What does God know?

[englands123]

Was it not written in the OT ?

Jeremiah 1:5 King James Version (KJV)​

5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

That is why we all must pray for each other and especially those who reject God.

Those who reject God become angry when a believer prays for them.

How many times in our lives has a certain situation no matter how big … God always gives that person a choice…A get out of Jail card so to speak.

I know in my life there’s always a choice. God allows that choice as he showed in Job.

 

[whatistrue]

So…I am saying free will and an omniscient God can not be rationalized

Knowing does not require controlling. Not controlling means free will. Yes, God knows what you will choose. Key words there are “You” and “Choose” - “you choose”.

 

[EndTimes]

If God KNOWS now what you are going to do, you do not have free will. I

No. You’ve presented an Apples and Pencils situation…

 

[whatistrue]

If I write a computer program for a robot

That is directly controlling the robot by definition. Not the same thing as awareness of what will happen.

Second, God is also omnipotent. This adds yet another inconsistency. So even your premise that God does not “control” what we choose is not true.

The fact that God can do something doesn’t mean that He will do that thing. You have not come close to establishing direct control of all actions by God.

 

[Willing_Spirit]

So at the instance of creation, that’s when God gains knowledge of the soul’s salvation. But does he gain the knowledge in all places in time, and therefore knows the fate of the soul “before” creating it?

I’m just going to repeat what I believe @Gorgias is saying in my own words to see if I understand. God knows everything, but everything comes from God. God “is” eternally, meaning what was, is, and will be for us is just always present for God. That means any aspect of creation we see always has been, always is, and always will be for God. Basically, God has a “plan” and does not “know” anything outside of that plan, because it simply “isn’t”. His “plan” is as eternal and unchanging as Him. He does not incrementally add people to it based on a judgement of our current situation. He knows everything, but everything comes from Him at the same “time” for Him. God does not gain knowledge. His plan, His act of creation, His knowledge of what we will do and where we will go all “happen” at the same time, because God always was, is, and will be.

Edit: Essentially, there is no such thing as knowing what we would do and then choosing not to create us, because that would be a contradiction of God’s omnipresence. His plan is perfect and there is nothing outside of His plan. He created all of us with freewill and knows how all of us will use it. Some will choose not to love Him, and that just serves as evidence of our freewill.

 

[Gorgias]

The word “know” in your context means “predict”. The word “know” in philosophical free will contexts means that what happens next is predetermined.

That’s where the analogy breaks down – I’m not omniscient.

But, I think your conception of “predetermination” is inaccurate. It imposes temporal limitations on God, and imposes a temporal understanding of His non-temporal perspective.

It is not an official doctrine yet many of the leading Catholic philosophers (such as WLC)

OK: time to put on the brakes and talk for a second. We touched upon this last week or the week before, I think, and you still persist in your misunderstanding. Take a deep breath and please read this next line very carefully: William Lane Craig is not a Catholic philosopher. He’s not even a Catholic. His claims are not the claims of the Catholic Church.

If you want to say “Craig believes X, Y, and Z”, that’s fine. However, you cannot validly say “Craig speaks for the Catholic Church, and therefore, his positions on X, Y, and Z are Catholic positions.”

If you continue to make this invalid assertion, having been reminded twice that it’s erroneous, it will impact our ability to carry on an effective dialogue. Thanks!

Molinism, to clarify, is the believe that God not only knows everything that was, is, and will be, but also everything that could be .

“could be but is not”. That’s an important distinction.

Molinism is interesting because it is a good try - and it acknowledges the problem

It really doesn’t, at least not in the way that you seemingly think it does.

If you KNOW the future, then the future cannot change, hence no free will

God knows eternally. He does not know “the future”, per se. There is no future from God’s perspective. So, what we perceive of as the future, and what we have freedom to choose on our own, God merely knows. Not “before”, but “eternally”. We still choose on our own.

If I write a computer program for a robot and show it to you, you KNOW what the result will be. Just because you do not ‘control’ it doesn’t mean the program has free will.

Wrong analogy. Your construct literally forces determinism! You are literally begging the question!

Second, God is also omnipotent. This adds yet another inconsistency. So even your premise that God does not “control” what we choose is not true.

Your conception of what “omnipotence” means is in error. (The ancient Hebrews and the medieval Islamic philosophers shared your notion, however: they believed that God directly caused every event in the universe. We believe in ‘secondary causation’. God gives us the ability to cause actions.)

 

[Gorgias]

Basically, God has a “plan” and does not “know” anything outside of that plan, because it simply “isn’t”.

