God foresees???

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am not saying you shouldn't follow lines of reasoning nor am I telling you not to post your thoughts here. I simply think it is painfully obvious that your reasoning in this case it fundamentally flawed in so many different ways. I just find it hard to explain it to you when you cant seem to see the obvious, and seem quite comfortable with holding irrat ...[text shortened]... ee will himself.

As you might have noticed it just descends into a nonsensical time paradox.

Nonsense. If God causes event A to happen then he's determined to make it happen and WILL cause it to happen infallibly and omnipotently . Therefore . such an event does not rely upon the free will of his creations nor upon him having to "foresee" it. He knows it will happen and has happened just in the same way as I know that I am just about the strike the key $ on my keyboard. How did I know that was about to happen? Does the fact that I know I am about to strike the key # mean I have no free will? Of course not.

However , if I have to rely upon one of my sons to strike the key @ then that might be a different matter and my prophecy concerning such an event might not be so predictable.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Does the fact that I know I am about to strike the key # mean I have no free will? Of course not.

bbarr had you pinned down from the beginning. Either you do not in fact know that you about to strike the # key or you have no free will in the matter. You cannot have both.

Originally posted by bbarr
Yes, but how is any of this relevant? Free will is not undermined by periodic interference. That a rapist freely chooses to rape is no reason for me not to intervene, and it does not prevent the freedom of the rapist's will in any case.

So how far should God's interference go? Where should he stop? Should he prevent all sin and all suffering or only certain levels of it? Should he prevent the rapist from being born? Should he cause your mouth to close when you start to gossip? Should he shut your brain down if you start to think lustful thoughts? Isn't there always a cut off point where interference and free will come into conflict? What should he do with your sins? Or are you sinless? Maybe he shouldn't have created any of us?

You see you may feel that God is not interfering enough and I may agree with you as well at times. But one thing is for certain , God has to curtail at least some of his interference somewhere along the line otherwise free will starts to be eroded. In this sense a certain amount of sin and sufffering is inevitable with free will , the question is how much and what is the balance.

Apparently God saw fit to allow us an awful lot of leeway and give us as much space to live as freely as possible. At times we feel the agony of this space and suffering occurs but a nanny state universe might constrict us in ways that we don't appreciate because we take our freedom to choose for granted. Maybe part of the deal is he is waiting for us to ask him to interfere more , but most of us don't seem to want that either.

The time will come when God does start interfering big time and when he does those who want him to interfere now might wish he wasn't doing it.

Originally posted by knightmeister
If God causes event A to happen then he's determined to make it happen and WILL cause it to happen infallibly and omnipotently.

Which requires omniscient foreknowledge before making the decision. eg you must know that the keyboard will be there when you come in with the strike.

However , if I have to rely upon one of my sons to strike the key @ then that might be a different matter and my prophecy concerning such an event might not be so predictable.
We are starting to loose our omniscience I see. Maybe its not omniscience after all but simply good guess work combined with careful manipulation of the results. After all if some prophesy doesn't turn out right you just get one of your scribes to write it down different. St Matthew comes to mind.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I see no problem with knowing all the past (as knightmeister claims God knows it), but to simultaneously interact with the past is incoherent.
One could think of the Universe as a memory of the universe. Surely that fits in nicely with your philosophy?

The universe, a universal memory? Why not? Our waking lives have already been infinitely replayed ...

The universe, the universe's dream of a universe? What happens when the universe wakes up.

Entertaining. Throw in a multiverse and we won't be bored all day.

I don't know what knightmeister hasn't used the Ineffable Gambit: time is a synthetic a priori of human consciousness; God has no such synthetic a prioris, so our temporal perplexities are simply inapplicable to Her.

On a side note -- I'm curious. You've succeeded admirably in pointing out how the O-O-O personal thunder God is a joke. When are you going to get tired of doing it? Will you not rest until the last theist quits this forum, or what?

Originally posted by knightmeister
So how far should God's interference go? Where should he stop? Should he prevent all sin and all suffering or only certain levels of it? Should he prevent the rapist from being born? Should he cause your mouth to close when you start to gossip? Should he shut your brain down if you start to think lustful thoughts? Isn't there always a cut off point whe ...[text shortened]... g time and when he does those who want him to interfere now might wish he wasn't doing it.

Well, he could have created beings with natural proclivities to compassion and generosity such that rape, murder and the rest would never appear to them as live practical options. Presumably my free will is not undermined by the fact that it never occurs to me that I should rape or murder. There is no contradiction in supposing that God could have created us all to be like that. In any case, this is your view, so you'll have to figure this stuff out if you want to come to grips with the implications of severe and preventable evil in the world.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Which requires omniscient foreknowledge before making the decision. eg you must know that the keyboard will be there when you come in with the strike.

[b]However , if I have to rely upon one of my sons to strike the key @ then that might be a different matter and my prophecy concerning such an event might not be so predictable.
We are starting to ...[text shortened]... ut right you just get one of your scribes to write it down different. St Matthew comes to mind.[/b]

It's simply a matter of how much control over events I have. I know the keyboard will be there because I'm in control of that. God could have made the universe completely predictable by making us pre-determined robots. Then he would have no need of being eternally present in the past/present/future because he would be able to make infallible predictions based on a purely mechanistic universe.

