How are omniscience and free will not contradictory?

[Poseidon]

No matter how I think of it, I can’t find any way to logically allow the coexistence of omniscience and free will. How do you view this, and how do you justify the two seemingly contradictory propositions?

 

[Armor_of_Light]

From Wikipedia:

There is a distinction between:
inherent omniscience - the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known.
total omniscience - actually knowing everything that can be known.

Some modern theologians argue that God’s omniscience is inherent rather than total, and that God chooses to limit his omniscience in order to preserve the freewill and dignity of his creatures.[2] John Calvin, among other theologians of the 16th Century, comfortable with the definition of God as being omniscient in the total sense, in order for worthy beings’ abilities to choose freely, embraced the doctrine of predestination.

This actually is pretty accurate, from the catholic view (the bolded portion). I’m comfortable in this life realizing that I’m not going to understand fully the mind of God. I’m not comfortable in this life giving up trying to learn and grow in that regard however.

I look forward to how this thread will pan out.

 

[maltmom]

I’ve always believed that God is totally omniscient and that we have free will to accept or reject Him, to sin or not sin. In His omniscience I believe He knows what choices we will make. He doesn’t make those choices for us. Personally I never had a problem reconciling the two.

 

[fermat]

The key to understand this is knowing that knowledge of an event does not cause the event.

Let’s say I can go forward in time and I jump to tomorrow. I see you go to the store and buy chocolate ice cream. I zip back to today. Tomorrow rolls around and I know that you are going to go to the store and buy chocolate ice cream. Does my knowledge of that fact compel you to buy the ice cream? No.

Free will is just that, free. I can chose G-d or not. He will not force me to do one or the other. He already knows what I will freely choose to do, but he isn’t causing or forcing the matter.

At the end of the day, we are all responsible for the choices we make.

 

[Qoeleth]

What is “free will”? it is the feeling that we are making a decision. We all experience decision making, and therefore we all experience ‘free will’.

‘Being free’ and ‘feeling free’ are the same. Epictetus gives the example of Socrates, who, though in prison, was free, since he gave his consent to it. There is no objective meaning to ‘freedom’.

Everything which happens though, is essentially determined. But the feeling of ‘freedom’ (and it is a feeling, nothing more) remains. The more we accord our will to what has been determined by God/chance/fate, then more we feel free.

To prove the free will is not anything but a feeling, try this- say, OK, I have free will to decide whether to get out of bed tomorrow , and go to work/college/school, whatever. But, at a deeper level, you already know perfectly that you WILL go to work tomorrow. Decision making is therefore often like a mere play or pretence.

 

[yellow8yellowM]

No matter how I think of it, I can’t find any way to logically allow the coexistence of omniscience and free will. How do you view this, and how do you justify the two seemingly contradictory propositions?

Hold your finger out.
Wiggle it up.
Wiggle it down.

God knew you would do that. Did He compromise your free will?

 

[Sair]

What is “free will”? it is the feeling that we are making a decision. We all experience decision making, and therefore we all experience ‘free will’.

‘Being free’ and ‘feeling free’ are the same. Epictetus gives the example of Socrates, who, though in prison, was free, since he gave his consent to it. There is no objective meaning to ‘freedom’.

Everything which happens though, is essentially determined. But the feeling of ‘freedom’ (and it is a feeling, nothing more) remains. The more we accord our will to what has been determined by God/chance/fate, then more we feel free.

To prove the free will is not anything but a feeling, try this- say, OK, I have free will to decide whether to get out of bed tomorrow , and go to work/college/school, whatever. But, at a deeper level, you already know perfectly that you WILL go to work tomorrow. Decision making is therefore often like a mere play or pretence.

This being the case, why is the belief in god’s omniscience any different, in effect, than belief that all our decisions are caused by prior states of the universe (including the state of our own brains, of course)?

Certainly it’s true that merely knowing something to be the case does not cause it to be the case, but in effect, knowing (as opposed to merely predicting) that a person will make a particular choice means that they cannot actually make any other choice than that which they are already known to make - otherwise the knowledge would cease to be knowledge.

We don’t necessarily know which choices we will make ahead of actually making and acting upon them - therefore we feel that we are free to make whatever choice we ultimately make. But if this choice is foreknown by an omniscient god, or foreordained by the prior states of our brains of which we are not consciously aware, the choice in question is an equally foregone conclusion.

I don’t see how those who consider free will the supreme value of human existence - and the defeater for the problem of evil - can suppose there is actually a difference between god knowing all our choices before we make them, and physical determinism being true. These both seem to effectively demolish the idea of libertarian or contra-causal free will.

