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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Most prophecies do not render the prophesied actions unfr... — Carmelics
    Home/Free Will & Foreknowledge
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Most prophecies do not render the prophesied actions unfree because most prophecies are conditional or vague, leaving room for different ways in which they might be fulfilled.

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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Most prophecies are conditional or vague.
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    • 2.Conditional or vague prophecies leave room for different ways in which they might be fulfilled.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.A prophecy that is fulfilled in only one way—however vaguely stated—was always going to be fulfilled in exactly that way, given divine foreknowledge.
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    • 2.Vagueness in the linguistic formulation of a prophecy does not eliminate the metaphysical determinacy of the foreknown outcome.
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    • 3.If God infallibly foreknows which specific action will fulfill the prophecy, the agent's freedom to do otherwise is undermined regardless of how the prophecy is worded.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Boethius's solution to divine foreknowledge grants God timeless knowledge of the actual choice made, not merely of a range of possible choices.
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    • 2.If divine foreknowledge tracks the actual future event rather than a disjunction of possibilities, then even an unconditional prophecy based on that knowledge fixes one outcome.
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    • 3.The apparent openness created by conditional or vague prophecies is therefore an epistemic feature for human observers, not an ontological feature of the agent's freedom.
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    Topics

    Free Will & Foreknowledge

    Connections

    3 topics

    Religious Experience2 linkedTruth & Knowledge1 linkedModality & Possibility1 linked

    Related

    A prophecy that is fulfilled in only one way—however vaguely stated—was always g...Boethius's solution to divine foreknowledge grants God timeless knowledge of the...Conditional or vague prophecies leave room for different ways in which they migh...If God infallibly foreknows which specific action will fulfill the prophecy, the...
    +4 moreShow less
    If divine foreknowledge tracks the actual future event rather than a disjunction...Most prophecies are conditional or vague.

    Similar

    Even a very specific prophecy that renders an action inevitable does n...86%A true prophecy about the contingent future could have been false, eve...77%Even if true propositions about future contingent events exist, knowin...74%God does not have knowledge of future contingent events because there ...74%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: prophecy
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    Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, probably the most prominent advocates of the atemporal eternity view, have defended the atemporal eternity approach to prophecy against Widerker’s objection (see Stump and Kretzmann 1991). They point out that most prophecies are conditional or vague, so that they leave “room” for different ways in which they might be fulfilled (400–401). If a prophecy were to be very specific, then it might actually render the action in question inevitable, they admit, but th
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    The apparent openness created by conditional or vague prophecies is therefore an...
    Vagueness in the linguistic formulation of a prophecy does not eliminate the met...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit