Boethian Argument Against Free Will

Whether humans truly have free will or not has been always been debated, with a number of solutions and objections both theological and scientific. This paper will explain omniscience as a possible argument against the existence of free will, as well as examine the strength of the Boethian solution as an objection to omniscience. Free will is the concept that, as humans, we ultimately have the ability to make a decision regardless of external influences. It assumes that the outcome of any event was not known before it actually happened, nor were the outcomes of any events predetermined by another being. The concept of omniscience argues against free will from a theological standpoint. The idea is that, if we assume the existence of an omniscient being like God, that omniscient being should have knowledge of what will happen in the future. And if that being has concrete knowledge now of what will happen, then what happens in the future must happen that way. Because free

This argument is built on the basis that God operates and exists differently from humans; more specifically, that he exists “outside” of our Earthly reality. Therefore, many of our human spatial concepts do not apply to him. God should not be thought of as existing “now”, because the way time operates and is perceived by humans does not apply to him. Rather, God exists completely apart from the realm of time. This means that even if God has knowledge of the outcome of events on Earth, his knowledge of them is not had before, during, or after they happen- it is totally separate from the event's actual occurrence. This implies that free will can exist alongside or despite omniscience, because technically God wouldn't have knowledge of events specifically before they happen. This way, humans are making their own uninfluenced decisions while God simply knows about them from somewhere