God's omnisience vs freedom

Morbert

Wicknight wrote: »

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.

By different possible histories, I mean histories other than the one that exists. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word 'history' because I am referring to past present and future. We all agree that the future is known to God.

You might choose to have a sandwich tomorrow if that is how history is. If God can say "If I had created Wicknight's will another way, he will not have chosen to have a sandwich.", then God has complete control over whether or not you make a sandwich, and you would in fact have no free will. However, if there is an aspect to your will that is unknowable, then no will is constrained. What do I mean by unknowable as opposed to unknown? If someone's will can be modelled such that all their possible actions in different situations can be deduced, then their will is entirely defined by whoever made it. But if there is an unphysical aspect to your will, something that cannot be known in terms of a complete series of if-then-else statements, then I don't see the issue.

Fanny Cradock

Again, see open theism for this. (I personally don't buy it.)

Also, "histories" implies something in the past to me. Perhaps "story" would be better. It needn't have a traditional start middle or end.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

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

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

It's an irrelevant question, because it is yet another attempt to make the choice contingent upon God's knowledge not vice versa.

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.

No, you haven't reintroduced the eternal being (who, to quote Gerry Adams, "hasn't gone away, you know"). You have reintroduced your false concept that the choice is contingent upon God's knowledge.

We can't really have a discussion if you insist on doing that - it's like trying to debate in the Creationism thread.

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.

Fixed that for you. That works very well without removing God. But A also becomes your future because you chose it. Or are you seriously suggesting that your choice does not determine the future?

Now re-introduce God.

He never went away, being omnipresent as well as omniscient.

You now have 1 possible outcome before you, A

You "choose" A and that becomes the present.

It becomes your future and your present because you chose it. And God sees that choice and knows it.

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.

Oops! You did it again!

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.

There you go again, ascribing finite perspectives of time to God. the word 'already' implies having a past, something that does not apply to an eternal Being who is always present.

Hagar

God* knowing something doesn't have any effect on free will.

Forget God for a minute, when you were a child did you ever do something and your mother cried out in exasperation "I knew you were going to do that"? And was she right? Did it take away your freedom of choice in doing it? The only difference is the level of certainty in the God vs Mother.



*Not acknowledging the existance of a God merely using a fictious god for argument's sake.

Morbert

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Again, see open theism for this. (I personally don't buy it.)

Also, "histories" implies something in the past to me. Perhaps "story" would be better. It needn't have a traditional start middle or end.

Just to be clear, I'm not postulating a God that doesn't know how events will turn out. If it will happen then God knows it because He is already there when it happens. I'm instead saying the our will isn't tractable to a set of reactions that would accompany a set of stimuli.

wolfsbane

krudler said:

Thats one mass of contradictions you just wrote there, so god doesnt make us christian

No, He does make those He chooses Christian. He does that by changing their natures so that they freely choose to repent and belive.

but he does change our nature when he feels like it?

Correct.

so why not make us all christians to begin with? look at all the worlds problems that would be solved without this whole "my god is better than your god" attitude that the fundamentalists have?

He doesn't say. Just that He has mercy on whom He will. He owes us nothing but wrath, so we have no grounds of complaint if He leaves us in our sin and rebellion.

This is the ultimate christian sidestep, god is responsible for everything, but not really.

He is not responsible for sin.

he made us in his image, but only some of us,

No, all of us are made in His image. Being in His image does not mean we have His righteousness.

the rest are just bastards inherently,

We all are 'bastards' inherently. We were all by nature children of wrath.

unless he step in and makes them see the light,

Correct.

which he could have avoided by making someone good in the first place.

He made Adam and Eve good.

If he gives us free will then hes not omnipotent, if he is omnipotent then we have no free will as peoples actions are all part of his plan for us.

Depends what one means by 'free-will'. If we mean a will acting freely according to our nature, then we have free-will and God is omnipotent. That is what the Bible teaches.

If we mean our will can veto God and He can do nothing about it - that's another matter. It is not what the Bible teaches.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

It's an irrelevant question, because it is yet another attempt to make the choice contingent upon God's knowledge not vice versa.

Yes, that is the point. It is contingent upon God's knowledge because God is omniscient (seriously what part of that don't you get).

God knows everything and is the supreme being of space and time. He knows everything there is to know about space time.

