WL Craig on God's foreknowledge

[Underseer]

Did god foreknow anything about the universe before he created it?

I mean, if time didn't exist yet, how did he foreknow how the universe would turn out?

Furthermore, if time didn't exist yet, how did he take any actions at all? How did he think thoughts without time?

William Lane Craig's crap just gets more and more absurd the more he talks about it.

 

[James Brown]

Yes. If we imagine God existing before the universe, and then deciding to create a universe, and then thinking about how the universe would work, and then creating a universe, then we are smuggling in a passage of time where time should not exist.

But if we try to solve that problem by suggesting that the time before the Big Bang was a different kind of time from what we experience, then we can no longer say that God is outside space and time.

 

[Wiploc]

But if we try to solve that problem by suggesting that the time before the Big Bang was a different kind of time from what we experience, then we can no longer say that God is outside space and time.

"These are the rules of nature, and you atheists have to abide by them. But we don't like those rules that we stuck you with, so now here are the rules of outside-the-universe, which we theists get to make up. You don't get to have infinite regress, but we do. You have to have a beginning, but we don't. You can't have causation without time, but we can. This is fun."

 

[apeman]

[
Why is it more complex to see will as the foundation of reality rather than unthinking energy? At least we know will exists.

How do you define 'complexity?'

In the sense that I use here, complexity would involve adding more different types of stuff in order to build an explanation.One type of stuff (for instance thought) is simpler than different types of stuff (for instance thought and thought independent stuff).

 

[apeman]

Why do you suppose that a reality made of mind is necessarily more complex than one made of non-mind . We all know the power of the mind to create, we know that even with our own puny minds we are capable of being amazingly creative.

To believe that this reality around us is somehow more simply explained if we believe it is mindlessly creating itself is a misunderstanding of how complex that mindless causation theory really is.We have no experience of inventing anything without thought, your theory of no-thought invention is therefore necessarily going to be a complex one.

Why is it more complex to see will as the foundation of reality rather than unthinking energy? At least we know will exists.

I think your main problem here is a failure to understand the position of those against whom you are arguing.

I for one do not believe that anything "is mindlessly creating itself".

The universe is. There is no 'creating' going on. There might have been some 'creating' or 'arising' in the dim, distant past; or the stuff we see might always have been there.

If you misunderstand the counter-arguments at such a fundamental level, then it is unsurprising that you find your own argument so compelling.

Perhaps if you try to let go of the idea of 'creation', and imagine how things might look without that concept, you will have a better chance of grasping what atheists are trying to say - and at least then you could try to come up with some less obviously flawed rebuttals. Rebutting a position your corespondent does not hold never advances your argument.

So you don't believe in evolution then, dinosaurs didn't evolve from bacteria ? There is no creative process going on? The world is as it as always been?

 

[apeman]

Did god foreknow anything about the universe before he created it?

I mean, if time didn't exist yet, how did he foreknow how the universe would turn out?

Furthermore, if time didn't exist yet, how did he take any actions at all? How did he think thoughts without time?

William Lane Craig's crap just gets more and more absurd the more he talks about it.

Maybe God is not outside of time, it is just that he is not restricted by it. He exists at all moments in time.

 

[Bomb#20]

I come to the conclusion that there is a reality outside of us (that in this theory is necessarily produced by a mind) because I have no sense whatsoever that I , myself, am creating the reality outside of me...other than a small amount of input that I sense I have.

Well of course there's a reality outside of you that you aren't creating much of. But how do you infer from this that it's necessarily produced by a mind, as opposed to the different bits of external reality being produced by many minds? In your own immediate experience, some of it is created by me, some by wiploc, some by Keith&Co., some by Kharakov, some by Tom Sawyer, ...

Look at it this way. We already know from science (which as you point out is no less real in your radical idealism than it is in conventional materialism) that humans evolved from bacteria. If nothing exists but thought then bacteria are thought. Why would you assume the bacteria have to all be the thoughts of a single mind, as opposed to each bacterium being its own tiny little bit of thought?

In this theory there is no separation between cause and effect, they don't exist as such, there is only will.

