R
ReapReason
Guest
It makes perfect sense. If there is no content, then there is no content to be known.
- Status
M
ManRay
Guest
This reminds of that time when Sally Whallenhaifer smacked Kyle Greenberg upside the head with a half eaten salami sammich.
B
Bradski
Guest
You’re saying that I cannot change a choice in the past. That is, I cannot change a decision I have already made. Free will doesn’t enable me to change that which has already occurred. Free will doesn’t exist in relation to decisions that I have already made.
God knows what I will be doing tomorrow. The future is there before Him. He knows, in effect, the decisions that I have already made. Free will doesn’t exist in relation to decisions that I have already made.
R
ReapReason
Guest
Thats not exactly what i said; but yes, you cannot change the past. However; despite not being able to change the choices of the past, you still made those choices freely.
Yet you still made those choices freely which are now in the past.
From his relative perspective outside of time.
Yet you still made those choices freely, choices which are for God already actual given his relative/timeless perspective.
Do you have any more mind games?
B
Bradski
Guest
Nah. I can’t put my argument any plainer so I think I’m done. Anyway, your post number freaked me out.
R
ReapReason
Guest
Goodbye.
N
nuntym
Guest
+JMJ+
sigh For those who think there is no such thing as free will: do you still sincerely say “thank you” to anyone?
sigh For those who think there is no such thing as free will: do you still sincerely say “thank you” to anyone?
S
Sair
Guest
Surely the sincerest ‘thank you’ is the one prompted by the feeling of gratitude? How is that a completely free choice? I might thank someone because I want to, but why do I want to? Because I feel grateful, and that isn’t necessarily something over which I have conscious control.
S
Sair
Guest
You’re assuming that God is the creator of the universe. What is the basis for that assumption? What, indeed, is the basis for any assumption or even supposition about God, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever?
If God is just observing what happens in the present and does not have any foreknowledge, then that’s a whole different argument - we’re all capable of watching things over which we have no direct influence. The God of Classical Theism is claimed to know not only everything that has been and is now, but everything that will be. That being the case - even if the means by which God does this is to hover outside time and observe everything happening as if in the here and now - how could we possibly have any functional freedom of choice at all, to do anything differently from what God already knows we will do, indeed can see us doing? If anything happened differently to the way God already knows and sees that it will happen, that would introduce the possibility that God could be wrong or mistaken, and I don’t think you or any other committed theist would admit of that possibility. If the future (what is ‘future’ from our perspective) already exists, such that God may simply observe it, then the future is fixed - forget physical determinism; what you have here is ontological determinism, in that everything exists and happens all at once, from the perspective of an extratemporal being.
And by the way, do you have any comments regarding the operation of consciousness as it relates to the passage of time? I’m sure there’s a whole new thread to be made on that subject…
H
harinanga101
Guest
God knows what we will do, yes, but again, as so many have reiterated already here, this doesn’t compromise our free will. Our future that God sees is precisely the fruit of our free will, and the fact that it can’t be changed only goes to show how God has the greatest respect for this free will of ours. In other words, God knows what will happen to us in the future because we were the ones that made it happen, and although at times the end result can be disappointing for Him, He doesn’t change it because that is how great his reverence is for our freedom.
R
ReapReason
Guest
In-order for God to know something, there has to be content. It is irrelevant that you won’t do anything different from what God knows you will do since that doesn’t change the fact that we form the content that God has knowledge of. Therefore Gods knowledge of future events does not have any implications for our freewill; since his knowledge is not the cause. It is no more relevant that we cannot change Gods knowledge of the future than it is relevant to say that you can’t change the choices you made in the past. It still doesn’t change the fact to you freely made those choices.
He is able to know this content because he stands outside the flow of time. From his perspective he does not experience time in the same way that it functions for us; his knowledge is not linear. For God there is no past present and future; there is simply the universe in its entirety relative to his non-physical timelessness. All events are present to God in one single whole. But this is not the case for people in time; for us, the future is a potential, not an actuality. The future only exists relative to God. It does not exist relative to ourselves.
This has been explained over and over again, but you just keep ignoring the explanation.
S
Sair
Guest
I’m not ignoring the explanation at all - it’s just not that relevant to my case. It makes no difference to my particular argument that we ourselves form the content that is able to be known by God.
What is at issue with regard to the existence or otherwise of free will on our part is the knowability of our choices - choices that are, from our perspective, future choices.
Incidentally, this has been quite roundly ignored by those attempting to argue against the notion that God’s foreknowledge implies a lack of free will. Anything that is able to be known, in the sense of any being having certain knowledge of a fact, already is in some sense, even if we, as temporal beings, are as yet unaware of any such facts.
There can be no freedom of will or freedom of choice if every choice we make is already known by a being that has access to an existing reality, even if that is a reality of which we are as yet unaware. If it can be known (that is, comprehended as a certainty rather than merely guessed at or hypothesised), it is fixed.
This is why I have expressed some confusion regarding the difference between divine foreknowledge and physical determinism - according to the latter, all our choices are determined by prior events, but there is no-one to know what they will be, because our predictive ability cannot yet account for all prevailing circumstances. According to the former, all our choices are known already, and known - from a temporal perspective - before they are made. It is claimed by opponents of physicalism that free will cannot exist if physical determinism is the case; but my argument all along has been that there is even less room for free will - in other words, the ability to act differently to how God already knows we will act - under the presumption of divine foreknowledge, however you have to manipulate the concept of time in order to ascribe such foreknowledge to God.
