How is free will possible when God knows every "move" we'll ever take?

[JDaniel]

I don’t know what’s so difficult to understand about my argument, but I’ll try to explain it a bit more.

1 God has complete foreknowledge of the future
2 Assumption: God knows (with 100% certainty) that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
3 That means that it is true now that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.

It is at this point that your argument breaks down, in my opinion, Belorg. God, as has been virtually always said, is “outside of ‘time.’” He sees activity in a fraction of a moment: its beginning and its end virtually simultaneously. He doesn’t see the conclusion of today’s actions tomorrow, and simply know what we will do. (There can be no “back there” or “up ahead] there” for an Infinite.)

The Now, as regards ‘time,’ is that which separates, yet (almost) joins past and future. It is the external (outer) wall (a “wall” without thickness) of the continuum of the past with the outer wall of the continuum called the future. Your argument seems to mix exigencies from very different worlds. (If this does not make sense to you, please allow me to explain.)

God bless,
jd

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

I don’t know what’s so difficult to understand about my argument, but I’ll try to explain it a bit more.

1 God has complete foreknowledge of the future
2 Assumption: God knows (with 100% certainty) that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
3 That means that it is true now that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
4 God is omnipotent, so He can communicate all truths.
5 “I’ll freely choose to have a beer tomorrow” is a truth. (from 3)
6 God tells me today that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
7 I want to prove God wrong so I refuse to have a beer tomorrow.
now 7 contradicts 3.
Conclusion : libertarian Free Will is incompatible with complete foreknowledge.

Now, you may not agree with this argument, or there may even be flaws in it, but it is definitely not circular.

Hello belrog, good to see you again. That debate we had about PAB and existence outside of it is still making me brainstorm. May I inquire something about your premises in this topic.

Is this not a straw man? You presuppose that God’s foreknowledge of your actions tomorrow are knowable outside of Himself, though you might have an interaction in premise 6 between God and creature you nevertheless cannot know for certain what was told to you is what was foreknown to happen to begin with. In other words, what does happen is what was foreknown all along. Premise 7 is what was foreknown to happen, LFW is still intact.

1. God has complete foreknowledge of the future
2. God tells me today that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
3. I want to prove God wrong so I refuse to have a beer tomorrow.
4. Refusing to have a beer tomorrow is what was foreknown.

Now, in my opinion, premise 2 will never happen when there will be lying from God or omission of truth. But in the case of extreme hypotheticals, I’m only entertaining these premises for argument’s sake.

 

[justmyconcerns]

I think this goes in hand with saying a prayer for a person’s soul if his state is questionable. Maybe this person died years ago, but his\her grandchildren today are praying for this person, God knows this is going to happen and the grandchildren decided to do it in their own free will which allowed the person in the past to make amends with God in that last minute. There is no time limit or limit of scenario’s for God who is infinite, then it’s possible for us to have free will and he knows our next move, I guess you could say he is hoping we make the right move up to the time we die so he knows we really want to be with him. Thus why there is a hell and a heaven.

 

[belorg]

Hello belrog, good to see you again.

Likewise, Trevor

That debate we had about PAB and existence outside of it is still making me brainstorm

.

Great. Brainstorming is one of my favourite things too.

May I inquire something about your premises in this topic.

Sure

Is this not a straw man? You presuppose that God’s foreknowledge of your actions tomorrow are knowable outside of Himself, though you might have an interaction in premise 6 between God and creature you nevertheless cannot know for certain what was told to you is what was foreknown to happen to begin with. In other words, what does happen is what was foreknown all along. Premise 7 is what was foreknown to happen, LFW is still intact.

No, I cannot be certain that what was told to me is what was foreknown to happen to begin with, but keep in mind that I am talking about logical possibilities.
If God knows the future, then God knows what I will do tomorrow and God can tell me the truth, and IF he does so, the contradiction becomes apparent.
None of this has to actually happen. The fact that it is a possibility means that LFW and foreknowledge are incompatible.

1. God has complete foreknowledge of the future
2. God tells me today that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
3. I want to prove God wrong so I refuse to have a beer tomorrow.
4. Refusing to have a beer tomorrow is what was foreknown.

That would be God tricking me to do what he foresaw me doing. The point is that if I have LFW, I must have the possibility to do the opposite of what He tells me, no matter what he tells me. So, if he tells me the truth, LFW requires that I can do the opposite. Which means that LFW entails that I can do something that I cannot do, which is a clear contradiction.

Now, in my opinion, premise 2 will never happen when there will be lying from God or omission of truth. But in the case of extreme hypotheticals, I’m only entertaining these premises for argument’s sake.

