Our Fate: Essays on God and Free Will

257 Pages·2016·101.916 MB·English

by  John Martin Fischer

Our Fate

Our Fate
ESSAYS ON GOD AND FREE WILL
John Martin Fischer
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fischer, John Martin, 1952–
[Essays. Selections]
Our fate : essays on God and free will / John Martin Fischer.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–931129–3 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–19–931130–9 (ebook) —
ISBN 978–0–19–045451–7 (online content) 1. God (Christianity)—Omniscience.
2. Free will and determinism. I. Title.
BT131.F57 2015
212′.7—dc23
2015018134
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
1. Introduction: God, Freedom, and Moral Responsibility 1
2. Scotism 53
3. Freedom and Actuality 66
4. Putting Molinism in Its Place 81
5. Power over the Past 99
6. Foreknowledge, Freedom, and the Fixity of the Past 114
7. Ockhamism: The Facts 130
8. Snapshot Ockhamism 150
9. Engaging with Pike: God, Freedom, and Time 164
WITH PATRICK TODD AND NEAL A. TOGNAZZINI
10. The Truth about Freedom: A Reply to Merricks 181
WITH PATRICK TODD
11. The Truth about Foreknowledge 198
WITH PATRICK TODD
12. Omniscience, Freedom, and Dependence 214
WITH NEAL A. TOGNAZZINI
Index 235

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Neal Tognazzini and Patrick Todd for encouraging me to put together
this project, and to Peter Ohlin for supporting it. I am very thankful for helpful
comments on the introductory essay by Derk Pereboom, Garrett Pendergraft,
and Neal Tognazzini. I benefitted from reading previous versions of parts of it
at the University of Notre Dame (Center for Philosophy of Religion), and the
memorial conference for Anthony Brueckner at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. I am especially indebted to detailed and extremely insightful
comments on the entire introductory essay by Patrick Todd. I also thank the
John Templeton Foundation for support of this project.
Permission to reprint the following articles is hereby acknowledged:
“Scotism,” Mind 94 (1985): 231–243.
“Freedom and Actuality,” in Thomas Morris (ed.), Divine and Human
Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1988): 236–254.
“Putting Molinism in Its Place,” in Ken Perzyk, (ed.), Molinism: The
Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011): 208–226.
“Power over the Past,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (University of Southern
California and John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1984): 335–350.
With kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media: “Freedom,
Foreknowledge, and the Fixity of the Past,” Philosophia 39 (2011): 461–474.
“Ockhamism: The Facts,” John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free
Will: An Essay on Control (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1994): 111–130.
“Snapshot Ockhamism,” Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 355–372.
“Engaging with Pike: God, Freedom, and Time,” Philosophical Papers 38
(2009): 247–270.
“The Truth about Freedom: A Reply to Merricks,” Philosophical Review 120
(2011): 97–115. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the present pub-
lisher, Duke University Press.
“The Truth about Foreknowledge,” Faith and Philosophy 30 (2013): 286–301.
“Omniscience, Freedom, and Dependence,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 88 (2014): 346–367.
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Our Fate