How does that follow? Here, I'll think a thought, as an act of will. 3.114441111555559999992222222... That thought is still an effect, caused by my act of will, acting on a prior thought, 3.141592... There's still a separation between the cause and the effect, with my will serving as the intermediary -- and I could not have constructed that effect in my mind without first thinking the thought that preceded it. That's what "A causes B" means: A comes before B and without A there would be no B.

Put it this way, if there is a God then all causes and all effects come down to His will. I guess He lets our small minds have a little bit of will (causation) built into them, so that we are not complete slaves to circumstance.

But as you say, you guess. All it is is a guess: just one of the ways it might be. That speculation in no way follows from the premise that nothing exists but thought.

 

[Keith&Co.]

How do you define 'complexity?'

In the sense that I use here, complexity would involve adding more different types of stuff in order to build an explanation.One type of stuff (for instance thought) is simpler than different types of stuff (for instance thought and thought independent stuff).

That's not much of a definition, giving 'for instance's.

But how do you measure complexity, then, and determine comparative complexity?

Because it's way simpler if every feather in my down pillow is real. We can forget about it and it's still there. When the pillow bursts, each feather floats, flies or falls IAW the rules of matter and energy which work independent of any opinion.

If it's all thought in, say, God's mind, then God has to remember each feather or it'll disappear. He has to track each one as it wears away over time. When the pillow bursts, he has to remember how he set up the rules of physics so that he can direct each and every single feather's behavior to obey those rules every single moment. the surveillance and maintenance requirements of a pure-thought universe are far, far greater than that of a universe which contains matter and energy where objects don't need choreography. That seems much more complicated to me.
How would your compare the two complexities?

 

[Kharakov]

How does that follow? Here, I'll think a thought, as an act of will. 3.114441111555559999992222222... That thought is still an effect, caused by my act of will, acting on a prior thought, 3.141592...

Circular reasoning will get you nowhere. It's a common fallacy, so we'll let it slide this time, since it won't get us anywhere, because it's circular reasoning.

All it is is a guess: just one of the ways it might be. That speculation in no way follows from the premise that nothing exists but thought.

Break consciousness into its smallest components.

Stuff still reacts to other stuff, affects stuff around it, "imagines" (maybe know quotes) things around it (virtual particles are what).

You even get the thought of non-conscious reactions existing, from the reactions you are not conscious of.

 

[Bomb#20]

Circular reasoning will get you nowhere. It's a common fallacy, so we'll let it slide this time, since it won't get us anywhere, because it's circular reasoning.

What's your evidence that my reasoning was circular? Do you have a theory for how I could have come up with 3.114441111555559999992222222... without first thinking 3.141592...?

Break consciousness into its smallest components.

Stuff still reacts to other stuff, affects stuff around it, "imagines" (maybe know quotes) things around it (virtual particles are what).

You even get the thought of non-conscious reactions existing, from the reactions you are not conscious of.

Works for me. Not seeing in that picture any single all-encompassing mind. Just lots of distinct bits of mind-stuff.

 

[Kharakov]

What's your evidence that my reasoning was circular?

Circular reasoning.

Do you have a theory for how I could have come up with 3.114441111555559999992222222... without first thinking 3.141592...?

I'd enjoy seeing that math trick- if it's simple and tight. Not a complex rule set....

Break consciousness into its smallest components.

Stuff still reacts to other stuff, affects stuff around it, "imagines" (maybe know quotes) things around it (virtual particles are what).

You even get the thought of non-conscious reactions existing, from the reactions you are not conscious of.

Works for me. Not seeing in that picture any single all-encompassing mind. Just lots of distinct bits of mind-stuff.

Assuming thought is what separated into various forms at the time of the BB, spacetime reacting to matter (mind stuff) within would fit the "all-encompassing" bill.

Whether it is just a bit of mind stuff or a unitary consciousness that can farm from the whole and learn exactly how to grow with other minds....

any attempts at course correction won't be taken the wrong way.

 

[apeman]

Well of course there's a reality outside of you that you aren't creating much of. But how do you infer from this that it's necessarily produced by a mind, as opposed to the different bits of external reality being produced by many minds? In your own immediate experience, some of it is created by me, some by wiploc, some by Keith&Co., some by Kharakov, some by Tom Sawyer, ...

Look at it this way. We already know from science (which as you point out is no less real in your radical idealism than it is in conventional materialism) that humans evolved from bacteria. If nothing exists but thought then bacteria are thought. Why would you assume the bacteria have to all be the thoughts of a single mind, as opposed to each bacterium being its own tiny little bit of thought?

