ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses Peter Geach’s paper ‘The Future’, and the five arguments in it that the future is indeterminate.
Geach’s first argument takes as its premise the proposition that some things happen that were not going to happen, and argues that this proposition can be true only if the future is indeterminate. It is responded that Geach’s premise that some things happen that were not going to happen could equally be said to imply that whatever fails to happen was not going to happen otherwise it would have happened. Geach’s first argument is thus indecisive.
Geach’s second argument is that it is false to conceive of the future as consisting of nameable events. It is countered that even if this argument disproves the thesis that the future already exists, it does not disprove the thesis that what will happen is already determinate.
Geach’s third argument interprets the saying ‘Whatever will be, will be’ not as a tautology, but as false, being equivalent to ‘Whatever at some past time was to be, will at some future time be’. In response, it is argued that there is an interpretation of Geach’s re-phrasing of the slogan on which it is not false, but true, causally necessary, or rationally necessary, while still not being a tautology.
Geach’s fourth argument is based on the premise that prevention presupposes the idea of what was – in a non-fatalistic sense – going to happen. It is countered that this is not necessarily true; what prevention in fact presupposes is the efficacy of causal processes, including human agency.
Geach’s fifth and final argument takes as its starting point the suggestion that a bet placed binds no one to pay up until the race has been won. In response, it is argued that the right time for the settlement of a bet depends on convention. The convention of paying after the result is very strong because there is no reliable prophesying of the outcome of future events, but it is suggested that if someone did have the power to forecast races infallibly then it is quite conceivable that winnings would change hands before the race was won.
Since none of Geach’s arguments has been found to be strong, it is concluded that Geach has not established the indeterminacy of the future. The chapter concludes by arguing that Geach’s adoption of the thesis of an indefinite future seems to create insoluble problems for the traditional Christian view, also professed by Geach, of God’s determinate control over his creation.
