The Dependence Response and Explanatory Loops

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

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.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

From the fixity of the past to the fixity of the independent.Andrew Law - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (4):1301-1314.
Dependence and the Freedom to Do Otherwise.Taylor W. Cyr - 2022 - Faith and Philosophy 39 (4):535-548.
Freedom, Foreknowledge, and Dependence: A Dialectical Intervention.Taylor W. Cyr & Andrew Law - 2020 - American Philosophical Quarterly 57 (2):145-154.
Introduction.Patrick Todd & John Martin Fischer - 2015 - In John Martin Fischer & Patrick Todd, Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 01-38.
Omniscience, Freedom, and Dependence.Neal A. Tognazzini - 2016 - In John Martin Fischer, Our Fate: Essays on God and Free Will. New York, US: Oxford University Press USA. pp. 214-234.
The Truth about Foreknowledge.Patrick Todd - 2016 - In John Martin Fischer, Our Fate: Essays on God and Free Will. New York, US: Oxford University Press USA. pp. 198-213.
Ability, Foreknowledge, and Explanatory Dependence.Philip Swenson - 2016 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (4):658-671.
Response‐dependence.David Yates - 2008 - Philosophical Books 49 (4):344-354.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-11-03

Downloads
1,165 (#43,349)

6 months
227 (#45,237)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Andrew Law
Pomona College

Citations of this work

Foreknowledge requires determinism.Patrick Todd - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (1):125-146.
Dependence and the Freedom to Do Otherwise.Taylor W. Cyr - 2022 - Faith and Philosophy 39 (4):535-548.
Incompatibilism and the garden of forking paths.Andrew Law - 2023 - Philosophical Issues 33 (1):110-123.
The Independence Solution to the Problem of Theological Fatalism.Ryan Wasserman - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (1):66-77.

View all 11 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David Lewis - 1976 - American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (2):145-152.
Paradoxes of Time Travel.Ryan Wasserman - 2017 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Divine omniscience and voluntary action.Nelson Pike - 1965 - Philosophical Review 74 (1):27-46.
The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David Lewis - 2004 - In Tim Crane & Katalin Farkas, Metaphysics: a guide and anthology. New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 18 references / Add more references