moved over from a discussion started in DN's devotional thread -



if our exact future CAN (by anyone or anything) be known it IS predetermined and we do not have free will to change it (whether god does or not). even if we feel like we do, the feeling would be necessarily illusionary. that is pretty straight forward logic shared by almost all philosophical approaches to the subject.

there is a lot of talk about predeterminism in the bible anyway, which is just another in a long line of logical contradictions within it.





that's a logical contradiction. if the future is predetermined there is no free will - our decisions are already determined when we get to them.

this is where quantum mechanics is kind of fun since it does allow free will - but even in principal, even by GOD, the likelyhood of outcomes of all future events can only be known by percentages (otherwise quantum mechanics is invalid - and it is the most accurately proved theory in the history of science).

if god exists and we have free will he can only know percentages of future outcomes. god is playing +/-EV for your soul.

there is no contradiction. Just b/c He knows what your future is doesnt mean He is the one pulling the strings on you. You are making the choices that lead to that future not Him. He knows the future yes. But that means nothing in terms of you. You will make the choices. He knows what you will do but you will make the choices that gets you there

Think of it in terms of a poker game. Often both players can look at the game and see the same end game strategy. Now your opponent sees how its going to end but is he making you play those moves? Of course not but that doesnt mean the end game strategy isnt known.

Ok, I actually respect you both a lot more now... thanks for moving this here...




Let the argument resume.





ps. On DN's thread I wasn't saying that the topic was mindless... I said that the ramblings and arguing were mindless.

We all make our own choices. Nobody forces us to do anything. Nothing is predetermined.

That much is easy to see. Is God able to see it before you do?

Of course. So what? It changes nothing- you are still in control, you are still the pilot. Unless you are Tex Waters, then the devil is his captain.

That's a different issue though.

Do you not see how having an action being known to 100% certainty before it happens infringes on free will?

if something can be exactly predicted it changes everything.

this means that the event is entirely inevitable, and we are simply waiting for
something that absolutely must happen(ie be predetermined) to carry out.

you can spin it any way you want, but 100 percent knowledge of the future(by anyone, including God) absolutely eliminates any meaningful concept of free will.

and dont try to use the "God is outside of time" diversion- that makes no difference at all.


if some event can be predicted exactly, then that event must happen.
if an event must happen, then it cannot be said to be "free" in any way.

you must be able to demonstrate why one of the above 2 statements is false,
or God cant be omniscient, or we dont have free will.

You also are tryin to compare apples to oranges. You cannot compare mans actions to Gods knowledge of what is to happen

God knows when and what events will happen...so what? Does He go around telling us them? Of course not. We dont have any knowledge of what is going to occur and we never have anyway of knowing what is going to happen. Therefore we are completely free in our decisions. We are completely free to make whatever decisions we want. God just knows where they will lead to. He isnt affecting them but he knows what will happen. You say this hinders free will but explain how. You are completely able to choose what you want but each choice will lead you to exactly where God knew you would be.

No, because it doesn't it. The idea bothers some, but it effects no one.

you arent quite getting it.
it does not matter at all if we personally know. it also does not matter at all if the entity that knows is causing something to happen.
the only thing that matters is that anyone, even if they are God, can know that an event will happen with certainty.

let me clarify one thing also-
"God just knows where they will lead to", but does not know what we will decide- ie God is not all knowing- this is fine
God also knows what we will decide- not fine, unless we dont have free will.
i dont know which one of these statements you are making here.

going back to my argument, anything that can be exactly predicted cannot be "free".

i dont know if this point can be made any clearer, and the fact that "free will" is an extremely poorly defined term does not help.

The point is... free will. We need to choose. I've done a lot of work with kids and I can see in their faces when they are going to do something wrong, but how can I punish them before they do it? I can't.

then how can god know what we will do?



think of it like a path we are walking that forks (when we make our choices) - if the exact fork we will take is knowable BEFORE we get to it, how can we be "free" to take the other fork when we get there? as far as we are concerned if the fork we take is predetermined before we get there we are NOT free to choose which way we will go.

if god is able to see a decision we make before it happens (either because he is outside our time or because of his predictive powers or whatever) there must be something besides our free will that causes the decision to happen - something that predetermines the decision, such as prior environmental causes or other prior sequences of events outside our control which locks our future choice into place, which of course themselves would have to be predictable and not random.

anyway, this whole thing started because DN said god "has a purpose for all things", which implies that he does intervene and direct our lives - messing even further with the philosophical concept of free will.




not a good example because you can only predict what the kids will do AFTER they've already decided to do it, not before they decide.

