WL Craig on God's foreknowledge

[Underseer]

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.

God is not an explanation. It doesn't answer a question, it just shifts the same question to a slightly different topic. Instead of asking why there is a universe, now we have to answer why there is a God. We can measure the universe, but we can't measure God. The God "explanation" makes any real answers completely inaccessible.

 

[Atheos]

Exactly. "God" is not an explanation. It is a stop sign. Finding answers almost always involves running a stop sign.

As I was perusing this thread it occurred to me (and I know this isn't some novel epiphany) that this remains the last bastion of the God of the Gaps arguments. These arguments were once pervasive and unchallenged. The only possible explanation of epilepsy and insanity were demons taking possession of people. The only possible explanation of lightning, thunder, plagues and earthquakes was the wrath of some god or another. God decided when and where rain would fall.

The world was filled with mysteries that could only be explained by the existence and behavior of gods, demons and other unseen beings. Sacred versions of these superstitions often became so strongly believed that dissenters were denounced and often killed for heresy.

For good or bad though, the answers were found. Not once in all the thousands upon thousands of mysteries that have been solved has it turned out that a god or demon was involved. Not once.

The God of the Gaps has had to scurry off into increasingly tiny crevices as the relentless march of science continues to illuminate the world with the light of truth. I'd say that's the way it should be, but that would imply some sort of divine purpose. I'll just settle for that's the way it is.

 

[bilby]

Invoking 'God' as an answer is exactly as valuable as Dirk Gently's infamous solution to finding a missing cat, whereby he makes random squiggles on a piece of paper, which he declares to be a detailed account of the cat's current whereabouts; The only thing we need to do now, he says, is work out what language this is written in. Thereby changing an intractable and possibly insoluble problem into a mere linguistic puzzle.

Albeit an intractable and possibly insoluble one.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

It always amuses me to see some theist post about how ridiculous it is to think that the "Universe just popped out of nothing", while offering us a God that just popped out of nothing, or always existed, God's "aseity". Of course the false vacuum isn't nothing.

 

[James Brown]

"If it's so impossible for something to come from nothing, then how did God manage to pull it off?"

 

[Underseer]

Exactly. "God" is not an explanation. It is a stop sign. Finding answers almost always involves running a stop sign.

As I was perusing this thread it occurred to me (and I know this isn't some novel epiphany) that this remains the last bastion of the God of the Gaps arguments. These arguments were once pervasive and unchallenged. The only possible explanation of epilepsy and insanity were demons taking possession of people. The only possible explanation of lightning, thunder, plagues and earthquakes was the wrath of some god or another. God decided when and where rain would fall.

The world was filled with mysteries that could only be explained by the existence and behavior of gods, demons and other unseen beings. Sacred versions of these superstitions often became so strongly believed that dissenters were denounced and often killed for heresy.

For good or bad though, the answers were found. Not once in all the thousands upon thousands of mysteries that have been solved has it turned out that a god or demon was involved. Not once.

The God of the Gaps has had to scurry off into increasingly tiny crevices as the relentless march of science continues to illuminate the world with the light of truth. I'd say that's the way it should be, but that would imply some sort of divine purpose. I'll just settle for that's the way it is.

Yes. Once Newton decided that God was the explanation for the stability of the planetary orbits, he stopped looking. When Laplace finally found a solution, it turned out to be something that should have been well within the prodigious mathematical abilities of Newton. "God did it" is anathema to curiosity.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Parmenides - Nothing comes from nothing.

That is if there was ever nothing, nothing would always exist. So there logically Must have always been something.
Now the debate is, what is the nature of that something, So far as physics and science has managed to figure out how the Universe works to the limits science has accomplished that, it seems to be a material, naturalistic world without God(s) or supernaturalistic entities. God then is not a real solution, its just God of the gaps again. Since the God of theism that is predominant today soon involves itself into paradoxes and self contradictions, I see no reason to take that proposal seriously.

What the basic brute force levels of existence are is something science will have to solve as a scientific problem, if it can.

 

[Malintent]

Just looked at a Q&A from William Lane Craig on his website from a few months ago:

How Does God Foreknow Free Choices?

The question is asked by the feedback-writer, in essence, as:


Near the beginning of Craig's response, he states:

Your question presupposes that God exists in time, as we do. But if God exists timelessly, He does not have literal foreknowledge.

So I went on to read what else Craig says about the subject, and this bit caught my eye, when he says very shortly after that:

But suppose we think, as I do, that God does exist at every time that there is and so does literally foreknow the future.

The 2 key parts I will quote again here, with added emphasis:

...He does not have literal foreknowledge.

God...does literally foreknow the future.

