Eternity: How does God know what we didn't do yet?

[polytropos]

So, Jesus did not send the Holy Spirit to us?

Hm? I’m not really sure how this follows either. The requirement is that the divine substance is not spatial. Jesus’s sending the Holy Spirit does not breach that requirement.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Future is fixed if and only we don’t know the future.

There is a logical contradiction here.

You claim that the future is fixed ”if and only if" we DON’T have certain knowledge of the future, but you also claim that it is fixed if God DOES have certain knowledge of the future. How could our certain knowledge make the future not fixed, but God’s certain knowledge does fix it?

The same quality of certain knowledge should have the same effect on the future regardless of who has it, no?

That is why I think you are mistaken somewhere in your assessment.

 

[oldcelt]

Hm? I’m not really sure how this follows either. The requirement is that the divine substance is not spatial. Jesus’s sending the Holy Spirit does not breach that requirement.

Spatial or none, God would be present in our time. I’m a bit confused…who decided that God’s presence must be spatial?

 

[Bahman]

There is no logical contradiction between you choosing and fixing the future by your free choice and God knowing that you have determined it in that way from eternity. Merely because God has eternal knowledge of your free choice does not mean his eternal knowledge has fixed the event - it is your choice that fixed it.

There is no contradiction between God knowing and your choosing because your choice could be precisely the causal determiner that fixes the event in time, even though God’s infallible eternal (not past time) knowledge is certain concerning your choice.

That I agree unless God intervene.

After the fact, you cannot “do otherwise.” That fixedness, after the fact, does not remove your free choice. After the fact, you could not have done otherwise, does that mean you were not free to make the choice merely because you determined the final outcome by your choice?

I cannot do otherwise subjected to the fact that I should not know what decision I am going to make since this knowledge remove arbitrariness of the decision.

God’s eternal knowledge does not apply merely to anterior prophecy, but to posterior outcomes. Your argument would entail that because choices become fixed, after the fact, there was no real free choice involved because by having one determined outcome, you really could not have done otherwise.
It is not God’s knowledge of the outcome that eliminates free will, but the fact of time fixing choices moving from present to past. Time, then, is the culprit, not God’s omniscience.

I am saying opposite. I have no free will if cannot do otherwise than what it is stated as my future decision.

Either you have a flawed view of what free will entails and your argument is baseless or you have picked the wrong suspect from the lineup.

You just misunderstood my argument and I hope that is clear by now.

 

[Bahman]

You mean that there must be some thing in God’s mind that corresponds to each state of affairs in the world? And since the world changes, God changes?

Even if the first statement were true (and I do not concede that*), the changing in the world would not imply that the indicator corresponding to the change in the world would itself change. So it does not follow that God changes. This is because the one-one correspondence need not represent the temporal mode of creation as a temporal change of the indicator.

To illustrate: Assume a created substance x changes over time. You claim that the map must be one-one, so they must be some y in God that changes over time. But God’s knowledge of the change need not be some aspect that corresponds to x while it exists. There could be a set of “indicators” in God corresponding to x at t0, x at t1, x at t2, etc. (This would follow if we characterize x not as “x changing over time” but as “x at t0 to t2,” which I think a realist account of time will require.)

*This itself seems to assume an account of omniscience that is contrary to simplicity. God’s single eternal act of willing and knowing is a willing of his own goodness and a knowledge of his own nature. Since God is perfect, his willing of creation, though included in this simple act, is not necessary. So God has a single act of knowing, despite knowing many things. To say that creation’s states “exist in” God’s mind as distinct would imply that his knowledge is actually composite, which is false.

A set of indicators does not resolve the problem since they just tell you what indicator represent a state of affair in creation but not the current state of affair.

There is only one future because there is only one actual world; that is known independent of concerns from natural theology. Future cannot itself be subject to change because it is merely potential and non-actual. (Qua future, that is, it is non-actual. But it is only the future to us, and not to God, who is not in time.)

This I agree.

I don’t know what you mean by “enclosed to an agent.” Free will is one reason (and some might argue the only reason) that the future is contingent. But when I act freely I am not changing the future, which does not exist. I am actualizing the future of this particular possible world. What the freedom of my act means is that in some other possible world with a history identical to ours, I acted differently; a different possible world could have been actual on the basis of my freedom. But I am not changing the future.

I meant if the future is revealed to an agent. The rest of your argument I agree with but it doesn’t resolve the problem of prophecy.

 

[Ion]

Hello,
I would like to find some explanation about this: Since God knows everything that can be known in Eternity, he knows what we will do with our will before we do it in time or History.

Is there an easy way to explain how history is a part of Eternity, perhaps with the two views, that is God’s view of Eternity and Man’s view of History? I can more or less concieve some image of it, but i would like to understand with arguments.

I would think of a sort of circular diagram, but it is not really exact since Eternity is not a cycle, and History has an end. So how do you understand and explain it ? thank you very much.

Using a visual picture you can’t.
The only possible way is by knowing, the same way as axiomatic math is done.

 

[Bahman]

There is a logical contradiction here.

You claim that the future is fixed ”if and only if" we DON’T have certain knowledge of the future, but you also claim that it is fixed if God DOES have certain knowledge of the future. How could our certain knowledge make the future not fixed, but God’s certain knowledge does fix it?

