Does an Omniscient Creator Lead to Fatalism?

[JimL]

Sorry Jim, but it is you who don't understand logic.

Here I even made you a spreadsheet. It shows God's foreknowledge and Your Action
The foreknowledge is dependent on the action. Change the action and watch the foreknowledge change.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

The future either exists or it doesn't Sparko, it doesn't exist from one individuals perspective but not from anothers. To be more exact, all of time either exists, or only the present does. The law of non-contradiction! And if all of time exists, then time is static which obviously means there is no free will. So your idea that "if someone could travel to the future" is silly, because if the future existed for someone to travel to, then they would already be there.

[carpedm9587]

The future either exists or it doesn't Sparko, it doesn't exist from one individuals perspective but not from anothers. To be more exact, all of time either exists, or only the present does. The law of non-contradiction! And if all of time exists, then time is static which obviously means there is no free will. So your idea that "if someone could travel to the future" is silly, because if the future existed for someone to travel to, then they would already be there.

As I noted, it's a bit of intellectual slight of hand. You don't want determinism, which is normally considered the consequence of foreknowledge (because the future has to have, in some respect, "happened" (have existence) in order to be known. To avoid determinism, you claim "free will" but every time the chooser chooses differently, you go back and rewrite what god knows to match. I choose X, god knows I choose X. When the time comes to choose, if I choose Y, god knows that too because god's knowledge tracks choices.

IMO, if you're going to argue for an omniscient god, simply taking "the future" out of the realm of the knowable, because it does not yet exist to be known, is a cleaner solution to the problem.

[JimL]

As I noted, it's a bit of intellectual slight of hand. You don't want determinism, which is normally considered the consequence of foreknowledge (because the future has to have, in some respect, "happened" (have existence) in order to be known. To avoid determinism, you claim "free will" but every time the chooser chooses differently, you go back and rewrite what god knows to match. I choose X, god knows I choose X. When the time comes to choose, if I choose Y, god knows that too because god's knowledge tracks choices.

IMO, if you're going to argue for an omniscient god, simply taking "the future" out of the realm of the knowable, because it does not yet exist to be known, is a cleaner solution to the problem.

True, but the alternative to futureless omniscience doesn't fare any better considering that god would be the creator of what he would know is going to take place in the future. Ergo, no free will, god would still be the cause. That I think is the dilemma that believers in free will together with devine omniscience find themselves in and is why they can't see the obvious contradiction. It's their belief, they have to try and find some way for it to work.

[carpedm9587]

True, but the alternative to futureless omniscience doesn't fare any better considering that god would be the creator of what he would know is going to take place in the future. Ergo, no free will, god would still be the cause. That I think is the dilemma that believers in free will together with devine omniscience find themselves in and is why they can't see the obvious contradiction. It's their belief, they have to try and find some way for it to work.

Umm... I think you're missing something. If the claim is that god creates and knows all, but cannot know the future because the future does not exist to be known, then there is no problem with free will. Of course, with an omnisicent knowledge of everything to be known (biology, physics, etc.) and every fact to be knwon, god would undoubtedly be the best existing predictor of outcomes, but there is no problem with free will.

Many theists, however, seem to balk at this idea, because it seems to place a limit on an otherwise limitless god. How can the future not be inclUded in "knows all?" And how could you have a god who doesn't actually know how, ultimately, everything is going to turn out?

[Mountain Man]

Many theists, however, seem to balk at this idea, because it seems to place a limit on an otherwise limitless god. How can the future not be inclUded in "knows all?" And how could you have a god who doesn't actually know how, ultimately, everything is going to turn out?

The more you and Jimmy argue against it, the more it's clear just how little you understand what is really being argued.

[Sparko]

Intellectual slight of hand....

no. logic. Logically it doesn't matter where the knower is located in space or time as long as his knowledge depends on the action.

[Charles]

The more you and Jimmy argue against it, the more it's clear just how little you understand what is really being argued.

Or perhaps your post shows that you lack a good explanation and then just attack the persons instead? You are not making anyone any the wiser.

[JimL]

Umm... I think you're missing something. If the claim is that god creates and knows all, but cannot know the future because the future does not exist to be known, then there is no problem with free will. Of course, with an omnisicent knowledge of everything to be known (biology, physics, etc.) and every fact to be knwon, god would undoubtedly be the best existing predictor of outcomes, but there is no problem with free will.

Not sure I'm following. It doesn't seem to make sense to say that god knows all, but can not know the future because the future doesn't exist. That's all we're talking about here, is knowing the future, knowing what will happen, what choices we will make. If the future doesn't exist, and yet god still knows what the future will be, then the only other way he could know that is because he, being the creator of it, engineered it to be that way. There is no free will whether it is because the future already exists, or whether it's because the creator engineered it that way. In both cases god would know the future, but in neither case would there be free will.

Many theists, however, seem to balk at this idea, because it seems to place a limit on an otherwise limitless god. How can the future not be inclUded in "knows all?" And how could you have a god who doesn't actually know how, ultimately, everything is going to turn out?

Well, predictability though is not omniscience, but even if you were to go that route, the predictability would be due to the cause, i.e. the creator who engineered it that way.