In this theory there is no separation between cause and effect, they don't exist as such, there is only will.

How does that follow? Here, I'll think a thought, as an act of will. 3.114441111555559999992222222... That thought is still an effect, caused by my act of will, acting on a prior thought, 3.141592... There's still a separation between the cause and the effect, with my will serving as the intermediary -- and I could not have constructed that effect in my mind without first thinking the thought that preceded it. That's what "A causes B" means: A comes before B and without A there would be no B.

Put it this way, if there is a God then all causes and all effects come down to His will. I guess He lets our small minds have a little bit of will (causation) built into them, so that we are not complete slaves to circumstance.

But as you say, you guess. All it is is a guess: just one of the ways it might be. That speculation in no way follows from the premise that nothing exists but thought.

The reason that I think that one mind creates and governs existence is that there are clearly laws that we all agree on and that none of us can legitimately say we are creating.

I think that mind is the only thing that can actually cause anything, so yes one thought can cause the next, but an asteroid striking the earth is not the cause of the impact...the correlation of asteroid,earth and impact is necessarily caused by the will of the Being that creates the laws that we witness (in this theory).

If there are universal laws that we can not alter then it stands to reason that a mind other than ours must will those laws.

 

[apeman]

In the sense that I use here, complexity would involve adding more different types of stuff in order to build an explanation.One type of stuff (for instance thought) is simpler than different types of stuff (for instance thought and thought independent stuff).

That's not much of a definition, giving 'for instance's.

But how do you measure complexity, then, and determine comparative complexity?

Because it's way simpler if every feather in my down pillow is real. We can forget about it and it's still there. When the pillow bursts, each feather floats, flies or falls IAW the rules of matter and energy which work independent of any opinion.

If it's all thought in, say, God's mind, then God has to remember each feather or it'll disappear. He has to track each one as it wears away over time. When the pillow bursts, he has to remember how he set up the rules of physics so that he can direct each and every single feather's behavior to obey those rules every single moment. the surveillance and maintenance requirements of a pure-thought universe are far, far greater than that of a universe which contains matter and energy where objects don't need choreography. That seems much more complicated to me.
How would your compare the two complexities?

It is far more efficient for a God to will existence into being than for existence to be endless or eternal because God need only bring into existence that which is witnessed.It would imply that the edge of existence is where God chooses not to think. What does a materialist actually think is outside of this universe? If the materialist thinks that the universe is neither eternal or infinite it becomes extremely complicated for him to explain what the "nothingness" around and before existence is and how it can produce existence.

 

[fromderinside]

That's not much of a definition, giving 'for instance's.

But how do you measure complexity, then, and determine comparative complexity?

Because it's way simpler if every feather in my down pillow is real. We can forget about it and it's still there. When the pillow bursts, each feather floats, flies or falls IAW the rules of matter and energy which work independent of any opinion.

If it's all thought in, say, God's mind, then God has to remember each feather or it'll disappear. He has to track each one as it wears away over time. When the pillow bursts, he has to remember how he set up the rules of physics so that he can direct each and every single feather's behavior to obey those rules every single moment. the surveillance and maintenance requirements of a pure-thought universe are far, far greater than that of a universe which contains matter and energy where objects don't need choreography. That seems much more complicated to me.
How would your compare the two complexities?

It is far more efficient for a God to will existence into being than for existence to be endless or eternal because God need only bring into existence that which is witnessed.It would imply that the edge of existence is where God chooses not to think. What does a materialist actually think is outside of this universe? If the materialist thinks that the universe is neither eternal or infinite it becomes extremely complicated for him to explain what the "nothingness" around and before existence is and how it can produce existence.

Keith&Co its my opinion God doesn't have to remember anything because he's all knowing which implies everything is there before him.

This "bring into existence thing" doesn't make sense to me. I suspect an all knowing being as one who has all before him. Time. Can you imagine how a being, whether God or other, handles events if there is no before or after other than order and that order can be 'all'? The same goes for place, I suspect that is covered by 'every'. Thinking has to be very different unless God wants to be wasteful and think like us. What is the benefit of a God who thinks like us? I suggest none.