 

[J_Peterson]

Hold your finger out.
Wiggle it up.
Wiggle it down.

God knew you would do that. Did He compromise your free will?

Haha, I use this example to show that we (at least the conscious part) is not as free as we think we are. When you wiggle your finger try to p(name removed by moderator)oint the moment you chose to wiggle it. Next, don’t wiggle your finger and try to p(name removed by moderator)oint the moment you decided to not wiggle it.

 

[davidv]

No matter how I think of it, I can’t find any way to logically allow the coexistence of omniscience and free will. How do you view this, and how do you justify the two seemingly contradictory propositions?

I view this as a case of equivocation, i.e., equating knowledge with causation.

If knowledge =/= causation, then there is no contradiction.

I have yet to see a logical argument showing that knowledge = causation.

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

No matter how I think of it, I can’t find any way to logically allow the coexistence of omniscience and free will. How do you view this, and how do you justify the two seemingly contradictory propositions?

Perhaps you should explain how they are contradictory (even if seemingly so).

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

From Wikipedia:

This actually is pretty accurate, from the catholic view (the bolded portion). I’m comfortable in this life realizing that I’m not going to understand fully the mind of God. I’m not comfortable in this life giving up trying to learn and grow in that regard however.

I look forward to how this thread will pan out.

But there are numerous examples in the bible and from contemporary stories where people claim to have learned of the future from God. If God were actually limiting his omniscience, this would not be possible. In other words, we would have to admit that any prophecy is illegitimate.

You might argue that prophecies are about natural phenomenon, not free will choices. However, not only is this not always true, but they are intermixed. Take for example the prophecy that Jesus would be betrayed by a friend. That is clear evidence that God knew the free will choices that someone would make ahead of time.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

I’ve always believed that God is totally omniscient and that we have free will to accept or reject Him, to sin or not sin. In His omniscience I believe He knows what choices we will make. He doesn’t make those choices for us. Personally I never had a problem reconciling the two.

This

+1

 

[shoe]

I think that God’s omniscience does logically allow Him to co-exist with mankind’s free will in that although God’s omniscience makes it possible for Him to know in advance the choices people are going to make, His omniscience certainly doesn’t mean that people are unable to make their choices willingly. And it certainly doesn’t mean that people, after making a choice on their own volition, lose any of the human nature they had before making the choice; in other words, making choices do not make people less human and more machine-like. God’s all-knowingness, then, neither contradicts nor interferes with mankind’s decision making.

 

[Poseidon]

The key to understand this is knowing that knowledge of an event does not cause the event.

Let’s say I can go forward in time and I jump to tomorrow. I see you go to the store and buy chocolate ice cream. I zip back to today. Tomorrow rolls around and I know that you are going to go to the store and buy chocolate ice cream. Does my knowledge of that fact compel you to buy the ice cream? No.

Free will is just that, free. I can chose G-d or not. He will not force me to do one or the other. He already knows what I will freely choose to do, but he isn’t causing or forcing the matter.

At the end of the day, we are all responsible for the choices we make.

But your knowledge does compel me to buy ice cream. I may think that I’m acting of my own accord, but in reality I’m just following along a preset path that I can’t deviate from, because any choice I make is already set. For example, if I went to buy ice cream but then decided I wanted to thwart this preset path and buy a milkshake instead, you would already know that I was going to do that. Anything I decide to do would already be known by you, because you already saw it happen and there’s nothing I can do to change it.

Obviously here I’m assuming that when you go back in time I do the same thing that I did before you came back.

 

[Poseidon]

I’ve always believed that God is totally omniscient and that we have free will to accept or reject Him, to sin or not sin. In His omniscience I believe He knows what choices we will make. He doesn’t make those choices for us. Personally I never had a problem reconciling the two.

God knew the choices we would make before we even existed. If I didn’t exist, but the choices I would make did exist, then I didn’t make those choices. I wasn’t around to make them. Therefore, someone else made them for me.

 

[Poseidon]

I view this as a case of equivocation, i.e., equating knowledge with causation.

If knowledge =/= causation, then there is no contradiction.

I have yet to see a logical argument showing that knowledge = causation.

