Free Will versus Everything For A Reason

[Treedbear]

Yeah, except that God is supposed to be both omniscient and omnipotent....

That combo matters.

But the foreknowledge is just knowledge, not a causal force. An event "z" will happen, and that event is the end result of all the circumstances and choices that precede it. Knowing what "z" is doesn't constrain what the choices are though, because "z" doesn't exist until after the choices are made.

If God has the power to change the future*, then his foreknowledge will necessarily reflect all such changes. To think it constrains him requires that his foreknowledge is knowledge of an event that has, in effect, already happened. The conundrum you present assumes "z" has already somehow happened for being fore-known and thereby becomes something that can or cannot be "changed".

* as people put it, as if "the future" is a thing already

Then why is omniscience such a special thing? How is it different than what intelligent beings everywhere do? God is perfect or he isn't. If God can be wrong then I can conceive of a God that is greater.

 

[abaddon]

I don't know how to go about justifying any EoG arguments rationally. I just am not impressed with anyone's rationalist arguments, so if I play the game of rationalist arguments it's always to undermine them.

The thing here is, I don't know how to connect foreknowledge and predetermination. Some people assert the one causes the other, but I don't see a necessary connection.

 

[DBT]

Foreknowledge is possible if future events procede deterministically, or we have a block time universe.

 

[Treedbear]

I don't know how to go about justifying any EoG arguments rationally. I just am not impressed with anyone's rationalist arguments, so if I play the game of rationalist arguments it's always to undermine them.

No problem.

The thing here is, I don't know how to connect foreknowledge and predetermination. Some people assert the one causes the other, but I don't see a necessary connection.

 

[James Madison]

Foreknowledge of future events is not incompatible with free will, where free will is understood as a person is the cause for some decision, action, behavior, and the person is not being caused to do something by causes other than himself/herself.

God's foreknowledge is not incompatible with free will. His foreknowledge is not necessarily a cause for one's actions, behaviors, decision.

Yes, I agree with this. If there was such thing as psychism, and I were psychic, and I foresaw an event, it doesn't cause the event. It does not put me into the cause-effect chain of those events.

God as first cause means he's in the cause-effect chain and bears responsibility. But not foreknowledge. Distant knowing of how things will end up does not force them to end up that way.

Does he “bear responsibility” for the decisions and behaviors people chose to do as a result of their own volition?

Yes, God is a cause for the existence of the created. God created human beings. God created this world. God created this actual world with the condition, presumably for sake of argument, that human beings have free will. It seems to me the free will of the people is an intervening feature and severs God from “responsibility” of the decision and actions of the created.

While having some differences, people intentionally conceiving a child, in which their actions and conduct is the cause for the child’s existence, aren’t “responsible” for the decisions and actions their offspring make, all else being equal.

 

[skepticalbip]

I don't know how to go about justifying any EoG arguments rationally. I just am not impressed with anyone's rationalist arguments, so if I play the game of rationalist arguments it's always to undermine them.

The thing here is, I don't know how to connect foreknowledge and predetermination. Some people assert the one causes the other, but I don't see a necessary connection.

I don't see that foreknowledge would or could be causal. But if there is perfect foreknowledge then it is a knowing of what will definitely happen and there is nothing that can be done to keep it from happening (otherwise it isn't perfect foreknowledge). Sorta like if you watch a movie for a second time then you knowing what is going to happen does not cause it to happen but there is nothing you can do to make it happen differently.

 

[James Madison]

Foreknowledge of future events is not incompatible with free will, where free will is understood as a person is the cause for some decision, action, behavior, and the person is not being caused to do something by causes other than himself/herself.

God's foreknowledge is not incompatible with free will. His foreknowledge is not necessarily a cause for one's actions, behaviors, decision.

Yes, I agree with this. If there was such thing as psychism, and I were psychic, and I foresaw an event, it doesn't cause the event. It does not put me into the cause-effect chain of those events.

God as first cause means he's in the cause-effect chain and bears responsibility. But not foreknowledge. Distant knowing of how things will end up does not force them to end up that way.

Foreknowledge of future events is not incompatible with free will, where free will is understood as a person is the cause for some decision, action, behavior, and the person is not being caused to do something by causes other than himself/herself.

God's foreknowledge is not incompatible with free will. His foreknowledge is not necessarily a cause for one's actions, behaviors, decision.

Yes, I agree with this. If there was such thing as psychism, and I were psychic, and I foresaw an event, it doesn't cause the event. It does not put me into the cause-effect chain of those events.

God as first cause means he's in the cause-effect chain and bears responsibility. But not foreknowledge. Distant knowing of how things will end up does not force them to end up that way.

