Does God "CHOOSE" not to know the future?

[Skwim]

I think Skwim might be saying something along the lines of these three possibilities.

1) The future is determined and God knows it.
2) The future is determined and God doesn't know it.
3) The future is undetermined and God doesn't know it.

The simple act of God knowing isn't what causes the future to be determined. It is, rather, the act of God knowing that demonstrates that the future is determined. Or something.

Actually, the argument---one I wouldn't use myself---comes down to the fact that what an omnipotent god sees in the future has to be the way it will occur. Way back when, even before there was an earth, god saw that at a certain time and at a certain place, X would happen instead of Y, and that nothing would ever change that. That on February 17th 2017 Charlie Gangster will shoot Benny Badfellow in the head instead of eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream. And when February 17th 2017 rolls around that's exactly what will happen because Charlie has no choice in the matter. He has no such thing as a free will that would allow him to do any differently. And god knew this 3 billion years ago: Charlie will kill Benny on February 17th 2017.

 

[McBell]

Actually, the argument---one I wouldn't use myself---comes down to the fact that what an omnipotent god sees in the future has to be the way it will occur. Way back when, even before there was an earth, god saw that at a certain time and at a certain place, X would happen instead of Y, and that nothing would ever change that. That on February 17th 2017 Charlie Gangster will shoot Benny Badfellow in the head instead of eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream. And when February 17th 2017 rolls around that's exactly what will happen because Charlie has no choice in the matter. He has no such thing as a free will that would allow him to do any differently. And god knew this 3 billion years ago: Charlie will kill Benny on February 17th 2017.

except you have not shown how gods knowing interferes with Charlies ability to choose.
You off handedly dismissed the dog eating the steak example by claiming that humans are not god.
However, you have not shown, explained, or demonstrated how it being god makes any difference.

 

[Akivah]

Actually, the argument---one I wouldn't use myself---comes down to the fact that what an omnipotent god sees in the future has to be the way it will occur. Way back when, even before there was an earth, god saw that at a certain time and at a certain place, X would happen instead of Y, and that nothing would ever change that. That on February 17th 2017 Charlie Gangster will shoot Benny Badfellow in the head instead of eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream. And when February 17th 2017 rolls around that's exactly what will happen because Charlie has no choice in the matter. He has no such thing as a free will that would allow him to do any differently. And god knew this 3 billion years ago: Charlie will kill Benny on February 17th 2017.

On the other hand, Charlie had full free will to make any choice he wanted on 2/17/17. And since G-d is outside of time, G-d knows that was the free choice that Charlie will make.

 

[Skwim]

Um...
god is an example of a third party.

Not quite understanding. Who are the other two relevant parties.

 

[McBell]

Not quite understanding. Who are the other two relevant parties.

Depends upon the decision you think cannot be made.
Your dinner example it would be you, god and the dinner.
The dog and steak example, it would be you the dog and god.

 

[Skwim]

except you have not shown how gods knowing interferes with Charlies ability to choose.

First of all,Charlie isn't really choosing anything. But say he could, what would be the chance that charlie would "choose" to do something other than what god saw him do? 100 to 1? 6,000 to 1? Five million quadrillion to one? No, it's zippo. Nada. What would be the chance that Charlie would "choose" to do anything other than what god saw him do? Again it's zippo. Poor Charlie has to do what god saw him do. He has no choice in the matter.

You off handedly dismissed the dog eating the steak example by claiming that humans are not god.

That's because it was premised on a fallible perception---humans are not infallible---and therefore the comparison isn't relevant.

However, you have not shown, explained, or demonstrated how it being god makes any difference.

God's knowledge, as claimed by the Christian faithful, is infallible. What he knows of the future is absolutely correct. Man's knowledge is not infallible.



I'm going to have to bring this whole discussion to a close. I find myself repeating far too much without making any headway.

Have a good day.

 

[Katzpur]

I used to think that the phrase "God exists outside of time" was really pretty meaningly, but the way C.S. Lewis explained it, it makes complete sense to me. He explained how Christians believe God can hear all of the prayers people are offering simultaneously, instead of one after another. The way he did so could also apply to how God can know the future and yet still allow us to have free will. Skwim will undoubtedly not be swayed by it, but perhaps it may be beneficial to someone whose mind is not yet made up. Here's what Lewis said:

"Suppose I am writing a novel. I write 'Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door!' For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is no interval between putting down the work and hearing the knock. But I, who am Mary's maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as long a I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary's time (the time inside the story) at all."

 

[McBell]

First of all,Charlie isn't really choosing anything. But say he could, what would be the chance that charlie would "choose" to do something other than what god saw him do? 100 to 1? 6,000 to 1? Five million quadrillion to one? No, it's zippo. Nada. What would be the chance that Charlie would "choose" to do anything other than what god saw him do? Again it's zippo. Poor Charlie has to do what god saw him do. He has no choice in the matter.

