 An especially vivid example of this kind of situation comes from the Christian tradition. Jesus reportedly prophesied that his disciple Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed (see Matthew 26:34). Typically, we would think of Peter’s denial as a free act, and hence it is a future contingent event at the time of Jesus’s prophecy. (For more on this connection, see the entries on  compatibilism,  free will, and  causal determinism.)  But since Jesus cannot be mistaken (according to Christian theology), how are Peter’s later denials free? Once Jesus’ words become part of the unalterable past, don’t they guarantee a particular future, whether or not Peter is willing to cooperate?