It does not matter whether any of these things **will **ever happen, it only matter that these things can happen. If they can happen, then LFW is incompatible with perfect foreknowledge.

Keep on brainstrorming , Trevor.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

No, I cannot be certain that what was told to me is what was foreknown to happen to begin with, but keep in mind that I am talking about logical possibilities.
If God knows the future, then God knows what I will do tomorrow and God can tell me the truth, and IF he does so, the contradiction becomes apparent.
None of this has to actually happen. The fact that it is a possibility means that LFW and foreknowledge are incompatible.

That would be God tricking me to do what he foresaw me doing. The point is that if I have LFW, I must have the possibility to do the opposite of what He tells me, no matter what he tells me. So, if he tells me the truth, LFW requires that I can do the opposite. Which means that LFW entails that I can do something that I cannot do, which is a clear contradiction.

It does not matter whether any of these things **will **ever happen, it only matter that these things can happen. If they can happen, then LFW is incompatible with perfect foreknowledge.

I see where your coming from now. I may have a response at the moment, but like to stew on it throughout the day.

 

[Equites_Christi]

I don’t think that God is going to tell you a lie. If He tells you that you are going to choose to have a beer tomorrow, it is because, one way or another, you are.

Christ told Peter:
[BIBLEDRB]John 13:38
Wilt thou lay down thy life for me? Amen, amen I say to thee, the cock shall not crow, till thou deny me thrice John 13:38[/BIBLEDRB]

I’m sure Peter was determined at that point not to do so. But lo and behold he did, even though it was not physically impossible for him to choose otherwise. He simply did.

Most of the people who have an issue with this seem to think that the ability to choose is the ability to surprise God. It is not.

 

[MarkInOregon]

I do not need help, I didn’t insult you, I didn’t tell you what you believe and I am not, in this case, searching for anything. I post on forums to exchange views.

You post something from the CE and you interpret what it says in a way that supports your position. I interpret it in another way, which supports mine.

This whole argument depends on the definition people have of “omniscient” which means making assumptions no one can ever prove. What it comes down to, in fact, is how we perceive God. We differ.

Omniscient: 1. Having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight 2. possessed of universal or complete knowledge.

I gather you chose some other definition for the word?

 

[tonyrey]

You mean that someone knowing what’s in your mind does not affect what’s in your mind?
That’s true, but my argument does not entail that God’s knowledge changes anything in your or my mind.

The OP implies that God’s knowledge excludes free will. How would it do that if it does not compel us to make our decisions - or prevent us from making them?

 

[tonyrey]

I don’t know what’s so difficult to understand about my argument, but I’ll try to explain it a bit more.

1 God has complete foreknowledge of the future
2 Assumption: God knows (with 100% certainty) that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
3 That means that it is true now that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
4 God is omnipotent, so He can communicate all truths.
5 “I’ll freely choose to have a beer tomorrow” is a truth. (from 3)
6 God tells me today that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
7 I want to prove God wrong so I refuse to have a beer tomorrow.
now 7 contradicts 3.
Conclusion : libertarian Free Will is incompatible with complete foreknowledge.

Now, you may not agree with this argument, or there may even be flaws in it, but it is definitely not circular.

The flaw is that you are not compelled to prove that God is wrong… You choose to do so and the fact that it fulfils God’s statement is true only if your **desire **or **decision **is compelled - which remains to be proved.

 

[Kismetji]

Is free will a type of probability?

It seems this question is implicit a lot of the time in terms of discussions of this sort.

For me things just happen - no one, not even God can anticipate them. However, maybe he foreordains them.

 

[passer_by]

I don’t know what’s so difficult to understand about my argument, but I’ll try to explain it a bit more.

1 God has complete foreknowledge of the future
2 Assumption: God knows (with 100% certainty) that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
3 That means that it is true now that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
4 God is omnipotent, so He can communicate all truths.
5 “I’ll freely choose to have a beer tomorrow” is a truth. (from 3)
6 God tells me today that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
7 I want to prove God wrong so I refuse to have a beer tomorrow.
now 7 contradicts 3.
Conclusion : libertarian Free Will is incompatible with complete foreknowledge.

Now, you may not agree with this argument, or there may even be flaws in it, but it is definitely not circular.

Oh I see. This is rather simple. So error is this.

In your premise (2), the assumed truth is that “you will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow”

But the truth you refer to contradicting is not the same truth. This new truth is of the form “God knows that if he told you he knows you will have a beer tomorrow, then you will FREELY have a beer tomorrow”.

