God's omnisience vs freedom

coffee_cake

Wicknight wrote: »

It isn't about physically effecting anyone.

If you see Brad Pitt do something in a movie the next time you see the movie can he do something else? In frame 564 does Brad Pitt have a choice about what happens next in the film?

He COULD have done something different at the original time. I know what happens no matter how many times I watch it but that doesn't affect that moment in time where he made the choice to do that film etc. Now that he has chosen it's fixed in the film but there was still a choice to begin with.

There is no choice involved.

But there was a choice at a moment in time. I know he chose to do the movie. He could have done another one and then that one would be fixed in the future. He could have gone off on another career track altogether :eek:

The point I was trying to make with the film was that just because I see what happens, doesn't mean I ever had any hand in the decision making. I'm an outside observer.

Fanny Cradock

Twin-go wrote: »

So you are saying God created the rules in the first place and is now bound by those rules? He didn't leave himself a get out clause? Was this an oversite? And surely if he created the rules he can break the rules?

Christianity understands that God (including his nature) is uncreated - God was never not God. You seem to be suggesting that "the rules" (not sure what you exactly mean here) are somehow independent of God and now stand over against him. (The suggestion here is that these rules actually existed before God or that God created something greater than himself.) You don't seem to consider that something like logical consistency actually stems from God's nature and is indistinguishable from God. Still as I previously suggested, this is way off topic. Please start another thread if you want to discuss this further.

Zombrex

bluewolf wrote: »

He COULD have done something different at the original time.

Yes but there is no original time, no period of filming, for us. God has always existed and always omniscient.

We are always in the film, the next frame is always known.

To get to a point where there is actually a choice you need to erase the frames that have not come yet and have them determined by the actions in the current frame (ie at the time of filming)

That is reality if God doesn't exist. But if God does exist the frames ahead of us are not blank. They are already set and we are as powerless to change them as Brad is when you are watching the movie.

So we are Brad in the movie, not Brad on the sound stage filming the movie. And we have no more real choice than Brad does as you watch the movie.

bluewolf wrote: »

The point I was trying to make with the film was that just because I see what happens, doesn't mean I ever had any hand in the decision making. I'm an outside observer.

That is irrelevant. You never touch or edit or manipulate the movie at all.

That doesn't mean Brad has any more choice in frame 5534 as to what happens in frame 5535

Twin-go

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

This is really a separate issue to the thread, no? Unless you are Pat Robertson, then most Christians don't believe that Haiti was an act of God, rather it was a brute fact of nature. The God you describe - the bully dictator - is not one I recognise, and I think any response to this will lead is into the realm of theodicy. Therefore it's not a discussion for this thread.

I disagree that its a seperate issue. God created nature. He knew it's potential. why would he design things he new would kill his people. was it carelessness on his behalve?
You are saying we have free will. You maybe right but our free will is limited because God created the "Rules".

Imagine a game of snakes and laders. You roll the dice, move the required spaces. You may hit a snake and lose ground or you may hit a lader and move forward. There is a eliment of free will in the roll of the dice but ultimitly you end up in the same place. i.e. all the appearences of free will bit not really.

coffee_cake

Alright wicknight, I get the point you're making.
I'm still not sure I can agree that foreknowledge cancels out free will but I've run out of ways to say why
for now!

Zombrex

bluewolf wrote: »

Alright wicknight, I get the point you're making.
I'm still not sure I can agree that foreknowledge cancels out free will but I've run out of ways to say why
for now!

I win I win :pac::P

Fanny Cradock

Twin-go wrote: »

I disagree that its a seperate issue. God created nature. He knew it's potential. why would he design things he new would kill his people. was it carelessness on his behalve?
You are saying we have free will. You maybe right but our free will is limited because God created the "Rules".

Again, if you want to get into the issue of theodicy start another thread. You can disagree with this if you like but I can't promise that you will enjoy the results of ignoring my requests.

With or without God our free choices are limited, which is neither here nor there considering no one is claiming that free will means the freedom to do everything.

Fanny Cradock

Wicknight wrote: »

I win I win :pac::P

Just like every single debate you've had! Damn you're good.

Twin-go

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Again, if you want to get into the issue of theodicy start another thread. You can disagree with this if you like but I can't promise that you will enjoy the results of ignoring my requests.

Very God Like!:rolleyes:

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Just like every single debate you've had! Damn you're good.

:cool:

monosharp

This is probably the number one reason I could never accept god, at least a personal god.

It doesn't matter how many times religious people try to tongue twist their way around it, this topic has come up so many times here and there has not been a single good point made in defense of this supposed characteristic of god.

I'm not saying it disproves god, but it most definitely disproves an omniscient god.

Zombrex

monosharp wrote: »

I'm not saying it disproves god, but it most definitely disproves an omniscient god.

or free will.

