How God's Omniscience Robs Him From Having A Free Will

Shad · Jun 15, 2019

Road Warrior said:
I look forward to seeing your evidence on the laws of physics in these other Universes.

Again look up what a square is. Now look up what a circle is. It does not matter what universe as the terms have specific meaning. To square a circle means it is no longer a circle by definition.

stvdv · Jun 15, 2019

Shad said:
My point holds in all forms of logic due to the definition of the words being used

Exactly that is my point ... beyond the mind means "beyond words" .. "beyond logic"

Shad · Jun 15, 2019

stvdv said:
Exactly that is my point ... beyond the mind means "beyond words" .. "beyond logic"

Beyond logic is just babble so you do not have to consider anything against your views. My point is solid. You have nothing against it. Simple as that.

Skwim · Jun 15, 2019

Nimos said:
I think you might confuse yourself a bit, I don't disagree with you that the theologians have an issue. However its your initial problem that I agree with. That God can't have free will. But it is assumed that he have, because he needs to. That is were the problem is.

So when you ask the question:
If god has free will then just what drives him to decide to do A rather than B?

Nothing might drive him to choose A over B, except a random choice. Unless God, being what he is, in some miraculous way have another type of free will, that makes no sense to us. Which is one of the reasons the theologians run into problems. First of all because the bible say that God can't lie, just to keep it simple. Therefore he is not free to do as he please. Now if that in itself is not enough to convince people and they still claim he have it, they won't be able to explain what this type of free will is, that they are talking about. Because it contradict the bible, so either the bible is wrong about the nature of God, and therefore it could be wrong about anything regarding the nature of God or God is able to lie, so he actually have free will, but then the bible is still wrong, because it say that he can't lie. So regardless of how the theologians tries to explain it, they end up with either not understanding the nature of God, and the bible being wrong regardless of which explanation they choose. Therefore the only solution or explanation left for them is to say that God works in mysteries ways. Which, whenever you hear someone saying that, is equal to them having no clue or answer to your question.

Now this was what I tried to explain to you in the first post, where you said that it were not relevante to you, because there was only two ways to do anything, which was through cause/effect or randomness. Which I disagree with. Not your initial statement in the first post, there is a distinction here. Does that make sense to you?

Again I think you end up confusing yourself, because you change the words and therefore their meaning:

conscious is not the same as consciousness

Conscious simply mean that you are aware of what you are doing, that you understand and know the consequences or potentially know the consequences of what you are doing.

For instance, you are standing in a room with a red button blinking rapidly. Should you press it or not, you know what a button is, you also know that it blinking red usually symbolize that it could be bad, but you have no clue what the consequences of pressing it will be. So do you press it? In that case regardless of whether you press it or not, you are somewhat conscious about what you are doing, you know all the elements etc.

conscious
adjective

aware of and responding to one's surroundings.
"although I was in pain, I was conscious"
synonymer: aware, awake, wide awake, compos mentis, alert, responsive, reactive, feeling, sentient Mere

having knowledge of something.
"we are conscious of the extent of the problem"

Consciousness is to be self aware.
Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness or of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined variously in terms of sentience, awareness, qualia, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood or soul, the fact that there is something "that it is like" to "have" or "be" it, and the executive control system of the mind

Method is simply that you follow a procedure, so first you do A, then you do B etc. A random choice can't follow systematic method, as it wouldn't be random.

Does it make it more clear?

Sorry, but you keep inserting "random choice" into the discussion as if it's meaningful, and as you've defined it "when you don't know what the outcome will be or even what the meaning of the question is in the first place." it is not. So as it stands we're at loggerheads.

But thanks for the conversation.

.

Nimos · Jun 15, 2019

Skwim said:
Sorry, but you keep inserting "random choice" into the discussion as if it's meaningful, and as you've defined it "when you don't know what the outcome will be or even what the meaning of the question is in the first place." it is not. So as it stands we're at loggerheads.

But thanks for the conversation.

.

What about random choice do you not understand?

If I asked you to choose between option 1, option 2, or option 3... wouldn't you say that you would have to make a random choice, as you don't know what any of them is or the consequences are?