So lets say God knows I'm going to kill somebody tomorrow.

What if I don't?

then God didnt know.

maybe you can elaborate some, but i dont see this as a very interesting
question.


one point that is somewhat related is that "knowing" with certainty is impossible, at least for humans. even if something can be exactly predicted every time, all you can be sure of is that your predictions correlate with what happened 100 percent of the time. you still cant be certain that they will continue to do so.

so how can god be certain when humans cant? who knows?
i cant think of any conceivable way that any being could be absolutely certain.
however, since if in fact God did exist, it would be so far beyond human conception as to be inconceivable, then i cant really rule it out.

on a sidenote, this is one of the reasons why i dont believe in any major religion- any true God would be so far beyond human experience that any speculation about the attributes or motivations of that God would be useless.

this really doesnt make sense at all. Since God isnt telling you what you will or will not do..by tryin to trick God you arent really doing anything

Now i know this isnt a perfect analogy but take the main idea of the movie Minority Report...more specifically using the girl since she was the best of them all...Now the basic theme is that events will happen that lead to the death of somebody and that its the polices job to stop that. But what the point was that we are inevitably leading down the path to that future event. If you recall...Tom Cruise only had the chance to change his future once he knew what it was and how to avoid it.

Now imagine this on the same level as God. He knows your events. He knows everything that will lead up to that event. But b/c He knows does it affect you in any way? Of course not. B/c you dont know what he knows you will make ur decisions that way. Now if God told you the future then just maybe you could change something. But sense you dont know you are destined to fulfill that. It will be all your choices that will lead to that outcome.

no, it does not affect you. but it does remove the possibility that you have free will.

"your choices" will just be an illusion- you are not really making choices, but simply fulfilling the deterministic path that has already been decided. that you "think" you are making choices is irrelevant.

i suppose i could keep making this point, but i dont think it will help any.

it isnt even a matter of "agreeing to disagree"

i get the feeling that you simply cant understand the point that we are trying to make.

how is inevitability compatable with free will? you're blatantly contradicting yourself.



the obvious implication is that the EVENTS cause us to make the choices we make, and our choices cannot be different unless the events change.

No i understand your reasoning. That if the path is predetermined then we cant have free will....So for a second lets take God out. You make choices that lead you to a certain point. Each choice leads to a future event. Thats common sense. Free will tells us that we are able to make these choices...So we all agree that that is true

Now lets add in God. He sees all those exact choices you will make. That is all You still make them but he knows them. Were you affected in anyway? Of course not. You still make your choices irregardless of Him.

how?

if you are saying god can predict our choices then something besides free will (outside influences that he can detect) must be determining what we choose. that one is obvious.

if you are saying that god is outside time and can somehow "look back" on choices we made, then those choices must somehow be *fixed* and unchanging within our time (otherwise you end up with multiple realities). that one requires a little more thought, but it is still impossible to get around.

and irregardless isn't a word

This is a hard subject to comprehend, so I try not to think about it(makes my head hurt.) But, my theory is this: Have you ever known someone so well, a girlfriend/boyfriend, family member, that you knew what they were going to do before they did it? I think most of us have. This is how God knows everything. He created us, so He knows us better than anybody has ever known anybody, so He always knows what we are going to do before we do it, there letting have our free will, but yet still being all-knowing.

knowing someone well is definitely not the same as knowing them exactly.

im not going to read through all the christian apologists, but im willing to bet that there are at least some that admit that God cant be all knowing.

i dont know why this is so hard to admit for some christians- God can still be the smartest and most knowledgable being in the universe if you want.

the other alternatives are having an irrational religion that wont convince anyone reasonable, or getting rid of the idea of free will(something that would pretty much gut christianity).

yes that outside influence is Him. As the creator of everyhting He knows everything. The problem is that we try to compare things to Him but the problem is that nothing is His equal so we have nothing to compare to Him.

