Why would God create people he knew would go to hell?

[benjamin1973]

I design a rat maze. I put food here, a cat there, and so on. I then drop the rat in the maze, and lo and behold! the rat goes for the food, avoids the cat, and ends up going where he’s obviously known to be going (by me). The rat has 100% freedom, but because it’s a rat, it will go for the food, because it’s a rat, it will avoid the cat, and because it’s a rat, it will not understand that I already know where it will end up.

This is what it means for a creator to know, and a participator in the creation not to know. The difference is that God’s control over the entire step, from beginning to end, is infinitely complete, whereas mine has at least some limitations (like the rat could have a heart attack and just keel over).

 

[Gorgias]

I design a rat maze. I put food here, a cat there, and so on. I then drop the rat in the maze, and lo and behold! the rat goes for the food, avoids the cat, and ends up going where he’s obviously known to be going (by me). The rat has 100% freedom, but because it’s a rat, it will go for the food, because it’s a rat, it will avoid the cat, and because it’s a rat, it will not understand that I already know where it will end up.

That’s a nice construct, but in all charity, it fails to describe our situation.

• We’re not rats who “do not understand”
• A rat’s freedom to choose according to its nature (i.e., non-rational) is unlike ours, which is rational
• A maze – which is directed toward certain goals, and only these goals, does not represent the universe
• Nor does a maze – even one with a single goal – imply that all maze-runners will achieve the result… let alone choose all the choices that lead to the goal!

This is what it means for a creator to know, and a participator in the creation not to know.

It really isn’t what it means. You’ve made assumptions in this example that presume predeterminism. Is it any wonder that they these assumptions lead to a conclusion of predeterminism?

The difference is that God’s control over the entire step, from beginning to end, is infinitely complete, whereas mine has at least some limitations (like the rat could have a heart attack and just keel over).

No: the difference is that your example presumes predeterminism; the universe, as created by God, does not.

 

[AlNg]

It’s not known “beforehand.”

i thought that God knew what we would do beforehand?

 

[Glark]

How can I explain this? Although God exists outside of time and can therefore see all of history from begining to end, that history still has to enacted in order for God to see it. So people who go to hell have to act out their evil deeds in order to create their history.

 

[davidv]

i thought that God knew what we would do beforehand?

How does “beforehand” apply to God?

 

[AlNg]

How does “beforehand” apply to God?

Because He knows everything by reason of His omniscience, as I understand it.

 

[pocaracas]

davidv:

How does “beforehand” apply to God?

Because He knows everything by reason of His omniscience, as I understand it.

He knows it before… he knows it afterwards… he knows it in the absence of it.

I liked my analogy to a movie. Imagine our reality is a movie… like Star Wars.
God knows the script.
The characters in the movie live in whatever time they live and have their own motivations and emotions and (free?) will. They consider their situations (within their own universe) and make decisions based on them and the rules of that universe.

Knowing the script, god knows what each character’s decisions are, even if the movie never gets produced.
Does that mean that they will carry out those decisions regardless of their perceived free will?

 

[davidv]

He knows it before… he knows it afterwards… he knows it in the absence of it.

I liked my analogy to a movie. Imagine our reality is a movie… like Star Wars.

God knows the script.

Why do think “before” and “after” apply to God? Your analogy is too flawed to apply here. Reality is not like a movie and there is no script. Life is ad lib.

God is immutable (does not change), meaning his knowledge is unchanging. There can be no before or after with God.

 

[pocaracas]

pocaracas:

He knows it before… he knows it afterwards… he knows it in the absence of it.

I liked my analogy to a movie. Imagine our reality is a movie… like Star Wars.

God knows the script.

Why do think “before” and “after” apply to God? Your analogy is too flawed to apply here. Reality is not like a movie and there is no script. Life is ad lib.

God is immutable (does not change), meaning his knowledge is unchanging. There can be no before or after with God.

You know… all that you say would make sense, if there was no god.
But then one must consider the potential deterministic nature of our reality.

