Would foreknowledge contradict free will?

[Wandered Off]

Short answer, I suppose my response to the OP would be no, I don't think omniscience contradicts free will

Please help me understand something: If the future already exists somehow (as evidenced by it's being knowable), then you cannot change the ending. How is being unable to change the future compatible with free will? That sounds to me like the opposite of free will. No?

Sorry, I'm not trying to pick on you. I just want to understand your reasoning.

 

[Willamena]

Let's put it this way. You are walking down the street and you witness a guy slip on a Banana. Five minutes later, when you look back in the past, you know he slipped on the Banana, right? But your knowledge of that did not cause him to slip on the Banana. Likewise, God's knowledge of the choices we make in the future does not cause us to make those choices.

It's not about influencing the event, but about knowing about it. The fact that he knew about it, because to him it was the past, means that it happened that way. And that it happens that way means it could not happen any other way.

 

[Willamena]

Suppose God could know all possible choices and all possible outcomes but not know which among them you will choose until you do so. Maybe it's like if I memorized all possible combinations of moves for a game of tic tac toe, so whatever choice you make I know what would happen, but until you actually make it, I don't know which particular combination of moves you will make, even if I knew what the result of that combination would be.

In that case, there is something God doesn't know, and that means he is not omniscient.

Which is fine by me, but strays outside of the parameters set for the puzzle.

 

[Wandered Off]

What I'm trying to illustrate is that knowledge of an event doesn't cause the even to happen.

Yeah, I guess my choice of title is kind of clumsy. Sorry... That must be where the idea came from, because I never intended to say that knowledge is the cause. It's an effect.

 

[Wandered Off]

In that case, there is something God doesn't know, and that means he is not omniscient.

Which is fine by me, but strays outside of the parameters set for the puzzle.

Hi Willamena. Earlier you said that the future can't be known because it doesn't exist, so I interpreted that to mean omniscience doesn't have to include what doesn't exist. If the fact that God doesn't know what choice you'll make (because it's in the future) eliminates omniscience, then I need to revisit your earlier point.

 

[Hema]

I think that if the future is known you can change it! This is just according to my Hindu beliefs. According to Hinduism, people have past karma, present karma and future karma. We can't change what happened in the past but by performing good present karma we can help offset the negative effects of past bad karma and help generate good karma for the future. This in turn, will be a form of exercising free will - to do good now. Say for example, I did something bad in my past life and I have to go through something bad in this life to pay for it, but if I've been performing good deeds, the consequences might not be as bad. For instance, some people have it in their karma to experience a bad vehicular accident but sometimes escape alive when everyone else in the vehicle passed away. The future is not set in stone. God is forgiving so he will give us chances to work out our bad deeds.

 

[Wandered Off]

I think that if the future is known you can change it!

Thank you, Hema, for a Hindu perspective.

From your post, it seems that the "future is known" but also "not set in stone". Does that mean that the possibilities are known? That would go along with my little compromise in the OP. I ask because being known to me implies fixed (set in stone), and I can't reconsile the two notions (without a little more help anyway).

 

[Hema]

Thank you, Hema, for a Hindu perspective.

From your post, it seems that the "future is known" but also "not set in stone". Does that mean that the possibilities are known? That would go along with my little compromise in the OP. I ask because being known to me implies fixed (set in stone), and I can't reconsile the two notions (without a little more help anyway).

I interpret "being known" as the future based on one's current situation - all things held constant. So, say time freezes and a snapshot is taken of the future - that is snapshot 1. After this, one does something drastic which will change the outcome of the first snapshot. Say time freezes again and another snapshot is taken again - this will be snapshot 2, this will nullify snapshot 1. As for the possibilities being known, I don't think a psychic will know because the psychic might give a reading based on one's current situation. Perhaps God might know?

 

[Willamena]

Hi Willamena. Earlier you said that the future can't be known because it doesn't exist, so I interpreted that to mean omniscience doesn't have to include what doesn't exist. If the fact that God doesn't know what choice you'll make (because it's in the future) eliminates omniscience, then I need to revisit your earlier point.

They are two separate senarios: on one hand a god who has knowledge of the future, and on the other hand no future to have knowledge of. My response to the OP held the second scenario, and my response to the other post merely pointed out a flaw in the first scenario.

 

[Willamena]

Kind of. What I'm trying to illustrate is that knowledge of an event doesn't cause the even to happen.

That's a given.

 

[Wandered Off]

My response to the OP held the second scenario, and my response to the other post merely pointed out a flaw in the first scenario.

Yes, in reviewing, I realized I carelessly ran down a path of inference that wasn't justified by what you posted.

