A serious logical problem

[R_Daneel]

Yes, it is getting boring by now, but the problem of omniscience and free will needs to be addressed again. The basic problem is this:

Suppose that God knows all our future decisions, and yet we still have freedom to act on our own volition, that is: “we have free will”. This is what Catholics assert in a unanimous fashion. If this is the case, there are 3 different ways of addressing the interrelationship between these two entities.

1. God’s knowledge is the causative factor in determining our actions. In other words, we do whatever we do, because God knows what we shall do. Obviously this negates our freedom totally and completely. Catholics - naturally - deny this.
2. Our actions are the causative factors in determining God’s knowledge. In other words, God knows what we shall do, because we do those acts. The problem here is that God’s knowledge is logically contingent upon our actions. If we would act differently it would “retroactively” (retroactively is not meant in the temporal sense, rather in the causative one!) change God’s knowledge. However, it is an ironclad Catholic dogma (or doctrine) that God is “simple”, God has no “parts”, God is “indivisible”. God’s knowledge is an integral part of his essence. That being the case, God’s essence would be contingent upon our actions. Clearly, that would be contradictory to God’s essence - which is supposed to be uncaused. (It is true, that some Catholics advocate this solution. Of course they fail to think it over, and do not realize the ramification of their stance.)
3. There is a third possibility (for the sake of completeness), which is never discussed or even mentioned. This possibility is that God’s knowledge and our free actions are totally independent, there is no causative relationship either way. In other words, God’s knowledge just “happens” to coincide with our actions, it is mere chance that the two “happen” to be identical. No one advocates this solution. Natually so, since it reduces God’s knowledge (and therefore God’s essence) to something that depends on lucky chances.

Therefore, the conclusion is this:

1. God’s knowledge cannot cause our actions - because that would negate our free will.
2. Our actions cannot cause God’s knowledge - because that would negate God’s uncaused essence.
3. God’s knowledge cannot be based upon lucky chances - because that would render God’s essence to be the result of random chance.

There are no other solutions. Therefore, omniscience and free will cannot be reconciled. Q.E.D.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

You are forgetting about eternity in your discussion of the problem.

Boethius puts it best, I will have to find the reference, but it is that God is outside of time and everything is avalible to Him at once. That is what eternity is to God. He knows our actions because He sees them as we do them.

You must remove God from time as He is not in it.

Just as you see someone sitting down in a chair, you know they are sitting down but your knowledge is not the cause of their sitting down, is it?

 

[James_S_Saint]

Well, it seems that you left out the case that actually resolves the issue;

1. God’s knowledge IS our actions in part (not causal in either direction, but one and the same thing).

You probably can’t get your head around that, but it does happen to be true. To understand it, I think you have to get into the reality of what knowledge actually is and perhaps a little more into what kind of being God is as well as the universe in general. The misleading notion is that God has a data bank of knowledge stored up somewhere dating back to -eternity and from there our actions were known. But that isn’t how it works.

 

[R_Daneel]

You are forgetting about eternity in your discussion of the problem.

Boethius puts it best, I will have to find the reference, but it is that God is outside of time and everything is avalible to Him at once. That is what eternity is to God. He knows our actions because He sees them as we do them.

You must remove God from time as He is not in it.

Time is not even mentioned, much less ulitized in the reasoning. Only logical causation is mentioned.

Just as you see someone sitting down in a chair, you know they are sitting down but your knowledge is not the cause of their sitting down, is it?

In this example my knowledge is caused by the action - therefore my knowledge is contingent. And God’s knowledge cannot be contingent.

 

[R_Daneel]

Well, it seems that you left out the case that actually resolves the issue;

1. God’s knowledge IS our actions in part (not causal in either direction, but one and the same thing).

Nonsense. If our actions are not free from God’s knowledge, then they are not free at all.

You probably can’t get your head around that, but it does happen to be true. To understand it, I think you have to get into the reality of what knowledge actually is and perhaps a little more into what kind of being God is as well as the universe in general. The misleading notion is that God has a data bank of knowledge stored up somewhere dating back to -eternity and from there our actions were known. But that isn’t how it works.

