Do we think we have a choice but its just an illusion?

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"If anything in the universe is omniscient then free will is impossible. If something knows whether or not we are going to follow god then we dont really have the choice to follow god because that choice was predetermined to happen. We might think we have free will, but we dont. We are talking about the same definition, but if the choice youre about to “make” was already guarenteed to happen because of fate/destiny then you dont really have that choice, it only seems like you do."

Hello all! The above is what an atheist sent me, because we have been discussing God and his concerns about God. Specifically free will, at least recently.
Anyway, yes, as you can see he talks about predestination, the concept we do not believe, although I have explained that. I told him that its not the same since God does not decide for us or force us, He only knows what will happen, which is not causing. But I can see why he still has concerns for it all as a whole. He thinks Gods omniscience contradicts free will, saying that our choices are not really ours, its just an illusion, we just think we do have those choices.

Not sure if this specific conversation will be a dead end, but i’m at least trying to explain our beliefs about God. Any advice on where to take this conversation?

Note: he thinks a lot of analogies are strawmans, so careful with the ones you use.

Thank you!
 
I_am_learning said:
"If anything in the universe is omniscient then free will is impossible. If something knows whether or not we are going to follow god then we dont really have the choice to follow god because that choice was predetermined to happen. We might think we have free will, but we dont. We are talking about the same definition, but if the choice youre about to “make” was already guarenteed to happen because of fate/destiny then you dont really have that choice, it only seems like you do."

Hello all! The above is what an atheist sent me, because we have been discussing God and his concerns about God. Specifically free will, at least recently.
Anyway, yes, as you can see he talks about predestination, the concept we do not believe, although I have explained that. I told him that its not the same since God does not decide for us or force us, He only knows what will happen, which is not causing. But I can see why he still has concerns for it all as a whole. He thinks Gods omniscience contradicts free will, saying that our choices are not really ours, its just an illusion, we just think we do have those choices.

Not sure if this specific conversation will be a dead end, but i’m at least trying to explain our beliefs about God. Any advice on where to take this conversation?

Note: he thinks a lot of analogies are strawmans, so careful with the ones you use.

Thank you!
Click to expand...
I won’t use any anology.

I hear this a lot. Know that after you clear this up, demons will put more questions like this in his head. He won’t be converted by answering all his questions. You need God to take action. Even then, he does have to cooperate. Pray and sacrifice.

This is the answer and what the Church teaches on predestination:

God does not predestine anyone to Hell. He wants everyone in Heaven. Those who He foreknows will cooperate with His grace are predestined for Heaven. No one is predestined for Hell, but anyone who is not predestined for Heaven will go to Hell.
**
What must be understood is that God knows the future AND set up a world in which there is a dimension of time in which we make choices. Those choices will decide our eternal fate. He will try to help us get to Heaven, but ultimately it is up to us to choose Love. God knows who will cooperate with His grace and He predestines them (us? hope so). He does NOT predestine those who will not. Even they receive graces from Him and His intention is to save their souls. Jesus is the only true Love. He is the only Salvation.**

So see? God knows what we will do ahead of time, AND still gave us the choice. He just happens to know what choice we will make - because He is all powerful and all knowing. Good thing He is Love and Mercy itself.
 
You go to McDonald’s, you look at the menu and you pick a number.

If that isn’t choice, then I don’t know what is.
 
This chestnut has been around a long time. What atheists don’t seem to grasp is that knowing something does not cause anything. You can know any number of things but that doesn’t mean you caused them to happen.

From the article Predestination and the Universal Salvific Will of God
God’s foreknowledge is not literally knowledge in advance (although it seems that way to us). Rather, God is beyond Time and entirely unbounded by Time. So all the moments of time are the same to God, who is Eternity. The response of free will to grace is inherent to the very definition of predestination, as is the knowledge of God and the graces from His universal salvific will.
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BTW your friend doesn’t understand what a straw man argument is if he doesn’t like analogies. There’s nothing wrong with using an analogy as an illustration of a point.
 
He thinks whats in this video basically
youtu.be/TayBUWT3g3A

I see his view, however, I don’t see how knowing means theres no free will. I honestly cant see the logic of that. I know I probably wont be able to convince him, but perhaps I can lead him to asking it on CAL or something.
 
