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God's Omniscience versus Free Will

Heathen Hammer

Nope, you're still wrong
Because you are arbitrarily stopping what part is 'the future' choice, and saying that part can't be viewed. We don't go through a stuttering series of choices. Time simply flows and ALL situations are potential events. Essentially your view is God is a totally temporal being sitting around watching the Present. If he can see you going through all of them, then he is seeing all futures. Each one would branch from each moment into an infinite number of potentials; if he's viewing them all, then what does it matter what his plan for you is, if he doesn't know which one will manifest? If he does know which one will manifest, then he is seeing your concrete future and you have no free will, because he already knows for certain and cannot be wrong.
 
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camanintx

Well-Known Member
He sets the options, and thus knows all the options from which you have to choose. He also sees all the outcomes of all the options. He knows you'll pick one of the options and can the outcome of that choice, whatever it may be.
Such a view is only possible in a scenario where there is no free will in my opinion.

Our options are both determined by us and by God. Unfortunately, you don't get to choose to play the game. You're playing whether you like it or not. The fact that we don't have unlimited free will does not mean that we do not have absolute freedom in our ability to choose between the options we've been given.
I was the one who started this game so you don't think I had a choice to play?

Such a view is only possible in a scenario where there is no God in my opinion.
Or rather God is not possible in such a scenario. The concept of God should conform to reality, not the other way around.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
Or rather God is not possible in such a scenario. The concept of God should conform to reality, not the other way around.
That's precisely what it can't do. If God "conforms" to reality, then there is something greater than God.
 

FearGod

Freedom Of Mind
Christians regularly claim both that God is omniscient and that humans have the free will to choose their actions. I propose a simple thought experiment to explore these claims.

Suppose that you are going to ask me to choose a number between 1 and 10. Since you are a true Christian and God loves you, he tells you ahead of time that I will choose the number 3 so you write it on a piece of paper to prove to me that God exists.

When we meet and you ask me to pick a number between 1 and 10, I use my free will to choose the number 7. When you produce the piece of paper, what number is written on it?

God omniscient are similar for all Abrahamic religion.

Regarding your experiment of picking a number between 1 and 10,that is simple.
god won't interfere on your free will of your choice,but he'll know what you had decided to choose,he knows what you're thinking,but not interfering in it.
 

camanintx

Well-Known Member
God omniscient are similar for all Abrahamic religion.

Regarding your experiment of picking a number between 1 and 10,that is simple.
god won't interfere on your free will of your choice,but he'll know what you had decided to choose,he knows what you're thinking,but not interfering in it.
So what number is written on the paper?
 

FearGod

Freedom Of Mind
So what number is written on the paper?

it'll be of course number 7,the one which you chose,but things which you can't choose is just known to god,such as.

Will you be rich or poor,not your choice,as all of us wanted to be very rich.
will you live 100 years,not your choice.

Also on earth and the universe,god knows everything which we don't know,such as where it'll be raining and where there will be drought and so on.
 

TheKnight

Guardian of Life
Because you are arbitrarily stopping what part is 'the future' choice, and saying that part can't be viewed. We don't go through a stuttering series of choices. Time simply flows and ALL situations are potential events. Essentially your view is God is a totally temporal being sitting around watching the Present. If he can see you going through all of them, then he is seeing all futures. Each one would branch from each moment into an infinite number of potentials; if he's viewing them all, then what does it matter what his plan for you is, if he doesn't know which one will manifest? If he does know which one will manifest, then he is seeing your concrete future and you have no free will, because he already knows for certain and cannot be wrong.

I said in my first post that God sees the present and is present in all dimensions of reality, thus if there is a future He is seeing it as the present while also seeing the current moment as the present simultaneously. I wouldn't call God temporal, but I would call Him static.

And there are not an infinite number of futures. As I said, He defines what potentialities are possible.

The question you ask which is most important is "What does it matter what His plan for you is, if He doesn't know which one will manifest?" The answer to that being that His plan for me only matters to the extent that I let it. I see this whole thing as a cooperative thing, not a God being God and we human beings being the lowly subservient creatures who must plead, beg, and worship to be saved.

