Review: The “foreknowledge problem” “Divine foreknowledge” is a misleading expression, since there is no temporal sequence in God’s life. Nevertheless, it remains that (1) In 1999, God knew you would come to class on Nov. 25, Someone might conclude that (2) It was determined (settled) in 1999 that you would come to class on Nov. 25, That step of reasoning is mistaken, because what makes (1) true is not something in the past, since God’s knowing is not an event that occurs before another event. Compare (1) above with (1b) In 1999, it was true you would come to class on Nov. 25, (1c) In 1999, it was true that God knew you would come to class on Nov. 25, 2009.

The impassibility problem How can God have knowledge of human free choices if God is impassible? Wainwright: Assuming that human choices are free in the “alternative possibilities” sense, God’s knowledge of them depends on them and therefore God is not completely impassible (p. 19). Davies: God is impassible and knows of the actions of creatures by causing them. But “God’s causality is not of a kind to threaten human freedom [in the alternative possibilities sense]” (p ).

One event with both a divine and a created cause? (1) Two kinds of cause—event-causes and thing- (or agent) causes. (2) If God and a created thing are both thing- causes of an event, then they must be causes in different senses of the word. (3) Barry Miller: The key to the Thomistic position is that God’s causation is always creational (ex nihilo). So God never acts on a creature. By contrast, when a creature thing-causes, that always amounts to modifying a previously existing thing or situation.

Barry Miller on divine and created causes Ex nihilo (creative) causality: God causes (wills) that (the fire to make the water hot). God causes (wills) that (the nurse raises Socrates’ leg). God causes (wills) that (Socrates raises his leg). A creatures may cause by acting on a previously existing thing: The fire causes the water to become hot, that is, the fire acts on the water and makes it hot. The nurse causes Socrates’ leg to go up, that is, the nurse acts on the leg and makes it go up. A creaturely may cause by modifying a previously existing situation Socrates raises his leg.

Miller’s approach applied to free actions The effect of a created thing-cause is determined by three factors: the nature of the cause, the nature of the thing acted on (or preexisting situation acted in), and the circumstances. None of these factors are present in God’s causation. The effect of God’s causation is determined only by what God wills. If God wills that Jones make a free choice between doing x and not doing x, but does not will that Jones chooses to do x and does not will that Jones not do x, then which choice Jones makes is not determined by God or anything else. God causes that (Jones freely chooses to come to class) or God causes that (Jones freely chooses not to come to class), because God wills that (Jones chooses between coming and not coming to class) but God does not will that (Jones chooses to come to class) and does not will that (Jones chooses not to come to class).