Your second theory is not correct. yes there are infinite possibilites..but for each decision you will only make one. Theres no way around it. So in that sense each of us go down one path. God knows this He knows the choices we will make. but so what. Your still the one making them. Your free to make your choices but God knows what will be made...

and thats the reason im not an english major...so that i can use words like irregardless and be happy with it

I'm curious if there are any calvinists on here on this board just for the sake of debate.

not a calvinist but i know where ur gonna go with it

If anyone has seen waking life there is a pretty good segment in that movie about the concept of free will.

Basically it comes down to this: We are made of atoms just like everything else, and these atoms are subject to certain natural laws like any other atoms. From a scientific point of view, our thoughts are nothing more than fantastically complicated chemical reactions.

When you mix baking soda and vinegar, there is no "will" the atoms react and produce carbon dioxide and other products. So if our thoughts are chemical reactions how can there be "will" in our thoughts?

Quantum mechanics allows for a certain randomness, but this is not will either, just a game of chance.

When you add in the fact that so many of our choices are based on past experiences that are out of our control (such as our parents or upbringing) I think that if we do have free will it is much more limited than we realize.

Maybe a Christian would say that we have a soul that somehow overrides physical laws, and allows for free will. Even given that I think so much of what happens is out of our control that our choices in life are actually much less than you think.

You obviously don't have kids, because what I said was true... you CAN see what kids will decide, and the younger the kid the more easy to spot.

I'm saying that if God sees that I do a certain thing tomorrow, then how do I have the free-will to do it or not?

If he really sees something then it doesn't happen, then doesn't that prove God wrong? Which, like can't happen.

i give up. you're not even addressing the issue.



there are arguments that our brains function quantum mechanically, which leads to a form of free will as an emergent property. they are over my head, though.






i have an 18 year old son, so i've been there. you can't KNOW what kids will decide, you can only make educated guesses based on behavioral patterns - which is fundamentally different from being "all-knowing".

my son frequently surprised me.

you dont have free will if God sees it- see my posts in this thread for a brief explanation.

yes, it would prove him wrong. but i dont think this theoretical has any important implications since it can easily be solved in a way that doesnt upset any fundamental beliefs. if you dont like God being wrong, just say your statement
is an impossibility.

Main Entry: ir·re·gard·less
Pronunciation: "ir-i-'gärd-l&s
Function: adverb
Etymology: probably blend of irrespective and regardless
nonstandard : REGARDLESS
usage Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/irregardless


Let's say for a moment that there's a physicist that knows for a fact that gravity dictates that a ball will always fall off this table to the floor. (We're ignoring unusual gravitational exceptions.) Now you roll the ball off the table. The physicist knew/knows what's going to happen. Did he necessarily 'cause' it through his knowledge? No.

Also, there are people that believe that God's not omniscient. I don't see why it's so hard to give him credit for omniscience given his other supernatural qualities...but there are those that make that case.

In a Christian worldview, God created time. He exists outside of it. We exist inside of it. It's why concepts like this are difficult to grasp.


So are you arguing that we have free will or not?


Yes...but I'm a reluctant calvinist. I really don't like the guy that it's named after, and my desire to be in control resists a number of concepts. I think it's a doctrine that is usually better reserved for discussion within Christian circles. Considering that it's controversial enough between denominations, non-Christians typically hate it.

webster: "Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead"

this is what i meant, but whatever lol



just like matt you are off on a tangent of whether god causes things or not, which is irrelevant. no matter what causes the ball to fall IT DOES NOT HAVE A CHOICE whether it falls or not.



the ultimate point is it makes more sense that the concept of god being omniscient is man made, than that the logical conflict of omniscience and free will is "solved" by some man-invoked metaphysical method we can't comprehend. occam's razor cuts deep here - any time you have to fall back on "man cannot comprehend the ways of god" to explain illogics in the nature of god you are just copping out.



difficult but not impossible. if there is an outside of (our) time in which our time can be viewed in it's entirety as finalized - what is within our time must be unchanging - sequences of events within time must always lead to the same resolutions (everything that happens is inevitable). this is the philosophical concept of block time.



that's also irrelevant - nobody knows whether we do or not or can prove that either way (although it's commonly attempted). the point that should be obvious from the thread title is that if we have free will god can't logically know with 100% certainty what we will decide ahead of time.

