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Our Wills, Our Freedom, and Timelessness (Consolation of Philosophy Summed Up)

Our Wills, Our Freedom, and Timelessness (Consolation of Philosophy Summed Up)

Last updated on: March 23, 2017 at 8:01 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Our Wills, Our Freedom, and Timelessness (Consolation of Philosophy Summed Up) 2017-03-23T08:01:40-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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We can be happy, though not jolly, regardless of circumstances. Jolliness, a cheerful feeling, is excellent, and we are glad when it comes, but such a feeling cannot and should not stay. We are here in a school for souls, eager to become adults and not children. Adults are independent, love eternal things, and are not slaves to circumstances or any outside tyrant. We can only get there through hard things. Each of us have some class that is hard for us, but if we master the content and grow past that difficulty, then we find our capacity increased and our minds enlarged.

Faith seeks understanding, not mental ease, and so even if there was not a single sin or mistake in the entire cosmos, difficulties would be necessary. Laziness is bad and a tough challenge helps us avoid laziness! If all pains were of this sort, then there would be no problem of pain.

Yet this is not so.

We can never forget that people, devils, and who knows what else have misused the free will God has given them, so that not all is as it should be. Some pain is horrible and gratuitous, not part of the school of souls curriculum! What do we do then? Boethius thinks that we need not “cheer up,” but that we can be happy. Bad things done by bad people are bad and we can condemn the evil actions as evil, but we need not be controlled by evil.

Boethius thinks we can freely choice to receive the bad that is done to us as not as intended, but as a chance to look to eternal things. We also can, if possible, remedy the evil, but if we cannot, then we need not be overwhelmed. God is in heaven and justice will be done over the course of eternity.

If bad men choose badly, then the repercussions will continue into eternity, but over that deep time deep healing will come. We can freely choose to look to that eternal duration of grace and hope for full justice and healing. By God’s grace, we can choose how will respond in the meantime. Some abuse their free will to create evil. Some use free will to find true happiness.

Yet do we have free will? Partly we do not, since we cannot do all that we will to do. I might have the will to placekick for the Packers, but I lack the power. We do have God given power to do some things that we will, however. Boethius has Philosophy say:

‘There is freedom,’ said she; ‘nor, indeed, can any creature be rational, unless he be endowed with free will. For that which hath the natural use of reason has the faculty of discriminative judgment, and of itself distinguishes what is to be shunned or desired. Now, everyone seeks what he judges desirable, and avoids what he thinks should be shunned. Wherefore, beings endowed with reason possess also the faculty of free choice and refusal.

Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus (2004-12-11). The Consolation of Philosophy (Penguin Classics) (p. 126). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

People can be rational, it is one thing that makes us human. As this is our nature, we should be reasonable. In fact, we must be reasonable to be happy! The thoughtless person might be more cheerful at times, ignorance brings a superficial bliss, but the rational person will be happier. In fact, the reason we must think and reject the vices is to avoid becoming slaves to our passions. It is hard to think when in the grips of a vice, bad habits can lead to mental slavery and the loss of free will:

But when they are given over to vices, and fall from the possession of their proper reason, then indeed their condition is utter slavery. For when they let their gaze fall from the light of highest truth to the lower world where darkness reigns, soon ignorance blinds their vision; they are disturbed by baneful affections, by yielding and assenting to which they help to promote the slavery in which they are involved, and are in a manner led captive by reason of their very liberty. Yet He who seeth all things from eternity beholdeth these things with the eyes of His providence, and assigneth to each what is predestined for it by its merits: (p. 126).

At this person every thoughtful student pauses and is puzzled. If God knows everything, how is this compatible with our free will? If God foreknows that we will go to the circus on Thursday, then if we do not go, God has a false belief today. Since God cannot have a false belief, we must go to the circus. Now in fact, I have circus tickets for Thursday, but we might not be able to use them. We shall see.

Or is it the case that we must go, because God has already seen our going and we cannot make God a liar to Himself?

Yet we should pause: there is something odd about knowingly causing something to happen. We can know things that are happening before us without making them happen. If an elephant is capering before me just now and I see it, then I know there is an elephant capering, but I need not have anything to do with the caper! I know (truly), but my knowledge does not cause the event . . . simply reports to my mind truly about the mischievous pachyderms.

When events are happening, they are happening necessarily and we rightly know they are happening. Our knowledge (justified true belief) does not cause the event or the necessity of the event, because the seeing causes the knowledge and not the event. In this way, Boethius gives us a way to think of God having foreknowledge and our having some freewill.

Strictly speaking, God foreknows nothing. He knows everything now. God dwells forever in an eternal present:

‘God is eternal; in this judgment all rational beings agree. Let us, then, consider what eternity is. For this word carries with it a revelation alike of the Divine nature and of the Divine knowledge. Now, eternity is the possession of endless life whole and perfect at a single moment. (p. 140).

Because God sees us going to the circus on Thursday on Thursday, God’s knowledge does not force us to go to the circus. God knows everything simultaneously, because God is in an eternal present. He does not see into “our past,” because what is a past moment to us is present to God.

From God’s eternal present, Jesus is dying for the sins of the world now, I am writing this now, and Jesus is returning now. From the perspective of humankind, Jesus died about two thousand years ago, I am writing this now (though you are reading it a day later at least), and Jesus is returning someday. Notice that God (in the person of Jesus) will do two of the events and I have done the dramatically less important one (writing this article). God’s seeing me do it now (God’s eternal now) is not forcing me to do this post.

Put more simply: there is no past tense to God’s knowledge.

Boethius sums up for us the good news:

Therefore, withstand vice, practise virtue, lift up your souls to right hopes, offer humble prayers to Heaven. Great is the necessity of righteousness laid upon you if ye will not hide it from yourselves, seeing that all your actions are done before the eyes of a Judge who seeth all things.’

Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus (2004-12-11). The Consolation of Philosophy (Penguin Classics) (p. 144). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!CAUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a simplified, account of God, time, and knowing based on a reading of Boethius. The conversation has continued for centuries. In my own life, thinking on this topic included a grad seminar later and a qualifying exam. There is much more that can be said, so view this initial discussion as an initial discussion.

Boethius has given us one place to start. There are alternatives and his argument has been extended and defended in great detail. A good starting point for basic papers on God and foreknowledge (in general) is God, Foreknowledge, and Freedom. For one Biola University colleague who is a critic of divine timelessness see William Lane Craig whose views and those of many others are summarized nicely here.

I am in the “timelessness” camp with Boethius, Stump, and Kretzmann.

——————————-

Based on a class taught at The Saint Constantine School. Part I is here. Part II is here. Part III is here.

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