B
Bahman
Guest
I don’t understand what do you mean.
You mean that God does not have foreknowledge?
I don’t remember.
- Status
B
Bahman
Guest
We have one future which is what God knows. Foreknowledge is fixed otherwise it couldn’t be knowledge. So yes, God is slave of his own foresight.
B
Bahman
Guest
God knows everything. God knows future (we cannot possibly have two future). The fact that God knows only one future means that he cannot change it.
B
Bahman
Guest
Future is one because God knows it. Hence God cannot be changed since it is not knowable.
B
Bahman
Guest
Yes.
Yes. There is a conflict between foreknowledge and free will.
That is correct.
That make complete sense. God has foreknowledge, knows future. There is only one future otherwise it couldn’t be known. Hence God cannot change future. Hence God has no free will.
Future is fixed since otherwise God couldn’t know it.
I hope things make more sense now.
B
Bahman
Guest
It is about the fact that future is fixed since it is knowable. So God cannot change it.
B
Bahman
Guest
Do you believe that there is only one future? How it could be otherwise if future is knowable?
G
GodsGrace154
Guest
You forgot to quote scripture showing how God does NOT have free will.
Are we going by YOUR opinion here?
Here’s something I found with the help of Professor Google. Something I don’t ever do and the reason will become apparent as to why:
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
- An Omniscient (all-knowing) Being Does Not Have Free Will
“There is a light switch on the wall; God may either turn it on, or leave it off; but, since God already knows the future, God knows that he will turn it on. That is part of his knowledge. But what if God exercises freewill, and chooses not to turn it on. Is this possible?”
freespeech.org/Ascendancy
If you knew a decision you are going to make in the future… what would it mean? You would have no free will to change that choice. No option, no choices… based on the fact that you know it’s going to happen, it is predestined and no amount of strong will can change it. The further in the future the predicted choice is, the less free will you have to change it! Well imagine if for infinity you’d always known exactly what choices you were going to make and that you could never be wrong. You would never have had any free will in any choice, ever!
In effect God is an observer. An omniscient being has no free will - its entire future is set out and it has no choice but to follow its predestined path.
For more on God’s omniscience, see:
•“Omniscience: God Knows All?” by Vexen Crabtree (2002)
- A Perfect God Has No Free Will
When people say that God has free will, they must also mean that God is imperfect. If God is not perfect then it becomes possible for God to choose a less-than-perfect action. If God is not imperfect, then, it is impossible for god to perform imperfect actions. Therefore God has no free will.
A response to this was made on SciForums by beyondtimeandspace (2005 Dec 19), who argued that God could potentially choose between two equally perfect acts. This is more interesting if you hold that everything God does is perfect by causal definition. But the argument destroys itself, as another author on that site points out: If God chooses one act rather than another, then the act that God chooses must be the better act in order for God to have chosen it. Either that, or God behaves randomly (which is not free will). When God acts, it does so perfectly… so there are therefore no “choices” to be made: Whatever choices God makes are the best ones (even between two apparently perfect options), and therefore a perfect God cannot possibly have any genuine free will.
- A Moral God Has No Free Will
God knows the nuances and complexities of every situation. God knows which actions are optimal, it knows which actions are perfectly good. Only God, I would guess, is capable of performing actions that are perfectly good. And it does so unerringly, constantly, because it itself is perfectly good and never errs. It is all-knowing and perfectly good. But, the problem is for free will, in any situation, of all the possible things God could do, God does the perfectly morally right one. It never chooses an inferior course of action because it is perfect. If it acted imperfectly, it would not be perfect.
So, in any situation, a perfectly moral God has no choice: It must carry out what action is most good. God, in creating goodness, and being perfectly good, is completely limited to only a set, predetermined series of actions. In any situation, at any point in time or out of time, God has no free will: It must robotically and automatically carry out the precise action that is perfectly good.
But herein lays contradiction: How can a God that has no choice be described as “moral”? A computer, for example, is amoral because it cannot make moral choices; its programming defines its actions accurately. Likewise, God accurately has to follow the optimally most perfect and moral path. God’s morality is the same as a computer’s: It makes no truly moral choices. This contradiction shows up a fundamental flaw: God cannot be abstractly or actually moral.
