Trump's Christian supporters are unchristian

[JimL]

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

That whole thing reads pretty muddled to me Jim, but I'll try to make sense out of it a bit later as I have to run at the moment, but I think that the thing you are still ignoring is that an eternal and omniscient creator, would have foreknowledge of the future no matter what kind of scenario you want to devise. He would know the future of his creation even before he created it.

[oxmixmudd]

If anything in this thread has been "begging the question" it's this. I mean, you've just defined foreknowledge so that it fits your own views no matter what. That doesn't seem intellectually honest to me.

Your premises and conclusion seems to be this.

P1: We have free will.
P2: Foreknowledge can only be about freely made choices.

Conclusion: We have free will.

I agree with that we have free will, but the second premise seems to be as invalid as you can get.



God being eternal isn't controversial, the "outside time" bit, or "timeless" in the sense you are using it now certainly is. It's irrelevant to the question anyway. So I'm not sure why anyone brings it up. It seems like when people throw in time travel in a story to cover up plot holes more than anything.

I used to hold to God being "outside time", but upon further examination find it to be flawed and logically inconsistent. Same with Molinism.

Oh, and giving a verse demonstrating God's eternal existence does nothing to demonstrate He is outside time.

If you necessarily bind God to time, since time is a dimension in the universe, you make Him not Lord of creation but subject to it. I also see Jesus saying "Before Abraham was, I am" as a literal expression of His existence as the eternal 'now', which, in fact, is His chosen name in the OT. This is more or less another way of saying he is outside time, or, at all times 'at once' (which could roll into the definition of omnipresence factoring in the fact we recognize time as another type of dimension and space-time as a construct where space and time are not in fact independent elements of the universe)

Jim

[Sparko]

The argument is that god "knows the future". If we have free will, then logically, god can not know the future. Eventually this simple concept might sink in MM. Keep trying.

you keep putting the cart before the horse. The future choices we make can be known, but the knowing doesn't cause them. The choosing causes the knowledge. Exactly the same way you know what you did yesterday is a result of your free will choices yesterday is the cause of your knowledge today. If you chose differently yesterday then your knowledge today would be different. If someone suddenly popped you out of time, you would still have the same knowledge. If you could jump back in time 1 million years, you would still have the same knowledge of what you did yesterday even though you are now temporally prior to the event.

[Sparko]

So, God's just a video recorder? What you seem to be downplaying is God's omnipotence in favor of his omniscience.

Well, none of us are God (obviously) and saying that our knowing something is the same as God's knowledge is a problem IMO. If (as in Molinism) God looked at all the possible worlds and decisions and created the one he wanted, how do you get around God choosing which decisions you would make? You can't have it both ways. In some worlds you would have made opposite decisions, even possibly not have accepted Christ, but you made the decisions you made because God created this world and not another...that seems the very definition of Theological Fatalism...

You didn't address the logical argument at all LJ. How is my argument any different than yours?

You:
P1 - If God has foreknowledge that you will do "X", then it is necessary that you will then do "X" (It is necessary because there's no chance God could be wrong about that)
P2 - If it is now necessary for you to do "X", then you are not free with respect of doing "X" (as it is now necessary for it to happen)

Therefore, logically,

C: If God has absolute foreknowledge that you will do "X", then you are not free with respect to doing "X", you must do it because God knows it for a fact.

Me:
P1 - If I have knowledge that you ate cheerios yesterday, then it is necessary that you ate cheerios yesterday.
P2. If is is necessary that you ate cheerios yesterday then you were not free with respect to eating Frosted Flakes (it was necessary for it to happen in order for me to know about it)

C If I have absolute knowledge you ate Cheerios yesterday then you were not free with respect to eating Cheerios, you must do it because I know it as a fact.

If your logical argument is true then so is mine. If God knowing that you will do X means you are not free, then me knowing what you did yesterday means you are not free. In both cases you cannot do (or have done) anything different because that is what you did (or will do)

[oxmixmudd]

You didn't address the logical argument at all LJ. How is my argument any different than yours?

You:
P1 - If God has foreknowledge that you will do "X", then it is necessary that you will then do "X" (It is necessary because there's no chance God could be wrong about that)
P2 - If it is now necessary for you to do "X", then you are not free with respect of doing "X" (as it is now necessary for it to happen)

Therefore, logically,

C: If God has absolute foreknowledge that you will do "X", then you are not free with respect to doing "X", you must do it because God knows it for a fact.

Me:
P1 - If I have knowledge that you ate cheerios yesterday, then it is necessary that you ate cheerios yesterday.
P2. If is is necessary that you ate cheerios yesterday then you were not free with respect to eating Frosted Flakes (it was necessary for it to happen in order for me to know about it)

C If I have absolute knowledge you ate Cheerios yesterday then you were not free with respect to eating Cheerios, you must do it because I know it as a fact.

If your logical argument is true then so is mine. If God knowing that you will do X means you are not free, then me knowing what you did yesterday means you are not free. In both cases you cannot do (or have done) anything different because that is what you did (or will do)

The problem is that P1's use of the word necessary implies God's knowledge and your action or causally connected. Even I as a mere mortal I can know that the moon will rise tomorrow, but my knowledge that it will rise tomorrow literally has nothing to do with why, how, or if it will rise tomorrow. You have assumed that God's infallibility in terms of knowing has something to do with the relative freedom of the choice. The two literally don't have to be related at all.