Ummm...are those contradictory statements? I looked through the rest of his argument and was trying to find some way to make sense of those 2 sentiments, but did not find it. I am open to the idea of being wrong on this, and that in some way those are not contradictory assertions. Can anyone make any sense of it? Am I just misinterpreting those statements, or reading them out of context but that they are coherent when in context?

Thanks,

Brian

When I discuss these things it is like discussing who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman....

Anyway, we lack the linguistics to talk about things like 'back to the future' "Foreknowledge' can mean knowing the future before it happens, or it can mean knowing the future because the future is now. If a god character exists at all points in time, then there is no 'fore'-knowledge... it is all just 'knowledge'.

 

[Underseer]

Just looked at a Q&A from William Lane Craig on his website from a few months ago:

How Does God Foreknow Free Choices?

The question is asked by the feedback-writer, in essence, as:


Near the beginning of Craig's response, he states:



So I went on to read what else Craig says about the subject, and this bit caught my eye, when he says very shortly after that:

But suppose we think, as I do, that God does exist at every time that there is and so does literally foreknow the future.

The 2 key parts I will quote again here, with added emphasis:

...He does not have literal foreknowledge.

God...does literally foreknow the future.

Ummm...are those contradictory statements? I looked through the rest of his argument and was trying to find some way to make sense of those 2 sentiments, but did not find it. I am open to the idea of being wrong on this, and that in some way those are not contradictory assertions. Can anyone make any sense of it? Am I just misinterpreting those statements, or reading them out of context but that they are coherent when in context?

Thanks,

Brian

When I discuss these things it is like discussing who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman....

Anyway, we lack the linguistics to talk about things like 'back to the future' "Foreknowledge' can mean knowing the future before it happens, or it can mean knowing the future because the future is now. If a god character exists at all points in time, then there is no 'fore'-knowledge... it is all just 'knowledge'.

Neither of those things affects any of the arguments.

Either God created everything and knows what is going to happen, or he doesn't. Why he knows is irrelevant. Free will is simply incompatible with belief in a tri-omni deity.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It always amuses me to see some theist post about how ridiculous it is to think that the "Universe just popped out of nothing", while offering us a God that just popped out of nothing, or always existed, God's "aseity". Of course the false vacuum isn't nothing.

Use of the word "nothing" is much more amusing and even astonishing. This word, this sound humans make is ultimately the genesis of all their gods and the total of their religious convictions. It should be their god's name. Fascinating stuff.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

William Blake - To Nobodaddy

Why art thou silent & invisible
Father of jealousy
Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds
From every searching Eye

Why darkness & obscurity
In all thy words & laws
That none dare eat the fruit but from
The wily serpents jaws
Or is it because Secresy
gains females loud applause

William Blake

 

[Tigers!]

It always amuses me to see some theist post about how ridiculous it is to think that the "Universe just popped out of nothing", while offering us a God that just popped out of nothing, or always existed, God's "aseity". Of course the false vacuum isn't nothing.

It always amuses me to see some atheist post about how ridiculous it is to think that the "God just popped out of nothing", while offering us a universe that just popped out of nothing, or always existed, universe's "aseity". Of course the false vacuum isn't nothing.

(Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.)

 

[Malintent]

Here's how I picture what WLC is arguing. Think of time like a book. A book consists of, say, 300 pages, containing 50,000 words. Those of us in time read one page at a time. To 'read ahead' would mean to flip forward a few pages. We can imagine ourselves reading ahead a few pages, but we can't actually do it because the book has us locked in on the current page.

For God, however, reading a book is like condensing the entire 300-page book onto a single page. Or even a single character that stands for all the characters of the words in the book. Much like how π (or pi) is a single character that means a long string of numbers. So if God is looking at a single character which stands for an entire book, then the notion of 'reading ahead' becomes meaningless. Likewise, if God can 'see' (whatever that means) all of time in one unit, then he can 'see' what you're going to decide to eat for lunch on the fourth Thursday of next month without influencing or suppressing your decision.

That's how I understood it, and that's the notion I carried around in my head when I was a Christian and needed to reconcile the free will/foreknowledge conundrum.

That sounds reasonable.

It is almost a shame that it isn't, in fact, reasonable.

Of course, the characters in a book cannot influence the ending; they may be described as having free will in the text, but they cannot actually choose an ending other than the one the author wrote - they have no freedom at all. Sure, the author can change the ending during the drafting process; but in that case, he has no foreknowledge of any kind and is as much in the dark as anyone as to how things will end (I'm looking at you, G.R.R.Martin). Once the author knows how the book will end, the ending is inevitable, and free will is gone.

your argument is only as good as the analogy of a book, which is written with fixed text, and our experiences with reading books gives us this impression that you are saying that if time is like a book then it must be fixed, therefore no free will.

