Originally posted by ToeThat is foolishness. If P chose to do A, but god knew before P chose A, then what constitutes a choice? How could P have chosen to do otherwise without negating god's knowledge? Free will consists of being able to choose another alternative right up to the instant in which you make your choice.
the argument does not follow. P chose to do A (free will) and God knew that P would choose A (omniscience).
The whole 'but what about B' thing is a red herring.
Originally posted by royalchickenHi. Sorry there but this makes absolutely no sense to me.
...But if god knows P will do B, then if P did A he would be making circumstances so that god's knowledge would not be perfect, contradicting the PREMISE.
If God knows P will do B, then P WILL do B. How can P then do A? If that was the case then God would know P is considering B but ultimately chooses A.
Originally posted by royalchickenBut the point is that God has already seen the ultimate choice in the future. This mere knowledge has no bearing on the decision by a person. The person still has the opportunity to do either A or B.
Free will consists of being able to choose another alternative right up to the instant in which you make your choice.[/b]
Originally posted by ivanhoeRoyalChicken, you are not reasoning in a rational way, you are contradicting yourself and you are doing so very eloquently.
IvanH.[/b]
Ivanhoe, please try and follow my post. Myself and others have posted this exact argument about 10 times in this thread.
This is a great tric you are trying to sell to yourself and to us all ...
"P will do B, then if P did A ... etc.
Yes RoyalChicken, if ... , but he didn't Royalchicken.
If a horse is a donkey, then it's not a horse. Of course that's true !!
Crikey, man! I'm employing what is known as a "reductio ad absurdum" by showing that IF someone could make choices freely, THEN god is not omniscient. This contradicts the premis that god is omniscient, and proves that free choice is impossible.
You're a four-dimensional being and you're "trapped" in that situation. Like it or not.
I guess our understanding of what time is, is playing trics with you ... Don't let your own IQ bully you !!
Time is not relevant here except to the individual making the choice, since an omniscient god's knowledge encompasses everything at every moment simultaneously. The last comment is at worst either degrading or patronising, and at best an invocation of an irrelevant statistic.
Originally posted by ReaperNo. If god knows absolutely what the outcome will be, then it cannot be otherwise without contradicting god's knowledge.
But the point is that God has already seen the ultimate choice in the future. This mere knowledge has no bearing on the decision by a person. The person still has the opportunity to do either A or B.
Originally posted by royalchickenOriginally posted by royalchicken
No. If god knows absolutely what the outcome will be, then it cannot be otherwise without contradicting god's knowledge.
If god knows absolutely what the outcome will be...
Yes I am with you.
Originally posted by royalchicken
...then it cannot be otherwise without contradicting god's knowledge.
YES. That is exactly what I said. Please read my post very carefully again, because we may be talking cross wires here, because I see no contradiction.
Originally posted by ReaperThat is the point, kind of, except the word "chooses" is linguistic confusion. I'm going to clarify. Ivanhoe, please read this too.
Hi. Sorry there but this makes absolutely no sense to me.
If God knows P will do B, then P WILL do B. How can P then do A? If that was the case then God would know P is considering B but ultimately chooses A.
1.I am not making claims about free will or otherwise except that the idea of an omniscient god is incompatible with that of free will. I am not saying that we don't have free will unless you believe in an omniscient god.
An omniscient god knows all facts, independent of time. It knows what humans percieve to have already happened, and it knows what humans would call the future. Specifically, given any person P, it knows everything about the past and future life of P. Suppose that in 5 minutes, P must follow either course of action A and course B. If person A has free will, then it is possible that he could, for example, choose course A and then switch to course B at the last instant. This is what constitutes free will.
Say the omniscient god knows that P will do A. IF P does B, then god's knowledge would have been incorrect, thus violating the claim that god is omniscient. Thus, by reductio ad absurdum, P must only take the course of action that god knows he will take, which as measured by a human's inescapable temporal sense will be pre-existing knowledge. Thus P has no choice in the matter (specifically, at the last instant, he cannot switch to B), so he has no free will by the above definition.
If you argue that P "chose" A and god knew before that P would do so, and then claim that this constitutes free will, then because P cannot choose otherwise without ending god's omniscience, you are merely confused.
Originally posted by ReaperRight. You accept the implication:
Originally posted by royalchicken
If god knows absolutely what the outcome will be...
Yes I am with you.
Originally posted by royalchicken
...then it cannot be otherwise without contradicting god's knowledge.
YES. ...[text shortened]... y be talking cross wires here, because I see no contradiction.
Omniscient god ------> Choices could not be otherwise.
If you accept that, then you must accept that there is no free will given an omniscient god. I think we are saying the same thing.
EDIT Upon re-reading, I think your statement "the mere knowledge has no bearing on the decision" is wrong, for the reason outlined in the post just above this (and multitudes of others).
Originally posted by royalchicken
...the idea of an omniscient god is incompatible with that of free will.
OK just to be very clear. I am contesting this statement. I believe God is omniscient. I also believe that God gave humans the freedom to choose between options.
Originally posted by royalchicken
An omniscient god knows all facts, independent of time.
Yes.
Originally posted by royalchicken
If person A has free will, then it is possible that he could, for example, ...choose A and then switch to course B at the last instant. This is what constitutes free will.
Well OK. I do not think that the free will comes in the changeing of the mind. The mere fact that P can choose either A or B is in itself freewill.
Originally posted by royalchicken
Say the omniscient god knows that P will do A. IF P does B, then god's knowledge would have been incorrect...
Now here we have our disagreement, so if we can only focus on this point. My point is that if God knows that P will do A, then that is what is going to happen. God did not take option B away from P and P could have chosen to do B if P wanted to.
