FearGod
Freedom Of Mind
How God's knowledge is related to your actions, he knows what you are doing and what you're intended to do, but
he won't stop you from doing what you're going to do.
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Does God "CHOOSE" not to know the future?
- Thread starter djhwoodwerks
- Start date
How God's knowledge is related to your actions, he knows what you are doing and what you're intended to do, but
he won't stop you from doing what you're going to do.
The question is whether He had omniscience at any time. Because, even if He had omniscience eons before giving us free will, we would still have no free will, since He knew what He and we would do in the following eons. Willingly giving up omniscience when He created us does not help, if He knew before that what the future would look like.
So, if free will is identified as cosmic ignorance at all times about the future and our actions, then God never had omniscience to start with.
Therefore, if God is identified as something that has omniscience, at least for a while, then God does not exist. Or free will does not exist. Or, more plausibly, both do not exist.
Ciao
- viole
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Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
It is the same to God. Time itself as we know it was part of creation yes? He created the end of time along with the beginning, He is not bound by the laws of his own creation, we are.
free will and fate coexist from two different perspectives
djhwoodwerks
Well-Known Member
You people that believe if God knows all we have no free will, fail to understand that God doesn't exist in the space and time that we do. If He did, maybe I could see your point, but He doesn't, He created the space and time we live in. He can give us free will and know all things and it will have no effect on our dimension.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Granting that god is omniscient and his foresight is perfect, if god knows you will do X there is no way you will do Y instead. You will have to do X. You can't "choose" to do something other than what god sees you will do. Therefore, choosing turns out to be nothing more than an illusion. And this being the case, the will is inextricably bound to what god sees will be the case, and in effect destroying the concept of free will.
Another thing to consider: if God doesn't know the future, then what does His present consist of? Relativity tells us that there is not a universal present, only a relative present for each observer according to their reference frame. What is in the past for me might be in your future and vice-versa. Take a look at relativity of simultaneity and the Rietdijk-Putnam argument.
So what is God's reference frame?
So what is God's reference frame?
Skwim
Veteran Member
Then the question comes down to, what does freely choosing consist of? The crux of the matter is that there are implications inherent in god's omniscience. One of them being the inability of knowing the impossible. If 1 + 1 = 2 , then god cannot know that 1 + 1 = 3. Because there is no such thing as freely choosing, god could not see it happening. He would not know "you would freely choose" no more than he would know that 1 + 1 = 3.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Aside from the deterministic factors at work that would preclude such a thing, You DID have to do A. There is no way you could have ever done B. EVER! Flop about all you will and for as long as you will, but in the end you will be doing A. There was no real choosing involved whatsoever. Choosing, choice, and chosen are all illusions.
djhwoodwerks
Well-Known Member
How can you logically and truthfully believe that? If God knows you will do A, then you changing your mind to do be was never a choice "YOU" were going to make. You were never going to choose B anyway and God knew that, but it didn't take that choice away.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Correct.
Choice in this sense of the word implies an ability. The other sense of the word is option, as in your "take that choice." There may have been two roads one could take, the road to the left, option A; and the road to the right, option B, but when one goes down A it was because you had to. Option B was never a true option in the sense that there was a chance you could have taken it. God saw you were going to take the road to the left, A, which means that the road to the right, B, may as well never exist. There was no choosing on your part. Oh, you may think you did, going through some elaborate mental gymnastics trying to decide (in effect, choose) which to take, but in truth you had to do what god saw you doing.
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Where did that step highlighted in red come from? It seems to come out of nowhere.
dust1n
Zindīq
Simple question really. I'm having dinner tonight. There are some one million+ combinations of food arrangements I could eat tonight. I haven't picked one yet. God already knows which one I am going to pick.
So what will I have for dinner tonight? The one thing God already knows I'm going to have, or any of the 999,999+ other options I could have had if I had so chose to do so? What will do I have to make any of those 999,999+ dishes?
dust1n
Zindīq
So because he exists outside space and time, this resolves all the logical contradictions of a supposed God? Why would I care about a God that has absolutely no effect on our dimension?
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dust1n
Zindīq
Right, which means the original choice was never an option.
dust1n
Zindīq
Well, that is fair enough. Given the supposed attributes of an Abrahamic God, I do not see how it would be possible to act in a way that contradicts God's knowledge. He may not actively being coercing, but it doesn't really solve the issue of free will in my mind.
That makes the Abraham test a futile exercise that just scared a poor kid.
Ciao
- viole
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
God knows what is going to happen because what we see is a reflection of himself. On the other hand, he doesn't, hence he says, 'Where are you', when in the garden of Eden. So we ask, how can he know and not know at the same time, and yet be everything and yet not be present.
I tend to agree.
If I could travel back in time, then I will be in the position to know exactly what my baby brother will choose in life.
That does not entail that his free will is affected by my little errand. If he had it before, then it will still have it, independently from me knowing what he is going to do.
Ciao
- viole
Skwim
Veteran Member
You assumed one can freely choose and that god knows it. However, you made no case for freely choosing, so I feel my position that there is no such thing as freely choosing still holds. Want to posit that "God knows you would freely choose A" then you first have to show that freely choosing can be true.
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
It's long been a sticking point for atheists- the Big Bang was originally rejected as 'religious pseudoscience' specifically because it suggested a beginning to time. People intuitively felt time as we know it must be an eternal constant-
thus no creation, thus no creator..
That time is a finite construct is conceptually difficult obviously, but so are many scientific truths