Paradoxes inspired by José Benardete have been used in arguments for temporal finitism and causal finitism. Joseph C. Schmid has argued that there is a symmetry between those arguments and a corresponding argument against an endless future with respect to Koons’ patchwork principle using intrinsically identical copies of situations involving God revealing a future. I argue that this symmetry argument has limitations a theist can exploit to avoid the problem. A precognitive grandfather paradox ab…
Read moreParadoxes inspired by José Benardete have been used in arguments for temporal finitism and causal finitism. Joseph C. Schmid has argued that there is a symmetry between those arguments and a corresponding argument against an endless future with respect to Koons’ patchwork principle using intrinsically identical copies of situations involving God revealing a future. I argue that this symmetry argument has limitations a theist can exploit to avoid the problem. A precognitive grandfather paradox about using simple foreknowledge to reveal the future that is redolent of the grandfather paradox against time travel illustrates why one might prefer a type of subjunctive foreknowledge over simple foreknowledge with respect to revealing the future, and a test for intrinsicality reveals that the future-revealing quality need not be intrinsic to a situation containing a subjunctively foreknowing God revealing the future.
