God just HAS to know...!

Originally posted by knightmeister
You are merely talking about pseudo/illusionary free-will. If your God knows that I did X before (from my perspective) it is time to do X then I have no choice other than to do X...I simply don't know in advance that X is what I must choose

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God does not know you did X before you e true to say that that your choice was Y , this would not exclude X as a possibility.

garbage.

Define your god's existence...its timeline, how it is related to and/or independent of ours. Be rigorous

Originally posted by Agerg
meh...I can't be bothered with this garbage any more. I have asked you to define what is this state of "beyond time/everlasting" your God exists in because your failure to understand what you are talking about blinds you to the implications that must follow from an omniscient God. You're like a frickin cactuar from the final fantasy games.

When you challeng ...[text shortened]...
You wouldn't understand

I'll never get that time back I just wasted on you 😠

When you challenged me earlier to explain how I knew your god didn't exist I should have just said
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I never challenged you to say this on this thread. You are cross polinating two threads.

I do understand the apparent dilemma involved in the FW v O debate. It's not an easy one at all. The problem is that you seemed to have made your mind up on it before you even started.

The essence of the debate however is to hypothetically assume that God exists as eternal and omniscient. If he is these things then I don't see what would prevent him from knowing my future even if I had free will.

You have not addressed this point as yet which is ironic because you seem to think that I am wasting your time whereas it is you that is not addressing the intial point of this thread. How would God NOT know?

Originally posted by Agerg
garbage.

Define your god's existence...its timeline, how it is related to and/or independent of ours. Be rigorous

The defintion is implied by the hypothetical assumption that he actually exists as eternal and omniscient in the context of the debate.

The debate assumes that if free will exists and an omniscient God exists then these two are incompatible. If you want to go on and argue that God doesn't exist eternally or independent of space/time then that's fine. But it's not this debate.

(BTW- the idea of a God that is bounded by space/ time seems plain silly anyway and not worth bothering with.)

Originally posted by Agerg
meh...I can't be bothered with this garbage any more. I have asked you to define what is this state of "beyond time/everlasting" your God exists in because your failure to understand what you are talking about blinds you to the implications that must follow from an omniscient God. You're like a frickin cactuar from the final fantasy games.

When you challeng ...[text shortened]...
You wouldn't understand

I'll never get that time back I just wasted on you 😠

I'll never get that time back I just wasted on you
---------agerg--------------------------

it sounds like you were trying to achieve something here rather than actually listen to an argument in an open way.

Originally posted by knightmeister
The defintion is implied by the hypothetical assumption that he actually exists as eternal and omniscient in the context of the debate.

The debate assumes that if free will exists and an omniscient God exists then these two are incompatible. If you want to go on and argue that God doesn't exist eternally or independent of space/time then that's fin a God that is bounded by space/ time seems plain silly anyway and not worth bothering with.)

I simply want to know how you relate your god's existence to the notion of time in zero, one, or more than one dimensions

Do you reduce your god's existence to a singularity?...do you know what I mean by that? did your god know what I did at all points or where there some instances from its perspective that it does not know what I did?...how about when it created the universe, what did it or did it not know then?

You need to get a coherent notion of your god's existence before you can be ready to argue about FW v O

Originally posted by knightmeister
When you challenged me earlier to explain how I knew your god didn't exist I should have just said
--------------------agerg-----------------------------------

I never challenged you to say this on this thread. You are cross polinating two threads.

I do understand the apparent dilemma involved in the FW v O debate. It's not an easy one at all. ...[text shortened]... eas it is you that is not addressing the intial point of this thread. How would God NOT know?

this thread has evolved...as many do

Originally posted by knightmeister
So, just to sum up, both the following are true: (1) God knows your future choices and (2) it is not the case that God knows your future choices. -------lemon------------------

Correction - (1) God (the Father) knows your future choices and (2) it is not the case that God (Christ) knows your future choices.

Now , if you think about it , anyone robably pre-decided your position on this a long time ago. I probably should have foreseen it.

