With The Existence Of An Omniscient God, Do We Really have Free-Will???
Yes
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No
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some invisible force knowing everything doesn't change what i do. i do what i do based on my decisions, if something knows about it... good for him. this is actually way more simple than how people try to make it. now, if he's controlling what i do, that's not free will, but he ain't... he just knows. Side: yes
I feel it's a lot more complex than you are making it out to be. If he already knows which action you are going to perform, then you have no free will to perform any of the other actions. In effect, your free will is not there as you have no free will to choose any of the alternative actions. The system you describe gives you the illusion of free will, but it isn't actual free will as you were never free to not follow the path that god knew you would. You can go so far as to say that god knew everything you would ever do in your life before he even created you, therefore god is choosing to directly create you with the predisposed knowledge of all of your future actions. His creation of you is his act which controls the rest of your life. He indirectly controls you through his pre-ordained knowledge. How can you possibly describe that as free will? Side: No
his knowledge is not MAKING me do anything. i make a choice and he knew i would do it. i could make any choice i want, and he knows... but he never made me do it. he just happens to know... lets say i was a psychic who could tell every action you were going to make... are you all of a sudden gonna say you have no free will? maybe if i told you how something is gonna be, then it will dead lock you in a fact that no matter what action you make, it will lead to this outcome, but am i forcing you at all to make your decision? no. i simply just know. Side: yes
Ah, I have to disagree with you on this. I think I've already said this, but personally, I cannot believe that free-will exists, but I see where this guy is coming from. "... your free will is not there as you have no free will to choose any of the alternative actions." Imagine that you're a teacher, and you see a kid that never does his work and fails tests left and right. All you do though, is dish out the work and collect it for grading. You cannot help people who are failing and you cannot reward those who are passing. You simply tell them what they need to know to pass their current grade level, and then evaluate them and send them on their way. Does your knowledge of the failing student cause the student to fail? You can use this in nearly any way. If you know that your tire will blow out soon, does your knowledge of this cause the tire to blow or does it do this naturally, and your awareness has no effect? You have to use a lot of abstract thinking when it comes to understanding what exactly omniscient means, or what it must be like. That is why I used, before this, the 1+1=2 example. An all knowing thing knows when it sees 1+1 that it is only another way of seeing 2. 1+1 is how we see 2, or 3-1. We all see 2, naturally. Just because we cannot know what 94803x93480 equals doesn't mean that to an all knowing thing they don't see 8,862,184,440 (ha, which is lower than America's national debt :/ ). You can scale this any way you want to, an all knowing thing doesn't interfere with your free-will because it always knows the end result. All it does assuming god does not interfere with your personal life is know the end result of your infinite freedom. Side: No real Free-will
100% dead spot on. It is truly very simple. God knows what our actions will be, but he does not decide what they will be. Think of life as a movie that you have already seen. If you watch it a second time you are like god. You know exactly what will happen in the movie, but you don't decide what will happen. Your knowledge of what takes place in the movie does not make it take place, the choices of the people making the movie decide what takes place in the movie. Just because you can't do anything other than what god knows you will do doesn't mean you aren't doing it of your own free will. The problem many people make is to think of god as someone present in our current time who knows what will happen in the future. That makes it seem like he is deciding the future. What you need to do is switch that up and think of god as someone outside time who is observing all of it at once. This effectively makes him present in every moment all at once. Therefore he is not deciding anything about what will happen, he simply knows that in what feels like the future to you, but feels like the present to him, you have already decided to do whatever you end up doing. He knows the future as if it is the present, because to him all points in time are as one. Side: yes
Yes, God is omniscient, and man is predestined AND man has free-will. Here is an illustration of how it works: Let's say God is a general in an army—the head general. And "soldiers" (people) are following Him in battle. Finally, they come to the BIG BATTLE—the final battle, the biggest battle there will be against the greatest ENEMY. Many soldiers, by this time, have already fallen away from smaller battles, but there's still let's say about 100 left. First, they rest. Then the general says, "It's time. Who will follow me?" (because He knows that some are too weary, too afraid, etc. to go on). Out of the 100, about 36 step forward in line and say "I'll follow you." So the general steps in front of each of the soldiers that have stepped forward to follow him, and says "Okay, then I choose you." to each one of the ones that volunteered. Now, the general being so wise, and knowing His men so well, already knew ahead of time which ones would step forward. But He wanted them to know in their own hearts of their own free-will that it was their choice. He didn't make them, but because of His wisdom, He foreknew which ones would step forward for the final battle and only chose them. This is the best illustration I can come up with for how God gives man a choice, but is always still all-knowing. Peace. Side: yes
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Think of it this way. Just because God knows what you are going to do does not mean that he makes you do it. But here's the tricky part. If God knows you're a little Shiite planning on blowing yourself up and take some innocent lives with you and He lets you do it, then He doesn't think that what you're doing is all that bad and He loves you just the same. Side: yes