With a god who knows the past, the future and everything within the Universe, the movie analogy does indeed apply.
The god that existed when I was born, when my movie began, is the same god that knows about my death, when my movie ends. At any moment of ours, god knows all other moments. In my past, god knew my future. And, in spite of him not actively interceding in my choices, any choice is frozen in time, frozen in celluloid, frozen in god’s eternal knowledge.
That makes my choices not truly free, but only seemingly free.

 

[AIPM1615]

That makes my choices not truly free, but only seemingly free.

I’m not so sure about that. I’ve thoroughly liked your analogy of the movie from a time-continuity perspective. But as far as “free will” is concerned… it falls short. God knowing our past, present, and future doesn’t mean that he is making decisions for us, nor are we “predestined” for anything (with the exception of death - that’s the only certainty, lol).

If reverse time travel was physicially possible, and we could go back in time to see John Wilkes Booth assassinate President Lincoln (as one theoretical example), would that imply that he didn’t freely and willfully make that decision? Simply because we knew beforehand how it would play out? I don’t think so.

Reality is not like a movie and there is no script. Life is ad lib.

There is a script to reality, if you take into consideration the physical and metaphysical laws that can be observed thanks to our reason. With that said, yes, life is “ad lib” - at least, for those of us in the chronology of spacetime. The future has yet to materialize for us, and our decisions (made by free will) effect how that plays out. God transcends all of this. He very well may see the universe as a movie, per Pocaracas’ analogy.

 

[AlNg]

How does “beforehand” apply to God?

If reverse time travel was physicially possible, and we could go back in time to see John Wilkes Booth assassinate President Lincoln (as one theoretical example), would that imply that he didn’t freely and willfully make that decision?

Reverse time travel is not the same as future time travel. Actually, reverse time travel is impossible as simple examples will show.

 

[benjamin1973]

• We’re not rats who “do not understand”

Sure we are. If my daughter is killed in a car accident, then in my horrible sorrow, I’m much more likely to question and lose my faith than is someone with 5 healthy children who happily grow up to be doctors and make lots of grandchildren. If I could really understand why her death was necessary, then I would have a much better chance of keeping my faith.

• A rat’s freedom to choose according to its nature (i.e., non-rational) is unlike ours, which is rational

I think you overestimate many people, and underestimate many rats.

• It really isn’t what it means. You’ve made assumptions in this example that presume predeterminism. Is it any wonder that they these assumptions lead to a conclusion of predeterminism?

Unless God sees my life in a multiverse, in which my many possible choices arrive variably at Heaven or Hell, then my fate was set at the moment of Creation. God sees for me only Hell, and for me, Hell it will be.

 

[AIPM1615]

Reverse time travel is not the same as future time travel. Actually, reverse time travel is impossible as simple examples will show.

That’s why I said “IF” and then, later, called my reverse time travel example “theoretical.”

 

[AIPM1615]

Sure we are. If my daughter is killed in a car accident, then in my horrible sorrow, I’m much more likely to question and lose my faith than is someone with 5 healthy children who happily grow up to be doctors and make lots of grandchildren. If I could really understand why her death was necessary, then I would have a much better chance of keeping my faith.

My best friend was killed in a freak motorcycle accident three months ago. His death wasn’t necessary. It’s simply a fact. A very, very, very, unnecessary and painful fact. I’ve questioned, lost, and again questioned my faith. Your example is absolutely true.

Unless God sees my life in a multiverse, in which my many possible choices arrive variably at Heaven or Hell, then my fate was set at the moment of Creation.

Once again, I don’t think an omniscient perspective of the universe implies predestination.

 

[benjamin1973]

Once again, I don’t think an omniscient perspective of the universe implies predestination.

I would say it doesn’t imply that if it includes an additional dimension-- all possible outcomes. This is a theory in vogue in science-- the idea of the multiverse. And it turns out that this would solve the problem in this thread. If all possible outcomes are real, then there are benjamin1973s in infinite Heavens and Hells, and my freedom is real-- since I could be any of those.

