Boethius’ initial question in the Consolation of Philosophy is why God, who orders the natural universe beautifully, would allow human affairs to proceed in a chaotic fashion, even permitting the wicked to trample on the virtuous and go unpunished. Lady Philosophy responds that God governs everything well. What seem to limited human beings to be misfortunes can all be turned to good. This introduces the importance of human free will and a perennial question for Christian philosophers: If God foreknows future choices, can they be free? Human foreknowledge is a sign that the foreknown event does not happen voluntarily. God, being eternal, sees all time as present, and so divine foreknowledge does not impose or indicate any necessity that would conflict with free will. Boethius concludes by expressing theist compatibilism: Even free choices fall under the absolute sovereignty of God.

This chapter discusses the positive content of the Laudians’ position on predestination. Particular attention is paid to seven authors prepared to deal with this topic in extenso – Edward Kellett, Robert Shelford, Thomas Chown, Thomas Hoard, Robert Jackson, Edmund Reeve and Robert Skinner, not to mention the anonymous J. A. of Ailward. The latter attempted to attribute an essentially Arminian version of the theology of grace to the English church though the appropriation of what at the time was regarded as an essentially heretical work, which survived only in the refutation of it by the Edwardian protestant, and future puritan, Robert Crowley. This chapter concerns itself with the relation between divine foreknowledge and the double decree. These discussions were often conducted in terms of the divine attributes, chief amongst them divine mercy and justice. On this topic particular attention is given to the work of Thomas Jackson and Robert Shelford.

Chapter 12 surveys the literature in philosophy and cognitive science, arguing that the capacity for imaginative simulation drives our ability to have rational thoughts about the future.

Chapter 13 analyzes a puzzle advanced by Dilip Ninan, which illustrates an important asymmetry between past and future. Ultimately, Ninan's epistemic analysis is rejected, with the argument being made that this asymmetry is actually due to a linguistic difference.

Chaucer’s God considers how characters invoke God, both in terms of the everyday language of late medieval England and in the ways that the idea of God is reflected in Chaucer’s fiction. Conventional, non-theological utterances of the names for God by Chaucer’s characters as part of their, by turns, outwardly pious and unthinkingly impious phraseologies are discussed in the opening section, God Woot – ‘God knows’. Under the heading God Forwoot – ‘God foreknows’, some of the more challenging invocations of God are considered, such as the implications of divine foreknowledge and predestination on human free will in the Knight’s Tale, the Nun’s Priest’s Tale and Troilus and Criseyde. The concluding section, God in a Cruel World, asks whether in the Clerk’s Tale and the Franklin’s Tale, if Chaucer allowed his tales to reflect, and characters to reflect upon, the heretical notion of a God lacking in compassion for humanity.

Chaucer’s God considers how characters invoke God, both in terms of the everyday language of late medieval England and in the ways that the idea of God is reflected in Chaucer’s fiction. Conventional, non-theological utterances of the names for God by Chaucer’s characters as part of their, by turns, outwardly pious and unthinkingly impious phraseologies are discussed in the opening section, God Woot – ‘God knows’. Under the heading God Forwoot – ‘God foreknows’, some of the more challenging invocations of God are considered, such as the implications of divine foreknowledge and predestination on human free will in the Knight’s Tale, the Nun’s Priest’s Tale and Troilus and Criseyde. The concluding section, God in a Cruel World, asks whether in the Clerk’s Tale and the Franklin’s Tale, if Chaucer allowed his tales to reflect, and characters to reflect upon, the heretical notion of a God lacking in compassion for humanity.