Question about Free Will

[Black_Angel_1]

I am a person who constantly seeks knowledge, In terms of philosophy and religion I look to both sides of the views.

But I have come into an interesting realization on the free will that Christians believe in.

My question is how you see free will?

So here it is:

God is all knowing, all powerful right? He knows the past, present and future right? He knows what you are going to do before you do it right?

So how can there be free will if God knows everything you do before you do it?

If you don’t pray and you go to hell, he already knew that before you were born.

So how can you say there is free will, with a being who knows every action you will make because that is pretty much the definition of omniscience?

How can you say that God already has everything planned out for each one of us? That each person already has a predetermined destiny?

Like this little conundrum.

You wanna fight destiny right? But how do you know that your rebellion against destiny isn’t apart of your destiny?

 

[tonyrey]

You wanna fight destiny right? But how do you know that your rebellion against destiny isn’t apart of your destiny?

You wanna fight destiny right?
But how do you know that your rebellion against belief in God isn’t a part of your destiny?
How do you** know** your ideas are not worthless if you’re just a biological machine?

 

[mrhenrik]

Hats off to tonyrey who masterfully dodged the first 8 questions only to partially answer the somewhat related conundrum at the end.

 

[tonyrey]

Hats off to tonyrey who masterfully dodged the first 8 questions only to partially answer the somewhat related conundrum at the end.

I haven’t forgotten you! As soon as I have time I’ll answer your last post…
What you call a conundrum is the very foundation of all our knowledge. That should be the starting point; otherwise the rest is useless speculation…

 

[mrhenrik]

I would disagree, I would very much like to have a discussion on the first questions, but the last question (conundrum) is based on the recognition of the concept of destiny - which I’m not particularily excited about.

 

[fermat]

I am a person who constantly seeks knowledge, In terms of philosophy and religion I look to both sides of the views.

But I have come into an interesting realization on the free will that Christians believe in.

My question is how you see free will?

So here it is:

God is all knowing, all powerful right? He knows the past, present and future right? He knows what you are going to do before you do it right?

So how can there be free will if God knows everything you do before you do it?

If you don’t pray and you go to hell, he already knew that before you were born.

So how can you say there is free will, with a being who knows every action you will make because that is pretty much the definition of omniscience?

How can you say that God already has everything planned out for each one of us? That each person already has a predetermined destiny?

Like this little conundrum.

You wanna fight destiny right? But how do you know that your rebellion against destiny isn’t apart of your destiny?

This one comes up a lot.

You are making the incorrect assumption that because God knows what we are going to, He makes us do it.

I have a six year old who really likes blue berries. If I leave out a package of blue berries, I know he will eat them. This is such a known event in my house, that we have to move the blue berries to the garage fridge the second we get home.

So if I leave that blue berries out, I know he will eat them. But I don’t make him eat the blue berries. He has to make that decision all by himself.

Once you really understand this concept, you will understand that knowing an event will happen does not equate to making the event happen.

 

[Tom_Qualey]

**Hi, Black Angel,

Maybe I can help… **

I am a person who constantly seeks knowledge, In terms of philosophy and religion I look to both sides of the views.

But I have come into an interesting realization on the free will that Christians believe in.

My question is how you see free will?

So here it is:

God is all knowing, all powerful right?God is All Knowing adn All Powerful - and TOTALLY beyond our ability to understand His Actions He knows the past, present and future right? He knows what you are going to do before you do it right? And, that would be part of being All Knowing.

So how can there be free will if God knows everything you do before you do it?
**Ultimately, the HOW is an unanswerable question. But do not despair - we do not know the HOW to simple earthly questions: how are certain genes selected and other rejected at conception, how do some Pacific earthquakes produce killer tusamis and others don’t.We just do not know. But, we have a far better chance of answering EVERY question to which we do not have an answer then knowing the Mind of God when it comes to Free Will. **

If you don’t pray and you go to hell, he already knew that before you were born.

So how can you say there is free will, with a being who knows every action you will make because that is pretty much the definition of omniscience?
**There are several analogy type responses that can be given - but, they are really not answers in the sense of answering the question 2 + 2 =?

