Mantus

I hope I am not hijacking this thread, but omniscience does tie into free will so I guess it is relevant.

:::OshnSoul:::,

Omniscience is infinite knowledge. It is knowledge of everything past, present and future. Omniscience also means having knowledge of all possibilities and their past, present and future.

As god is infinite he is able to experience infinity. God's omniscience means that god already has knowledge of the experience of infinity. Now omniscient knowledge would not be as our knowledge. Our memory is vague and corrupt; while omniscient knowledge would be the equivalent of the experience. An omniscient being already knows what the experience would be like down to every single detail in all possibilities.

"In order to know your Self, to know what "You are" you must have what "You are not".

That would be a contradiction of omniscience, as one would already know the experience of not having omniscience.

“Couldn't He still choose to experience Himself, even if He knew the outcomes?”

Yes an omniscient god could, though the drive behind this would be questionable. As god would already have the knowledge of experiencing things with the knowledge of the outcome.

It’s rather perplexing; I don’t pretend to have the answers.

:::OshnSoul:::

I can't pretend to have the answers, either- but I know within that we all do have the answers. They are not just lying around out there waiting for us to find them.
Ok, so- Does God have Free Will? Well, if you do believe that God gave us Free Will, then He would have that Free Will to give us. He can't give us something He doesn't have (and He has (is) everything, therefore He has given us everything.)
Now, so that this may make a little more sense- (this is my Truth, just stating it, not expecting you to make it your Truth)
God's Free Will, then, is Our Free Will. Hence, we share this Free Will equally. It's like bearing a child and giving them your traits or looks.
Now- even though God may be all-knowing, He still has the Free Will to choose to experience everything. He decided that what a better way to experience it than to create offspring and have Himself be experienced through a physical manner.
You can know that if you drop a ball, it will bounce back up, but you don't know the "feeling" of it until you actually experience doing it. And there are infinite outcomes of the ball bouncing, depending on how you let it bounce, where you bounce it, and what you do when it comes back up. God knows all of that, yet chose to experience it all to "feel" it all.
Now, what may not make sense yet, is if humans have made the choice to kill, then I'm saying that God also chosen that? Well, yes, in a sense. God will not hinder on our free will to choose. Yet God would make the Highest Choice (by not killing?) but that we don't listen to that Highest Choice, often ignoring it. He lets us make these choices in order for us to experience and evolve on our own pace. If He told us what to do, we wouldn't have free will, and He wouldn't either. Then there would be no sense in the physical experience of Life. God just communicates with us in every moment of every day- and the number one way He chooses to do that (the most effective) IS experience.
And, as far as my quote: In order to know your Self, to know what "You are" you must have what "You are not".
God is all- All that Is and All that Is Not. but He wanted to experience the polarities of Himself. Therefore, that is exactly what we are doing. Experiencing Who We Are and Who We Are Not. And God is experiencing All of that through us.
Don't you think that's possible? That God chose to experience Himself, even if He is omniscient? Afterall, He is God. Why can't God Be and Do anything and everything? Then He wouldn't be omnipotent.

Mantus

You know for while there I almost bought Sho Nuff’s argument.

Then I realized something. How does something without free will know that it doesn’t have it?

Free will depends on the ability to choose. Yet this ability to choose will not be exercised if there is only one path to take. If one knows what a person is going to do then one gives that person only one path to take.

From the person’s perspective it may seem that free will is in effect and indeed the person will be making a choice; a choice that is already determined by the existence just one option. The other paths become an allusion, for there is only one possible choice.

This becomes even more self-evident if one acquires the knowledge of what choice oneself will make. If one has such knowledge then (unlike the movies) the future cannot be changed. Otherwise it one would have knowledge of an outcome, rather then a choice.

So if god is omniscient, then god has knowledge of all choices, therefore god has the power to choice, yet has just one path to chose from.

So in my view Kyo's argument retains the upper hand.



:::OshnSoul:::,
An omniscient being cannot say: “Gee, I wonder what it would be like to experience being a human?” An omniscient god would already know. I think that you are looking at it from a limited human perspective. Our imperfect memory cannot replicate an experience in all its detail. An omniscient deity on the other hand would have perfect knowledge of an experience, knowledge that would be equal to the real experience. We should start a new thread or something on the motivations of god. =D



Finally I offer a new argument against a god with free will.

God is supremely good. If a god is supremely good then god cannot make the choice of evil. Therefore god has limited free will.