Fanny Cradock

Twin-go wrote: »

[/B]

Very God Like!:rolleyes:

That is so vague a a remark that I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean.

Listen, I'm paid handsomely to keep the forum running smoothly. Amongst other things, a smoothly running forum includes keeping threads on track, especially when we have recently had a debate on whatever tangent we are being pulled off on. Please bear this in mind before you post another snide remark. OK?

monosharp

Wicknight wrote: »

or free will.

Sorry forgot that. Yes.

Twin-go

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

That is so vague a a remark that I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean.

Listen, I'm paid handsomely to keep the forum running smoothly. Amongst other things, a smoothly running forum includes keeping threads on track, especially when we have recently had a debate on whatever tangent we are being pulled off on. Please bear this in mind before you post another snide remark. OK?

I wasn't trying to pull the debate down the theodicy route. I was mearly stating examples that show that we have no freedom on a world created by and omnipient god. I not been omnipient am not aware of all debates in Boards.ie so excuse me if I mention some topics that may have been dicussed elsewhere before.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Now imagine that we are all actually in the film. The next frame is actually already known. It appears to us in the current frame like Brad is making a "choice" to do something. But he isn't really because the next frame is fixed. He is doing what he always did/does/will do

And the key question is: Why is it fixed?

Is the next frame fixed because Brad chose to act his part in a particular way?

Or is the next frame fixed because me watching it made it that way?

This is the key question. Everything else is waffle.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

And the key question is: Why is it fixed?

Is the next frame fixed because Brad chose to act his part in a particular way?

Or is the next frame fixed because me watching it made it that way?

This is the key question. Everything else is waffle.

Both. It is fixed because Brad choose to act that way during filming, thus collapsing potential futures into one single "fact" that cannot be changed. This appears to us as a fact rather than a choice because it is known to us, as the past is known.

As I said to Bluewolf the analogy breaks down some what because if you go back to the start you end up with Brad doing something and a blank next frame to record what he did. That is never the case with us because God never doesn't know what the next frame is going to be.

The next frame (our future) is always a fact, never a possibility We can't help that if God exists and is omniscient. It appears as a choice only because we are short sighted as to what the next frame (our future) holds. But the next frame exists because God knows it. It is a "fact" Whether God knows it because it is a fact or it is a fact because God knows it is an interested but some what irrelevant question.

If you can explain to me how there is a case where our future is in a state of possibility rather than certainty, unknown and undetermined awaiting our choice, as the next frame is when filming Brad Pitt's choice, then you might have an argument for free will.

But no one has done that and in fact that would seem logically impossible given God is eternal and omniscient.

Simply saying we make a choice and God knows what we choose is like saying that every time you watch Mr & Ms Smith Brad Pitt is making a choice, you just know what the choice is. This is not the case. He did make a choice once while filming but every time you watch the movie there is no choices being made even though it may appear there is. You know the out come and the Brad in the movie is a slave to that out come. He appears to choose to jump through a window but that is not choice. He cannot on the 56 time you have watched that movie decide instead to run down the stairs.

And since there is never a case where we are in the situation of the original filming, with an unknown next frame dependent on our choice, there is never a case where we have choice or free will. We are slaves to a future that has already happened.

Fanny Cradock

Twin-go wrote: »

I wasn't trying to pull the debate down the theodicy route. I was mearly stating examples that show that we have no freedom on a world created by and omnipient god. I not been omnipient am not aware of all debates in Boards.ie so excuse me if I mention some topics that may have been dicussed elsewhere before.

Don't be silly. Did I suggest that you had to be aware of all debates on Boards.ie? No. My request was clear and I've been quite accommodating with you - even to the point that I politely suggested on two separate occasions that the direction of your posts was better suited to another thread. After it was clear that my message simply wasn't getting through, my third warning was more forceful, which seems to have precipitated your regrettable pugnacity. Let's not loose the plot, you are still free to start another thread. Please, please don't continue to argue.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

As I said to Bluewolf the analogy breaks down some what because if you go back to the start you end up with Brad doing something and a blank next frame to record what he did. That is never the case with us because God never doesn't know what the next frame is going to be.

But the next frame cannot be blank, because something is always going to be happening. And that something is determined by the choices you make.

So what you are saying is, "I have no idea what I'm going to do next because I haven't made my mind up yet. But the fact that God knows what I'm going to do means that I'm not free to choose." You have offered no coherent logic or argument to support that position.

Your argument only makes sense if you reduce God to a finite being who is bound by our tenses of past, present and future. Then you are arguing against some other being and not against the God of Christianity.

God is eternal. He sees everything you do as you do it. He does not see anything as in the future - because there is no future for an eternal being. He does not see anything as in the past, because there is no past for an eternal being. Everything is present. And he sees you make your choices in his eternal present and therefore knows what choices you are making.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

But the next frame cannot be blank, because something is always going to be happening.

