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The Paradox of Omniscience

ametist

ametist

Active Member
Ouroboros said:
Let's say there are two options for me to choose right now. A or B.

And let's say God knows for certainty that I will choose A.

So...

Now I choose B.

That means God was wrong. If I had chosen A because that was my fate/predestination, then I didn't have a real choice. Sure, I had options, but I didn't have the freedom to pick B at all if A was the only choice God knew I would pick.

So either we have free will and God doesn't know. Or God knows everything we're choosing before we do and it's deterministic.

The so-called solutions all of them suggests a half-baked intermediate thing where God knows some of the things we will do, but not all of it. He won't know why, when, or how, but only that at some point I'll be in New York (as an example). He won't know how I got there, train, boat, plane, spaceship, or teleportation, but he do know that I'm going to be there at such-and-such date. In other words, it's a semi-omniscience, not a full one.
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God knows what will become of you when you chose A or when you B or when you dont choose both.. God is in a timeless 'zone' and sees all possibilities of you happening all together.in other words you never can suprise god with anything you may choose. But until you chose one of them, A or B or anything there isnt even a YOU specific to this time and place. Because through each choice of yours, you are realizing yourself among all those possibilities and witnessing your own realization. So when you get back to god you will talk about the real you among all those other possibilites of you that god knows, that could have been you, but didnt, because of your choices. God doesnt pick one possibility of you over another, though it knows all of them, you do make that choice.
When you are thinking of omniscience you cant avoid issues of free will, reason of creation, nature of god in general.
I think god is omniscient
We are given freewill and it works perfectly and is compatible with omniscience nature of god. Other two are too big to put here, i am guessing. Could it be that there is a problem with other two making it harder to understand?
 
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Thruve

Thruve

Sheppard for the Die Hard
ametist said:
God knows what will become of you when you chose A or when you B or when you dont choose both.. God is in a timeless 'zone' and sees all possibilities of you happening all together.in other words you never can suprise god with anything you may choose. But until you chose one of them, A or B or anything there isnt even a YOU specific to this time and place. Because through each choice of yours, you are realizing yourself among all those possibilities and witnessing your own realization. So when you get back to god you will talk about the real you among all those other possibilites of you that god knows, that could have been you, but didnt, because of your choices. God doesnt pick one possibility of you over another, though it knows all of them, you do make that choice.
When you are thinking of omniscience you cant avoid issues of free will, reason of creation, nature of god in general.
I think god is omniscient
We are given freewill and it works perfectly and is compatible with omniscience nature of god. Other two are too big to put here, i am guessing. Could it be that there is a problem with other two making it harder to understand?
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That last question there: probably ^_^
 
The Sum of Awe

The Sum of Awe

Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
ametist said:
yes. god is aware of ALL the possible choices you may take and knows what is your outcome at the end of all these possible choices even if you chose them or not. (omniscience)
but only when you personally chose one (exercize of freewill) you yourself are also the witness of your choice along with god. you cant now say 'i wouldnt chose it' you know you had the option and you know you did chose that option.

if you have the mental capacity you know stealing is bad. you are rich and want to get richer and you steal although you know you have option of not stealing. god knows what will become of you when you steal and when you dont steal(omniscience).
only when you chose to steal(freewill), you confirm god that you have taken that road when asked about it.
think of it like parallel realities. god knows all yous in all of them(omniscience) and you pick one and become witness to your choices(freewill).
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Not what I meant, does God not know the single path (out of them all) we will take?
 
Thruve

Thruve

Sheppard for the Die Hard
ametist said:
God knows what will become of you when you chose A or when you B or when you dont choose both.. God is in a timeless 'zone' and sees all possibilities of you happening all together.in other words you never can suprise god with anything you may choose. But until you chose one of them, A or B or anything there isnt even a YOU specific to this time and place. Because through each choice of yours, you are realizing yourself among all those possibilities and witnessing your own realization. So when you get back to god you will talk about the real you among all those other possibilites of you that god knows, that could have been you, but didnt, because of your choices. God doesnt pick one possibility of you over another, though it knows all of them, you do make that choice.
When you are thinking of omniscience you cant avoid issues of free will, reason of creation, nature of god in general.
I think god is omniscient
We are given freewill and it works perfectly and is compatible with omniscience nature of god. Other two are too big to put here, i am guessing. Could it be that there is a problem with other two making it harder to understand?
Click to expand...

Question for you: Fit in God's will into this example.
 
Thesavorofpan

Thesavorofpan

Is not going to save you.
Thruve said:
Question for you: Fit in God's will into this example.
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God's will's differ on different subject matter, but for most humans we can only speculate because God's will differentiates from person to person. The only way for a person to find out is to pray and fast while seeking guidence from a minister in their respective church organization. But I would say the basis is that God set ups pathways that could lead to his will or against and it's the persons choice to chose his or her path. God made it this way so we could serve and love him of our own free will. To sum what I'm trying to explain here God see's every choice that we could possibly make. Even if we don't always choose the right ones.
 