Didn't the popular understanding of god make humans to have free-will? If that's the case, why would god make something that could do good or evil as it sees fit, and to love god out of free will, if as soon as someone made a bad choice using free-will, he swooped down from the heavens or whereever a god may be, and stopped either, the bad person from making the decision by his god-given free-will, or the "innocent" from dying by the power of god's free-will? Free-will would have no real purpose or substance if god gave it to us for a reason and then took it when it saw fit. Would a good god take from you what it gave to you? Another thing is that you claim that the people dying are "innocent", but in the Bible all people are sinners, but not all people are forgiven the same way. We are all bad, and not all good. That's the way it goes according to popular belief, so in that reality, no one can really be innocent. If they are good with god and die, what does it matter? If they are not good with god, then they aren't innocent, again, what does it matter? Side: No real Free-will
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G-d is NOT omniscient. G-d has a "plan" for everyone but that plan is not set in stone. It makes sense, in practically any religion, as long as you look at it in a detached sense, that if we didn't have free will then that religion would be the ONLY religion. Am I right? The fact that there are so many religions in the world is proof alone that we humans have free will. Because if we did not, then Judaism, seeing as how it is the OLDEST monotheistic religion ever, would be the only religion of the world. Side: Multiple Religions equals Free Will
The simplest way to understand how god can be omniscient and yet we have free-will is this. Imagine time as a river. God is floating above that river looking down on the entire length of it. He can see everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. Therefore he is omniscient, he knows everything. A person is like a small pebble in that river, that is lifted up by the current (birth), floats along for a short period (life), then returns to the stream bed (death). God is watching each of those pebbles at every point in time, so he knows everything that will ever happen to each pebble. However, he is still floating above the river, not in it, and so he doesn't decide what actually happens to the pebble, he merely observes. So god doesn't cause our actions, he is merely aware of what actions we will chose of our own free will to take. Miracles are the very few times when god does reach down into the river and change the flow in some way. Side: yes
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God can see everything, we can only see what is in front of us, and to the sides... If we were in a building we can only see what is in front of us, God on the other hand is on the roof looking down, he can see absolutely everything... right??? Yes Let's say you were in a room, you can only see what is in front of you, and to the sides. I am on the roof looking down, I can see absolutely everything in that room. Of all the possible doors in that room that you can take, I know ahead of time which one you will take because I can see all of the doors, and I can see which one you are walking towards, but what if you made a sudden turn that I was not expecting???. That is one flaw in that sort of argument. Yesterday I posted a quote from a theist website. The quote was an example of a father leaving a cookie on a table knowing that his son would take it. Now what if his son was sick, and not hungry, and decided not to take it??? Or what if his son didn't see the cookie, and therefore didn't take it like the father had imagined??? That would mean the father was wrong. Now because I didn't expect you to take that turn, and because the son didn't take the cookie, examples such as those can never work when applied to an omniscient bieng who is "never wrong" and is "always right". If God only knows the possible outcomes, then he will be wrong on more than one occasion. That is not what christian doctrine states however. Christian doctrine states explicitly that God is all knowing, and is never wrong. If this omniscient bieng only knows all the possible conclusions, then he doesn't know which one you will make until you make it, which goes against omniscience. An omniscient bieng knows absolutely everything, and is never wrong. So if God knows that I will be picking my nose at 3:04, on a thursday, 40 years from now, then I have absolutely no choice but to pick my nose at 3:04, on a thursday, 40 years from now. Therefore I have no free-will Side: No
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Merriam Webster has it that being omniscient means "having infinite awareness,understanding and insight." God has all these attributes, however, in possessing them He has also given us free will. Your argument has some flaws in it Alex. Because He has given us dominion over ourselves it is not God that is wrong...it is we who are incorrect or wrong. We make our own decisions and we rejoice in our successes that were obtained righteously and pay for each thing we do that goes against His will. You gave the example that both God and you were on a roof from which you could see all possible entrances and exits to a room below. The person who wished to exit that room walked toward one, changed his mind and chose another door. You assumed he would exit through the very door he was walking toward but you presupposed that exit because of his direction. He exercised his free-will in changing his mind and leaving by another door. The father who expected his son to take the cookie he left there for him was simply incorrect in his assumption because he was unaware of the circumstances. His son exercised his free will when he by-passed that cookie because he wasn't feeling well, not hungry or didn't see it at all. Being omniscient has nothing whatever to do with being right or wrong. God may know all possible conclusions but you are the person who makes the choice and takes the chance that it is the device that would bring you whatever it is you had wanted. That is what free-will means. Your last argument blows the first two out of the water and spins it in the direction to make your point which, to me, is not well taken. If He knows that 40 years from now you'll be picking your nose at 3:04 you conclude that you will do that very thing and yet in the first two arguments put forth you intimated that neither God nor you nor the father of the son knew exactly what the outcome would be! How do you know that God didn't know what their eventual actions would be? God will never stop you or anyone from making the choices they make. That, again, is what free-will means. Side: yes
