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berkeley 03-23-2010 04:30 PM
Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Does God know the future? If so, doesn't that mean that all of our choices are already made [for us]? and that free-will is just an illusion?

OR

God does not know our future, and we have free will??

El Predicador 03-23-2010 05:14 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Door number 3

God's foreknowledge of our choices does not predestine our choices

pelathais 03-23-2010 06:10 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
This is one of the oldest philosophical questions. Lots of good answers but none are conclusive.

Personally, I just accept the paradoxical nature of the question as EP has illustrated.

Praxeas 03-23-2010 06:12 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by El Predicador (Post 890986)
Door number 3

God's foreknowledge of our choices does not predestine our choices
agreed

mizpeh 03-23-2010 07:04 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Berkley (Post 890974)
Does God know the future? If so, doesn't that mean that all of our choices are already made [for us]? and that free-will is just an illusion?

OR

God does not know our future, and we have free will??
you've set up a false dichotomy.

The quote below is from Jason Dulle's blog:

Quote:
Many have wondered how, if God knows everything we will do in the future, can we be said to have free will? After all, if we freely chose to do something other than what God foreknew, God would be wrong in what He foreknew; but since God cannot be mistaken we must do all that He foreknew we would do. Doesn’t this reduce us to mere actors, playing out the parts written for us by God? Are we puppets who have no control over our own actions? Darwinist, Robert Eberle, encapsulates this supposedly intractable problem of free agency in light of an omniscient God nicely: “Aside from his simple declarations without any foundation that he believes certain biblical stories and miracles are true, he runs into major problems. One is the claim that God knows what was, is and will be. Collins asserts that there is still free will, but fails to explain his logic for arriving at this extraordinary conclusion. Either what will be is known and fixed or it is not. An infallible god that knows what is going to happen is in conflict with the idea that there is free choice and thus a responsibility for one’s actions.”[1]

While it is true that the future is fixed because God perfectly knows all that will happen and cannot be mistaken, this does not mean He fixes the future. It does not follow that God’s foreknowledge of our future acts causes us to choose those acts anymore than my knowledge of your past actions would make me the cause of your acts. As William Lane Craig has argued, we do not do what God foreknows, but rather God foreknows what we will do. In other words, God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of our actions; our actions are the cause of God’s foreknowledge. While God’s knowledge of all future contingent acts may be chronologically prior to those acts, the acts themselves are logically prior to God’s knowledge. While God knows for certain what will happen in the future, our free choices inform the foreknowledge of which He is certain. His foreknowledge does not necessitate/determine our choices. If we would have freely chosen to do X rather than Y, God would know X for certain rather than Y. But in God’s foreknowledge He knows we will freely choose Y, and thus is certain that we will choose Y.

pelathais 03-23-2010 07:23 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mizpeh (Post 891028)
you've set up a false dichotomy.

The quote below is from Jason Dulle's blog:
You and Jason both appear to have missed out on the part where God is morally responsible for His foreknowledge.

It's like a man who leaves a loaded gun on a table accessible to young children. Even frail human beings can have a bit of foreknowledge to see how events may unfold. Therefore, by law (in this state anyhow) the man is both civilly and criminally responsible for the outcome of events if any harm should befall. "He should have known..." the investigating officers will say and the judge will concur.

The same can be said of God (the reasoning goes). God, through His foreknowledge knows the outcome of every event - including those events with moral consequences. Therefore, by choosing to either intervene or not to do so, God will actually predestine individuals to either heaven or hell.

Free will is an illusion if there is truly a God (the reasoning goes). God's own foreknowledge of our actions and choices determines our fate. Either He intervenes and "unloads the gun" and we are saved, or He chooses not to do so and we suffer the harm.

Romans 8:28-30

It was because of his atheism that Jean Paul Sartre said, "We are doomed to be free," in response to this question. If there is no God, then there is no "intervention" and all of the "guns" are liable to go off.

mizpeh 03-23-2010 07:42 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pelathais (Post 891035)
You and Jason both appear to have missed out on the part where God is morally responsible for His foreknowledge.