I am a Calvinist...

What is "free will"?

[quote]the ultimate point is it makes more sense that the concept of god being omniscient is man made, than that the logical conflict of omniscience and free will is "solved" by some man-invoked metaphysical method we can't comprehend. occam's razor cuts deep here -[/quote] any time you have to fall back on "man cannot comprehend the ways of god" to explain illogics in the nature of god you are just copping out. [/quote]

Im not sure anybody has used it that as a cop out. Merely do we understand all that is God? no...do you understand everything yet? no thats the point of science...to try to comprehend things. We dont have an answer yet for stuff..neither does science...Why are we being held to a double standard?

[quote]just like matt you are off on a tangent of whether god causes things or not[/quote]

see no..i have already said God doesnt cause things

What does God do then if He does not cause all things? Also, what is your definition of free will?

Agreed. Free will is an illusion. We can attack free will using the same arguments that have been used above simply by replacing god with the “laws of physics.” This is easy to understand using only classical (non-quantum) mechanics. The probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics doesn't remove the dilemma. Just because an outcome is uncertain doesn’t mean that it can be controlled.

My point is that someone having foreknowledge of events doesn't establish lack of choice. I'm not arguing that we have free will. I'm arguing that this is a crappy argument against it.


If God is omnipotent and omnipresent, how is omniscience going out on a limb? I believe that God created the universe and time. If he's able to do something of such a grand scale, is it unbelievable to think that he's all-knowing?


That's a possible line of reasoning, yes...and I think quite a few Christians would agree with that.


It's not irrelevant. You're asking Christians whether they believe in free will. I'm asking you what you think.

why not? where does the concept of choice come from if what's chosen is inevitable?



i'm not arguing against free will. i'm pointing out 2 common christian concepts that are logically incompatable.



it's not - if you ASSUME the others, but there are logical challenges to all of them.



no i'm not. someone who didn't believe in free will would find this thread pointless.

science doesn't allow logically contradictory theories to both be true. there is no double standard.



which is irrelevant to this thread, not to mention contradicts the bible.

you must not read ur posts first...

the first statement is in direct response to you saying that when christians dont know something they say "we cant comprehend God and so we shouldnt try" I said that nobody says that...Scientists and you more specifically have used the exact same reasoning to say why you dont know how the earth began.

The second response was directly to this statement:


and my point was that God does not make the choices for you. You make the choices not God...He doesnt control your choices. Only you do. It was the only way that you could freely accept or reject God

My theory on freewill.

Your life is full of checkpoints. However, the path to this checkpoint is upto you.

you lost me.



i'm not arguing with you about that. this thread isn't about that.

Where does the concept of choice come from in your worldview?

And, the concepts that you're pointing out have been highly contested in Christian circles for centuries...though more directed towards the working of salvation. Ultimately, the answer may not matter - if you chose Christ and/or if Christ chose you. Either way, if the relationship is true, you're saved.

I was given a bridge analogy on this, but pardon me if my explanation isn't very good.

Let's say we're arminian and we walk half-way up a bridge. We don't see the rest of it, but we have faith and "jump" (free will). We make it to the other side.

Now let's say that we're calvinist and we walk half-way up the bridge. We see the rest of the bridge and continue on our way (predestination), reaching the other side.

From the arminian perspective, the calvinist "jumped" (made a choice of free will) while thinking the rest of the bridge was there.

From the calvinist perspective, the rest of the bridge (predestination) was always there for the arminian even though he didn't see it.

Either way, the important point is the destination.

i'm not sure it exists at all, although at some point i'll probably try again to study why some deep thinkers (penrose etc) seem to think QM allows it while classical mechanics doesn't. not sure, but perhaps it's also possible (classical) chaos theory might have something to say about it as an emergent property of complexity.



christ didn't like me enough to choose me apparently.



i don't see how this applys. there is no question that we at least have the illusion of free will (we THINK we are choosing to jump or not). the issue is whether if *god knows* we will jump before we choose to jump or not, how can we not jump?



the important point is logical contraditions in the bible are evidence that the christian god might not exist.