The same quality of certain knowledge should have the same effect on the future regardless of who has it, no?

That is why I think you are mistaken somewhere in your assessment.

The foreknowledge by an agent with free will is not allowed since it removes the arbitrariness of decision.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The foreknowledge by an agent with free will is not allowed since it removes the arbitrariness of decision.

Why does free will have to be arbitrary?

Free will means, at least as far as I can understand, unconstrained from external determiners. That does not mean arbitrary. An arbitrary will is an insane concept, not a form of will to be viewed as desireable.

 

[Bahman]

Why does free will have to be arbitrary?

Free will means, at least as far as I can understand, unconstrained from external determiners. That does not mean arbitrary. An arbitrary will is an insane concept, not a form of will to be viewed as desireable.

I meant that the situation when a decision is involved has to be arbitrary not the free will.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Future is fixed if and only we don’t know the future. Suppose that God tell you that you will do X at time T which means that future is fixed through prophecy. Could you do otherwise? Yes, then future is not fixed. No, you have no free will.

This clearly is not so. We have free will and God tells us we have free will. Is God a liar?

 

[Bahman]

This clearly is not so. We have free will and God tells us we have free will. Is God a liar?

I don’t understand. Could you please elaborate?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I don’t understand. Could you please elaborate?

God so valued our free will, and wanted us to value it, that it was taught in the first two stories of Genesis.

Adam and Eve are told they must choose to eat or not to eat the forbidden fruit. They are told there will be dire consequences if they do. The choice is theirs to make, not God’s.

In the next story, God encounters Cain in a troubled state of mind, and says to him: “Why are you angry? Why are you dejected? If you act rightly, you will be accepted; but if not, sin lies in wait at the door: its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it.”

 

[Bahman]

God so valued our free will, and wanted us to value it, that it was taught in the first two stories of Genesis.

Adam and Eve are told they must choose to eat or not to eat the forbidden fruit. They are told there will be dire consequences if they do. The choice is theirs to make, not God’s.

In the next story, God encounters Cain in a troubled state of mind, and says to him: “Why are you angry? Why are you dejected? If you act rightly, you will be accepted; but if not, sin lies in wait at the door: its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it.”

I don’t understand how to make a connection between what you said and my argument. There are questions here: 1) Do we have free will? Yes, 2) Does God have foreknowledge? Yes, 3) Could we do otherwise if we are revealed the foreknowledge? What is your answer?

 

[MarcoPG]

Using a visual picture you can’t.
The only possible way is by knowing, the same way as axiomatic math is done.

I know it would not be perfect, but a bit like explaining the Trinity, we use analogies, knowing that they are there just for explanation, and can’t show the fullness of the concept (or in that case God, Who I won’t call a concept. :dts:

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I don’t understand how to make a connection between what you said and my argument. There are questions here: 1) Do we have free will? Yes, 2) Does God have foreknowledge? Yes, 3) Could we do otherwise if we are revealed the foreknowledge? What is your answer?

1. Yes we have free will because God tells us we have free will. God is not a liar.
2. Yes God has foreknowledge because God is omniscient.
3. I don’t understand your question. What revealed foreknowledge are you talking about?

If I have foreknowledge that my dog is going to eat her breakfast tomorrow morning, does that mean I have substituted my will for hers?

 

[Bahman]

1. Yes we have free will because God tells us we have free will. God is not a liar.
2. Yes God has foreknowledge because God is omniscient.
3. I don’t understand your question. What revealed foreknowledge are you talking about?

If I have foreknowledge that my dog is going to eat her breakfast tomorrow morning, does that mean I have substituted my will for hers?

The question is whether she could resist your knowledge which is her knowledge since she has been told and do otherwise?

 

[MarcoPG]

She could do otherwise, and that’s what God would know. the otherwise as the future, not always according to what’s good. Remember that Omniscience is not predestination, for us at least.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The question is whether she could resist your knowledge which is her knowledge since she has been told and do otherwise?

My dog cannot resist my foreknowledge because my foreknowledge is not the cause of her eating, so there is no cause to resist except hunger. If you knew my dog, you’d know she will never resist eating her breakfast. But that is not a determination I have made for her. It is her own will that she eats, not mine.

If I could choose for her not to eat, it would save on my grocery bill. But that is her choice. The only way I could get her not to eat would be not to feed her. But that would be my choice, not hers.

I cannot get inside her head and make her eat or not eat.

God cannot get inside my head and force me to be virtuous or sinful.

I am free. God loves my freedom and I thank him for it.

 

[Bahman]

She could do otherwise, and that’s what God would know. the otherwise as the future, not always according to what’s good.

How there could be any foreknowledge if she could do otherwise?

Remember that Omniscience is not predestination, for us at least.

That I agree. But the question is whether foreknowledge could be subject to change once it is known with an agent with free will.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

How there could be any foreknowledge if she could do otherwise?

That I agree. But the question is whether foreknowledge could be subject to change once it is known with an agent with free will.

You seem to keep forgetting that God is outside time. God’s foreknowledge is also outside time. It is not subject to change. God cannot be surprised by our decisions. If he were, that would be process theology via Alfred North Whitehead.