It's like a man who leaves a loaded gun on a table accessible to young children. Even frail human beings can have a bit of foreknowledge to see how events may unfold. Therefore, by law (in this state anyhow) the man is both civilly and criminally responsible for the outcome of events if any harm should befall. "He should have known..." the investigating officers will say and the judge will concur.

The same can be said of God (the reasoning goes). God, through His foreknowledge knows the outcome of every event - including those events with moral consequences. Therefore, by choosing to either intervene or not to do so, God will actually predestine individuals to either heaven or hell.

Free will is an illusion if there is truly a God (the reasoning goes). God's own foreknowledge of our actions and choices determines our fate. Either He intervenes and "unloads the gun" and we are saved, or He chooses not to do so and we suffer the harm.

Romans 8:28-30

It was because of his atheism that Jean Paul Sartre said, "We are doomed to be free," in response to this question. If there is no God, then there is no "intervention" and all of the "guns" go off.
I can't speak for Jason.

Quote:
God's own foreknowledge of our actions and choices determines our fate.
Would you explain this a little more clearly, please? I would say God bases his choices upon his foreknowledge of our choices.

Have you heard of middle knowledge?


Quote:
“Molinism teaches that God exercises His sovereignty primarily through His omniscience, and that He infallibly knows what free creatures would do in any given situation.” (pg 5) This allows for God to indeed be sovereign, but it also allows for man to be truly free in that his choices truly are his own, and count as something other than a necessary response to Divine stimuli. Because God knows all things He knows all possibilities as well as which possibilities are feasible. In other words, God not only knows what could happen, He knows what will happen in any given circumstance, and He chooses to create the world in which all circumstances and choices bring the most glory to His name. In the world that God chose He both knows all things and man is free to make his own choices. Thus God is sovereign and man is free.

http://pastoralmusings.com/2010/01/0...nist-approach/
I would add to " He chooses to create the world in which all circumstances and choices bring the most glory to His name" that not only does God create the world which brings the most glory to his name but also saves the most people possible.

BroGary 03-23-2010 08:41 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by El Predicador (Post 890986)
Door number 3

God's foreknowledge of our choices does not predestine our choices
agreed and well put !

OnTheFritz 03-23-2010 09:10 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by El Predicador (Post 890986)
Door number 3

God's foreknowledge of our choices does not predestine our choices
Tidy and convenient. There are numerous instances in the Bible of God changing his mind based on human behavior. Why would such a thing be necessary if He knew the decisions beforehand?

Raven 03-23-2010 10:02 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Rom 11:33-34
33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?

BroGary 03-23-2010 10:03 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by OnTheFritz (Post 891081)
Tidy and convenient. There are numerous instances in the Bible of God changing his mind based on human behavior. Why would such a thing be necessary if He knew the decisions beforehand?
God knew before He created them that Adam & Eve would sin, but He still created them and gave them a free will choice.

God still gives people the opportunity to choose even though He knows how they will choose, He can then reward them when they choose right, but part of the motivation for people to choose right is for them to know what God might do if they don't make the right choice.

Timmy 03-24-2010 09:44 AM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Does God exist outside of "time", as some say? Does He see it all -- all four dimensions (thinking of time as the fourth) -- at once, so to speak? Did He create it all?

:hmmm

TheLegalist 03-24-2010 09:45 AM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by El Predicador (Post 890986)
Door number 3

God's foreknowledge of our choices does not predestine our choices
Bingo!

TheLegalist 03-24-2010 09:47 AM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timmy (Post 891154)
Does God exist outside of "time", as some say? Does He see it all -- all four dimensions (thinking of time as the fourth) -- at once, so to speak? Did He create it all?

:hmmm
actually it is believed that 10 dimensions exist.

pelathais 03-24-2010 09:53 AM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mizpeh (Post 891039)
I can't speak for Jason.

Would you explain this a little more clearly, please? I would say God bases his choices upon his foreknowledge of our choices.

Have you heard of middle knowledge?
Have you heard of God sitting on His hands and doing nothing while the elect are lost?

The "gun on the table" analogy is pretty clear if you didn't read past it. "God" is responsible for leaving a loaded gun on the table while children were playing in the room. Accepting responsibility for that action, He "intervenes" and returns to the room to spare the lives of his children.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mizpeh (Post 891039)
I would add to " He chooses to create the world in which all circumstances and choices bring the most glory to His name" that not only does God create the world which brings the most glory to his name but also saves the most people possible.
... while admitting to his failure as a parent?

I think that accepting the unresolved paradox of free will and determinism at face value brings the most glory to God. The approach allows God to be God and demands that I place faith in that God and His abilities as my own "parent" or "guardian."

It's hard to see how "the most glory" is given to God by the manner in which He has chosen to allow the wasp Glyptapanteles to breed. Perhaps this is an example of where He "failed" to intervene because none of His children were involved? Still, it's a pretty hard way to treat the caterpillar.

I just don't see Him "choosing" or "calling every shot" in this game. He only seems to get interested when His children are in peril; and then He pulls out all of the stops (see Calvary).

Just my humble opinion again. http://www.apostolicfriendsforum.com...cons/icon7.gif

Timmy 03-24-2010 09:55 AM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLegalist (Post 891157)
actually it is believed that 10 dimensions exist.
Well, yeah, but, I'm just sayin'. (And I've heard as many as 12. Those other dimensions are just weird, though. Tiny. Super tiny. Ultrananomicrotiny. To get a handle on what that means, think of a two-dimensional universe, like a huge sheet of paper. And actually, that sheet of paper is three-dimensional! The weird, mysterious "third" dimension is really tiny.)

pelathais 03-24-2010 09:57 AM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLegalist (Post 891157)
actually it is believed that 10 dimensions exist.
The original 5 plus the newer reprise act when Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. got the band back together?

But more seriously, "10 dimensions work for fermions and 26 dimensions work for bosons."

Timmy 03-24-2010 10:09 AM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pelathais (Post 891161)
The original 5 plus the newer reprise act when Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. got the band back together?

But more seriously, "10 dimensions work for fermions and 26 dimensions work for bosons."
26?!?!? That's just crazy! :lol

pelathais 03-24-2010 11:40 AM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timmy (Post 891169)
26?!?!? That's just crazy! :lol
Do the math.

t u = t × t s with t 2 = 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyakov_action

pelathais 03-24-2010 11:40 AM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pelathais (Post 891193)
Do the math.

t u = t × t s with t 2 = 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyakov_action

Lame. Why don't my superscripts and subscripts stay in place?

Timmy 03-24-2010 12:32 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pelathais (Post 891194)
Lame. Why don't my superscripts and subscripts stay in place?
Rebellious. Take 'em to the city gate and have them stoned.

:lol

Timmy 03-24-2010 12:36 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pelathais (Post 891193)
Do the math.

t u = t × t s with t 2 = 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyakov_action
Funny. When I do the math, I get 42. :D

deltaguitar 03-24-2010 02:03 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5_WvgOxq8A

Baron1710 03-24-2010 03:28 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
OR...

This is a summary of one of the points from the book "The God Who Risks"

"God does not possess foreknowledge in the traditional sense; he knows only the past and present, both exhaustively-a view called "presentism." Except for the relatively small number of things he has predetermined to do, God's only "knowledge" of the future is derivative, resulting either from his determination and promises to act in certain ways or from his reading of past and present personalities and events."

- Robert Picirilli giving his view of what was said in the book, which he disagrees with.

pelathais 03-24-2010 05:42 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timmy (Post 891209)
Funny. When I do the math, I get 42. :D
Wrong question. Your syllogism equated to the following:

"What is the meaning of life (L), the Universe (U) and Everything (E)."

So we have x=L+U+E

Reducing it all down to the lowest common denominator (a common feature of our lives, our universe and everything) and factoring the result with interminable plagues and legions of poorly trained hair stylists will give the result of x=42.

Timmy 03-24-2010 08:13 PM
Re: Omniscient God, or free will?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pelathais (Post 891309)
Wrong question. Your syllogism equated to the following:

"What is the meaning of life (L), the Universe (U) and Everything (E)."

So we have x=L+U+E

Reducing it all down to the lowest common denominator (a common feature of our lives, our universe and everything) and factoring the result with interminable plagues and legions of poorly trained hair stylists will give the result of x=42.
Right answer, wrong question? Story of my life! :lol


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