As for materialists that is just a current fad among humans. As a materialist I think materialism won't survive Higgs much less any other field construction. Bottom line, we're the three dimensional equivalent of Greene's two dimensional being trying to understand more than two dimensions trying to understand a four or more dimensional creator. Jesus said it best, "The way of God are beyond our understanding".*

*^{_{Sunday school memory from one or the other to which I was exposed as a child}}

 

[Bomb#20]

The reason that I think that one mind creates and governs existence is that there are clearly laws that we all agree on and that none of us can legitimately say we are creating.
...
If there are universal laws that we can not alter then it stands to reason that a mind other than ours must will those laws.

Why must a law be willed in order to exist? Scientific "laws" aren't legal laws -- commands of a legislator that have an effect because a subject hears and chooses to comply -- but simply descriptions of what the universe does. If thought is all there is, thought will have to do something -- think, if nothing else -- and whatever it does can be described. That description will be universal law.

Here's an example of a law: PV = nRT. It relates the pressure, volume and temperature of a gas. The gas is composed of trillions of molecules. Suppose each molecule has a bit of thought to it. Does the molecule think of pressure, volume, temperature? Hardly. The most any given molecule might think would be to go about its own business and only veer off if another molecule comes too close. So of course the thought in a given molecule never wills that PV = nRT. But does that mean some other mind must have willed it? Not at all. PV = nRT is an inevitable mathematical consequence of trillions of molecules each pounding along on its own course and paying no attention to the rest unless they come too close. The law is an emergent phenomenon: a law not of will but of large numbers.

 

[rrr6]

Gravitational Membrane/Fabric/Network

All is cause and effect ergo we live only in a deterministic Universe/God{ ess }.

Gravity is the intermediate buffer-zone between our occupied space Universe and the macro-infinite non-occupied space beyond that embraces our finite, occupied space Universe, however, non-occupied space does not contain our finite Universe.

Gravity embraces and contains our finite Universe.

Gravity embrace every fermionic particle and every bosonic particle.

The gravitational membrane/fabric/networks of nodal-vetexial-events, is ultra-micro, and most likely will remain so to all observers of our Universe eternally.

If the observer wants to have foreknowledge, then they would need to quantize and map-out the some or all aspects of the gravitational network of nodal-vertexial-events, then and only then, could they have possible access to an accurate foreknowledge.

We can have foreknowledge, or at least trust in future events, via our following trajectories based in our past experience, tho that is trust, and not ture foreknowledge. imho

We trust that the auto coming toward us will not cross the center, line based on experience, however, they do occasionally cross that line.

Gravity is the key, or the essence of Universe. Access to a map of the gravitation the fabric/network of nodal-vertexial-events would result in true foreknowledge. Not going to happen. imho

Lee Smolin states, that, it would take and accelerator lab, the size of solar system, to harness enough power, to quantize a single graviton. Has not happened and never will. imho

r6

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

All is cause and effect ergo we live only in a deterministic Universe/God{ ess }.

Gravity is the intermediate buffer-zone between our occupied space Universe and the macro-infinite non-occupied space beyond that embraces our finite, occupied space Universe, however, non-occupied space does not contain our finite Universe.

Gravity embraces and contains our finite Universe.

Gravity embrace every fermionic particle and every bosonic particle.

The gravitational membrane/fabric/networks of nodal-vetexial-events, is ultra-micro, and most likely will remain so to all observers of our Universe eternally.

If the observer wants to have foreknowledge, then they would need to quantize and map-out the some or all aspects of the gravitational network of nodal-vertexial-events, then and only then, could they have possible access to an accurate foreknowledge.

We can have foreknowledge, or at least trust in future events, via our following trajectories based in our past experience, tho that is trust, and not ture foreknowledge. imho

We trust that the auto coming toward us will not cross the center, line based on experience, however, they do occasionally cross that line.

Gravity is the key, or the essence of Universe. Access to a map of the gravitation the fabric/network of nodal-vertexial-events would result in true foreknowledge. Not going to happen. imho

Lee Smolin states, that, it would take and accelerator lab, the size of solar system, to harness enough power, to quantize a single graviton. Has not happened and never will. imho

r6

I had forgotten about this Poster.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Again. Time. If there is time outside and beyond God and not controlled by God, then naturalism rules. What else besides time is outside and beyond God? But if God is outside of time, and created the illusion of time we experience, all is. All that was, is and shall be.

