Suppose there will be a sea battle at a certain point in the future or there will not be a sea battle at that point in the future. Only one of those propositions can be true and the other one is therefore false. Whichever happens to be true, will always be true that it will or will not happen in the future. Hypothetically imagine that it is true that the sea battle will happen at a certain point in the future, then there is nothing that can prevent the sea battle from happening in the future because it is true that it will happen.
Therefore, it is not possible for anyone or anything to prevent the battle from occurring, and this proposition makes it necessary for the battle to occur. All the events are necessary; therefore, fatalism is true. Aristotle discussion of the sea battle raises the problem of fatalism. In De Interpretatione, chapter 9, Aristotle discusses the sea battle and the problem of fatalism. Aristotle discusses the principle of non-contradiction, which states that statements made about the past and present are either true or false. Thus, if one is true, then the other is false (p, ~p).
Yet, for the sea battle, a future event, the principle of non-contradiction appears to be used. Aristotle notes that this is because of the law of excluded middle/bivalence, which states that for any statement, it is necessary that it is either true or false. This law claims that even statements about the future must be true or false. Yet, Aristotle believes that statements about the future are different because if someone were to claim that “it will snow tomorrow”, then there is nothing that can prevent it from snowing, which can not be known in the present with full truth.
Fatalism claims that anything true about the future is fated because statements must be true or false. To the fatalist, everything is already settled. Yet, Aristotle does not accept fatalism. Aristotle accepts that statements about the past or present are true or false but not the same for the future. If we affirm that all propositions are either true or false, then fatalism because all applies to statements about the future. Yet, if fatalism is not true, as Aristotle states, then not all propositions are true or false. The fatalist believes there are no possibilities other than what is going to happen.
They determine that there are no other possibilities through the statistical model of modality, which claims that to be possible the event must happen at least once. For Aristotle, the event does not necessarily have to occur because there is a sense of potentiality. He actualizes all possibilities, even if they have yet to occur. He acknowledges the possibility of them occurring. The principle of plentitude claims that there are other possibilities based on nature than what is “going to happen”. Aristotle also has a metaphysical model of modality how things could be.
Even if it will never happen or not, it is one particular instance that could happen, and there are plenty of modalities that lead to a plentitude of possibilities, other than just one like the fatalist claim. God’s foreknowledge generates the same problem. If God has foreknowledge, then there are contingent truths about the future. If we say that God knows everything about the future, then everything is true. The problem arises that if God doesn’t know all things in the future, then what is God’s providence and how does he plan if it is already all settled/necessary? This problem is similar to the sea battle.
The sea battle could not be stopped or started by humans or something because it was already either determined or not to determined to happen at a certain time. Same with God’s foreknowledge is the problem that if God has already made something true then humans do not have the power to control the future. If God has foreknowledge, then do we have free will? Is God the cause of sin? Both Augustine (On Free Choice, Book 3) and Boethius (Consolation, Book 5) explain the compatibility between freedom and foreknowledge to address the problem that arises with God’s foreknowledge and human’s having free will.
Augustine, in On Free Choice, Book 3, Augustine discusses how free will is not natural because we do things voluntarily, and the will is not necessary because the will wouldn’t be the will if it was necessary. Its nature is to originate in what it does. In this book, Augustine is in conversation with Evodius, and Evodius states that God having foreknowledge and human beings sinning by the will are contradicting. Augustine responds by claiming that abandoning God’s foreknowledge has consequences because God’s providential control is lost and that sinning by means of the will means we are responsible for our actions.
Sinning by necessity makes God the cause of sin, and if you do not have control of your will, there is no reason to morally improve, we are not morally responsible. Evodius responds that we need to abandon either God’s foreknowledge or sinning of the will. Augustine doesn’t fully solve the problem but points out that it cannot be necessary to will because then we don’t will to will. If people act by necessity, then God does too. He would have no control. God could never act by His will. Yet, he does act by His will through creation. Therefore, knowing the future and necessity of knowing what one is going to do is not a problem.
If God just makes you happy, then you did not will to be happy, yet God may not give you happiness. The power to will to be happy is in our power, yet happiness is not our power. If you become happy, it is in accordance with will not because of will. If It happens by necessity, it cannot be your will. Yet, we do will it, so it is not necessary. It is necessary that we will is false. Will is incompatible with necessity. A will would not be a will if it is not in our power. Therefore, God has foreknowledge, and we will. Therefore, God foreknows our will and what we will he foreknows what will happen.
He foreknows our willing that something will happen. He foreknows what we will. We are free to will, just God knows what we will will. We have freedom and God has foreknowledge. Boethius in Consolation, Book 5, has a worry about how can God know events to be true or false if they have no happened yet? This worry leads him into a discussion on the modes of perception. We are rational beings that can grasp more than things that can only sense or perceive things. It is possible that there could be a way that God knows things due to a higher order capacity. We cannot understand everything, nor can we understand our limitations on perceiving.
He also discusses the sea battle happening tomorrow, and claims that it is neither true or false; it lacks a definite truth value. In his discussion on foreknowledge, he claims that God sees all time present at once. Divine understanding has no limits, and God can understand and know everything at once. He also claims that since God is the most just being, we ought to trust that the contradictions work out. God is aware of everything at once; there are no new moments for him. The future is indefinite, yet God knows it. God’s knowledge does not depend on the events of the future.
His knowledge has an independent status. The world is in present time, but God is already there. The present never passes away for God. All things he knows are present to him always. Time comes into existence with creation. Overall, both Boethius and Augustine come to the conclusion that foreknowledge and freedom are compatible. We can have free will because God’s foreknowledge does not determine that it will happen. He is outside of time. Aquinas builds on their insights in his discussions of necessity and providence in Questions 19 and 22 of the “Treatise on God” from his Summa Theologiae.
In Question 19, Article 8, Aquinas proposed the question, “Does the will of God impose necessity on the things willed? ” His answer is that God imposes necessity on some but not all things. Some things God brings about by necessary needs and other things by contingent needs, through activity of someone’s will or natural ends. Since contingent needs are through the activity of someone else’s will or natural ends, it can fail and therefore the causes that follow are not necessary. The cause and effect of events are not necessary, but the relationship between the cause and effect is necessary.
God creates the cause and effect. If God directly intervenes, in the relationship between the cause and effect, then it is necessary that it will happen. But if he does not intervene, it is contingent and will not necessarily happen. In Question 22, Article 2, Aquinas proposes the question, “Is everything subject to the providence of God? “. He answers this question by claiming that our powers of action are not predetermined. Rational creatures have free choice, which is connected to the intellect. Our acts are bound up by being given to us by God subject to his divine providence.
If God withdrew his providence from something, the things would cease to exist. God’s providence preserves things. Rational creatures can direct themselves by choosing. The freedom we possess, as rational creatures, doesn’t mean we are on our own. We just have the ability to make free choices, yet that ability is from God and in his providence. Aquinas adds to Boethius and Augustine’s discussion on the compatibility of freedom and God’s foreknowledge by claiming that God imposes necessity on some things, but not all things, and that everything is subject to God’s providence in order to exist.