Kyo

Some of you seem to be missing one part of the issue, in treating events as endings. Keep in mind that omniscience indicates knowing everything - not just the end result, but why that result was obtained, how it was obtained, etc. If you were to kill, God would already know exactly how you would do it - all the way down to the motion of every subatomic particle in existence for every instant during the murder.

God doesn't have to do anything to remove 'free will', and if he does, he knew he was going to do it since the 'moment' he existed. Just by knowing every occurance, every twitch every person has ever made, every motion of every insect, every little detail in the universe, at all times simultaneously, we no longer have real 'choice.' We believe we choose to do something, but God already knows we would do it, and since he knew, it was the only possible outcome. Whether God actually physically affects our world is irrelevant to this discussion.

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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

Killconey

Kyo raises a good point. As sad as it may be, I'm sure the world will go on turning even after Tman144 finally submits to God's will and kills me.

cybermike, you're playing the devil's advocate too? Crap! Now neither one of us will get anywhere.

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Look out for numbers two and up and they'll look out for you.

Sunrise

It almost hurts my head thinking about this. But I think there's too many variables in our environment, and when we make a decision, it's not really predecided.

MacGnG

if you know the future, you CAN change it (if you want).

happyraul

if you can change the future you cannot know the future.

irateplatypus

i don't think its completely necessary to assume that since God may know all our actions that we have no choice. Just because I know my roommate won't wash the dishes doesn't mean that he doesn't have the choice to wash the dishes in the first place. Granted, I don't "know" he won't in the sense that I'm completely certain. But, maybe God is so in tune (more so than i am w/my roommate) with the universe that he is able to "know" these things w/out actually infringing on our ability to make a choice.

There is also a good chance that we are not able to comprehend God's perspective on time, especially with the assumptions made about God in this particular discussion.

hmm...

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Kyo

You're still missing the point. If someone knows, with absolute certainty, what you are going to do, what choice do you have?

Consider this: Given some event X, you have choices A, B, and C. Now, God knows (and has known since time immemorable), that you will pick A. Where are your choices? You will pick A. Sure, you have the 'choice' of A, B, and C - but in reality you had no choice at all.

The misconception is that God needs to actually do something to take away our free will. In other words, he has to actively steer the course of events by directly (through mind control or gentle suggestion, or whatever means God deems necessary) manipulating people. This is not true at all. Simply by knowing everything (and doing nothing), God has made our 'free will' and our 'choice' a happy illusion.

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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

irateplatypus

i'm not sure that i'm missing the point as much as disagreeing w/yours.

i understand your argument, but i just do not agree w/you on this point. foreknowledge of action does not necessarily dictate the action itself. i'm not sure if there is anyway to breach the divide on this issue, though i'm open to any additional ways to look at it.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Killconey

Knowing something will happen does not cause that thing to happen. Look at the soothsayer in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The soothsayer knew that Caesar was going to be killed and warned Caesar to beware. Caesar did not beware and was killed. Did the soothsayer somehow cause Caesar to die? No. He simply knew it would happen. Just because God knows we're going to do something doesn't mean that he is causing it and doesn't mean that he hasn't provided other options. All it means is that we made a choice.

The same holds true for God's free will, but in a much more complicated way. God has many options for what he could do, but he has made his choice and he will hold true to that. Obviously the fact that God can see himself or a person choosing to do something means that that person has chosen to do something, even if the time for that event hasn't come yet.

__________________
Look out for numbers two and up and they'll look out for you.

Tman144

Yes, it does. If Gods knows everything thats going to happen, hes actually looking at it like its the past, its already happened. Did I cause Hiltler to lose WWII? No, but because we know the outcome there was no altenative. At the time it seemed like Hitler could win, but now we know he didn't so there was no way he could have won. I know that probally doesn't make sense, but try and think of it as God is really in the future and looking at today as if it were history.

I guess the answer to my orginal question is that God is the only one with free will because he created everything and he is the one who chooses how history plays out.

__________________
"Don't touch my belt, you Jesus freak!" -Mr. Gruff the Atheist Goat

Kyo

Cause is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if God 'causes' anything - you'll notice I explicitly say that God doesn't have to do anything to remove our free will.