So your assumption in (2) should be

(2) God knows (with 100% certainty) that if God told you he knows you will have a beer tomorrow, then you will FREELY have a beer tomorrow

Now from this you see that your proposition (7) is meaningless. You are postulating something that contradicts your own assumption which renders your whole argument useless.

Do you see the error now? You made an assumption that did not deal with the situation you dealt with in (6) to (7). That is not a proper form of a deductive argument.

It is more than possible that if God knows that you won’t choose to drink a beer if he told you so, depending on the outcome he wants you to freely choose, he will take the necessary action that will bring about a certain truth and not the other. So there is no contradiction.

If he wants you to drink a beer, he will not tell you about it. If he wants you to drink a beer, he will tell you about it. In both cases, you would have been free but God would have actualized two different truths. But in any case, quiet ironically, your example highlights how God brings about free actions while having foreknowledge not only of what will happen but of what might happen.

 

[belorg]

Oh I see. This is rather simple. So error is this.

In your premise (2), the assumed truth is that “you will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow”

But the truth you refer to contradicting is not the same truth. This new truth is of the form “God knows that if he told you he knows you will have a beer tomorrow, then you will FREELY have a beer tomorrow”.

It is still true that I wil have a beer tomorrow,so your objction isn’t really relevant.

Let’s try it.

1 God has complete foreknowledge of the future
2 Assumption: God knows (with 100% certainty) that if he tells you he knows you will have a beer tomorrow, then you will FREELY have a beer tomorrow .
3 That means that it is true now that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
4 God is omnipotent, so He can communicate all truths.
5 “I’ll freely choose to have a beer tomorrow” is a truth. (from 3)
6 God tells me today that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
7 I want to prove God wrong so I refuse to have a beer tomorrow.
now 7 contradicts 3.
Conclusion : libertarian Free Will is incompatible with complete foreknowledge.

Nothing really chnages.

(2) God knows (with 100% certainty) that if God told you he knows you will have a beer tomorrow, then you will FREELY have a beer tomorrow

That would be true under Molinism, which I thought we agreed we wouldn’t be discussing for the time being.I have already expressed my problems with Molinism.

We are discussing pure forekniowledge here, that is, knowledge about future factuals, not about counterfactuals.

Now from this you see that your proposition (7) is meaningless. You are postulating something that contradicts your own assumption which renders your whole argument useless.

You should read my argument better.

Do you see the error now? You made an assumption that did not deal with the situation you dealt with in (6) to (7). That is not a proper form of a deductive argument.

Well, I did not have the time for a perfect deductive argument, but the conclusion still stands.

It is more than possible that if God knows that you won’t choose to drink a beer if he told you so, depending on the outcome he wants you to freely choose, he will take the **necessary action that will bring about a certain truth **and not the other. So there is no contradiction.

God bringing about a necessary action that will bring about a certain truth entails compatibilism, and it also entails Molinism, which is not what we are discussing here.

If he wants you to drink a beer, he will not tell you about it. If he wants you to drink a beer, he will tell you about it. In both cases, you would have been free but God would have actualized two different truths.

Again: Molinism.

But in any case, quiet ironically, your example highlights how God brings about free actions while having foreknowledge not only of what will happen but of what might happen.

That’s the claim of Molinism, Passer, which is not what we are discussing here and which opnes the door for the objections I formulated against Molinism.
God ‘bringing about actions’ entails determinism, which would make my decisions free in a compatibilist sense, not in a libertarian sense.

 

[belorg]

The flaw is that you are not compelled to prove that God is wrong… You choose to do so and the fact that it fulfils God’s statement is true only if your **desire **or **decision **is compelled - which remains to be proved.

I do not have to prove this. Libertarian free will means you can freely choose between two possibilities. If your choice isn’t compelled, but nevertheless determined, you have compatibilist free will. I am not discussing that here (in fact I consider myself a compatibilst).
So nowhere have I implied that God’s foreknowledge compells you to make one choice over another. If you think that’s what I am arguing for, you are mistaken.

 

[belorg]

I don’t think that God is going to tell you a lie. If He tells you that you are going to choose to have a beer tomorrow, it is because, one way or another, you are.

Yes, so that means if I want to prove God wrong, I will somehow be prevented from doing so, which means I don’t have libertarian free will.

Christ told Peter:
[BIBLEDRB]John 13:38
Wilt thou lay down thy life for me? Amen, amen I say to thee, the cock shall not crow, till thou deny me thrice John 13:38[/BIBLEDRB]

Which is a perfect illustration of the fact that God sometimes does communicate prophecies.

I’m sure Peter was determined at that point not to do so. But lo and behold he did, even though it was not physically impossible for him to choose otherwise. He simply did.

