Free Will and Omniscience

[Sparko]

Yet they are into evangelism at the church I go to. I'm quite certain they are Calvinist. I've never really asked anyone, but I think I will.

There are varying degrees of Calvinism, from simply saying someone can't make a decision to be saved without the Holy Spirit electing and allowing them by "waking up their soul" so to speak, to hyper-Calvinism where God micromanages every atom and decision in the universe.

[Ronson]

Yet they are into evangelism at the church I go to. I'm quite certain they are Calvinist. I've never really asked anyone, but I think I will.

One of the puzzles of Calvinism. If salvation is predetermined, then proselytizing is an erroneous exercise. I suppose a Calvinist might say "We are instructed to evangelize so we do, and we don't ask why" or maybe "God uses us in His election process." I don't know, but it is still illogical.

[Littlejoe]

You are doing the same thing Machinist was doing. Assuming that God's knowing what you will do makes it happen. It doesn't. Since God is not limited to one time, you can't stick God in one time and say "well he knows what I am going to do tomorrow so I have no choice" God isn't sitting here knowing what you will do tomorrow, He is here, and he is IN tomorrow, and next week and next century, knowing what you did tomorrow.

His knowing you will do X tomorrow is no different than YOU knowing you did Y yesterday. Does your knowing you did Y yesterday mean that you had no choice in doing Y? Of course not. You only know you did Y because you chose to do Y yesterday. If you did Y1, then you would know you did Y1 yesterday. Every choice can only happen once. Once you choose to do Y or Y1, that's it. You can't go back and change it.

So if you are going to do X or X1 tomorrow, whichever you choose, it will be fixed after you choose it. You can't change it. Doesn't mean you didn't choose it out of free will. And whatever you choose to do tomorrow X or X1, God knows it. He has always known it (if you can talk about "always" when talking of a being who is not limited by time)

And OVT Turns God into just some superhuman who is stuck in time like the rest of us and can't know the future but just guesses what will happen..

You have yet to show from Scripture that your view of God outside of time is correct. You keep assuming it as fact then proceed to circular reason your way to your view.

And so you keep making the same mistake assuming you get to move the goal post without actually addressing the whole argument. I said that "it becomes fatalistic regardless whether (you think) he causes it or not." I say that your view of God's foreknowledge renders God impotent. You ignore the fact that your view of God knowing every past, present and future event and decision means that it is already a fixed reality. We can't say that, we aren't God....but your view of God does. Because, since God knows it perfectly it therefore can't be anything else but what God knows as the reality that is already fixed. You keep wanting on the one hand to lose God outside of Time but then insist that that absolves the fixed reality that he perfectly knows as not deterministic/fatalistic. You can't eat your cake and have it too. They are not mutually exclusive...they are tied at the hip in fact. The logical conclusion of this view is that the future that God perfectly knows is a FIXED REALITY and cannot be changed...not even by God. Fatalism.

You keep making this comparison as if it explains everything but, again, you are saying that because you knowing what you did yesterday didn't negate that it was a free choice...but continues to ignore the fact that it's also NOT changeable. It's "fixed reality". Just like the your view of God's knowing the future exhaustively as a now present reality...it can't be changed. Again, it's FIXED REALITY.

Yeah, this is a common poisoning of the well argument against Open Theism. However, as an OVT, I say that instead of limiting God, the open view actually depends upon the infinite intelligence of God. Think of God as something like an infinitely intelligent chess player. It's been said that the average beginning chess player can think ahead three or maybe four possible moves. If I do this, then, my opponent may do this, that, or maybe that. I could then do this, this, or that to counter, and he may respond with this, that, or the other. However, it's said that some Grand Master class chess players can think ahead up to thirty combinations of moves. So, now consider that God’s perfect knowledge would allow him to anticipate every possible move and every possible counter move, together with every possible response he might make to each of those counter moves, for every possible person throughout all of history. AND he would be able to do this from eternity past to eternity future.

Wouldn't you say that a God who is able to know perfectly these possibilities would be wiser than a God who simply foreknows (Arminianism) or predetermines (Calvinism/Molinism) one story line that the future will follow? And isn’t a God who perfectly anticipates and wisely responds to every free will decision a person makes would be more intelligent than a God who simply knows what that person will do? Anticipating and responding to possibilities takes problem-solving intelligence. Your view reduces God to simply having a crystal ball vision of what’s coming, nothing more.

[Machinist]

I'm sorta waxing a little metaphorical here when I use the word "quantum", but couldn't free will and omniscience co-exist in the same way in which quantum particles are said to exist in two places at one time?

[Machinist]

There are varying degrees of Calvinism, from simply saying someone can't make a decision to be saved without the Holy Spirit electing and allowing them by "waking up their soul" so to speak, to hyper-Calvinism where God micromanages every atom and decision in the universe.