On the second scenario, I'm not sure it's so much of a flaw as a "novel" definition of omniscience. If omniscience is knowing all that can be known and the future can't be known, then we have a definition of omniscience that isn't violated. Of course, we might also have me redefining the English language for my personal convenience. :areyoucra

 

[Willamena]

Yes, in reviewing, I realized I carelessly ran down a path of inference that wasn't justified by what you posted.

On the second scenario, I'm not sure it's so much of a flaw as a "novel" definition of omniscience. If omniscience is knowing all that can be known and the future can't be known, then we have a definition of omniscience that isn't violated. Of course, we might also have me redefining the English language for my personal convenience. :areyoucra

Omniscience is well defined at Wikipedia, and actually addresses neither scenario --but it's fun to speculate.

"Omniscience is the capacity to know everything, or at least everything that can be known about a character/s including thoughts, feelings, etc."

It is not about the actions that we take, but about who we are on the inside. It is about spirit. God, as Spirit, knows all about us, as spirit. If omniscience is to be held a religious issue, rather than a secular one, it addresses our spirit.

 

[Jeremiah61]

However, if the result exists such that it can be known, then free will is an illusion because the person making the choice lacks foreknowledge.

Buts thats just it. Time is not an illusion, but an abstraction; but as an abstraction it correlates to something very Real indeed.

The main difficutly I see here seems to be the thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call 'the future' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call "Now," that in a sense every moment in Time is Now for Him. He does not remmeber you doing things yesterday, He simply sees you doing them; because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, he knows knows tomorrow's actions in just the same way- because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment you do it is already "Now" for Him.

 

[Ulver]

The inevitablility of God's plan is apparent ONLY when we have Freewill. Cause-and-Effect Determinism is a fundamental of Creation, but what need of design for us would there be if the Creator overrides all our choices, and we cannot defy? Where is the story arc, the Salvation, the change and the attainment in that?

Experience? Say God is all existence. It decides it wants to experience the notion of existence. So it bursts into small/tiny parts that swirl into forming the cosmos. What about that?

 

[Random]

Experience? Say God is all existence. It decides it wants to experience the notion of existence. So it bursts into small/tiny parts that swirl into forming the cosmos. What about that?

That is actually close to how it all began, yes. What you've got there is Panentheism, you should look it up if you're unfamiliar. Good thinking.

 

[JerryL]

The main difficutly I see here seems to be the thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call 'the future' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call "Now," that in a sense every moment in Time is Now for Him. He does not remmeber you doing things yesterday, He simply sees you doing them; because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, he knows knows tomorrow's actions in just the same way- because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment you do it is already "Now" for Him.

Let's start with a more basic question, are things static in four-dimensions?

We know that, at a given point in time, things are static in three dimensions (at least at the super-quantum level). So are things at a given point in 5+ dimensional space static in 4 dimensions?

So are things immuteable? Or can the future, present, and past be changed?

 

[Jeremiah61]

You tell me.

 

[JerryL]

I vote for static time. Freewill is an oxymoron, therefore the only way to have an indeterminate future would be though randomnization; and I've no indication that true random is actually possible.

Further, time and space are the same thing and, as pointed out, space is static.

And, of course, foreknowledge requires a determined future. Shy of going into a Dune-type "only people with foreknowledge can alter the future" thing (which still does not allow free will), it's simply deductable in a discussion which includes foreknowledge.

 

[Wandered Off]

The main difficutly I see here seems to be the thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot.

I may have missed something, but the "always now" scenario you envision doesn't resolve the problem, from what I can tell. In fact what you say here seems to go right along with the "difficulty" you see:

In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment you do it is already "Now" for Him

To me, that looks the same as saying God is processing along the time-line like us, since we both arrive at the knowledge simultaneously. You call that "now" for God, but it's "now" for us too, right?

But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line.

This has come up enough that I created a topic for it so maybe we can work through the implications.
Is God "outside of time"?
Short conclusion: I could go for God being outside our time, but not outside any time, because any change requires time.

 

[methylatedghosts]

For me, God is outside of time, looking in. Imagine an inverted pyramid. That is your life. At the bottom, is the moment you were born. At the top, is every single possible outcome you could have upon death. As you grow older, the pyramid becomes narrower as you begin to eliminate, by free will, and the choices you make, the "end result" of your life, and your experiences. We can see only the tip at the bottom (that is right now), and from there below is a string representing the choices you have made and your life path thus far (your memory). God, however, can see the whole pyramid, and can see every possible outcome for you. He cannot see exactly which outcome you will have, but can see every single possible one.