You choice is constrained by God's knowledge, not the other way around. God's knowledge is not contained by your choice. He doesn't know what you did only after you have decided what you did. Then his omniscient would be constrained by you.

If that was the case he wouldn't be omniscient and this discussion would be irrelevant.

How can you talk about a supreme omniscient being and then talk about his knowledge being contingent on our actions in his space time.

It is like you don't even know what these terms mean?

PDN wrote: »

Fixed that for you. That works very well without removing God.

No it doesn't because you have just removed God's omniscience.

Seriously you seem to have no concept of what these terms you apply to your god actually mean. You talk about me not understanding an eternal omniscient being and then you start defining him as not being eternal and not being omniscient.

There is no set of possible futures if God knows which future is the actual future. There is just the future. B, C, and D are not possible outcomes. If you cannot choose them then there is no choice.

PDN wrote: »

Or are you seriously suggesting that your choice does not determine the future?

I'm surely suggesting your choice does not determine the future.

Are you seriously suggesting than an omniscient God isn't omniscient.

PDN wrote: »

It becomes your future and your present because you chose it.

Choose it out of what? A set of outcomes that cannot happen. How does that work?

A future that God has not seen happen is as likely to happen as I am to open my front door and fine myself on Mars. It is not an option and thus there is no choice.

PDN wrote: »

the word 'already' implies having a past, something that does not apply to an eternal Being who is always present.

Oh don't be silly, it was perfectly obvious what I meant. An eternal being doesn't have a past present or future he simply has all of that and there is no word for that.

Zombrex

69 wrote: »

God* knowing something doesn't have any effect on free will.

Forget God for a minute, when you were a child did you ever do something and your mother cried out in exasperation "I knew you were going to do that"? And was she right? Did it take away your freedom of choice in doing it? The only difference is the level of certainty in the God vs Mother.



*Not acknowledging the existance of a God merely using a fictious god for argument's sake.

Did you ever do something and your mother said "Oh, I thought you were going to do this instead"

Your mother is not omniscient. She has a guess at what you will do, but she doesn't know and she might be wrong.

If she did know you could no more not do what she knew you were going to do than you could if God exists.

Say you are standing at a bridge about to jump of. You are contemplating what you are going to do.

A man from the future arrives and says "Sorry but you are going to jump"

You then decide not to jump. Except you can't because you it is already know that you do jump. The future is already set because it is known. You jump. You can't not jump.

Zombrex

Morbert wrote: »

By different possible histories, I mean histories other than the one that exists. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word 'history' because I am referring to past present and future. We all agree that the future is known to God.

You might choose to have a sandwich tomorrow if that is how history is. If God can say "If I had created Wicknight's will another way, he will not have chosen to have a sandwich.", then God has complete control over whether or not you make a sandwich, and you would in fact have no free will. However, if there is an aspect to your will that is unknowable, then no will is constrained. What do I mean by unknowable as opposed to unknown? If someone's will can be modelled such that all their possible actions in different situations can be deduced, then their will is entirely defined by whoever made it. But if there is an unphysical aspect to your will, something that cannot be known in terms of a complete series of if-then-else statements, then I don't see the issue.

Well the issue is that if there is unknown stuff then God is not omniscient.

I agree then this isn't a problem for free will, but again you don't need to get as technical about if you are happy with a non-omnscient God.

You could just say that God can't see the future. Problem solved except for the problem is causes with how he is described.

vodafoneproblem

It's all about how you define omniscience and free-will, Wicknight. There are many different definitions which are accepted and argued about. Morbert's way of explaining how omniscience and free-will are compatible does actually make sense under one of these definitions. Maybe have a re-read over the thread because others have made important relevant points to the argument. (Ignore the anti- points if you want to speed read )

monosharp

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.

PDN. Free will, simply put, is the ability to make decisions, free from external influence.

More simple, free will is making decisions.

If you believe that god created us then he also created our decision making process. God designed how we would make decisions given certain stimuli.

So if god is omniscient and omnipotent, if he knows everything and if he can do anything, then he knew everything we would ever do based on any amount of stimuli and he designed us in that way.

If I design a computer program, I know every decision it can ever make given any inputs. I am responsible for every actions of that computer program.

The computer program may think it is being faced with a choice, it 'thinks' there is a decision, e.g > If today is Tuesday then do X. (but it mightn't be tuesday, it has to 'decide' if it is tuesday) I however know that on tuesday it will do X.