Nothing specific is assumed about God’s knowledge. And I would venture to say that you know exactly the same amount about it as everyone else; namely nothing. So don’t try to make assumptions about it.

 

[Spencerian]

Time is not even mentioned, much less ulitized in the reasoning. Only logical causation is mentioned.

In this example my knowledge is caused by the action - therefore my knowledge is contingent. And God’s knowledge cannot be contingent.

Logical causation fails here because God, being outside of time (while we are forcably mired in time as linear beings) AND capable of any action, including generation of anything from nothing, supercedes any “a+b=c” argument. God could simply say “fish” in answer to your arguments, make them fit to His plan…and before you ever thought of bringing up the subject in the first place.

My take: God does know all actions from beginning to end but it doesn’t always follow that all things follow (at least our perception of it). It sounds like the beginnings of chaos theory, but only if God’s Order were not in place to hold it all together.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Time is not even mentioned, much less ulitized in the reasoning. Only logical causation is mentioned.

Logical causation can not be considered without Time.

In this example my knowledge is caused by the action - therefore my knowledge is contingent. And God’s knowledge cannot be contingent.

You have not answered the main point I was making. All of eternity is present to God at the same time. His knowing what we will do is known because we are doing it. There is no way that He can not know it as it is happening, all of it, everything, is happening at the same time (to use a Time reference) for God.

Read this from the Summa Theologica on eternity;

Question 10. The eternity of God

 

[JohnCatan]

I am not clear why God’s knowledge would “cause” my “action”? Take God out of the discussion: then how would anyone elses knowledge by whatever means “cause” my action since even my own knowledge of what I intend merely informs my action thus causes my action formally but not efficiently. It would seem if I understand your “serious logical problem” that you cannot logically reconcile God’s causation with our “free will” perhaps that indicates the limits of logic.
The approach to Jesus in the NT, which was meant to give us the good news of Our Saviour’s salvific actions is far away from logical conundrums. “Faith seeking understanding” is the best principle for trying to :understand God not concepts derived from human experience which are not adequate to the discussion of divine causation ought to be no surprise. How we able to use concepts derived from sense experience when applied to God is the subject of negative theology which must be preceded by a positive theology…
I hope my contribution was of some help.
John Catan

 

[Blind_Didymus_1]

I’m a big fan of Boethius’s exposition on God’s timeless witness from The Consolation of Philosophy.

Just to play devil’s advocate though, I’ll quote how Greg Boyd addresses the contrast between timeless God and sequential reality from “God of The Possible”

“Of course God is ‘above time,’ for our concept of time is simply the way we measure change. This doesn’t mean, however, that there is no sequence in God’s experience. … He experiences no ‘before’ or ‘after.’ We have to ask, however, where is this notion taught in the Bible? Doesn’t every page of the Bible paint a portrait of a God who experiences things, thinks things, and responds to things sequentially? Every verb applied to God in the Bible testifies to this.”

Boyd is coming at this from an Open Theistic perspective though, so this isn’t supposed to prove that we have no free will.

 

[JimG]

God does not ‘experience’ things in a sequential manner. He experiences, and knows, all things, as an eternal now.

Imagine a playwright who was able to give his characters free will, to make the play come out however they wanted. But the playwright, rather than observing the play sequentially, has a nature which observes all instants simultaneously. He simply sees the whole thing at once.

