God's foreknowledge and free will

[brocke]

First of all you must understand that the word foreknowledge is never used in the Scriptures in connection with things it is always used in connection with people. God foreknows people. Moreover the same word that is translated foreknow is also translated foreordained.

God's foreknowledge is not about things, that is prescience not foreknowledge, but an intimate relationship with people that He determined to be intimate with before He spoke this world into existence.

Predestination is also concerning people not things. He predestines people, He foreordains things.

Now consider that the foreordination of God, the determining beforehand of all that comes to pass, is essential to His being God. If He didn't determine before what will happen in every circumstance down to the minutest detail He is little more than a man. If He looks down through time and knows what will happen and then determines to react in a certain way when it does He is not worthy to be trusted for He must change since He, just like a man, must learn from His knowledge. If He can change He can't be trusted. If He learns then He isn't omniscient.

Another thing that must be taken into account is the fact that the Bible never says that God has a plan it says that He has a purpose. God has purposed to bring this world to an expected end for the glory of His name and the good of His people. He has determined, purposed if you will, everything that happens in order to accomplish His purpose. If He didn't then man would be able to thwart Him and He would be constantly reacting to what man does, which puts man in the drivers seat instead of God.

Now man does have a will and he makes choices but he does it exactly as God has determined for him to do. God controls all the influences in our lives [who we are born to, where we are born, who influences us in our lives etc.] that shape us into who we are and the choices we make. He, as well, controls the circumstances in every situation so that we do exactly as we desire and exactly as He has determined for us to do. So we are not robots who have no will of our own nor are we puppets who are directed by a string. We are created a little lower than the angels with a will that is under the sovereign will of God who rules all things for the glory of His name and the good of His people.


Some one asked then why pray? Prayer isn't to twist God's arm, which is what free-will theology must come down to, or to inform Him of something that He doesn't know. Prayer is for us not for God. It keeps us dependent on Him. True prayer isn't asking for things (Does He not already know what we need?) but to thank Him for His goodness and to praise Him for His wondrous grace and mercy. Prayer lays hold of His promise and rests in it. Prayer is the cry of the heart to a loving Father.

Man does have a will but it certainly isn't free. Man's will is bound by man's nature. Man's nature, since the Fall, is evil and sin. We makes choices but we will always choose that which is our best interest. Even the seemingly good things that we do we do for the wrong reasons. We do them in order to gain something for ourselves whether it be praise from others, a good feeling about ourselves or some other thing it always serves us and our desires.

Such was not the case for the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to do His Fathers will and though He is God Himself He became a servant. He served His Father and He served His people. He did that which no man could accomplish, brought in an everlasting righteousness that God would accept and reward. He didn't do it for Himself, for He is already righteous being God, but He did it as the Surety and Substitute of His people.

So if I understand you correctly, it would be impossible for one to decide not to mow the yard 50 years after God foreknew that you would mow the yard. Thus all you do predestined and you can not do anything to change that.

 

[brocke]

God is Truth.
God is also not restricted by anything like time and space (when and where).
God (Truth) is the ONLY reality. There is nothing to control, it is. As God said, "I AM".

The trouble with these questions is that we are caught up in the time-space continuum. Our body-mind perceptions are locked into this world. But our soul-mind, or Spirit of Truth mind, through faith, 'knows' the Truth. However, the body-mind of knowledge cannot understand it. So our 'knowing' of the Truth is certainty, but we cannot grasp it without faith.

That is why such questions don't make much sense to us, and many jump to the conclusion that God is only restricted to our own body-mind knowledge.

Hope this has helped.

The OP is a classic paradox from the Philosophy of Religion meant to illustrate the problems of having an omniscient God who possess foreknowledge and the problem of predestination with everything determined versus free will and everything is not determined.

I think most of what you are saying is just Religious speak. You use terms about "God is Truth", "soul-mind", "body-mind" but what does all that really mean? A religious person may follow you but to someone who is not a Christian the terms sound like New Age religion or Gnosticism.

The point of the OP is to spark the debate of predestination vs free will.

 

[brocke]

Let's try something different.

What if you can see the future, what if you can see tomorrow.

Tomorrow, you saw yourself, cleaning up your already clean car....

So thought to yourself, I won't clean the car tomorrow (to break the prophecy)

The next day comes, you plan to lay all day doing nothing to break the prophecy. Then the wife sees you doing nothing asks you to come along to visit her sister that you hate.

So you get up and pretend to be busy cleaning your already cleaned car......Your very effort to avoid the prophecy fulfilled it....

Do you think you have free-will in this case??

Ironically, this is not a made up scenario.. ..something along the lines did happened to me a few times. Made me felt so powerless as if things are inevitable.

You are claiming that you foresaw that you would clean the car the next day. Decided to go against the foreknowledge and yet ended up doing it anyhow?

First, I'd ask really you can see the future? How did you fore see this?
Second, You chose to go clean the car in order to avoid seeing your sister-n-law. This does not imply determinism, it implies a choice of deceit on your part.

 

[twin1954]

So if I understand you correctly, it would be impossible for one to decide not to mow the yard 50 years after God foreknew that you would mow the yard. Thus all you do predestined and you can not do anything to change that.