This sounds snobbish, perhaps, but I really don't see what is so hard to understand. If you flip a coin, but already know how it's going to land, it might as well be a one-sided coin - it won't, absolutely, 100% will not land the other way. There is no chance, no way, no how - because you already know what is going to happen. If it did go the other way, then you didn't really know - and we're assuming that God does.

The soothsayer knew Caesar was going to die, therefore Caesar has no choice but to die. He has to die, there is no other possible outcome. And not only does he have to die, but he has to die in the exact manner, at the exact time, etc.

If you know that something is going to happen, obviously it will happen. Where is the 'choice' in that? Choice has become just a meaningless word. Sure, we 'made a choice' - nobody is explicitly 'forcing' us to do anything - but really, since somebody already knows what we are going to do, we have no choice at all.

This is simple guys ... the discussion should have been over a week ago.

__________________
Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

filtherton

I agree that if god was omniscient free will would be somewhat the joke. It would also seem to rob existence of any purpose aside from providing god with some massive interactive reality entertainment system that was, at its very beginning, a rerun.
However i think that it is very possible for god to not be omniscient. In which case, free will would belong to everyone.

irateplatypus

kyo,

if it really is that easy, i suggest you drop by every philosophy department in the world and tell them the good news.

the fact is that it isn't an easy issue and some of the best philosophical minds have spent years trying to figure this out.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Kyo

You're good, playing that "other people are still discussing the issue" card.

If "the fact is that it isn't an easy issue," show me where my reasoning is flawed. Don't just tell me that "the best philosophical minds have spent years trying to figure this out" and leaving it there without any kind of backup or example.

So, tell me. How am I wrong?

__________________
Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

irateplatypus

kyo,

tell you how you are wrong? wow, you're completely missing the thrust of a philosophical discussion. i can't tell you you're wrong in the sense that you would be wrong if you told me the capital of texas were philadelphia. i can only express disagreement in your approach to the problem, which i've already done by posting an alternate viewpoint. we're coming from differing basic assumptions about time and God's temporal nature.

your reasoning may or may not have flaws, but much of it depends on the assumptions and baggage you (and everyone else) brings to the discussion. and yes, i do think its pertinent that everyone else is wrestling with the issue. my backup is the fact that someone thought it necessary to start a discussion about this line of thought, so it must be unresolved. my example is my own humble contribution to this thread, as well as millenia of philosophical dissertations on the subject expressing so many ideas.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Kyo

- I am trying to find a satisfactory, logical answer to a posed question. What do you believe the point to be?

- Your alternate viewpoint contains flaws which I have already addressed - several times, and you have failed to defend your views.

- Which assumptions and baggage are you referring to?

- The problem with your final argument is that all of the philosophy departments of the world are not currently participating in this discussion, therefore, we have no more fuel for our discussion because we have ironed out our final answer. Until someone is able to challenge this answer in an objective fashion (say, members of some philosophy department), it is meaningless to say that this discussion can't be over just because other people (who are elsewhere and are not participating in this discussion) haven't finished working through it themselves. In other words, the problem may be deeper than we think, but if none of the participants can come up with a better answer, we are done.

- As for this: "There is also a good chance that we are not able to comprehend God's perspective on time, especially with the assumptions made about God in this particular discussion." I believe God's perspective on time to be irrelevant. He knows all - regardless of time, space, or any other parameter. It doesn't matter at all how God sees time, or what time really is - because however actions happen in 'time', God knows what they are.

- In case it is somehow not yet clear to you, I will address your plate washing example in more detail. If you know, for a fact (not just from experience - ie, "He never washes the dishes," etc.) that your friend will not wash the dishes, than there is no possible way that he could wash them. He will, with 100% probability, 'choose' not to wash the dishes. Choosing with 100% probability is equivalent to not having a choice. If you flip a coin and know, for a fact, that it will come down heads, the coin may as well be one-sided. There is absolutely no way that it will come down tails - because you already know that it will come down heads.

Show me a flaw in this reasoning and we will have more to discuss.