It is blank until it happens.

The future is undetermined until your choice creates a single future (which then becomes the present)

Except that isn't the case if God exists. The future isn't unknown and thus isn't undetermined.

Thus you cannot choose an outcome from a set of possible outcomes. There is no set of possible outcomes. There is just what will happen.

PDN wrote: »

But the fact that God knows what I'm going to do means that I'm not free to choose." You have offered no coherent logic or argument to support that position.

Yes I have, you are just choosing to ignore it.

If God exists then the future is already set/determined/known/a fact.

My actions in the present have no effect in created the future because the future already exists, it is already in the present a fact.

With out the ability to choose a future I have no actual choice.

What am I choosing from?

PDN wrote: »

Your argument only makes sense if you reduce God to a finite being who is bound by our tenses of past, present and future.

I have absolutely no idea why you keep saying that since it is perfectly clear my argument only works if God is omniscient and exists out side of time.

If God was a finite being bound by our time line my argument wouldn't work at all. If the future was as unknown to God as it is to us then my argument wouldn't work at all.

It is only God's omniscience and unique position to view all of time as a single "fact" which makes my argument work.

Whether you agree with me or not that part at least should be blatantly clear.

PDN wrote: »

God is eternal. He sees everything you do as you do it.

God is eternal. He sees everything you do before you do it. He sees everything you do after you do it.

He exists in a single eternal place and sees all of the universe's time line as a single viewable unchanging "fact".

A fact PDN. Not a possibility. A FACT It is what it is. It is not what it might be depending on what you choose. It is not what it could be if depending on what I choose. It simply is.

On 7th of April 2011 you eat a piece of cake. That is a fact. It is a fact now, it is a fact then, it is a fact 4 billion years ago, it is a fact 6 billion years in the future.

On the 7th of April 2011 you didn't choose out of a set of possible outcomes to eat a piece of cake. You simply ate a cake. Choice had nothing to do with it because there was only one possible outcome, the cake gets eaten.

To be able to choose it must be possible that other outcomes were possible. But they aren't. You eat a piece of cake. That was the only think you did, the only think you ever would do.

You didn't choose to eat the piece of cake because it wasn't possible not to. You just did it.

It is no more a choice than Brad Pitt on frame 6453 chooses what happens in frame 6454. He just does it.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

It is blank until it happens.

The future is undetermined until your choice creates a single future (which then becomes the present)

Except that isn't the case if God exists. The future isn't unknown and thus isn't undetermined.

Thus you cannot choose an outcome from a set of possible outcomes. There is no set of possible outcomes. There is just what will happen.


Yes I have, you are just choosing to ignore it.

If God exists then the future is already set/determined/known/a fact.

My actions in the present have no effect in created the future because the future already exists, it is already in the present a fact.

With out the ability to choose a future I have no actual choice.

What am I choosing from?


I have absolutely no idea why you keep saying that since it is perfectly clear my argument only works if God is omniscient and exists out side of time.

If God was a finite being bound by our time line my argument wouldn't work at all. If the future was as unknown to God as it is to us then my argument wouldn't work at all.

It is only God's omniscience and unique position to view all of time as a single "fact" which makes my argument work.

Whether you agree with me or not that part at least should be blatantly clear.


God is eternal. He sees everything you do before you do it. He sees everything you do after you do it.

He exists in a single eternal place and sees all of the universe's time line as a single viewable unchanging "fact".

A fact PDN. Not a possibility. A FACT It is what it is. It is not what it might be depending on what you choose. It is not what it could be if depending on what I choose. It simply is.

On 7th of April 2011 you eat a piece of cake. That is a fact. It is a fact now, it is a fact then, it is a fact 4 billion years ago, it is a fact 6 billion years in the future.

On the 7th of April 2011 you didn't choose out of a set of possible outcomes to eat a piece of cake. You simply ate a cake. Choice had nothing to do with it because there was only one possible outcome, the cake gets eaten.

To be able to choose it must be possible that other outcomes were possible. But they aren't. You eat a piece of cake. That was the only think you did, the only think you ever would do.

You didn't choose to eat the piece of cake because it wasn't possible not to. You just did it.

It is no more a choice than Brad Pitt on frame 6453 chooses what happens in frame 6454. He just does it.

So, nothing new to bring to the table then? Ok.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

So, nothing new to bring to the table then? Ok.

Well no, it is the same argument I've been making for the last 2 years which you keep "refuting" with the same old oxymoronic statements about choice.

Which is why I was a bit puzzled why you were giving out about going around in circles.

I've detailed a number of times to you the way to demonstrate the logic is wrong. You ignore that and simply come back with the same tired old position that was invalidated 2 years ago.

