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[Trepak]

Our choices are limited to our knowledge. Once we know an outcome we can look back and imagine making another choice, but we can't ever make another choice.

Wouldn't our lives (from a God's perspective) be pre-determined?

[jimwalton]

I don't understand your flow of thought:

1. Our choices are limited to our knowledge (true)
2. We can't turn back time to make a different choice when our knowledge has changed (true).
3. Therefore God determines our choices (what?)

This seems like a non sequitur to me. In Premise 1 we exercise our free will, but it's true that we can't operate outside of what we know. As the Oracle said in "The Matrix Reloaded": "We can never see past the choices we don't understand." So Premise 1 has nothing to do with determination but rather with limitation.

In Premise 2 you affirm that time is linear and can only move forward. Agreed. The fact that we cannot move time backward has no bearing on the truth that the decision we first made was a free-will decision. So Premise 2 has nothing to do with determination but rather with orientation.

But then in Premise 3 you add two elements that were not present in either of the first premises (God and determination)—and that's why it's a non sequitur.

I'm also not sure why you started off with "Isn't free will just subjective?" Free will is certainly personal. It is always somebody's exercise of choice. What makes such a thing objective or subjective? But, more to the point, even if it were, does this subjectivity spell the death of free will? Not in the least. It's quite literally the beginning of it. The acts of knowing and choosing inevitably and always involve the human agent. Choice lives in my engaging with reality. Making a choice is an active human effort, and it leads me to more knowledge and more choices. Free will is often the mechanism leading to greater knowledge. I don't perceive this as a problem, nor as relegating us to a life of predetermined automation.

[Trepak]

You're missing the perspective shift. From our perspective of limited knowledge and temporal experience there is uncertainty. We do our best mentally to fill in the gaps of knowledge with what fits best. When we see different ways that fit we are presented with an opportunity to judge them and decide which one is preferred. That's choice.

However, from the perspective of God who has all knowledge and exists without time your choices couldn't have been made any other way. Your thought process of decision would be equally as predictable to God as the movement of an object in space would be to an astronomer.

To go a step further, because God designed the universe he is knowledgeable of and responsible for every action of every being in it.

[jimwalton]

> You're missing the perspective shift. From our perspective of limited knowledge and temporal experience there is uncertainty. We do our best mentally to fill in the gaps of knowledge with what fits best. When we see different ways that fit we are presented with an opportunity to judge them and decide which one is preferred. That's choice.

Hmm, I didn't think I was missing the shift. You're right that an amount of uncertainty is the function of our limited knowledge and temporal experiences. I agree with that. I also agree that we do our best to rely on clues to focus on a coherent pattern and submit to its reality. Our ability to evaluate data, weigh plausibilities, and make decisions is the essence of reason.

> However, from the perspective of God who has all knowledge and exists without time your choices couldn't have been made any other way.

Your thesis, or case, or informal deductive argument mentioned NOTHING about God's omniscience or timelessness. Maybe this was in your head, and it was obviously behind your thinking, but it wasn't part of your argument or thesis. So let me address that now, as it's new material.

Knowledge is not causative. Because I know something doesn't make anything happen, and never can. Only power is causative. Suppose you and I were good friends, and I knew you loved chocolate, and every time we go somewhere you order a chocolate dessert. Every time. My knowing that never causes you to order chocolate, or to order something else. But supposing I was 100 times smarter than I am now. Nothing changes—my knowledge of you causes nothing in you. Knowledge isn't causative. But suppose I'm omniscient? No different. Knowledge isn't causative, knowledge isn't determinative.

If God is timeless, and can see all things as present, then his knowledge is a matter of seeing, not of causing. Free will is still not only operative but legitimate and even necessary, and God's knowledge is complete. There is no contradiction to justify.

> Your thought process of decision would be equally as predictable to God as the movement of an object in space would be to an astronomer.

It's not a matter of prediction, but only that of seeing. Suppose you and I were at an ice cream shop, and I was able to move forward in time 10 minutes and see what kind of dessert you ordered. Now I would know because I saw. My knowledge wouldn't cause you to make your choice, nor would it predict it. It's only knowledge because I have seen, and it has no other dynamics to it with reference to your free will. God's timelessness and omniscience is like that. He can see, but His knowledge neither causes nor predicts.

> To go a step further, because God designed the universe he is knowledgeable of and responsible for every action of every being in it.

The flaw here is in perceiving God in eternity past rolling out time like a carpet, seeing every moment unfold, and therefore determining it. But this picture is not the reality. Instead our lives are dynamic, filled with choices and the ability to reason. God in His timelessness is able to look at it from the side, seeing all as "present," and therefore His knowledge neither causes nor predicts. He didn't determine it in eternity past. He watches it happen in real time from a position of present timelessness.

