Omniscience + Creator = No Free Will

[CarlinKnew]

I disagree that knowing the properties/procedures/relationships is sufficient to know the future. Newtonian mechanics, for example, isn’t deterministic in and of itself. I don’t believe that omniscience on its own is sufficient for determinism.

We agree to disagree then. What appears random to us cannot be truly 'random'. Randomness is simply a lack of known information.

 

[Dunemeister]

How is foreknowledge illogical anyhow? I haven’t seen established and really don’t see how it is illogical or contradictory.

Well, here's the argument presented by those who advance this view. The question is what makes a future-oriented proposition true or false. If the events described in the proposition haven't happened yet, how can it be true or false? Its truth or falsity awaits the events described. So on this view, future-oriented propositions CANNOT have a truth value. It's logically impossible. And if they can't have a truth value, they cannot be known, even by God, for knowledge essentially depends on truth.

So then, let's reconsider the issue of omnipotence. God can't (doesn't have the power to) make a rock so large that even he can't lift it because the situation called for involves a logical contradiction. Similarly, because propositions about the future have no truth value, they cannot be objects of knowledge either. We therefore cannot say that God's lack of knowledge of them constitutes a problem for his omniscience.

Let me just say that I don't hold this particular view. However, I recognize that it's a viable philosophical option, and it appears you haven't considered it. Mr Emu has done a good job explaining how omniscience and creation don't add up to determinism for God or anyone else. My point about the truth value of future-oriented propositions shows that there are assumptions about how truth works lurking behind your puzzle, assumptions that are very questionable.

I think this follows from the concept of omniscience. If future orientated propositions cannot have a truth value then omniscience, as a concept, fails. What you have done is to essentially redefine omniscience to be the set absolute knowledge less foreknowledge.

It's not a change in meaning, it's a clarification. Just as the person claiming God can't be omnipotent because he can't make a rock so heavy even he can't lift it is making a mistake about the concept of omnipotence, so is the one who claims God's ignorance of the truth value of future-oriented propositions makes him not omniscient is making a mistake about what the concept of omnisicence means. To move forward on this debate, you have to give an account of truth such that it makes perfect sense to ascribe truth value to propositions about the future.

All-knowing seems a pretty simple concept to me. At the moment you are making the claim that future knowledge is illogical in some way. Care to elaborate on that in case I am missing something?

All-knowing is "simple" only inasmuch as knowledge itself is simple. And knowledge isn't simple by a long shot. During my university studies, I focussed almost all my attention on epistemology, theory of knowledge. Although that doesn't make me an expert, it provides me the background to see how tricky the idea of knowledge actually is. We throw around words like "all-knowing" thinking we know what we're talking about when we don't. We don't know what "knowing" means, so what makes us think we know what "all-knowing" means?

 

[CarlinKnew]

It's still freewill. We are allowed to make choices. Look, if you are at a stop light and just blindly go thru the intersection you are most likely going to get clobbered especially when traffic is present. That is a choice and you know the potential consequences. Just as it is equally possible to not get hit while waiting for your light to turn green, another choice. However, with each choice is a set of consequences intended or not.

Matt

Everyone knows that we make choices, but freewill is different, it's some vague spiritual idea that rational agents make choices that are somehow free from cause. It's an absurd notion in a deterministic universe.

 

[spacejanitor]

Everyone knows that we make choices, but freewill is different, it's some vague spiritual idea that rational agents make choices that are somehow free from cause. It's an absurd notion in a deterministic universe.

I agree....every choice has a cause, a reaction or a consequence. I can't think of any passage in the bible, or Quran that says otherwise.

 

[MoonWater]

Everyone knows that we make choices, but freewill is different, it's some vague spiritual idea that rational agents make choices that are somehow free from cause. It's an absurd notion in a deterministic universe.

:no:, this is not what free will is at all. Free will IS the ability to choose what it is we do. Hence there usually is a cause or an initial action and we choose how to react to that. One cause with many actions for us to choose from in response.

 

[CarlinKnew]

:no:, this is not what free will is at all. Free will IS the ability to choose what it is we do. Hence there usually is a cause or an initial action and we choose how to react to that. One cause with many actions for us to choose from in response.

You are describing choice, not free will.

Free will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Copernicus]

Well, here's the argument presented by those who advance this view. The question is what makes a future-oriented proposition true or false. If the events described in the proposition haven't happened yet, how can it be true or false? Its truth or falsity awaits the events described. So on this view, future-oriented propositions CANNOT have a truth value. It's logically impossible. And if they can't have a truth value, they cannot be known, even by God, for knowledge essentially depends on truth.

