The Free Will Show Episode 112: Divine Luck with Andre Leo Rusavuk
Feb 2, 2026
Andre Rusavuk, a philosopher studying luck and religion, explores whether God can be subject to kinds of luck. He talks about present luck, libertarian freedom, and analogies that challenge divine immunity. He distinguishes constitutive and indirect luck and considers theological responses to these puzzles.
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Episode notes
Argument That God Faces Present Luck
- Rusavuk gives a short argument: if God has libertarian freedom then some divine actions are indeterministic, and indeterminism brings present luck.
- Hence divine libertarianism threatens the perfect immunity thesis.
Roulette Analogy And Cross-World Difference
- The roulette-wheel analogy illustrates how indeterminism can make action outcomes seem not fully up to the agent, producing a problematic cross-world difference.
- Libertarians struggle to explain how an agent grounds why one possible world obtains rather than another when past and reasons are held fixed.
Divine Cross-World Explanation Problem
- Apply the cross-world worry to God: with identical divine pasts, God could create or not, so what explains why one world is actual?
- The problem presses for a God-involving explanation of why God actualizes one possible world over another.
