The future and God's omniscience

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Reply to Walter Pound Reply to tim wood

What about the number of possibilities for each action/choice in one's life? Maybe this changes perspective on the dilemma? If I have millions of variations for my own life based on each choice I have made or not made, isn't there some degree of something like free will? If I have many different paths at the start of my life, then no matter which I choose, I am destined to one of those paths.

Reply to Walter Pound Reply to tim wood

God or no God, this dilemma appears to be out of human comprehension (absurd).

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Yes there's no free-will with an omni god creator. All of it's creations can only do what it foresaw. Therefore, the option to do otherwise doesn't apply because we will never choose that option.

It also doesn't matter if we have 1 other option or 1 million. Every single decision we made or will make, was already known and therefore set right upon creation.

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Reply to tim wood
Having free-will means we have the ability to *actually do whatever is in our ability to do. This means, not just having the option to do otherwise but the actual ability to choose that option.

So, in the context of this God-creator, we can only do whatever that God planned for us to do. It is impossible to do anything else because this God knows every single decision it's creations would ever make prior to being created. It's creations are therefore simply enacting the plan.

Reply to Walter Pound

Quoting Walter Pound

Given that God knows all things, how can we have libertarian free will?

If God gave us free will, which he did according to the scriptures, and if you’re a Christian then you believe that to be true, then he does not know or anticipate the consequences. If he anticipated every action we take, or if he is responsible for every action as part of his divine plan, then why give us free will?

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Reply to tim wood
I believe I do (have as much freedom of will as everyone else). What I don't believe in is the Bible.

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Quoting tim wood

What might be interesting is how or why, with so much freedom, so many people make so many bad choices. I myself am often good for as many as six before breakfast.

Human nature is basically a battle between our aversion to suffering and the desire for pleasure. Unfortunately, a lot of the most pleasurable things have a lot of harm attached to them.

Quoting tim wood

And it's a shame to dismiss the Bible. Squeeze what you and I might call (the) nonsense out of it and there is still a good bit of sense left - in my opinion if nothing else it's a book of mostly very astute psychology and good advice, distilled of thousands of years of experience. Perhaps not all agreeable, but scarcely to be dismissed.

I'm not dismissing it at all. I treat the Bible as a kind of godified chronicle of very real events. Take out all the extras and you have the journey of a people from humble beginnings to become the region's most powerful warlords to again be put under the boot heels of another powerful group of people.

Those guys came from under the opulent oppression of the Egyptians to the decaying mega cities of Mesopotamia and even saw the ruins of Sodom/gammorah - decayed and destroyed not because of God's wrath but of mismanagement, overpopulation, scarcity, famine, disease and most importantly climate change - stuff we're dealing with today.

But unfortunately, they godified everything from their simplistic view of the world sprinkled with countless borrowed concepts from their neighbors and oppressors - so you see the Mesopotamian, Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Persian influence - all of whom had multiple gods (except the Persian Zarathustra) with various personalities that they stuffed into this one being that a paychologist would probably diagnose as having dissociative identity disorder or split personality.

I was always somewhat confused by this premise. Say psychics are real, who communicate with.. God knows what. Right. They're not weaving your fate, they're simply reporting it. Whether or not this person exists or not, you would, by some infinitely complex web of circumstances, events, mannerisms, inhibitions or lack thereof, choose something or another. Therefore, if I somehow predict you were to do something, it doesn't mean in an absolute sense you were unable to do any other thing, simply I knew what you were going to choose to do. Which in human terms is explainable enough. I happen to know you fancy gambling and have bought a lottery ticket every week for the past year and a half. So.. I could "predict" that you would buy one this week as well. Or, say I know you happen to be short on cash this week, I would then "predict" that you wouldn't. Say I work for the lottery and did some snooping around and determined the winning lottery ticket is at Store #123 in some city somewhere. Say I even know it's the very last ticket on the roll. Obviously, I could predict the person who walks into the store who usually buys a lottery ticket will in fact, win the lottery. It's about knowing again an infinitely complex web of events, circumstances, habits, etc. that no human could ever know.

The God aspect does complicate things. Seeing as by definition all things were created/set in motion by God, obviously... yeah. You have an interest in gambling due to some either biological mental configuration that makes you a risk-taker or you happened to be born in a family who buys lottery tickets often, both that were outside of your control and allegedly the result of God.

Quoting Outlander

The God aspect does complicate things. Seeing as by definition all things were created/set in motion by God, obviously... yeah. You have an interest in gambling due to some either biological mental configuration that makes you a risk-taker or you happened to be born in a family who buys lottery tickets often, both that were outside of your control and allegedly the result of God.

Yes, as odd as it sounds, if we accept the omni status of this being then there is no other path except the one laid out by it. Everything was predetermined and set in motion upon creation itself.

Free-will only makes sense if the being was not an omni. And if you read through god's many human-like reactions like anger, disappointment, jealousy, then it would appear that it isn't an omni but a lot like every other god of the time: a reflection of ourselves.

