Fatalism

Fatalism is an objection that arises as a result of divine omniscience.

The objection arises here that if God knows in advance everything that happens, every choice that someone will ever make, then is not everything fated to occur? For example, if God knows in advance and predicts that Peter will deny Christ three times then when the time arrives is it not true that Peter was fated to deny Christ three times? Is it not necessary that Peter deny Christ three times? How could he do anything else since God knows and has predicted that he would do so and God cannot err. It would seem that if Peter could do anything else then God could be mistaken which is impossible. Does it not follow from God’s complete foreknowledge of the future that fatalism is true? That everything that happens happens necessarily?

Some Christian theologians agree with this. Martin Luther, for example, believed that in virtue of divine foreknowledge of the future there is no human free will – that human freedom is illusory. Others in the Reformed theological tradition have said that God’s foreknowledge of the future is based upon his foreordination of everything. Because God foreordains unilaterally everything that will ever happen, then of course by knowing his own will and his omnipotent ability to bring about whatever he ordains, God thereby knows the future. On these views, there really is no human freedom to do otherwise. Everything that happens happens necessarily. Even the fall of man into sin, on this view (since it was foreknown by God) happens necessarily and therefore is part of what God has foreordained to happen.

Theological Criticism
But this is a serious theological mistake. If everything that happens happens necessarily in virtue of God’s foreordination then that makes God the author of sin. It means that man falls into sin because this is what God ordains to happen unilaterally, and man could not possibly have done otherwise. That would make God the author of sin, which would seem to make God himself evil. So this equation between divine foreknowledge of the future and divine foreordination of the future is one that should not be accepted.

Philosophical Criticism
The compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom is defensible. First the equation between foreknowing something and foreordaining something has to be broken down. Those are not the same things. God knows in advance all of the choices that people will freely make, but that does not mean that he determines those choices. In fact, quite the opposite. It is the choices that determine what God foreknows, not vice versa. It is not that because God foreknows a person will do something that that person does it, it is because the person will do it that God foreknows it. If there is any determination going on here it is the event that determines what God foreknows, not that what God foreknows determines the event.

In understanding this, it is very helpful to distinguish between two types of priority. Chronological priority which would be something being earlier in time. If something is chronologically prior to something else, it is earlier than it in time. Logical priority is where something is explanatorily prior to something else. These are not the same thing. Something can be logically prior to something else without being chronologically prior to it. That is exactly what it is in the case of divine foreknowledge and the events foreknown by God. Chronologically God’s foreknowledge comes before the event. First God foreknows it, then the event occurs. So the foreknowledge is chronologically prior to the event foreknown. But logically the event is prior to the foreknowledge. God’s foreknowledge is what it is because the event is what it is. It is because Ron will choose pizza for lunch that God foreknows it. It is not that Ron eats pizza for lunch because God foreknows it. That is to confuse chronological priority with logical priority.

As long as it is understood that the object of God’s foreknowledge is logically prior to what he foreknows, it does not really matter that God’s foreknowledge is chronologically prior to the event foreknown. What that means is that if the event were to be different then God’s foreknowledge would be different. This is a subjunctive conditional. If the event were different then God’s foreknowledge would have been different. A person will choose pizza for lunch, for example. But the person did not have to. The person is free to choose something else. If the person chooses Panda Express instead then God will foreknow that. So if the person were to choose Panda Express, God would have foreknown that instead of knowing that person will eat pizza for lunch today. God’s foreknowledge tracks people’s choices like an infallible barometer. The barometer does not determine the weather even though chronologically the reading of the barometer may be first. The barometer infallibly tracks what the weather will be in the same way God’s foreknowledge infallibly tracks people’s choices. If people’s choices were to be different then God’s foreknowledge would have been different.

Thus God’s foreknowledge does not prejudice anything. When the time comes people are completely free to do something other than what they will do. It is just that if they were to do that other thing then God’s foreknowledge would have been different instead.

But God’s knowledge of the future does not fate anything to occur. Imagine a line that represents time, and imagine on the line some point E which represents an event foreknown by God. God is in time and he knows in advance that E will take place. God’s knowing that E will take place is not a causal connection between God and E. Merely knowing something about something does not cause E to occur. The causes of E will be the prior events in the timeline that bring about E. E could be a completely contingent event. It might be the decay of a subatomic particle or a free-will decision of a human being, and therefore with respect to the events earlier than E, E may be causally indeterminate. It could happen or it could not happen. How does God merely knowing about the occurrence of a causally indeterminate event make that event fated to occur? How can that event occur necessarily simply in virtue of God’s knowing about it? Imagine God did not know about it. Suppose God did not know E will occur. What has changed with respect to E? Nothing! There is no causal connection between God and E that has now been removed. Everything remains as before. Yet the theological fatalist who thinks foreknowledge implies fatalism would have to say that now E is not fated to occur. Now E does not occur necessarily because it is not foreknown by God. But merely adding God’s foreknowledge does not do anything to effect E. So how could E be contingent and free in the one case and yet fated and necessary in the other?

Fatalism posits a constraint upon human freedom which is simply unintelligible and therefore really makes no sense at all. If an event is not causally determined to occur then that event occurs freely or randomly, and God’s merely knowing about it does not do anything to make it occur necessarily. Fatalism posits a constraint on human freedom which is simply unintelligible.

So long as people’s free choices are logically prior to what God foreknows then there is nothing about the chronological priority of divine foreknowledge that prejudices human freedom and implies that everything that happens happens necessarily.