How God could have free will if he is omniscient?

[YosefYosep]

Where that argument falls apart is when you add in the creative ability. Omniscience+ Creative Power cannot equal free will for the created, especially when you add in omnipotence. Creation, with infallible knowledge of all future events, equals causation.

John

But that doesn’t follow. Just because God knows what I will do, it doesn’t mean he determines it. I know my mother drinks coffee every morning, yet my knowing does nothing to determine her free choice to make coffee. I even have the power to stop her from drinking coffee by throwing out the coffee maker. But my ability to stop her from making coffee doesn’t negate the fact that she would freely choose to make coffee.

I’m just trying to see how one’s knowing of something infringes upon free will.

 

[YosefYosep]

I was not saying that foreknowledge can cause. I was arguing that there exist always a tension between foreknowledge and decision when you have foreknowledge on any situation. I mean your foreknowledge can not be always false when you are deciding since foreknowledge carries a truth value otherwise you have not foreknowledge.

I’m trying to show that deciding between two options isn’t the essential property of free will, it is a product of it. Free will is the ability to perform actions that are not caused by anything other than oneself.

 

[Aloysium]

I was not saying that foreknowledge can cause. I was arguing that there exist always a tension between foreknowledge and decision when you have foreknowledge on any situation. I mean your foreknowledge can not be always false when you are deciding since foreknowledge carries a truth value otherwise you have not foreknowledge.

His foreknowledge is of what He will do,
His actions are determined by His decision.
That decision is determined by His knowledge of what is, was, will be and could be.
I see no contradiction here.
God is the one, simple cause of everything, including beings who existing in time, have the free will to become what they choose.

 

[YosefYosep]

His foreknowledge is of what He will do,
His actions are determined by His decision.
That decision is determined by His knowledge of what is, was, will be and could be.
I see no contradiction here.
God is the one, simple cause of everything, including beings who exist in time, with free will to become what they choose.

I just have to disagree when you say his knowledge of his decisions determine that decision. What he does determines his knowledge. For instance, I know my grandmother will die in the next decade. My knowing doesn’t determine her death. Her eventual death determines my knowing.

 

[Aloysium]

I just have to disagree when you say his knowledge of his decisions determine that decision. What he does determines his knowledge. For instance, I know my grandmother will die in the next decade. My knowing doesn’t determine her death. Her eventual death determines my knowing.

As a whole person who knows and does, I know I am typing, and as I do so I tweak what I have written to have it make sense.
This is done in time.
If I were outside of time, if I had all eternity, it would be like it happened instantaneously, all at once.
Knowing I do, doing I know; all one thing.
Maybe I’m missing something.

 

[oldcelt]

But that doesn’t follow. Just because God knows what I will do, it doesn’t mean he determines it. I know my mother drinks coffee every morning, yet my knowing does nothing to determine her free choice to make coffee. I even have the power to stop her from drinking coffee by throwing out the coffee maker. But my ability to stop her from making coffee doesn’t negate the fact that she would freely choose to make coffee.

I’m just trying to see how one’s knowing of something infringes upon free will.

Omniscience is defined as knowing all things at all times. The Christian God knows are actions and their outcomes before we are even in our mother’s wombs and yet still creates. Therein lies the causation.
If, as one poster just argued that the Christian God knows only his actions, then he is not omniscient.

John

 

[YosefYosep]

Omniscience is defined as knowing all things at all times. The Christian God knows are actions and their outcomes before we are even in our mother’s wombs and yet still creates. Therein lies the causation.
If, as one poster just argued that the Christian God knows only his actions, then he is not omniscient.

John

Ok you still haven’t shown how God knowing what choices we make somehow makes those choices not free. Say I’m looking down at a highway from a plane window. I can see a man jump out into the road and a truck is going to hit him. Me foreseeing this man’s suicidal death doesn’t cause it to happen. Moreover, me foreseeing this event doesn’t infringe upon his free will to perform such an action.

 

[oldcelt]

Ok you still haven’t shown how God knowing what choices we make somehow makes those choices not free. Say I’m looking down at a highway from a plane window. I can see a man jump out into the road and a truck is going to hit him. Me foreseeing this man’s suicidal death doesn’t cause it to happen. Moreover, me foreseeing this event doesn’t infringe upon his free will to perform such an action.

