Trump's Christian supporters are unchristian

[Sparko]

His knowledge can't come from your choice if you haven't made it. God supposedly knows which you will choose at this point. Inserting that knowledge wrecks your reasoning completely.

It becomes either:
I can choose A or B.
God knows I will choose A.
If I choose A. God knows I will choose A.
Or I could choose B.
If I choose B, then God didn't know what I would choose.

No because you are somehow assuming you can make a single choice twice. I will either choose A or B. I can't then choose the other and mess up God's foreknowledge. Not without a time machine. I will choose either A or B. It is my free will choice and if I choose A, God foreknows I chose A. If I choose B, then God would have foreknown I chose B. God's location in time, whether in the past, the far future or outside of time doesn't matter. The logical progression is my choice informs God's knowledge. And I can only make the choice one time. I can't flip flop and mess up God's foreknowledge.

Or:
I can choose A or B.
God knows I will choose B.
If I choose A. God didn't know what I would choose.

No if you Chose B then you CAN'T choose A. If you chose A then you can't choose B.

You make a choice, X.
X can be A or B.
God knows you will choose X

[oxmixmudd]

No, we're talking about free will vs foreknowledge. Predestination is a different concept.

You're saying it's not possible for you to choose anything other than one option out of many, yet you still some-how have a free choice. It's actually:

I have a choice between two options A and B.
It's not possibly for me to choose B, therefore I do not have a choice.

Youi are correct about the distinction between forknowledge and predestination and I miswrote.

However, you are again misusing the word possible. And your rewording of my last statement changes the problem. They are not equivalent premises. Again the issue revolves around the imprecise definitions of human language.

The bottom line is this: I am not willing to choose B is not the equivalent of I can't choose B.

Jim

[Tassman]

If you make a different choice then God would know THAT choice, Tassman. His knowledge comes from what you choose.

But the omniscient deity knew before I could have made that choice, so how could I have made a different one?

Just like your knowledge of what you did yesterday came from your choice then. If, for instance you chose to eat a hamburger for lunch yesterday, then that is what you would know today. Since you know you ate a hamburger yesterday you can't have NOT chosen to have eaten a hamburger yesterday, right?

Because if you did, then THAT is what your knowledge would be today and THAT would be the unchangeable choice.

[Roy]

No because you are somehow assuming you can make a single choice twice.

No, I'm not. The choice is made once, with two possible outcomes depending on which choice is made.

The logical progression is my choice informs God's knowledge.

That's not a logical progression if God's knowledge precedes your choice.

Or:
I can choose A or B.
God knows I will choose B.
If I choose A. God didn't know what I would choose.

No if you Chose B then you CAN'T choose A.

Nowhere did I say I chose B.

You make a choice, X.
X can be A or B.
God knows you will choose X

Restating the scenario won't remove the contradiction.

[JimL]

I have done so all along. All you do is go "nuh-uh!"

Well, of course I said nuh-uh, because you don't make sense, but I also explain why you don't make sense, why your ridiculous idea that because god is outside of time he can see our futures even before we experience them. When you are corrected by myself and others here concerning that flaw in your thinking you fail to acknowledge it, you simply restate the same thing over and over again like a thoughtless robot. "Gods knowledge comes from your choice" "Gods knowledge comes from your choice." First of all, if gods knowledge comes from your choice, then it isn't foreknowledge. And second, if all of time, including your future, exists, like your entire roll of movie film, and the part that I think you are missing, has always existed, then you didn't make any choices, they've always been.

Time to stop casting pearls before swine.

What pearls, the only thing you're casting is stubborn ignorance. And I'm not calling you stupid, I'm saying that deeply rooted convictions, like those you profess to in this argument, can brainwash even the most brilliant of people and I can only assume that's what's going on here with you, Jim et. al..

[Roy]

Youi are correct about the distinction between forknowledge and predestination and I miswrote.

However, you are again misusing the word possible.

I don't think I am, and you haven't shown how I am.

And your rewording of my last statement changes the problem. They are not equivalent premises.

I know they're not equivalent premises, Jim. I'm rewording your last statement to what it should have been, if it's to match my actual argument.

Again the issue revolves around the imprecise definitions of human language.

The bottom line is this: I am not willing to choose B is not the equivalent of I can't choose B.

Nowhere have I suggested that it is. My argument contains no reference to what some-one is willing to choose, only what they can choose and what they do choose. Willingness is another unnecessary concept introduced to try to circumvent the inherent contradiction between foreknowledge and free choice.

You (and Sparko and MM) have had several chances to respond to my actual argument, but every time you've introduced something that isn't there (willingness, predestination, other possible worlds, can't vs won't, choosing twice) or retreated to pretending afterknowledge is foreknowledge.

