I'm not saying that foreknowledge in itself restricts freedom, simply that absolute, certain foreknowledge precludes the possibility of free will. If you are truly free to choose to do A or B, there is a possibility, a non-zero probability, that you will do either. If A is a certainty, the probability of it happening is 1. The probability of any alternative event is 0, an impossibility. So B is necessarily impossible IF A is a certainty. We are not free to choose to do the impossible.
You will argue that until P makes his decision, there is still nonzero possibility of B, but then if God knows what the decision will be it is and has been determined. P might experience the sensation of having chosen freely, but if the outcome of his 'choice' was known beforehand it was never truly made.
As for your beer, you are not resposible for my choice because there are external factors affecting my decision. Whether I decide to take a beer or not is dependent on three things; my environment, my nature and my prior experience. Although you could affect, for example, my environment to such an extent that you would be resposible for me choosing to take the beer - by waving a gun in my face for example - generally you are right, my choice would not be yours. In the scenario of Divine Providence, however, God is responsible for all the factors affecting my decision, my nature, my environment, my experience, the purple headed mountain, the river running by. The lot.
__________________
"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."
|