If god designed us, it knows every decision we can ever make given any stimuli. God is responsible for every decision we make.

We may think we are being faced with a choice, we 'think' there is a decision, e.g > If 'lot of different factors' do X. God however knows that when 'lots of factors' we will do X.

Free will or gods omniscience is true, not both, make your choice.

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

PDN. Free will, simply put, is the ability to make decisions, free from external influence.

More simple, free will is making decisions.

If you believe that god created us then he also created our decision making process. God designed how we would make decisions given certain stimuli.

So if god is omniscient and omnipotent, if he knows everything and if he can do anything, then he knew everything we would ever do based on any amount of stimuli and he designed us in that way.

Ah, we have a determinist in our midst!

So, those who share your determinist presuppositions may have a problem with the idea of an omniscient God and free will. That poses no problem to those of use who don't share your presuppositions.

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

Ah, we have a determinist in our midst!

So, those who share your determinist presuppositions may have a problem with the idea of an omniscient God and free will. That poses no problem to those of use who don't share your presuppositions.

Please explain why you don't agree with my position, what presuppositions have I made that you disagree with ?

And this argument is dependent on the christian idea of an omniscient and omnipotent god. A view you know I don't hold.

I'm not a mathematician but I do deal with logic every day in my field and an omniscient omnipotent god who created us is logically incompatible with free will.

I'm not saying it logically disproves god but it logically disproves gods omniscience, his 'creation' of us or our free will. You cannot have them all.

I'm willing to entertain any amount of tongue twisting to get around this issue but simply ignoring it is not acceptable and it shouldn't be acceptable to you either.

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

Please explain why you don't agree with my position, what presuppositions have I made that you disagree with ?

I disagree that our decisions are wholly conditioned by processes and stimulii. Your problem appears to be not with free will and an omniscient God - but rather with the concept of free will per se.

If you have genuine free will, then you make choices that are not merely the result of processes and stimulii - and that remains true irrespective of God's omniscience.

It sounds very much like your logic is as follows, where A=Free Will and B=God's Omnipotence:

A doesn't actually exist.
Therefore A is incompatible with B.

Do you see why most of us will find that unconvincing?

I'm not a mathematician but I do deal with logic every day in my field and an omniscient omnipotent god who created us is logically incompatible with free will.

I'm afraid my past experiences of your 'logic' in this forum do not create any confidence as to your capability to accurately make such an assertion.

I'm not saying it logically disproves god but it logically disproves gods omniscience, his 'creation' of us or our free will. You cannot have them all.

Then show us the logic, rather than expecting us to consider something disproved just because you say so.

I'm willing to entertain any amount of tongue twisting to get around this issue but simply ignoring it is not acceptable and it shouldn't be acceptable to you either.

There's no need for tongue twisting, and I'm not ignoring anything.

But just saying, "Well I work with logic every day so therefore I'm qualified to make an assertion that a and B are logically contradictory" won't cut round these parts. Particularly not from someone with your track record.

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

I disagree that our decisions are wholly conditioned by processes and stimulii. Your problem appears to be not with free will and an omniscient God - but rather with the concept of free will per se.

I'd argue the opposite but its not relevant here so I'll leave it. How we make decisions isn't relevant because however we do it, god designed how we do it and he knows everything we will do.

Are you suggesting god didn't design how we make decisions ?

If you have genuine free will, then you make choices that are not merely the result of processes and stimulii - and that remains true irrespective of God's omniscience.

But if god is omnipotent/omniscient then he made 'how' we make designs.

It sounds very much like your logic is as follows, where A=Free Will and B=God's Omnipotence:

A doesn't actually exist.
Therefore A is incompatible with B.

No its not. Your ignoring my argument and erecting something else in its place.

There's no need for tongue twisting, and I'm not ignoring anything.

You just did.

But just saying, "Well I work with logic every day so therefore I'm qualified to make an assertion that a and B are logically contradictory" won't cut round these parts. Particularly not from someone with your track record.

Yeah thats what I said :rolleyes: How very christian of you to paint your adversaries in such a good light.

I wasn't asserting authority, i stated i'm not an expert and i am more then open to correction but correction to my argument logically, not by ignoring it. An argument I might add which gets used far too often here.

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

I'd argue the opposite but its not relevant here so I'll leave it. How we make decisions isn't relevant because however we do it, god designed how we do it and he knows everything we will do.