:::OshnSoul:::

^^^^Where did I say that??? In no way did I mention that an omniscient God was curious or wondered- I said that God CHOSE to experience Himself. Please read carefully.
He Knows Everything, yet CHOSE/CHOOSES to experience it fully. Does that make sense?

radonman

But why would an omniscient being choose to experience something when its omniscience makes it just as if it already did? I think that's what Mantus is trying to say.

__________________
-radonman

:::OshnSoul:::

The difference here is that our human perception of this is that we have "forgotten" all of this- all of what we know- and we are here to "remember" it. Therefore, we don't think in terms of an omniscient being, so it is hard for us to imagine that "God" would choose to do that.
I am not out to prove anything here- only trying to broaden the minds of others and consider that:
God is ALL. God is All that Is and All that Is Not. God is the Essence of EVERY SINGLE grain of Life Itself and that God is Infinite. Humans have a hard time comprehending the magnitude of "God's" Being. That we can't understand things like His Free Will and His Choice to experience Himself.
Let's Look at it this way:
Billions of years ago- There's God- just the Essence of Him with no Earth, no Humans, no Living things, no anything.....He knows everything of Himself- that is His essence that is just BEing, yet He's getting "bored" just BEing. He wants to create. He wants to Experience Himself in magnitudes and infinite planes and levels and forms and dimensions of his Being. God said "Let there be Life" and BANG (as we know it the Big Bang Theory) where everything is created with one Big Bang. Life is created. His "offspring" was born.
You ask why? I ask WHY NOT? It's GOD!! God can do anything! If God wants to experience Himself, then He will! Why does it have to be questioned? We are still also thinking in terms of us being seperate from God- that God is superior and that God is an outward source from Us- out there....somewhere.....Everything He created is of Him.

We are the essence of God, therefore, there is no need to consider God seperate from us. Also, Viewing (experiencing) Himself in infinite forms and ways creates such an Infinite Universe so magnificent, it is hard for us to fathom the magnitude-that is why we question it.

There is a difference is knowing all and knowing the experience of all. That is where some people get confused. Omniscience is knowing all, but that is seperate from experience of knowing all. God at one time KNEW He was God- that He was Infinite and Omnipotent. So- He chose to experience BEing Infinite and Omnipotent.

smooth

I think free will is defined as the ability to choose one's course of action free from outside influence. Since sin is to miss the mark, I would claim that it is analogous to not perfectly effecting one's will.

Thus, a deity with perfect free will would be free from the constraints that restrict one's will. The inability to commit evil (the opposition to a good will) doesn't limit one's will, but rather allows the ability to effect one's will perfectly. I don't agree that diminishes one's freedom--it actually allows it.

filtherton

You would first have to prove the existence of good and evil. Last i heard the good and evil were in the eyes of the beholder.

Mantus

So gods has freedom but god’s will is supremely strong. Very enlightening, thank you smooth.

Though this brings up a question. Is supreme free will determined by the lack of all outside as well as internal influence or just outside influence? Certainly if one has an inclination, that inclination cannot be the result of oneself.

If god is supremely good from the start then he is controlled by an inclination. On the other hand if god’s goodness were a choice, then god would not be supremely good by nature. This brings us to the question of omnipotence. If god gives himself a command to be supremely good, can he break it? Why would he break it? Well since there is no natural inclination to be good, god can just as well be evil, as a being without any inclination is simply neutral.

Could not agree more filtherton and certainly one could not exist without the other. That doest mean I cannot use the common theoretical descriptions of a theoretical being to come up with theoretical arguments

smooth

Ooh, I hope I don't get too metaphysical for my own good

Good question.

I should have defined a free will as one which is uninfluenced by any forces outside the will itself.

I define sin or evilness as a contradiction of that will--nothing more. I don't define it in terms of the subjective judgements of the consequences of the act.

Therefore, I claim that a free will can not (or maybe will not by its own accord) go against itself (i.e., sin).

There is no natural inclination to be good or evil. Those are our subjective interpretations. In fact, the christian and Jewish Scriptures plainly state that their deity created both the "good" and the "evil" to effect the deity's will.

The only natural inclination, as I understand it, is to follow one's will if one is free to do so. No command to be "good" exists to be given and, as such, no command could or would be broken.

EDIT: I'm not being facetious but I am not willing to cede the point that one's inclination can not be the result of one's nature (which is how I would understand the phrase, "the result of oneself"). If you have a logical proof of that, I would like to see it. I'm not sure where you would derive it from, however, because I think the Western ethicists would claim that inclinations do come from a thing's nature.