What causes people to choose what they choose?

[Nimos]

Why wouldn't there be any free will in that case?

It follows the same logic as with the foreknowledge.

<Known future>
God knows this one, which is the state of everything at a given point in time. So every atom, human, animal, planets etc.

<Past events> ---> <Known future>

The <Known future> is fixed, this is what will happen because that is what God knows and in order for this to happen, all <Past events> must lead to this future. Therefore all <Past events> must also be fixed as well, because if they weren't God couldn't know the future.

If God know that in the <Known future>, your car is red, then it doesn't work if you buy a green car. Then God would simply be wrong about knowing the future. In which case the <Known future> would be that your car were green.

And as he write:
"Our choices aren't made until we make them, as far as we are concerned .. God's ability to see the future does not change this."

Either he is correct about this, if what he means is that we have an illusion of choice and we simply perceive it as if we have free will. But if he however means that God's ability to see the future, wouldn't interfere with this and that we would have true free will, then that wouldn't work as explained above.

Yes, you will buy a red car if God knew you would buy a red car, but...
If you bought a blue car, God would have known you would buy a blue car...
If you bought a green car, God would have known you would buy a green car...
If you bought a purple car, God would have known you would buy a purple car...
If you bought a brown car, God would have known you would buy a brown car...
If you bought a orange car, God would have known you would buy a orange car...

Now don't forget, you were the one who said this was fun.

You actually demonstrated what I just said above here as well

As I explained and you agreed with in one of the former posts were that it is not the same, for God to know the future and simply adapt to it. Another person here made a similar argument using variables and that God knows all these. But the problem is that if God's <Known Future> simply changes every time we make a choice to fit that, then it is not worth anything. Then he have no foreknowledge, but is simply capable of saying "I knew that were a possibility or I told you so" after the event have already taken place.

But everyone can do that, you don't have to be God to do it.

 

[firedragon]

That is probably me, I was born to worry... Since my parents never talked to me it cannot be nurture.

Its not only parents that nurture.

 

[muhammad_isa]

.. it did become a little clearer when @muhammad_isa stated that those with opinions different to his should not participate in the discussion...

I said nothing of the kind.
This is what I said: "If you don't accept an explanation of what I think God is, then you have no business in discussing how free-will is not affected by His omniscience."

In other words, you claim that free-will is not possible if "a god" can know the future .. and on my explanation of how God operates, you dismiss and ridicula it .. and continue with your argument for your version of God, which you don't believe in any case.

Of course you can participate in any thread you like, but you have no business in arguing with me against free-will, if you dismiss explanations that don't suit you with "no such god".

 

[blü 2]

I certainly don't know why not. After all, an omnipotent God can do anything, so of course He could give humans free will.

But being omniscient as well as omnipotent as well as perfect, [he] perfectly knew ─ as I keep saying ─ everything that would ever happen in the universe, and [he] knew that the model [he] chose would have every consequence it ever had and will have; and knowing that [he] CAUSATIVELY went ahead anyway.

NOTHING can happen that such a God hasn't already WILLED AND CAUSED to happen.

How free we are to choose is another subject altogether. Free will has many constraints but that does not mean we cannot choose anything at all.

But it means that neither theologically nor in reality do we have will that is literally unconstrained.

And as I said, I can't see how God can avoid that either.

I do not think that God makes decisions. Why would God have to make decisions when God already knows everything that has happened and everything that will ever happen?

[He] DECIDED to set it all in motion.

Incidentally, once [he]'d done that, there was no reason ─ not the slightest ─ for [him] to hang around any more. Which is purest deism.

 

[Trailblazer]

I think what might confuse you with my explanation is the role God plays. In theory we can throw God out of the setup and it would be the same.

Lets imagine that I have the ability to tell the future and im always right, meaning I have perfect foreknowledge.

You come to me and ask if you will buy a red car in the future? To which I tell you that you will.

This would mean that you would buy a red car in the future. I didn't make that choice for you or forced you to do it. But given the rules in this setup, it requires you to do this.

Which again are: I have the ability to tell the future and im always right, meaning I have perfect foreknowledge.

If you ended up not buying a red car, then clearly I wouldn't always be right or have perfect foreknowledge. So if we want to insist on me having these abilities, then you have to do what I tell you, you will do.

The only difference between this example and replacing me with God, is that God doesn't tell you what your future is, but simply him knowing it, will result in the exact same situation as with me telling you, there is no difference.
Whether you know about it or not, doesn't change anything, because again, the only thing that is important in this setup is for me to "always be right", otherwise I simply couldn't be said to have perfect foreknowledge.

So simply me or God knowing what you will do, doesn't mean that we are forcing you to do it. But the claim of having perfect foreknowledge does.

