Is divine foreknowledge compatible with free will?
The objective of this essay is questing accounts in order to object theological fatalism and evaluate the potential solutions for the problem which theological fatalism brought to free will. Theological fatalism is the argument saying that God’s foreknowledge[ In this essay, God’s foreknowledge is interchangeable with divine foreknowledge and omniscience.] of human’s behavior leads to a result that human lack of free will and leads to determined outcomes of every event in the past and future. (Zagzebski, 2017). If this doctrine is correct, then there is God who cannot be wrong about his belief about the future, and hence, this being’s foreknowledge determines the entire history of human and human action is not free. Since compatibilism believes that free will is compatible with divine foreknowledge, theological fatalism is the denial of compatibilism. Firstly, I am going to introduce the theological fatalism, and then consider evaluate how two accounts argue against the theological fatalism. Later, I will evaluate the pros and cons of Frankfurtian solution and Aristotelian solution respectively, then compare their plausibility. Finally, I will conclude with the best possible solution: Aristotelian accounts.