__________________
Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

filtherton

Here's a flaw.
How can you work based on the assumption that god knows and understands all? If god knew all, what would be the point of any of this? If you are basing this on some sort of logic, what is logical about creating an entire universe out of some pre-existential ether if you already know what is going to happen down to the last detail?
I think it may be that god seems to be all knowing because we know so little. The same way that i'm sure my cat thinks that i know all, because of its limited intelligence and my comparatively great intelligence, but that doesn't make me all knowing. The idea that god knows all just doesn't fit in logically with the ways that god has supposedly behaved historically.

iamjero

Nope, end of story.

We cannot begin to comprehend anything even close to God.

We are monkeys with big heads.

__________________
"Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?"

- Joseph Stalin

irateplatypus

thanks filtherton, thats exactly what i am talking about.

i don't necessarily agree with (filtherton), but there is a another viewpoint that shows flaws in kyo's argument. thats not to say that either one is right or wrong, but it shows how theory's are based on presuppositions that aren't necessarily shared by all in the discussion. kyo seems to be arguing points 6-10 (which may be valid in his assumed scenario), but some of the rest of us disagree with parts of 1-5. thanks for a post free of condescension. pleasant change of pace.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

empu

Actually, at the rate we're going, I wouldn't be surprised if God starts asking us how stuff works.

Kyo

irate, I especially enjoy how you continue to refuse to state exactly what you think, rather than going on about how someone else's logic is flawed because of presupposition. If you believe I am incorrect, then produce for me your own theory for us to discuss.

As for God being all-knowing, that was the beginning assumption of this thread (see the first post):

"If God knows everything thats going to happen..."

Therefore, if God is all knowing then free will does not exist. The scope of this thread encompasses only this point - and no one has successfully argued otherwise. I believe God is omnipotent by definition - otherwise God would simply be someone who is really powerful; not that much of a philosophical leap up from humans. Taken in that context, God could very easily be a member of an alien race who is performing a biological experiment with our universe. Somehow this does not strike me as the image of God that His worshippers have envisioned.

However, for the sake of argument, let us consider the case where God is not all-knowing. Where, then, is the problem? If God is not all-knowing, then what we do is entirely our own choice, provided God does not actively interfere. If the future is not yet written, there is nothing to dictate exactly which course the present shall take, besides the boundaries of the 'possible' and the 'probable.'

The problem the way you have posed it, then, degenerates into a discussion of whether God is all-knowing or not, and frankly, I believe it impossible to form any kind of logical conclusion to such a question.

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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

Eldaire

I look at God as a 12th dimensional being. Therefore, he can see our universe (time included) as one single object, finite. Therefore, he can know everything about it. However, this does not necessarily mean he knows everything about himself and the universe according to his dimensional perspective.

meembo

Does God have Free Will?

More than I have! As such, the degree to which God has free wiill is academic to me -- I can't know the difference.

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less I say, smarter I am

Kyo

I think this is a great answer :-P.

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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

The.Lunatic

god created everything you know, when you write a program on the computer are you bound by the for loop and if else statements?

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Proud memeber of the Insomniac Club.

Tman144

Because thats what it says in the Bible. If were going to have a discussion based on a God described in the Bible, we should probally use its definition.

__________________
"Don't touch my belt, you Jesus freak!" -Mr. Gruff the Atheist Goat

:::OshnSoul:::

God may already know what we will do, yet he does not control you into doing it. Because He gave Us Free Will and so His Free Will IS Our Free Will. He created Us with Free Will, therefore, even though He always knows everything (past/present/future) which is all really happening simultaneously, that He does not get in the way of Our Free Will and Loves Us unconditionally no matter what choice we made. There is no bad choice or good choice, but consider it to be your Highest Choice verses a "Slight Error in Judgement". That's how we learn, experience, and grow.

P.S. Read my sig.

Kyo

- Please read the past discussion to see why your reasoning is inherently flawed.

- If, after you have read, you have a logical and coherent counter-argument that is based on more than simply fervent belief, then, why, I believe we shall entertain one another.

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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

Sho Nuff

[/B}

Exactly... that being said though

God has free will because he decides what he wants to happen and makes it happen. This is the highest expression of free will.

There is a difference between knowing the future and deciding it. If I watch a runner come to a fork in the road, see what path he chooses and then travel back in time to watch it again without changing the situation at all I know what path he will take. My knowledge does not change his will at all. He still follows the same mental decision process and comes to the same decision of his own free will. Ive just seen it before.

God's perfection as it is defined in contemporary Christian mythology is a state of being not a state of consciousness. God could change his state of being to imperfection, which he did when Jesus was born as God in human form. Jesus could have sinned but chose not to by will because he had a mission. Just like God has free will because he creates the future by his own design.

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I know Nietzsche doesnt rhyme with peachy, but you sound like a pretentious prick when you correct me.

filtherton

Well, there are, in fact, many different religions and spiritual perspectives in this world.
Ignoring that fact, the bible says a great many things which contradict a great many other things in the bible. Unless you believe that the bible is actually the directly quoted words of the christian god-or someone possessed by the christian god- you know that it was in fact written by the flawed human hand.
Furthermore, if you already know everything, what is the point of doing anything? What is the motivation of a god who knows everything?
I agree with kyo, in that if god is all knowing free will doesn't exist. But if, according to your definition of god, free will doesn't exist than why does consciousness exist? Lacking free will, we are all basically robots waiting to die.

:::OshnSoul:::

Kyo- take this opportunity to listen to yourself, not others. Then you will realize so much more.

Tman144

So, a belief in an all-knowing God devoids life of meaning? I'm going to have to use this next time some people come to my door and tell me I'm going to hell.

__________________
"Don't touch my belt, you Jesus freak!" -Mr. Gruff the Atheist Goat

Mantus

Well you are damned either way.

If god is omniscient then what is the point of all this if god knows the outcome before existence? Why create the world if the knowledge of every single event is there?

If god is not omniscient then…my god is, and my god can kick your god’s ass because he will be able to see the punches from a mile away. So I say you convert quietly before I bring a crusade/jihad on yo ass!

radonman

Well, arguing within these parameters, possible futures don't matter. If there is one best way, and god always does things the best way, then god has no free will. If it is possible to predict with 100% accuracy what a person/thing will do, then how can that thing have free will?

Ultimately, though, this argument defines god as some sort of entity that's sentient in the same way that we are (barring omniscience and omnipotence), which I think is erroneous.

__________________
-radonman

moonstrucksoul

Possibly to experience Himself through Us? And that we recreate Him in every moment? No one can know themselves fully unless they experience fully. He may know what may happen, but He also knows that He can be experienced in infinite ways. We are His tools- and we are His creators.

:::OshnSoul:::

^^^^oops, that was me. Forgot to sign out of my husband's name.....

Mantus

Incorrect. Omniscience includes knowledge of one’s experience in all possibilities. Even if god could make himself non-omniscient in order to get the thrill of unknown experience such an act would be pointless; because an omniscient being would already know what the experience as a non-omniscient being would be like.

:::OshnSoul:::

ok, what if "God" split Himself up into little pieces (us)? Just like splitting an atom........."God" IS Omniscient because He experiences Himself-through us.
In order to know your Self, to know what "You are" you must have what "You are not". This is God's way of knowing.
And even if He is omniscient, couldn't He still choose to experience Himself, even if He knew the outcomes?

radonman

We're not talking about whether or not god wants to experience himself, we're talking about free will. Also, it seems like you're saying that god's omniscient because he created us, ergo god's omniscience depends on our existence, which wouldn't make sense of an all-powerful diety. If omniscience or omnipresence is an inherent dietal quality, then a diety would not need to do anything to know itself.

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-radonman

CS733t

God has to keep his promises, because he is perfect...does that mean he doesn't have free will? I dont really know, I assume because he made the promise, that that was his freewill to do so.
Having freewill doesn't mean a choice between right/wrong always...but rather two ways, each independant, and of course not wrong.

__________________
So tired now of paying my dues
I start out strong but then I always lose
It's half the distance before you leave me behind
It's such a waste of time