Here’s a game you can play.

Ask your friend if they’ve ever heard a voicemail. Or watched a video. Now that stuff’s all been recorded. It can be heard/watched any number of times and won’t ever change. But did your friend cause those things to be recorded that way?

Another fun thing is to ask what would happen if a guy had figured out time travel. Let’s say that guy travels to the future. Buys a newspaper. And goes back to the past. Assuming he doesn’t show that paper to anyone and doesn’t change a thing based on what he knows won’t that paper have the same headline when he finally lives up to that date? I mean free choice is free. And just because a guy knows what’s going to be chosen doesn’t mean it isn’t freely done.

Or something.

Peace.

-Trident
 
I find those analogies very compelling, thank you!
However, he would probably call them strawman analogies, although they do prove the point.
I told him about the Friday edition of CAL, “why arent you Christian?” I think he should definitely call in.
 
I_am_learning said:
"If anything in the universe is omniscient then free will is impossible. If something knows whether or not we are going to follow god then we dont really have the cohibe to follow god because that choice was predetermined to happen. We might think we have free will, but we dont. We are talking about the same definition, but if the choice youre about to “make” was already guarenteed to happen because of fate/destiny then you dont really have that choice, it only seems like you do."

Hello all! The above is what an atheist sent me, because we have been discussing God and his concerns about God. Specifically free will, at least recently.
Anyway, yes, as you can see he talks about predestination, the concept we do not believe, although I have explained that. I told him that its not the same since God does not decide for us or force us, He only knows what will happen, which is not causing. But I can see why he still has concerns for it all as a whole. He thinks Gods omniscience contradicts free will, saying that our choices are not really ours, its just an illusion, we just think we do have those choices.

Not sure if this specific conversation will be a dead end, but i’m at least trying to explain our beliefs about God. Any advice on where to take this conversation?

Note: he thinks a lot of analogies are strawmans, so careful with the ones you use.

Thank you!
Click to expand...
Ah, a pure speculative discussion with an atheist.

What are the terms of your discussion?:
  • Knowledge
  • Free will
  • Determinism
  • Future
  • Super knowledge
  • Eternity
Do you both already have all these well defined or characterized?

As you surely know, there are sets of phenomena which display an order susceptible of mathematical modeling. Given an initial set of conditions, it is possible for us to foresee with a certain degree of accuracy what will happen as time goes on, how the phenomena will evolve. Then we say that we are dealing with a deterministic process. Knowing this process means that we have defined certain variables and have established quantitative relationships between them. If we want to predict the state of a deterministic system after a certain time has elapsed, we have to perform calculations which might be quite complex.

We can define some other systems whose behavior involves a great number of variables. With them we might perform certain predictions, but with less accuracy than with the others, and -perhaps- provided we limit ourselves to relatively short periods of time.

Then, there are the animals. Can we predict their behaviors? Perhaps some of them, if they exhibit regularity, like when butterflies migrate from one place to another during specific seasons of the year. But the behavior of a specific butterfly!, mmmh, it is not possible for me to say how could we predict it. If we study them, we could be able to identify behavioral patterns, which we have called instincts, -to distinguish them from free will-, but how those instincts will be displayed at a specific moment, I don’t know. The predictions we can make are less accurate than in the previous phenomena.

We humans also exhibit behavioral patterns; but they suffer modifications from one place to the other, or from one epoch to the other, or from one period of our life to the other. Still, it is possible for us to make certain predictions about human behavior. Marketing people have great interest on this kind of predictions, and they work continuously on them. If they study the behavioral patterns of a population sample, they can extrapolate afterwards to a whole population and make their predictions. I guess they don’t get an accuracy of several decimals, but perhaps it is not their interest.

If we display behavioral patterns what does it imply in terms of our free will? How should we characterize it if our behavior is predictable to certain extent, independently that at an individual level we sometimes struggle to make a decision?

Now, when we “think” about God, we tend to attribute Him a kind of super knowledge, because we think that human knowledge is a great perfection and then, God must have it; but what would such super knowledge imply? Would it be an impressive (we would prefer to say “infinite”, to mean that it is beyond our comprehension) capacity to define variables and establish quantitative relationships between them? Would it imply as well an impressive ability to perform almost instantaneous calculations to foresee every future detail of the universe? What would we mean if we say that God is intelligent, and that He is omniscient? I have absolutely no idea.

