Is it possible for you to do anything that God did not already know you would do?

[Kilgore Trout]

I'm leaving Enoch, but let me do you a favor. You can keep debating with me while I'm gone. Everytime you post, just respond with a quote from me saying "Wrong. Re-read the thread and try again." This will within 99.9% accuracy simulate my actually being present to respond to your posts.

 

[Enoch07]

I'm leaving Enoch, but let me do you a favor. You can keep debating with me while I'm gone. Everytime you post, just respond with a quote from me saying "Wrong. Re-read the thread and try again." This will within 99.9% accuracy simulate my actually being present to respond to your posts.

That is fine. It is proof you that you think you cannot be wrong. Even though you was proved wrong with your own words. Its called denial.

 

[JMorris]

That is fine. It is proof you that you think you cannot be wrong. Even though you was proved wrong with your own words. Its called denial.

lol, classic Enoch
you should have your own cartoon show

 

[Comicaze247]

That is fine. It is proof you that you think you cannot be wrong. Even though you was proved wrong with your own words. Its called denial.

Holy Facepalm, Batman.

 

[Beaudreaux]

Yes It is the decision you are guaranteed to make. But you had other options. No matter which option you choose it is always the guaranteed decision.

If the decision you will make in the future is guaranteed, then there are no other options.

 

[JMorris]

i wonder if he'll understand it the 1000th time its explained to him? my guess..........................................no

 

[Beaudreaux]

I guess you missed my original post where I answered it.

No.

But knowing what you WILL choose does not inhibit free will.

In any given situation, God knows well ahead of time the ONE thing you will do in that situation. By your own admission, any action other than that ONE thing is impossible. So, in any given situation, it is impossible for you do to anything other than the one thing God already knows you will do. This notion that He does not "make" you do it is specious and irrelevant.

All I'm trying to do is reconcile your paradox. There can be free will WITH an omniscient God IF the omniscience doesn't have intent.

Intent is irrelevant. You are trapped into what God foreknows. Perhaps we're just meat machines running the way we're supposed to run and we are SO simple to God that he knows ahead of time how the meat machine will react in any given situation. Does that mean that He "makes" us take certain actions? No. It means that He knows with absolute certainty what we will do, and that's the only thing we can do.

You can't decide the wrong option; but HOW that decision was reached is what I'm trying to point out to you. What was the motive behind the decision? If God is influencing your ability to choose, then we don't have free will. But if he isn't, and simply KNOWS what we decide, then we have free will WITH him being omniscient.

As I think I've demonstrated clearly, and as I believe you have admitted in the answer to the OP, this is not possible.

You don't have to agree with it, but it is correct in it's valid reconciliation of the paradox.

Well, I understand that you believe so, but I don't find your arguments compelling. The "He doesn't MAKE us do things" response, to me, is barely a step above "Nuh uh!"

If you can convince me omniscience has influence over free will, then I'll admit the paradox remains a paradox. Otherwise it's just a finished thought experiment.

See meat machine argument above.

 

[Beaudreaux]

Yes.

(OK, I have to add more 'cause it won't let me post this if I don't.)

So God does not know everything. Interesting......

 

[Beaudreaux]

Perhaps instead of insult, you could explain how timelessness inevitably leads to choice being impossible...

I have been thinking a lot about your proposed solution to this problem and I have to say that I don't think it works. Here is why.

Either we are bound by time or we are not. If we are, the paradox holds true. If we are not, then we are eternal in the same way that God is eternal and talking about how we have "already" made decisions has no meaning. The only possible solution would be pantheism akin to Storm's view of things, but even then God itself could not have free will and omniscience at the same time.

 

[Enoch07]

If the decision you will make in the future is guaranteed, then there are no other options.

Yes there is. If you have a choice of 4 options. No matter which you choose is gonna be the one that is guaranteed to happen. But that does not take away the fact that you made a decision between 4 options. That decision is free will in action.

 

[Kay]

There is no yet. There is no time.

I told my husband that once. He thought I was nutters. I was right though and so are you.

People have a tendency to see time like a road or a river, like something we travel or are carried along by. But there is no past and there is no future. There is just now.

I've tried to think up a visual aid to what I have in mind, but they all fall very short. A bubbling pot of water that is always active and always changing comes to mind, but I'm sure it could be deconstructed.

Any ideas?

 

[Kay]

indeed, we do always have options (i think), thats why the future cant exist prior to the present, and thus there cant be an omniscient god

I find myself wondering if some in this thread that argue God's omniscience are defining omniscience in a way different than the classic definition?

I don't use the term to describe God myself, but I might if I could radically change the definition from that laid out by philosophy.

N'ah. That would just be confusing. :sarcastic

 

[Kay]

So God does not know everything. Interesting......

I should have elaborated, but didn't have the motivation to do so at the time. Besides, you seemed to want a yes or no answer.

I think that God knows all that can be known, but I don't think that everything can be known, even by God. I think that God can make very wise and informed guesses, infinitely better guesses than we could ever make, but they are guesses nonetheless.

The future doesn't exist. It isn't a block that can be viewed from all sides, from beginning to end. Time is the way we describe change.