One such response is that it would be like a person sitting on top of hill watching two trains approach each other on a single track. The viewer did not put those trains on the same track - but, he knows they will collide on that track unless something else happens. God did not want ‘robots’ to worship Him - He wanted the free love of His Creatures. Now, why He wants this is totally in the Mind of God - after all He is perfectly fulfilled and in need of nothing - He did not need us.

I will have to come back…

God bless

Tom**

How can you say that God already has everything planned out for each one of us? That each person already has a predetermined destiny?

Like this little conundrum.

You wanna fight destiny right? But how do you know that your rebellion against destiny isn’t apart of your destiny?

 

[NewsTheMan]

There have been great answers so far!

I studied Free Will in my first year of Philosophy at Uni, and came to some alarming conclusions myself

Anyway, remember that God is the alpha and the omega, the past present and the future. But he doesn’t sit at the end of your life knowing everything with a smirk on his face saying I told you so! He sits with you now, watching you in the present!

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I am a person who constantly seeks knowledge, In terms of philosophy and religion I look to both sides of the views.

But I have come into an interesting realization on the free will that Christians believe in.

My question is how you see free will?

So here it is:

God is all knowing, all powerful right? He knows the past, present and future right? He knows what you are going to do before you do it right?

So how can there be free will if God knows everything you do before you do it?

If you don’t pray and you go to hell, he already knew that before you were born.

So how can you say there is free will, with a being who knows every action you will make because that is pretty much the definition of omniscience?

How can you say that God already has everything planned out for each one of us? That each person already has a predetermined destiny?

Like this little conundrum.

You wanna fight destiny right? But how do you know that your rebellion against destiny isn’t apart of your destiny?

there is no such thing as time, G-ds knowledge and your action are concurrent in the temporal sense. though we think in terms of time, it doesnt actually exist, this is becoming a common view in physics.

here is the physicist Julian Barbour explaining the idea that time doesnt.

youtube.com/watch_popup?v=WKsNraFxPwk#t=19

 

[mrhenrik]

This one comes up a lot.

You are making the incorrect assumption that because God knows what we are going to, He makes us do it.

Not necessarily. There’s a difference between not having a choice and being forced to make one. The christian god is said to know everything about everyone, in which case he would know what decision you would make in every situation imagineable, which would again imply that there was no decision being made.

I have a six year old who really likes blue berries. If I leave out a package of blue berries, I know he will eat them. This is such a known event in my house, that we have to move the blue berries to the garage fridge the second we get home.

So if I leave that blue berries out, I know he will eat them. But I don’t make him eat the blue berries. He has to make that decision all by himself.

You know he is likely to eat them, but you don’t know it for certain. He might be sick for instance, or he might’ve eaten so many blueberries yesterday he can’t even stand the sight of them. Most likely, your son will eat the blueberries - but there’s no guarantee.

Besides, this is one instance. Your god is, from what I understand, meant to know everything about everyone in a sense, so he would know what will happen to everyone - all the time. As a result, your future is already drawn out in the mind of God, and there is no way you can deviate from that. Therefore, you don’t have free will.

Once you really understand this concept, you will understand that knowing an event will happen does not equate to making the event happen.

No, but if that is the only event which could occur, you didn’t really have a choice. Your son has a choice with the blueberries. You assume, with good reason, that he will eat them. In most cases he will, but in a few cases he might not. He still has free will, he just likes blueberries.

 

[Tom_Qualey]

**Hi, Black Angel

Sorry about the interruption… now, let me continue…**

So how can there be free will if God knows everything you do before you do it?

**Because there are choices to be made and God does not force you into making any decisions - they are all up to you. Take a simple one - your decision to post this question - and my decision to respond. Prior to this post neither of us had ever communicated before - yet we have chosen to post… we have freely chosen to post. I do not know about you, but I was not compelled or forced to respond. And, you know what… God knew from all eternity about this thread and these posts… **

If you don’t pray and you go to hell, he already knew that before you were born.