I'm sure a cross section of the church I go to would reveal quite a range, from hyper to "huh?".

[Teallaura]

It would not be you causing them, but rather the mere existence of that information would necessarily have to agree.

Perhaps what we're dealing with here is another quantum function.

Why is one certainty problematic and the other not? For an omniscient Being, there is no true uncertainty about anything that can be ascertained. Whether or not the future is certain, elements of it are - an omniscient Being would know that time ends tomorrow, for example. So why does certainty become causal?

I've never seen why omniscience should logically necessitate determinism unless there were a necessary reason that certainty necessitates determinism - and I can't see one.

[Teallaura]

One of the puzzles of Calvinism. If salvation is predetermined, then proselytizing is an erroneous exercise. I suppose a Calvinist might say "We are instructed to evangelize so we do, and we don't ask why" or maybe "God uses us in His election process." I don't know, but it is still illogical.

Evangelism is a tool - having determined that the board would be nailed at place X, God provides the hammer, nail and the guy to swing the hammer.

And yes, that seems even more fatalistic to me, too - glad I'm not a Calvinist!

[Machinist]

For an omniscient Being, there is no true uncertainty about anything that can be ascertained. .

Yeah I think that's what LitltleJoe is saying. God only knows things that can be ascertained. Omniscience would imply determinism to the degree of omniscience.

[Teallaura]

Yeah I think that's what LitltleJoe is saying. God only knows things that can be ascertained. Omniscience would imply determinism to the degree of omniscience.

Er, how do you get from 'somethings can't be ascertained' to determinism?

[Machinist]

Er, how do you get from 'somethings can't be ascertained' to determinism?

Partial determinism maybe?

Like maybe it's not black and white.

[Cerebrum123]

You have yet to show from Scripture that your view of God outside of time is correct. You keep assuming it as fact then proceed to circular reason your way to your view.

And so you keep making the same mistake assuming you get to move the goal post without actually addressing the whole argument. I said that "it becomes fatalistic regardless whether (you think) he causes it or not." I say that your view of God's foreknowledge renders God impotent. You ignore the fact that your view of God knowing every past, present and future event and decision means that it is already a fixed reality. We can't say that, we aren't God....but your view of God does. Because, since God knows it perfectly it therefore can't be anything else but what God knows as the reality that is already fixed. You keep wanting on the one hand to lose God outside of Time but then insist that that absolves the fixed reality that he perfectly knows as not deterministic/fatalistic. You can't eat your cake and have it too. They are not mutually exclusive...they are tied at the hip in fact. The logical conclusion of this view is that the future that God perfectly knows is a FIXED REALITY and cannot be changed...not even by God. Fatalism.

You keep making this comparison as if it explains everything but, again, you are saying that because you knowing what you did yesterday didn't negate that it was a free choice...but continues to ignore the fact that it's also NOT changeable. It's "fixed reality". Just like the your view of God's knowing the future exhaustively as a now present reality...it can't be changed. Again, it's FIXED REALITY.

Yeah, this is a common poisoning of the well argument against Open Theism. However, as an OVT, I say that instead of limiting God, the open view actually depends upon the infinite intelligence of God. Think of God as something like an infinitely intelligent chess player. It's been said that the average beginning chess player can think ahead three or maybe four possible moves. If I do this, then, my opponent may do this, that, or maybe that. I could then do this, this, or that to counter, and he may respond with this, that, or the other. However, it's said that some Grand Master class chess players can think ahead up to thirty combinations of moves. So, now consider that God’s perfect knowledge would allow him to anticipate every possible move and every possible counter move, together with every possible response he might make to each of those counter moves, for every possible person throughout all of history. AND he would be able to do this from eternity past to eternity future.

Wouldn't you say that a God who is able to know perfectly these possibilities would be wiser than a God who simply foreknows (Arminianism) or predetermines (Calvinism/Molinism) one story line that the future will follow? And isn’t a God who perfectly anticipates and wisely responds to every free will decision a person makes would be more intelligent than a God who simply knows what that person will do? Anticipating and responding to possibilities takes problem-solving intelligence. Your view reduces God to simply having a crystal ball vision of what’s coming, nothing more.

Many don't seem to understand that for a choice to be truly free means that there must have been an alternative choice that could be made. Removing all possible alternatives, which is what Sparko's model ends up boiling down to, is just as much a removal of freedom as forcing someone to make a choice by direct control. Just like the no win scenarios that you find in movies and TV shows. Or some video games where you are given multiple dialogue options that all say the same thing. No alternate choices being possible in principle isn't freedom. At best you can get an illusion of free will.

[Ronson]

You have yet to show from Scripture that your view of God outside of time is correct. You keep assuming it as fact then proceed to circular reason your way to your view...

On this one point, there are many aspects of God that are not explained in Scripture. Sometimes the best we can do is only surmise from the bits and pieces we have to work with.

