What happens next

http://www.playbuzz.com/answers10/c
an-you-guess-what-happens-next
If you could know the film credits of your life,
would you?
How about someone else?
Boethius Boethius (c.480524 or 525 AD), was a
philosopher of the early 6th century. He was born
About me in Rome entered public life at a young age and
Boethius
was already a senator by the age of 25.
Boethius was imprisoned and eventually executed
by King Theodoric the Great, who suspected him
of conspiring with the Eastern Roman Empire.
While jailed, Boethius composed his Consolation of
Philosophy, a philosophical treatise on fortune,
death, and other issues. The Consolation became
one of the most popular and influential works of
Boethius Wrote Consolation of Philosophy to explain
why he, who was believed to be a good
About me
Christian, had apparently been abandoned by
fortune and God and left to die by execution.
 Can Christians believe in a God who rewards and
punishes justly?
Should they be able
to? This is a choice. Give me qualities.
What logic/ faith has
informed this?
Why would
Christ followers. Dont
think of the majority of
God reward
modern Church-goers. and punish?
Not all Church-goers are
Christians and not all
Christians are Church What does it
goers now. This WAS
FAITH.
mean to do
to have confidence in
the truth, the existence,
this justly?
or the reliability of
something, although
without absolute proof
that one is right in doing
The book is written as a dialogue between Boethius and
Lady Philosophy
 Since we have shown that knowledge is not based
on the thing known but on the nature of the knower,
let us consider the nature of the Divine Being and
what sort of knowledge it has.

Does God see things in the same way that we

do?
How does God know anything?
Is your knowledge of something different if
you can change it?
Boethius argues that the way God sees the universe is very
different from any human perception. He says that all rational
creatures judge the Divine Being to be eternal, so we should start
by explaining the nature of eternity, for this will reveal to us the
nature of the Divine Being and the capacity of divine knowledge.
In other words without understanding how God knows we cannot
If you see a toddler climbing up a Christmas
tree (at a garden centre or shopping mall
its big) and the child falls. You do nothing to
stop it. Do you have to take some
responsibility for this action? It has led to
suffering, so we can classify it as evil?

Boethius was considering the idea that if our

behaviour is determined or even foreseen, then
God has to take some responsibility for the evil
actions brought about by humanitys free choices.
 simultaneous this is the key to Boethius
position. Whilst we are conditioned by time
and the future is not yet here, an immutable
God is outside this universe and not affected
by space and time
Eternity is the simultaneous possession of
boundless life which is made clearer by comparison
with temporal things, this becomes clear when we
consider temporal things: whatever lives in time
lives only in the present, which passes from the past
into the future, and no temporal thing has such a
nature that it can simultaneously embrace its entire
existence, for it has not yet arrived at tomorrow and
no longer exists in yesterday
Therefore, if you consider the divine foreknowledge through
which God knows all things, you will conclude that it is not a
knowledge of things in the future but a knowledge of an
unchanging present.

Explain what an unchanging

present is. Use up to one
paragraph!
This is where it get complicated
One is simple, as when we say that all humans are
necessarily mortal. The other is conditional, as when you
see a man walking, it is necessary that hes walking, or else
you wouldnt see him walking.
Conditional Necessity Simple Necessity
it is not caused by the All humans are
particular nature of an event necessarily mortal
or choice, but on some because it is part of the
condition added to the nature of a human to be
event. mortal.
No necessity forces the
walking man to walk.
When God sees anything in
His eternal present, it follows
 Or SIMPLE?!

The difference between simple and conditional

necessity is the addition of the condition.
Can you influence two things
that happen at the same time?

What is the gambling industry

based on?
Gods knowledge of a simultaneous present makes it
impossible for him to have any effect on human choices
and hence leaves us fully responsible for good or ill
actions which we undertake freely.
It is this distinction which allows us to believe both in
 Since all this is true, we can conclude that the
freedom of human will remains completely
independent of Gods foreknowledge and the laws
which prescribe rewards and punishments are
just since they provide rewards and punishments
for the free actions of the human will rather than
reward or punish things that happen of
necessity.

Write a paragraph explaining whether or not you

agree with the question:
That the freedom of human will remains
completely independent of Gods
foreknowledge?
 What would Boethius say about the event yesterday in London?

What are the strengths of Boethius?

What are the weaknesses?
What challenges does being outside of time pose? Think about the omni- words!
Criticisms
It needs to be made clear the significance and
influence of Boethius he was the first Philosopher to
develop the notion of the Christian God as a timeless
God.
The problem for many philosophers is whether the
notion of a timeless God is a coherent one. To exist
appears to involve duration.
Kenny notes that the idea of all of time being equally
present to God is incoherent (although it might just be
that we as humans cant comprehend it).
CRITICISMS OF BOETHIUS
If we are to accept that God is unlike any
category we can understand are we justified
in speaking of Gods perception as a viewer
on a hillside.
If God is seen to be omnipotent (even if we
argue as Aquinas does that this means that
God can do everything logically possible), the
limitations of a spectator God watching an
accident would appear to diminish the
concept of omnipotence.
How can a God that is outside of time have
knowledge of what is occurring inside time.
16
CRITICISMS
There is a problem for religious faith, God is seen in the Old
Testament as fulfilling a Covenant. The God of scripture is
continually involved with his people. It would appear that
Boethius thinks too much of a God up there the assumption of a
three-tier universe.
In order for Gods relationship with the world to have genuine
Providence (wisdom/foresight), God would require middle
knowledge to know what the outcomes would be if human
choices had been different.
For many (including Process Theologians), Boethius, although a
Christian seems to portray a God of Greek Philosophy rather than
the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
17
 Links to Evil: The Chess Analogy
"God is the supreme Grand Master who has everything under his
control. Some of the players are consciously helping his plan, others
trying to hinder it; whatever the finite players do, God's plan will be
executed; though various lines of God's play will answer to various
moves of the finite players. God cannot be surprised or thwarted or
cheated or disappointed. God, like some grand master of chess, can
carry out his plan even if he has announced it beforehand. 'On this
square.' says the Grand Master, 'I will promote my pawn to Queen
and deliver checkmate to my adversary': and it is even so. No line of
play that finite players may think of can force God to improvise: his
knowledge of the game already embrances all possible variants of
play, theirs does not." (Peter Geach. Providence and Evil. (Cambridge
University Press 1977) 58)
Swinburne: Was Jesus God?
[I]t looks as if it is not logically possible for God to know
infallibly beforehand what a free agent will do. But
since God is omnipotent, it is only because he permits
this that we have free will. God is himself responsible
for there being limits to his knowledge of how we will act;
and he can take away our free will and so these limits to
his knowledge of the future, whenever he chooses. (p. 9)

Does this support or hinder Boethius? WHY???