Does God (the Father) infallibly know our future choices? If not, then I think you generally don't have anything to fear: fallible foreknowledge doesn't preclude freedom of a libertarian sort. On the other hand, if he does have infallible foreknowledge, then I think you have a problem: this would preclude freedom of a libertarian sort.

I have already explained in detail why I think this way. See Thread 88908.

In particular, here would be my initial argument for the conclusion that infallible foreknowledge (or just infallible belief about our future actions) precludes libertarian freedom. Here, G is assumed to be an infallible knower:

1. G knows in advance that S will do A.
2. It is not possible both that G believes S will do A and that S refrain from doing A (infallibility condition).
3. G believes S will do A (entailed by 1). So from 1 and 2, it is not possible that S refrain from doing A.
4. If it is not possible that S refrain from doing A, then it is not within the power of S to refrain from doing A.
5. If it is not within the power of S to refrain from doing A, then S is not free with respect to A.
6. Hence, if G (infallibly) knows in advance that S will do A, then S is not free with respect to A.

Originally posted by knightmeister
You can choose to do whatever you like at point X in time it's not set in stone. How does the fact that God knows point X in time eternally stop you from being free?

Consider this , you could choose anything you like at that point and God is going to know it , so it makes no difference. As long as at that point in time YOU don't know and YOU are st ...[text shortened]... real sense your death was a trillion years ago for him. He knows what you "HAVE" done.

You can choose to do whatever you like at point X in time it's not set in stone. How does the fact that God knows point X in time eternally stop you from being free?

If he can interact with us within our time, then he could tell me everything I will do tomorrow, and I would still not be able to do otherwise, even out of sheer spite, because God cannot be wrong.

It's like Jesus predicting to Peter that Peter would deny him three times. At that point, Peter was fated to do it.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Does God (the Father) infallibly know our future choices? If not, then I think you generally don't have anything to fear: fallible foreknowledge doesn't preclude freedom of a libertarian sort. On the other hand, if he does have infallible foreknowledge, then I think you have a problem: this would preclude freedom of a libertarian sort.

I hav ...[text shortened]... ce, if G (infallibly) knows in advance that S will do A, then S is not free with respect to A.

1. G knows in advance that S will do A.
-----lemon--------------------

Given that time is relative and not Newtonian the term "in advance" needs to be challenged here. What does 1) really mean? Somehow God's knowledge is being placed within a time reference which may or may not be accurate.

In the quote below the traveller might be able to know what you did "in advance" but would it be. Depends on perpsective really?

"There are various ways in which a person could "travel into the future" in a limited sense: the person could set things up so that in a small amount of his own subjective time, a large amount of subjective time has passed for other people on Earth. For example, an observer might take a trip away from the Earth and back at relativistic velocities, with the trip only lasting a few years according to the observer's own clocks, and return to find that thousands of years had passed on Earth. It should be noted, though, that according to relativity there is no objective answer to the question of how much time "really" passed during the trip; it would be equally valid to say that the trip had lasted only a few years or that the trip had lasted thousands of years, depending on your choice of reference frame." --------------------WIKI

Originally posted by SwissGambit
[b]You can choose to do whatever you like at point X in time it's not set in stone. How does the fact that God knows point X in time eternally stop you from being free?

If he can interact with us within our time, then he could tell me everything I will do tomorrow, and I would still not be able to do otherwise, even out of sheer spite, because Go ...[text shortened]... cting to Peter that Peter would deny him three times. At that point, Peter was fated to do it.[/b]

At that point, Peter was fated to do it.
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If the information is leaked to the individual then the timeline is contaminated , that does change things because the information affects the individual.

Originally posted by knightmeister
1. G knows in advance that S will do A.
-----lemon--------------------

Given that time is relative and not Newtonian the term "in advance" needs to be challenged here. What does 1) really mean? Somehow God's knowledge is being placed within a time reference which may or may not be accurate.