Are you suggesting god didn't design how we make decisions ?

No, I'm not suggesting that. God designed us with the ability to make genuine decisions of our own free will.

However, it does not logically follow that He therefore determines our decisions.

An omnipotent God is certainly capable of creating us with the capacity to make genuine free will choices.

But if god is omnipotent/omniscient then he made 'how' we make designs.

Yes, he made us able to make genuinely free choices.

No its not. Your ignoring my argument and erecting something else in its place.

Then maybe you should explain it better. So you are not a determinist? You do believe that we can make genuinely free choices?

You just did.

Really? What did I ignore?

I wasn't asserting authority, i stated i'm not an expert and i am more then open to correction but correction to my argument logically, not by ignoring it. An argument I might add which gets used far too often here.

You would have to make an argument in the first place in order for it to be corrected. So far all I see is an assertion.

So what is your logical argument so we can address it?

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

No, I'm not suggesting that. God designed us with the ability to make genuine decisions of our own free will.

God can do anything.
God made our decision making process. Our 'free will'.
God knows everything.

So god by creating us this way as opposed to creating us another way, already knows everything we would ever do.

God is the computer programmer and our 'free will' is the program. God programmed us with X decision making process and god knew when he programmed us what our decisions would be.

Its completely irrelevant 'how' we make decisions because however we do, god supposedly designed it and by designing it 'that' way as opposed to 'another way' he has in essence decided for us.

However, it does not logically follow that He therefore determines our decisions.

Then clearly you don't understand logic or you don't understand what omniscient means.

An omnipotent God is certainly capable of creating us with the capacity to make genuine free will choices.

Of course he is, but he designed it in such a way where he already knew all the results.

When he designed our decision making process he knew that I would not be religious. If he designed our decision making process differently then maybe I'd be religious.

How can an omniscient god who created us in way X not be responsible for the decisions we make when he already knew the decisions we would make when he designed us ?

Please comment on my computer program example.

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

God can do anything.
God made our decision making process. Our 'free will'.
God knows everything.

Yes, God knows everything.

So god by creating us this way as opposed to creating us another way, already knows everything we would ever do.

No God knows everything we would ever do by virtue of His omniscience, not by virtue of His creating us. If you muddle your thinking in this way we'll never get anywhere.

God is the computer programmer and our 'free will' is the program. God programmed us with X decision making process and god knew when he programmed us what our decisions would be.

No, that is a false analogy. Because you are making the decision contingent upon the knowledge, not vice versa.

A better analogy would be a time-travelling computer programmer who designed a programme that genuinely generated random numbers. Then, upon travelling into the future, and seeing the numbers that were generated, the programmmer knows what those random numbers are. The programmer may have set up the programme, but his knowledge of the numbers is based on the programme's choice.

Then clearly you don't understand logic or you don't understand what omniscient means.

Is that the best argument you can produce? Ad hominem nonsense? I understand both logic and the meaning of omniscience.

Of course he is, but he designed it in such a way where he already knew all the results.

You're muddling yourself up again. He knows the results because of the decisions made, not because of any design.

When he designed our decision making process he knew that I would not be religious. If he designed our decision making process differently then maybe I'd be religious.

No, that is determinism once again.

He designed your decision making process so you could make a genuinely free choice. And he can see what free choice you make.

You are responsible for your actions and decisions.

How can an omniscient god who created us in way X not be responsible for the decisions we make when he already knew the decisions we would make when he designed us ?

Because that knowledge is based on the decisions you freely make. Your logic would only make sense if God was a finite being and subject to our tenses of past, present and future.

Please comment on my computer program example.

I've pointed out to you that your argument from analogy was particularly poorly chosen.

Maybe, instead of insisting on viewing time as a Newtownian straight line, you should try imagining if time was curved into a horseshoe shape. In this model, God is at one end of the horseshoe (the past) and He can look across the narrow gap to the other end of the horseshoe where you are making your decision (the future). You, because you are finite, can only look back through the curved metal of the horseshoe. Therefore it appears to you that God's standpoint in the past must occur before your standpoint in the future. However, God, by looking across the narrow gap of the horseshoe, sees your actions as being in the present.