Quoting 8livesleft

there is no other path except the one laid out by it

It, allegedly, creates a world or environment of many paths, it just happens to know what you will end up choosing. Take the atheistic approach of evolution. Millions of years of whatever, blah blah, the circumstances are still same. It's something (in this case not an entity but an event or series of events) that defines all we are able to experience thus do. So, because of evolution we don't have free will? The two are interchangeable, God and evolution in the sense that something greater than us is responsible for not only why we're here but all we will ever see, hope, and do.

Quoting 8livesleft

Free-will only makes sense if the being was not an omni.

Again just because it created everything doesn't mean it controls us like an RC toy.

Quoting 8livesleft

it would appear that it isn't an omni

Oh, great then. Existential crisis averted.

Quoting 8livesleft

a lot like every other god of the time: a reflection of ourselves.

"That, Detective. Is the right question."

Quoting Outlander

It, allegedly, creates a world or environment of many paths, it just happens to know what you will end up choosing.

Yes, so again there is just the one path - the one it knew all along that we would choose.

Take the atheistic approach of evolution. Millions of years of whatever, blah blah, the circumstances are still same. It's something (in this case not an entity but an event or series of events) that defines all we are able to experience thus do. So, because of evolution we don't have free will?

Evolution only got us to the point of directing our biological needs and abilities. We still have to make decisions based on those needs and abilities.

The two are interchangeable, God and evolution in the sense that something greater than us is responsible for not only why we're here but all we will ever see, hope, and do.

Interesting take. But, evolution is not a sentient thing that directs our actions.

I remember 2 arguments I made not so long ago and here they are for you to peruse through.


Argument 1
1. God is omnipotent
2. If God can't know all things, including the future, without nullifying our free will then God isn't omnipotent
Ergo,
3. God can know all things, including the future, without nullifying our free will [1, 2 Modus Tollens]

Argument 2
1. God is omnipotent
2. If god is omnipotent then god can do anything
3. If god can do anything then god can see the future and still ensure that we have free will
Ergo,
4 God can do anything [1, 2 modus ponens]
Ergo,
5. God can see the future and still ensure that we have free will [3, 4 modus ponens]

Quoting 8livesleft

Yes, so again there is just the one path - the one it knew all along that we would choose.

My dude, it's not controlling you or making you choose anything it just knew. Obviously if we judge the past from the present sure, there was only one path, what freakin' happened. I don't know where we come off saying it was the only thing that could have, same with future events. It's not like someone close to us died and we're being sympathetic saying "it was just his time" or something.

Quoting 8livesleft

Evolution only got us to the point of directing our biological needs and abilities. We still have to make decisions based on those needs and abilities.

Why not replace the word 'evolution' with 'God' then?

Quoting 8livesleft

Interesting take. But, evolution is not a sentient thing that directs our actions.

There is no proof of any sentient thing directing our actions. If so, I would love to see some. So that I may bury it and it may never see the light of day. lol.

Quoting Outlander

My dude, it's not controlling you or making you choose anything it just knew.

It doesn't have to do anything beyond creating us (assuming we disregard every single act of wrath it did or approved of) because every single decision was already pre-approved prior to that event.

Reply to tim wood

Quoting tim wood

If it's a tempest in a teapot, then it seems to me to be a very small teapot, or as you say, an absurdity. That is, no matter how many or how few my alternatives, or whether a God or anyone else knows, I still possess the possibility and capacity for making a relatively free decision.

Very interesting insight. Thank you for replying to my comment. Yes, it is absurd, but we do possess the possibility and capacity for making a relatively free decision in this moment.

Quoting tim wood

?Walter Pound
God or no god, given a set of alternatives, you will do or choose one of them. Where's the freedom in that?

What if the road forks three ways? Are you forced to take the middle path, or the mathematical mean? What if there is no exact middle? Can you toss a coin to choose the forced alternative? Or just go round & round in circles? Not all choices are black & white. :smile:

Left or Right or go back to where you came from?

This is an important question. I'm not particularly sure what my position on this is yet, but I came across an interesting paper (Ciro de Florio, 2014) which defends a timeless solution to the problem of foreknowledge and LFW, I'll copy what they've said:

God is thought to be out of time,
without any special relationship with any specific time. Although human beings have a special relationship with the present, God does not. Boethius uses the metaphor of a circle with a point at its center. The circle represents the succession of temporal moments, while the central point represents the divine point of view of the temporal series. Although the temporal moments have different relationships with each other (e.g., they are more or less distant from each other), the central point is at the same distance from every temporal moment, so that none of them is privileged. Consequently, divine knowledge of the future is not foreknowledge in the genuine sense. God does not know what an agent will do before she acts because God’s relationship with the future is the same as His relationship with the present and the past. God simply sees what the agent does at a certain time, but this knowledge of the agent’s choice does not imply that the agent is not free when she acts. The fact that Ann knows that John chooses to do x at time t does not imply that John is not free when he chooses to do x. In the same way, the fact that God knows that John chooses to do x at time t does not impinge on John’s freedom. In terms of modal logic, we can concede that it is necessary that if one knows that the agent does x, then it is true that the agent does p, i.e., ?(Kp ? p), but from this, it does not follow that it is necessary that the agent does p, i.e., Kp ? ?p. The simple fact that it is possible to know contingent propositions is sufficient to deny this assumption.

There's also something called an Occasionalistic Defense of LFW, I haven't checked it our yet but it may be worth looking into.