He did something he did not want to do. Do you think this entails libertarian free will?

Most of the people who have an issue with this seem to think that the ability to choose is the ability to surprise God. It is not.

If God tells me something and I want to do just this opposite (which would be my free choice) and I somehow cannot do that which I freely chose, then my libertarian free will is violated.
Tt the ability to choose does seem to entail the ability to surprise God. after all.

 

[tonyrey]

I do not have to prove this. Libertarian free will means you can freely choose between two possibilities. If your choice isn’t compelled, but nevertheless determined, you have compatibilist free will. I am not discussing that here (in fact I consider myself a compatibilst).
So nowhere have I implied that God’s foreknowledge compels you to make one choice over another. If you think that’s what I am arguing for, you are mistaken.

"The belief in free will is not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence, provided you do not restrict the Providence to fulminating nothing but fatal degrees. If you allow him to provide possibilities as well as actualities to the universe, and to carry on his own thinking in those two categories just as we do ours, chances may be there, uncontrolled even by him, and the course of the universe be really ambiguous; and yet the end of all things may be just what he intended it to be from all eternity. An analogy will make the meaning of this clear. Suppose two men before a chessboard,–the one a novice, the other an expert player of the game. The expert intends to beat. But he cannot foresee exactly what any one actual move of his adversary may be. He knows, however, all the possible moves of the latter; and he knows in advance how to meet each of them by a move of his own which leads in the direction of victory. And the victory infallibly arrives, after no matter how devious a course, in the one predestined form of check-mate to the novice’s king.

Let now the novice stand for us finite free agents, and the expert for the infinite mind in which the universe lies. Suppose the latter to be thinking out his universe before he actually creates it. Suppose him to say, I will lead things to a certain end, but I will not now decide on all the steps thereto. At various points, ambiguous possibilities shall be left open, either of which, at a given instant, may become actual. But whichever branch of these bifurcations becomes real, I know what I shall do at the next bifurcation to keep things from drifting away from the final result I intend."

**The creator’s plan of the universe would thus be left blank as to many of its actual details, but all possibilities would be marked down. **The realization of some of these would be left absolutely to chance; that is, would only be determined when the moments of realization came. Other possibilities would be *contingently *determined; that is, their decision would have to wait till it was seen how the matters of absolute chance fell out. But the rest of the plan, including its final upshot, would be rigorously determined once for all. So the creator himself would not need to know all the details of actuality until they came; and at any time his own view of the world would be a view partly of facts and partly of possibilities, exactly as ours is now. Of one thing, however, he might be certain; and that is that his world was safe, and that no matter how much of it might zigzag he could surely bring it home at last."

des.emory.edu/mfp/JamesDilemmaOfDeterminism.html

 

[passer_by]

It is still true that I wil have a beer tomorrow,so your objction isn’t really relevant.

Let’s try it.

1 God has complete foreknowledge of the future
2 Assumption: God knows (with 100% certainty) that if he tells you he knows you will have a beer tomorrow, then you will FREELY have a beer tomorrow .
3 That means that it is true now that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
4 God is omnipotent, so He can communicate all truths.
5 “I’ll freely choose to have a beer tomorrow” is a truth. (from 3)
6 God tells me today that I will freely choose to have a beer tomorrow.
7 I want to prove God wrong so I refuse to have a beer tomorrow.
now 7 contradicts 3.
Conclusion : libertarian Free Will is incompatible with complete foreknowledge.

Nothing really chnages.

You are absolutely right that nothing changes. I just thought you would see the meaninglessness of your argument now.

Because if (2) were true, then if God wants to bring about the truth, he simply won’t tell you that you will drink wine. But by telling you, he is obviously going to actualize a different truth i.e. you not drinking wine.

So your argument in a sense has no deductive conclusion. You’ve more or less stated how foreknowledge and free will is used by God.

Do you see what I mean?

In terms of logic, your conclusion is also not guaranteed. 7 might be true because simply your assumption was false. In this case it is.

Your assumption that such a truth existed of you drinking wine afterwards was false. So you made a false assumption and then you proved that your assumption was wrong. It does not unfortunately lead to your conclusion, right? It’s like saying Science tells me the sun rises from the West, it rose from the East so Science is false. But the fact is, it could be your hypothesis that was false. Same here.

I am not sure how much you understand this though because you seem to be pretty convinced already that you know you are right.