So, from your limited perspective, it seems as if God knows your actions before you make them. But from God's perspective everthing is occuring in the present. So he creates you as a free moral agent and, at that same moment, he sees you making your choice, so therefore he knows what your choice is. From God's perspective He is not seeing your choices before you make them, or after you make them, He is seeing them as you make them.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Because that knowledge is based on the decisions you freely make.

You keep saying this which would suggest you are not following the central argument here.

Do you agree that if we make a decision freely, and that we have the option of choosing between a number of possible futures which all can happen if we decide to choose them, that the information of our decision is not determined until we actually make the decision and until we make the decision all possible futures have a likelihood of occurring?

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

No God knows everything we would ever do by virtue of His omniscience, not by virtue of His creating us. If you muddle your thinking in this way we'll never get anywhere.

I didn't say that.

I said god knows everything we will ever do by creating us this way. I don't mean he knows everything we will ever do because he created us, he just plainly and simply knows everything we will ever do anyways.

God knows that if he creates human beings and their decision making process (X), that in 2010 there will be a boards user called monosharp who doesn't believe in christianity.

God also knows that if he creates human beings with a slightly different decision making process (Y) that in 2010 monosharp will be a christian.

No, that is a false analogy. Because you are making the decision contingent upon the knowledge, not vice versa.

Upon what knowledge ?

A better analogy would be a time-travelling computer programmer who designed a programme that genuinely generated random numbers. Then, upon travelling into the future, and seeing the numbers that were generated, the programmmer knows what those random numbers are. The programmer may have set up the programme, but his knowledge of the numbers is based on the programme's choice.

Many problems with this, not even mentioning the random numbers part.

- Your scenario is fine, for a god that is not omniscient OR an omniscient god that purposely temporarily shielded the knowledge of humanities future from himself when he created us.

- I think your suggesting that god can create something (freewill) of which god does not know the result. Which goes against one of your own arguments.

You have stated god cannot do something which contradicts logic/himself. Create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it etc.

Well you have just described god creating something where the result is unknown to him. Can god not know something, even if god wishes to not know it ?

Is that the best argument you can produce? Ad hominem nonsense? I understand both logic and the meaning of omniscience.

Well clearly you are using a different meaning from the dictionary or you'd see the logic in the arguments presented.

You're muddling yourself up again. He knows the results because of the decisions made, not because of any design.

God designed us, yes or no ?
God designed our decision making process, yes or no ?
God (always) has known everything, yes or no ?

If god designed us AND god designed our decision making process AND god knew when he created our decision making process every decision that would ever result from that process, then how has god NOT decided everything for us ?

Heres a very simple example.

God designed men with a very high sex drive, god knew when he did that, all the results from that design. Some results from this high sex drive is rape.

If god designed men with a lesser sex drive, god knew when he did that, all the results from that design. Some results from this lower sex drive is lower cases of rape.

How can I choose to do something (X), which my creator KNEW when he designed me, I would never choose to do ?

God KNEW that if he created me slightly differently then I would 'choose' to do X. But he didn't design me differently, he designed me 'this way'.

He designed your decision making process so you could make a genuinely free choice. And he can see what free choice you make.

You are responsible for your actions and decisions.

How is that possible when HE designed my design making process to work 'this' way ?

You are again arguing against yourself.

You have said there is nothing god cannot do or god cannot know.

You are trying to assert that god can make a decision making process, the outcome of which he didn't know when he created it.

Because that knowledge is based on the decisions you freely make. Your logic would only make sense if God was a finite being and subject to our tenses of past, present and future.

What are you talking about ?

My logic completely breaks down if you try and apply it to a finite being subject to time. My logic only works for an omnipotent, omniscient being who created us.

I ask you again, how can an omnipotent omniscient being create a decision making process to which he doesn't know the outcome ? If he does know the outcome of the process he made then that process is doing exactly what he designed it to do.

I've pointed out to you that your argument from analogy was particularly poorly chosen.

And didn't give a reason why.

So, from your limited perspective, it seems as if God knows your actions before you make them. But from God's perspective everthing is occuring in the present. So he creates you as a free moral agent and, at that same moment, he sees you making your choice, so therefore he knows what your choice is. From God's perspective He is not seeing your choices before you make them, or after you make them, He is seeing them as you make them.

PDN, my argument has NOTHING to do with time. Any time references you see are a result of the constraints of the English language or your own preconception of what my argument is.

