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Our Fate

Essays on God and Free Will

John Martin Fischer author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Published:28th Jan '16

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Our Fate cover

Our Fate is a collection of John Martin Fischer's previously published articles on the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom. The book contains a new introductory essay that places all of the chapters in the book into a cohesive framework. The introductory essay also provides some new views about the issues treated in the book, including a bold and original account of God's foreknowledge of free actions in a causally indeterministic world. The focus of the book is a powerful traditional argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise. Fischer presents this argument (in various forms) and defends it against some of the most salient criticisms, especially Ockhamism. The incompatibilist's argument is driven by the fixity of the past, and, in particular, the fixity of God's prior beliefs about our current behavior. The author gives special attention to Ockhamism, which contends that God's prior beliefs are not "over-and-done-with" in the past, and are thus not subject to the intuitive idea of the fixity of the past. In the end, Fischer defends the argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise, but he further argues that this incompatibility need not entail the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human moral responsibility. Thus, through this collection of essays, Fischer develops a "semicompatibilist" view -- the belief that God's foreknowledge is entirely compatible with human moral responsibility, even if God's foreknowledge rules out freedom to do otherwise.

Fischer's argument is interesting not only for specialists who are interested in the (in)compatibility of God's foreknowledge, the freedom to choose otherwise and moral responsibility but also for specialists who are interested in the (in)compatibility of causal determinism, the freedom to choose otherwise and moral responsibility. The reason is that the two issues have much ground in common, while there are also relevant differences, which Fischer elucidates. * Martijn Boot, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online *

ISBN: 9780199311293

Dimensions: 152mm x 236mm x 23mm

Weight: 476g

254 pages