wrong...u spend how much time on christian posts about God? You know exactly what God asks of you? It has nothing to do with God not choosing you



what i cant comprehend is this. Lets say you have to choose A or B. Your goign to chose A or B no matter what. Now lets say God has the ability to travel through time since He can do it if He is outside of time. So he knows you are going to choose A. Well you in fact as God knew...do choose A. Its not a matter of God forced you to choose A or for the matter that you could have chosen B. Its that your were always goign to choose A. Not b/c God willed it but b/c that was the choice you were goign to make at that moment no matter what. You havent lost free will b/c you were always going to freely make that choice.



logic doesnt do anything for the bible...some of the greatest christian apologetics are extremely well versed in philosophy.

that was a sarcastic response to CB saying it doesn't matter whether we are saved by predestination or free will.



i think you would understand this more if you leave god completely out of it and just look at cause and effect. you keep saying there is only one path we can take - if it is inevitable that we take that path *something* has to be determining the path we take BEFORE WE GET THERE. it doesn't have to be god - it can be sequences of prior events or other external causes.

on the first part its hard to tell sarcasim online so i just answered it..sorry if it wasnt what u wanted

on the second. yes we can play the what if game. Thats fine. You can insert anything in for all i care...but that doesnt change anything...according to the bible its not something else it is God who knows all things...so while it doesnt have to be God the bible says it is God

This topic is a discussion on the existance of fate. The way I view fate is that the human reaction is very predictable, and very natural. I believe our enviornment tempers us to decide either with or against the grain or sociological "norm". Many decisions in our life are very binary(referenceing binary code), what i mean is that our decisions can be broken down into simple yes, no questions, and our answers to those questions are swayed by our present enviornment mixed with our past conditioning. Therefore would predicting someone's future or "fate" be all that impressive if it is broken down to a science? If the course of your life is placed infront of you in the form of millions, billions or trillions of yes, no (1,0) questions would you really be all that impressed? As poker players you see people read someone's hand blind all the time based on various factors which are considered. So wouldn't predicting the course or fate of someone's life be the job of a glorified card player? If you think in the context of life as being dealt a hand of poker, you would spend your life attempting to decieve your opponent, which in itself is predictable, right, so then you play your hand straightforward, but depending on your opponent is that too predictable...and this is the cycle many of us find ourselves in, trying to defeat fate...trying to create some sort of excitement, some sort of unpredicatable path or ending to our life... Like the job of a writer or producer, when in actuality all your writing is the same story that's been told a millions times with the same meaning, whether is be a story of a football team, a marching band, cheerleaders, baseball players, of a volleyball team... So no matter what we do, no matter how much we occupy our time trying to deceive fate, in actuality we are only living the same lives, and fullfilling the same stories of the people that have came before us, only with a few different twists? In that light, isn't life so simple? Doesn't life seem so tasteless? We live, we attempt to make things interesting (friends, love, family, hobbies) and we die. And now we understand why people can't deal with the fact that our lives are predictable...because it's depressing....

An all knowing god basically implies that the universe CAN be known and CAN be predicted. And if that's the case, it doesnt operate on 'maybes' at the most basic of levels. Quantum mechanics implies that everything rests on randomly determined probabilities rather than a series of concrete events, which makes it incompatible with the idea of an all knowing god simply because the future is unknowable until it happens.



If the universe is deterministic, the future can be known based on the position of every atomic and subatomic particle - and in creating a universe just as it was, a god would be sealing the fate of the universe.
If the universe is probabilistic, the future cant be known.


If god knows it, then the knowledge exists. If the knowledge exists, there's some basis for it. If there's a basis for the knowledge, the universe is deterministic.

An all knowing god only says he knows everything that was and is. That doesnt require him knowing the future if there is free will.

This may have already been answered, but for those arguing for free will, what exactly is free will? What is the definition of the sovereignty of God?

If everything is based on chance, then I am not sure how anything at all can be known? If everything going on is by chance, then what you are thinking is the result of chemical reactions in your brain, so that it is by "chance" that you are thinking what you are thinking. There is no basis for knowledge. How can there be any causal relationship between any events at all if everything is random and by chance?

I watched the Matrix 1 and 2 this weekend and there is some deep philosophy stuck in the scenes with the Oracle. Makes a great case for why free will and all knowing can coexist