is Alvin Plantinga, argue that no incompatibility has yet been shown. I shall develop the view that neither Pike nor his opponents have conclusively settled the question whether foreknowledge and freedom are compatible. Furthermore there is a reason why the issue has not been, and may never be, conclusively settled: it is an inherently paradoxical issue. To aid in demonstrating this point I shall discuss a modified version of a paradox that has come to be known as Newcomb's Problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , December 1979 , pp. 475 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

page 475 note 1 Pike, Nelson, God and Timelessness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 57.Google Scholar

page 475 note 2 Ibid. pp. 28–33.

page 476 note 1 Ibid. pp. 17–28.

page 476 note 2 Ibid. p. 58.

page 476 note 3 Ibid.

page 477 note 1 Pike, Nelson, ‘Divine Foreknowledge, Human Freedom and Possible Worlds’, Philo sophical Review, LXXXVI (1977), 215–16.Google Scholar

page 480 note 1 Pike, , God and Timelessness, pp. 76–83.Google Scholar

page 481 note 1 Augustine, St, On Free Choice of the Will, tr. by Benjamin, A. S. and Hackstaff, L. H. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964), bk 3, pr. 3, p. 93.Google Scholar

page 482 note 1 Pike, , God and Timelessness, p. 55.Google Scholar

page 482 note 2 Penelhum, Terence, Survival and Disembodied Existence (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), pp. 24–36.Google Scholar

page 483 note 1 Nozick, Robert, ‘Newcomb's Problem and Two Principles of Choice’, Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel, ed. by Rescher, N. (New York: Humanities Press, 1970), pp. 114–46Google Scholar. Subsequent to the publication of this article there have been numerous discussions of Newcomb's Problem, many of them occurring in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar

page 488 note 1 Plantinga, Alvin, God, Freedom and Evil (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), p. 71.Google Scholar