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[Deranged]

Do you believe in free will and god's omniscience? How do you justify it?

If god is omniscient, than it knows everything that will ever happen. Since god already knows everything that will ever happen, it is impossible to choose to do anything different. Therefore, humans, animals, and even god itself cannot possess free will.

Which one do you believe in? If you believe in both, how do you justify the contradiction?

[jimwalton]

Knowledge is not causative. Because I know something doesn't make anything happen, and never can. 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.

[Deranged]

But if it's already set in stone what decision you will make at every point in your life, how can you have free will?

[jimwalton]

It's not set in stone. That's not what the Bible teaches. Read Jeremiah 18.1-12, or Jonah 3.8. We have bona fide choices that exercise our free will. God responds appropriately to our legitimate choices. Though he may be able to see it all, he doesn't control it and it's not set in stone.

[Deranged]

If god knows that you will do (A) with absolute certainty, is it possible to not do (A)? No.

If it is not possible to not do (A), is it possible to choose to not do (A)? No.

If you are given a choice to do (A) or to not do (A) and you cannot choose to not do (A), are you given a choice to do (A)? No.

[jimwalton]

You are creating false equations and therefore arriving at false conclusions. Knowledge is not causative. Even if I knew every thought in your head, my knowledge doesn't cause you to do anything. Only power is causative. Even if I could see and hear your thoughts and read your mind, that knowledge does not create thoughts in your head, nor does it force any behaviors on your part. You are conflating seeing with causing, and it's an illegitimate connection.

If God knows what you will do with absolute certainty, you are still making your own free will decisions. You can choose whatever you wish, and since he can see the future as easily as the past, he knows what you will freely choose, but he's not forcing you into a position where you have to choose (A) and cannot choose to not do (A). He is an observer, not a controller. It is the nature of knowledge.

[Deranged]

Suppose you're trying to choose between getting vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Suppose god knows with absolute certainty that you will get chocolate ice cream. Can you choose to get vanilla? Can you choose to get another flavor? Can you choose to just not get ice cream? No. You can only get chocolate ice cream.

If you can only get chocolate ice cream, are you making a choice? Were there really any other options?

[jimwalton]

You are still confusing knowledge with power and creating a false equation. Suppose you're trying to choose vanilla or chocolate. Suppose I can read your mind and see the decision you are making and why. You are still making the decision yourself. You can choose either flavor, but I can see you choosing chocolate because I can read your mind. Can you choose vanilla? Of course you can, but I can see that you are choosing chocolate, though I am not making you choose chocolate. God's knowledge doesn't make you choose one over the other. He can see your choice without controlling you. Can you choose to just not get ice cream? Of course you can, and God would be able to see that, too. But his knowledge doesn't cause you to choose chocolate, vanilla, or none at all. He can see, but he is not controlling.

[Deranged]

In the story of Oedipus, it is determined by fate that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. His parents attempted to prevent this, but were unable to as the future had already been determined. Does Oedipus have free will? It was determined before he was born that he would kill his father. Was it ever possible for him to chose not to?

He wasn't forced to kill his father by anyone, but it was a fact if reality that he would and absolutely nothing could change that. Fate cannot coexist with free will and omniscience means fate exists.

[jimwalton]

Well, now you've dipped into Greek mythology, but that doesn't prove any points about Christian theology. Christian theology doesn't teach fate, doesn't believe in fate, and doesn't align omniscience with fate. Fate is a different entity altogether than any theology the Bible teaches.

In the case of Oedipus, no, he doesn't have free will. The Fates have determined his course and he has no alternative but to follow it. It was never possible for him to choose not to.

Where you really go astray is to claim that "omniscience means fate exists." Knowledge (omniscience) is distinct from fate (determinism). Knowledge is not determinative, but only seeing. Power (strength, determinism, fate) controls; knowledge is awareness. Omniscience doesn't demand the foreordaining and execution of a set plan, but rather only the ability to see past, present, and future.

You seemed locked into a mentality of misunderstanding about the nature of omniscience. When we say that God is omniscient, we are undeniably talking about all things that are proper objects of knowledge. For instance, God doesn't know what it's like to learn, he doesn't know what it's like not to know everything, he doesn't know what would happen if an unstoppable force met an immoveable wall. These are absurdities. By omniscience we mean that God knows himself and all other things, whether they are past, present, or future, and he knows them exhaustively and to both extents of eternity. Such knowledge cannot come about through reasoning, process, empiricism, induction or deduction, and it certainly doesn't embrace the absurd, the impossible, or the self-contradictory.

