Originally posted by oxmixmudd
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Jim - it wasn't 'just a story'. It was a way in which reality could be constructed or managed by God that would contradict your assertion about the incompatibility of omniscience and free-will. The essential element is that both the past and the future are not fully resolved relative to a decision point until that decision point is reached. It employs the idea of retrocausality as the resolution mechanism. To the observer it appears the same as our what we perceive every day because any measurement of the past can only resolve to that which exists in the real relative to the current 'now'. Any retrocausal changes to the past are always consistent with the current 'now'. We only live in the 'now'. What we perceive as the past is a record, a physical state in the 'now'. the future is invisible but we try to predict the future states that will define the past in the 'now'. Retrocausality can cause an immediate change in the past that is reflected in the physical state we observe 'now'. Only God could be aware of what is actually happening. But if reality is as I have described, God has no need to control a decision on our part for the past present and future to be consistent with His perfect foreknowledge as we observe it. Likewise, his omniscience is not diminished in that He is aware of all the possible and resolved past present and future. In this case the character of knowledge is in fact different. In that sort of a universe, knowledge of the future and the past is a superset of what will resolve over time and become what we can know. We can then only know a small subset of what is knowable and known by God.
It is not different than reasoning about when time travel might be possible. We know that if the universe is spinning, time travel is possible. But we don't know if the universe is spinning, so we don't know if time travel is possible. But we can say time travel is possible if the universe is spinning.
To translate our discussion into a time travel discussion. You are a fellow that is saying time travel is never possible no matter how the universe is constructed. I'm a fellow saying, well, no, Godel showed that if the universe is spinning, time travel is possible. Now what you are doing is the equivalent of digging your heals in a saying, NO time travel is not possible and ignoring the findings of Godel that says if the universe is spinning, time travel is possible.
So I'm responding, sorry, but that just doesn't work. We don't know if the universe is spinning or not. And even if we knew it wasn't, it would STILL BE TRUE that if the universe were spinning time travel would be possible.
So back to our actual discussion: I'm not saying what kind of universe we live in or IF God has fixed the future or not. I'm just saying that your assertion the universe has no possible construction where omniscience and free-will can coexist is wrong and I've provided you a possible construction that would allow it to be so.
Jim
It is not different than reasoning about when time travel might be possible. We know that if the universe is spinning, time travel is possible. But we don't know if the universe is spinning, so we don't know if time travel is possible. But we can say time travel is possible if the universe is spinning.
To translate our discussion into a time travel discussion. You are a fellow that is saying time travel is never possible no matter how the universe is constructed. I'm a fellow saying, well, no, Godel showed that if the universe is spinning, time travel is possible. Now what you are doing is the equivalent of digging your heals in a saying, NO time travel is not possible and ignoring the findings of Godel that says if the universe is spinning, time travel is possible.
So I'm responding, sorry, but that just doesn't work. We don't know if the universe is spinning or not. And even if we knew it wasn't, it would STILL BE TRUE that if the universe were spinning time travel would be possible.
So back to our actual discussion: I'm not saying what kind of universe we live in or IF God has fixed the future or not. I'm just saying that your assertion the universe has no possible construction where omniscience and free-will can coexist is wrong and I've provided you a possible construction that would allow it to be so.
Jim
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