This is really arguing the wrong thing... as you are arguing against the weakness of the analogy, not the argument.

the simple point is that this version of the god character that exists such that all of time is visible to him at "the same time" (<- lack of a temporally detached preposition - a 'failure' of English), does not violate the idea of free will (if you believe in free will - I do not, but that is another argument).

You can change your mind all you want, or never make up your mind... at some point in the future, your mind will be in one place or another with respect to a decision.. and this god thing has visibility into that. So what is the problem? It sounds like those that argue this free will problem are saying that to be aware of a decision is to eliminate the ability to make the decision.

Let's say that you come into work today wearing a red tie. I see you in that red tie. I say to you, "nice tie". At that point, it seems you are saying that your choice to wear that tie retroactively became predetermined by me. Let's say I am god, and I didn't say anything about it... but I KNEW that your tie would be red. and it was. How does that change anything at all? Let's take it further and say that 2 days ago, I said to you that I knew that you were going to wear a red tie the next day. How that changes your decision to wear a red tie is a personal one... maybe you are spiteful, maybe not... since I am not god, I don't know how you will react. If I was this god guy, with these magic attributes, then I would KNOW how that information I passed on to you would affect your choice. So until the claim is made that free will is only in jeopardy if god TELLS YOU what he knows, I still reject the idea that the knowing of something makes the something not freely chosen.

 

[Atheos]

It always amuses me to see some theist post about how ridiculous it is to think that the "Universe just popped out of nothing", while offering us a God that just popped out of nothing, or always existed, God's "aseity". Of course the false vacuum isn't nothing.

It always amuses me to see some atheist post about how ridiculous it is to think that the "God just popped out of nothing", while offering us a universe that just popped out of nothing, or always existed, universe's "aseity". Of course the false vacuum isn't nothing.

(Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.)

While I certainly appreciate your argument there is one huge advantage the atheist has in this line of argumentation. The atheist actually has a universe that can be demonstrated to exist. A universe that can be evaluated, tested, verified, etc. Experiments involving the universe can be conducted with such predictability that clever people can use these findings to calculate exactly how much fuel it will take to propel rocket with x mass to Jupiter, and then calculate Jupiter's mass and momentum with enough precision to calculate a trajectory necessary to use Jupiter as the pivot of a slingshot to propel the craft at even higher velocity towards the edge of the solar system.

Theists with a hidden god who behaves in exactly the same manner he would if he didn't exist ... not so much.

It's sort of like the old question of "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

We can bandy that philosophical question about because we have abundant evidence of chickens and eggs. We have been able to observe the emergence of chickens from eggs, and we've been able to observe the emergence of eggs from chickens.

But if absolutely no chickens had ever been seen, positing the existence of chickens to explain the existence of eggs would be about as useful as positing the existence of egg-sneezing invisible dragons to explain their existence. We're simply dealing with a chicken of the gaps. When you've got something known to exist and don't know for sure how it got there it's not useful to simply make up a fairy tale to explain its existence.

 

[Malintent]

Not only is there a universe to speak of, and no apparent god to speak of... there is also the simple fact that 'atheists' do not say, "god popped out of nothing". Theists say that god popped out of nothing as a response to the question, "where did this alleged god come from?". The problem the theist faces with this is that they are in a catch 22... if something created god, then god is not "greatest" (so he magically came from nothing). but then they leave themselves in the position that "something can come from nothing", so the most parsimonious explanation for the universe becomes, "it popped out of nothing"... but "Atheists" aren't making that claim, Theists are.

Science makes the observation that the universe may have come from nothing (much like how we observe certain types of 'symmetry breaking' particles coming from nothing), OR it may have always existed (in a continuous cycle of expansion to heat death, to expansion). OR, something else that science is open for discovery of...

 

[RCW]

Just for the sake of reference, here is the key part of Craig's response, altogether:

Your question presupposes that God exists in time, as we do. But if God exists timelessly, He does not have literal foreknowledge. For what is future for us is not future for Him. So He knows what is future for us, but He does not foreknow it. Defenders of divine timelessness, then, have no difficulty with your question, since it presupposes a temporal deity.

But suppose we think, as I do, that God does exist at every time that there is and so does literally foreknow the future. As you rightly point out, foreknowledge of free choices cannot be based upon inference from present causes, for that would imply determinism and annihilate free choice. So God must know future free choices in some other way.

I am just unclear what position he is actually taking, versus when he is just describing hypotheticals that he does not actually subscribe to himself, and why he is defending those if he does not think they are true anyway. It reads as a lot of word salad to me, without much substance.