Knowledge does equal causation. If God knows that you’re going to do something, then you’re going to do it, because God can’t be wrong. If God knows that you’re going to eat chicken for dinner, then you’re going to eat chicken for dinner. You might have freely chosen to eat chicken, but really that choice was made a long time ago - as soon as God knew it it was made. Your free choice was just an illusion, because you were going to eat chicken all along. And what if you decide to eat a hamburger instead? Well, God already knew you were going to do that. If you decide to order Chinese he knew you were going to do that too. Anything you do, God already knows you’re going to do it. It’s like God has nanosecond-by-nanosecond list of things you’re going to do, for your whole life, and you just happily go along doing everything on this list thinking you’re making your own choices, when in reality it’s all been laid out for you already.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Knowledge does equal causation. If God knows that you’re going to do something, then you’re going to do it, because God can’t be wrong. If God knows that you’re going to eat chicken for dinner, then you’re going to eat chicken for dinner. You might have freely chosen to eat chicken, but really that choice was made a long time ago - as soon as God knew it it was made. Your free choice was just an illusion, because you were going to eat chicken all along. And what if you decide to eat a hamburger instead? Well, God already knew you were going to do that. If you decide to order Chinese he knew you were going to do that too. Anything you do, God already knows you’re going to do it. It’s like God has nanosecond-by-nanosecond list of things you’re going to do, for your whole life, and you just happily go along doing everything on this list thinking you’re making your own choices, when in reality it’s all been laid out for you already.

You can think about it this way:

Before God created the world, he knew exactly what sort of world he would create. He knew what choices you would make before he even created you. He chose to create this particular world, each particular person, and therefore each particular person’s choices. He could have created a different world where we made different choices but he did not, and by choosing this world, he chose our choices for us.

 

[Wulfgar]

Knowledge does equal causation. If God knows that you’re going to do something, then you’re going to do it, because God can’t be wrong. If God knows that you’re going to eat chicken for dinner, then you’re going to eat chicken for dinner. You might have freely chosen to eat chicken, but really that choice was made a long time ago - as soon as God knew it it was made. Your free choice was just an illusion, because you were going to eat chicken all along. And what if you decide to eat a hamburger instead? Well, God already knew you were going to do that. If you decide to order Chinese he knew you were going to do that too. Anything you do, God already knows you’re going to do it. It’s like God has nanosecond-by-nanosecond list of things you’re going to do, for your whole life, and you just happily go along doing everything on this list thinking you’re making your own choices, when in reality it’s all been laid out for you already.

Since God is a being outside of time, he can witness all of our free choices, simultaneously, throughout the universe’s history. It’s not really foretelling or predicting the future; it’s merely seeing everything together at once. I can make a free choice at some moment in time, but God can see me making a “future” (relative to me) choice in a different realm of time.

To illustrate, if God were to appear to me and tell me about something I will do in my future (say, steal a car), he would probably phrase it as “You are freely stealing a car in another realm of your time, from the point of view of my realm of existence; you’re not bound to it in your ‘now’, it’s just that to me, you’ve already freely made the choice anyway” rather than “You will steal a car in the future, and that’s unfortunately unavoidable”.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Since God is a being outside of time, he can witness all of our free choices, simultaneously, throughout the universe’s history. It’s not really foretelling or predicting the future; it’s merely seeing everything together at once. I can make a free choice at some moment in time, but God can see me making a “future” (relative to me) choice in a different realm of time.

To illustrate, if God were to appear to me and tell me about something I will do in my future (say, steal a car), he would probably phrase it as “You are freely stealing a car in another realm of your time, from the point of view of my realm of existence; you’re not bound to it in your ‘now’, it’s just that to me, you’ve already freely made the choice anyway” rather than “You will steal a car in the future, and that’s unfortunately unavoidable”.

If we thought of time as a comic strip, God could indeed tell us “Hey, 3 panels from now you’re going to steal a car.” However, we must take into account the fact that God was the one who drew the comic strip that way.

We must also realize that this gives us no choice, a requirement of free will. While it may seem like we could make either choice (steal a car or not) in actual fact we can not, as the choice we will make is already known. There is exactly one comic strip, and we cannot deviate from it. We have no more free will than the images of actors recorded on videotape.

 

[davidv]

But your knowledge does compel me to buy ice cream. I may think that I’m acting of my own accord, but in reality I’m just following along a preset path that I can’t deviate from, because any choice I make is already set. For example, if I went to buy ice cream but then decided I wanted to thwart this preset path and buy a milkshake instead, you would already know that I was going to do that. Anything I decide to do would already be known by you, because you already saw it happen and there’s nothing I can do to change it.

Obviously here I’m assuming that when you go back in time I do the same thing that I did before you came back.

How does another persons thoughts compel you to do anything? Who preset the path? The observer did not set the path - did they? How could they possibly do so?