Then it comes God’s eternity in relation to our temporality. As for me, I don’t have any remote idea how to establish such relation. I don’t even have a positive understanding of “eternity” which could allow me to conceive an eternal knowledge of temporality…

But if someone has clear ideas about all the notions involved in your discussion, I think it would be possible for him to realize if “Human Freedom” and “Divine Omniscience” are compatible or not. I would like to know those clear ideas if any of you have them. Also, I would like to see how you build the argument to demonstrate the conclusion, whatever it is.

What is clear to me, is this: if you and the atheist do not develop clear notions first, you are simply losing your time. As MisserableSinner says above: you had better pray and suffer for the atheist, and for you…, and for me too, if you please.
 
I_am_learning said:
He thinks whats in this video basically
youtu.be/TayBUWT3g3A

I see his view, however, I don’t see how knowing means theres no free will. I honestly cant see the logic of that. I know I probably wont be able to convince him, but perhaps I can lead him to asking it on CAL or something.
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In another thread, the OP quoted three arguments opposed to free will. One of them was this:

***1. In order for an action to be free, there needs to be a choice of possible actions.
2. If God knows I will eat toast for breakfast tomorrow then I must eat toast tomorrow since God is never wrong.
3. If I must eat toast tomorrow, then I have no choice whether or not I will eat toast.

Therefore: the toast eating action isn’t free.*
**
I responded like this:

***We don’t know what does “God knows” mean; so, we cannot conclude as you do. However, even if it were ok to use the premise adopting an anthropomorphic perspective, I would respond with this counter-argument:
  1. In order for an action to be free, there needs to be a choice of possible actions.
  2. If God knows I will chose between eating or not eating toast for breakfast tomorrow, then I will make that choice, since God is never wrong.
  3. If I will chose between eating or not eating toast tomorrow, then I do have the choice whether or not I will eat toast.
Therefore, the toast eating action is free.***
 
A dialogue for your consideration:

Billy: Is there more than one possible future?

God: What do you mean?

Billy: I mean, could anything happen tomorrow, or is something definitely going to happen?

God: Something is definitely going to happen.

Billy: What’s going to happen?

God: You’re going to win the lottery tomorrow Billy.

Billy: Wow that’s great! But…how do you know for sure?

God: Well…because I’m God of course, I’m omniscient!

Billy: But, what does that mean?

God: It means I know everything that is knowable.

Billy: Cool! But how do you know what is going to happen tomorrow?

God: Because I am “outside of time” and the categories “future,” “past,” and “present” are equally known to me. I don’t remember the past or anticipate the future; all of time is present to my omniscience simultaneously.

Billy: So, what if I decide not to buy a lottery ticket tomorrow?

God: I already know everything you’re going to do. You’re going to win the lottery no matter what.

Billy: But…I don’t want to win the lottery, I want to exercise my free will!

God: That’s too bad, I’m always right and I know with infallible certainty that you will win the lottery tomorrow regardless of what you attempt to do to prevent it. In fact, whatever it is you end up doing is what will cause you to win the lottery. 😛

Billy: So…I’m not free! :eek:

God: You’re not free in the sense that you have the power to alter the truth value of any of the statements I know to be true, but you are free in the limited sense that you are the “creator” of your own choices.

Billy: What do you mean by creator? I thought you were the creator.

God: I am the creator, but so are you. We create the future together. You just don’t know what you’re creating because you can only see to the tip of your own nose and some murkiness behind you. I can see everything though. I see behind you, right in front of you, and a long way down the road. I’m creating the road, and I’m creating you. But, you are also helping to create yourself.

Billy: But, you already know how I’m going to turn out. You’ve always known how I would turn out, so I’m not free to be different than how you already know I will be!

God: That’s true Billy, but remember, you are also contributing to “how you turn out,” it’s just that you don’t know how it will end up or where the road goes. You might just as well say you’re not free to create yourself because I have told you that you will win the lottery tomorrow.

Billy: What do you mean?

God: Well…you win the lottery because you pick up a ticket by accident when you board the airplane you’re going to get on to avoid being in the country when the lottery number is pulled. Because you are so anxious to prove me wrong, you make the free choice to buy a plane ticket, drive to the airport, and board a plane. While getting on the plane, a child shoves the winning lottery ticket into your coat pocket, unbeknownst to you. Ironically, your desire to exercise your freedom by trying to avoid my sovereignty is precisely what causes you to win the lottery! You could have gone to the convenience store and bought a ticket and lost. Instead, you’re going to simultaneously prove to yourself that you are free and that I am omniscient by this series of events.

Billy: :rolleyes: Well, now that you’ve told me…I’m not going to do any of that!

God: Good. I lied to you anyway just to make my point. 😛 You’re going to win the lottery tomorrow due to a series of free choices that you could not possibly foresee to cause you to possess a winning lottery ticket. Because you are blind, you are free.

Billy: So, you mean if I were omniscient I wouldn’t be free? Then how can you be free?

God: Yes, I think so. Good thing I didn’t make you capable of omniscience! My freedom exists in the infinitesimally small choice to create space/time at all. This existence you share in is non-necessary, and so I am free. There could have been only me. Instead, I chose to create the universe. I was not coerced. I don’t “need” the universe. Therein is my freedom. At once it is the greatest and least freedom imaginable.

Billy: Wow…I never thought about it like that. Thanks!

God: No problem! Be good. 🙂

TL : DR

Read Oedipus Rex. The fact that the future is known does not preclude liberty per se. God can be omniscient and we can be (somewhat) free. However, many theists want to use “free will” as an excuse to exonerate God from any responsibility for evil. I think this is an abuse of the concept. We are free and responsible for our actions/thoughts/selves, but God is also responsible. We are co-creators of our existences, and God is most certainly partially responsible for our individual outcomes since he knows-all and wills-all whether directly or indirectly. This is a huge problem if you believe most of humanity is doomed to endless conscious torture in hell. I don’t believe in hell, so this isn’t a problem for me. For me, evil is temporary and everything will be all-good in the end. Maybe start there with your friend. 👍
 
I meant the OP of the other thread, not you, I_am_learning; just to clarify.

Do you see how the author of the youtube video conceives the “knowledge” of God as something that happens before a given act of yours? It is like thinking that “eternal” is something that is tremendously old: Quite a long time ago, God knew already what you are going to decide tomorrow morning.😃

Of course, “eternal” does not mean “tremendously old”. It is a negative notion; but even with negative notions some people are able to build funny dialogues.
 
I_am_learning said:
"If anything in the universe is omniscient then free will is impossible. If something knows whether or not we are going to follow god then we dont really have the choice to follow god because that choice was predetermined to happen. We might think we have free will, but we dont. We are talking about the same definition, but if the choice youre about to “make” was already guarenteed to happen because of fate/destiny then you dont really have that choice, it only seems like you do."

Hello all! The above is what an atheist sent me, because we have been discussing God and his concerns about God. Specifically free will, at least recently.
Anyway, yes, as you can see he talks about predestination, the concept we do not believe, although I have explained that. I told him that its not the same since God does not decide for us or force us, He only knows what will happen, which is not causing. But I can see why he still has concerns for it all as a whole. He thinks Gods omniscience contradicts free will, saying that our choices are not really ours, its just an illusion, we just think we do have those choices.

Not sure if this specific conversation will be a dead end, but i’m at least trying to explain our beliefs about God. Any advice on where to take this conversation?

Note: he thinks a lot of analogies are strawmans, so careful with the ones you use.

Thank you!
Click to expand...
Can we define what free will is first? I never seem to get it right. There seems to be various sorts of free will. And the environment and upbringing seems to muddy the discussion.

So far I have not seen anyone demonstrating that knowing equates to causing. Demolishing this you don’t need to discuss free will. Can be construed as independent of each other.
 
ericc said:
Can we define what free will is first? I never seem to get it right. There seems to be various sorts of free will. And the environment and upbringing seems to muddy the discussion.

So far I have not seen anyone demonstrating that knowing equates to causing. Demolishing this you don’t need to discuss free will. Can be construed as independent of each other.
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Hi Ericc!,

It seems to me that, in general, it would not be necessary to demonstrate that the act of knowing something causes it. Obviously, our human knowledge (less we are kantian) causes nothing. It is just a re-presentation of objects. However, whenever we are able to predict the evolution of a process, we don’t say it is a free process, but a deterministic one. So, if one of us were able to predict in detail the behavior of a given individual, we would tend to think that “he is entirely subject to physical laws”. So, no causal relationship would be implied nor required to conclude that he is not free.

Now, we know something that is already existent. In other words, first the thing exists and then we might know it, that is to say, we might have a re-presentation of it. This includes our prediction of the evolution of deterministic processes, because what we are doing in a prediction is to re-present a regularity that pre-exists in front of us. On the other hand, nothing of this is applicable to God’s knowledge, whatever it means. God’s knowledge cannot be a re-presentation of objects, because God is our Creator. But then, some people pretend to have such a penetrating intellect that they feel authorized to affirm that the propositions “God knows this object” and “God creates this object” are equivalent. But in fact, our intellectual faculties do not have such a penetrating power. We simply don’t know what “God knows” mean, and this is not a way to avoid attributing responsibilities to our Lord (I cannot imagine what could it mean either: “Our Lord has partial responsibility on this!”. Such “thought” seems so childish to me that…). Whoever feels that he has enough intellectual power to deduce infallible consequences about God’s nature on the basis of what his poor senses present to him, should spend just a little time on mathematics: with such incredible capacities to elaborate divine truths starting from clay, surely he would discover all what we are still missing.

If we are not free, or not free enough, it is not because God “knows” us, but because we don’t know Him enough.
 
JuanFlorencio said:
In another thread, the OP quoted three arguments opposed to free will. One of them was this:

***1. In order for an action to be free, there needs to be a choice of possible actions.
2. If God knows I will eat toast for breakfast tomorrow then I must eat toast tomorrow since God is never wrong.
3. If I must eat toast tomorrow, then I have no choice whether or not I will eat toast.

Therefore: the toast eating action isn’t free.***

I responded like this:

***We don’t know what does “God knows” mean; so, we cannot conclude as you do. However, even if it were ok to use the premise adopting an anthropomorphic perspective, I would respond with this counter-argument:
  1. In order for an action to be free, there needs to be a choice of possible actions.
  2. If God knows I will chose between eating or not eating toast for breakfast tomorrow, then I will make that choice, since God is never wrong.
  3. If I will chose between eating or not eating toast tomorrow, then I do have the choice whether or not I will eat toast.
Therefore, the toast eating action is free.***
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I’m not following. Your counter-argument seems like its stating God knows you will make a choice, but not what you will actually choose, which is an argument countered also on that video he sent me.
 
I_am_learning said:
I’m not following. Your counter-argument seems like its stating God knows you will make a choice, but not what you will actually choose, which is an argument countered also on that video he sent me.
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Well, If God knows everything, He does not only know what you will do, but also if you are going to do it freely. If He didn’t know it, then He would not know everything.

But the argument proves nothing in fact. It just dissolves the other, which was partial as well. Am I clear?

I have mentioned in one of my posts above that the author of the video conceives God’s knowledge as something that takes place before the fact. In other words, he conceives God as part of the universe.
 
I sent him the definitions of will, free will, as found on a website, saying its a conscious decision. Also that omniscience is knowing all, but not causing. I went over predetermination, the Calvinistic type which he was mixing our beliefs with, and tried to clear out that God does not decide who goes where and what happens.

He seems stuck on the definition of free will as a being (God) not knowing what you will do. He continues saying that that definition from wiki and the video above show the contradiction well, and that its “already been proven that there cant be anything outside of space and time” and "its already been proven that free will and Gods omniscience contradict each other.

I sent him the analogies of the newspaper and the voice recorder, he will probably not take them and keep arguing.

Then he also said that “there are no reasons to believe in God,” which I find is an ignorant statement, and so I explained that just because he might not have found many evidences yet, or some compelling reasons, does not mean he should dish out the whole idea and that its false.

Seems like a dead end to me, but maybe he can consider talking to Trent on Friday, that should help, either with getting clearer responses to keep looking, or to prove he actually is close minded.

If anyone has an Instagram, perhaps you can help, send me a message with your account.

Thanks for the replies nonetheless, keep em coming!
 
JuanFlorencio said:
Well, If God knows everything, He does not only know what you will do, but also if you are going to do it freely. If He didn’t know it, then He would not know everything.