R
ReapReason
Guest
If we form the content that is able to be known by God, then Gods foreknowledge is not the cause of that content. It is not what determines it. Therefore it is useless to complain about an apparent contradiction between Gods foreknowledge and our free choices, since if our freedom is effected, it is not because God knows the future.
The future does not exist as an actual thing relative to our physical state. But what i have been saying is that all time and space, what ever that might contain, does exist relative to Gods timeless non-physical nature and his ontological perspective.
No it hasn’t been ignored.
The future does not exist as an actual thing relative to our physical state. This has not been argued by anyone here. What is being argued however, is that all time and space, what ever that might contain, exists relatively in relation to Gods timeless non-physical nature, as an actual thing.
That is false. He is able to know this content because he stands outside the flow of time. From his perspective he does not experience time in the same way that it functions for us; his knowledge is not linear. For God there is no past present and future; there is simply the universe in its entirety relative to his non-physical timelessness. All events are present to God in one single whole. But this is not the case for people in time; for us, the future is a true potential, not an actuality. The future only exists relative to God. It does not exist relative to ourselves.
There would only be a contradiction if we say that the future is not relative and instead say that it is a “temporal” absolute in so far as it exists in respect of its self and exists equally and fully actual with the present and past at the same time without any change.
But without change or potentiality to distinguish between events there would be no rational reason to make a distinction between past present and future in the first place. It would be a purely spatial object. This is evidently not the universe we know.
Nobody is arguing that the future exists in this sense. But i am arguing that it has a relative existence in relation to the existence of Gods nature and knowledge.
Its irrelevant that Gods knowledge cannot be changed. You assume that we should have the ability to change what God knows in-order to be free. But in-order for God to know something, there has to be content. It is irrelevant that you won’t do anything different from what God knows you will do since that doesn’t change the fact that in the first place we ourselves form the content that God has knowledge of. Thus God simply knows what we freely choose. Therefore Gods knowledge of future events does not have any implications for our freewill; since his knowledge is not the cause. It is no more relevant that we cannot change Gods knowledge of the future than it is relevant to say that you can’t change the choices you made in the past. It still doesn’t change the fact to you freely made those choices.
The comparison of Gods foreknowledge with physical determinism is obviously fallacious once you are willing to take these factors in to account.
Nobody is manipulating anything. I have simply explained how it is possible for God to know all time-states that will ever come to be without his knowledge being the determining cause of those time-states. If God is not the determining cause of those time states, then your argument falls apart.
Foreknowledge is evidently not determinism.
R
ReapReason
Guest
It has not been argued by anyone here that the future exists** equally** with the present. What is being argued however, is that all time and space, what ever that might contain, exists relatively in relation to Gods timeless non-physical nature, as an actual thing.
T
tonyrey
Guest
Welcome to the forum! 
N
nuntym
Guest
+JMJ+
In other words, gratitude is an acknowledgement that there is such a thing as free will.
sigh Totally missing the point. Gratitude is the acknowledgement that someone did something good for you. And let me reiterate that again: someone. You may be grateful that a soda machine gave you a cup of soda, but that is a whole different level from saying “thank you” to a waiter who gives you a glass of soda without spilling and refilling your drink everytime it goes low. Why? Because you KNOW that the waiter could have done it shabbily ---- careless pouring, not caring if you run out of soda, or whatever ---- IF HE CHOSE to.
In other words, gratitude is an acknowledgement that there is such a thing as free will.
N
norain
Guest
There is this Will that governs us. We are free in the sense that we can reject that will, except to do so is actually irrational behavior, for it is the rejection of reason.
Non-sentients do not have such a complex decision-making intellect.
One cannot take a path separate from God’s and manage a will separate from his. Like a multiple-choice test, there is only one set of correct answers. To get them all is to be one with God is how I see it.
Non-sentients do not have such a complex decision-making intellect.
One cannot take a path separate from God’s and manage a will separate from his. Like a multiple-choice test, there is only one set of correct answers. To get them all is to be one with God is how I see it.
I
Ion
Guest
To realy understand what free will is you have to fast a day; the best would be only water, but depending on health you can try only vegetables, vegetables + dairy etc.
To choose a ball from a set it’s probabilities, etc
To choose a ball from a set it’s probabilities, etc
S
Sair
Guest
Hence we respond to the circumstance of a being we recognise as having the ability to appreciate our gratitude. As you indicate here, the feeling of gratitude is not a voluntary response, but one that arises from circumstances favourable to our needs and desires at any given time; and it seems the observation that one like us brought about such circumstances, that being the case, is also beyond our conscious control. The expression of gratitude to someone capable of appreciating it might feel like a completely voluntary action, but if you break it down to its component parts, anything we might consider to be ‘free will’ seems to take a back seat.
R
ReapReason
Guest
That we have no choice but to feel emotions, has nothing to do with whether we are free to act, or not act on those emotions. I can have a feeling of gratitude and yet simply refuse to show gratitude, just to show you that I have freewill.
- Status