Now, that shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, does it? But, the real issue is that if you do not do what God has commanded, why do you think you should be rewarded? Of course, your real question, at least as I appreciate it, is: why would God create a soul who will ultimately be in Hell for all eternity? Or, why did He create Lucifer and the angels who rebelled - and now are in Hell? The ultimate answer is: because God chose to do so - and for us creatures to try and go beyond this would be like the clay pot questioning the Potter for His design.

So how can you say there is free will, with a being who knows every action you will make because that is pretty much the definition of omniscience?

**There is Free Will because it exists. Break a criminal law and face a criminal judge … and tell the judge you don’t have a free will. Now, take a guess what that judge will say? Right. We freely choose the actions we will take - for good or evil - and even in human society, we acknowledge personal responsibility of the person taking the action. The worker who freely chooses to stay in bed on a work day - and then tells his boss that he chose not to come to work. There is a fair chance that the worker will nolonger have that job. In addition to Free Will there are also Consequences - and we can see this throughout all of human life. **

How can you say that God already has everything planned out for each one of us? That each person already has a predetermined destiny?

There is no other answer for this except that from all eternity, each of us was in the Mind of God. While He gave us Free Will He did not program our actions. We are free to use the Graces God gives us - or to reject them. And, there lies the mystery - not like the conundrum you present - we do not understand how this can be, but there is no contradiction.

Like this little conundrum.

You wanna fight destiny right? But how do you know that your rebellion against destiny isn’t apart of your destiny?

**Many people have fallen into the trap of trying to understand this - and, have lost peace of mind and for some, much more. This is not a easy question - but, it does have a simple answer: you were created by God for a purpose. You chose to fulfill your own purpose by aligning your will to the Will of God. And, how do you do this? Follow closely the commands given by Jesus Christ.

God bless

Tom**

 

[mrhenrik]

Tom Qualey,

society’s acceptance of the concept of free will can’t be used as evidence for it’s existence. Furthermore the topic of the thread seems to be that the concept of an omniscient god and the concept of free will cannot coexist - so proving the existence of free will would in a sense disprove the concept of an omniscient god.

I’d like to add though, that I can recall reading a scientific article disputing/disproving the concept of free will following the discovery that if we had powerful enough computers and knowledge of all parameters, we could calculate the movement of anything in any given situation.

 

[Tom_Qualey]

**Hi, Mrhenrik,

I think you have misread or misunderstood Fermet… Let me explain…**

Not necessarily. There’s a difference between not having a choice and being forced to make one. The christian god is said to know everything about everyone, in which case he would know what decision you would make in every situation imagineable, which would again imply that there was no decision being made.

**Yes, there is a difference - but only in theory, and this does not have anything to do with the question being posted. None of us a choice about IF we will die or not. We will all die…and that is a solid fact - and it does not matter if we freely choose to accept this or not. Funeral Homes are full of people who chose to ignore this reality - and, now all of the necessary decisions are left to surviving relatives. Another example on Free Will may be more to the point: you have freely chosen to post to CAF. Knowing about this site and freely posting a response, you have chosen to ignore proper form and not capitalize Christian God (a proper noun). Only you know about the decision behind this free act of will - but, because you are not acting in a vacuum, but interacting with others whom you may have offended by this action - your decision and now action has a consequence - and that being that I was offended by this action and have brought this to your attention. **

You know he is likely to eat them, but you don’t know it for certain. He might be sick for instance, or he might’ve eaten so many blueberries yesterday he can’t even stand the sight of them. Most likely, your son will eat the blueberries - but there’s no guarantee.

Besides, this is one instance. Your god is, from what I understand, meant to know everything about everyone in a sense, so he would know what will happen to everyone - all the time. As a result, your future is already drawn out in the mind of God, and there is no way you can deviate from that. Therefore, you don’t have free will.