When you then say God knows P will do A and then "IF P does B..." you totally lose me. This is impossible deduction.
Please just explain this part to me.
Originally posted by royalchicken
If you argue that P "chose" A and god knew before that P would do so, and then claim that this constitutes free will, then because P cannot choose otherwise without ending god's omniscience, you are merely confused.
It does constitute free will because God is not involved in the brain process, and ultimate choice of P. God merely knows what P is going to do. From P's point of view, P can choose A or B. P will eventually choose either, no matter if P changed his/her mind a splitsecond beforehand. P eventually does A or B.
Put another way: Say we can travel through time. We see P walking in a road. P gets to a junction and must either go left or right. We see P chooses to go left. If we move back in time to 5min before this happens, then how can it be said that P does not have a free will to choose because we know what P is going to choose?
Originally posted by Reaper
[/b]
Now here we have our disagreement, so if we can only focus on this point. My point is that if God knows that P will do A, then that is what is going to happen. God did not take option B away from P and P could have chosen to do B if P wanted to.
If god knows with absolute certainty that P will choose A, then how could P choose to do B without violating god's absolutely certain knowledge?
When you then say God knows P will do A and then "IF P does B..." you totally lose me. This is impossible deduction.
This is the part of the argument where we assume the contradiction. I assume omniscience, then assume free will (that's the part you call impossible), and deduce from free will that there is no omniscience, which contradicts my first assumption. THus, to preserve the assumption, there can't be free will. I'd recommend:
http://www.delphiforfun.org/Programs/Math_Topics/proof_by_contradiction.htm
It does constitute free will because God is not involved in the brain process, and ultimate choice of P. God merely knows what P is going to do. From P's point of view, P can choose A or B. P will eventually choose either, no matter if P changed his/her mind a splitsecond beforehand. P eventually does A or B.
Here you assume too much about god. God IS involved in the brain process, because his omniscience assumedly accounts for things like synaptic connection in the brain. Not only does god know "what P will do", god also knows what each of P's neurons will do in coming to a decision. An omniscient god is an integral part of each person if it is to exist at all.
Put another way: Say we can travel through time. We see P walking in a road. P gets to a junction and must either go left or right. We see P chooses to go left. If we move back in time to 5min before this happens, then how can it be said that P does not have a free will to choose because we know what P is going to choose?
If we know ABSOLUTELY five minutes in advance that P will go right, then if P goes left we will not have had absolute knowledge. Thus P MUST CHOOSE TO GO RIGHT, and if one MUST CHOOSE, then that is no choice at all, because the outcome is predetermined in our minds.
Originally posted by royalchicken"That is foolishness"
That is foolishness. If P chose to do A, but god knew before P chose A, then what constitutes a choice? How could P have chosen to do otherwise without negating god's knowledge? Free will consists of being able to choose another alternative right up to the instant in which you make your choice.
That is insulting: mind your manners.
"What constitutes a choice"
A decent question, and one which your 'proof' did not so much as consider.
"right up to the instant"
You are still stuck in a linear time loop of thought. God isn't.
Originally posted by royalchicken
If god knows with absolute certainty that P will choose A, then how could P choose to do B without violating god's absolutely certain knowledge?
NO. God's knowledge follows P's actions. God's knowledge does not determine P's actions, it merely takes note of it.
Originally posted by royalchicken
If we know ABSOLUTELY five minutes in advance that P will go right, then if P goes left we will not have had absolute knowledge. Thus P MUST CHOOSE TO GO RIGHT, and if one MUST CHOOSE, then that is no choice at all, because the outcome is predetermined in our minds.
Let us look at the example above with a timeline:
1200------1201------1202------1203------1204------1205
P drives his bike. P sees the fork P goes left
At 1200 we see P on his bike. At 1204 we see P turn left.
We travel 5min back in time. You are saying that P did not have a free choice because we knew what he did. This is a question of time. There can be no question of P turning right, because at 1204 P went left. To now say if P went right we did not know is illogical. P did not go right, we saw P go left. We have no influence on P's decision.
It is the same as saying you watched a DVD movie. I join you and we watch it again. You know what is going to happen, right. Can the movie be different? And how can it possibly be reasoned IF the movie was different...
Originally posted by royalchickenAll you have shown is that the strong form of omniscience (for every correctly formed statement, God knows either that the statement is true, or that it is false) is incompatible with the strong form of free will (given a number of conceivable options, you have the potential to choose any option.) However, many Christians are happy with either a weaker form of omniscience (God knows all that can be known), or a weaker form of free will (the absence of divine interference in human thought processes, at least in those unwilling to have such interference.)
Right. You accept the implication:
Omniscient god ------> Choices could not be otherwise.
If you accept that, then you must accept that there is no free will given an omniscient god. I think we are saying the same thing.
EDIT Upon re-reading, I think your statement "the mere knowledge has no bearing on the decision" is wrong, for the reason outlined in the post just above this (and multitudes of others).
Even as an atheist, I'm not convinced of strong free will. For example: in the last maths exam you did, one could surely conceive of your writing of 'I AM A FISH' 400 times on the exam paper. I think it is undecidable whether it was in your power to actually attempt to do so, however, as (I assume!) you didn't. I for one would not be at all concerned by my inability to do such a thing!
Originally posted by AcolyteHi. This is a good post. I belive in the strong omniscience of God, but weaker on free will. This is mainly because God can and will intervene in people's lives if it is according to His purposes.
[b]All you have shown is that the strong form of omniscience (for every correctly formed statement, God knows either that the statement is true, or that it is false) is incompatible with the strong form of free will (given a number of conceivable options, you have the potential to choose any option.) However, many Christians are happy with either a weaker form ...[text shortened]... e interference in human thought processes, at least in those unwilling to have such interference.)