Richard Watson defense against Open theism

Open theism a view which says God can't know the future contingents infallible. Some Christian's view this as a viable option because LFW is the only way to have moral responsibility but no Christian should accept open theism. Since this view comes from Socinians and there are answers to reconcile libertarian free will (LFW) and God's infallible knowledge of future contingents. Orthodox Arminians have gave answers to the objections that the follower's of Socinus and Calvinist. The standard objection is this "that the foreknowledge of contingent events, being in its own nature impossible, because it implies a contradiction." In simple terms God knowing future contingents infallible make them necessary so the Arminian view is no different than the Calvinist. But Richard Watson a great 19th century Methodist theologian in his Theological Institutes gave a great answer to this objection.

  Watson makes a very important point that has to always be kept in mind that man is responsible for his actions and that he is not under any invisible necessity to do a action. "Equally clear is it that the moral actions of men are not necessitated, because human accountability is the main pillar of that moral government, wimose principles, conduct, and ends, are stated so largely in Divine revelation." So Calvinism already fails here when it comes to man's responsibility since everything in their view is done by necessity. But the open theist makes the mistake thinking God having infallible certainty about the future moral acts of man destroys their contingency. " If, however, the term contingent in this controversy has any definite meaning at all, as applied to the moral actions of men, it must mean their freedom, and stands opposed not to certainty, but to necessity. A free action is a voluntary one; and an action which results from the choice of the agent, is distinguished from a necessary one in this, that it might not have been, or have been otherwise, according to the self-determining power of the agent." Since open theist should only care about the nature of an action not about if the action is certain or uncertain all we have to do is show how God's foreknowledge doesn't destroy contingency since they presuppose  that God's knowledge is causative. 

  "But though an uncertain action cannot be foreseen as certain, a free, unnecessitated action may; for there is nothing in the knowledge of the action, in the least, to affect its nature. Simple knowledge is, in no sense, a cause of action, nor can it be conceived to be causal, unconnected with exerted power; for mere knowledge, therefore, an action remains free or necessitated, as the case may be. A necessitated action is not made a voluntary one by its being foreknown: a free action is not made a necessary one. Free actions foreknown will not, therefore, cease to be contingent." We see here simple knowledge doesn't destroy contingency in any sense. "The certainty of a necessary action foreknown, does not result from the knowledge of the action, but from the operation of the necessitating cause; and in like manner, the certainty of a free action does not result from the knowledge of it, which is no cause at all, but from the voluntary cause, that is, the determination of the will." So the open theist claim that foreknowledge destroys the contingency of the action is just wrong since simple knowledge isn't causal.

   Watson deals with the objection that if a future is known with infallible certainty then it can't go another way therefore contradicts the nature of contingency. "But here it is said, if the result of an absolute contingency be certainly foreknown, it can have no other result, it cannot happen otherwise. This is not the true inference. It will not happen otherwise; but I ask, why can it not happen otherwise can is an expression of potentiality, it denotes power or possibility. The objection is, that it is not possible that the action should otherwise happen. But why not what deprives it of that power if a necessary action were in question, it could not otherwise happen than as the necessitating cause shall compel; but then that would arise from the necessitating cause solely and not from the prescience of the action, which is not causal. But if the action be free, and it enter into the very nature of a voluntary action to be unconstrained, then it might have happened in a thousand other ways, or not have happened at all; the foreknowledge of it no more affects its nature in this case than in the other. All its potentiality, so to speak, still remains, independent of foreknowledge, which neither adds to its power of happening otherwise, nor diminishes it. But then we are told, that the prescience of it, in that case, must be uncertain: not unless any person can prove, that the Divine prescience is unable to dart through all the workings of the human mind, all its comparison of things in the judgment, all the influences of motives on the affections, all the hesitancies, and haltings of the will, to its final choice. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for us," but it is the knowledge of Him who "understandeth the thoughts of man afar off."

  So we can conclude by seeing all of this that God's infallible knowledge of future contingents and LFW are totally compatible. So there is no need to follow Socinius or his followers (open theists) since the orthodox Arminian response to open theist and Calvinist reconciles the problem. I will leave this blog post off with a long quote from an old Remonstrant divine on this matter to hammer in the point.

  "The things about which our minds are exercised, are in themselves neither certain nor uncertain They are called so only in respect of him who knows them; but they themselves are necessary or contingent. But if you understand by a certain thing, a necessary one, and by an uncertain thing that which is contingent, as many by an abuse of terms do, then your minor will appear to be identical and nugatory, for it will stand, 'Future contingencies are contingent,' from which no conclusion can be drawn. It is to be concluded, that certitude and incertitude are not affections of the things which are or may be known, but of the intellect of him who has knowledge of them, and who forms different judgments respecting them. For one and the same thing, without any change in itself, may be certain and uncertain at the same time; certain indeed to him who knows it certainly, but to him who knows it not, uncertain. For example, the same future eclipse of the sun shall be certain to a skilful astronomer who has calculated it: uncertain to him who is ignorant of the laws of the heavenly bodies. But that cannot be said concerning the necessity and contingency of things. They remain such as they are in their own nature, whether we know them or not; for an eclipse, which from the laws of nature must necessarily take place, is not made contingent by my ignorance and uncertainty whether it will or will not happen. For this reason they are mistaken who say that things determined by the decree of God, are necessary in respect of God; but that to us, who know not his decrees, they are contingent; for our ignorance cannot make that which is future and necessary, because God hath decreed it, change its nature, and become contingent. It is no contradiction indeed to say, that one and the same thing may be at once necessary and yet uncertain, but that it should be necessary and contingent is a manifest contradiction. To God, therefore, whose knowledge is infinite, future contingencies are indeed certain, but to angels and men uncertain; nor are they made necessary because God knows them certainly. The knowledge of God influences nothing extrinsically, nor changes the nature of things in any wise. He knows future necessary things as necessary, but contingencies as contingencies; otherwise he would not know them truly, but be deceived, which cannot happen to God." (Curcellaeus, De Jure Dei, 1645.)