**The “…in a sense…” knowledge God has of each one of us is a knowledge of our very being. From the tinyest paticle to our entire spirit - He knows us both for what we are but also what we may become if we but cooperate with His Grace. And, while the eternal home of your immortal soul is known to God - it is not known to you. If you are intersted in providing for your eternal happiness - then cooperation with God is the only answer. We can not even come close to doing this on our own. You are perfectly free to deviate from the Law of God - or to cooperate with His Grace and maintain the Path identified by Christ - that is Free Will.

If, as you say, there is no Free Will, then obviously you can not be held accountable for your actions. In crimial law, the truly insane are judged to be not responsible for their actions - but, if they are not truly insane, then they are totally accountable. This process of human law is full of problems and obvious contradictions that have existed since the very beginning of law - yet - responsibility has been one item that most societies have acknowledged. You have freely chosen to post - or, were you forced? Just because God knew not only about the content of the post - but everything else about the real you - does not mean He forced you to write your post.**

No, but if that is the only event which could occur, you didn’t really have a choice. Your son has a choice with the blueberries. You assume, with good reason, that he will eat them. In most cases he will, but in a few cases he might not. He still has free will, he just likes blueberries

**Your conclusion has me confused - my guess is that some has demonstrated their Free Will by either choosing to eat the berries or not eat the berries. But, considering that this does not quite flow from your previous paragraphs, I do not understand what it is you are saying.

God bless

Tom**

.

 

[mrhenrik]

First off, not to sound rude (honestly), but could you please use the quote function when replying? Keep the text you are referring to inside .quote] (without the dot) ./quote]-brackets, and it’s much easier for me to reply without having to copy-paste your text.

Anyhow, to the post:

Yes, there is a difference - but only in theory, and this does not have anything to do with the question being posted. None of us a choice about IF we will die or not. We will all die…and that is a solid fact - and it does not matter if we freely choose to accept this or not. Funeral Homes are full of people who chose to ignore this reality - and, now all of the necessary decisions are left to surviving relatives.

That seems unrelated. We don’t have a choice in the matter of hitting the ground after we jump off a cliff either - but how does this relate to the topic? I’m afraid I might need a bit more explanation on this one.

Another example on Free Will may be more to the point: you have freely chosen to post to CAF. Knowing about this site and freely posting a response, you have chosen to ignore proper form and not capitalize Christian God (a proper noun). Only you know about the decision behind this free act of will - but, because you are not acting in a vacuum, but interacting with others whom you may have offended by this action - your decision and now action has a consequence - and that being that I was offended by this action and have brought this to your attention.

I have chosen to post here, yes, but the omniscient god knew all along that I would and thus I really did not have a choice, just the illusion of it (given that this god exists, and disregarding the fact that science indicates might be no free will either).

Concerning me not capitalising the word god I’d prefer to keep that in a different topic so as not to de-rail this one completely, but basically it’s a recognition of the fact that there are multitudes of gods around (which is why I specify with “your” or “the christian”). The name “God”, which is a proper noun and shall indeed be capitalised, is for me very unspecific just Person would be an impractical name for a person. I would rather prefer to call him by his older name Yahweh which is a bit more specific, but “christian god” and “your god” serves it’s purpose too. “God” in that context is not a proper noun and thus does not need to be capitalised.

I understand that you might be offended by it, but I consider it the proper way of writing it and do sincerely hope you don’t take great offence.

The “…in a sense…” knowledge God has of each one of us is a knowledge of our very being. From the tinyest paticle to our entire spirit - He knows us both for what we are but also what we may become if we but cooperate with His Grace. And, while the eternal home of your immortal soul is known to God - it is not known to you. If you are intersted in providing for your eternal happiness - then cooperation with God is the only answer. We can not even come close to doing this on our own. You are perfectly free to deviate from the Law of God - or to cooperate with His Grace and maintain the Path identified by Christ - that is Free Will.

I am free to deviate from the Law of God or to cooperate with him - but still he is perfectly aware which of the two I will choose. Do I then have a choice, or just the illusion of one?

