Boethius, Divine foreknowledge, and Free will

note:  Boethius makes absolutely zero sense to me on this one but here it goes....

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Divine foreknowledge (omniscience) creates a problem for the existence of free will.

The form of this problem goes as follows...

1) If God has foreknowledge then God know beforehand with certainty everything I am going to do

2) If God knows I am going to do something then necessarily I am going to do it. 

3) TF--> Everything I am going to do must necessarily take place

4) If [3] then I am not free

5) TF --> I am not free

Without free will, neither condemnation or praise would be merited.  Boethius is interested in this question because he wants to know if our prayers can affect God.  

How could our prayers affect God if everything is already preordained?  Boethius has two steps to this problem.  First he distinguishes between the knower and known by adopting an Aristotelian analysis of how we know things.  At the lowest level of knowing, our sense understand physical forms; at the second level, our imagination understand particular forms distinct from their material presence; at the third level, our reason understand universals; and at the highest level, we know pure forms.  In other words, what can be known depends on the capacity of the knower (a colorblind person cannot know colors).

Next, Boethius asks, what character trait does God have that might distinguish his ability to know from ours?  His answer is that God is eternal, that is, that all of unending life is embraced in the present for God.  God is simultaneously in the eternal "present."  God knows what you are going to do, because he is watching you do it--it takes the fore-  out of foreknowledge.  This is a form of "knowing" which can be distinguished from sempeternal or everlasting--which is a form of "being".

Secondly, Boethius differentiates between simple and conditional necessity.  Simple necessity applies to things that, by their own nature, are necessary (men are mortal; triangles have three sides); while conditional necessity applies to things that re one way, but might have been another (I am wearing a red shirt, then I am necessarily wearing a red shirt, but I could have decided to wear a blue one).  Boethius concedes that we are subject to conditional necessity (if God sees us doing x, then necessarily, we are doing X). But we are right to pray because God is in the eternal present and is with us constantly anticipating your changes through the immediate vision of all things.