Omniscience + Creator = No Free Will

[pray4me]

Let me see if I can explain this properly. God knows all possible outcomes of any one circumstance. Thus he is omniscient without controling which of those outcomes will actually occur. Since each outcome results from a different decision each of us make we still have free will. Things are not decided for us in our own lives and each of our lives could have or would have been different if we had made different decisions. If a friend of yours who knows you well predicts you will behave a certain way and you do, you still had free will in behaving that way. Free will is not effected by someone else's knowledge of your actions whether they be past present or future.

 

[Mr Cheese]

If it helps you, consider this: When people make claims about God, and they defend that claim by invoking logic or reason, then the validity of these reasons may be debated using logic and reason. Essentially, they have brought their concept of God into an arena (logic) that can be debated.

This, of course, does not define the true nature of God (or even whether God exists). It merely explores the reasons given for believing that God possesses particular attributes, and whether these reasons are logically sound.

Well I want ot argue that God has a bog tail, round ears and likes waering gloves.

So there...

"We see things as we are
Not as they are"

--Kahlil Gibran

But I understand... Personally I tend to think things like this subject are more 4 dimensional. they have a structure and shape but are constantly changing... like a quarternion...

If I were to say ‘I know God’, I would be a liar. God is beyond comprehension. Better to be silent and live in humility. If I were to say, ‘I do not know God’, I would also be a liar.

— Jean-Yves Leloup, Being Still: Reflections on an Ancient Mystical Tradition​

 

[Mr Cheese]

Let me see if I can explain this properly. God knows all possible outcomes of any one circumstance. Thus he is omniscient without controling which of those outcomes will actually occur. Since each outcome results from a different decision each of us make we still have free will. Things are not decided for us in our own lives and each of our lives could have or would have been different if we had made different decisions. If a friend of yours who knows you well predicts you will behave a certain way and you do, you still had free will in behaving that way. Free will is not effected by someone else's knowledge of your actions whether they be past present or future.

right,....

this falls under the concept that God knows best.

For example we may think we need a new tv and a shiny bible made from the skin of ostriches....

But, as God can see the bigger picture, God knows we actually need a radio and a copy of Harry Potter and the order of the wombat

 

[Dunemeister]

AFAIK these philosophers are more concerned with verifiability when it comes to this. This doesn’t arise if omniscience is assumed.

The issue isn't verifiability, it's the appropriacy of using truth language with future-oriented propositions.

There's a further problem with your laser-thin approach to this argument that is illustrated by the portion of my text you highlighted:

Thus God's knowledge of the future is much like ours - nonexistent - because he too must await history's unfolding before he can know the truth of a future-oriented proposition, which becomes true not as a future-oriented proposition but as a present or past-oriented proposition.

You attempt to use the underlined portion to assert that the issue is verifiability. To do so, you have to ignore what follows in the sentence, where I state that the statement BECOMES TRUE when the specified time passes. The sentence has no truth value BEFORE THAT TIME. After that time, it has a truth value. Again, although I used the word "know", the issue is the appropriacy of the use of truth language. You have yet to explain how it is that talk of truth values is appropriate for future-oriented propositions.

How does the following statement lack a truth value?:
It will rain on the 1st January 2010 outside my house.
It is either true or false. Just because we cannot determine which doesn’t alter the fact that such a statement is either true or false. I really do not see how you can argue that a statement like this cannot have a truth value.

It lacks a truth value because it hasn't happened yet. To see this, let's consider what it takes for a propostion to even have a truth value.

You can think of statements as having a truth value ranging from 0 (completely false in every particular) to 1 (completely true in every particular). This of course means that a statement can be partly true and partly false. Consider the proposition:

CF: Dunemeister HAD granola and yoghurt for breakfast this morning.

CF might have a truth value of, say, 0.5 if in fact I had yoghurt without the granola. This is pretty straightforward about propositions about the past, and it has nothing to do with their verifiability. For instance, you might want to know whether CF is true and launch an investigation. Unfortunately, you cannot verify the truth of CF because I'm dead, the house where I'm alleged to have eaten the Corn Flakes has burnt down, or whatever. Nevertheless, it makes plain sense to say that CF HAS a truth value even though we cannot determine what it is. The reason for this is plain. What makes CF true? Well, it's true (has a truth value of 1) if and only if I DID in fact act as CF describes, whether or not we can determine the truth value of the proposition.

I'm alleging that if CF is changed to point to the future, as in my earlier proposition

D: Dunemeister WILL HAVE granola and yoghurt for breakfast tomorrow morning

it's not as clear that it's even possible to assign a truth value because the alleged events haven't happened. The question is what are the truth conditions for a future-oriented proposition? In order to show that future-oriented propositions can even have a truth value, you need to give an account of what the truth conditions for such a proposition might be.

 

[Copernicus]

It lacks a truth value because it hasn't happened yet. To see this, let's consider what it takes for a propostion to even have a truth value.

This claim is just plain false. Truth values do not depend on whether or not an event has happened. Claims can lack truth value, but only under conditions of presupposition failure, for example when a speech act fails to carry off. Examples include famous paradoxes such as Russell's Liar's Paradox: "This sentence is false." Claims made about the future are not of the same sort. They are not paradoxes.

You have claimed that you are not relying on the verification theory of truth conditions. Can you name a source for your philosophical claims?

 

[themadhair]

Why do you require both premises?

I think you can see why creator doesn’t, on its own, pose a threat to free will.

For omniscience, assuming no interference whatsoever, I don’t think is sufficient either on its own. Free will is based upon the idea that people, in and of themselves, make their own choices. In other words, in the absence of any external force/interference, omniscience doesn’t impinge that IMO. The instant that an omniscient being interferes it becomes a different matter, since that act of interference would lead to determinism.

It makes sense in my head anyways.

You attempt to use the underlined portion to assert that the issue is verifiability. To do so, you have to ignore what follows in the sentence, where I state that the statement BECOMES TRUE when the specified time passes.

The statement does not become true – it IS true. We, as non-omniscient beings, only have verification on the truth value after the event occurs. I totally reject that the proposition has no truth value before the event – this is a verifiably problem not a truth value problem.

You have yet to explain how it is that talk of truth values is appropriate for future-oriented propositions.

A statement made regarding the future is either true or false. It therefore has a truth value, albeit one that we, as non-omniscient beings, don’t know and cannot verify. Simple as that.

 

[logician]

. God knows all possible outcomes of any one circumstance. Thus he is omniscient without controling which of those outcomes will actually occur. .

Where does answering prayer fit into this scheme you have drawn up.

 

[Copernicus]

For omniscience, assuming no interference whatsoever, I don’t think is sufficient either on its own. Free will is based upon the idea that people, in and of themselves, make their own choices. In other words, in the absence of any external force/interference, omniscience doesn’t impinge that IMO. The instant that an omniscient being interferes it becomes a different matter, since that act of interference would lead to determinism.

I am more in agreement with Falvlun on this particular issue. Omniscience in and of itself implies a determined future. What the creator part does is fix responsibility. God knowingly created this reality with all of its outcomes. Therefore, God assumes responsibility for every event that occurs, especially if God retains the right to interfere, which the Abrahamic god has.

 

[Dunemeister]

This claim is just plain false. Truth values do not depend on whether or not an event has happened. Claims can lack truth value, but only under conditions of presupposition failure, for example when a speech act fails to carry off. Examples include famous paradoxes such as Russell's Liar's Paradox: "This sentence is false." Claims made about the future are not of the same sort. They are not paradoxes.

Paradoxes DO have a truth value. 0. That is, paradoxes such as the liar's paradox is false because it's self-refuting. I'm trying to say that talk of truth values is inappropriate for some kinds of sentences. For instance, there's no truth about Captain America because he's a fictional character. No paradox is involved here, just a sort of discourse about which truth is not relevant.

You have claimed that you are not relying on the verification theory of truth conditions. Can you name a source for your philosophical claims?

Not specifically. We handled this sort of issue at university from several different angles during different courses, usually courses on metaphysics and epistemology (or both). Most of the source material used were academic journal articles, not books, and I regret to say I didn't keep any of the photocopied journal articles.

It's also true that I've been out of the game now for more than a decade, so I'm a bit rusty. Lastly, I should point out that I don't actually hold to the view that I'm arguing for; I'm raising it because Mr Emu has been doing a stellar job on the assumption that propositions about the future have truth values. Hopefully themadhair is getting a good workout.

 

[Dunemeister]

Where does answering prayer fit into this scheme you have drawn up.

Interesting but not relevant to the thread (as usual).

 

[Dunemeister]

A statement made regarding the future is either true or false. It therefore has a truth value, albeit one that we, as non-omniscient beings, don’t know and cannot verify. Simple as that.

HOW does it have a truth value? Under what conditions can a future-oriented proposition be true or false (this is quite a seperate issue from how or whether we can verify or determine its truth value)? You can't assume the truth of what's at issue. That's begging the question.

 

[Copernicus]

Paradoxes DO have a truth value. 0. That is, paradoxes such as the liar's paradox is false because it's self-refuting. I'm trying to say that talk of truth values is inappropriate for some kinds of sentences. For instance, there's no truth about Captain America because he's a fictional character. No paradox is involved here, just a sort of discourse about which truth is not relevant.