That's because it was premised on a fallible perception---humans are not infallible---and therefore the comparison isn't relevant.

God's knowledge, as claimed by the Christian faithful, is infallible. What he knows of the future is absolutely correct. Man's knowledge is not infallible.



I'm going to have to bring this whole discussion to a close. I find myself repeating far too much without making any headway.

Have a good day.

I agree.
You have not made a convincing case.
At least, not convincing outside the choir.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

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.

If you flip a (fair) coin a billion times, the arrangement of possible outcomes (i.e., the set of possible sequences of outcomes of a billion fair coin tosses) is astronomical. If we assume that such tosses are random, we can nonetheless determine the probability of all of them and ensure that a particular outcome will occur.

Imagine I assert a that the result of a billion fair coin tosses will be some particular sequence (some exact result). Either my claim is true, or false. If it is true, then necessarily the result will be the sequence I claimed. If false, then necessarily it will be a particular sequence which differs in a particular way from that which I predicted.

My claim cannot possibly cause any particular sequence. Yet necessarily it is either true or false, and either way the outcome is determined.
Except, of course, for the fact that my claim is not causally efficacious. THAT what I said is true or false does not MAKE what happens true or false.

Likewise, knowledge of the future does not CAUSE the future (at least not necessarily).

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?

You cannot have chosen that which was determined by definition. Therein lies the fallacy of this standard, common argument-type (i.e., "If God/Allah/etc., knew I was going to choose X, then...."). I cannot choose that which is determined, so to ask this question assumes it makes no sense.

So because he exists outside space and time, this resolves all the logical contradictions of a supposed God?

I'm not sure which logical contradictions you refer to, but existing outside spacetime is akin to the "block universe" or "tense" in that outcomes can be "known" from some reference frame or be true by definition a priori yet be chosen (self-determined).

Why would I care about a God that has absolutely no effect on our dimension?

Interesting question. The classical deists (such as Newton) practically invented science in order to show that such an entity existed (the watchmaker, who sets the cosmos in motion but then has no effect upon it). Modern physics provides a myriad of possible answers, in that causation outside of our experienced dimension can occur via numerous mechanics, in including the structure of the cosmos itself. Thus there are a variety of mechanisms for something that doesn't exist in our dimension to influence it.

 

[djhwoodwerks]

The "coercion" of inevitability. You have to turn left..

You just do want to see the truth, do you? You don't have to turn left because God knows that is what you're going to do, God knows it because that is what you chose to do at that particular time. You chose to make a left for a reason, not just because God knew you were going to. You may have chose to make a left to go home, why would you have made a right? God knows you made a left and why you chose to.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

If God were subject to time he would also be subject to such limits as the speed of light and the conservation of energy, which are all linked. and also the more directly interesting question Where is God? which links to the question When is God?
Most of the Universe that we can see and even photograph, is no longer there it has passed into history long ago. it no longer exists.

The sheer size and scale of this and perhaps other universes, would cause huge problems for any thought of a God subject to time and place.
CS Lewis found a way to think about this that needed no physical connection. His way is probably as near as we can get to the truth.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

If God were subject to time he would also be subject to such limits as the speed of light and the conservation of energy

Nonlocality is a clear violation against at least a weak interpretation of the speed-of-light constraint and the whole of quantum field theory and particle physics basically consists of violations of the conservation of energy.

 

[dust1n]

You keep repeating this as though his being god makes any difference.
You have not addressed the coercion rebuttal.
If you cannot even address it, how can you refute it?

A rebuttal based on coercion requires God being all powerful as well. But ignoring whether or not God is coercing my will is the matter. It isn't necessary that God be controlling anything. But his ability to have knowledge about the state of all future outcomes does say something about the nature of all future outcomes, namely, that they are determined. Otherwise, it would be impossible to know the future outcomes of agents of free will (non-determined wills).

If revealed to you your future choices, you would have a point.
However, since god has not revealed it, there is no coercion.
Therefore you are free to choose.

The question wouldn't be whether God has revealed the knowledge, but whether the knowledge was attainable or "revealable" in the first place, if that makes sense.

 

[dust1n]

Is it your opinion that the opinion quoted from Psalms is somehow more than the authors opinion?
If so, based on what?

They are his opinions, but his opinions as quoted would be tautologies given there exists a being that knows all things.

 

[dust1n]

If you flip a (fair) coin a billion times, the arrangement of possible outcomes (i.e., the set of possible sequences of outcomes of a billion fair coin tosses) is astronomical. If we assume that such tosses are random, we can nonetheless determine the probability of all of them and ensure that a particular outcome will occur.

Imagine I assert a that the result of a billion fair coin tosses will be some particular sequence (some exact result). Either my claim is true, or false. If it is true, then necessarily the result will be the sequence I claimed. If false, then necessarily it will be a particular sequence which differs in a particular way from that which I predicted.