I don't see how such a view can be a reasonable philosophical position. Truth is a relationship between a proposition and a possible world, whether that world is real or not. For example, one can say things that are true or false about a character in a novel, even though the events that determine the truth have not happened and will not happen. The future is just another possible world. Truth does not depend on whether or not a proposition can be validated in the real world. That kind of positivist argument died out among philosophers in the early and mid-20th century.

But this argument has no applicability to the Christian God, which is imagined to exist outside of human time reference. One could argue this case only if God were stuck in our time reference.

So then, let's reconsider the issue of omnipotence. God can't (doesn't have the power to) make a rock so large that even he can't lift it because the situation called for involves a logical contradiction. Similarly, because propositions about the future have no truth value, they cannot be objects of knowledge either. We therefore cannot say that God's lack of knowledge of them constitutes a problem for his omniscience.

You keep applying this argument, which you admit that you do not accept, to God, as if you did accept the validity of the argument and its applicability to God. :areyoucra

Let me just say that I don't hold this particular view...

Yet you offer it as a counter-argument here? You are trying to have it both ways--backing away from it at the same time that you embrace it.

However, I recognize that it's a viable philosophical option, and it appears you haven't considered it. Mr Emu has done a good job explaining how omniscience and creation don't add up to determinism for God or anyone else. My point about the truth value of future-oriented propositions shows that there are assumptions about how truth works lurking behind your puzzle, assumptions that are very questionable.

Very questionable? But you rejected the basis for questioning it! Nobody has been considering this argument because it is incompatible with the idea that God is bound to perceive time in the same way that we do. If he couldn't know the future, then how could he pass on revealed knowledge about it to humans? Nothing you have said here is consistent with the God that we have been talking about.

It's not a change in meaning, it's a clarification. Just as the person claiming God can't be omnipotent because he can't make a rock so heavy even he can't lift it is making a mistake about the concept of omnipotence, so is the one who claims God's ignorance of the truth value of future-oriented propositions makes him not omniscient is making a mistake about what the concept of omnisicence means. To move forward on this debate, you have to give an account of truth such that it makes perfect sense to ascribe truth value to propositions about the future.

He and others have done that. God exists outside of our time reference. He does not perceive the flow of the time "arrow" in the same linear sense that we do. You have created a strawman God just so that you can knock over the argument. Do you worship the strawman God, too?

All-knowing is "simple" only inasmuch as knowledge itself is simple. And knowledge isn't simple by a long shot. During my university studies, I focussed almost all my attention on epistemology, theory of knowledge. Although that doesn't make me an expert, it provides me the background to see how tricky the idea of knowledge actually is. We throw around words like "all-knowing" thinking we know what we're talking about when we don't. We don't know what "knowing" means, so what makes us think we know what "all-knowing" means?

It has been said that philosophers are people who don't take common sense for an answer, and I think that you have qualified yourself in that regard here. You have advanced a very shaky epistemological argument, which you yourself do not accept, and applied it to a strawman version of God that has been explicitly rejected by Christians. How can you seriously offer it against the argument in the OP?

 

[MoonWater]

Because being ‘all-knowing’ involves knowing everything. Knowledge of future events seems to be knowledge.

I guess you did miss my point about using the word "foreknowledge" "for lack of a better word". My whole post was about whether or not foreknowledge is even logically possible so I thought that would be clear(especially since I pointed it out to you) but I guess not.

My definition is “all-knowing”. If one is not “all-knowing” then one is not omniscient.


Because it would render the concept of “all-knowing” impossible. If there is things unknown and unknowable then “all-knowing” is trivally false.

Why? If it is "unknowable" then it can't exist as knowledge. If it can't exist as knowledge then how can it have any bearing on omniscience?

The future and knowledge of the future are different things. For example, the past doesn’t exist but knowledge of the past does exist (did I mention I don’t like applying the term exist to knowledge?).


I’m arguing that this follows from omniscience.


I believe that determinism stems from the OP’s premises. In the above you considered the omniscience but neglected the creator aspect.

How have I neglected the creator aspect? Please show me.

This may seem anal but bear with me. A thing, and knowledge regarding that thing, are different. The future doesn’t have a truth value since it makes no sense to assign a truth value to it – but knowledge of the future may have a truth value. I think I understand what you are saying but it is possible that the conflation of the future with knowledge of the future is making me misunderstand some of your argument.

you just contradicted yourself. If the future itself has no truth value how can knowledge of the future hope to hold any truth value? If knowledge of the future holds truth value, that is what will happen can be known then that would also mean that the future that is known will happen regardless(otherwise it wouldn't be a known it would be a hypothesis or prediction that turned out false). If it will happen regardless, if it is already set in stone, then the future itself would have a truth value to it as there is no other possible way for the future to play out.

 

[MoonWater]

You are describing choice, not free will.