So you are saying that God’s foreknowledge is forcing you to do what God knows you will do.

The problem with this is that whatever you do will be what God has always known you would do (what God had foreknowledge of) and you could have chosen to do one of many different things. I explained that in my other post to you.

Yes, you will buy a red car if God knew you would buy a red car, but...
If you bought a blue car, God would have known you would buy a blue car...
If you bought a green car, God would have known you would buy a green car...
If you bought a purple car, God would have known you would buy a purple car...
If you bought a brown car, God would have known you would buy a brown car...
If you bought a orange car, God would have known you would buy a orange car...

The knowledge of God surrounds the realities of all things. Omniscience is a perfection of God, an attribute of God.

God knows everything that has ever happened, everything that is happening now, and everything that will ever happen. God knew all of that at creation and what God knows is unrelated to when it happens in this material world.

God knows what you will choose but whatever you choose to do will be what God has always known you would choose.

You can make more than one choice, but whatever choice you make will be the ONE CHOICE that God has always known you would make.

 

[Trailblazer]

Its not only parents that nurture.

True, but I had nobody else.

 

[firedragon]

True, but I had nobody else.

Ah.

 

[Truthseeker]

While our brain is not an omniscient God, it certainly knows more that we are consciously aware of. It knows the choice we will make before we are consciously aware of it. This has been proven through various experiments.

I've heard about that. My query is, are these moral choices, or just choices like, for instance, what color we prefer?

 

[Trailblazer]

It follows the same logic as with the foreknowledge.

<Known future>
God knows this one, which is the state of everything at a given point in time. So every atom, human, animal, planets etc.

<Past events> ---> <Known future>

The <Known future> is fixed, this is what will happen because that is what God knows and in order for this to happen, all <Past events> must lead to this future. Therefore all <Past events> must also be fixed as well, because if they weren't God couldn't know the future.

All true.

If God know that in the <Known future>, your car is red, then it doesn't work if you buy a green car. Then God would simply be wrong about knowing the future. In which case the <Known future> would be that your car were green.

Here is your problem.
Whatever color car you choose to buy will be the color of car that God has always known you will buy.
You have a choice as to which color car you will buy.

You have things backwards.
You can choose to buy any color car you want to buy.
God has always known what color of car you would buy, because God is all-knowing and God has foreknowledge.
If you decided to buy a red car, God would have known you were going to buy a red car,
If you decided to buy a green car, God would have known you were going to buy a green car.

 

[ppp]

I've heard about that. My query is, are these moral choices, or just choices like, for instance, what color we prefer?

I would think that whether morality is entailed would be situational; depending how it effects, and how I know it would effect others.

 

[Truthseeker]

You know my answer because we've been discussing it in another thread for days (maybe weeks, feels like weeks).

So my question is, why start another thread on free will? So we can go over the same stuff for the 200th time?

That's what I was wondering. Perhaps @Trailblazer wants to see what other people think? I don't know how many people she has been discussing this with, though.

 

[Truthseeker]

I started it because I wanted various opinions from various people.
I wanted to see how other people think about God's foreknowledge and how that might limit our free will.
YOU do not have to go over it again because you have free will to choose not to.

That's what I thought it probably was.

 

[Trailblazer]

That's what I thought it probably was.

Yes, that is what got it going.
Little did I know what would happen because I do not have foreknowledge like God!

 

[Truthseeker]

Yes, that is what got it going.
Little did I know what would happen because I do not have foreknowledge like God!

Not sure what you mean, but this thread is awfully long for being posted only yesterday. Kept you more busy than you expected?

 

[Trailblazer]

But being omniscient as well as omnipotent as well as perfect, [he] perfectly knew ─ as I keep saying ─ everything that would ever happen in the universe, and [he] knew that the model [he] chose would have every consequence it ever had and will have; and knowing that [he] CAUSATIVELY went ahead anyway.

NOTHING can happen that such a God hasn't already WILLED AND CAUSED to happen.

God wills some things to happen but God does not cause any human actions.
God gave man free will and humans have always chosen to do what they want to do.

Can you imagine a man going into a court of law and telling the judge he is not guilty of murdering his wife because God caused him to murder his wife.

But it means that neither theologically nor in reality do we have will that is literally unconstrained.

I never said we did. Our free will is constrained but we can still make choices.

[He] DECIDED to set it all in motion.

Incidentally, once [he]'d done that, there was no reason ─ not the slightest ─ for [him] to hang around any more. Which is purest deism.

God did not hang around after that.
Do you see God anywhere? I sure don't.

 

[Trailblazer]

Not sure what you mean, but this thread is awfully long for being posted only yesterday. Kept you more busy than you expected?

