Trump's Christian supporters are unchristian

[Tassman]

This doesn't contradict my position that God can not know anything other than what we have freely chosen to do. The term "foreknowledge" only relates to our perspective. If God "foreknows" from my perspective that I will choose to do X, it's because from God's perspective, he has already seen me choose to do X. The simplest way to put it is that God's "foreknowledge" is the result of my actions and not the cause.

When did God given that he knew what you would choose even before you existed? He is omniscient, remember.

[Tassman]

Logically it works.

It does not work "logically" if God is truly omniscient, which by definition means: "possessed of universal or complete knowledge" - Merriam-Webster

You're simply asserting what you want to be true as being true. That, in a nutshell, is the history of ignorance.

With respect, I think it is you "asserting what you want to be true as being true".

[Mountain Man]

I don't even know what that is supposed to mean.

I know.

If god is the omniscient creator of the universe, then he had foreknowledge of the future of that universe before he even created it.

Even if we accept your unsupported premise that God foreknew our freewill choices prior to the act of creation, this does not prove in any way, shape, or form that therefore, God is the cause of those choices. You seem to have a bunch of hidden assumptions that need to be brought out into the light and defended.

[Mountain Man]

...given that he knew what you would choose even before you existed? He is omniscient, remember.

Is that a given? Omniscience simply means to know all that it is possible to know, so how is it possible to know the choices of a freewill being prior to his existence?

But like I told Jimmy, even if we accept your unsupported premise, it does not prove that God causes our freewill choices.

[oxmixmudd]

First of all, you keep getting it wrong, it is not gods omniscience that is causative, it's god. Gods omniscience is just the evidence of his being the cause, and that I have already explained to you about a zillion times. Read the post just above yours, see if you can figure it out.

The critical questions here are:

1) can God create a universe that will give rise to a sentient, independent being whose will is truly independent, that can decide, on its own, to do what it will.
2) assuming 1) above is true, can God know what choices that independent being will make in a given environment without He himself being the cause of those same decisions.


I would like to see you construct a logical proof that shows the answers you assume for those questions are the only possible logical answer to those questions.


Jim

[JimL]

I know.


Even if we accept your unsupported premise that God foreknew our freewill choices prior to the act of creation, this does not prove in any way, shape, or form that therefore, God is the cause of those choices. You seem to have a bunch of hidden assumptions that need to be brought out into the light and defended.

If you accept the premise, which you have no choice but to accept if your position is that god is omniscient, then if you use your brain and recognize the fact that that which is created of an omniscient creator has no choice but to act according to what it's omniscient creator obviously intended which is evinced by the fact that he foreknew it. Again, this is not a difficult concept to grasp, MM. It's simple logic.

[Sparko]

Being outside of time and observing it from an external perspective doesn't change the fact that if the external observer can observe all of time, then all of time exists, and has existed, past, present. and future, in it's entirety ever since it's creation. So, if all of time exists, so that it can be observed in its entirety, and has, since it's creation, always existed, then there obviously can be no free will within it. You either have to give up the idea of an omniscient creator, or free will, they can't co-exist.

Everything in the past has already existed and can't be changed. Does that mean you had no free will in the past?

Your objection doesn't even need God. You are complaining about a block universe. If the future exists like the past, then you think we have no free will anyway, regardless of whether God knows about it. But you are wrong. Just because we did choose something in the past and it can't be changed, doesn't me we didn't choose to do it freely. Same with the future. If you are going to rob a bank tomorrow, you will do so. But you will do it because you choose to do so freely. A block universe doesn't require no free will. It can just be a result of free will.

And you can't complain about it "always having existed" - that doesn't even make sense. You would have to postulate another meta "time" that our time is inside of like a nested russian doll.

[JimL]

Is that a given? Omniscience simply means to know all that it is possible to know, so how is it possible to know the choices of a freewill being prior to his existence?

But like I told Jimmy, even if we accept your unsupported premise, it does not prove that God causes our freewill choices.

Omniscience according to the bible means that god knows the future and the future encompasses all that there is possible to know within time. And yes it does prove god caused that future, not free willed choices. If you believe that there is some way that god could know our future before creating us and not be the cause, which is my contention, then you need to refute my assertion with that argument. Simply asserting that I'm wrong without explanation of your own is a concession.