If, as you say, there is no Free Will, then obviously you can not be held accountable for your actions. In crimial law, the truly insane are judged to be not responsible for their actions - but, if they are not truly insane, then they are totally accountable. This process of human law is full of problems and obvious contradictions that have existed since the very beginning of law - yet - responsibility has been one item that most societies have acknowledged. You have freely chosen to post - or, were you forced? Just because God knew not only about the content of the post - but everything else about the real you - does not mean He forced you to write your post.

To a degree you cannot be held accountable for your actions. Combine that with the fact that there is really nothing set in stone concerning what is right and what is wrong (not considering religion). Still, a society cannot be sustainable unless something limits the number of murders, for instance (a society where more people are killed than born won’t last long), so there needs to be laws still.

I do agree, human laws are full of problems. The degree of these problems vary depending on the country in question, but yes - there are definitely improvements to be made and I do hope they will be.

If the omniscient god knew I would post this exact post, I could not have written anything else or anywhere else - and thus I did not make a choice, I just “followed my path” so to speak. It’s like having free will inside a corridor the width of your shoulders without any doors and having something push you forward - there’s not really any choices being made.

 

[mrhenrik]

(ran out of characters)

Your conclusion has me confused - my guess is that some has demonstrated their Free Will by either choosing to eat the berries or not eat the berries. But, considering that this does not quite flow from your previous paragraphs, I do not understand what it is you are saying.

I recognise that part of my post might be fairly confusing, yes. First off it wasn’t really meant as a conclusion: my trail of thought just came to that part of his post again as I ended mine.

What I meant was that since he did not know everything there is to know about his son, he could not know for definite whether the son would eat the blueberries or not and thus the son would retain his free will. If he did know everything there is to know, however, and was able to conclude with 100% certainty that the son would eat the blueberries I would argue that the son had no free will just as I’ve argued that we have no free will if there is an omniscient god.

Hope that cleared it up somewhat.

Regards,
Henrik

 

[OctobersOwn]

God = Divine Omniscience, a timeless, eternal observer of the universe.

Us = agents of free will.

God is not material, in time, or biological. God is completely unrestricted when
it comes to knowledge, he is “all-knowing”. Does this take the “free” out of our free will?

I don’t believe so, and I think the answer lies in that God is outside of Time.

Let’s “try” to perceive God.

God sees everything at once. The link on TIME, how it doesn’t really exist, should help with this one. God’s knowledge is PERFECT. God knows all future contingents, because he knows Himself completely as the Creator and Sustainer of everything. He sees everything AS IT IS (outside of time) which does NOT depend on whether He viewed it or not.

For example, let’s pretend this conversation was going on face to face.

You ask me this question, I know that you are talking to me “now”, and I perceive it because it just “happened”. But my “knowing” (RIGHT THEN AND THERE) did not stop you from asking, or not asking, or cause it. That sounds really confusing, but that’s how I see it. Everything is simply “now” to God.

 

[hillsteven]

There’s another aspect here that I haven’t seen. We humans live INSIDE of time. That is to say, for us, time is a linear process. Right now where I am, it is approximately 5:35 AM. I cannot go from NOW to, say, 7:00 tonight when I get to take my wife dancing. I must live through all of the intervening moments between NOW and 7:00 PM.

God, on the other hand, lives OUTSIDE of time. The best way I’ve ever heard this defined was that God is not only everyWHERE, but he is also everyWHEN as well. This is a difficult concept to grasp because we are finite, but God is INfinite. For God, there is no difference between now and 7:00 tonight. every moment of every day of every week/month/year, etc. is NOW. When you take this concept and apply it to your question of Free Will, it helps explain the conundrum. God does indeed know what we will do, because he is already there walking beside us as we do it!

The rest of the answer, I think, (so far as we are able to grasp it anyway) is Love. God Loves us, and wants us to love him back. This is ONLY possible if we have the freedom to go to Him willingly. Any impingement upon our freedom to choose him of our own accord would not be love at all, but the most absolute form of slavery.