He doesn't see any concrete future because there is no concrete future. There is only the present. The future is only relevant insofar as the various options I might choose from are relevant.

Such a view is only possible in a scenario where there is no free will in my opinion.
How can you say there is no free will if you are perfectly free to choose between the options? Suppose you have two options. Before you've chosen one, God sees the outcomes of both choices. And once you have actually chosen, what He knows about your choice is directly affected by your choice.

If anything from this perspective you are more powerful than in traditional perspectives, because from my perspective God doesn't know what you will do until you've done it. Before you've done it He only knows that you will do something within the available range of things to be done.

I was the one who started this game so you don't think I had a choice to play?
Of which game do you speak? The game of life is one that you, unfortunately, have no choice but to play.

Or rather God is not possible in such a scenario. The concept of God should conform to reality, not the other way around.

Reality. There is no reality beyond God.

If God doesn't conform to reality, then it isn't real, is it?

What is reality anyways? Perhaps if reality doesn't conform to God, then "reality" isn't real, is it?
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
TheKnight Post 69 said:
I said in my first post that God sees the present and is present in all dimensions of reality, thus if there is a future [god] is seeing it as the present while also seeing the current moment as the present simultaneously.


TheKnight Post 58 said:
Because the future is not place that can be viewed like the present or the past. It is a potential that has yet to be actualized. And until you've actualized [the future] there's nothing to see.
Care to explain this apparent contradiction?
 

FearGod

Freedom Of Mind
So the 3 previously written on the paper will just magically change to 7 when I make my decision?


God if wanted he can very easily control your free will and make you to choose and write 3 instead of 7,that is very easy for god to control your ability to think and choose.
 

TheKnight

Guardian of Life
Care to explain this apparent contradiction?


It's not a contradiction. It is my attempts to explain what I'm saying when I'm not sure how to explain what I'm saying. There are many different ways to conceptually think about how I think it actually is. I don't think that we, human beings, are capable of understanding exactly how it works. After all, we don't have the capability to view time in such a manner.

As I said, I believe that God is everywhere, including those dimensions that we would call the future, and everywhere He is, He can see the present. That includes the future, because both our present and our future compose His present.

At the same time, for us there is no future until we've reached it. Before that point the future consists of the many potential paths we can take. From our perspective, God would be in all of the potentialities seeing the path that exists for each of those options simultaneously, as if we'd already chosen them. Once we choose them, they become actualized to us and exist more concretely for us, but God was already there as if it were the present even though it wasn't the present for us yet.

Does that make sense?
 

Heathen Hammer

Nope, you're still wrong
I said in my first post that God sees the present and is present in all dimensions of reality, thus if there is a future He is seeing it as the present while also seeing the current moment as the present simultaneously. I wouldn't call God temporal, but I would call Him static.
OK, well, then I would suggest that you change your wording to indicate that God has his own present; that he is already exstant into the future as we see it. When you say 'the present', that sounds like our real present. His present is then the entire Timeline at a single sweep. that does, however, cause you a problem...

And there are not an infinite number of futures. As I said, He defines what potentialities are possible.
Then your idea is dead. If he determines what is possible, and what occurs, then free will is the illusion I described.

The question you ask which is most important is "What does it matter what His plan for you is, if He doesn't know which one will manifest?" The answer to that being that His plan for me only matters to the extent that I let it. I see this whole thing as a cooperative thing, not a God being God and we human beings being the lowly subservient creatures who must plead, beg, and worship to be saved.
This contradicts the above

He doesn't see any concrete future because there is no concrete future. There is only the present.
No, by your hypothesis there is only HIS present to him. Our Timeline is in essence already over and done with, and all our relative future choices are already made, and since God knows they are made, they do not change and cannot because he cannot err; hence, I was exactly correct.

How can you say there is no free will if you are perfectly free to choose between the options?
Because we are not actually perfectly free to choose, as I have shown, and you inadvertently ageed.

Suppose you have two options. Before you've chosen one, God sees the outcomes of both choices. And once you have actually chosen, what He knows about your choice is directly affected by your choice.
No, he already knows. He exists past the moment when I am to make the choice. The choice is an illusion to me at my moment. Given the supposed properties of your God and the actual properties of Time, this is logically consistent. The mistake on this subject which is commonly made is the need to return God's properties of knowledge to that of a normal temporal being in order to wedge in the idea of free will. That 'he just knows' but doesn't cause that decision to be immutable. But, he does.
 