THAT is the biggest understatement of the year!

 

[Nimos]

The problem with this is that whatever you do will be what God has always known you would do (what God had foreknowledge of) and you could have chosen to do one of many different things. I explained that in my other post to you.

It doesn't make sense.

Its like you buying a red car and then asking me if I knew you would do that. And then when I answer yes you are all impressed by it. But the fact is that you could have added any color and you would have been impressed no matter what.

It is turning things up side down so to speak. God doesn't have foreknowledge in that case, but hindsight and not only that, he has perfect hindsight, because he is being told the correct answer.

If you bought a blue car, God would have known you would buy a blue car...
If you bought a green car, God would have known you would buy a green car...
If you bought a purple car, God would have known you would buy a purple car...
If you bought a brown car, God would have known you would buy a brown car...
If you bought a orange car, God would have known you would buy a orange car...

All this is God having hindsight based on the choice you made.

You choose a color -> God is told what color it is = God have amazing knowledge.

or you could rewrite it:

You choose any color -> God knows you will choose a color = God have amazing knowledge

None of this is impressive, because any ordinary human can do this as well.

God knows everything that has ever happened, everything that is happening now, and everything that will ever happen. God knew all of that at creation and what God knows is unrelated to when it happens in this material world.

Im sorry, but it is simply impossible.

In the scenario you set up, there is no way that God could have known it at creation. It is not a logical sound argument.

Imagine you are alone with God (so im not there!!) and can ask him a question and he will answer it truthfully, because God can't lie and of all the things in the world you could ask him, you ask him the following:

What color car is Nimos going to buy in 5 years?

What would God answer to that question?

Now go forward 5 years and I decide to buy a car... is that car the color God told you? If it is not, did God lie to you?
Remember according to you, I have free will and it have been 5 years since you spoke to God and at that time, I might not even have considered buying a car, let alone thought of what color it should be.

 

[John53]

I said nothing of the kind.
This is what I said: "If you don't accept an explanation of what I think God is, then you have no business in discussing how free-will is not affected by His omniscience."

In other words, you claim that free-will is not possible if "a god" can know the future .. and on my explanation of how God operates, you dismiss and ridicula it .. and continue with your argument for your version of God, which you don't believe in any case.

Of course you can participate in any thread you like, but you have no business in arguing with me against free-will, if you dismiss explanations that don't suit you with "no such god".

You provide your explanation as fact that can't be disputed, I on the other hand am of the opinion that it can be disputed and require evidence before I would agree.

 

[Brian2]

And I (nor anyone else I have seen) has made that argument. It is just that whatever "choice" we make is inevitable, therefore the "free will" we used to make it is an illusion.

That is the argument from semantics.
If you are not saying that we are forced to choose a certain way then we have our free will while at the same time God knows what we are going to choose.

And by infallibly knowing, fixes that choice before we make it.

Hardly, as the thousands of words written explaining it in detail, with examples and analogies clearly shows.

Words can be meaningless, no matter how many thousands they are.
The argument as you have put it is no more than semantics as I have shown above, unless you are saying that God is forcing us to choose a certain way.

Mere question begging.

We choose, it's that simple. That is recognised and even given a name, our will.
To come up with a contrarian view should mean that you need to show it to be true or have evidence that is more than empty words that make it look like God is forcing us but which do not say that, so that is not true.
It is very easy to understand that God knows what we will freely choose and a mechanism can be proposed as to how that could happen. It certainly beats semantics.

That may be just an illusion.

That whole universe might be just an illusion, our consciousness might be just an illusion (molecules being tricked to believe they are conscious----and some people believe that is the case).
As I get told, just proposing something without evidence is not good enough.
I can give evidence for us having a will.

So you haven't read any of the arguments for god negating free will then? So how could you earlier dismiss them?

I have just been talking about one argument for God's negating of free will.
However seeing myself choose reality staring me in the face (or visa versa ) and I don't need to read all the arguments for and against to believe we have a free will.

 

[blü 2]

God wills some things to happen but God does not cause any human actions.

Not so. Theologically, God is the FIRST CAUSE of EVERYTHING, and as I keep saying, given [his] gifts of omnipotence, omniscience and perfection, [he] knew before the start what would happen if [he] created the universe in this particular form, and [he] created it knowing and intending everything that followed.

God gave man free will and humans have always chosen to do what they want to do.

No theological free will with an omni god. No truly free will in reality anyway.

Can you imagine a man going into a court of law and telling the judge he is not guilty of murdering his wife because God caused him to murder his wife.

I said before that we feel we own our actions and their consequences and we make and apply our laws on that basis.

Do you see God anywhere? I sure don't.

I don't even know what I'm supposed to be looking for, and no one will tell me.