This is not the universe that I contend he created. Therefore , it does present a problem for omniscience because infallible (in advance) prediction becomes a logical impossibility. God's omniscient now relies on his ability to be present across all time and not "in" time. However , there is still the problem of the unpredictability of human free choices. Therefore , God still has to "wait" (term used advisedly) for events to happen "before" he can know what free beings will do.

God caused Isaiah to prophecy Jesus for example because Jesus's life was an event in time that God had witnessed (and caused to happen) so he was able to give that information to Isaiah. I don't really see the problem. He did not need to predict anything to do this , he just told Isaiah what happened. There's no guesswork needed.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
On a side note -- I'm curious. You've succeeded admirably in pointing out how the O-O-O personal thunder God is a joke. When are you going to get tired of doing it? Will you not rest until the last theist quits this forum, or what?

I am hoping that some of them will actually become atheists or at least more rational Theists. If a Young Earth Creationist stops being one, then I would be happy. I hope to also convert a few agnostics to atheism. I started out here as a reaction to ID being pushed into schools in the US.

I do find some of the discussions interesting, and although I criticize knighmeister a lot and generally don't agree with him, his threads have helped me to think about free will and understand the concepts better.
I also learn quite a lot from the atheists on this site. I don't often reply to their posts because I agree with what they say, and it would get a bit boring if we spent all our time congratulating each other.

I find the debates forum a bit to full of US or UK politics and racism and xenophobia etc.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am hoping that some of them will actually become atheists or at least more rational Theists. If a Young Earth Creationist stops being one, then I would be happy. I hope to also convert a few agnostics to atheism. I started out here as a reaction to ID being pushed into schools in the US.

I do find some of the discussions interesting, and although I c ...[text shortened]...

I find the debates forum a bit to full of US or UK politics and racism and xenophobia etc.

"although I criticize knighmeister a lot and generally don't agree with him, his threads have helped me to think about free will and understand the concepts better." ---whitey---

The feeling is mutual. You' re a thorny sod but loveable robust in your thinking.

I believe God is omniscient, so yes he forsees everything. He knows what's going to happen before it happens. Perfect Free Will takes a hit there, but that's been a debate for a lonnnng time.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
I believe God is omniscient, so yes he forsees everything. He knows what's going to happen before it happens. Perfect Free Will takes a hit there, but that's been a debate for a lonnnng time.

He cannot know everything that happens before it happens because the only way that could be true is in a 100% mechanistic universe. He can know what our futures will be but our futures need to happen in actual space/time in order to be known by him. What i am saying is that for God your tomorrow has literally already happened , but for you it hasn't as yet. So God knows your tomorrow but there's a catch , tomorrow has to happen in order for God to know what happened. So in one real sense God does not know what you will do tomorrow unless you actually do it "in tomorrow", it has to actually happen. He does not know what will happen , only what has happened tomorrow.

Originally posted by knightmeister
He cannot know everything that happens before it happens because the only way that could be true is in a 100% mechanistic universe. He can know what our futures will be but our futures need to happen in actual space/time in order to be known by him. What i am saying is that for God your tomorrow has literally already happened , but for you it hasn't as ...[text shortened]... has to actually happen. He does not know what will happen , only what has happened tomorrow.

Because God transcends space-time, He doesn't have to wait for me to burp tomorrow after breakfast at 8:10 am for Him to know it occurred. Time has no meaning for God, as He exists in what we call the past and future, as well as now.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
Because God transcends space-time, He doesn't have to wait for me to burp tomorrow after breakfast at 8:10 am for Him to know it occurred. Time has no meaning for God, as He exists in what we call the past and future, as well as now.

No free will for you then! You cannot not burp at 8.10 tomorrow. You are pre-destined to. Which means God predestined me to go to hell. How nice of him.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
No free will for you then! You cannot not burp at 8.10 tomorrow. You are pre-destined to. Which means God predestined me to go to hell. How nice of him.

No , if you go to hell than that will be because you chose
that particluar path in life yourself. The reason (and only reason) that God would know about your choice would be if infact it was....erhem.....your choice at some future time. If you don't want to go to hell then don't choose that path and then that will not be your future and God will not know said future.

Do you not understand that God can only know actual futures not predicted ones. If you are to go to hell and God would know this it's because he's watching you right now make that choice in time.

Pinkfloyd can choose to burp or not burp and whatever he chooses will be known and is known by God in eternity. Pink Floyd has not arrived at that point in time yet but when he does he will make a choice. God is already at that point in time when Pink Floyd chooses but that does not mean it's not a choice.

You know that Hitler will shoot himself somewhere along his timeline but there's no logic in the world that can prove that at the moment he shoots he is not making a free choice. Even that fact that you know that's what he will do makes no difference because it's no proof that he HAD to do it. All we know is that he did infact do it.

Once you can prove that us knowing Hitler's future demonstrates conclusively that he was not free then you will have a case. Until then all your sniping will just be more axes to grind.

Originally posted by knightmeister
No , if you go to hell than that will be because you chose
that particluar path in life yourself. The reason (and only reason) that God would know about your choice would be if infact it was....erhem.....your choice at some future time. If you don't want to go to hell then don't choose that path and then that will not be your future and God will not ...[text shortened]... then you will have a case. Until then all your sniping will just be more axes to grind.

But we've done it millions of times. You never listen! You don't actually have a logically coherent vision of God. It's pointless trying to debate this!!

However, if we know someones future, they cannot do anything else other than what you know they WILL do. They might THINK they have free will, but since they cannot make any decision other than the one pre-destined for them, they do not.