When you figure out a way to actually explain how you can "choose" a future out of a set of 1 possible futures, get back to me.

Until then you have nothing to add and my position is the same as it always has been.

Morbert

I'm going to have to side with PDN on this one. Even if the someone's will exists as a function of time, allowing God to know someone's choices before they choose them, that would not impact on our will unless God actively shaped what we chose.

To use Wicknight's analogy:The "film version" of Brad Pit has no free will. He must act out what has already been willed by the real Brad Bitt. It is this Brad Pitt that has chosen how to act. Similarly, our "film" experience of making choices may be set in stone and unchangeable, but that does not mean our "real" will is not responsible.

There are two ingredients needed to make this assertion consistent. The first is there must be an aspect of our will that, like God, transcends physical space and time, even if our knowledge doesn't. If we are simply a dynamical system of events then we have no more control over our actions than we have over the fine structure constant (This is more or less what I believe, but with a bit of quantum weirdness). The second is God must not be able to associate different possible histories with different possible people. These counterfactuals have to be in some sense unknowable. Otherwise God could completely and entirely determine the course of history but placing the right people in the right places at the right time.

Now our will is obviously constrained in some regards. The very existence of our will is an obvious example.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

When you figure out a way to actually explain how you can "choose" a future out of a set of 1 possible futures, get back to me.

'Possible futures' is itself an oxymoron. There are possibilities, but there can only be one future.

You choose that future, and so no other possibilities can be the future. God sees that.

I don't need to logically prove or disprove anything. You are the one claiming that a contradiction exists. Therefore the onus is on you to provide evidence for your claim. So far you have not demonstrated anything other than your inability to comprehend the concept of an Eternal being.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

'Possible futures' is itself an oxymoron. There are possibilities, but there can only be one future.

If there is only one future out of what set of possible futures are you choosing that future?

PDN wrote: »

You choose that future, and so no other possibilities can be the future.

Choose it as opposed to what?

If there is only one possible future then what am I choosing? If there is only A how am I choosing A?

Are you confusing the future with the present?

Zombrex

Morbert wrote: »

The second is God must not be able to associate different possible histories with different possible people. These counterfactuals have to be in some sense unknowable.

Then God is not omniscient and the problem disappears. You don't even need to get nearly as complicated as you did if you are happy with a God that is not omniscient.

Like me and Monosharp were saying, these problems go away if either a) God isn't omniscient or b) we don't have free will.

Morbert

Wicknight wrote: »

Then God is not omniscient and the problem disappears. You don't even need to get nearly as complicated as you did if you are happy with a God that is not omniscient.

Like me and Monosharp were saying, these problems go away if either a) God isn't omniscient or b) we don't have free will.

If God is not omniscient because He cannot know the unknowable, then He is not omnipotent because he cannot make the unmakeable (e.g. A square circle).

These are not the definitions of omni- that people are using.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

If there is only one future out of what set of possible futures are you choosing that future?

You have any number of possibilities before you, but they do not become a future until you choose one of them. Up to that point they are just imaginations.

Choose it as opposed to what?

Choose it as opposed to anything else you could have chosen (which, if you had chosen them, would be the future).

If there is only one possible future then what am I choosing? If there is only A how am I choosing A?

A only becomes A when you choose it. Think of it as being similar to the wavefunction collapse according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Are you confusing the future with the present?

No, but I am trying to help you to grasp the concept of an eternal Being to whom everything is present.

Zombrex

Morbert wrote: »

If God is not omniscient because He cannot know the unknowable, then He is not omnipotent because he cannot make the unmakeable (e.g. A square circle).

These are not the definitions of omni- that people are using.

But how is what you are saying "unknowable"?

We know the future when it turns into the present. I know what the rain will be like tomorrow when tomorrow turns into today. So that knowledge is not unkownable.

Anyway the Bible already says that God knows the future so it is some what of a moot point.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

You have any number of possibilities before you, but they do not become a future until you choose one of them.

Ok. Now what if you don't have a number of possibilities before you

What if you just have 1. What do you choose?

PDN wrote: »

No, but I am trying to help you to grasp the concept of an eternal Being to whom everything is present.

Well yes but you just removed the eternal being from the equation.

Lets reintroduce him. Suddenly the "possibilities before you" disappear because God knows what the outcome will be. It is not a set of possibilities but a fact.

So without eternal being you have say 4 possible outcomes before you, A B C D. All these could happen

Through your choice you cause to happen A that becomes the present.

Now re-introduce God.

You now have 1 possible outcome before you, A

You "choose" A and that becomes the present.

Except you didn't choose anything because your set of possible outcomes before you is just A anyway. You just did what you were always going to do.

If you can explain to me how you can reintroduce "possible outcomes" when you have an omniscient being who already knows the outcome, then you have a valid argument and I will retract my position.