Colossians 1:16 NIV

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

John 1:3 NIV

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Who is to say that "all things" does not include time? If God created time then logically He is not bound by it (unless He chooses to be). If time exists separate from God, then He did not create "all things."

[Littlejoe]

Why is one certainty problematic and the other not? For an omniscient Being, there is no true uncertainty about anything that can be ascertained. Whether or not the future is certain, elements of it are - an omniscient Being would know that time ends tomorrow, for example. So why does certainty become causal?

I've never seen why omniscience should logically necessitate determinism unless there were a necessary reason that certainty necessitates determinism - and I can't see one.

See my post #25 and #33 and Cerebrum123 's post #41 for the answer. Logically, there is no other alternative so the knowledge of our future choices by an Omniscient God become fixed reality, just like history (since everything is in a state of eternal now). Unless you ascribe to the theory that the past is as changeable as the future.

[Littlejoe]

On this one point, there are many aspects of God that are not explained in Scripture. Sometimes the best we can do is only surmise from the bits and pieces we have to work with.

Colossians 1:16 NIV

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

John 1:3 NIV

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Who is to say that "all things" does not include time? If God created time then logically He is not bound by it (unless He chooses to be). If time exists separate from God, then He did not create "all things."

You can only get there by assuming your philisophical constructs of time are in play here. I submit that the way you and most of us view time is based almost entirely on the Greek thoughts time, and our thoughts of God in time are from Plato. Consider this:

When Reading in the Greek, We See that God:
- is timeless
- in an eternal now
- without sequence or succession
- without moment or duration
- atemporal and outside of time
- not was, nor will be, but only is
- has no past
- has no future.
But, point of order NOT ONE of these phrases is in the Bible. They're ALL from Plato and the Platonists philosophers. The Greek I reference isn't the Greek New Testament, it's the Greek writings of Plato.

The Greeks developed definite verb-forms which could express the distinction between past, present, and future in several different modes. Now using their way of thought, I would argue: That if the Scriptures teach that God Himself experiences change in sequence, that would indicate that God exists in time, in the present, with a past, and looking forward to a future. This would demonstrate that timelessness, is not a necessary attribute of God. So here is an example of a biblical proof demonstrating that God has a "past" and therefore showing that God is not outside of time:

Before the foundation of the world, God the Son was not at that time the Son of Man; but then He "became" flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14) as "the Son of Man" (Mat. 12:8), and now, God the Son remains eternally "the Man Jesus Christ" (1 Tim 2:5). therefore, God has a past, a present and a future.

This to me shows that God experienced time, and therefore exists in time. The Incarnation has eternally changed God the Son, and therefore, also His relationship with the Holy Spirit and the Father. The Incarnation shows us conclusively that God, (in this case, in the person of the Son), has undergone change. The Bible seems to clearly show that the Son exists in Time even now.

Now, one other thing to consider is that the Hebrew way of thinking of time was not the same as the Greeks view. And since all the authors of the books of the Bible are Jewish, then we really need to read the Bible with the Jewish thought process and not the Greek. (and it's hard to do but stay with me here) yhe Hebrews have two tenses: complete… and incomplete What we here in the west view as past would be the Hebrew idea of complete, and what we view as future would be the Hebrew idea of incomplete. So, think about whether this difference might not provide a better framework to consider time when looking at Scripture.

In his book called "Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek", Thorleif Boman writes:

“From the psychological viewpoint, it is absurd to say that we have the future before us and the past behind us, as though the future were visible to us and the past occluded. Quite the reverse is true...”
"What our forebears have accomplished lies before us as their completed works… the present and the future are, on the contrary, still in process of coming and becoming.”

His conclusion is thus:

Within this Hebraic understanding of time, we must think of the past as what God and people have completed and the future as what God and people have not yet done. And in this view, there’s no need for God to exist outside of time. In fact, it makes no sense to think of God existing outside of time, because there are things God as well as people have not yet completed. Not only this, but the idea that God knows the future partly as a realm of possibilities presents no problem, for that is how the future actually is. And if it isn’t a pre-settled ‘timeline,’ we can more easily understand how God can interact with His creation in the present moment without a predetermined future.

[Littlejoe]

Many don't seem to understand that for a choice to be truly free means that there must have been an alternative choice that could be made. Removing all possible alternatives, which is what Sparko's model ends up boiling down to, is just as much a removal of freedom as forcing someone to make a choice by direct control. Just like the no win scenarios that you find in movies and TV shows. Or some video games where you are given multiple dialogue options that all say the same thing. No alternate choices being possible in principle isn't freedom. At best you can get an illusion of free will.

You're right. Most people don't see to the logical conclusion...or they do see the paradox but just shrug and say God isn't bound by logical paradoxes. They don't see that they are effectively using the old "can God make a rock so big even he can't lift it?" type argument.