Fatalism

Traditional Judeo-Christian theology considers God to have omniscient infallible foreknowledge and ubiquitous providence. If God knows all that will happen in a manner that cannot be mistaken, it is difficult to understand how any event can occur differently than it actually does. And, if no event can occur differently, it appears that there are no alternative courses of action that are open to us. We seem to be impotent concerning the constitution of the future. Additionally if everything that occurs is under the control of God's will, then it appears as if every event is divinely determined and so, once again, it appears as though we do not have the power to act otherwise than we actually do.

There have been three major types of response. The Boethian solution is to conceive of God as an atemporal being, one whose beliefs and will do not occur in time. The second approach is Ockhamism, which suggests that facts about God's past beliefs (and will) are soft facts and so should not be endowed with a type of necessity of the past that precludes autonomous action. The Molinist, or "middle knowledge" solution, attempts to find space for autonomy by suggesting that God knows the contingent future by knowing "counterfactuals of freedom," statements that describe what actions persons would freely perform in every possible situation. Using this knowledge, God then creates (wills) the future.