precognotion
31 Jan '12 20:354 editsOriginally posted by divegeesterRephrasing what others have said but it's one of my main contentions with freewill + popular omniscient "God" constructs:
I don't see how knowing an outcome has any impact on the cause of the outcome.
Suppose "God" exists, "God" created the universe, and "God" is omniscient. Suppose further that either
a) "God"'s nature does not change
b) "God"'s nature does change
If (a) then let the initial time of creation of the universe (from the perspective of the universe) be denoted t_0. By omniscience and (a) then "God" knows all that can be known to it at t_0; that is to say, "God"'s initial parameterization of the universe gives rise to a system for which at t_0 "God" knows all events, causes (of future actions / interactions), and consequences that are possible to be known at that point.
Now consider an arbitrary increment of time resulting in t_1. either:
i) The set of things X_1 "God" can know at this point is precisely equal to the set of things X_0 it could know at t_0 (i.e. neither X_0 nor X_1 is a proper subset of the other - they contain precisely the same elements)
ii) The set X_1 contains elements not in X_0
iii) The set X_1 does not contains certain elements that are in X_0
If (ii) then at t_0 there are things that can be and are known to "God" that cannot be known to it at t_1. Let X_2 denote the set X_0 \ X_1, then for all x in X_2 "God" does not know what consequences follow from x at t_1. But t_1 is an arbitrary point in time, and as such we may consider it to be as close to t_0 as we require. letting (t_1 - t_0) -> 0 it follows that "God" can know nothing more about such x in X_2 other than their present state, what other x in X_2 they are interacting with at t_0, and what caused those states/interactions (namely itself at precisely that moment). It cannot know precisely how these elements interact
Reveal Hidden Contentsince otherwise it would know the consequence of some x_1\'s interaction with x_2 - contradicting the existence of either x_1 or x_2 in X_2.
Consequently "God" can be surprised by it's own creation of a system giving rise to such x - contradicting omniscience.
On the otherhand, if (iii) then at t_1 there exist things that can be and are known to "God" that it could not know at t_0. Letting X_3 denote X_1 \ X_0 then playing the same game as in (ii) and letting (t_1 - t_0) -> 0, there exist x in X_3 for which either God cannot know their cause or cannot know with what they have interacted - this again contradicts omniscience.
Consequently, if (a) we are forced to accept that at time t_1, "God" knows just as much as it did at t_0. Arguing inductively it follows that for all times t (again, relative to the passage of time in this universe) God never acquires any new information or loses information. Moreover since it knows this information at t_0 then if it knows our actions it knows why we would perform such actions (namely as a consequence of the parameters "God" chose in which to create the universe). Consequently we are not free to act in any other way than as "God" knew we would act at the point it created us.
The only alternative which remains is that (b) "God"'s nature can (and does) change with respect to omniscience - in which case how can one be confident that some "God" which we suppose exists is omniscient???
[edit - having rewording this after posting I may need to give this a bit more work...later perhaps]
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