You completely misunderstood my post... By posting the father/cookie, and the roof examples I was showing how using those examples as an argument for God's omniscience doesn't work. It doesn't work because the father was incorrect about the boys choice, and I was incorrect about which door you would have taken. God on the other hand is never wrong, but the father, and I clearly were, so those types of arguments can never be used to defend an omniscient bieng. God knows all possible conclusions but it's up to me to make the ultimate choice??? Yes, but God already knows ahead of time what my ultimate choice will be. Side: No
I Never said that God made me do anything. In my opinion if God really exists, and he is omniscient, he is only letting us think that we have free will. When in reality we can't have freewill to choose what we will do because before we were even born, God knew every decision we would ever make in our lives. Every thing we do in our lives, we were pre-destined to do that. If you arein a place where there are 5 different doors to choose from, whichever door it is that you choose, you were destined to choose that one, so you had absolutely no free-will in choosing that door Side: No
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Alex, I must give you credit for explaining and defending your argument as you have. If God has designed everything for everyone in life, as you see it, then He would be omnipresent. Although I do believe He is both I seriously doubt that His time is spent outlining your nose-picks or my sneezes and I do believe He has truly given us free will in our thoughts, actions and beliefs. Whether this pleases Him or not is an entirely different issue. Thank you for taking the time to explain and expand upon your position. Side: yes
If the omniscient god is personified, as in a monotheistic religion, then as the story goes, "he" is all knowing. This abstract thought has baffled theologians and religious practicioners for centuries. Does this god let us do as we please, does he control our thoughts and behavior, or does he know our future and refrain from interfering??? In taking a more practical approach to questions of free-will, I suggest the person refrains from allowing God to interfere with their observations of the world around them. When we observe that which exists around us, we can begin to see clearly that our will is forged by our environment, the people in our lives, and culture and customs of our societies. For example, one could make the argument we can choose to pursue careers as an athlete or a doctor, we are heavily influenced by our parents, by the economy (which dictates the pay of these professions), the decisions of our role-models, the availability of education, and on and on. The choices we make are relatively small when compared to the overall influences governing them. I challenge you to think about the major decisions in your life. Contemplate how easily you could have chosen a different path, and why you made the decision you have. Trace your steps backward. Your career may have emerged from your college degree, which followed your course work and decision to declare a major. Perhaps your major was picked because you knew very little of your options, and had a semester with a very enthusiastic professor who simply suggested that you would be good in that particular field. Our free-will and influences can be traced in very real ways without the necessity to include the powers of God. Although the inclusion of a god variable is extremely intriguing, the debate exists in an abstract realm revealing very little insight. Side: No
With the popular definition, no. If there is a god, and it created everything that exists, and even maybe itself, there is no true "free-will". I don't believe that free-will is even possible, if you're thinking about it as an abstract theory or idea. I cannot fly with my arms if I will myself to do so. I cannot run 100mph with only my legs, if I want to. There is no real free-will beyond what I want for breakfast. I can eat mud, dog shit, muffins, steak... is that choice free-will? If I chose a muffin over dog shit, am I expressing true free will? What if the muffin tastes as bad as dog shit? Well, for one that would be a nasty muffin, and two, I cannot do anything about it... except will myself to find a better, pre-existing food. Still though, why would I be eating? I have to eat or I'll die... We are always playing by the rules, even if you can prove that free-will exists, free-will is one of those rules and we are stuck with it. Whether or not there is a god, we do not have free-will. If you want a more direct answer, then I would have to say, so long as the omniscient god does not interfere with your life, you have as much free-will as you like to imagine. Just because someone can know something before it happens doesn't mean that you didn't make the choices. God would only be witnessing your free-will's end result before you... So what? Side: No real Free-will
A father leaves a cookie where his little boy will see it. The father knows the boy will eat it if he sees it. He sees it, he eats it. The boy was not actually forced to eat it, but he was trapped into eating it. A script was prepared, in effect, that had an excellent chance of being carried out. An omnisicent God, in seeing the future, is referring to a script (writer please step forward) that WILL be fulfilled 100%. Therefore the actors have no real choice, although they believe they do. Side: No
To answer Bradf0rd: I believe there is no script. I was simply denying that omniscience is compatible with a truly free will, which would be independent of a script or sequence of predicted events, and cause any God that might exist to be surprised. If such a being could be surprised, (and it would be a pretty dull world if he/she/it couldn't), omniscience goes bye bye, and good riddance to a silly concept. Whitehead's more my style, seeing creation going on all the time, usn's sharing in it, lots of wow factors keeping us and god(s) interested. Side: No
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