The argument from foreknowledge purports to demonstrate that divine omniscience, or more specifically divine foreknowledge, is inconsistent with human freedom. It is arguable, however, that it is the existence of facts about the future, rather than the existence of a being that knows those facts about the future, that is difficult to reconcile with human freedom.

The argument from foreknowledge can, it seems, be stripped of its theological content without losing any of its force. To do this, references to God knowing that an agent is going to perform an act must be replaced with references to it being a fact that that agent is going to perform that act, and references to the existence of an omniscient God must be replaced with references to the existence of facts about the future. The result of this revision of the argument from foreknowledge will be referred to as the argument from future facts. This argument runs as follows:

The Argument from Future Facts

(1) A necessary condition for an act’s being free is that it is possible for the agent that is going to perform the act not to perform it.
(2) If it is a fact that an agent is going to perform an act, then it is not possible that the agent is not going to perform it.
Therefore:
(3) If it is a fact that an agent is going to perform an act, then it is not the case that that act is free.
(4) If there are facts about the future, then if an agent is going to perform an act then it is a fact that that agent is going to perform that act.
Therefore:
(5) If there are facts about the future, then if an agent is going to perform an act then it is not the case that that agent is going to perform that act freely.
(6) There is an agent that is going to perform an act freely.
Therefore:
(7) It is not the case that there are facts about the future.

This argument, it seems, is no worse than the argument from foreknowledge. Its premises are no less plausible than those of the argument from foreknowledge, and it has exactly the same logical structure. It may be, of course, that both arguments are unsound, but it is not the case both that the argument from foreknowledge is successful and that the argument from future facts is not. The advocate of the argument from foreknowledge therefore faces a dilemma.

The advocate of the argument from foreknowledge could, on the one hand, reject the argument from future facts as unsound. If he does this, though, then he must concede that the argument from foreknowledge is also unsound. For if he rejects the argument from future facts on the ground that one of its premises is false, then he must concede that the corresponding premise of the argument from foreknowledge is false, and if he rejects the argument from future facts on the ground that it employs faulty logic, then he must concede that the argument from foreknowledge similarly employs faulty logic. Rejection of the argument from future facts, then, is inconsistent with advocacy of the argument from foreknowledge.

The advocate of the argument from foreknowledge, therefore, must accept the argument from future facts as sound, conceding that there are no facts about the future. Once this concession is made, however, the threat to theism presented by the argument from foreknowledge vanishes. For the argument from foreknowledge is the argument that divine omniscience entails divine foreknowledge, but that foreknowledge is impossible given the fact of human freedom, and so that the fact of human freedom entails that no omniscient being exists. If there are no facts about the future, however, then omniscience—i.e. knowledge of all facts—does not entail knowledge of facts about the future, and so the impossibility of divine foreknowledge does not entail the impossibility of divine omniscience.

Whatever view is taken of the argument from future facts, then, the argument from foreknowledge must be abandoned.