 

[benedictus2]

As much as I know I have free will a part of me wonders how this is possible if God knows every* “move” *I’ll make in life and my ultimate destiny.At times I’ve thought that even though he gives us free will he knows what we ultimately will do however knowing what that fate is,is as trivial as asking God what his favorite ice cream flavour is (-_-…strange comparision I know but it’s out of me being low on ideas as to what to pick as a metaphor).I know that some people dont think it’s not a trivial matter but maybe I’m saying that because I’d rather not know my ultimate fate because it might cause some like predestination paradox.It’s not like I’m stating this like I have something againest it but I’m asking it to find out how it’s possible since we have free will (a part of me saying it is satisfiyingly possible).I’d appreciate if any one could replies with an explanation and/or thought on this thank you very much so for your time.

How does God’s knowledge of every move we will make limit free will?

 

[passer_by]

If God tells me something and I want to do just this opposite (which would be my free choice) and I somehow cannot do that which I freely chose, then my libertarian free will is violated.
Tt the ability to choose does seem to entail the ability to surprise God. after all.

And your mistake lies here. You are assuming that God will tell you something that you will freely choose not to do.

If God wants to bring about something, he will simply not tell you about it or tell you about it depending on which outcome he wants. In both cases YOU WILL BE FREE.

Its like this, I might know that if I tell John he won’t drink coffee, he will drink coffee because he loves proving me wrong. If I don’t tell him, he would have freely chosen not to drink coffee. So me telling him, and him drinking coffee does not mean that I didn’t have foreknowledge.

Like this is obvious stuff here and I am quiet surprised you are debating this.

I think implicitly you are already starting with the idea that Foreknowledge and Providence are contradictory. But that is what you are yet to prove.

 

[belorg]

You are absolutely right that nothing changes. I just thought you would see the meaninglessness of your argument now.

Because if (2) were true, then if God wants to bring about the truth, he simply won’t tell you that you will drink wine. But by telling you, he is obviously going to actualize a different truth i.e. you not drinking wine.

We are not talking about a future God ‘wants to bring about’. You are still assuming Molinism here. I am arguing against the compatibility of factual foreknowledge with libertarian free will, not against the possibility of counterfactual foreknowledge (aka as Middle Knowledge).
Factual foreknowledge means knowledge of future facts.
‘I will drink beer tomorrow’ , if known by God through pure or factual foreknowledge means that it is true that I will drink beer tomorrow but if he communicates this knowledge, I, as a free being, have the possibility to do exactly the opposite of the ‘truth’ God tells me, which means the ‘thruth’ God tells me isn’t a truth.
Sure God telling something would be part of my future, the problem is that God can decide to tell me I will drink beer, or God can decide to tell me I won’t drink beer and know the outcome in advance, but he cannot tell me the truth and know the outcome in advance, because there is always a chance, provided LFW is true, that I will do something else.

In terms of logic, your conclusion is also not guaranteed. 7 might be true because simply your assumption was false. In this case it is.

Which assumption?

Your assumption that such a truth existed of you drinking wine afterwards was false.

If God tells me I will drink beer, I will definitely drink wine. So, how is my assumption false?

It does not unfortunately lead to your conclusion, right? It’s like saying Science tells me the sun rises from the West, it rose from the East so Science is false. But the fact is, it could be your hypothesis that was false. Same here.

Which hypothesis? I did not make an hypothesis.

I am not sure how much you understand this though because you seem to be pretty convinced already that you know you are right.

Now, I am not convinced I know that I am right. But it will take some more than your objection here to show I am wrong.

 

[belorg]

And your mistake lies here. You are assuming that God will tell you something that you will freely choose not to do.

No, I am assuming no such thing. I am assuming that God knows and therefore can tell the truth, but that if ‘I will drink beer is a truth’ , I cannot choose not to drink beer, so I am not free in the libertarian sense

If God wants to bring about something, he will simply not tell you about it or tell you about it depending on which outcome he wants. In both cases YOU WILL BE FREE.

That’s ,again, assuming Molinism. If you want to continue discussing Molinism, then just say so, but try not to mess up things.

Its like this, I might know that if I tell John he won’t drink coffee, he will drink coffee because he loves proving me wrong.

Yes, through Middle Knowledge, you might know this.

If I don’t tell him, he would have freely chosen not to drink coffee. So me telling him, and him drinking coffee does not mean that I didn’t have foreknowledge.

Like this is obvious stuff here and I am quite surprised you are debating this.

I debated Middel Knowledge on a totally different basis, and you were the one claiming that Middle Knowledge isn’t essential to your views. But it seems it is, because you keep bringing it up.

I think implicitly you are already starting with the idea that Foreknowledge and Providence are contradictory. But that is what you are yet to prove.

I am open to all objections, provided they stay on topic and do not mess things up.