Maybe we don't actually disagree, but it might just be our wording that is different.

stvdv · Jun 15, 2019

Shad said:
Beyond logic is just babble so you do not have to consider anything against your views. My point is solid. You have nothing against it. Simple as that.

My point is solid
I agree to disagree

viole · Jun 15, 2019

stvdv said:
Obviously ... God is beyond human logic

Not only the human one.

Ciao

- viole

viole · Jun 15, 2019

stvdv said:
God can create, so God has Free Will ... every time God creates, His Free Will manifests

The point is that He cannot create something different from what He already knew He will create. Because that is what omniscience means, knowing everything, including what He will do for all eternity.

And since He cannot create nor do anything different that would defeat His omniscience, His will is constrained. For instance, He cannot possibly be surprised, nor tinker with the Universe to correct an unexpected situation (which cannot exist), nor create something novel which He did not plan to create.

This is also one of the main reasons why praying is logically absurd, and therefore useless, even under the premise of an existing Christian God.

All in all, He must be infinitely bored.

Ciao

- viole

stvdv · Jun 15, 2019

viole said:
The point is that He cannot create something different from what He already knew He will create. Because that is what omniscience means, knowing everything, including what He will do for all eternity.

Of course I can only guess what God can or can't do, because God/universe is far beyond my imagination (lacking all these omni's).:

So the below is as I understand it:
I agree that He cannot create something different from what He already knew He will create (Him being omniscient)

Free Will to me means "the ability to create whatever needed" ... so the focus is on WILL (as in Will Power); the word Choice is not here
Humans do not have this ability ... God does
Free Choice to me means "the freedom to choose from what is available" ... so the focus on CHOICE; the word Will is not here
Humans are good in this ... God not

So God has the "Freedom to WILL" ... to manifest ... something most humans don't have
And humans have the "Freedom to CHOOSE" ... something God does not seem to have

stvdv · Jun 15, 2019

viole said:
This is also one of the main reasons why praying is logically absurd, and therefore useless, even under the premise of an existing Christian God.

I always have problems to pray because of this
But suppose God "Willed" that "if this person prays then I grant him what he prays for" (as part of the game, like the goal posts in football)
Of course God already knows whether this person will pray or not, so he will know what He will have to do.
Then it seems that praying is not logically absurd

stvdv · Jun 15, 2019

viole said:
All in all, He must be infinitely bored

Yes, if you see it from human perspective "only when running around like crazy life is not boring" ... it is boring
Boring on the other hand is below the mind, whereas God/spirituality is beyond the mind = "no mind", = "not boring"
Once you have experiened this "no mind state" ... even for a short period ... you know it is "not boring", because there is no mind

Skwim · Jun 15, 2019

Nimos said:
What about random choice do you not understand?

Okay, bottom line here: In that I deny the existence of choosing or any of its cognates, qualifying choice as "random" means nothing. No more so than if you said it was a cauliflower choice.

.

Road Warrior · Jun 15, 2019

Shad said:
Again look up what a square is. Now look up what a circle is. It does not matter what universe as the terms have specific meaning. To square a circle means it is no longer a circle by definition.

Obviously the concept is beyond what you can understand. Have a really good day, sir!

Road Warrior said:
Not without violating the established rules of the Natural Universe but who can legitimately claim, and prove their claim, that those rules remain the same outside our Universe or in other Universes?

Unguru · Jun 15, 2019

viole said:
The point is that He cannot create something different from what He already knew He will create. Because that is what omniscience means, knowing everything, including what He will do for all eternity.

And since He cannot create nor do anything different that would defeat His omniscience, His will is constrained. For instance, He cannot possibly be surprised, nor tinker with the Universe to correct an unexpected situation (which cannot exist), nor create something novel which He did not plan to create.

This is also one of the main reasons why praying is logically absurd, and therefore useless, even under the premise of an existing Christian God.

I wish you where better skilled at refuting things because you're like 1/3rd of the way from growing a mature understanding of Theism or even becoming one, but you're not quite there.
I'm not even a Christian, yet I can see how flawed your arguments are.

viole said:
All in all, He must be infinitely bored.