My argument has nothing to do with time and my argument only works for an omniscient, omnipotent god who created us.

Morbert

Wicknight wrote: »

Well the issue is that if there is unknown stuff then God is not omniscient.

I agree then this isn't a problem for free will, but again you don't need to get as technical about if you are happy with a non-omnscient God.

You could just say that God can't see the future. Problem solved except for the problem is causes with how he is described.

The Bible says God knows all that has happened or will happen, so if I said God can't see the future then I would instead be talking about a non-Christian God.

And as for omniscience: I am not simply postulating unknown stuff, but unknowable stuff. Similar to the way God does not know what card I have in my hand, as I do not actually have a card in my hand.

To say God knows all possible histories is to say all possible histories can be deduced, which would mean God made us as a series of robots with specific and predictable (albeit complicated) responses to stimuli.

Morbert

God knows that if he creates human beings and their decision making process (X), that in 2010 there will be a boards user called monosharp who doesn't believe in christianity.

This, I believe, is the crux of the matter. Christians presumably do not believe thinking is entirely a "process" in the sense that a specific set of outputs cannot be mapped to a specific set of inputs. God doesn't know our process in other situations because our "process" doesn't exist.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

You keep saying this which would suggest you are not following the central argument here.

Do you agree that if we make a decision freely, and that we have the option of choosing between a number of possible futures which all can happen if we decide to choose them, that the information of our decision is not determined until we actually make the decision and until we make the decision all possible futures have a likelihood of occurring?

Yes I do agree. The future is not set in stone until you make your decision. However, we are both using the word 'until' because our perspective condemns us to think, no matter how hard we try not to, of time as a straight unidirectional line.

Think of our horseshoe shaped time continuum. God, from the other end of the horseshoe (our far and distant past) glances across the gap and sees you make your choice as you make it. He cannot see 'other possible choices' because you don't actually make them - so they don't exist for Him to see. Also, because He sees all things instantly, there is no 'until' with God. He sees you make your decision - and all 'before', 'after', 'until' are purely words that describe things from your finite and limited perspective.

God's ultimate revelation of Himself is Yahweh - "I AM THAT I AM" - He is eternally Present - there is no such thing for Him as the Past or the Future.

Twin-go

PDN wrote: »

Yes I do agree. The future is not set in stone until you make your decision. However, we are both using the word 'until' because our perspective condemns us to think, no matter how hard we try not to, of time as a straight unidirectional line.

Think of our horseshoe shaped time continuum. God, from the other end of the horseshoe (our far and distant past) glances across the gap and sees you make your choice as you make it. He cannot see 'other possible choices' because you don't actually make them - so they don't exist for Him to see. Also, because He sees all things instantly, there is no 'until' with God. He sees you make your decision - and all 'before', 'after', 'until' are purely words that describe things from your finite and limited perspective.

God's ultimate revelation of Himself is Yahweh - "I AM THAT I AM" - He is eternally Present - there is no such thing for Him as the Past or the Future.

Does the "HorseShoe" time contiuim not create a paradox for God? If he looks accross the gap from the distant past he can see the choice that is made. so when the future that he saw becomes the present he knows what choice you will make - therefore its not really a free choice as the choice has from Gods point of view all ready been made.

PDN

By the way, I thought it might be worth mentioning that once we start stretching our minds to comprehend Eternity as continual Present, rather than simply as time stretching out for ever, then certain other philosophical questions about God fall into place.

For example, the Christian doctrine of hell becomes more than simply everlasting torture or punishment. That can be seen as our attempt to describe, from our limited perspective, a state of Being that is eternal in that it is continually Present. The Hebrew Scriptures spoke about being resurrected to eternal shame (Daniel 12:2). Have you ever had that experience when you realise, with a sickening lurch in the pit of your stomach, that you've done something that has truly hurt and damaged someone else? That feeling of shame is truly horrendous, isn't it? What if 'hell' is simply a state of being where you are forever caught in and remain in that moment of self-realisation? It can't wear off in time because there is no more time - just the eternal present moment. I believe that all the imagery of flames and fire couldn't come close to describing the horror of being forever in that moment.

PDN

Twin-go wrote: »

Does the "HorseShoe" time contiuim not create a paradox for God? If he looks accross the gap from the distant past he can see the choice that is made. so when the future that he saw becomes the present he knows what choice you will make - therefore its not really a free choice as the choice has from Gods point of view all ready been made.

