Again, what God knows has nothing to do with whether or not we have free will.
God's knowledge does not cause us to do anything, not anymore than an astronomer's knowledge of when and where an eclipse will take place causes that eclipse to take place.
If you are making a claim that God's knowledge prevents us from choosing a or b or c then you need to explain why that would be the case.
How would what God knows what we will choose prevent us from choosing one thing or another? There is no logical connection between what God knows and what we choose. The reason God knows what we will choose is because God is all-knowing. It is as simple as that..
But this is not the same.
If you take an astronomer's knowledge about an eclipse, this is not foreknowledge. It is based upon the ability to predict something set in motion long ago based on some data that we have learned to interpret, meaning physical laws. The same way that the astronomers based on the current data available can tell you where the moon will be in 1000 years, yet the moon might be destroyed in 500 years due to some huge meteor hitting it that he didn't know about.
You can compare it to watching a movie. God's knowledge doesn't prevent anything, it simply couldn't happen any other way. In a movie, you can go back and forth but it will never change. So even if you don't know what will happen in the next scene, God will because he has seen the movie an infinite number of times
. You can easily be surprised and hope for certain things to happen in it, but the movie will play out exactly as it was created.
Our ability to make choices comes from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances - everything that goes into making us the person we are. All of these factors are the reasons why we choose one thing or another at any point in time. What God knows we will choose has nothing to do with what we choose. All-knowing is an attribute of God.
How free our choices vary with the situation. Recently I have changed my mind about how free we are when I realized just how limited I am in making choices different from the choices I am making now. I believe that free will is deterministic because the choices we make are 'determined' by a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances.
I agree that these things are what impact us. But the argument goes, that the reason you are feeling this way is because you were influenced by things throughout your life, that caused you to reach whatever conclusion. Yet all the things that impacted you, were likewise caused by other things. And as above, eventually, you end up at the beginning.
Im not saying that this is true, again given my argument about the potential of emergent properties, which could allow for a partly deterministic Universe.
But again, I think you run into issues with God, because God is fully deterministic or at least some sort of bridge between my argument and that of God would be required as I see it.
The reason we only have the 'potential' for free will is because free will is constrained by so many factors. For example, potentially I could adopt out all my cats and no longer have the problems I have because of them, but because of my childhood and adult experiences that made me the person I am today and because of my present life circumstances I cannot choose to do that.
Yes and no, it is not what my argument leans on.
It's more than atoms might be fully deterministic, yet properties that emerge from these might not. So even if we could predict all atoms, these might allow for several emerged properties, which might not be predictable at all, because these emerged properties are not written into the atoms themselves or even their structure. So when I say yes, is because I agree that childhood etc. plays a part. But also even if we could raise two people in the exact same environment (everything you can think of is exactly the same) they might turn out differently. I don't think they would be completely different, because I believe there is a natural benefit for humans to be alike. Which is also why we group up etc. We like to be like others and be part of a group, but that is another discussion
It is true that we are not in control of many things that happen in our lives but I have changed my mind about randomness. I don't think anything happens at random, I think everything is either the result of a free will choice someone made or it was predestined (fated) by God.
I would probably agree, obviously not with the God part
But in regard to randomness, I think it might very well be an illusion as well, simply us not having enough data.
For example, I got hit by a car while riding my bike to work back in 2005, and that was the result of a choice a man made to talk on his cell phone rather than paying attention to what was on the road. I did not choose to get hit but that was my fate, as it was predestined to happen, and it happened because of a choice someone else made.
Yeah, you called it fate, I call it being at the wrong place at the wrong time. But there wasn't anything random about it, you rode your bike the time you did, the man drove his car at that moment, the phone ran etc. If we magically tracked back all the things leading up to the point where you got hit, I think we would reach the conclusion that it was logical that it happened, simply because we would have all the data available.
It is probably more the choice of "word" we use more than anything else.
Note that it says it “can succeed” not that it “will succeed.”
What that amounts to is that we are completely at the mercy of God...
That doesn't surprise me, because if it was "will succeed" then that would prove God, or at least be an extremely strong argument and as an atheist I would welcome that