PAGE ONE
G
GodsGrace154
Guest
PAGE TWO For Bahman
In this “void” where nothing changes, God has no free will. Its thoughts can’t change and flow because time does not change for anything that extends outside of 4D. Taking the hypercube as an example, it may appear to us to change over time as we view it in a series of 3D slices, but in reality the hypercube is completely unchanging from its own point of view. From God’s own point of view there is no “thinking”, no change in states of mind over time. All choices were instantly made according to what is most “perfect” (if God is a perfect creator), there were never any choices or willpower involved. By its very nature, if God is perfect and created Time, God has had no free will to either engage, change or affect any free will on its own part.
If God changes (i.e., thinks) from one state of mind to another, then there must be a reason. The new state must be better than the old state. But this is impossible if God is perfect: It is not possible to “improve” God, therefore, God cannot change and God cannot possess any ongoing thoughts at all. No free will. The only possible mental state for a God is a static, unchanging, unaltering status-quo.
•“The Four Dimensions and the Immutability of God” by Vexen Crabtree (2007)
1.An omniscient being cannot have free will because it is predestined by its own knowledge of its future actions.
2.A perfectly benevolent God cannot have free will because there is only one perfect course of action, which God, being perfectly good, must follow.
3.The creator of time cannot have free will: if God exists outside of time then it is immutable, unchanging, and as such it has no mental states except one everlasting and perfect state. Choices require changes in mental states over time. An eternal being that created time cannot have free will.
4.If God created free will then it cannot itself already have had free will before it done so: yet, an omniscient being already knew (before it created free will) everything it would do. Therefore any creator-god cannot have free will about any of its actions.
What is the point of saying that God is moral, if God cannot choose to do anything imperfect? How can it be a moral being, if it has no moral choices? The answer is that God is not a moral being, it is a morally neutral being.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
SO,
Is THIS the God you serve?
Listen, read the internet LESS and read your bible MORE.
GG
- God Exists Outside of Time: Where There is No Free Will
In this “void” where nothing changes, God has no free will. Its thoughts can’t change and flow because time does not change for anything that extends outside of 4D. Taking the hypercube as an example, it may appear to us to change over time as we view it in a series of 3D slices, but in reality the hypercube is completely unchanging from its own point of view. From God’s own point of view there is no “thinking”, no change in states of mind over time. All choices were instantly made according to what is most “perfect” (if God is a perfect creator), there were never any choices or willpower involved. By its very nature, if God is perfect and created Time, God has had no free will to either engage, change or affect any free will on its own part.
If God changes (i.e., thinks) from one state of mind to another, then there must be a reason. The new state must be better than the old state. But this is impossible if God is perfect: It is not possible to “improve” God, therefore, God cannot change and God cannot possess any ongoing thoughts at all. No free will. The only possible mental state for a God is a static, unchanging, unaltering status-quo.
•“The Four Dimensions and the Immutability of God” by Vexen Crabtree (2007)
- How Can the Creator of Free Will Have Free Will?1
- Conclusion: God is Amoral, and, God is Impossible
1.An omniscient being cannot have free will because it is predestined by its own knowledge of its future actions.
2.A perfectly benevolent God cannot have free will because there is only one perfect course of action, which God, being perfectly good, must follow.
3.The creator of time cannot have free will: if God exists outside of time then it is immutable, unchanging, and as such it has no mental states except one everlasting and perfect state. Choices require changes in mental states over time. An eternal being that created time cannot have free will.
4.If God created free will then it cannot itself already have had free will before it done so: yet, an omniscient being already knew (before it created free will) everything it would do. Therefore any creator-god cannot have free will about any of its actions.
What is the point of saying that God is moral, if God cannot choose to do anything imperfect? How can it be a moral being, if it has no moral choices? The answer is that God is not a moral being, it is a morally neutral being.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
SO,
Is THIS the God you serve?
Listen, read the internet LESS and read your bible MORE.
GG
F
FractalFire
Guest
Bahman,
Reciting the same maxims at me will not make your case, nor will completely ignoring someone’s arguments. Craig is a philosopher of religion, he has studied this more than you have, and yet you completely ignore both his argument and mine. And you proclaim yourself to be interested in going “wherever it will lead”?? Balderdash! You seem only interested in your own naïve conclusions that fail to interact with any rigorous philosophical or logical thought. If I have misjudged you, then I challenge you to prove otherwise – Read Craig’s full argument and explain to me, in detail, not in proclamation of fact, *why *he is wrong. Why should we interact with you if you will not interact with us?