The Liar's Paradox is neither true nor false. It is just that languages cannot contain self-referring statements. This particular paradox led philosophers to recognize a distinction between object language and metalanguage. Look, you need to understand that symbolic logics have traditionally (but not always) been bivalent logical systems. That is, all statements in formal logic are considered true or false. There is no third value, and there is no conceptual recognition of "speech acts", which are characteristic of natural languages. It wasn't until John Austin's seminal monograph, How to Do Things with Words, in the late 1950's that philosophers (and later linguists) came to develop Speech Act Theory and a deeper understanding of the nature of presupposition.

Not specifically. We handled this sort of issue at university from several different angles during different courses, usually courses on metaphysics and epistemology (or both). Most of the source material used were academic journal articles, not books, and I regret to say I didn't keep any of the photocopied journal articles.

Fair enough, but your undergraduate education (not sure of the term for pre-graduate education in Australia) was too limited. You did not really specialize in the history and development of the 20th century English tradition in linguistic philosophy and the fundamental split between Ordinary Language Philosophy and Ideal Language Philosophy (aka "Analytic Philosophy"). Both schools of philosophy held that philosophical problems were largely caused by language. OL philosophers argued that they were caused by improper use of natural language, and IL philosophers argued that natural language itself was deficient and needed to be replaced by a formal "logical" language that did not permit paradoxical statements. These two schools represented a dominant trend in 20th century English-based philosophy. IL philosophers went on to develop and refine elaborate formal/mathematical logics. OL philosophers went on to develop and refine speech act theories.

It's also true that I've been out of the game now for more than a decade, so I'm a bit rusty. Lastly, I should point out that I don't actually hold to the view that I'm arguing for; I'm raising it because Mr Emu has been doing a stellar job on the assumption that propositions about the future have truth values. Hopefully themadhair is getting a good workout.

We disagree on the success of Mr. Emu's efforts against the estimable themadhair. Indeed, I think that both Mr. Emu's arguments and yours reduce to the absurdity that autonomous robots have free will, because they make their own decisions. But your argument that future statements lack truth values is fundamentally flawed. They have truth values. They just are not verifiable at the time of utterance. Themadhair has been quite clear and accurate on pointing this out.

 

[Falvlun]

HOW does it have a truth value? Under what conditions can a future-oriented proposition be true or false (this is quite a seperate issue from how or whether we can verify or determine its truth value)? You can't assume the truth of what's at issue. That's begging the question.

So, I decided to do some poking around on this problem. It makes sense to me that a future proposition can not have a truth value, but I wanted to see the actual philosophical arguments for or against. (This was assuming that the future doesn't exist; if it does exist, then I see no problem with a truth-value associated with it.)

Truth (Scroll down to "Problem Cases" number 2)
This link gives a very thorough overview of Truth in all its philosophical manifestations. The specific paragraph that deals with future-propositions states that while it has been a popular view to hold that future propositions do not have a truth value, this creates mayhem with our current logic system and produces strange results when put into practice.

Logical Determinism (scroll down to this title on the page)
This link gives Aristotle's example of why assigning a truth value to a future proposition is problematic. It then gives 3 proposals (as well as the objections to these proposals.)

I do find the author's ultimate acceptance of proposal 3 (as a solution that allows free-will to exist while allowing future propositions to have a truth value) to be lacking, to say the least. But it would be interesting to see if others think this is a viable solution to the free-will/future knowledge conundrum.

 

[Dunemeister]

Logical Determinism (scroll down to this title on the page)
This link gives Aristotle's example of why assigning a truth value to a future proposition is problematic. It then gives 3 proposals (as well as the objections to these proposals.)

I do find the author's ultimate acceptance of proposal 3 (as a solution that allows free-will to exist while allowing future propositions to have a truth value) to be lacking, to say the least. But it would be interesting to see if others think this is a viable solution to the free-will/future knowledge conundrum.

Right, well as I've been trying to say, apparently in a more clumsy fashion than Aristotle (who knew?) THIS is the actual problem, not omniscience, and not creation or the conjunction of those. God's happening to know the truth value of propositions doesn't make them true. God can't know them unless they're true. Their truth is primary, and God's knowledge hangs on their truth. So once again, it is not God who determines our actions by knowing what they'll be, but it is we who determine God's knowledge by doing what we do.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

This actually gave me an idea for an actual logical solution:

Before we're all born, we sit down with god and go through our whole upcoming life, pre-determining all our decisions. Once they're all scripted, our memories are erased, we're born, and we follow through on our pre-determined course - yet, we actually exercised free-will in making the decisions initially.

Finally, a logical solution.

I guess if you want something done right, you do have to do it for yourself.

Unfortunately, this just pushes the problem further back. It follows that God would know what choices you would choose to pre-determine your life even before you sat down with him.