Free will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions.

hmm... did you even read the article as it seems to be defining free will as the ability to choose.

Of course there is also:

1. The ability or discretion to choose; free choice: chose to remain behind of my own free will.
2. The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will.

1. the ability to make a choice without outside coercion or pressure: you walked in here of your own free will
2. Philosophy the belief that human behaviour is an expression of personal choice and is not determined by physical forces, Fate, or God

free will in philosophy, the doctrine that an individual, regardless of forces external to him, can and does choose at least some of his actions.

seems to be about choice to me.

 

[Copernicus]

...If the future itself has no truth value how can knowledge of the future hope to hold any truth value?...

Truth values are relationships between a proposition (or statement) and a possible world. Reality is just one "possible world" in which statements can be true. We can make statements about the future that are true or false, depending on what the future world is like. It is utterly nonsensical to say that statements about the future have no truth value. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what "true" means.

The problem you are having here is the same one that Dunemeister has. You must posit a strawman version of God that lives in the same limited time reference that humans do. God's past and future must be the same as ours, and he accompanies us in our travels through time. Nevertheless, the Bible clearly has God predicting future events and communicating those events to prophets. So this version of God contradicts the conventional concept of the Christian God.

 

[CarlinKnew]

hmm... did you even read the article as it seems to be defining free will as the ability to choose.

Did you?

from the article: The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions.

Key phrase: control over their actions and decisions. In other words, control over their choices. It's granted that we make choices, the question of free will is if those choices are caused or if we somehow make them freely.

Of course there is also:

answers.com: The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will.

Read the rest of the above definition, not just the bold part.

thefreedictionary.com:

1. the ability to make a choice without outside coercion or pressure: you walked in here of your own free will
2. Philosophy the belief that human behaviour is an expression of personal choice and is not determined by physical forces, Fate, or God

Again, Read the rest of the above definition, not just the bold part.

encyclopedia.com:
free will in philosophy, the doctrine that an individual, regardless of forces external to him, can and does choose at least some of his actions.

Yet again, read the rest of the above definition, not just the bold part.

seems to be about choice to me.

It is about choice free from cause.

 

[MoonWater]

Truth values are relationships between a proposition (or statement) and a possible world. Reality is just one "possible world" in which statements can be true. We can make statements about the future that are true or false, depending on what the future world is like. It is utterly nonsensical to say that statements about the future have no truth value. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what "true" means.

To take your example of the character in the novel into account there is a big difference here. The character in the novel is clearly defined by the novel. You may not have the character himself as proof but you have the novel which tells about him. His character is already "written" already "set in stone" by the novel itself. As for the future, unless you wish to claim that we live in a deterministic universe then the future itself is not "written" nor "set in stone" until it actually happens. We can make claims about what will happen and they may end up being true or false, but we won't know for certain until the future comes to pass.

The problem you are having here is the same one that Dunemeister has. You must posit a strawman version of God that lives in the same limited time reference that humans do. God's past and future must be the same as ours, and he accompanies us in our travels through time. Nevertheless, the Bible clearly has God predicting future events and communicating those events to prophets. So this version of God contradicts the conventional concept of the Christian God.

I do not believe in the christian concept of god nor have I been trying to argue this from that perspective nor was this argument at any point in the OP limited to the christian concept of god. And how does having a god that is defined differently from the christian version of god make said god a "strawman"? You do know that the christian concept is not the only concept of god right? Do you wish to claim that the christian concept of god is the only god that could be valid?

 

[themadhair]

It's still freewill. We are allowed to make choices.

Not if those choice were already made for us. Care to address the actual argument now?

What appears random to us cannot be truly 'random'. Randomness is simply a lack of known information.

That is why I referenced Newtonian mechanics. You can construct a non-deterministic scenario under Newtonian mechanics – one where you have complete knowledge and yet are unable to determine the outcome.

The question is what makes a future-oriented proposition true or false. If the events described in the proposition haven't happened yet, how can it be true or false? Its truth or falsity awaits the events described.

Just because we, as non-omniscient beings, cannot determine the truth value of a given proposition on the future doesn’t make it impossible for that proposition to have a truth value. What you seem to be doing is arguing against a concept of omniscience from a non-omniscient perspective.

So on this view, future-oriented propositions CANNOT have a truth value. It's logically impossible.

This doesn’t follow. The inability to verify a truth value doesn’t render existence of that truth value illogical.

And if they can't have a truth value, they cannot be known, even by God, for knowledge essentially depends on truth.

This is again arguing against omniscience.

So then, let's reconsider the issue of omnipotence. God can't (doesn't have the power to) make a rock so large that even he can't lift it because the situation called for involves a logical contradiction. Similarly, because propositions about the future have no truth value, they cannot be objects of knowledge either.