Thruve

Thruve

Sheppard for the Die Hard
ametist said:
It comes into play with purpose of creation. Why would omniscient god create anything if knew the begining of everything and its end?
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Because he had to fit his will it into our own free will. He couldn't have willed anything had he not created everything to see it first.
 
Ouroboros

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
Aupmanyav said:
Loneliness, nobody likes it. No one to boss over, so he created us.
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But it's only fun to boss over someone if you have to tell them what to do. If you know what they will do regardless, then it doesn't matter. You can't change it. And it would be just as lonely to have a world that you wrote the story for. You already know everything.

No, if God created it for companionship or entertainment, then he must've done it so it could surprise him, i.e. him not knowing what would happen. Which means, God would've created a world that contradicted his omniscience.
 
Ouroboros

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
Thruve said:
Because he had to fit his will it into our own free will. He couldn't have willed anything had he not created everything to see it first.
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Then, the first time in played so he could see it, everything must've been new and surprising. It must've been unpredictable for him to see it for the first time. First time means that you haven't seen it before. And if he didn't know about it before, he wasn't omniscient about it.

The only solution here is still: free will requires some form of non-omniscience.
 
Sha'irullah

Sha'irullah

رسول الآلهة
ametist said:
Given that god is omniscient;
Given that you have free will;
God knows the outcome of what will become of you in a situtation called a,
If you chose x
If you chose y
If you chose z
...
..
.
.
.
.
So you have freewill to chose among all those outcomes of you and god is omniscient to know ALL the outcomes even if you chose them or not and knows which one you are inclining towards.
But god has a moral concern to give you the time to make that choice because when you are told you have chosen x which didnt cause you to end up very nice, you cant go out and object, 'no i wouldnt do it. You are a one big tricky god'. Because you are your own witness in this case chosing option x among all the other options given to you.
If you lack the mental capability to the degree of recognizing your options, i.e you are mentally challanged, you are exempt from religion.
All of this can be validated through quran.
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This is not true int he slightest bit. An omniscient being must know which outcome will be chosen not the set of choices available. It must know "everything" or it is not omniscience.
 
Skwim

Skwim

Veteran Member
Philotech said:
This is not true int he slightest bit. An omniscient being must know which outcome will be chosen not the set of choices available. It must know "everything" or it is not omniscience.
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If there were a set of available choice why wouldn't an omniscient god know of them?
 
ametist

ametist

Active Member
Philotech said:
This is not true int he slightest bit. An omniscient being must know which outcome will be chosen not the set of choices available. It must know "everything" or it is not omniscience.
Click to expand...

all outcomes of you at the end of each possible choice even if you chose them or not are known by god and they are real in another plane of existence "as if" all happened. one of them becomes real to you also when you chose it. and you are responsible to god with what choice that you will remember from this time and place.
 
Ouroboros

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
ametist said:
all outcomes of you at the end of each possible choice even if you chose them or not are known by god and they are real in another plane of existence "as if" all happened. one of them becomes real to you also when you chose it. and you are responsible to god with what choice that you will remember from this time and place.
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To know all possible outcomes is to know nothing. To know every possible position of pieces on a chessboard does not make an expert in neither playing or knowing a specific game played.

We know all possible infinite series of decimals too, but which one of them is e?
 
ametist

ametist

Active Member
Ouroboros said:
To know all possible outcomes is to know nothing. To know every possible position of pieces on a chessboard does not make an expert in neither playing or knowing a specific game played.

We know all possible infinite series of decimals too, but which one of them is e?
Click to expand...

I am talking about omniscience of god, not of some chessplayer. You think knowing of god is some sort of an information or wisdom like ours. It isnt. general (complete)nature of god is included in each specific feature of god. When god is omniscient, it doesnt give up its 'creator' nature, neither gives up its 'not being bound by time and space' feature.
So god doesnt have the motive of a chessplayer neither a chessplayer has the nature of god.
To know all possible outcomes is also to have all possible outcomes created somewhere in a timeless 'zone'. but which one you will chose for yourself in this time and space?
 
Ouroboros

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
ametist said:
To know all possible outcomes is also to have all possible outcomes created somewhere in a timeless 'zone'. but which one you will chose for yourself in this time and space?
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And does God know about which choice I make or not?

You're keep on talking about knowing about all possible choices, but keep on avoiding the issue of knowing the factual choice.

The whole chess player part is an analogy to compare to how it would be to be an omniscient being. The omniscient chess player knows all possible moves, but he also knows what move will be done of all those possible moves. Is God that kind or is he of a lesser omniscient kind?

To me, the way you describe God is nothing but God as the Akashic Record.
 
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