Free will? I dont think so

[Jragzz123]

You technically still have free will it’s kinda confusing to understand because of time and how God doesn’t experience time in the same way we do. But just because God knows your choice doesn’t mean he’s influencing it.

 

[phil3]

I didnt say he is influencing it, but according to most here, he knows my future. I have often said that My life is a book, I can not rewrite the past, but I can change the unwritten part. Evidently I cant. That book as already written I just havent typed the words

And saying it just a mystery we cant understand doesnt work for me.

 

[fhansen]

The more I read the more I am becoming convinced there is no free will or maybe no God.

And how are the two related-or why would they be related? If there is no God then is free will now possible? If there is a God (whether or not you believe in Him) then are you suddenly limited in your choices for some reason? What changes in your life and your decisions either way?

 

[Jragzz123]

It’s not already written God is just experiencing time differently than you. He is experiencing every moment of time at once. You’re still making choices and living the way you want and paving your future.

 

[porthos11]

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.

This is nothing new. Philosophers and theologians smarter than the lot of us have already dealt with this centuries ago.

First of all, God does not know what you do “before” you do it. God does not know the future because for God, there is no future. There is also no past. Everything is present to him in a single, eternal Now.

As for this conflicting with free will, it doesn’t. The simple way to put it is that God has created man with free will, and therefore accounted for free will in his eternal plan. So even though the order of divine providence is indeed fixed (since God is immutable), he has included free will in that eternal plan. For more detail, Summa I.22.2.4.

So even though all things are present to God, it is because he is eternal. We are temporal and so for us, our path isn’t laid out yet. We will make free decisions through the course of our life. Just because our future is already present to God does not mean free will does not exist. Rather, the entire plan of divine providence already accounts for free will in the mix.

 

[Gorgias]

Nothing I do will change the outcome. Because whatever I do is what I am supposed to do already.

No. You get to choose. “Whatever you do” is, precisely, to choose your path. God might know it, but it’s still your choice.

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.

You don’t force the choice, though. Your knowledge doesn’t constrain the choice that will be made in the context of the future. It’s just knowledge, not force.

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

Yes. And God knows what you will choose to do. He doesn’t force the choice, though.

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.

That’s just the point. God doesn’t sit there, like Haymitch in “Hunger Games”, sending down balloons that say, “Freddy, you’re not allowed to choose beef.” You. Get. To. Choose.

The illusion is time and we are under it.

No, time is real. And we are really within it. The illusion, as it were, is the mistaken notion that God is under time. He isn’t.

I have already made those decisions before I made them. It is done and finished.

Nope. You get to make the choices as you see fit. God doesn’t force it.

The ending is known to the writer just not to me. There is no free will.

These two statements are not in a cause and effect relationship. God knows. You choose freely. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

The more I read the more I am becoming convinced there is no free will or maybe no God.

Wait… you mean that you’re making a free choice, based on something you’re experiencing now? Well… hot diggity!

I didnt say he is influencing it, but according to most here, he knows my future.

So if He knows but does not influence, then He’s not constraining your free will.

First of all, God does not know what you do “before” you do it. God does not know the future because for God, there is no future. There is also no past. Everything is present to him in a single, eternal Now.

This!

Although, to be honest, it’ll likely be confusing for some.

 

[Bluebright]

Maybe I shouldn’t have read that just before going to bed … lol but it has made sense. Thanks

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

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.

I’m not saying you are being forced. I am saying you only have one choice. That doesn’t appear to me to be compatible with the concept of free will.

 

[Gorgias]

I’m not saying you are being forced. I am saying you only have one choice. That doesn’t appear to me to be compatible with the concept of free will.

No. You have multiple choices, although you only have one decision. That God simply knows your decision doesn’t imply that you don’t choose it yourself.

 

[Kei]

To me I’ve seen this as really simple.

You know what George Washington did. Does that fact mean he didn’t choose it?

Our view of time is different from God’s, so it would be like what I will have chosen has already happened.

That’s how I’ve understood it.

 

[Freddy]

Nope. You get to make the choices as you see fit. God doesn’t force it.

I’m not suggesting that you are being forced into making a choice. If someone holds a gun to my head and says ‘feed the dog chicken’ then I effectively have no free will in the matter. But…if there is only one choice I could possibly make then that is NOT the definition of free will.

Your life to God is like a film. He can see all frames at the same time. He doesn’t need to watch it in real time or sped up or watch it in any specific order. It’s all there for him. Just like the film Thelma and Louise. If you have free will then you say that you can make a different choice when offered them. Which is exactly the same as saying (spoiler alert) Thelma and Loiise can make decision NOT to drive off the cliff.

