What causes people to choose what they choose?

[Heyo]

I also like logic but God is not subject to logic, so we cannot figure out what God does or what God is going to do using logic.

Everything in this physical world is subject to the rules of logic but the rules of logic do not apply to God. God is and has always been immensely exalted beyond all that can ever be recounted or perceived, everlastingly hidden from the eyes of men. Such an entity can never be subject to human logic and it would be illogical to think so. It is absurd to expect to be able to encapsulate an infinite God with the finite human mind.

The only way humans can ever know anything about God is through the revelations of God that come to man through Messengers of God, which are recorded in scriptures of religions.

I'm OK with that. God is incompatible with logic.
But, as @Nimos has pointed out, this is not about god (or at least, it doesn't have to be). When we allow for your special pleading and remove god from the equation, we still have the debate whether free will can exist in a universe where perfect foreknowledge exists, time flows in a linear fashion and logic applies.
Are you still arguing it can?

 

[Trailblazer]

We can't. What we can know is that the universe can't have free choice and perfect foreknowledge. They are contradictory.
Either our choices are not free, or knowledge can't be perfect.

I think I see where we might have gone off track as the result of what @It Aint Necessarily So quoted me saying to you.

Trailblazer said: ↑why can't we have free choice and perfect foreknowledge?

I was not referring to humans having free choice and perfect foreknowledge because humans do not have perfect foreknowledge. I was referring to human free choice and the perfect foreknowledge of God coexisting.

 

[Nimos]

I was not referring to humans having free choice and perfect foreknowledge because humans do not even have any foreknowledge.

Humans do have foreknowledge, it is just not perfect.

But for instance we might have foreknowledge of the weather, we might know about an upcoming event like a concert, when we are getting married, who will show up as guest etc.

But true, no one have 100% knowledge of the future, but in many cases we can get very close, but there is always a chance that something didn't go as planned, despite how certain we are. And that is the difference between what God is claimed to be able to and what humans can do.

 

[Trailblazer]

I'm OK with that. God is incompatible with logic.
But, as @Nimos has pointed out, this is not about god (or at least, it doesn't have to be). When we allow for your special pleading and remove god from the equation, we still have the debate whether free will can exist in a universe where perfect foreknowledge exists, time flows in a linear fashion and logic applies.
Are you still arguing it can?

If we remove God from the equation, there is no perfect foreknowledge, since God is the only one who has perfect foreknowledge, as I just explained in my previous post to you.

As such, there can be no debate about whether free will can exist in a universe where perfect human foreknowledge exists..

God does not exist in time so time is a moot point when discussing what God knows or what God can know. Where there is no time, time cannot flow in a linear fashion.

 

[Trailblazer]

Humans do have foreknowledge, it is just not perfect.

But for instance we might have foreknowledge of the weather, we might know about an upcoming event like a concert, when we are getting married, who will show up as guest etc.

But true, no one have 100% knowledge of the future, but in many cases we can get very close, but there is always a chance that something didn't go as planned, despite how certain we are. And that is the difference between what God is claimed to be able to and what humans can do.

I meant that in general humans do not know exactly what is going to happen in the future, as God knows.

Of course there are some things that can be predicted pretty accurately. For example, mathematicians by astronomical calculations know that at a certain time an eclipse of the moon or the sun will occur.

Regarding what we believe we know is going to happen in the future, as you said, if we are planning for an event, there is always a chance that something won't go as planned, despite how certain we are. And that is the difference between what God is able to and what humans can do.

Thanks for pointing out that humans have some foreknowledge because as a result I was able to go back and correct my two posts to Heyo, hopefully before he read them.

 

[John53]

I am not ever going to change my mind on God's omniscience and omnipotence, and that humans have free will, so there is no point arguing about it, unless someone is open to changing their position and wants to understand my position.

Which begs the question... why start 2 threads?

I doubt I would change my mind and certainly not with the evidence presented so far but if I was presented with evidence that I found compelling I'd have no choice. Don't you think it's a little disrespectful to ask other people to have a discussion with you then say "I am not ever going to change my mind"? Maybe it's me that's doing it wrong.

 

[Trailblazer]

Which begs the question... why start 2 threads?

I doubt I would change my mind and certainly not with the evidence presented so far but if I was presented with evidence that I found compelling I'd have no choice. Don't you think it's a little disrespectful to ask other people to have a discussion with you then say "I am not ever going to change my mind"? Maybe it's me that's doing it wrong.

The previous thread was on another topic and it went off track.