You're scraping up at the bottom of the boat of Logic but you're not quite in the boat yet. Many religions do agree with this statement but not in your dry, boring, atheistic connotations. Geeze, I wish you where smarter and used that brain of yours.

viole · Jun 16, 2019

Unguru said:
I wish you where better skilled at refuting things because you're like 1/3rd of the way from growing a mature understanding of Theism or even becoming one, but you're not quite there.
I'm not even a Christian, yet I can see how flawed your arguments are.

I am 1/3 of the way of even becoming a mature understanding of theism? What on earth does that mean? How can I become an understanding?

And I am thrilled that my argument had a flaw. So, we can discuss it. Which flaw is it?

You're scraping up at the bottom of the boat of Logic but you're not quite in the boat yet. Many religions do agree with this statement but not in your dry, boring, atheistic connotations. Geeze, I wish you where smarter and used that brain of yours.

Many religions agree that God is infinitely bored? Well, what less dry language do they use then to express the same?

Ciao

- viole

Maximilian · Jun 16, 2019

Skwim said:
.

Consider: free will is the ability to have done differently. In essence it means that at the point of doing A or B one has the ability to choose to do one rather than the other.

Consider: omniscience is commonly defined as knowing everything. And this means e v e r y t h i n g, NO exceptions. Moreover, this would include all those things god does.

.

You misapprehend how free will works. To borrow from the brainchild of Harry Frankfurt, "so long as a person’s choice is causally undetermined, it is a free choice even if he is unable to choose the opposite of that choice.

Imagine a man with electrodes secretly implanted in his brain who is presented with the choice of doing A or B. The electrodes are inactive so long as the man chooses A; but if he were going to choose B, then the electrodes would switch on and force him to choose A. If the electrodes ﬁre, causing him to choose A, his choice of A is clearly not a free choice. But suppose that the man really wants to do A and chooses of his own volition. In that case his choosing A is entirely free, even though the man is literally unable to choose B, since the electrodes do not function at all and so have no effect on his choice of A. What makes his choice free is the absence of any causally determining factors of his choosing A.

In other words, a limitation in the range of choices is not the same as having no choice at all. If A, B, and C are good choices, and D, E, and F are evil choices, one’s inability to choose D, E, or F does not negate the fact that he can choose A, B, or C.”

When you go to an Italian restaurant, they may only serve 12 out of 150 possible Italian dishes. The fact that you cannot choose 138 of those dishes does not negate the fact that you can choose any one of the 12 options before you. Likewise, God’s lack of ability to choose evil does not mean God lacks freedom of will.

Thus, libertarian freedom of the will does not require the ability to choose other than one chooses. Withal, your argument against God not being a maximally great being for such a constraint falls apart.

Willamena · Jun 16, 2019

stvdv said:
Exactly that is my point ... beyond the mind means "beyond words" .. "beyond logic"

To be fair, what does it mean for something to be "beyond logic"? ...and you can't answer that, because meaning is within the realm of logic.

Solid.

Willamena · Jun 16, 2019

Nimos said:
What about random choice do you not understand?

If I asked you to choose between option 1, option 2, or option 3... wouldn't you say that you would have to make a random choice, as you don't know what any of them is or the consequences are?

Maybe we don't actually disagree, but it might just be our wording that is different.

"Random" means you have no role in the choice made, because "choosing" means that you do.

To put it another way, if you choose 2 over 1 or 3, it wasn't truly random. Conscious preferences, habits, personality, and a whole host of factors play an influential role in making the choice. As long as it's you who made it, it wasn't random. (Just as random number generating software is never truly random.)

Willamena · Jun 16, 2019

Nimos said:
Method is simply that you follow a procedure, so first you do A, then you do B etc. A random choice can't follow systematic method, as it wouldn't be random.

Does it make it more clear?

Do you perhaps mean an accidental choice?

stvdv · Jun 16, 2019

Willamena said:
To be fair, what does it mean for something to be "beyond logic"? ...and you can't answer that, because meaning is within the realm of logic.

Solid.

How God's Omniscience Robs Him From Having A Free Will

Veteran Member

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Well-Known Member

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV

Ontological Naturalist

Ontological Naturalist

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV

Veteran Member

Seeking the middle path..

I am a Sikh nice to meet you

Ontological Naturalist

Energetic proclaimer of Jehovah God's Kingdom.

Just me

Just me

Just me

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV