Does Omniscience limit free will?

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cho_pilo

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I have no idea if there is a certain name to this argument/idea.

Omniscient is used in this context: Knowing everything there is to know about anything and everyone from any point in time in any context.

My question is, if you have an omniscient entity, do you have ANY free will whatsoever? If this entity knows what choices I’ll make before they are even presented to me, do I really have a choice at all?

What do you guys think?
 
The ancient Greeks imagined time as a carpet whose edge we are weaving in the present. We can see some of the earlier carpet and the edge we are working on, but God can see the entire carpet from beginning to end since he looks from outside of time. The fact that God is looking does not necessarily imply that the weavers, who work in the present, do not have free will. Even if God adds His own stitches here and there, the weavers are still free.
 
cho_pilo said:
I have no idea if there is a certain name to this argument/idea.

Omniscient is used in this context: Knowing everything there is to know about anything and everyone from any point in time in any context.

My question is, if you have an omniscient entity, do you have ANY free will whatsoever? If this entity knows what choices I’ll make before they are even presented to me, do I really have a choice at all?

What do you guys think?
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There is a huge difference between knowing what you will do and controlling what you will do.
 
babylonsfalling said:
There is a huge difference between knowing what you will do and controlling what you will do.
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This is exactly true:

As an example, if you toss a coin in the air, it will come up randomly, either heads or tails. Well, it is not exactly random. It depends upon physical factors ie, mass of coin, force of toss, spin, gravity, distance to floor, etc. If I knew the relevant information, I could “know” in advance whether it would land on heads or tails. Omniscience has its advantages. 👍

As another example, my friend Steve is a large man who loves pastry. At a party I offer him a tray of cookies. Half of the cookies are Nabisco Wafers. The other half are Double Stuffed Oreos. I know which cookies Steve is going to take. I didn’t control him. Knowledge is the key - not control.
 
cho_pilo said:
My question is, if you have an omniscient entity, do you have ANY free will whatsoever?
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If there is an omniscient entity that is not all-powerful, then you have free will.

If the omniscient entity is all-powerful, then you lack free will.
 
Ahimsa said:
If there is an omniscient entity that is not all-powerful, then you have free will.

If the omniscient entity is all-powerful, then you lack free will.
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That statement is a reducto ad absurbum. An omniscient entity may know what the future portends for an individual, but can also choose to do nothing about it. That, essentially is what free will is. God allows human beings choose between salvation and perdition, and everything in between.
 
Shike said:
If God gave us our ability to choose, then how does that follow?
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If God gave us the power to choose, then that means He either (1) took some power from Himself and gave it to us; or (2) created totally new power to give to us.

In either case, the amount of power that would exist both in creation and in God, would be greater than the amount of power that is owned by God alone. Thus, in either case, God would not be all-powerful.
 
Ahimsa said:
If God gave us the power to choose, then that means He either (1) took some power from Himself and gave it to us; or (2) created totally new power to give to us.

In either case, the amount of power that would exist both in creation and in God, would be greater than the amount of power that is owned by God alone. Thus, in either case, God would not be all-powerful.
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That’s interesting. But it doesn’t seem to follow from a being that is Pure Act. It’s like saying infinity + 1 is greater than infinity, which is not true. Basically, what you say would only follow if God was not God.

But even if what you say was true, so? I don’t agree with this, but it seems to me one could argue that such a situation would have to exist for any kind of creation whatsoever… and therefore it wouldn’t go against omnipotence. Why? Because if omnipotence means that one could do anything that was possible, well, it would seem that it could be the case that it’s not possible to have a different state of affairs under any kind of creation. Therefore, it doesn’t affect omnipotence.
 
babylonsfalling said:
There is a huge difference between knowing what you will do and controlling what you will do.
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As far as definitions go:

If God is omnipotent, then He ultimately controls everything everyone does.
He not only knows everything everyone does, He also controls it.

If God is good and is always working toward our happiness, then there is no problem with Him being omniscient and omnipotent.

God’s omniscience and omnipotence only become a problem if we believe or doubt that God is not good.
 
MtnDwellar said:
As another example, my friend Steve is a large man who loves pastry. At a party I offer him a tray of cookies. Half of the cookies are Nabisco Wafers. The other half are Double Stuffed Oreos. I know which cookies Steve is going to take. I didn’t control him. Knowledge is the key - not control.
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Ridiculously false example.
For one you do NOT know. You have a good idea. You have a range of probabilities which are heavily weighted toward what you think you know he will do.