I have heard it said, and echo here because I believe it to be true, that any metaphor we humans may attempt to use to describe God will fall short. Jesus himself grappled with this problem in his humanity with his use of parables. I often picture him struggling in his humanity to find words to explain what He in his divinity knew to be true. We in our limited understanding attempt to grapple with concepts with which we have no experience, which is why these things are mysteries to us, and will remain so until we can come into His presence and see him in all of his Glory.

Hope this helps!

~Steven

 

[Tom_Qualey]

*The question about whether or not we have a free will has really been around for a while. For an excellent presentation about this subject, you may be intersted in this link: newadvent.org/cathen/06259a.htm

Ultimately, while anyone can say whatever it is they like - sometimes just to see what happens - few doubt that we are responsible for our own actions. Those doubting this may want to consider breaking some law and then start preparing what it is they will tell the judege about how they are not responsible for their criminal behavior…:! Who knows, an entire new branch of law may develop from this lack of responsibility due to a lack of free will…

God bless

Tom*

 

[Tom_Qualey]

*Hi, Steven,

I liked your idea about about everyWHERE and everyWHEN… *

There’s another aspect here that I haven’t seen. We humans live INSIDE of time. That is to say, for us, time is a linear process. Right now where I am, it is approximately 5:35 AM. I cannot go from NOW to, say, 7:00 tonight when I get to take my wife dancing. I must live through all of the intervening moments between NOW and 7:00 PM.

God, on the other hand, lives OUTSIDE of time. The best way I’ve ever heard this defined was that God is not only everyWHERE, but he is also everyWHEN as well. This is a difficult concept to grasp because we are finite, but God is INfinite. For God, there is no difference between now and 7:00 tonight. every moment of every day of every week/month/year, etc. is NOW. When you take this concept and apply it to your question of Free Will, it helps explain the conundrum. God does indeed know what we will do, because he is already there walking beside us as we do it!

The rest of the answer, I think, (so far as we are able to grasp it anyway) is Love. God Loves us, and wants us to love him back. This is ONLY possible if we have the freedom to go to Him willingly. Any impingement upon our freedom to choose him of our own accord would not be love at all, but the most absolute form of slavery.

*This is, perhaps, the most challenging of concepts for some - at least those doubting in the very exsistence of God or an All Knowing God actually giving His creatures a free will in which to freely love Him.

While there are several cogent arguments providing proofs for a Creator - developing proofs for a Loving God - and ONE Who died for our sins so that we may live - that is difficult. Christ addressed that problem (lack of faith) by telling His listeners that if they have a problem beleiving that He is the Son of God, to at least believe the miracles He presented and that they saw as proof that He is speaking the turth (John 14:11) *

I have heard it said, and echo here because I believe it to be true, that any metaphor we humans may attempt to use to describe God will fall short. Jesus himself grappled with this problem in his humanity with his use of parables. I often picture him struggling in his humanity to find words to explain what He in his divinity knew to be true. We in our limited understanding attempt to grapple with concepts with which we have no experience, which is why these things are mysteries to us, and will remain so until we can come into His presence and see him in all of his Glory.

Hope this helps!

~Steven

*Have a great day! God bless!

Tom*

 

[Tom_Qualey]

*Hi, OctobersOwn,

Great post!

God bless

Tom *

God = Divine Omniscience, a timeless, eternal observer of the universe.

Us = agents of free will.

God is not material, in time, or biological. God is completely unrestricted when
it comes to knowledge, he is “all-knowing”. Does this take the “free” out of our free will?

I don’t believe so, and I think the answer lies in that God is outside of Time.

Let’s “try” to perceive God.

God sees everything at once. The link on TIME, how it doesn’t really exist, should help with this one. God’s knowledge is PERFECT. God knows all future contingents, because he knows Himself completely as the Creator and Sustainer of everything. He sees everything AS IT IS (outside of time) which does NOT depend on whether He viewed it or not.

For example, let’s pretend this conversation was going on face to face.

You ask me this question, I know that you are talking to me “now”, and I perceive it because it just “happened”. But my “knowing” (RIGHT THEN AND THERE) did not stop you from asking, or not asking, or cause it. That sounds really confusing, but that’s how I see it. Everything is simply “now” to God.