Molinists would also assert that God also knows everything that could be, but which is not and never will be, but yeah.

Your summary seems to be pretty much what I was asserting.

 

[EndTimes]

The word “know” in philosophical free will contexts means that what happens next is predetermined.

Then … that context is false…

Knowledge Itself is a Quality of God

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[Latin]

The question is not about God having free will, it is about US having free will.

LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL
Libertarian free will is basically the concept that, metaphysically and morally, man is an autonomous being, one who operates independently, not controlled by others or by outside forces.
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We don’t have Libertarian free will, Libertarian free will is useless for salvation.

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The Council of Sens (1140) condemned the idea that free will is sufficient in itself for any good. Donez., 373.

Council of Orange (529)
In canon 20, entitled hat Without God Man Can Do No Good. . . Denz., 193; quoting St. Prosper.

In canon 22, says, “ No one has anything of his own except lying and sin. Denz., 194; quoting St. Prosper.
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains;
Life everlasting promised to us, (Romans 5:21); but unaided we can do nothing to gain it (Rom.7:18-24).

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Fallen man cannot redeem himself, (De fide). – It is God’s responsibility to save ALL OF US.
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Without the special help of God the justified cannot persevere to the end in justification, (De fide). – It is God’s responsibility TO KEEP US SAVED by His grace of Final Perseverance.

CCC 2016 The children of our holy mother the Church rightly hope for the grace of final perseverance.
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The salvation of every predestined to Heaven is eternally protected by God’s gift of Final Perseverance, this is an INFALLIBLE PROTECTION of the salvation of every receiver. – This is an infallible teachings of the Trent and formal teachings of the Catholic Church.
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Without God’s gift of Final Perseverance everyone would die in mortal sin, (THERE IS NO SALVATION WITHOUT IT) while the receivers of His gift of Final Perseverance NO ONE can die in mortal sin because this is an INFALLIBLE PROTECTION of the salvation of every receiver.
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With libertarian free will we would all end up in the pains of hell.

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GOD HAS GIVEN US AIDED FREE WILL
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CCC 308 "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it.
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There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will, (De fide).
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Aquinas said, "God changes the will without forcing it . But he can change the will from the fact that he himself operates in the will as he does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9. 31. ST I-II:112:3. 32. Gaudium et Spes 22; "being …

CCC 2022; The divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man.

St. Thomas teaches that all movements of will and choice must be traced to the divine will: and not to any other cause, because Gad alone is the cause of our willing and choosing. CG, 3.91.
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God gave us aided free will because he loves us SO much and He will takes all of us up home to Heaven.

The whole Catholic Church is (CCC 1058) praying for the salvation of everyone, we all should believe what we are praying for.
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God bless

 

[IWantGod]

Can God know the state of our eternal salvation/damnation before it has happened for us? Can he know what our response will be to things before they happen, do these responses exist before we act upon them? Or is it like God knows every thing that can potentially happen, but not what will happen

God is existence, and in virtue of his nature he necessarily knows everything that is true. It is impossible for God to not know everything that will happen or has happened in existence because God is the very being by which all other things are real and true. To put it simply it is impossible for there to be a being where God is not.

God only knows what is true, and since God is existence and is therefore the truth by which all things are true, God only need know himself in-order to know the truth. He is not seeing things before they happen like a fortune teller, but rather God is eternally present to the very truth of what we perceive as a future event.

“For now I know that you fear God and have not withheld your son, your only one from me” did God know how Abraham would react?

Yes

Or was Abraham’s fearing God not confirmed until after the action?

It’s impossible for God not to know.

 

[IWantGod]

If you know the future, you can’t change it. If you change future, you didn’t know it.

This is assuming that the knower is passive and doesn’t have an active role in what is known. If you know all possible truths, and can have active role in what is true, you can be the cause of some truth and eternally know it to be true.

 

[IWantGod]

You can create all sorts of philosophical gymnastics to justify God’s free will (ie, Molinism, as I’ve said above), but you cannot justify OUR free will.

Why? Just because nothing can happen that God doesn’t eternally know does not self-evidently mean that we did not make free choices in what he knows. It doesn’t follow that just because something is eternally true that free-choices are not apart of that truth.

If you watch a film, it doesn’t follow that you have determined the choices of everybody in that film just because you know what they chose. Lets take God out of the equation. Lets assume that it’s possible to be timeless and view all of time as one moment. Does it follow that my knowledge of all time means that i have determined the activity of everything that has happened in time? It is not clear why the knower should be considered a determiner.

 

[neophyte]

There is not way to rationalize free will with an omniscient being. This is by definition.

