Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD

Introduction

The Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – have long wrestled with a fundamental question: How can humans possess free will if God is truly omnipotent and omniscient? This apparent paradox, often termed the problem of divine foreknowledge and free will, strikes at the heart of theology and ethics. On one hand, scripture and tradition in each religion affirm that God is all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-knowing (omniscient), guiding destiny and knowing the end from the beginning. On the other hand, these faiths also insist that humans are morally responsible agents with genuine freedom to choose good or evil – a prerequisite for divine judgment, reward, and punishment. The tension between these claims has given rise to various resolutions. Theological compatibilism is the position that divine sovereignty (expressed via omniscience or predestination) and human free will are in fact compatible rather than contradictory. Compatibilists across the Abrahamic traditions argue that God’s perfect knowledge and power can coexist with meaningful human choice and accountability. This article explores the development of theological compatibilism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, examining major proponents and their approaches – from St. Augustine and Maimonides to Al-Ghazali, Jonathan Edwards, Alvin Plantinga, and others. We will analyze how each tradition reconciles divine omniscience/omnipotence with free will, compare their reasoning, and consider critical perspectives both from within the faiths and from secular philosophy.

Defining Theological Compatibilism

In philosophy, compatibilism generally refers to the view that free will is compatible with determinism. In a theological context, theological compatibilism means that human free will can coexist with God’s foreknowledge or predetermination of events. In contrast to theological incompatibilism (which holds that if God truly ordains or knows all outcomes, human freedom is illusory), compatibilism posits that there is no ultimate contradiction between God’s sovereignty and our voluntary choices en.wikipedia.org. This often involves a redefinition or nuanced understanding of “free will.” Rather than meaning absolute freedom to do otherwise in an indeterministic sense, freedom is understood as the ability to act without external coercion and in accord with one’s own intentions or nature en.wikipedia.org. As one summary puts it, under compatibilism “a puppet is free as long as he loves his strings,” highlighting that freedom is seen as acting voluntarily even if one’s decisions are part of a divinely ordained plan sapienceinstitute.org en.wikipedia.org.

Theological compatibilism can take “strong” and “weak” forms. Strong theological determinism holds that everything that happens has been consciously decreed by God (a form of predestination), and thus God’s omnipotent will directly determines all events en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org. In this view, human free will exists in a compatibilist sense (we act according to our desires, but cannot choose desires or outcomes other than what God has ordained) en.wikipedia.org. Weak theological determinism, by contrast, asserts that God’s primary determination is simply His infallible foreknowledge: God knows every future choice infallibly, which means the future is fixed in that sense, yet His knowing does not cause human choices en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org. Both forms are “compatibilist” to the extent that they maintain humans are still responsible for their actions despite the certainty (by God’s will or knowledge) of what those actions will be en.wikipedia.org.

Crucially, compatibilists deny that divine foreknowledge or providence coerces human decisions. An oft-cited distinction is that foreknowledge is not the same as predestination en.wikipedia.org. Just as a time-traveler who has seen the future knows what will occur without forcing it to happen, God can know our free choices in advance without robbing us of freedom en.wikipedia.org. The compatibility claim thus rests on the idea that God’s knowledge or eternal plan encompasses human free decisions rather than overriding them. Throughout history, theologians in each Abrahamic faith developed sophisticated models (philosophical, metaphysical, and linguistic) to explain this coexistence. Below, we examine how this played out in each tradition, through both classical and contemporary voices.

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