Brian

Amateur Hour here... The way I read it, the 1st paragraph can be ignored. Craig is simply stating what others believe and how they would argue. Who cares whether Craig is omniscient. In paragraph 2 he states he believes God does literally have foreknowledge. He goes on to say foreknowledge as an attribute of a temporal God, the one he believes in, would "annihilate free choice". As far I'm concerned he's admitted either God isn't omniscient or there is no free will. So in desperation he adds "God must know free choices in some other way". Translation: We gotta have us some free will even though I have no idea how. (Mysterious Ways... again)

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

There is the problem of how it is that God is omniscient. We have some hypotheses.

1. God is not omniscient in the manner of knowing the future. (For example, Process theology).
2. God just is. No explanation given. God is omniscient and knows the future which is a claim from revelation, but no explanation of how that is is given or knowable. (God is inscrutable).
3. God is outside of time and can examine all of existence, which includes future, which is only apparent future to us.
4. God's providence. God plans all that occurs in the world in fine detail and thus knows future events because God plans them and creates things as they will be. (Luther and Calvin for example.)
5. The Universe is determinate and God simply can see how future events will unfold from knowing the state of existence today utilizing the Universe's inherent determinism.

This idea that God is omniscient is really a set of hypotheses, all of which have their problems. This stuff has been chewed over very well for centuries by theologians and philosophers.

 

[RCW]

You can't know what you don't know.

There is the problem of how it is that God is omniscient. We have some hypotheses.

This idea that God is omniscient is really a set of hypotheses, all of which have their problems. This stuff has been chewed over very well for centuries by theologians and philosophers.

Omniscience is an incoherent, half-baked invention. Even assuming an omniscient critter existed it would be impossible for any other critter to verify that this entity was, in fact, all knowing. I can't even imagine how a truly omniscient entity could ever verify that he, she or its own list of knowledge was all there is to know.

 

[Underseer]

That sounds reasonable.

It is almost a shame that it isn't, in fact, reasonable.

Of course, the characters in a book cannot influence the ending; they may be described as having free will in the text, but they cannot actually choose an ending other than the one the author wrote - they have no freedom at all. Sure, the author can change the ending during the drafting process; but in that case, he has no foreknowledge of any kind and is as much in the dark as anyone as to how things will end (I'm looking at you, G.R.R.Martin). Once the author knows how the book will end, the ending is inevitable, and free will is gone.

your argument is only as good as the analogy of a book, which is written with fixed text, and our experiences with reading books gives us this impression that you are saying that if time is like a book then it must be fixed, therefore no free will.

This is really arguing the wrong thing... as you are arguing against the weakness of the analogy, not the argument.

the simple point is that this version of the god character that exists such that all of time is visible to him at "the same time" (<- lack of a temporally detached preposition - a 'failure' of English), does not violate the idea of free will (if you believe in free will - I do not, but that is another argument).

You can change your mind all you want, or never make up your mind... at some point in the future, your mind will be in one place or another with respect to a decision.. and this god thing has visibility into that. So what is the problem? It sounds like those that argue this free will problem are saying that to be aware of a decision is to eliminate the ability to make the decision.

Let's say that you come into work today wearing a red tie. I see you in that red tie. I say to you, "nice tie". At that point, it seems you are saying that your choice to wear that tie retroactively became predetermined by me. Let's say I am god, and I didn't say anything about it... but I KNEW that your tie would be red. and it was. How does that change anything at all? Let's take it further and say that 2 days ago, I said to you that I knew that you were going to wear a red tie the next day. How that changes your decision to wear a red tie is a personal one... maybe you are spiteful, maybe not... since I am not god, I don't know how you will react. If I was this god guy, with these magic attributes, then I would KNOW how that information I passed on to you would affect your choice. So until the claim is made that free will is only in jeopardy if god TELLS YOU what he knows, I still reject the idea that the knowing of something makes the something not freely chosen.

Believing in elves is just a choice when you get right down to it. You can't disprove elves, therefore believing in elves and not believing in elves are equally valid positions. I don't have enough faith to not believe that elves are real.

 

[Jobar]

The real function of free will is to allow God to be both omniscient and omnibenevolent, while still allowing human souls to go to Hell. If humans have free will, then we can freely choose eternal suffering, but the God that created us so is not malevolent.

Even if we grant Craig's God 'outside of time', eviternal, then that God did know/does know/will know that an individual soul will make choices that result in damnation. Predestination in inevitable from God's eviternal POV. The fact that we ourselves don't know whether we face damnation or salvation does not matter; if God was/is/will be capable of creating us with characteristics that will eventually result in our damnation, God knows it, and is responsible for that. And thus God is not omnibenevolent.