Boethius

In this class, we only care about Boethius's response to the argument against free will.

The argument that we don’t have free will

• Boethius believes in God and believes we have free will, so he's also interested (like Augustine) in figuring out what is wrong with the argument that says that because God knows the future, we cannot have free will
• Let's look at that argument again:
1. If God knows that I will do action X, then necessarily, I will do action X.
2. For every action X that I will do, God knows that I will do it (since he knows everything).
3. For every action X that I will do, I will necessarily do it. (from 1 and 2)
4. Actions that I must necessarily do are not free actions.
5. Therefore, none of my actions are free (and the same goes for everyone else).

Rejecting the argument

• Remember that Augustine rejects the fourth step. But Boethius has a better idea: reject the first step.
• Just because someone knows something, it doesn't mean that what they know is true of necessity!
• For example, I know that it's sunny today; but it could have rained—it's not necessary that today is sunny!
• This is about knowledge of the present—if we know something about the present, it doesn't follow that the present is that way of necessity. It's the same with the future.
• So Boethius says we have to fix the first step in the argument. He thinks the following is true:
1. If God knows that I will do action X, then I will do action X.
• See how that's different from the original first step? And look—you can't use the new first step to argue that we have no free will:
1. If God knows that I will do action X, then I will do action X.
2. For every action X that I will do, God knows that I will do it (since he knows everything).
3. For every action X that I will do, I will do it.
4. Actions that I must necessarily do are not free actions.
5. NOW WHAT?! We have not, and cannot, show that my actions are necessary, so we cannot prove that they are not free
• Boethius's point: if we fix the first step, then the supposed “proof” vanishes.
• Boethius concludes, like Augustine but for a different reason, that God's knowledge of the future does not threaten our free will. And Boethius is right (though there are other reasons to be worried about free will that we haven’t talked about).