God is out of our jurisdiction...Follow

Eh, it's slow around here with some regulars away. (Not in prison, necessarily. Mostly.) Any conversation is good.

Ok, I can buy a god that has omnipotence and chooses not to exercise it, but what you're suggesting is a god that chooses ignorance. Even overlooking that most Christians believe that god does know the future (hell, it's probably even in the bible), that's a pretty reckless god you have there. I can't really say that I could like a god who intentionally didn't do his research when he created me.




This is entirely at odds with any theory that suggests that god doesn't know the future, or that humans have free will. If the universe is created by god, who creates the laws of physics as they are, and we abide by them (that is, the particles that comprise us follow those same laws and act in predictable ways), then we can not have free will (and we probably don't, as I have argued in the past). Furthermore, he must be capable of knowing the future, because he knows the equations and the variables.

I can wholly sympathize with how difficult it can be to come to grips with a potent challenge to one's entire foundation for morality, but really, if one is intelligent enough to understand these simple concepts, one is intelligent enough to come to the same conclusion that many of the people here have come to, and to analytically develop a rational basis for morality. The problem is obviously not that people are convinced by powers of logic that god exists, or that they are content to cling to faith arbitrarily (well, probably some of them in either case), but a feeling that there needs to be a god, and until one realizes that they (or we) don't need a god, they will continue to delude themselves.

The opposite is just as true.

The problem in this debate of Free Will Vs Omniscience, is that everyone assumes it's either a simplified version of "Christian God" or a God that is basically a human with super powers.

In those two cases, i agree that there is a paradox between those two.

But I think that's scratching the surface of the problem, and having a very human-centric view of God.

His omniscience could very exist within his own consciousness, in which there is no straight forward "timeline", in which past and future don't exist as such, and in which the He is free will.

It's obvious that if you see "God" as a bearded Professor X, then it's obvious a lot of theological "paradoxes" won't make sense.

I'm ready to bet, though, than if an entity can create and be the whole universe, and more, then he's not quite like a human.

Or even an X-man.

No, but he can make an iced moccha out of coffee beans!

Difficult not to do in a Judeo-Christian system, where you're taught from the jump that man was created in the image of God.

It's more a question of concept than language.

And no, it doesn't "get rid" of the problem, it just changes the boundaries of the apparent paradox of "free will/omniscience", into something else.

I guess it all depends on how you frame the question. If the question is "Are free will and omniscience apparently contradictory, or contradictory in a Judeo-Christian interpretation?" then the answer is "yes".

If the question becomes "Can there be a system whereby a Deity's omniscience is compatible with man's free will?" the answer has to be "yes".

Imagine that "God" is everything. He is you, me, this keyboard, the air, everything. He is both all these things at a "Neutronic" level, and all these things at an infinitely big and "single entity" level. His consciousness is obviously as different to ours, as an microbe's conscisousness is different to ours.

Within this theological system, it's easy to see how God could both be omniscient, aware of everything, since he is everything, and how man could also have free will, and decide things on his own.

No?

Says you, but the premise that "given enough information you could predict whatever" is still highly debatable, and naturally impossible given that humans exist in a certain way. This does not escape the retort that knowledge of present circumstances does not necessarily entail the future, but rather a certain probability of the future becoming a certain way, which is just not the same thing as omniscience, and you don't see the paradox because you are trying not to, mainly because you are accepting a much weaker definition of free will than the more traditional one. I'd really prefer if we could stop arguing about definitions.



So you're talking about panentheism, and that's certainly a different kettle of fish. My only beef with that really is I'm more apt to accept plain old pantheism (I do, as a matter of fact), without supposing some sort of emergent property that is more than the sum of its parts comes about in some way. Then again, the mind could be said to be created in an identical manner, so who am I to deny the possibility of a universal consciousness?

At the same time such a deity seems more compatible (to me) with even a strong definition of free will because that deity would have knowledge only of what exists, and that does not seem to grant the same sort of omniscience as the judeo-christian god is said to have. The deity could have no knowledge of the future at all, because the future doesn't exist in the first place, and a universally emergent deity doesn't have to say anything about the future at all. Come to think of it, that could make for a second good argument against the traditional God's omniscience simply because the future does not exist... but whatever. In this respect I'm all for the suggestion. At the point we start saying these kinds of things about the deity though, I'm inclined to stop capitalizing the word... or calling it a "he"

Edited, Sep 28th 2007 4:57pm by Pensive

OK I've been reading this and I don't really have a horse in this race. But I'm fine with admitting I'm a moron in the hopes of better understanding this.

God aside.

Say I send my Igor into the graveyard late at night and he gathers some parts up and he sneaks in and grabs Abby Normal's brain and one other and brings them back to me. Then I cobble together two misunderstood, bolt-necked creations on a dark and stormy night.

But I'm from the future (hey look, I woke up late and haven't had enough coffee ok?) so I know what's going to happen.

But I just created the creatures, what happens next I don't alter, facilitate or punish. I stay out of it, I just know. Additionally, I just cobbled the parts together - while I know what they're going to do, I didn't program anything into them to push them in a direction (if I had I would end up with the lightning-haired beauty, goddammit!)

