What Kant mean when he describes his project as a "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy

Full Answer Section

Reconciliation of God's Perfect Foreknowledge and Human Free Will

Augustine's unique understanding of time provides a potent, though sometimes challenging, framework for reconciling God's perfect foreknowledge with the reality of human free will.

How it provides a way for reconciliation:

The core of Augustine's solution rests on the distinction between God's eternal "now" and humanity's temporal experience:

1. God's Knowledge is Not Sequential Foresight: Because God exists outside the linear flow of time, His "knowing" our future actions isn't akin to human prediction. When a human predicts, they are looking forward in time at something that hasn't happened yet. For God, however, all of creation and all events within it are laid out as an eternal, simultaneous present. It's not that God knows beforehand, but rather that God knows eternally. There is no "before" or "after" for God.

2. Knowledge Does Not Imply Causation: Augustine argues that God's perfect and eternal knowledge of our choices does not cause us to make those choices. His knowledge is simply a perfect and complete apprehension of what genuinely free creatures will choose. It's like seeing an event happen (as opposed to making it happen). If you witness someone freely decide to take a particular action, your observation of their choice doesn't compel them to make it; it merely reflects their autonomous act. Similarly, God's eternal "seeing" of our choices doesn't predetermine them in a way that negates their freedom.

3. Human Freedom Remains Intact: For Augustine, human beings genuinely deliberate, make choices, and act freely within their own temporal experience. Our choices are real, contingent, and morally significant. God, in His eternal present, simply knows with perfect certainty what those free choices will be. His knowledge is exhaustive, but it respects the inherent freedom of the will He Himself endowed to humanity.

Analogy: Consider an individual standing atop a vast mountain overlooking a long, winding road where many travelers are making their journeys. The individual on the mountain can see every part of the road simultaneously – where travelers are currently, where they've been, and where they will go. The travelers on the road, however, are still making their individual choices about how fast to drive, whether to stop, or which turns to take. The observer's complete view of their entire journey doesn't force their decisions; it simply reveals them all at once. Augustine would suggest God's perspective is infinitely more profound and encompassing than this, covering all of existence in a single, eternal moment.

My Thoughts on Augustine's Description of Time and its Solution

Augustine's description of time is truly one of the most profound and philosophically rich contributions to the discussion of temporality and divinity. Its strength lies in its ability to simultaneously uphold classical theological attributes of God (timelessness, omniscience) and the crucial concept of human free will, which is necessary for moral responsibility and the very notion of divine justice.

Strengths:

• Theological Coherence: It powerfully preserves God's transcendence and His independence from creation. God is not subject to the linear constraints He imposed upon the universe.
• Defense of Free Will: By decoupling divine knowledge from divine causation in the temporal sequence, it offers a robust defense of genuine human moral agency. This is vital for attributing sin and virtue meaningfully.
• Philosophical Sophistication: It pushes beyond simplistic linear understandings of time, inviting a deeper, more nuanced metaphysical contemplation of reality.

Challenges and Limitations:

• Human Incomprehensibility of the "Eternal Now": While conceptually elegant, the "eternal now" is notoriously difficult for finite, temporal human minds to truly grasp or visualize. It often feels like a redefinition of "foreknowledge" rather than a complete dissolution of the problem. Is it just semantics?
• The Problem of Certainty vs. Contingency: Even if God isn't causing the actions, the fact that a perfect, omniscient being sees with absolute certainty that "X will happen" might still imply an unavoidable future. If it is truly certain, how can there be a genuine possibility for the agent to do otherwise? This continues to be a point of philosophical contention, with some arguing that certain knowledge of a future contingent event still implies a form of determinism, even if not direct causation.
• Implications for Prayer and Divine Action: While Augustine's framework allows for human prayer and divine intervention (as God's eternal "plan" would encompass these interactions), some might find it challenging to reconcile a truly static "eternal now" with the dynamic nature of God's responsiveness perceived within the temporal realm.

In conclusion, Augustine's description of time, particularly his concept of God existing in an eternal present, provides a highly influential and compelling solution to the theological dilemma of reconciling perfect foreknowledge with free will. It offers a profound way to understand God's relationship to His creation that respects both divine attributes and human moral agency. While the concept of the "eternal now" remains a challenging and abstract one for human comprehension, it serves as a powerful intellectual tool that has shaped much of subsequent theological and philosophical thought on these perennial questions.

Sample Answer

Augustine of Hippo, particularly in his Confessions (Book XI), offers a profoundly insightful and complex philosophical and theological exploration of time. His ideas attempt to grapple with the nature of existence, creation, and divine attributes, especially in relation to the persistent problem of reconciling God's perfect foreknowledge with human free will.

Augustine's Description of Time

Augustine's most radical departure from conventional thought on time is his assertion that time is not an eternal entity, but a created one. He famously asks, "What was God doing before He created heaven and earth?" and answers that there was no "before" because time itself began with creation. For Augustine, time is inextricably linked to change and movement within the created universe. Without creation, there is no change, and thus no time.

Furthermore, Augustine argues that our human experience of time is primarily subjective and psychological, existing within the mind rather than as an independent, objective reality flowing outside of us. He coins the famous phrase, time is a "distention (or extension) of the soul" (distentio animi). We apprehend the past through memory, the present through direct attention, and the future through expectation. The "present" itself is an infinitesimally small, fleeting moment, constantly becoming the past. It's not a continuous stream outside of us but an internal stretching and apprehending of what was, what is, and what is to be.

Crucially, God's relationship to time is fundamentally different from that of created beings. Augustine posits that God exists outside of time, in an eternal present. For God, there is no past, present, or future in a sequential, linear sense. All of creation, all of history – from its beginning to its end – is eternally and simultaneously "present" before God's infinite gaze. It is not that God foresees events by looking down a timeline, but rather that He sees all events in their totality at once, in His timeless eternity.