Chapter 5 starts the real core of Ostler's view of Mormon theology. It is here that he fully begins his engagement with the issue of God's foreknowledge - probably the position that best differentiates his views from most other historic theologians in Mormonism. He engages with quite a few issues as he develops his notion of a Libertarian view of Mormon theology. I'll thus probably limit these reactions to only a small section at a time so as to engage with each position in its own post. Ostler starts out this engagement with Libertarianism with a discussion of how God knows. That is, Ostler questions the various models of divine knowledge. The real issue that Ostler is grappling with is the issue of future contingencies. That is, knowledge of events that have not yet occurred.
Ostler starts with an argument from his earlier discussion of Lectures on Faith. This is the argument that what counts as the necessary attributes of God are those attributes necessary for us to have faith in him. In other words we don't start with a metaphysical approach of maximal logical greatness. Rather we ask what, in our relationship with God is necessary. Clearly I'm very sympathetic to this view. However I'm not sure that I accept Ostler's argument that foreknowledge isn't necessary for faith. It may well be that total foreknowledge isn't necessary for faith. However it seems to me that to have faith to inquire of God and expect an answer, I must have faith that God can answer me. If we reject all foreknowledge outside of God's power to bring about a state of affairs by force, then it seems many of the questions we trust God to answer can't be answered.
Consider an obvious example of marriage. If I pray to know if it would be a mistake to marry someone, my faith with God rests upon the premise that God can answer that question. If God doesn't know how my potential spouse might act, then how can God answer it in a fashion I can trust? If there is the robust free will of the sort Ostler espouses, it may well be that my spouse may turn out, unbeknownst to God, to be abusive and violent.
Now the person who rejects foreknowledge may well say that in these cases God actually doesn't know. Indeed Open Theists often use this example to explain why people can pray about such matters and be let down by God. But, if we follow Ostler, this seems precisely the problem. They are let down and there is a very real possibility that they be let down. Yet, if they can so easily be let down, how can we faithfully ask God about anything pertaining to the future?
Recognize that this is not an argument against foreknowledge, merely about the appeal to faith as establishing what God must be like. It seems that our intuitions about faith do indeed depend upon the possibility of foreknowledge. Now we must leave open as a logical possibility that God actually doesn't have foreknowledge. If this is the case, however, then any appeal to faith as establishing God's nature seems extremely problematic.
I'll skip over Ostler's discussion of how in many other Christian theologies God brings about states of affairs through his will. As Ostler points out, a fundamental divide between these theologies and Mormonism is over the notion of predestination. While I believe that Mormonism leaves open the question of determinism, it very clearly does adopt a view that God can not take away people's agency. That is Mormonism rejects the idea that God causes or even actualizes our choices. Now Ostler takes this to entail a Libertarian position. However technically I think one ought to be cautious (independent of further argument) and say that this simply means that whatever makes a person an individual, God will not externally coerce them. Since many determinists allow that there is a fact of the matter of the future without coercion Mormonism's rejection of predestination doesn't establish much regarding free will.
Ostler's next argument against foreknowledge comes from morality. Specifically he suggests that notions like judgment and forgiveness requires moral agents and moral agency is only possible with Libertarian views of free will. He'll return to those points later, so I'll not dwell on them here. I'd merely suggest that what judgment and forgiveness are need not be identical with our intuitions of what they are. Still, I think this line of argument which ends up getting into the issue of responsibility are the strongest arguments for Libertarian accounts of free will and from there to Ostler's reconception of LDS theology.
The final argument I'll deal with today might be termed the utilitarian argument. Ostler raises the question of what foreknowledge is good for. Specifically if one knows the future, clearly one knows what one will do and thus one can't change ones behavior on the basis of that foreknowledge.
There are two problems with this approach. The first is the obvious problem that it assumes foreknowledge entails total foreknowledge. Yet it may well be that God can foreknow a certain class of truths without knowing all truths. Thus one case of foreknowledge may leave open in a certain sense other areas. Put an other way, limited foreknowledge may be very useful. Consider an example. You foreknow what the stock prices for next year are. You foreknow nothing else. Clearly that foreknowledge is useful.
The bigger problem is that this critique assumes a certain view of causality - specifically a fairly Newtonian view of causality. However it may well be that causality is far more complex. Specifically it may be the case that a certain state of affairs is only possible if the phenomena of foreknowledge occurs. That is the only way in which particular states of affairs can be brought to actualization in a fashion compatible with the laws of the universe. In this case it may well be that foreknowledge is not useful for changing one's choices. However it may well be that foreknowledge is useful for allowing a certain class of choices. Put more simply, by focusing in on change of ones potential choices, Ostler is begging the question by critiquing a view as if Libertarianism was the correct view. But if this is an argument arguing for Libertarianism it ends up being circular.
So if we are to rescue the appeal to utility, there has to be more to the argument than Ostler presents. My sense is that most appeals to this argument of utility end up assuming that our intuitions about causality are correct. But that, I think, ends up being problematic for a whole slew of reasons. (Not the least of which being that our natural intuitions of causality are demonstrably false when we bring up quantum mechanics or general relativity, as Ostler earlier noted)
This questioning of causality is important, as what my rejoinder really gets at is the question of whether causality is fundamental. If it isn't primordial, then any analysis of free will in terms of causality is doomed to failure. Many philosophers have critiqued the whole free will issue because of this, both in the Continental tradition as well as the Analytic. I've mentioned a few examples of these critiques over the past few months here. However what is important aren't these philosophers, but the question of whether causality of a certain sort is fundamental. If it isn't, then we must be careful regarding arguments which rest upon assumptions of causality, such as the appeal to utility. That is not to say that the primordialness of causality somehow renders the debate irrelevant. Contrary to some, I don't think it does. However it does suggest that some arguments, in their current form, may be problematic to those who don't already buy into certain views of causality.
The obvious rejoinder to this critique is to suggest that our intuitions of free will depend upon a certain view of causality. Perhaps that is the case. However it seems that then our intuitions and their utility ought be brought into analysis. Since some of those sorts of questions will arise in the coming pages, I'll not deal with them here.
Discussions on individual chapters from Blake Ostler's Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of Godliness can be found on our Reading Club page.
I just realized I'd not done pages 100 - 137 yet. I thought I had done those a couple of weeks ago. My bad. I'll comment on those either tonight or tomorrow.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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