1. You have a choice - e.g. A vs B.
2. God knows the choice you will make - e.g. A.
If it is possible for you to choose B, then #2 is wrong. God doesn't know what choice you will make.
If it is not possible for you to choose B, then #1 is wrong. You don't have a choice.
Therefore either #1 or #2 is wrong.

I don't think you're looking to see whether there is a contradiction, I think you want there not to be a contradiction and are happy to propose anything, however tenuous or flawed, that meets your requirements. Standard apologetics.

[Sparko]

No, I'm not. The choice is made once, with two possible outcomes depending on which choice is made.That's not a logical progression if God's knowledge precedes your choice.

God exists in all time, so just imagine him being 10 billion years in the future. Is there any reason from that perspective he can't know what you will do tomorrow and it still be your free will choice?

[Sparko]

JimL,

Choose A or B and post your choice.

[Roy]

God exists in all time, so just imagine him being 10 billion years in the future. Is there any reason from that perspective he can't know what you will do tomorrow and it still be your free will choice?

No - but that's not foreknowledge.

[Sparko]

No - but that's not foreknowledge.

Again, it really isn't foreknowledge with God, it is omniscience. He does exist 10 Billion years in the future as well as in the past. He exists at all times.

And if his knowledge from the future doesn't change your choice tomorrow into a non-free will choice, then him simply being here in the present and knowing what his future self knows shouldn't change it.



Let's say you have a telephone that can call the past, and your future self calls back to your present self and tells you what choice I am going to make tomorrow morning. Now assume I have no idea about any of this. How does his telling you today what I am going to choose tomorrow suddenly change my free will decision into a non-free decision?

[oxmixmudd]

I don't think I am, and you haven't shown how I am.I know they're not equivalent premises, Jim. I'm rewording your last statement to what it should have been, if it's to match my actual argument.Nowhere have I suggested that it is. My argument contains no reference to what some-one is willing to choose, only what they can choose and what they do choose. Willingness is another unnecessary concept introduced to try to circumvent the inherent contradiction between foreknowledge and free choice.

You (and Sparko and MM) have had several chances to respond to my actual argument, but every time you've introduced something that isn't there (willingness, predestination, other possible worlds, can't vs won't, choosing twice) or retreated to pretending afterknowledge is foreknowledge.

I AM responding to your actual argument. We are talking about free-will vs foreknowledge. But the model of free-will you implicitly use in your argument is flawed - having a choice is not a complete model of free-will. The problem is not expressing the reality, and I'm trying very hard to get at what is wrong. I thought about bringing up Zeno's paradox. That paradox isn't really a paradox, the wording of it makes implicit assumptions that make it appear as though there is a paradox when there isn't one. What I'm trying to do is explain how the problem you state below is making implicit assumptions about free-will and foreknowlege that make it look like there is a contradiction when there isn't one. Let me try again.

1. You have a choice - e.g. A vs B.

This is almost fine. I have a choice here actually conflates two elements. One is related to free-will: I have a capacity to make any choice I want to make without physical or divine interference. That is free will. The other is what the potential is for me based on my free-will to choose more that one option from the available choices. And that is where this statement misses the mark. Having a choice is only PART of what Free-will entails. Free-will also involves my WILL. What WILL I do. That component of the how free-will and infallibility interact is lost in 1). Free-will is not about whether I myself limit my choices, but about whether outside elements limit my choices.

2. God knows the choice you will make - e.g. A.

This is fine.

If it is possible for you to choose B, then #2 is wrong. God doesn't know what choice you will make.

Yes, if by some means I am able to choose something other than what God knows I'll choose, then infallibility is lost.

If it is not possible for you to choose B, then #1 is wrong. You don't have a choice.

This is what is broken. Free will does not mean given no outside interference I might make any possible choice. I will not ever choose B, even though B is available to be chosen, does not break Free-will. The choice is available to me, no outside force is prohibiting me from making either choice, either physical or divine: I have the choice, I have free-will. But I would never choose it. Again: By definition I have free-will: there is no physical force outside myself, and there is no divine fore-ordinance forcing my choice. But I will NOT choose B. So the conclusion 'I don't have a choice (or more correctly, "I don't have free-will"') is wrong. I DO have a choice in every way that matters for meeting the definition of free-will, but my choice is also fixed by that self same free-will and God can thus know it absolutely.

I don't think you're looking to see whether there is a contradiction, I think you want there not to be a contradiction and are happy to propose anything, however tenuous or flawed, that meets your requirements. Standard apologetics.

Please don't do the 'You don't understand me therefore you are evil' and then attempt to assign untoward motives to our disagreement. We disagree. I am trying to understand you and I am trying to help you understand me.

Jim

[firstfloor]

[Sparko]

Start by bringing me some bacon.

[firstfloor]

Start by bringing me some bacon.

[Sparko]

It is freezing down here. It's almost as cold as a Canadian summer!