The Dependence Response and Explanatory Loops

Faith and Philosophy 37 (3):294-307 (2020)
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Abstract

There is an old and powerful argument for the claim that divine foreknowledge is incompatible with the freedom to do otherwise. A recent response to this argument, sometimes called the “dependence response,” centers around the claim that God’s relevant past beliefs depend on the relevant agent’s current or future behavior in a certain way. This paper offers a new argument for the dependence response, one that revolves around different cases of time travel. Somewhat serendipitously, the argument also paves the way for a new reply to a compelling objection to the dependence response, the challenge from prepunishment. But perhaps not so serendipitously, the argument also renders the dependence response incompatible with certain views of providence.

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Andrew Law
University of California, Riverside (PhD)

Citations of this work

The Independence Solution to the Problem of Theological Fatalism.Ryan Wasserman - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (1):66-77.
The Independence Solution to the Problem of Theological Fatalism.Ryan Wasserman - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (1):66-77.
Lessons from Grandfather.Andrew Law & Ryan Wasserman - 2022 - Philosophies 7 (1):11.
Dependence and the Freedom to Do Otherwise.Taylor Cyr - forthcoming - Faith and Philosophy.
Foreknowledge and Free Will.Linda Zagzebski - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:online.

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References found in this work

The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David K. Lewis - 1976 - American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (2):145-152.
Paradoxes of Time Travel.Ryan Wasserman - 2017 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David Lewis - 2004 - In Tim Crane & Katalin Farkas (eds.), Metaphysics: a guide and anthology. Oxford University Press UK.
Divine omniscience and voluntary action.Nelson Pike - 1965 - Philosophical Review 74 (1):27-46.
Ability, Foreknowledge, and Explanatory Dependence.Philip Swenson - 2016 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (4):658-671.

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