Worst of Both Worlds (Part One)

Witnesses espouse an interesting variant of open theism. While they maintain that God does not know (most of) the future, they claim that he is able to know it exhaustively. He simply refrains from doing so. This variant of open theism is sometimes referred to as Voluntary Nescience. Unlike (most?) open theists, they evidently do not object to the existence or knowability of future truths, but object merely to God’s knowing (too many of) them. It seems that on the Witness view, creaturely freedom is not contrary to the future being alethically settled (i.e., there already being a true, complete description of the future). It is only contrary to God’s knowing (most of) that maximal description of the future. This position will not please many open theists nor the orthodox proponent of divine foreknowledge.

 

Most open theists will object to the Witness view on the grounds that the real issue is the existence of facts about the future. If it is already true that tomorrow I will do X, they suppose, then nothing I can do can change this fact. And this seems to mean that I am unfree. The problem arises whether or not God knows the truth of the matter. So, merely denying that he does cannot preserve my freedom. What is needed is to deny the reality of such truths in the first place. It is not yet true that I will do X tomorrow. Thus, while God would be able to make the best informed guess as to what I will do, he cannot know what I will do. And this view, it is said, is not incompatible with omniscience, since there is not yet any fact that God fails to know.

 

The objection of the orthodox is the other side of the coin. Since Witnesses do not fall for the common open theist objection that an alethically settled future entails that there is no genuine creaturely freedom, they should not object to God knowing these truths (at least on the grounds that doing so would remove creaturely freedom). The truths that the Witness view of divine foreknowledge seem to implicitly concede exist are just as unalterable as the orthodox say God’s knowledge of these truths is. It is nonsensical for Witnesses to object to the inalterability to God’s knowledge (as contrary to creaturely freedom) but not the facts in question. Since they have already conceded that the inalterability of prior truths about the future does not limit genuine freedom, Witnesses ought to give up their argument that for creatures to have free will God must choose to not know most of the future.

 

Three things to note. First, my argument is that the Witness position that God’s meticulous foreknowledge of the future is inconsistent with creaturely freedom is nonsensical. However, since Witnesses maintain their denial of exhaustive foreknowledge for other reasons, this  argument does not amount to a claim that their version of open theism is nonsensical. That would be an argument for another time. Second, the argument of this essay (that the Witness rejection of meticulous foreknowledge on the grounds that this would be contrary to creaturely freedom is nonsensical) depends on the premise that Witness theology at least implicitly concede that the future is alethically settled (i.e., there is a true, complete description of the future) – or that it can be, without injury to creaturely freedom, settled prior to its occurring. I will argue for this in part two. Third, Witnesses seem to affirm at least two methods by which God can know the future. These will be described in part two, partly to establish my claim that Witnesses affirm an alethically settled (or settle-able) future and partly because it is of interest to me.