But the argument proves nothing in fact. It just dissolves the other, which was partial as well. Am I clear?

I have mentioned in one of my posts above that the author of the video conceives God’s knowledge as something that takes place before the fact. In other words, he conceives God as part of the universe.
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I see, thanks for the clarification. That should explain the video a bit.
 
I_am_learning said:
I sent him the definitions of will, free will, as found on a website, saying its a conscious decision. Also that omniscience is knowing all, but not causing. I went over predetermination, the Calvinistic type which he was mixing our beliefs with, and tried to clear out that God does not decide who goes where and what happens.

He seems stuck on the definition of free will as a being (God) not knowing what you will do. He continues saying that that definition from wiki and the video above show the contradiction well, and that its “already been proven that there cant be anything outside of space and time” and "its already been proven that free will and Gods omniscience contradict each other.

I sent him the analogies of the newspaper and the voice recorder, he will probably not take them and keep arguing.

Then he also said that “there are no reasons to believe in God,” which I find is an ignorant statement, and so I explained that just because he might not have found many evidences yet, or some compelling reasons, does not mean he should dish out the whole idea and that its false.

Seems like a dead end to me, but maybe he can consider talking to Trent on Friday, that should help, either with getting clearer responses to keep looking, or to prove he actually is close minded.

If anyone has an Instagram, perhaps you can help, send me a message with your account.

Thanks for the replies nonetheless, keep em coming!
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I_am learning, if you are convinced that with the definitions you found in the Web it is possible to demonstrate your points, just present your logical argument (I would like to see it too). If it cannot convince the intellect of your friend, it will be because he needs to study some logic first. It sometimes happens. You would not be able to understand Calculus without knowing Arithmetics. But I insist, when you prepare your logical argument, share it with us. Ok?

And if Trent already has developed the argument, he should share it with everybody. I don’t know what he is waiting for. Many Friday’s have passed already.
 
I_am_learning said:
"If anything in the universe is omniscient then free will is impossible. If something knows whether or not we are going to follow god then we dont really have the choice to follow god because that choice was predetermined to happen. We might think we have free will, but we dont. We are talking about the same definition, but if the choice youre about to “make” was already guarenteed to happen because of fate/destiny then you dont really have that choice, it only seems like you do."

Hello all! The above is what an atheist sent me, because we have been discussing God and his concerns about God. Specifically free will, at least recently.
Anyway, yes, as you can see he talks about predestination, the concept we do not believe, although I have explained that. I told him that its not the same since God does not decide for us or force us, He only knows what will happen, which is not causing. But I can see why he still has concerns for it all as a whole. He thinks Gods omniscience contradicts free will, saying that our choices are not really ours, its just an illusion, we just think we do have those choices.

Not sure if this specific conversation will be a dead end, but i’m at least trying to explain our beliefs about God. Any advice on where to take this conversation?

Note: he thinks a lot of analogies are strawmans, so careful with the ones you use.

Thank you!
Click to expand...
Regardless of whether you believe that an omniscient God, living outside of time, exists, or whether you *don’t *believe this, if you believe that our lives unfold and are played out in a dimension that we call “time”, then you already believe in free will. We witness it, utilize it, are victims or beneficiaries of it everyday.
 
JuanFlorencio said:
I_am learning, if you are convinced that with the definitions you found in the Web it is possible to demonstrate your points, just present your logical argument (I would like to see it too). If it cannot convince the intellect of your friend, it will be because he needs to study some logic first. It sometimes happens. You would not be able to understand Calculus without knowing Arithmetics. But I insist, when you prepare your logical argument, share it with us. Ok?

And if Trent already has developed the argument, he should share it with everybody. I don’t know what he is waiting for. Many Friday’s have passed already.
Click to expand...
I see your point, I don’t exactly have anything new to share, if you simply mean our discussion, I guess I can send a few things.
By Trent I mean Trent Horn, he will be a guest on Friday for Catholic Answers Live, the topic will be “why arent you a Christian?” I’m assuming you did not know this site had a radio station, check out their podcasts of previous shows if you click radio on a tab above. They also have a youtube, Catholic Answers Live.
I think it would be great for him to call in to discuss his concerns on Friday.
 
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