I do not have discussions with the intent to change my mind or to change anyone else's mind.
I learn new things in discussions but my primary position about God's foreknowledge and human free will is not subject to change.

On this thread I stated what my position is in the OP and I asked which position makes the most sense to others.

 

[John53]

The previous thread was on another topic and it went off track.

I do not have discussions with the intent to change my mind or to change anyone else's mind.
I learn new things in discussions but my primary position about God's foreknowledge and human free will is not subject to change.

On this thread I stated what my position is in the OP and I asked which position makes the most sense to others.

Fair enough. I just can't understand going through life thinking I have it all worked out and will never change.

 

[muhammad_isa]

So do you have an answer to it or not?

You mean "warn" as in stop it happening?
The answer must be no .. if C knows that A will make the choice to murder B, then that is what will happen.

 

[Sheldon]

You are very quick to quote me .. I simply agreed that "the future is fixed". However, while you say it negates free-will, I say that it deos not .. the future is fixed by our choices.

Our choices cannot both be fixed, and changeable. This is a logical contradiction. You are claiming both positions.

The reason you cannot see this is because you don't believe that God exists outside of time in the first place !

No, and you know this is a lie, as it has been explained innumerable times to you. Belief in a deity is utterly irrelevant, since you are making two claims that are a logical contradiction of each other, they are mutually exclusive. We cannot both be free to choose, and our choice be set in stone. The existence of a deity or not, does not change that.

 

[muhammad_isa]

We cannot both be free to choose, and our choice be set in stone.

Stick to the topic..
Assuming an omniscient God exists, what causes you to choose what you choose?

 

[Sheldon]

No sir. You can only accept the reality of this worldly life,

Please do demonstrate anything approaching objective evidence for anything more. Your ball...

you don't believe in a God that can know our future ..

He doesn't believe in any deity, that is the definition of atheism.

you consider "it hasn't happened yet" to be the only reality, and will accept nothing more than what your limited senses tell you.

You seem determined to dishonestly miss the point here, it's not what anyone believes, only about the logical consequences of belief.

Choices cannot both be set in stone, as you have claimed to believe, and be free, as you have claimed to believe.

The validity of your entirely unevidenced deity, hiding in another time dimension, is irrelevant to this logical inference.

 

[Trailblazer]

Fair enough. I just can't understand going through life thinking I have it all worked out and will never change.

I don't know what you mean by "have it all worked out and will never change."
Do think you can never change?

 

[Sheldon]

Our choices cannot both be fixed, and changeable. This is a logical contradiction. You are claiming both positions.

Stick to the topic..
Assuming an omniscient God exists, what causes you to choose what you choose?

Evasion, address my response to your claims, including your much repeated falsehood in that post, then I will address your new question on the thread OP.

 

[John53]

I don't know what you mean by "have it all worked out and will never change."
Do think you can never change?

No. I'm sure I'll change my opinion on various topics for various reasons. I don't think I have it all worked out.

 

[Trailblazer]

We cannot both be free to choose, and our choice be set in stone. The existence of a deity or not, does not change that.

We are free to choose between A, B, and C, but once we choose A the results of choice A are set in stone.
Before we make a choice A nothing is set in stone. We could have chosen B or C.

 

[Sheldon]

It does not matter what God knows, it only matters what we do. We have to do certain things to get to paradise.

Except according to @muhammad_isa we can't choose, as the future is "set in stone" by a deity. What's more you have posted more than once that you agree with him, and not with those raising rational objections to that claim, alongside his claim we also are free to choose whatever we want.

Either the future is already set in stone, or we can change it, bit these are mutually exclusive positions.

 

[Sheldon]

It was all created as God intended it to be, but humans were given free will and then all hell broke loose.

So this deity created a universe, then waited billions of years, and then gave us free will just 200k years ago, roughly when the first humans evolved? Sounds pretty dubious even before we address the fact, that this is a completely unevidenced claim you're making.

 

[Sheldon]

The future hasn't happened yet, in the context of our lives and the universe we live in. Not sure what point you are trying to make there.

So what?

So you are claiming it is set in stone already.

God does not live in the universe,

That's unevidenced superstition of course, but even were it hypothetically accepted, how does this change our perception of linear time providing choices, being an illusion if it were true?

yet you tell us what God can do and cannot do, as if He does.

No, that's still a lie, you are claiming this, KWED is merely drawing a rational inference from your claim.

 

[Sheldon]

The future is set in stone only after we make a choice and that choice becomes an event.

That's not what @muhammad_isa claimed. If you're going to address my posts please address what I have said, not some straw man.