You keep bypassing the creative action. If God knows all from any point in eternity, then God knows what we will do before we do it in our time. The fact that he still creates us with this type of knowledge is the causative action. If he instead chose not to create an individual, then these events would **not **occur.
Taken together it should be clear that the Christian God’s combination of powers makes free will an impossibility. We are created, under Christian belief, with our life already known by the one who created us. In other words, the script was written before we even took our first breath.

 

[davidv]

You keep bypassing the creative action. If God knows all from any point in eternity, then God knows what we will do before we do it in our time. The fact that he still creates us with this type of knowledge is the causative action. If he instead chose not to create an individual, then these events would **not **occur.
Taken together it should be clear that the Christian God’s combination of powers makes free will an impossibility. We are created, under Christian belief, with our life already known by the one who created us. In other words, the script was written before we even took our first breath.

This ignores the fact that the creative action made us free agents, able to determine for ourselves how we will live our lives.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Maybe I’m missing something.

What was missing was an elaboration of what God is beyond His omnipotence and omniscience. As the Triune Godhead, He is relationality. Actually, perfect relationality, divine, eternal love. He is Beauty itself, mirrored everywhere within the grandeur of His creation. As the ultimate reality, He is Truth, which in Christ and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, illuminates our darkness. All can be understood as existing within the ocean of His infinite compassion.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . If God knows all from any point in eternity, then God knows what we will do before we do it in our time. The fact that he still creates us with this type of knowledge is the causative action. If he instead chose not to create an individual, then these events would **not **occur.
Taken together it should be clear that the Christian God’s combination of powers makes free will an impossibility. We are created, under Christian belief, with our life already known by the one who created us. In other words, the script was written before we even took our first breath.

In time we decide what He knows, and since He is whole, He has always known.
The script was not being written before, but is being written right here and now as we dialogue.
You and I are in time and are here deciding our future.
How can we be uncreated since we are?
God who creates all time, who knows every hair on our heads, our most intimate thoughts and feelings, loves us.
He guides us to share in the eternal joy that awaits us in Christ.

 

[oldcelt]

This ignores the fact that the creative action made us free agents, able to determine for ourselves how we will live our lives.

No, it says that the creation by one who already knows every move we will make rules out free will. The two cannot logically co-exist. If God created us and had no idea of the outcome or day to day actions we would take, then I could buy free will.

 

[oldcelt]

In time we decide what He knows, and since He is whole, He has always known.
The script was not being written before, but is being written right here and now as we dialogue.
You and I are in time and are here deciding our future.
How can we be uncreated since we are?
God who creates all time, who knows every hair on our heads, our most intimate thoughts and feelings, loves us.
He guides us to share in the eternal joy that awaits us in Christ.

Has God known all along that this conversation would occur in our sense of time?
I didn’t say uncreate, I said not create, which is an act of will on the part of the Christian God. Since he knows and has known, in our time reference, we are merely fulfilling what the Christian God has known since the moment of creation…that is not free will.

 

[davidv]

No, it says that the creation by one who already knows every move we will make rules out free will. The two cannot logically co-exist. If God created us and had no idea of the outcome or day to day actions we would take, then I could buy free will.

Your conclusion is illogical as it presumes, without evidence, that knowing equals causing.
Whether you “buy” it or not is not a logical argument.

 

[Aloysium]

Has God known all along that this conversation would occur in our sense of time?
I didn’t say uncreate, I said not create, which is an act of will on the part of the Christian God. Since he knows and has known, in our time reference, we are merely fulfilling what the Christian God has known since the moment of creation…that is not free will.

He is here with us, bringing this moment into existence as He has and will all moments in their time. I will stop writing soon and He knows now when that will be because that moment exists as does this one and the one in which I began writing. They are all new and real, grounded in His being, in the form of a relationship He has with each and everyone of us as we plot our course through this life.

I would think that there is no before creation except ontologically speaking.

Peter 1:17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

I have free will and although I could keep this monologue going, I will stop, now. He knew that because He knows it and He is one, transcending time, in all times and all places.

 

[YosefYosep]

Has God known all along that this conversation would occur in our sense of time?
I didn’t say uncreate, I said not create, which is an act of will on the part of the Christian God. Since he knows and has known, in our time reference, we are merely fulfilling what the Christian God has known since the moment of creation…that is not free will.