But if only one outcome is possible, then we have a kind of paradox: your destiny is set in stone for sure, but you might as well pick the right path and make the right choices anyway, because your attitude, your sense of free will and your choice to act is part of that set destiny as well.

This would be almost impossible to except for non-Christians except for one fact: it’s how modern physics works, too: light passing through a double-slit is multiple things at once until the experimenter decides how to treat it.

 

[IWantGod]

then there are benjamin1973s in infinite Heavens and Hells

The idea of parallel universes with different versions of you, while interesting in itself, is not an established scientific theory.

Would it really solve the freewill problem?

 

[benjamin1973]

I’m not sure. I don’t have a problem with free will, or with the idea of an all-knowing God. But put those two ideas into the same system, and they don’t seem to fit.

At least in a multiverse the all-knowing God has allowed for different outcomes-- it seems like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, kind of.

 

[Gorgias]

That makes my choices not truly free, but only seemingly free.

No.

Go back to your movie example. Does your knowledge of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ imply that Spielberg wasn’t free to film it however he wished?

 

[Gorgias]

If my daughter is killed in a car accident, then in my horrible sorrow, I’m much more likely to question and lose my faith than is someone with 5 healthy children who happily grow up to be doctors and make lots of grandchildren. If I could really understand why her death was necessary, then I would have a much better chance of keeping my faith.

This isn’t an example of “rats in a maze”. Rats don’t question or lose faith.

Unless God sees my life in a multiverse, in which my many possible choices arrive variably at Heaven or Hell, then my fate was set at the moment of Creation.

No.

Your ‘fate’ is only ‘set’ at the moment of your death. God didn’t ‘see’ it “at the moment of Creation”. Please follow me on this one: it’s the crux of the issue. At the “moment of creation”, within the context of the framework of time, was your so-called ‘fate’ already ‘set’? Nope. You didn’t even exist. At the moment of your birth – within that same framework – was it ‘set’? Nope – you hadn’t even taken one action yet. At the moment of your death – within the same framework – will your eternal destiny be ‘set’? Yes… finally, then (and only then) is your eternal destiny unchanging.

Now, outside of that framework, is there any interaction that necessarily determines your choices and actions? That’s what you would have to demonstrate in order to suggest what you’re suggesting. Interaction that forces choice, not just knowledge.

 

[pocaracas]

pocaracas:

That makes my choices not truly free, but only seemingly free.

I’m not so sure about that. I’ve thoroughly liked your analogy of the movie from a time-continuity perspective. But as far as “free will” is concerned… it falls short. God knowing our past, present, and future doesn’t mean that he is making decisions for us, nor are we “predestined” for anything (with the exception of death - that’s the only certainty, lol).

I wonder what made you put that “god is making decisions for us” in there… I don’t think I ever suggested that. I don’t even remember thinking that!

Predestined is not the correct word, I think… but it does convey the meaning that things will happen the way they are going to happen, regardless of our perceived freeness of choice, so we can stick with that word.

Personally, I think biology is deterministic. Our brains are biological in nature, so their workings should also be deterministic. The brain is super complex, no doubt, so, in our traditionally simplistic approaches, the mind that seemingly arises from brain activity seems disconnected from it - no matter how much neurologists tell us and show us how very connected the mind and the brain truly are… they always feel disconnected.
This disconnect, I think, must have given rise to the concept of the soul… and free choice.

But, if the brain is indeed a deterministic biological machine, our mind (as a result of brain activity) is also deterministic. Our illusory decision making mechanism is only doing what it does and, given the same (name removed by moderator)uts, it will always return the same output. The trouble is, with the brain, you can’t give it the same (name removed by moderator)uts twice, as it will have at least stored the (name removed by moderator)uts from the previous run and those, too, count as (name removed by moderator)uts, as well as whatever happened to the person in the time since.

In a way, we are just a tiny part of the Universe doing what the Universe does… physics.