 

[tafan]

Trying to figure this out is very difficult. It is one of the mysteries of our faith. No matter how you explain it, there seems to be an inconsistency and removing God from time is difficult to understand. There is not doubt we are pre-destined with respect to God’s knowledge. There is no doubt we have a free will. These are articles of faith. Reconciling the two is hard.
Too many people go down your logic path and end up abandoning free will and adopting a Calvinist view of the world. It seems so much simpler to understand, so it is tempting.
Sometimes, when we dig into theology, we need to be careful about it leading us down the wrong path.
Of your options presented, #2 is the closet by far. #1 is calvinist and #3 doesn’t make sense. And your problem with option 2, it retroactively changing God’s knowledge, is invalid because God is outside of time.
R Daneel:

Time is not even mentioned, much less ulitized in the reasoning

In the problems you point out with #2 you use the word retroactively and then qualify it in the causative sense as opposed to the temporal sense. This makes no sense to me. You can’t select a new definition for the word. Retroactively implies a relationship to time. Actually, your whole discussion about causation implies a relationship to time, since time is simply considered an order of events.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Before I answer, I’d like you to answer a question: Does God have the power to roll a die with a random outcome, despite the fact that He knows the outcome in advance? Can God act randomly?

 

[tafan]

Before I answer, I’d like you to answer a question: Does God have the power to roll a die with a random outcome, despite the fact that He knows the outcome in advance? Can God act randomly?

I think Einstein said no.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I think Einstein said no.

Einstein said He doesn’t, not couldn’t.

 

[Nan_S]

Before I answer, I’d like you to answer a question: Does God have the power to roll a die with a random outcome, despite the fact that He knows the outcome in advance? Can God act randomly?

That’s one of those nonsense questions, like “Can God make a rock so heavy that He can’t lift it?” In eternity, there is no uncaused randomness. There is only God’s deliberate will.

Both questions attempt to confuse us by mixing God’s eternal omniscience and omnipotence with the limitations and time-restrictions of the created world.

ByzCath:

All of eternity is present to God at the same time. His knowing what we will do is known because we are doing it. There is no way that He can not know it as it is happening, all of it, everything, is happening at the same time (to use a Time reference) for God.

I think that pretty well sums it up. God acts freely, but perceives all things simultaneously. We also act freely, but only perceive things in time-sequence.

The concept of “predestination” is a human notion dependent on time sequence. It is a “before and after” term which only makes sense within the realm of linear time. To say that God predestines anything is to try to impose the limits of a time sequence on God.

 

[R_Daneel]

Logical causation can not be considered without Time.

Of course it can. Believers keep insisting that God “performs” miracles (for example), and any action presupposes a before-after relationship. Here we analyze God as a “passive” holder of “knowledge”. Time has no role here.

You have not answered the main point I was making. All of eternity is present to God at the same time. His knowing what we will do is known because we are doing it. There is no way that He can not know it as it is happening, all of it, everything, is happening at the same time (to use a Time reference) for God.

I did and I will answer it again now. The highligted text indicates that God knowledge is contingent upon our actions. God’s knowledge is not a separate “part” of God, God is simple, his knowledge is his essence. Therefore God’s essence is contingent upon our actions, which is a contradiction.

 

[tonyrey]

I did and I will answer it again now. The highligted text indicates that God knowledge is contingent upon our actions. God’s knowledge is not a separate “part” of God, God is simple, his knowledge is his essence. Therefore God’s essence is contingent upon our actions, which is a contradiction.]

You write as if you have privileged insight into the nature of the Creator of the universe!
“his knowledge is his essence” is sheer baloney…

 

[R_Daneel]

You write as if you have privileged insight into the nature of the Creator of the universe!
“his knowledge is his essence” is sheer baloney…

Hehe. Nice of you to say that the Catholic dogma (about God’s simplicity) is sheer baloney.

 

[Crumpy]

Hehe. Nice of you to say that the Catholic dogma (about God’s simplicity) is sheer baloney.

that’s not what the poster said, it’s how you’re spinning what he said.

 

[R_Daneel]

that’s not what the poster said, it’s how you’re spinning what he said.

I am simply quoting the Catholic dogma about God’s simplicity. God has no parts, his essence is inseparable from his attributes (omniscience among others). If his knowledge would be caused by our actions, then his knowledge/essence would be contingent, which would violate the Catholic dogma, again. There is no “spinning” involved. Amazing that in the fervent desire to better the opponent the posters here are willing to deny the infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church, and hope to get away with it. It does not work.