You’re saying if God knows the actions you do before you do them, then when the time comes when you do said actions, you are not free to do otherwise because God’s omniscience can’t be mistaken. So, in effect, you are fated to do certain actions before you do them. Thus, you have no free will.

This line of reasoning can be formed into a syllogism:

1. If God foreknows I will do x then I will do x.
2. God foreknows I will do x.
3. Therefore, I necessarily do x.

However, this syllogism has it backwards. God’s foreknowledge of x does not cause x to happen, rather God’s foreknowledge of x is dependent on whether or not x happens. This is easily understood by seeing that if you did not do x but rather did y, God’s foreknowledge would have been different, and he would know that you did y instead of x. So God’s foreknowledge of specific actions is dependent on the specific actions we take.

What I propose is this:

1. If I do x, God knows it.
2. I do x.
3. Therefore God knows it.

Do you see the difference? In the first syllogism God’s knowledge of you doing x causes you to do x. In the second, you doing x determines God’s foreknowledge of it. To borrow an example from Dr. Craig, God’s foreknowledge is like an infallible weather barometer–it can never be wrong, it’s always right. But clearly the barometer doesn’t determine the weather. If the weather were different, the barometer would have been different.

So it is the same with our actions. God’s foreknowledge can never be wrong–it is always right. But his foreknowledge doesn’t determine our actions. If our actions were different, his foreknowledge would have been different.

 

[oldcelt]

Your conclusion is illogical as it presumes, without evidence, that knowing equals causing.
Whether you “buy” it or not is not a logical argument.

If you, I or anybody else creates something that we know with absolute certainty will be harmful, we are responsible. We created it with complete disregard for the actions that would occur. Pretty logical to me.
Why then, should a deity with extraordinary powers get a free pass?

This applies to the arguments of all three of my worthy opponents. You simply can’t brush the creative power aside if you add in all the other powers ascribed to the Christian God. I, am presuming nothing. Rather, I am utilizing the teachings relative to the attributes of the Christian God and creation to show that they are incompatible with free will.

 

[oldcelt]

You’re saying if God knows the actions you do before you do them, then when the time comes when you do said actions, you are not free to do otherwise because God’s omniscience can’t be mistaken. So, in effect, you are fated to do certain actions before you do them. Thus, you have no free will.

This line of reasoning can be formed into a syllogism:

1. If God foreknows I will do x then I will do x.
2. God foreknows I will do x.
3. Therefore, I necessarily do x.

However, this syllogism has it backwards. God’s foreknowledge of x does not cause x to happen, rather God’s foreknowledge of x is dependent on whether or not x happens. This is easily understood by seeing that if you did not do x but rather did y, God’s foreknowledge would have been different, and he would know that you did y instead of x. So God’s foreknowledge of specific actions is dependent on the specific actions we take.

What I propose is this:
1) If I do x, God knows it
2) I do x.
3) Therefore God knows it.
Do you see the difference? In the first syllogism God’s knowledge of you doing x causes you to do x. In the second, you doing x determines God’s foreknowledge of it. To borrow an example from Dr. Craig, God’s foreknowledge is like an infallible weather barometer–it can never be wrong, it’s always right. But clearly the barometer doesn’t determine the weather. If the weather were different, the barometer would have been different.

So it is the same with our actions. God’s foreknowledge can never be wrong–it is always right. But his foreknowledge doesn’t determine our actions. If our actions were different, his foreknowledge would have been different.

Then God is dependent on your actions for his knowledge? That is not omniscience.

 

[YosefYosep]

Then God is dependent on your actions for his knowledge? That is not omniscience.

Why wouldn’t it be omniscience? Omniscience is the ability to know all truth. If God knows that I freely chose x instead of y, then he knows the truth that I knew x instead of y.

Do you have a different definition of omniscience?

 

[oldcelt]

Why wouldn’t it be omniscience? Omniscience is the ability to know all truth. If God knows that I freely chose x instead of y, then he knows the truth that I knew x instead of y.

Do you have a different definition of omniscience?

Omniscience is the ability to know everything be it past, present or future in our terms. An omniscient deity does not have to wait to know your decision. That is known from all time…at least according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.

John