To complicate the problem of defining omniscience, it can't be established what knowledge really is and how it all works. What are the principle grounds of knowledge, and particularly of God's knowledge? Does he evaluate propositions? Does he perceive? What about intuitions, reasoning, logic, and creativity? We consider knowledge to be the result of neurobiological events, but what is it for God?

But we have to admit that an omniscient being capable of thought. Since thoughts are more than just knowledge, and they are more than just evaluating propositions, and the Bible defines God's mind as...

* creating new information (Isa. 40-48)
* showing comprehension
* gaining new information (Gn. 22.12, but it's not new knowledge)
* He orders the cosmos (Gn. 1)
* He designs (viz., the plan for the temple)
* He deliberates (Hos. 11.8)
* He can reason with people (the whole book of Malachi; Gn. 18.17-33)
* He can change a course of action (Ex. 32; 1 Sam. 8-12)
* He remembers (all over the place)

Is God's omniscience propositional or non-propositional? Can God have beliefs (since beliefs can be true, and beliefs are different than knowledge)? Are God's beliefs occurrent or dispositional? As you can see, this can all get pretty deep pretty quickly. At root, a cognitive faculty is simply a particular ability to know something, and since God knows everything, his cognitive faculties are both complete and operational. Perhaps we can best define God's omniscience as:

* Having knowledge of all true propositions and having no false beliefs
* Having knowledge that is not surpassed or surpassable

But in all this mix you have assumed that God's omniscience is deterministic, making free will impossible, yet I have contended that knowledge is never causative, as I have explained. Only power is causative, so even supreme knowledge is not causative. In other words, God's knowledge (being able to see ahead of time) what you will choose doesn't mean that he used any power to create or manipulate that choice in you.

You construe knowledge of the future as determining the future, but this is not necessarily the case. Suppose I know that the sun will rise tomorrow—not just assume it, but suppose (for the sake of argument) that I know it. That doesn't mean I caused it. Knowledge is not causative. There are truly alternate possible futures, but an omniscient timeless being can see all simultaneously—and that capability doesn't require that he made those decisions himself, robbing free agents of their alternatives. Free will and omniscience are not mutually exclusive if the divine being is omniscient and timeless.

Free will cannot be an illusion because it is necessary for human life. First of all, the ability to reason is grounded in free will. Reasoning involves deciding if something is true or credible by equating it to the reality to which it refers, then comparing it with competing ideas, and choosing which idea best fits reality. Without free will and the legitimate ability to choose, the role of reason itself in any intellectual discipline is suspect—there is no mechanism for evaluating information and deciding on plausibility. Without free will, then, science itself is an illusion, all conversations are meaningless, and our thoughts are unreliable. Our lives are irredeemably incoherent.

We study our natural world (the sciences) as if self-awareness, self-direction, and reason are real. We can evaluate that there are realities outside of ourselves that we can observe and draw true conclusions about. The notion of truth takes us beyond mere biological determinism, which is only concerned with survival (food, flight, fight, and reproduction). We act as if we honestly believe that we can ask "what if..." questions, assess the possibilities, make authentic decisions, and conclude truth. All of these are evidences of free will, reason, and objective truth, all of which show that we live and function as if these things are real, reliable, and even have a facet to them that could be considered "true."

Secondarily, if free will didn't exist, we couldn’t know it, because I can't evaluate possibilities or draw conclusions. I couldn't think my way out of a paper bag let alone ascertain free will. Without free will, we couldn't know anything. Knowledge is justified true belief. We decide if a belief is true by comparing it to the reality to which it refers, comparing it with competing ideas, and choosing which idea best fits reality. This requires some level of free will. If you don't believe in free will, then you don't believe in the validity of reasoning, and all arguments to the contrary are self-defeating.

Third, without free will, the characteristics that most make us human are impossible: love, forgiveness, grace, mercy, and kindness, to name a few. If I have no choice but to love you, it's not love at all. Love requires the will to choose. If the only reason I forgive you is because I have no other alternative, then I have not forgiven you at all, but only followed an irresistible force. Without free will, I am a determined animal, perhaps even robotic, but I am not human.

Fourth, without free will there is no such thing as justice. I can neither find nor enforce justice in a court of law if there is no self-direction, either on the criminal's part (he can't be held accountable if he was determined to do it) or on the judge’s part (he can't make a rational decision if there is no such thing).

One cannot have free will without self-direction, and one cannot have self-direction without self-awareness, and one cannot have self-awareness without consciousness. The evidences are convincing that we have all these things. I have consciousness, therefore I am self-aware, and therefore I am self-directed. Both reason and experience tell us these things are so. Everything about humanity and reason point to the necessity of free will, and that free will is not contradictory to God's omniscience.