They had choices. They could have done something different. And if we could have asked them at the point where they decided to do it if their decision had been made with free will. And they would have answered that yes, it was. But we know there was only one choice available.

That’s not free will.

 

[chercheur]

If the future is determined by the choice, then I don’t think whether someone knows what that future is has any bearing on whether the choice was made freely.

 

[po18guy]

Your path was known to God…

…but not to you.

Did God command you to sin? To make mistakes? To be wrong?

Worth pondering.

 

[Gorgias]

But…if there is only one choice I could possibly make then that is NOT the definition of free will.

Ahh… but there isn’t "one choice you could possibly make*. There are many. God just foreknows which you will choose.

And if we could have asked them at the point where they decided to do it if their decision had been made with free will. And they would have answered that yes, it was. But we know there was only one choice available.

No. There were many choices available. They chose one. And God foreknew which choice they’d freely make. And that is free will.

 

[Irishmom2]

If God already knows what will happen to me, there is no free will.

He already knows what you will choose.
He does not choose what happens, you do. So yes, you do have free will.
Sometimes the fact that other people have free will also affects our lives. That doesn’t mean God chose something for your life or their’s, just that he already knows.

 

[chercheur]

Ahh… but there isn’t "one choice you could possibly make*. There are many. God just foreknows which you will choose.

Yeah. There is one choice you do make…but it was still a choice you made. This is compatible with free will, IMO, even if God knows what the choice will be.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

But…if there is only one choice I could possibly make then that is NOT the definition of free will.

Ahh… but there isn’t "one choice you could possibly make*. There are many. God just foreknows which you will choose.

And if we could have asked them at the point where they decided to do it if their decision had been made with free will. And they would have answered that yes, it was. But we know there was only one choice available.

No. There were many choices available. They chose one. And God foreknew which choice they’d freely make. And that is free will.

That’s like getting to the point in the film and saying ‘I wonder what they’ll do now’. And your buddy wants to know what you’re talking about. And you say: ‘Well there are many choices to be made here. They could take any number of options’.

Saying that they could have made other choices when we know there is only one option available to them makes nonsense of the concept of free will. They think they have it but we know they don’t.

 

[Thom18]

That our Will is free, and that God knows what we will do, are not contradictory ideas. Sometimes we fall under the illusion that, if God knows we will do something bad, and we do it, that we couldn’t have done otherwise; that it was “predestined”.

That something is predestined, though, doesn’t preclude the freedom of the Will. If I were to place a marble column on a flat surface and unsettle it in one direction or another, the direction to which it ultimately falls wasn’t “determined” the moment I unsettled it, “and there was no way it could have fallen in the other direction”. The column fell in the direction that it did because there were multiple influences on it (the direction I unsettled it from, the wind and its speed, the surface the column sat on and whether it was perfectly flat or not, etc.), and one of them ultimately won out to cause the result.

God already knew the direction it would fall, but how did He know it? Did He cause it? Certainly not, because nowhere here did we see “and God made it fall this direction”. He merely knew the outcome of the specific set of circumstances which led to the column falling to one side or the other.

 

[Gorgias]

That’s like getting to the point in the film and saying ‘I wonder what they’ll do now’.

Exactly. You don’t know. The characters don’t know (per se). But the director knows. (And even he doesn’t know what ad libs will come from the actors.)

Saying that they could have made other choices when we know there is only one option available to them

Except that… there isn’t only one option available to them. There are a multitude of options. They freely choose one, however.

You’re conflating “multiple possible options” with “one final choice”.

They know the options. They make the choice.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

That’s like getting to the point in the film and saying ‘I wonder what they’ll do now’.

Exactly. You don’t know. The characters don’t know (per se). But the director knows. (And even he doesn’t know what ad libs will come from the actors.)

Saying that they could have made other choices when we know there is only one option available to them

Except that… there isn’t only one option available to them. There are a multitude of options. They freely choose one, however.

You’re conflating “multiple possible options” with “one final choice”.

They know the options. They make the choice.

They didn’t. They were constrained by the script. That is, the storyline of their lives. You have one (apparantly). If you were omniscient you’d see it. All writtten out exactly as it is going to happen.

A free choice implies that you can do something other than that which you did. If the future was open ended and dependent on your choice so that it could fork one way or the other then yeah, free will exists. It suggests that if you could go back and change your mind then yeah, free will exists.

But God knows the choices you will make so the film ‘Gorgias’ is in the can. It’s printed and complete in its entireity. You can no more make a different decision than could Thelma.