An Account of the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will in the Context of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

Document Type : The Quarterly Jornal

Authors

1 . PhD student, Philosophy of religion, Payam-e Noor University, Tehran

2 Associate professor, Department of philosophy. University of Tehran, Qom

Abstract

The problem of divine foreknowledge and its conflict with the human free will is one of the oldest issues in Abrahamic religions. Solutions proposed so far for the problem have deployed an absolutist approach to concepts. This paper aims to solve the old problem by drawing on modern sciences, particularly the findings of Einstein’s theory of relativity with its relativistic approach. This research has been carried out with an analytic-critical method after collection of data from available sources. In the theory of relativity, an incident occurring in the future from the perspective of a temporal observer occurs at present from the perspective of an atemporal observer. Given this, we conclude that what is called ‘foreknowledge’ is indeed foreknowledge from the perspective of a human observer, but from the viewpoint of an atemporal observer, it qualifies as knowledge of the present, whether or not the observer is a material essentially temporal being, which has—given the theory of relativity—incidentally been atemporal, or an immaterial essentially atemporal being like God. As a consequence, an atemporal present piece of knowledge does not conflict the human will just because it always knowledge of the present.

Keywords

References

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