My claim cannot possibly cause any particular sequence. Yet necessarily it is either true or false, and either way the outcome is determined.
Except, of course, for the fact that my claim is not causally efficacious. THAT what I said is true or false does not MAKE what happens true or false.

Likewise, knowledge of the future does not CAUSE the future (at least not necessarily).

Sure, but my claim isn't that God is making future events true by stating them, and poof, they thus become true. I'm stating that in order for God to know any future event to be true, the future must be determined for God to know it. The series of coin flips is sort of a different scenario because wills don't (supposedly) determine the outcomes anyways. But, to use that illustration, say I was going to flip 1000 coins, and asked God what the sequence would be. His answer (let's say, "HHTTHHTTHHTT...") isn't true because his stating of the future events make future events so, his answer is true because the outcome in the this scenario is already so, and hasn't played out yet in real time. Likewise, I'm going to 1000 dinners in the next 1000 days. If I ask God what I'm going to have for dinner every night regardless what I will or do not will, God's answer isn't right because his answer is forcing me to eat those dinners. His answer is right because it has already been determined what my next 1000 dinners will be. If I truly acted on an ever-changing, spontaneous and free will, there would be no such determinations possible without my explicit will determining it to be so.

You cannot have chosen that which was determined by definition. Therein lies the fallacy of this standard, common argument-type (i.e., "If God/Allah/etc., knew I was going to choose X, then...."). I cannot choose that which is determined, so to ask this question assumes it makes no sense.

I'm not sure I understand the objection. Choices to me aren't a matter of free wills, just a matter of wills. So whether a will is free or not, choices are still real and exist. Whether the will that chooses is determined or not is the matter, in my mind.

I'm not sure which logical contradictions you refer to, but existing outside spacetime is akin to the "block universe" or "tense" in that outcomes can be "known" from some reference frame or be true by definition a priori yet be chosen (self-determined).

I'm not sure what you mean here, but the logical contradiction I reference is something along the lines of:

God knows what I'm going to have for dinner tomorrow with certainty.
It is possible to have something for dinner tomorrow other than what God knows I will have.

Interesting question. The classical deists (such as Newton) practically invented science in order to show that such an entity existed (the watchmaker, who sets the cosmos in motion but then has no effect upon it).

They also failed to do so, not at inventing, but inventing to show.

Modern physics provides a myriad of possible answers, in that causation outside of our experienced dimension can occur via numerous mechanics, in including the structure of the cosmos itself. Thus there are a variety of mechanisms for something that doesn't exist in our dimension to influence it.

Explain.

 

[dust1n]

On the other hand, Charlie had full free will to make any choice he wanted on 2/17/17. And since G-d is outside of time, G-d knows that was the free choice that Charlie will make.

And certainly God knew that the only free choice Charlie was free to choose was the one God already knew in advanced Charlie would choose.

 

[Skwim]

You just do want to see the truth, do you? You don't have to turn left because God knows that is what you're going to do, God knows it because that is what you chose to do at that particular time. You chose to make a left for a reason, not just because God knew you were going to. You may have chose to make a left to go home, why would you have made a right? God knows you made a left and why you chose to.

Finally! Someone has hit the weak spot in the argument and clearly expressed it . Kudos to you. And it's the reason I've never used the argument in disproving free will.

 

[Akivah]

And certainly God knew that the only free choice Charlie was free to choose was the one God already knew in advanced Charlie would choose.

I don't see where that follows. G-d knew that Charlie had every choice available to him and also knew what choice Charlie ultimately did make. Why does knowing what choice was selected lead to a conclusion that only one choice was available?

 

[dust1n]

I don't see where that follows. G-d knew that Charlie had every choice available to him and also knew what choice Charlie ultimately did make.

The only choice that was available to Charlie was the one he ultimately did make. The only choice that is available to Charlie in the future is the one that he will make. Either future choices can be known or not. If they can be known, it's because they are concrete, certain, KNOWABLE. If they can't be known, than God doesn't know everything.

Why does knowing what choice was selected lead to a conclusion that only one choice was available?

Why does knowing what choice will be selected lead to a conclusion that the only choice that can be selected is the one that is previously known? It's because if the future choice has already been determined by God, than the choice is determined, one can't choose any of the other potential and "possible" undetermined choices.

 

[McBell]

A rebuttal based on coercion requires God being all powerful as well.

No, it doesn't

But ignoring whether or not God is coercing my will is the matter. It isn't necessary that God be controlling anything.

Correct, all he has to do is engage in coercion.

But his ability to have knowledge about the state of all future outcomes does say something about the nature of all future outcomes, namely, that they are determined.

Really, who "determined" the outcomes?
How did they coerce the outcome?

Otherwise, it would be impossible to know the future outcomes of agents of free will (non-determined wills).

Bold empty claim.

The question wouldn't be whether God has revealed the knowledge, but whether the knowledge was attainable or "revealable" in the first place, if that makes sense.

You will have to show how merely knowing something will happen removes the free will of those involved.
You have not done so.