No, because this is not a paradox for God at all, only for you with your limited perception of time. From God's perspective there is no "will make" or "already made". He sees your choice as you make it.

I think most of our objections here are similar to when all of us as kids tried to imagine time stretching back for ever and it made our heads hurt. We are finite beings, and for us to imagine eternity is like a two-dimensional figure in a comic strip on a page imagining life in three dimensions.

Twin-go

PDN wrote: »

No, because this is not a paradox for God at all, only for you with your limited perception of time. From God's perspective there is no "will make" or "already made". He sees your choice as you make it.

I think most of our objections here are similar to when all of us as kids tried to imagine time stretching back for ever and it made our heads hurt. We are finite beings, and for us to imagine eternity is like a two-dimensional figure in a comic strip on a page imagining life in three dimensions.

So all the choices we will ever make during our finite lifetime have all ready been made. They cannot be changed. This from my point of view removes the element of freewill. It does not hurt my head to imagine eternity - within the laws of physics. It does hurt my head to think of a pupet master controlling or guiding it all.

Is God Ever Living or does his Live Forever? These are two very different concepts.

PDN

Twin-go wrote: »

So all the choices we will ever make during our finite lifetime have all ready been made.

No, you are still fallling into the trap of seeing time as a straight line. "Will ever make" and "have all ready (sic) been made" are our constructs by which we explain things from our limited perspective. They are no more grounded in ultimate reality than are our perceptions that the sun rises and sets.

It does hurt my head to think of a pupet master controlling or guiding it all.

That would hurt my head too - so it's probably just as wll that I don't believe it. I believe we are free moral agents who make our choices and have to live with the consequences. And one of the consequences of me making a choice is that God sees that choice from His eternally Present standpoint.

My choice is not a consequence of God's knowledge. God's knowledge is a consequence of my choice. And the only reason we have difficulty with that is because our limited perspective sets our thinking down the same old tired categories of past and future that don't actually apply to God.

Is God Ever Living or does his Live Forever? These are two very different concepts.

I can't answer that because I'm not sure what you actually mean by those two phrases - and I suspect you might not be sure what you mean either.

God is Eternally Alive.

monosharp

Morbert wrote: »

This, I believe, is the crux of the matter. Christians presumably do not believe thinking is entirely a "process" in the sense that a specific set of outputs cannot be mapped to a specific set of inputs. God doesn't know our process in other situations because our "process" doesn't exist.

I am going to mention this but I don't want to go into this discussion because again its irrelevant. But;

There is a good amount of scientific evidence that suggests that is exactly how we make decisions. In fact there is a great deal of scientific evidence that suggests our subconscious mind makes a great deal of decisions for us even before we've actually consciously 'decided'. But it goes without saying this research is in its very early stages and we have only scratched the surface.

But that is besides the point.

Regardless of 'how' we make decisions, god created that 'how' when he created us. It doesn't matter that we don't know 'how' because god is omniscient and knows everything.

I am not suggesting that it is in anyways a simple process but decision making, however it is achieved, it a process nonetheless and because god is omniscient he will know regardless.

You also ignored my point about the male sexual drive.

Morbert

monosharp wrote: »

I am going to mention this but I don't want to go into this discussion because again its irrelevant. But;

There is a good amount of scientific evidence that suggests that is exactly how we make decisions. In fact there is a great deal of scientific evidence that suggests our subconscious mind makes a great deal of decisions for us even before we've actually consciously 'decided'. But it goes without saying this research is in its very early stages and we have only scratched the surface.

But that is besides the point.

I have already mentioned in this thread that I believe our decisions are entirely due to physical processes. My interest in the question of free will is largely philosophical.

Regardless of 'how' we make decisions, god created that 'how' when he created us. It doesn't matter that we don't know 'how' because god is omniscient and knows everything.

I am not suggesting that it is in anyways a simple process but decision making, however it is achieved, it a process nonetheless and because god is omniscient he will know regardless.

You also ignored my point about the male sexual drive.

You are still suggesting it is a process, even if it is a complicated one. You are suggesting the difference between me making a choice and you making a different choice would be due to some quality God instilled in you but not in me.

And I ignored your point about the male sexual drive because that is not the crux of the matter. Christians obviously believe that, despite the temptations that can emerge from a high sex drive, the choice is still arbitrated by us.