For the hard of thinking I’ll run through it one more time:
For something to be known it must be true. I.e. not subject to probability but ineluctably, irrevocably true. Therefore there cannot be any other option than the one that is known.
If god knows you will choose option A then you cannot ever, under any circumstance choose B. If the future is known (as it must be with omniscience) then all we are doing is following a pre-written script that we ourselves are unaware of. The fact that we are unaware of the script is what gives us the illusion of free will. The fact that god knows means we don’t.
 
cho_pilo said:
I have no idea if there is a certain name to this argument/idea.

Omniscient is used in this context: Knowing everything there is to know about anything and everyone from any point in time in any context.

My question is, if you have an omniscient entity, do you have ANY free will whatsoever? If this entity knows what choices I’ll make before they are even presented to me, do I really have a choice at all?

What do you guys think?
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… my dear friend ,

… my own understanding : god does not have free will but has will and i call gods will the equilibrium of god , this is because it always balances everything out so all is as infinitely perfect as possible , even our mess has always been fixed coimpletely and instantaneously , we just exp it slowly or gradually being fixed , change and time are an illusion of necessity to us as we cannot exp out whole eternity all at once , so we have the necessary illusion of change an time , but they don’t really exist …

… god is in eternity outside time , there is no such thing as time anywhere though , but god has no beginning , end or middle , he just " is " in " now " , and because god is in " now " he must do all his infinite creatuvity " now " and not over time or in or through time as we might think , hard concepts to grasp maybe , but i think i may be right dear friend …

… may god bless and love you 👍🙂 ,

… john …
 
cho_pilo said:
I have no idea if there is a certain name to this argument/idea.

Omniscient is used in this context: Knowing everything there is to know about anything and everyone from any point in time in any context.

My question is, if you have an omniscient entity, do you have ANY free will whatsoever? If this entity knows what choices I’ll make before they are even presented to me, do I really have a choice at all?

What do you guys think?
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God does not know what choice you will make before the options are presented to you.

However, God does already know what choice you will make after the options are presented to you.

The choice that you made was entirely your own as a result of the free will that God has given to you.
 
cho_pilo said:
If god knows you will choose option A then you cannot ever, under any circumstance choose B. If the future is known (as it must be with omniscience) then all we are doing is following a pre-written script that we ourselves are unaware of. The fact that we are unaware of the script is what gives us the illusion of free will. The fact that god knows means we don’t.
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A pre-written script that allows for free-will?

Really your argument doesn’t seem to follow as knowledge is not the truth-maker but our choices are. Check out my post #5 on the following thread:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=598457
 
Let’s say you’re watching a convenience store armed robbery on the security tape. The tape is unlabelled so it may be from 24 hrs ago, real time or via new tech, 24 hrs in future.

Your viewing doesn’t alter the robber’s intention (free will).
You cannot alter the past but you could intervene in the present or future by trying to stop or persuade the robber not to kill the owner.
I believe that is what God does; without bending our free will He offers us the graces to turn away from evil even though He knows we will reject them. I don’t know if this is correct teaching but I believe that even though God is in eternity He is always with us in realtime as well.

Now, once the robber exercises his free will by shooting, God may bring His omnipotence in to play by saving the owner’s life – the gun misfires or whatever.
 
What everyone on this site is ignoring is that G*d in his omniscience is beyond all human logic, and definition. Thus, these arguments are specious and are an exercise in futility.
All you will get from non believers are attitudes of “look how erudite and smart I am” amd gross attempts to humiliate believers-at least in their own eyes.
Am I cynical about this? Darn tootin’ because been there done that. So people, do something constructive. You ain’t gonna convince anyone on either side of this argument.
 
George_Stegmeir said:
What everyone on this site is ignoring is that G*d in his omniscience is beyond all human logic, and definition. Thus, these arguments are specious and are an exercise in futility.
All you will get from non believers are attitudes of “look how erudite and smart I am” amd gross attempts to humiliate believers-at least in their own eyes.
Am I cynical about this? Darn tootin’ because been there done that. So people, do something constructive. You ain’t gonna convince anyone on either side of this argument.
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At the very least it may prove helpful to those who are not atheist.

And be careful. Just because we cannot comprehend God (His essence) doesn’t mean we cannot know about Him, ie. from both reason and faith. Because of our very existence we can learn something about God when we reason from effect to necessary metaphysical cause. A Metaphysical Cause that looks suspiciously similar to the God of the Bible and the Church.

Though I am starting to get a bit cynical myself… but it might be influencing me to pray more for the people on these threads!
 
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