You make it seem like God "designed" it all and therefore "determined" it all, and is therefore "responsible for every action of every being in it." But this is not the biblical picture. His knowledge is all-seeing, but is not causative. He hasn't predicted, He observes. We are free agents who are responsible for every decision we make, as you were making valid choices of dessert in the ice cream shop.

[Trepak]

You said it right when you said power is causative.

A God creating a universe would be the causative act that pre-determines every action you make.

It's like the Oracle scene in the Matrix where Neo breaks the vase. Was the Oracle's warning the cause of the event or would it have happened anyway?

[jimwalton]

> A God creating a universe would be the causative act that pre-determines every action you make.

There is no particular logic that supports this statement. God is not forced to use his power to create only one particular world. There are manifold possible worlds: a way the world could be. God's creation of the world doesn't require that every action is predetermined. God could just as easily create a world characterized by free will, which is the world the Bible teaches is what He created, and which is required by human characteristics such as reason, science, and love.

A God creating a universe at root is the causative act that brings matter and energy into existence, but requires nothing as to the nature of human consciousness, viz., free will.

> It's like the Oracle scene in the Matrix where Neo breaks the vase. Was the Oracle's warning the cause of the event or would it have happened anyway?

I love this scene in the movie! It's so intriguing because, of course, she's right in asking her question. On the other hand, we can observe that she didn't make him turn. She was not in control of his body, or even of his will. He could have ignored her, but he willfully responded to his curiosity and consciously made the choice to turn, breaking the vase. She is certainly part of the picture, but can we confidently say she coerced this behavior in him and he had no choice or power to resist it? I would say no. He was the active agent that broke the vase.

But these are just playful musings anyway. They don't really pertain to the theology of our discussion. What the Oracle did in her interaction with Neo is not truly analogical to God's omniscience and His exercise of power.

[Trepak]

> God could just as easily create a world characterized by free will.

Sure, but then you have to abandon the claim that anything is God's plan. If he leaves everything to be determined by free will then that's essentially Panentheism.

> He was the active agent that broke the vase.

He was, but you could say that for every 100 people standing where he was, a certain number would have done the same thing.

If the Oracle understands human nature (and the programming of the matrix) she could know that her saying that would cause it to happen. This sort of cause and effect (with the certainty of a God's foreknowledge) is why I hold God responsible.

Not to bring up analogy after analogy, but this is closer to my point. There was a story within the last few years of a girl who was enticing her depressed boyfriend to commit suicide. She couldn't have known 100% that he would go through with it and she didn't force him to do it, but after her texts egging him on and his mental state we're considered she was sentenced for his death and she's only 21.

If we, as a society, can clearly see the motive and the effect she caused by her actions and hold her accountable, especially at a young age, why is supposedly a much more powerful, much more knowledgeable being not being held to AT LEAST the same standard?

[jimwalton]

> Sure, but then you have to abandon the claim that anything is God's plan

There's no reason, either logical or theological, that it must be all or nothing. There's no problem with God having a plan of salvation, for instance, but not a plan that determines every breath we take. God can superintend the flow of history without being required to dictate every government and every king/president/ruler.

> If he leaves everything to be determined by free will then that's essentially Panentheism.

He doesn't leave everything to be determined by free will, but only the decisions of humans not submitted to His sovereign will. Again, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. God can direct His salvific purposes for the world (and He does) without having to direct every human's thought (which He doesn't). There is no logical or theological necessity that it must be all or nothing.

> He was, but you could say...

It doesn't matter what you *could* say. As long as you admit he was the active agent that broke the vase, then he exercised free will despite the Oracle's knowledge.

> This sort of cause and effect (with the certainty of a God's foreknowledge) is why I hold God responsible.

You can't impute the movie scene into theology. It's an intriguing analogy, and a great stimulator of thought, but we can't press it into a serious discussion about God's omniscience. I have explained and demonstrated that knowledge is not causative. You have admitted that it is not necessarily and automatically causative, so to conclude therefore that God is responsible is a misdirected conclusion.

> There was a story within the last few years of a girl who was inticing her depressed boyfriend to commit suicide.

Yes, I remember this case. And it's true that her her persistent nagging pressure motivated him (as far as we can tell) to follow through. But what does this have to do with God? The boy's succumbing to the power of suggestion (1) didn't negate his free will, (2) didn't abrogate his responsibility in his own action, and (3) has nothing to do with God's omniscience. Of course she is partially to blame for his death, but what does this have to do with God? For your analogy to work, you have to prove, then, that God nags people in dubious mental states to act against their will to their own detriment. I would dare say that such proof is unattainable.