My knowledge of what they're going to do doesn't change the fact that they've chosen to do it, does it? I haven't manufactured the choices or directions or situations nor have I interefered with the consequences of those decisions. Choices were made with my knowledge of the outcome but not my intereference in the choice or the aftermath.

Does this simply come down to perspective? From my perspective, It's not surprising that my poor creatures are facing the pitchforks and torches as I'm omniscient - I knew their choices would lead them there. From their perspective, as I didn't manipulate any of the surrounding circumstances nor influence them they are free to make choices. That those choices would end up in the place that I knew had nothing to do with an influence on their will, did it?

Bah, anyway call me an idiot but please either explain (preferably without saying "Dude it's so OBVIOUS!" and leaving it at that - otherwise it's like those 3d pictures that some people can see and some can't. Clearly I can't.) or point me to further reading. It's an interesting topic and I'd like to know more.

Hi, we're talking about omniscience not time theory.

I realize my example may have caused you to stray down the wrong path but I'd prefer to stay on the topic at hand.

First off, I think it's a silly debate, but what the heck?


I think that the problem people are getting into is that they're assuming a linear timeframe. Past, present, then future. That's from our perspective of course, but need not necessarily be the same from God's perspective.

How can God be omniscient and yet allow free will? Simple. He's aware of every single possible decision you could make, and all the outcomes that could occur, but does not force you to choose a direction to travel. Imagine that "God" is some being that exists in a 5th dimensional space. Thus, he can view a 4th dimensional reality (space and time) as a single "bubble" of space in which the entirety of all that has been, will be, could be, etc in our universe exists. He could follow any timeline and examine any event or series of events. This would clearly meet the definition of "omniscience", yet does not require that any being that actually exists inside that bubble be affected.

This is similar to the oft-overused science fiction idea of quantum realities. The idea is that every possible action that can occur creates a separate reality within space-time. We're not aware of it, but presumably an omniscient being would be. We're allowed free will within our perspective because we're free to make any choice we want at any point. The omniscient being can see every possible reality that might result from any choice we make, but that does not change our free will from our perspective.


The problem is that many of you seem to want to define God in terms that are pretty limited. It's somewhat silly to assume that an omniscient being would still view reality from the same linear perspective that we view it. And once you step away from that assumption, many things that appear to be impossible become quite possible.


Same deal with the whole "all good", but omniscient, and allowing "evil" things to happen. While I'd debate the very concept of an omniscient being actually being "all good" on other grounds (largely because "good" and "evil" are human concepts and again would not really apply to someone exiting at that level of reality), even if we ignore it, it's not a deal breaker here. We simply perceive good and evil differently then God would. He can certainly desire for only good things to happen, but if we again fall to the "all possibilities inside a bubble" model, he's not really going to care which path we take on an individual basis (not much anyway). Because to him, we take all paths simultaneously. He sees all of them at the same time. The good and the bad. We may only perceive one set of results, and may view them as "evil", but he sees them all.

Of course, that assumes a deity that doesn't actually interact with the ants inside his little ant colony at all, but just watches. If we assume that he periodically does interfere, he can still do so in a way that does not violate free will *and* in a way that is "all good" *and* still allow for "evil" to exist. Again, we need to examine the model I've outlined. God need not make our choices for us, but could make changes to the environment to make things "more good", if you will. Or he may choose not to, which may appear to allow "evil" things to occur, but maybe he can see down the line and realize that more realities will end up "good" as a result. Scant comfort to us mortals who can only view time in a straight line, but it might be a big deal to this hypothetical omniscient, omnipotent, and "all good" deity.


Interestingly enough, if you read Genesis, there's some hint of this present. Adam and Eve make choices that result in the hardships of man. That's the story of free will. God's making a promise not to interfere with the decisions and consequences of man's choices. Doesn't make him not "good". Just means he's decided (perhaps) that it's more "good" to allow humans to make their own choices and hope that they make the right ones. Sure, he could easily make the outcome the way he wants, but that would perhaps defeat the entire purpose of the experiment. Dunno. There's a bunch of different ways of looking at this. While I don't buy the whole "God works in mysterious ways" bit as it's normally presented, but in spirit it works when thinking about a being like that. He's clearly not going go be looking at the universe from the same angle we are. We may think that the fact that he allowed our beloved pet dog to run out into the street and get hit by a car is "evil", but that could very easily be our own lack of perception of the event itself and its repercussions. Perhaps that even spurs a child to grow up with a strong sense of protection for animals, resulting in shelters for them, and ultimately saving far more people from the pain of lost pets and whatnot? You can't know the results, but presumably an omniscient being would.

Maybe it's just best not to second guess why an omniscient being chooses to do what he does?...

No one implied force. Are you saying that God would only know what path you were capable of taking but not the one you would ultimately choose? If so, not omniscient, just aware of the possibilities.



"Within our perspective", exactly. That would be what the rest of us call the "illusion of free will".



No, we've pretty much said everything you just said. The only thing limited, as usual, were the words used.

Nexa

I was procrastinating.

Nexa