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Atheological Argument Analysis

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God knew I would choose to write this paper, because God is omniscient. There is no possible outcome in which I could have chosen to not write this paper and made God’s knowledge false. This is an example of an atheological argument made by Nelson Pike, it essentially states that so long as God is omniscient, humans are unfree to act. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, this state is known as fatalism meaning “human acts occur by necessity and hence are unfree.” Upon evaluating Pike’s argument further, Alvin Plantinga came across what he refers to as a “confusion”. Plantinga states that this confusion comes about as a result of ambiguity surrounding the issue of what property God must necessarily have. This paper will examine …show more content…

He focuses on point three in premise six: “It was within Jones power to do something such that if he had done it, then anyone who believed at T1 that Jones would do X at T2 would have held a false belief.” According to Plantinga, there is a way in which two different actions could be done without disproving God. For instance, Emily goes to the mall in World Uno, but suppose in World Dos Emily does not go to the mall and chooses to stay home. Plantinga argues that this would make Pike’s point number three true and not false.
Moreover, holding true beliefs is a property that God must necessarily have, but Plantinga exposes contradictions in Pike’s argument when he shows that it does not follow that because God has this property that God must hold the same belief for every possible world; he simply holds the beliefs that are true for the world he is engaging with. Plantinga rebuttal of Pike’s argument surmises that the points made in premise six do not logically follow each other. For example, in World X, God could hold the belief that Ashanti does not enjoy swimming, but in another world God could hold the belief that Ashanti enjoys swimming. These two positions by God do not show a contradiction of what God should believe, but it instead shows that God holds the true belief for any world he engages with. Plantinga discovers where the argument becomes weak enough to fall apart and

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