Yes, God knows only one future, because there is only one – he creates it! This does not in anyway bind his free will, anymore than my knowing what type of icecream I will choose tomorrow night forces me to choose that icecream. Your logic in this respect is fundamentally flawed. Your second sentence is merely illogical. “Hence it cannot be changed since it is not knowable” I assume by it you are referring to the future. Of course God does not have to travel back in time and edit the past if the future gives some result he doesn’t like. This is nonsense. An omnipotent, omniscient being is perfectly capable of getting the future He likes the first time around, thank you. Also, who in the world believes the future is unknowable? We know and predict it all the time. You can’t just throw things out like that without support.
Bahman, if you really want to come to the truth, you need to think long and hard about these issues, talk about them and consider what they are saying without waving your hands and dismissing them a priori. Your routine of trotting out an alleged, often logically flawed (or poorly) formatted argument and then dismissing anyone who try to correct you is not a method of reaching knowledge. It is a method of solidifying one’s own ignorance. I beseech you to “come, let us reason together” – if you are not interested in that, then what are you here for?
T
thecolorsblend
Guest
Then you’re arguing a separate premise. It’s a premise I find untenable, in fact, but it is still separate.
His awareness of the future does not somehow limit His free will.
V
Vico
Guest
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I
Question 14. God’s knowledge
Article 13. Whether the knowledge of God is of future contingent things?
I answer that, Since as was shown above (Article 9), God knows all things; not only things actual but also things possible to Him and creature; and since some of these are future contingent to us, it follows that God knows future contingent things.
In evidence of this, we must consider that a contingent thing can be considered in two ways; first, in itself, in so far as it is now in act: and in this sense it is not considered as future, but as present; neither is it considered as contingent (as having reference) to one of two terms, but as determined to one; and on account of this it can be infallibly the object of certain knowledge, for instance to the sense of sight, as when I see that Socrates is sitting down. In another way a contingent thing can be considered as it is in its cause; and in this way it is considered as future, and as a contingent thing not yet determined to one; forasmuch as a contingent cause has relation to opposite things: and in this sense a contingent thing is not subject to any certain knowledge. Hence, whoever knows a contingent effect in its cause only, has merely a conjectural knowledge of it. Now God knows all contingent things not only as they are in their causes, but also as each one of them is actually in itself. And although contingent things become actual successively, nevertheless God knows contingent things not successively, as they are in their own being, as we do but simultaneously. The reason is because His knowledge is measured by eternity, as is also His being; and eternity being simultaneously whole comprises all time, as said above (Question 10, Article 2). Hence all things that are in time are present to God from eternity, not only because He has the types of things present within Him, as some say; but because His glance is carried from eternity over all things as they are in their presentiality. Hence it is manifest that contingent things are infallibly known by God, inasmuch as they are subject to the divine sight in their presentiality; yet they are future contingent things in relation to their own causes.
newadvent.org/summa/1014.htm#article14
B
Bahman
Guest
Thanks for your post. The first argument is align with mine.
H
hasantas
Guest
Bahman go everywhere so there is no use in discussing!
W
Wesrock
Guest
God doesn’t have a future. Or a past.
T
Trident_H
Guest
A guy takes a video of some friends at the beach. At the time of the video no one knows what they’re going to do next. At the end of the video it’s all on tape.
This guy then goes back in time watches the video the day before it happened. Why would no one have free will just because a known thing was known ahead of being known?
T
Trident_H
Guest
lol it’s what I was thinking
G
GodsGrace154
Guest
Bahman
I don’t align with you.
I posted the article and then at the end I asked you if THIS is the God you serve.
It was a sarcastic question. The answer should have been NO!
I posted it to show you how silly the whole idea is.
And I suggested that you read the internet less and the bible more.
But, I hadn’t noticed that you’re not Christian. Silly me. I doubt a Christian would even read such content - it’s ridiculous!
Please don’t invent your own God. God already exists and does not need any make-over.
If you care to become a Christian, then do it in a serious way and ask serious questions.
Read 1 Corinthians 2:14
and then read the whole chapter.
Don’t have a bible? That’s the problem. Get one. Or read this online.
GG
B
Bahman
Guest
It does limit. There is one future which God is aware of it. Future cannot be changed because otherwise it cannot be knowable. The fact that future cannot be changed show that God cannot have free will.
B
Bahman
Guest
Jesus has future and he is God.
- Status