[Sparko]

As I've tried to explain a zillion times to you in the past, it isn't the knowing that causes, it's the knower. That he knows is simply the evidence of his being the cause.

Well since you do believe in free will, why don't you change your decision in the past and not tell me a zillion times?

Exactly, and that is why you can't have knowledge of the choice prior to the choice being made.

You can if you can move outside of the time line. If you could travel to 50 years ago, you would be prior to yesterday but would still remember and know what you did yesterday.



Whether you are in time or out of time makes no difference. If all of time exists so that an external observer can view it, then all of time exists period. Otherwise the external observer couldn't see it, correct? And if all of time exists from alpha to omega, then it has always existed since its creation and free will would be logically impossible.[/QUOTE]

No because you still haven't addressed the WHY of the actions recorded in the block universe. If the actions 'recorded' were the result of free will, then free will exists. You can logically only make one choice at a time and you can never choose otherwise. So naturally the block universe will only show that one choice. Whether in the past or future it is the same. It is the result of your free will choice.

Like I said before, if the universe were like a video recording of a football game, it would be a fixed recording of everything that happened. But everything it recorded would be the result of free will choices of the players. Even if you were watching it from the beginning, the end result would already exist at the end of the tape. But just because it can't be changed doesn't mean it wasn't done by free will.

[Sparko]

No Sparko, your argument is Littlejoes argument in reverse, that's the only reason it works. But we are not arguing that the past can't be known by an omnicient being, heck we can know the past, the argument is that the future can not be foreknown unless that future is fixed. Big difference!

no Jim, logically us knowing the past is the same as God knowing all of time. The only difference is the scope of knowledge and the breadth of time covered. Us knowing what happened in the past doesn't cause the past. Neither does God knowing the future (to us)

[Mountain Man]

...that which is created of an omniscient creator has no choice but to act according to what it's omniscient creator obviously intended....

This isn't a defense of your premise, it's simply a restatement. You're still a long way from proving that an omniscient God must necessarily cause or intend us to make certain freewill choices.

[Sparko]

Also I find it strange that Tassman and JimL are fighting so hard to keep free will viable since they both are materialists and believe everything is a result of physical conditions, random atoms moving around, etc. Which means if someone could know the motion of every atom in the universe they could reliably predict every action and choice ever made.

[JimL]

Everything in the past has already existed and can't be changed. Does that mean you had no free will in the past?

Your objection doesn't even need God. You are complaining about a block universe. If the future exists like the past, then you think we have no free will anyway, regardless of whether God knows about it. But you are wrong. Just because we did choose something in the past and it can't be changed, doesn't me we didn't choose to do it freely. Same with the future. If you are going to rob a bank tomorrow, you will do so. But you will do it because you choose to do so freely. A block universe doesn't require no free will. It can just be a result of free will.

And you can't complain about it "always having existed" - that doesn't even make sense. You would have to postulate another meta "time" that our time is inside of like a nested russian doll.

Sparko, you keep making your argument with respect to the past, and that is because the same argument doesn't work with the future. Yes, even we can know the free willed choices that already occured, but the future choices are different, we can't know them, and if an omniscient being does know them, and knew them even prior to creating you, then there is only one responsible, and that is the creator who engineered that future.

And your meta time idea isn't a way out for you either, because if god is an omniscient creator then he is before all time and anything he created that he knows in its entirety, whose future he knows in its entirety, he is obviously the cause of.

[JimL]

Also I find it strange that Tassman and JimL are fighting so hard to keep free will viable since they both are materialists and believe everything is a result of physical conditions, random atoms moving around, etc. Which means if someone could know the motion of every atom in the universe they could reliably predict every action and choice ever made.

We are not trying to do that Sparko. Tassman is a determinist, although a compatibilist determinist, which I don't quite understand, and I am undecided on the matter of free will. The world is definitely determined, and so, so may be our wills, but on the latter I have yet to make a firm determination.

[Mountain Man]

Also I find it strange that Tassman and JimL are fighting so hard to keep free will viable since they both are materialists and believe everything is a result of physical conditions, random atoms moving around, etc. Which means if someone could know the motion of every atom in the universe they could reliably predict every action and choice ever made.

Yep... ironically, freewill can only exist if there is an omnipotent creator. Otherwise, our "choices" are nothing more than the end result of random natural processes over which we have no control.