A second problem is that God does not have to choose to know something. And if He chooses not to know, then even that unnecessary assumption fails. He can choose to let it be up to you. He is omniscient, but he doesn't have to leverage that in a way that will influence your actions.

Jim

[Sparko]

P1: If everything is exhaustively foreknown, and infallibly so, then nothing could ever be otherwise than it is.
P2: Since nothing can in principle have happened differently, then no one has any capacity for choice.

Conclusion: We have no free will, as free will is the ability to choose freely from what we are presented with.

P1: everything in the past is exhaustively known, infallibly so. Nothing in the past can ever be otherwise than it is.
P2: since nothing in principal can have happened differently, then no one had any capacity for choice.

You can't change the past so every decision you made was determined.

Yet you know that isn't true. The past was built from free will decisions that we just know at the present time. Our knowing and the fact that the past can't be changed doesn't mean we didn't have free will.

Put God in the position of being at the end of time looking back at the past. He knows every decision you will ever make in your life. You can't do otherwise. Yet it doesn't mean you don't have free will any more than you knowing the past means you didn't have free will.

[JimL]

If you necessarily bind God to time, since time is a dimension in the universe, you make Him not Lord of creation but subject to it. I also see Jesus saying "Before Abraham was, I am" as a literal expression of His existence as the eternal 'now', which, in fact, is His chosen name in the OT. This is more or less another way of saying he is outside time, or, at all times 'at once' (which could roll into the definition of omnipresence factoring in the fact we recognize time as another type of dimension and space-time as a construct where space and time are not in fact independent elements of the universe)

Jim

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.

[JimL]

you keep putting the cart before the horse. The future choices we make can be known, but the knowing doesn't cause them.

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.

The choosing causes the knowledge.

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

Exactly the same way you know what you did yesterday is a result of your free will choices yesterday is the cause of your knowledge today. If you chose differently yesterday then your knowledge today would be different.

Yes, that's how it works, Sparko, one could have knowledge tomorrow of choices you made today, but they can't have knowledge today of choices you've yet to make tomorrow.

If someone suddenly popped you out of time, you would still have the same knowledge. If you could jump back in time 1 million years, you would still have the same knowledge of what you did yesterday even though you are now temporally prior to the event.

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.

[JimL]

You didn't address the logical argument at all LJ. How is my argument any different than yours?

You:
P1 - If God has foreknowledge that you will do "X", then it is necessary that you will then do "X" (It is necessary because there's no chance God could be wrong about that)
P2 - If it is now necessary for you to do "X", then you are not free with respect of doing "X" (as it is now necessary for it to happen)

Therefore, logically,

C: If God has absolute foreknowledge that you will do "X", then you are not free with respect to doing "X", you must do it because God knows it for a fact.

Me:
P1 - If I have knowledge that you ate cheerios yesterday, then it is necessary that you ate cheerios yesterday.
P2. If is is necessary that you ate cheerios yesterday then you were not free with respect to eating Frosted Flakes (it was necessary for it to happen in order for me to know about it)

C If I have absolute knowledge you ate Cheerios yesterday then you were not free with respect to eating Cheerios, you must do it because I know it as a fact.

If your logical argument is true then so is mine. If God knowing that you will do X means you are not free, then me knowing what you did yesterday means you are not free. In both cases you cannot do (or have done) anything different because that is what you did (or will do)

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!

[oxmixmudd]

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.

So you figure if just repeat the same thing over and over, that will make it true?

Jim

[JimL]

So you figure if just repeat the same thing over and over, that will make it true?

Jim

No, it's true all by itself, just trying to get you to actually think about and understand it to be obviously true. If god is omniscient, then he was omniscient prior to creating, therefore he would be omniscient about that which he created, which is obviously a negation of free will. Not sure why you guys can't see that, it's fairly straightforward. I'm assuming it has something to do with your strong belief, that you find it very difficult to find any fault in it.

[Mountain Man]

Prove that God's omniscience is causative.

[JimL]

Prove that God's omniscience is causative.

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.

[Mountain Man]

Gods omniscience is just the evidence of his being the cause...

Nope. God simply knows what freewill decisions we will make. This is in no way evidence that he is the cause of those decisions. You can argue, "But God could have created a universe where I choose X instead of Y!" and I suppose that's possible, but it doesn't stop either choice from being a product of our freewill.

[JimL]

Nope. God simply knows what freewill decisions we will make.

A simple, thoughtless and unsubstantiated, illogical assertion.

This is in no way evidence that he is the cause of those decisions.

Yep, Unfortunately for you it is evidence, MM. As a matter of fact it is proof, and all of your simple assertions to the contrary can't change that.

You can argue, "But God could have created a universe where I choose X instead of Y!" and I suppose that's possible, but it doesn't stop either choice from being a product of our freewill.

I don't even know what that is supposed to mean. Point is, and it's an obvious one, if god is the omniscient creator of the universe, then he had foreknowledge of the future of that universe before he even created it. Now, tell me how there can be free willed beings in a universe that was created by a being who knew what the future choices of those beings would be before he even created them. Stop being a blockhead!