The analogy is flawed because foreknowledge isn’t a logical contradiction. You are claiming the non-existence of a truth value based upon an inability of a non-omniscient being to verify it. Also – in your flawed analogy you are using definitionally contradictory concepts, which are in no way analogous to foreknowledge.

However, I recognize that it's a viable philosophical option, and it appears you haven't considered it.

The argument on the OP rests entirely upon its premises (like any other argument). What you are doing is creating a reduced version of omniscience in order to argue against its conclusions. If omniscience is a false concept then the argument doesn’t hold. I understand that. But I don’t get why you are reducing omniscience from its definition of ‘all-knowing’ while trying to pretend you are not doing so.

My point about the truth value of future-oriented propositions shows that there are assumptions about how truth works lurking behind your puzzle, assumptions that are very questionable.

As pointed out, although never explicitly stated, my assumptions are based upon the definition of omniscience to be “all-knowing”. By arguing against future-orientated propositions you are arguing for a piece of knowledge to be beyond the grasp of an “all-knowing” being.

It's not a change in meaning, it's a clarification.

Redefining omniscience to be anything other than all-knowing is changing its meaning.

Just as the person claiming God can't be omnipotent because he can't make a rock so heavy even he can't lift it is making a mistake about the concept of omnipotence,

This analogy is false for reasons stated previously. Let me give you comparable analogy. Can a being be omniscience if it cannot know how to not know? This is example is a similar definitional contradiction to your analogy.

so is the one who claims God's ignorance of the truth value of future-oriented propositions makes him not omniscient is making a mistake about what the concept of omnisicence means.

I am not the one using and/or arguing for a scenario in which all-knowing does not mean all-knowing.

To move forward on this debate, you have to give an account of truth such that it makes perfect sense to ascribe truth value to propositions about the future.

Not if the concept follows directly from the definition of omniscience and there is no logical contradiction involved.

All-knowing is "simple" only inasmuch as knowledge itself is simple. And knowledge isn't simple by a long shot.

I don’t disagree with this. But I don’t see how what you are doing isn’t arguing against the concept of omniscience.

We don't know what "knowing" means, so what makes us think we know what "all-knowing" means?

I’ll bite on this and take the following tack. I’ll define omniscience a bit more rigorously for you, and in so doing will leave you to define knowledge:

Absolute knowledge set – the set of knowledge that cannot be added, a set such that every set of knowledge is a subset.
Omniscience – to possess the absolute knowledge set.

 

[MoonWater]

Did you?



Key phrase: control over their actions and decisions. In other words, control over their choices. It's granted that we make choices, the question of free will is if those choices are caused or if we somehow make them freely.



Read the rest of the above definition, not just the bold part.



Again, Read the rest of the above definition, not just the bold part.




Yet again, read the rest of the above definition, not just the bold part.




It is about choice free from cause.

I did read the whole definitions. I guess you and I just view them differently.

 

[MoonWater]

themadhair, we are not trying to redefine omniscience but rather determine what exactly qualifies as knowledge. If something doesn't qualify as knowledge then why should one be required to "know" it in order to be "all-knowing"? Heck a better question would be how CAN one know that which does not qualify as knowledge?

 

[CarlinKnew]

I did read the whole definitions. I guess you and I just view them differently.

Well, it's not just a matter of opinion. It is stated very clearly in the definition that freewill is the ability to make choices free from external cause. You may disagree with the definition, but that is the definition.

 

[themadhair]

If something doesn't qualify as knowledge then why should one be required to "know" it in order to be "all-knowing"?

There are two things that spring to mind here. Firstly, foreknowledge would seem to qualify as much as past knowledge IMO. Secondly, and this is a potential problem in being able to even have this discussion, but aren’t we arguing over limitations of knowledge from a non-omniscient perspective?

Heck a better question would be how CAN one know that which does not qualify as knowledge?

Aside from logical consistency, good question.

 

[themadhair]

Well, it's not just a matter of opinion. It is stated very clearly in the definition that freewill is the ability to make choices free from external cause. You may disagree with the definition, but that is the definition.

But doesn’t this imply than an omniscient being that doesn’t interfere in any way to be an external agent doesn’t necessarily contradict free will?

 

[CarlinKnew]

But doesn’t this imply than an omniscient being that doesn’t interfere in any way to be an external agent doesn’t necessarily contradict free will?

If a creator is omniscient then he knows the future. If the future is knowable then the future exists. If the future exists then the future is the external force which determines our actions.

 

[spacejanitor]

If a creator is omniscient then he knows the future. If the future is knowable then the future exists. If the future exists then the future is the external force which determines our actions.

The past actually holds more significance to our present day and to our future than our future does to our future.