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camanintx

Well-Known Member
God if wanted he can very easily control your free will and make you to choose and write 3 instead of 7,that is very easy for god to control your ability to think and choose.
If God controls it then it's not free will, is it?
 

TheKnight

Guardian of Life
Then your idea is dead. If he determines what is possible, and what occurs, then free will is the illusion I described.
He doesn't determine what occurs, only what is possible. We are free to choose within the realm of what is possible.

Moreover, we also influence what is possible.

This contradicts the above
How so?

No, by your hypothesis there is only HIS present to him. Our Timeline is in essence already over and done with, and all our relative future choices are already made, and since God knows they are made, they do not change and cannot because he cannot err; hence, I was exactly correct.

Except that His present also encompasses those parts of our timeline where we did not choose. If we have to choose between A and B, then God's present encompasses both when we choose A and when we choose B. This means that if I choose B, then God is still present in a place where I chose A.


Because we are not actually perfectly free to choose, as I have shown, and you inadvertently ageed.
You haven't shown that you aren't free to choose because you haven't shown that foreknowledge equals determination. Even under a traditional view of free will vs God's omnipotence your argument fails. Even more so in the world as I see it.


God's knowledge of my future choice has no influence over the choice. Hence the choice is entirely mine to make. And that He knows about my future choice at all is because He is there to see me making it, even though I'm not there yet.

The analogy some have used is that if God sees you choose 7, then you cannot choose 3. That is incorrect. A more accurate analogy would be God couldn't have seen you choosing 7 if you decide to choose 3.

No, he already knows. He exists past the moment when I am to make the choice. The choice is an illusion to me at my moment. Given the supposed properties of your God and the actual properties of Time, this is logically consistent. The mistake on this subject which is commonly made is the need to return God's properties of knowledge to that of a normal temporal being in order to wedge in the idea of free will. That 'he just knows' but doesn't cause that decision to be immutable. But, he does.

To be fair, I don't actually believe anything other than God exists. So to an extent you're right. But in this reality where we perceive the existence of things that are not God, I don't think any sufficient argument can be made that foreknowledge eliminates free will.

As I've said over and over, it's only a problem if God influences the decision. His knowledge doesn't influence the choice or our ability to choose. His knowledge is informed by the choice. Meaning that He knows because He exists in a place where we have already chosen. And so long as He didn't influence the choosing in any way, the choice was entirely ours.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
He doesn't determine what occurs, only what is possible. We are free to choose within the realm of what is possible.

...
Except that His present also encompasses those parts of our timeline where we did not choose. If we have to choose between A and B, then God's present encompasses both when we choose A and when we choose B. This means that if I choose B, then God is still present in a place where I chose A.
The problem I see with this is that our action of choice is exempted from "the realm of what is possible."
 

PolyHedral

Superabacus Mystic
The analogy some have used is that if God sees you choose 7, then you cannot choose 3. That is incorrect. A more accurate analogy would be God couldn't have seen you choosing 7 if you decide to choose 3.
Either way, God knows what you will do, with certainty, before you decide to do it.
 
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Skwim

Veteran Member
It's not a contradiction. It is my attempts to explain what I'm saying when I'm not sure how to explain what I'm saying. There are many different ways to conceptually think about how I think it actually is. I don't think that we, human beings, are capable of understanding exactly how it works. After all, we don't have the capability to view time in such a manner.

As I said, I believe that God is everywhere, including those dimensions that we would call the future, and everywhere He is, He can see the present. That includes the future, because both our present and our future compose His present.

At the same time, for us there is no future until we've reached it. Before that point the future consists of the many potential paths we can take. From our perspective, God would be in all of the potentialities seeing the path that exists for each of those options simultaneously, as if we'd already chosen them. Once we choose them, they become actualized to us and exist more concretely for us, but God was already there as if it were the present even though it wasn't the present for us yet.

Does that make sense?
Yes it does, and I'll leave it to the others to carry on..
 
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