Good point. Unless, god wasn't omniscient before the universe began - he became omniscient through memorizing all the pre-determined choices before starting the universe.

But, assuming that god was always omniscient, this solution is shot as well. I guess there is no logical refutation of the incompatibility of omniscience and free-will. Rats.

 

[Wandered Off]

God's happening to know the truth value of propositions doesn't make them true. God can't know them unless they're true. Their truth is primary, and God's knowledge hangs on their truth. So once again, it is not God who determines our actions by knowing what they'll be, but it is we who determine God's knowledge by doing what we do.

I agree that foreknowledge would not cause the future. It would instead be a potential effect of a pre-existent future. A pre-existent future, which is a necessary condition for foreknowledge, is what interferes with free will. That God or anyone else might become aware of it is incidental.

If it can be known before you think you determine it, then you didn't determine it.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Logical Determinism (scroll down to this title on the page)
This link gives Aristotle's example of why assigning a truth value to a future proposition is problematic. It then gives 3 proposals (as well as the objections to these proposals.)

I do find the author's ultimate acceptance of proposal 3 (as a solution that allows free-will to exist while allowing future propositions to have a truth value) to be lacking, to say the least. But it would be interesting to see if others think this is a viable solution to the free-will/future knowledge conundrum.

Nope, it's merely a strawman. The argument isn't that foreknowledge causes the events, but that absolute foreknowlege of an event means that the event is already fixed, and therefore, allows for no choice.

 

[CarlinKnew]

After some thinking I've concluded that an omniscient creator does not necessarily negate free will. Knowledge can only be of things that have existed, do exist, or will definitely exist. In other words, an omniscient creator does not necessarily know the future (thank you, those in this thread who've helped me understand that).

In order for an omniscient mind to know the future, one of two cases must be:

a)The laws of nature are deterministic, and no supernatural forces interfere with the universe.
b)Eternity exists. If eternity exists, all events in time have already happened from the perspective of eternity.

I think the thread title should be "Eternity + Creator = No Free Will" or simply "Eternity = No Free Will"

 

[CarlinKnew]

After some thinking I've concluded that an omniscient creator does not necessarily negate free will. Knowledge can only be of things that have existed, do exist, or will definitely exist. In other words, an omniscient creator does not necessarily know the future (thank you, those in this thread who've helped me understand that).

In order for an omniscient mind to know the future, one of two cases must be:

a)The laws of nature are deterministic, and no supernatural forces interfere with the universe.

Thinking further, the laws of nature must be deterministic if created by an omniscient creator (looks like the title is accurate afterall), because an omniscient creator could not, by definition, create anything nearly like randomness, and no supernatural force could occur that the omniscient creator didn't know about. Therefore, an omniscient creator must know the future with absolute certainty, so free will cannot exist if an omniscient creator exists.

 

[Copernicus]

Truth (Scroll down to "Problem Cases" number 2)
This link gives a very thorough overview of Truth in all its philosophical manifestations. The specific paragraph that deals with future-propositions states that while it has been a popular view to hold that future propositions do not have a truth value, this creates mayhem with our current logic system and produces strange results when put into practice.

It is important to note that that section explains why most philosophers reject the idea that future statements lack truth values. In fact, the idea reduces to absurdity, as Quine pointed out in the last century. The idea that they might not have truth values grew out of the idea that truth was determined by verifiability, which was a popular idea in the first half of the last century. The relationships between logical determinism and "truth values" of future sentences is a 20th century interpretation of Aristotle's conundrum as a problem rooted in language.

Logical Determinism (scroll down to this title on the page)
This link gives Aristotle's example of why assigning a truth value to a future proposition is problematic. It then gives 3 proposals (as well as the objections to these proposals.)

Er, no. That's not quite accurate. There was not objection to the third proposal, which (I agree with the author) was the best. And, BTW, note that Aristotle's argument (when converted to a 20th century argument about "truth values") actually abstracts away from the semantics of the sentence. A statement about the future becomes a "tenseless" proposition, which is then examined outside the context of a speech act. Approached in that fashion, one invalidates the presuppositional context (what Austin referred to as "felicity conditions"). Claims based on false or invalid presuppositions do lack truth value. The philosophical problem, not surprisingly, seems to have arisen from a fundamental misanalysis of natural language.

I do find the author's ultimate acceptance of proposal 3 (as a solution that allows free-will to exist while allowing future propositions to have a truth value) to be lacking, to say the least. But it would be interesting to see if others think this is a viable solution to the free-will/future knowledge conundrum.

Yes, this is a well-known philosophical position in free-will debates that is called compatibilism. That is, in fact, my own position and that of a great many modern philosophers (e.g. Daniel Dennett).