Nonsense, and it’s been dealt with very effectively. The problem isn’t with the rationality of the argument, but with our inability to subjectivity wrap our puny minds around it.

 

[EndTimes]

Can God know the state of our eternal salvation/damnation before it has happened for us? Can he know what our response will be to things before they happen, do these responses exist before we act upon them? Or is it like God knows every thing that can potentially happen, but not what will happen.

Yes… He Knows… Think of the nature of Prophecy - which concerns Future

We must separate His Knowledge of Eternity - from His Active Will…

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[whatistrue]

So I am providing an example where because you know what will happen - regardless of who “controls” the actions - the actor still does not have free will.

Your original claim was that God’s knowing is the cause of you not having free will. My knowledge of the existence of a program that controls a robot, whether or not I am fully aware of exactly how the program operates, has no bearing on the existence of the program and the lack of free will of the robot. I know that if you put on a blindfold and run across a busy interstate highway you will be at the very least injured if not killed. But that does not take away your free will to either do or not do the action.

 

[whatistrue]

If you know the future, you can’t change it. If you change future, you didn’t know it

The issue there is that God doesn’t know “the future”. He knows everything that exists in our universe, but since He is outside of our universe (including time) He sees it as a single gestalt, not a sequence of events.

 

[EndTimes]

Your original claim was that God’s knowing is the cause of you not having free will. My knowledge of the existence of a program that controls a robot, whether or not I am fully aware of exactly how the program operates, has no bearing on the existence of the program and the lack of free will of the robot. I know that if you put on a blindfold and run across a busy interstate highway you will be at the very least injured if not killed. But that does not take away your free will to either do or not do the action.

Yes…

Many well-meaning people trip over the notion that any one - including God so they’ll think - can know the Future. It is a non-instinctual notion to contemplate…

That said - All of the Bible reflects Future Knowledges coming from God to Man

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[Dan123]

I think the stronger version of the argument on free will is less that God knows all the choices that we’ll make, but more that he chose to make this version of “us” and no other.

That is to say of all the Me’s he could have made, he made the one that tends towards skepticism, it may be that I can still control (to some degree) the amount of influence that has on my life, though I’m not sure how much frankly that seems like a neuroscience claim; but as has been pointed out God knew exactly how whatever tendencies or instincts would affect my decisions when he made me as I am, and not in any other way. By knowing ahead of time every decision I’d make, I think you could make the argument he did make those decisions.

A simpler (and slightly silly) example: God is sending a new soul to Earth for a happy couple who’s having their first child. God knows everything this person will do in their life, including whether on February 26th, 2020 they choose to start their morning with eggs or waffles. Being all powerful and all knowing God should easily be able to conceive of both these possible souls where they’re fundamentally the same people except for that breakfast decision, so which one does he actually create and send to Earth? In making the choice to create one of these and not the other hasn’t he decided what this person will have for breakfast?

 

[whatistrue]

solve the free will dilemma

You have yet to establish that such a dilemma even exists, much less that it cannot be solved.

why you even bring this up. B theory of time

I don’t really care what other people try to use to deny free will, and the so-called B-Theory as I understand it denies that time actually passes at all, which is decidedly NOT what I am saying, at least with respect to anyone or anything inside the universe we inhabit.

 

[Gorgias]

The question is not about God having free will, it is about US having free will.

I didn’t say it wasn’t about us. The problem is that, the way you frame it up, you impose a temporal framework on God, which invalidates your argument.

you cannot justify OUR free will.

Says who?
And with what argument? All you’ve said to date is “nope; it doesn’t work”, without any substantiation!

Do you subscribe to Molinism?

Nope.

If you do not subscribe to Molinism, you have to come up with another logically consistent approach to how God can be BOTH omnipotent and omniscient.

Already have. But you just reject it out of hand, without substantiating your claim.

This is known as the “B-theory of time”.

No. The B-theory posits that all of time exists simultaneously. That’s not what I’m claiming. I’m claiming that God has knowledge of it, even though it unfolds – within the context of the universe – over time.

If God knows eternity, WE do not have free will.

You keep saying that. I understand that you believe it to be true. However, ‘knowledge’ and ‘determinism’ work within the context of the temporal framework, but not outside it. That God knows what you will do (in your context) doesn’t imply that God determines what you will do in the context of spacetime.

So I am providing an example where because you know what will happen - regardless of who “controls” the actions - the actor still does not have free will. In other words

… in other words, you set up a deterministic framework, and are attempting to use it to demonstrate determinism. So… “begging the question”.