In this ever present now-ness, the sun is shining on the portion of the planet that I inhabit. When the sun is no longer doing so, I will use time laced descriptive terms (as I kinda just did) to describe that it is no longer shining. I will say "this morning" or "yesterday."

Yeah, I don't know if any of that made sense. :sarcastic

 

[Falvlun]

indeed, we do always have options (i think), thats why the future cant exist prior to the present, and thus there cant be an omniscient god

I think there is another way to look at this. As you yourself pointed out, the future cannot exist until the present occurs (ie, there is no future, there is only the now and the past.) This means that there is no future for God to know. Omniscience only means that God knows everything. How is logical to assume that "everything" includes those things that do not, or cannot, exist? For example, does being omniscient mean that God knows the gestation time of unicorns?

I think your argument is along the lines of those who claim that God is not omnipotent because he can't cook a burrito so hot that he can't eat it. It's simply a logical impossibility.

Granted, because God knows everything there is to know about the universe, he can make a really good educated guess as to what the future might be. But until the actual event occurs, there is nothing there for him to know.

 

[Beaudreaux]

Yes there is. If you have a choice of 4 options. No matter which you choose is gonna be the one that is guaranteed to happen. But that does not take away the fact that you made a decision between 4 options. That decision is free will in action.

OK....let's walk this through. You have four choices: A, B, C, and D. One of them is guaranteed ahead of time. For the sake of example let's say that it's "C". When the "decision" comes, can you choose "A"?

 

[Beaudreaux]

I told my husband that once. He thought I was nutters. I was right though and so are you.

People have a tendency to see time like a road or a river, like something we travel or are carried along by. But there is no past and there is no future. There is just now.

I've tried to think up a visual aid to what I have in mind, but they all fall very short. A bubbling pot of water that is always active and always changing comes to mind, but I'm sure it could be deconstructed.

Any ideas?

This is not very intuitive. There is ample experiential data to justify the past and the future. Every moment in my life, I am aware that there are future moments for me. I even plan for them. And I am constantly looking back to events in my past; analyzing them, reliving them. What is your reason for denying the existence of past and future?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

OK....let's walk this through. You have four choices: A, B, C, and D. One of them is guaranteed ahead of time. For the sake of example let's say that it's "C". When the "decision" comes, can you choose "A"?

Before going any further, I think we need to question the underlying assumption that he understands what the words "decision", "choice", and possible "is" mean.

 

[Beaudreaux]

I should have elaborated, but didn't have the motivation to do so at the time. Besides, you seemed to want a yes or no answer.

I think that God knows all that can be known, but I don't think that everything can be known, even by God. I think that God can make very wise and informed guesses, infinitely better guesses than we could ever make, but they are guesses nonetheless.

The future doesn't exist. It isn't a block that can be viewed from all sides, from beginning to end. Time is the way we describe change.

In this ever present now-ness, the sun is shining on the portion of the planet that I inhabit. When the sun is no longer doing so, I will use time laced descriptive terms (as I kinda just did) to describe that it is no longer shining. I will say "this morning" or "yesterday."

Yeah, I don't know if any of that made sense. :sarcastic

My dad told me a pretty bad joke in my youth (he was an older guy and I guess it was one of those 'you had to be there' jokes). It went something like this:

Q: What happens when the immovalbe object meets the unstoppable force?

A: There'll be hell to pay!
​

What this joke made me realize (other than that my father is no George Carlin) is that if there is an unstoppable force there can be no such thing as an immovable object. And if there is an immovable object, there can be no such thing as an unstoppable force.

Similarly, if there is an omniscient God, there can be no such thing as something that cannot be known and vica versa. Your conception of God speaks to a being who is more hightly evolved than us and nothing more than that.

 

[Beaudreaux]

I think there is another way to look at this. As you yourself pointed out, the future cannot exist until the present occurs (ie, there is no future, there is only the now and the past.) This means that there is no future for God to know. Omniscience only means that God knows everything. How is logical to assume that "everything" includes those things that do not, or cannot, exist? For example, does being omniscient mean that God knows the gestation time of unicorns?

I think your argument is along the lines of those who claim that God is not omnipotent because he can't cook a burrito so hot that he can't eat it. It's simply a logical impossibility.

Granted, because God knows everything there is to know about the universe, he can make a really good educated guess as to what the future might be. But until the actual event occurs, there is nothing there for him to know.

So, God is fallible. He might guess wrong about the future.

 

[HoldemDB9]

lol, classic Enoch
did you know according to Enoch, athiests/agnostics shouldnt be allowed on this forum? isnt that just cute?

Do you know that Enoch also said - "God is omnipotent, he knows everything, he just does not know which future you will ultimately choose."

He also said "Everyone either will or will not become Christian, therefore everyone has a 50% chance of becoming Christian."

Do you also know that Enoch has added multiple people to his ignore list once they have proved him wrong? You're talking to a brick wall, logic and common sense means absolutely nothing to Enoch. I still am not sure whether or not he is just playing one big game (like others have suspected), because I find it hard to believe that someone who is capable of signing up to an internet forum is this unbelievably stupid. Anyway even if you can bring yourself down to his level and prove him wrong in a way he understands, he will simply be dishonest, tell you he disagrees and then put you on his ignore list so that he does not have to look stupid any more.