[Charles]

Many theists, however, seem to balk at this idea, because it seems to place a limit on an otherwise limitless god. How can the future not be inclUded in "knows all?" And how could you have a god who doesn't actually know how, ultimately, everything is going to turn out?

So let's assume God knows everything. That seems to challenge the idea that he is almighty. Since God knows everything, he knows what is going to happen in the year 2050. He knows already, because he knows everything. By the point we get to 2050 he might want to use his power to change the situation. But if he had not planned to do so originally, the he would not have known beforehand and thus did he did not know everything. And if he knew everything he would not be able to chose a specific action at a specific point in time and thus he would not be almighty.

One could, of course, claim that God is above time and so on and thus the situation I describe would not fit with reality. But then neither would we really know the concept of being almighty. The knife cuts both ways.

[Sparko]

I find it odd that athiests, who basically always use "science" as a hammer against religion and claim to be rational, would be arguing for the A-theory of time since everything in physics (General and Special Relativity, quantum mechanics) all show that time is intricately linked with space and space-time is a four dimensional framework of our universe. So time exists just as much as space does. That means the future and past exist. Yet JimL and others insist on using a very old theory of time (a-theory) created by a philosopher over 100 years ago.

[carpedm9587]

So let's assume God knows everything. That seems to challenge the idea that he is almighty. Since God knows everything, he knows what is going to happen in the year 2050. He knows already, because he knows everything. By the point we get to 2050 he might want to use his power to change the situation. But if he had not planned to do so originally, the he would not have known beforehand and thus did he did not know everything. And if he knew everything he would not be able to chose a specific action at a specific point in time and thus he would not be almighty.

This seems a bit convoluted to me. I have never seen anyone try to argue that omniscience and omnipotence are incompatible, theoretically. Setting aside "god," any being that knows everything seems to me able to be all powerful without logical contradiction. You have added "not planned" to your argument without justification. Presumably, if this being is going to use their omnipotence to change something in 2050, they would know, virtue of their omniscience, that this was going to happen. They could know all of time, including all places where their power was to be exerted, how, and why. Usually, the conflict is not between omnipotence and omniscience, it is between the combination of these two things and omnibenevolence. Alternatively, it is between omniscience and free will, as has been the discussion here.

One could, of course, claim that God is above time and so on and thus the situation I describe would not fit with reality. But then neither would we really know the concept of being almighty. The knife cuts both ways.

I have to admit I don't understand this statement.

[Charles]

This seems a bit convoluted to me. I have never seen anyone try to argue that omniscience and omnipotence are incompatible, theoretically. Setting aside "god," any being that knows everything seems to me able to be all powerful without logical contradiction. You have added "not planned" to your argument without justification. Presumably, if this being is going to use their omnipotence to change something in 2050, they would know, virtue of their omniscience, that this was going to happen. They could know all of time, including all places where their power was to be exerted, how, and why. Usually, the conflict is not between omnipotence and omniscience, it is between the combination of these two things and omnibenevolence. Alternatively, it is between omniscience and free will, as has been the discussion here.

Let me try to explain again. If God knows everything in 2018, he knows what is going to happen in 2050. If God knows everything in 2018 then when we get to the year 2050, things will happen exactly as he knew it would happen back in 2018. But if this is the case, then God cannot suddenly chose to act differently in 2050, because then his knowledge in 2018 would be wrong. So either he does not know everything beforehand, or he is not almighty.

[carpedm9587]

Let me try to explain again. If God knows everything in 2018, he knows what is going to happen in 2050. If God knows everything in 2018 then when we get to the year 2050, things will happen exactly as he knew it would happen back in 2018. But if this is the case, then God cannot suddenly chose to act differently in 2050, because then his knowledge in 2018 would be wrong. So either he does not know everything beforehand, or he is not almighty.

Hmm...that IS a better explanation. I think you are saying that the problem between omniscience and free will applies to god him/herself. And I suppose, if god's foreknowledge further limits god's actions, then that does (at least at first glance) raise a problem for the idea that this god is omnipotent. But the escape clause could be the "doable" issue. Omnipotence does not mean "anything." It means "anything doable." God cannot do something that is, by definition, not doable. So god cannot, for example, lift an unliftable object or destroy an undestroyable thing (i.e., presumably him/herself. So perhaps an action that violates omniscience simply falls into this class of "undoable things?"

Frankly, the whole idea of god runs into such conundrums so frequently, and one has to work so hard to try to explain them away, that reality itself leads one to wonder if the entire thing isn't simply a flawed human idea to begin with.

[Charles]

Frankly, the whole idea of god runs into such conundrums so frequently, and one has to work so hard to try to explain them away, that reality itself leads one to wonder if the entire thing isn't simply a flawed human idea to begin with.

God is not a man, nor woman, nor does he have a physical body, he (though he is not a man) is not anywhere in particular but everywhere, "he" is not existing "in time" but is an eternal being and so on and so on. And you start to wonder if you even know what the idea is all about if you really think about it.

[carpedm9587]

God is not a man, nor woman, nor does he have a physical body, he (though he is not a man) is not anywhere in particular but everywhere, "he" is not existing "in time" but is an eternal being and so on and so on. And you start to wonder if you even know what the idea is all about if you really think about it.

So I'm curious - why do you consider yourself agnostic? What does that word mean to you?