Abstract

In the book “Freedom of the Will”, Jonathan Edwards put forward a strong ar-gument for theological fatalism. This argument, I suppose, can be considered as the universal basis for discussion between Fatalists and Anti-Fatalists in the 20th century, especially in the context of the most powerful argument for fatalism, introduced by Nelson Pike. The argument of Edwards rests upon the following principles: if something has been the case in the past, it has been the case necessarily ; if God knows something, it is not the case that ~A is possible. Hence, Edwards infers that if God had foreknowledge that A, then A is necessary, and it is not the case that someone could voluntarily choose ~A. The article argues that the Edwards` inference Kgp → □p rests upon the modal fallacy; the inference „God had a knowledge that p will happen, therefore „God had a knowledge that p will happen” is the proposition about the past, and hence, the necessarily true proposition“ is ambiguous; thus, it is not the case that this proposition necessarily entails the impossibility of ~p; it is not the case that p, being known by God, turns out to be necessary. Thus, we can avoid the inference of Edwards that if Kgp is a fact of the past, then we cannot freely choose ~p. It has also been shown that the main provisions of the argument of Edwards remain significant in the context of contemporary debates about free will and foreknowledge. Additionally, I introduce a new challenge for fatalism – argument from Brouwerian axiom.