Not a new idea, this is what Augustin in book 11 of his confessions wrote about But if all is, all past and future are illusionary, we are existent in a static Universe where all is and nothing can change. What I call the Flies in Amber Universe. Everything is frozen and will remain that way forever, as it is.

We have no free will, God has no free will, and all the cruelties and stupidities of existence are hard to explain.

How would such a Universe come about? Theologically speaking, it is not an attractive image of reality. There will be no reassuring finale where all is resolved and the world ends and we all go to heaven and all is well. we start with the claims of a loving, perfect moral, all powerful God and end up logically with a bizarre world, We are all petrified Flies in Amber including a helpless pathetic God petrified with us. Or we live in a Universe based on naturalism, where time is simply one aspect of an Einsteinian naturalistic world.

Einstein asked the rhetorical question, "Did God have a choice as to what sort of Universe he created?". If one claims God is outside of time, no, and God cannot have created that timeless world. Or if not that, naturalism, God is irrelevant to the nature of the Universe.

God and the nature of time are subjects much ink has been wasted on, but from the reading I have done on the subject, few philosophers and theologians seem capable of getting to the essential heart of the conundrum. If alll is as it is timelessly, we have the supreme puzzle of how that occurred and we have a God who has no more will and ability to change anything that a dead Fly in Amber can change it's fate.

 

[Underseer]

Well of course there's a reality outside of you that you aren't creating much of. But how do you infer from this that it's necessarily produced by a mind, as opposed to the different bits of external reality being produced by many minds? In your own immediate experience, some of it is created by me, some by wiploc, some by Keith&Co., some by Kharakov, some by Tom Sawyer, ...

Look at it this way. We already know from science (which as you point out is no less real in your radical idealism than it is in conventional materialism) that humans evolved from bacteria. If nothing exists but thought then bacteria are thought. Why would you assume the bacteria have to all be the thoughts of a single mind, as opposed to each bacterium being its own tiny little bit of thought?


How does that follow? Here, I'll think a thought, as an act of will. 3.114441111555559999992222222... That thought is still an effect, caused by my act of will, acting on a prior thought, 3.141592... There's still a separation between the cause and the effect, with my will serving as the intermediary -- and I could not have constructed that effect in my mind without first thinking the thought that preceded it. That's what "A causes B" means: A comes before B and without A there would be no B.

Put it this way, if there is a God then all causes and all effects come down to His will. I guess He lets our small minds have a little bit of will (causation) built into them, so that we are not complete slaves to circumstance.

But as you say, you guess. All it is is a guess: just one of the ways it might be. That speculation in no way follows from the premise that nothing exists but thought.

The reason that I think that one mind creates and governs existence is that there are clearly laws that we all agree on and that none of us can legitimately say we are creating.

I think that mind is the only thing that can actually cause anything, so yes one thought can cause the next, but an asteroid striking the earth is not the cause of the impact...the correlation of asteroid,earth and impact is necessarily caused by the will of the Being that creates the laws that we witness (in this theory).

If there are universal laws that we can not alter then it stands to reason that a mind other than ours must will those laws.

You live in a universe like this and think that a mind is the only thing that can cause anything?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

It is far more efficient for a God to will existence into being than for existence to be endless or eternal because God need only bring into existence that which is witnessed.It would imply that the edge of existence is where God chooses not to think. What does a materialist actually think is outside of this universe? If the materialist thinks that the universe is neither eternal or infinite it becomes extremely complicated for him to explain what the "nothingness" around and before existence is and how it can produce existence.

The problem is God needs explaining and so does not solve the problem of why anything exists at all. Again, as Hume noted, it is an analogy. God the watchmaker. After all, we are familiar with the fact that many men are needed to create large works. Why then not many Gods to create a large work like a Universe? Or perhaps what we call God is more organic, like a carrot that just grows. Why choose one analogy over another? Or Conway's game of life. Simple objects and simple rules create complex phenomena. Why can't the Universe likewise be based on simple eternal objects with basic rules that result in complex physics such as we experience? That seems more fruitful than to posit an eternal God who creates all by his will and intelligence, none of which theology can account for in any way. We might as well be talking about fairies or demons.