Free will? I dont think so

[phil3]

I am a firm believer in Free Will and I have always been able to agree with it and God being all-knowing.

I have always believed that God knew every decision you might make in your life. That until you made that decision it was not cast in stone.

But I have learned that God knows what decision you will make before you make it. All this was known the moment my soul was created. There might be the illusion of free will, but it just isnt so. My path has already known by God. Nothing I do will change the outcome. Because whatever I do is what I am supposed to do already.

 

[Fauken]

There might be the illusion of free will, but it just isnt so. My path has already known by God. Nothing I do will change the outcome. Because whatever I do is what I am supposed to do already.

If I put a bowl of chicken in front of my dog and I know for a fact he’ll run over and eat it, did I rob him of his free will? Did he lack the free will to choose otherwise, or do I just know my dog well enough to know that he’ll eat the chicken? Knowledge regarding someone’s actions does not affect the act itself.

 

[Freddy]

phil3:

There might be the illusion of free will, but it just isnt so. My path has already known by God. Nothing I do will change the outcome. Because whatever I do is what I am supposed to do already.

If I put a bowl of chicken in front of my dog and I know for a fact he’ll run over and eat it, did I rob him of his free will? Did he lack the free will to choose otherwise, or do I just know my dog well enough to know that he’ll eat the chicken? Knowledge regarding someone’s actions does not affect the act itself.

I can see the future and I knew you’d put the chicken out. It’s ‘already happened’ in the future. There was nothing you could have done to change it.

Do you still class it as free will?

 

[Fauken]

I can see the future and I knew you’d put the chicken out. It’s ‘already happened’ in the future. There was nothing you could have done to change it.

Do you still class it as free will?

Yes, because my actions still are done in the present time. I can’t change it in the future, but I also can’t do it in the future because I can’t act in the future, but the present.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I can see the future and I knew you’d put the chicken out. It’s ‘already happened’ in the future. There was nothing you could have done to change it.

Do you still class it as free will?

Yes, because my actions still are done in the present time. I can’t change it in the future, but I also can’t do it in the future because I can’t act in the future, but the present.

Let’s put it another way. Putting out the chicken has to happen. It’s in your future. It’s fixed. I’m able to see the future and I see it happening. Can you change your mind and give the dog beef?

I’ll give the answer for you to speed up the discussion: It’s an emphatic ‘NO’.

So the question then becomes: Do you have free will to change your mind if you cannot change your mind?

 

[whatistrue]

So the question then becomes: Do you have free will to change your mind if you cannot change your mind?

It’s not so much the free will to change my mind as it is the free will to make the decision when the time (for me) comes. The fact of an observer outside of time having knowledge of what I will decide does not eliminate my freedom to decide it inside time. It’s really not that complex in my opinion.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

So the question then becomes: Do you have free will to change your mind if you cannot change your mind?

It’s not so much the free will to change my mind as it is the free will to make the decision when the time (for me) comes. The fact of an observer outside of time having knowledge of what I will decide does not eliminate my freedom to decide it inside time. It’s really not that complex in my opinion.

But you cannot change your mind. If you said ‘I’m going to give the dog beef’ and someone said ‘No, you HAVE to give him chicken’ then you have had your free will thwarted.

You think that you have two choices (three if you decide not to make a choice) but I know it’s only one. And it makes no sense to say that you have free will if you are tied to only one option from many.

 

[whatistrue]

But you cannot change your mind.

The moment comes for me to make a decision. I decide to feed my dog chicken. Maybe I then go to the dog food storage area and see that there is much more beef than chicken available, so I make a decision to switch to beef. Or maybe I decide to stick with the original decision. But it is still my choice. Regardless of what I freely choose, God knows what the choice is.

I think the impediment here is that you are speaking as if knowing is the same as forcing, but I don’t believe it is. God did not write a script that says “you must choose beef after initially choosing chicken”, he simply knows and always knew what would happen.

 

[phil3]

Dog dont have free will. If I am to accept that God knows what decision I will make I dont have it either. Just the illusion of free will.

People that try to accommodated both free will and God’s all knowing are jump thru hoops so big that a blind man could fly the spruce goose thru it.

 

[nicholasG]

If God gave you free will you have free will. God does not deceive. Otherwise all He is doing is watching a re-run of the lives of mankind. Do you think God would do that?

 

[Vico]

I am a firm believer in Free Will and I have always been able to agree with it and God being all-knowing.

I have always believed that God knew every decision you might make in your life. That until you made that decision it was not cast in stone.

But I have learned that God knows what decision you will make before you make it. All this was known the moment my soul was created. There might be the illusion of free will, but it just isnt so. My path has already known by God. Nothing I do will change the outcome. Because whatever I do is what I am supposed to do already.

The illusion is time and we are under it. There is an order of events and God knows the order always, but you determine the final choice of love vs hate.

 

[Dante221]

OK …this thread is officially making my hair hurt.
Saint Padre Pio said " Pray , Hope , and Don’t Worry"
That’s good enough for me
Dante

 

[phil3]

If God already knows what will happen to me, there is no free will. My soul is already going to go to heaven or to hell. I have already made those decisions before I made them. It is done and finished. It is like a book that has already been written. I am have just started to read it, but the ending isnt going to change.

 

[goout]

But I have learned that God knows what decision you will make before you make it. All this was known the moment my soul was created. There might be the illusion of free will, but it just isnt so. My path has already known by God. Nothing I do will change the outcome. Because whatever I do is what I am supposed to do already.

I bolded a couple of words that don’t apply to God.
There is no before or after in God. God knows all things in a way that transcends the passage of time. So words like before/after, if/then…these don’t apply to God.

 

[fhansen]

Our actions are determined by our choices. How does God’s foreknowledge affect that truth? Whether God existed or not the fact remains that I can make choices that harm or help myself or neighbor. We all know and agree, generally speaking, that man is a morally accountable being, who should be held accountable for his actions, even when we don’t recognize God. We can choose, can we not? The average person can refrain from wrong choices.

And that brings us to a theological truth as I see it. The Master is gone away; God “hides” Himself so to speak, or allows us to live in hiding from Him. With this truth, this “freedom”, prevailing in our world, how, then, will we live?

 

[phil3]

like I wrote. My life is an already written book. The ending is known to the writer just not to me. There is no free will.

 

[Aquinas11]

But you cannot change your mind. If you said ‘I’m going to give the dog beef’ and someone said ‘No, you HAVE to give him chicken’ then you have had your free will thwarted.

The “you” in your post here is a future you, not the present you.

Nobody asserts we have free will in the future to change past free decisions.

 

[fhansen]

So long as the end is not know to you, you have free will. You can work ‘out your salvation’, because you can choose. Whatever God knows about you in the future, is still determined by how you chose.

 

[goout]

So long as the end is not know to you, you have free will. You can work ‘out your salvation’, because you can choose. Whatever God knows about you in the future, is still determined by how you chose.

Correct. We can’t pretend to know the mind of God. That’s what is at stake here: the acceptance of responsibility as freely acting human beings.

 

[phil3]

So long as the end is not know to you , you have free will. You can work ‘out your salvation’, because you can choose. Whatever God knows about you in the future, is still determined by how you chose.

So far
WOW, that makes no sense at all. That hops keeps getting bigger. The more I read the more I am becoming convinced there is no free will or maybe no God.