#-898 Quantum Physics and Divine Foreknowledge

Dr. craig’s response

I share your interests, Hugh! But we mustn’t be misled.

On an indeterministic interpretation, quantum physics, just like freedom of the will, renders foreknowledge of the future based on causal inference from present states of affairs impossible. But of course, God is not dependent upon causal inference for his knowledge of future contingents.

In assessing the question of how God knows future contingents, I’ve found it helpful to distinguish two models of divine cognition:  the perceptualist model and the conceptualist model. The perceptualist model construes divine knowledge on the analogy of sense perception:  God “looks” and “sees” what is there. The tacit assumption of such a model is evident in philosopher A. N. Prior’s complaint that in the case of a prediction of a future contingent there is “no present ground for the guess’s correctness which a specially penetrating person might perceive.”[1] Indeed, I should say that the implicit assumption of a perceptualist model of divine cognition underlies virtually all contemporary denials of the possibility of divine foreknowledge of future contingents. The perceptualist model of divine cognition does, indeed, encounter difficulty concerning God’s knowledge of future contingents, given the objective reality temporal becoming, for if future events do not exist, there is nothing there to perceive, and if they are contingent, they cannot be inferred from present states of affairs.

By contrast on a conceptualist model of divine knowledge, God does not acquire his knowledge of the world by anything like perception.  His knowledge of the future is not based on his “looking” ahead and “seeing” what lies in the future (a terribly anthropomorphic notion in any case).  Rather, God’s knowledge is intrinsic; it is more like a mind’s knowledge of innate ideas.  As an omniscient being, God has essentially the property of knowing all truths; there are truths about future contingents; ergo, God knows all truths concerning future contingents. So long as we are not seduced into thinking of divine foreknowledge on the model of perception, it is no longer evident why knowledge of future continents should be impossible.

Now it might be asked, “But how can God have innate knowledge of all truths, including truths about future contingents?”  But it’s difficult to make sense of this question.  The very point of calling such knowledge innate is to deny that there is any means by which God acquires his knowledge, indeed, that it is appropriate to speak of God’s acquiring knowledge at all.  Rather, as a perfect being, a maximally great being, God simply possesses essentially knowledge of only and all truths; future contingent propositions are among the truths that there are; therefore God possesses essentially knowledge of future contingents.  To ask how he can do so is just an expression of incredulity, as if one were to ask, “How can God be omnipotent?” or “How can God be morally perfect?” or “How can God be eternal?”  He just is that way, and nothing more needs to be said.  So long as we do not think of divine foreknowledge on the model of perception, it is no longer evident why Go cannot have foreknowledge of future contingent propositions.  A conceptualist model furnishes a perspicuous basis for God’s knowledge of future contingents.

Nonetheless, I must add, there is a version of the conceptualist model which does allow us to say considerably more about the basis of God’s foreknowledge of future contingents. I’m talking about the doctrine of so-called middle knowledge. But that is a question for another day!