In the quote below the traveller might be able to kn nds of years, depending on your choice of reference frame." --------------------WIKI

I see your point, but this objection is a non-starter and is very easily pacified. If you are seriously having some conflict with 'in advance', just delete the phrase from Premise 1 and the Conclusion 6. It makes absolutely no material difference to the argument (since it is still clear that the action A is a future one with respect to the perspective of subject S). In fact, tell you what: given your stance on G's eternality, you can simply put in 'eternally' in place of 'in advance'. This will explicitly accommodate your contention that it is not proper to speak of G as though he is subject to temporal relations as we are; and that it is not proper to say He knows this or that at a certain time, but rather that He knows eternally. Again, beyond the fact that I think your ideas on G's eternality are complete nonsense, this accommodation makes no difference to me and it doesn't in any way diminish the thrust of the argument. Now instead of freedom being precluded by G's infallible foreknowledge, it is precluded by G's infallible eternal knowledge. The argument for you is then the following (and you may also qualify G's belief such that it is also explicitly clear that G believes eternally as well -- that is also perfectly fine with me):


1. G knows eternally that S will do A.
2. It is not possible both that G believes S will do A and that S refrain from doing A (infallibility condition).
3. G believes S will do A (entailed by 1). So from 1 and 2, it is not possible that S refrain from doing A.
4. If it is not possible that S refrain from doing A, then it is not within the power of S to refrain from doing A.
5. If it is not within the power of S to refrain from doing A, then S is not free with respect to A.
6. Hence, if G (infallibly) knows eternally that S will do A, then S is not free with respect to A.

Originally posted by knightmeister
If the information is leaked to the individual then the timeline is contaminated , that does change things because the information affects the individual.

But how does that change it? How does the insertion of the information change whether or not the future is fixed? Surely there are only two possibilities:
1. There is only one possible future.
2. There are multiple possible futures.
How can 1. be true for Peter but not Paul, simply because Jesus told Peter something?

Originally posted by twhitehead
But how does that change it? How does the insertion of the information change whether or not the future is fixed? Surely there are only two possibilities:
1. There is only one possible future.
2. There are multiple possible futures.
How can 1. be true for Peter but not Paul, simply because Jesus told Peter something?

You are right , I stand corrected.

Originally posted by LemonJello
I see your point, but this objection is a non-starter and is very easily pacified. If you are seriously having some conflict with 'in advance', just delete the phrase from Premise 1 and the Conclusion 6. It makes absolutely no material difference to the argument (since it is still clear that the action A is a future one with respect to the perspective o ...[text shortened]... (infallibly) knows eternally that S will do A, then S is not free with respect to A.

The phrase "will do" is still problematic because for God it's not a case of "will do" but "has done". The point being that from one frame of reference the act has taken place already , but from the other it hasn't.

The tricky part is realising that due to time being relative BOTH are equally true. The event in question has both happened and not happened , it just depends from where you are looking.

For example , if someone travelled in time (theorectically possible) and saw you walking your dog in 2023 - would that event have happened or not happened?

Newtonian views would say that the event has either happened or not because it is based on a static view of time across all points in space/time etc. Relativity does mean that an event can both be said to have happened and not happened.

If an event has happened for God he can know it - but if it also hasn't happened for you , you are still free in theory to do what you like.

Another way of looking at this is that for us WW2 has happened but for Hitler in 1938 it hasn't. Both are true. Hitler is still free because 1939 really hasn't happened yet and we can know his future because it has.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Does God (the Father) infallibly know our future choices? If not, then I think you generally don't have anything to fear: fallible foreknowledge doesn't preclude freedom of a libertarian sort. On the other hand, if he does have infallible foreknowledge, then I think you have a problem: this would preclude freedom of a libertarian sort.

I hav ...[text shortened]... ce, if G (infallibly) knows in advance that S will do A, then S is not free with respect to A.

if he does have infallible foreknowledge
------lemon----------------------------

He has NO foreknowledge of any event. He has POST knowledge.

Do you have foreknowledge of Hitler's death ? No , from your RELATIVE position in space/time you have POST knowledge , but for Hitler it would seem like foreknowledge.

What I am saying is that it seems like God has foreknowledge of things to us because we place him in some static Newtonian time frame walking alongside us.

Do you want to know how he knows the choices you will make tomorrow ? Because right now (now for him in eternity) he is watching you choose. Tomorrow is just as real for him as today is.

One could say that he is watching you make all the choices in your life all at the same "time".