Yeah, except that God is supposed to be both omniscient and omnipotent. But (as I said earlier) it's the same basic argument that's been made against human free will. If God can foresee the future then that future can't be changed without contradicting the premise of God's omniscience, therefore human will would not be free in the religious sense. I'm just saying that to be logically consistent the same restriction must apply to God himself. If God had the power to change the future then what he foresaw would have been mistaken. God would either have to be completely impotent concerning any matter that would change the future or else have an imperfect knowledge of the future. I see no way around that. It's the classic paradox faced by the time traveler. Omniscience, omnipotence, and free will are mutually incompatible. Being omniscient means seeing the future as it will be. Not the possible future. Any being with a brain can do that.

Yeah, except that God is supposed to be both omniscient and omnipotent. But (as I said earlier) it's the same basic argument that's been made against human free will. If God can foresee the future then that future can't be changed without contradicting the premise of God's omniscience, therefore human will would not be free in the religious sense.

No, your conclusion isn’t necessarily true based on the premises you’ve used.

The future cannot be changed, not because of anything to do with God’s omniscience, but because of free will. God is foreseeing what people will do in the future, it’s the people determining the future by their free will, God is merely foreseeing it, foreseeing a future they created by their own volition.

So, it is possible, and can be true, God has foreknowledge of future events, foreknowledge of what people will freely do in the future, and is compatible with free will “in the religious sense.”

I do confess, however, the phrase “free in the religious sense” is confusing. The free will meaning I invoked in a prior post is present in both philosophical and religious circles. The free will meaning I expressed isn’t exclusive to “religion.”

 

[James Madison]

Foreknowledge is possible if future events procede deterministically, or we have a block time universe.

If by “deterministically” you mean all human action, decisions, behaviors, are caused not by the person but an external cause, then your statement strikes me as possibly false.

God can have foreknowledge of a future determined, shaped, and made by the free will actions, behaviors, and conduct of people.

 

[James Madison]

Foreknowledge is possible if future events procede deterministically, or we have a block time universe.

I don't know how to go about justifying any EoG arguments rationally. I just am not impressed with anyone's rationalist arguments, so if I play the game of rationalist arguments it's always to undermine them.

The thing here is, I don't know how to connect foreknowledge and predetermination. Some people assert the one causes the other, but I don't see a necessary connection.

I don't see that foreknowledge would or could be causal. But if there is perfect foreknowledge then it is a knowing of what will definitely happen and there is nothing that can be done to keep it from happening (otherwise it isn't perfect foreknowledge). Sorta like if you watch a movie for a second time then you knowing what is going to happen does not cause it to happen but there is nothing you can do to make it happen differently.

Sure, but the reason “nothing that can be done to keep it from happening” is because of, in a certain context, free will and the importance of free will to the creator. Of course, the creator could change the script written by the free will of people by causing people to do something, thereby depriving them of free will.

 

[DBT]

Foreknowledge is possible if future events procede deterministically, or we have a block time universe.

If by “deterministically” you mean all human action, decisions, behaviors, are caused not by the person but an external cause, then your statement strikes me as possibly false.

God can have foreknowledge of a future determined, shaped, and made by the free will actions, behaviors, and conduct of people.

As conscious entities we don't don't have access to the mechanisms and means of our conscious existence.

 

[abaddon]

While having some differences, people intentionally conceiving a child, in which their actions and conduct is the cause for the child’s existence, aren’t “responsible” for the decisions and actions their offspring make, all else being equal.

Yes, I still agree with all your points. The "bear responsibility" bit is to do with the overall setup. Parents can't determine all of a kid's choices, but they start that life forward and their choices affect that life hugely. AFAIC, my parent's choices of how to treat me in my formative years (0-6yo especially) had a gigantic impact on my personality and thus on what choices I have made in life. If it were true there is a God, then he has a LOT more to do with setting up the stage within which we make our choices (however much we're actually free to do that).

I don't see that foreknowledge would or could be causal. But if there is perfect foreknowledge then it is a knowing of what will definitely happen and there is nothing that can be done to keep it from happening (otherwise it isn't perfect foreknowledge). Sorta like if you watch a movie for a second time then you knowing what is going to happen does not cause it to happen but there is nothing you can do to make it happen differently.

Right. But you're still talking as if knowing the future sets it, such that nobody can "change" it.

"There is nothing that can be done to keep it from happening". But there's no "it" for anyone to stop from happening, they can only make "it" (their future) happen with whatever efforts at "changing it" that they do.

The problem is that anyone thinks there's anything to "change". Apparently it's the phrase "change the future" and similar notions ("stop the future", "keep it from happening") that makes it seem, incorrectly, like such a solid notion to them.

God can't be wrong about his foreknowledge, that's true. But there's nobody making any choices that "change" that future. They themselves create that future with their choices and, in his role as magical foreseer of that future, God sees where those choices take them - including all these alleged efforts to change whatever it is that people are imagining that choice-makers are "changing".

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A disclaimer, just to make sure everyone who reads my posts know it: I argue this point as an atheist, and also as someone with no emotional investment in the problem of free will vs determinism. It's just the notion of choices as a "change" in the future that struck me as unsound reasoning.

 

[DBT]

Events and choices bring us to where we are, and events and choices take us to where we go.