How God could have free will if he is omniscient?

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CHRISTINE77 said:
Why? How does having foreknowledge make one incapable of changing their future?
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Because foreknowledge by definition is about future event which should happen. You can however argue that there is no foreknowledge hence Jesus could have free will.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
We all have foreknowledge of our own deaths, but that doesn’t stop most of us acting like there is no tomorrow.
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That is not foreknowledge. It is fact or knowledge.
CHRISTINE77 said:
By the same token, if someone does not have foreknowledge can they change their fate?
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How you can change your fate if you don’t know what it is.
CHRISTINE77 said:
Is foreknowledge the magic bean that makes a person incapable of changing their fate?
That just seems silly.
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That doesn’t seems silly. You need to pick up one option, free will or foreknowledge?
 
Bahman,

You say to Christine77:

That doesn’t seems silly. You need to pick up one option, free will or foreknowledge?

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

God even has the free will to NOT have foreknowledge.

Did you think of that?

I’ll bet He could not know the future if He didn’t want to!

GG
 
Bahman said:
That is not foreknowledge. It is fact or knowledge.?
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Knowledge is the same as foreknowledge. We know in advance we are going to die. Agreed?
Bahman said:
How you can change your fate if you don’t know what it is.
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Your fate is the same, whether you have foreknowledge of it or not. God knows the instant you are going to die. Whether you know when or not has nothing to do with your fate. You can TRY to change your fate.
Bahman said:
That doesn’t seems silly. You need to pick up one option, free will or foreknowledge?
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You can have free will and foreknowledge. Your premise is wrong.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Here’s another example of your faulty logic.

A person knows (has foreknowledge) they have a kind of cancer that will ultimately lead to their death. Do they accept their fate, or do they try do to anything in their power to avoid death?

Many would freely choose to try to stop their fate, although they know they cannot. Others would freely choose to accept their fate. The outcome and the foreknowledge is the same in both cases.

So people can freely choose to do what they want, even when they have foreknowledge.

Jesus could have done otherwise. He CHOSE not to.👍
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You are mixing things. We are interested in a form of knowledge in future that could have conflict with free will.
 
GodsGrace154 said:
Bahman,

You say to Christine77:

That doesn’t seems silly. You need to pick up one option, free will or foreknowledge?

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

God even has the free will to NOT have foreknowledge.

Did you think of that?

I’ll bet He could not know the future if He didn’t want to!

GG
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That is not what I meant. I don’t think that God has free will to not have foreknowledge.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Knowledge is the same as foreknowledge. We know in advance we are going to die. Agreed?..
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That is only a fact. The main question is whether we know when and how we are going to die. Moreover we are interested in any sort of knowledge of future that could have conflict with free will.
 
Bahman said:
That is not what I meant. I don’t think that God has free will to not have foreknowledge.
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By your above statement, you’re saying that there is a being greater than God.

If God does NOT have the free will to NOT have foreknowledge, it means He’s depending on a different being than Himself to either give him free will or not and to either give him foreknowledge or not.

IOW, God gave us free will or He did not give us free will
So if God could Not have the opportunity to NOT know the future, what gave him this opportunity? Was it a different being? If HE gave HIMSELF this opportunity because He is the Original Cause - then it means He has free will to do so…

This is getting more and more mixed up.

In the end, you just have to accept what you can’t understand because it’s un-understandable.

GG
 
Freedom of choice or free will describes an individual’s opportunity and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties.

Proposition:
If one is ignorant of no thing then one has not free will.
Contrapositive:
If one has free will then one is not ignorant of some things.

Inference:
As one increases in knowledge, one also decreases in free will.
Therefore the infant is freer than the adolescent who is freer than the adult.

But:
Freedom of choice is not diminished if one constrains oneself, that is achieves moral freedom.
Moral freedom requires the knowledge of the principles of living a good life, that is a life well lived.
Therefore, an increase in knowledge enhances free will rather than diminishes free will.
 
Bahman said:
That is only a fact. The main question is whether we know when and how we are going to die. Moreover we are interested in any sort of knowledge of future that could have conflict with free will.
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Supposing you were a criminal assigned to the death penalty. You know the exact minute of your execution. You have the free will to accept your death calmly or go to it screaming bloody murder. That is your choice.
 
o_mlly said:
Freedom of choice or free will describes an individual’s opportunity and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties.

Proposition:
If one is ignorant of no thing then one has not free will.
Contrapositive:
If one has free will then one is not ignorant of some things.

Inference:
As one increases in knowledge, one also decreases in free will.
Therefore the infant is freer than the adolescent who is freer than the adult.

But:
Freedom of choice is not diminished if one constrains oneself, that is achieves moral freedom.
Moral freedom requires the knowledge of the principles of living a good life, that is a life well lived.
Therefore, an increase in knowledge enhances free will rather than diminishes free will.
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Good logic! Bahman thinks he is being logical but he is actually just stubborn. 😉
 
Bahman said:
Free will is ability to freely choose one option in a situation, which is defined with at least two options. God however is omniscient which means that he knows the actions he has to perform in future. This leaves no room for free will.
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If, at the moment of performance, God has access to a decision that God previously made, then God doesn’t need to exercise free will at the moment of performance. However, if God did make a decision, then God did exercise free will at some previous time.

For example, you ask God, “What is your favorite whole number from zero to one hundred?”

God reports an answer to you, not making the choice at the moment of reporting, but at some previous time making the choice. Given that God chose a favorite whole number from zero to one hundred, it was God who made the choice. God must have exercised free will.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
How am I mixed up? You are clearly the mixed up one.
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You are mixing things up. As I mentioned you need a situation in which free will is needed to choose one option, at the same time you have foreknowledge of the situation that what you decide in advance.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Supposing you were a criminal assigned to the death penalty. You know the exact minute of your execution. You have the free will to accept your death calmly or go to it screaming bloody murder. That is your choice.
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Please read post #155.
 
o_mlly said:
Freedom of choice or free will describes an individual’s opportunity and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties.

Proposition:
If one is ignorant of no thing then one has not free will.
Contrapositive:
If one has free will then one is not ignorant of some things.

Inference:
As one increases in knowledge, one also decreases in free will.
Therefore the infant is freer than the adolescent who is freer than the adult.

But:
Freedom of choice is not diminished if one constrains oneself, that is achieves moral freedom.
Moral freedom requires the knowledge of the principles of living a good life, that is a life well lived.
Therefore, an increase in knowledge enhances free will rather than diminishes free will.
Click to expand...
This is off topic. The main idea is about the tension between foreknowledge and free will. How foreknowledge could be true if you are free to do opposite of foreknowledge and how you could be free if foreknowledge dictate you what to do??
 
PseuTonym said:
If, at the moment of performance, God has access to a decision that God previously made, then God doesn’t need to exercise free will at the moment of performance. However, if God did make a decision, then God did exercise free will at some previous time.

For example, you ask God, “What is your favorite whole number from zero to one hundred?”

God reports an answer to you, not making the choice at the moment of reporting, but at some previous time making the choice. Given that God chose a favorite whole number from zero to one hundred, it was God who made the choice. God must have exercised free will.
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Does God know what number he choose in advance? Sure. The question is how he could choose a number freely?
 
Bahman said:
Please read post #155.
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Read it. The guy who is going to die has foreknowledge of his death and has options about how to face it. My point is that for every scenario we have options no matter how limited they are.

Why are you putting all these conditions on foreknowledge and free will? Because you want them to fit **your **theory. Not good science Bahman.
 
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