God predestinates people He foreordains things. God, because He can and in order to ensure that His purpose is fulfilled, controls and has determined everything that comes to pass. He does so indirectly in His determining where you are born, who you are born to, what influences you will have that shape you into who you are and the circumstances you find yourself in. He sometimes directly influences your thoughts and decisions. But you do exactly as you desire to do and exactly as God has determined before for you to do.

So to answer your question yes it is impossible for you to not do what God has determined before for you to do but you still do it because you choose to.

 

[Resha Caner]

Compatibilist free will. The idea that, as long as there are no forces or factors that prevent us from acting how want, or coerces us into action, we are free. I also take note a type of 'mental freedom' in that we need to understand our reasons for acting to be free as well.

This is where you start to do what I mentioned previously. We've been through it before, so I don't know how much of it needs repeating. It depends on whether your purpose is to understand my view or refute it.

Compatibilist free will sounds nice on the surface, but it's an attempt to create a one-sided coin; it doesn't hold up when you really dig in.

That is what I meant, and of course that is where we disagree. I don't find a reasonable explanation for why it is impossible for God to foreknow what our future choice will be (singular), if He does indeed foreknow of all of our future options. And even more so when He does in fact foreknow of certain future choices.

A universe where God knows all future events is conceivable, and so God could have created it that way. The question is whether that conception matches with the universe as it is. I say it doesn't.

God also created a universe where hydrogen has one electron, helium has two electrons, etc. He could create elements that have pi electrons and e electrons if he chose. It would produce all kinds of "miracles" if he did. But he has promised not to. He works his miracles within a universe where hydrogen has one electron, helium has two, etc.

Such is the case with "choice", but it appears it will probably take formalization to make that convincing to you - something I've not taken the time to do.

I thought you were trying to say the future is not knowable, as it is logically impossible to know something that which cannot be. I thought that from your remarks: The only reason I would say God doesn't know the answer to the question is because there is nothing to know about a meaningless statement.

Just to be sure we're clear, I was not speaking of the "future" as a singular thing, but as a collection of possible things. God can choose from that collection of possible things and causally determine an event. But he can also choose not to act - not to causally determine an event. When he chooses not to causally determine an event it becomes logically impossible to know what that future event will be.

Though, does what will happen in future happen because God foreknows of it?

Yes, because that means he has decided to cause it. When God foreknows something it is different than my colloquial use of the phrase, "I know Yordano Ventura is going to throw a breaking ball."

Consider again the definition of causal determinism, and how it is connected to agency. What He foretold the prophets did not happen yet. It was not through agency that God determined Christ' coming when He foretold the prophets. Was it?

Yes.

But how do you know what is necessary and what is not?

I don't.

If something is not causally determined, does that mean it cannot be logically determined?

No, but you and I are thinking differently about what a logical determination can accomplish. I am saying God both logically determined and caused the Incarnation of Christ.

So what if He logically determines a future event? Is our free will nullified?

Possibly. It depends upon what he has created. If what he has created leaves us with only one possibility then our will is bound. Our will is only unbound when multiple possibilities exist - when choice exists; when that is the case the future becomes unknowable.

So, as I said earlier, this might take some formalization. I've never tried it for a problem like this. Are you game? If so, we would need to start with some terms and notation. Maybe something like:
A = agent
A0 = God; A1, A2, ... = everybody else
() = creates
-> = causes
: = knows

Then we would have to establish some rules. For example:
Only A0(x) is a valid statement. A1(x) is not a valid statement, but must be given as A1->x.

This could take a long time, and even then may not accomplish anything.

 

[Tree of Life]

That is a contradiction. Everything cannot be preordained to that whatever will come to pass will come to pass, and at the same time have freedom to do what one wants. If "whatever will come to pass" is already ordained then there you do not have a choice in what you can do, as it has already been decided what will happen.

It's not a contradiction.

God can foreordain that I will want to choose X and that I will choose X.
Then I choose X because I want to choose X. My choice was "free" in the sense that I made it because I wanted to make it.

 

[ecco]

ecco said: ↑

God's Foreknowledge and mankind's Free Will are not mutually exclusive.​

It only raises the question of why God blamed Adam & Eve for their disobedience and subsequently conferred SIN and hardship upon mankind for all generations.
He knew they would disobey Him long before He ever created them in the manner, and with the morals, He created them.​

Also to claim that everyone is being punished for what Adam & Eve does has at least two problems. One it ignores the individuals capacity and responsibility for their own sin. Two, it takes a fundamental literalist reading of the story of the Fall of Human beings in Genesis - which is problematic if one takes that stance.

The argument is specifically directed toward those who take a fundamentalist literal reading of Genesis.

The story of Adam and Eve is more a statement on basic human nature and that we tend to decide we do not need God and can do things on our own - thus we sin.

The story of Adam and Eve is more a statement on early man addressing the question: Where did we all come from. It is no different from thousands of other Creation stories in that regard.

 

[ecco]

It is a common critic of atheists that God is responsible for evil.

WRONG! Atheists do not blame something they do not believe in for something they do not believe exists.
To clarify (since it apparently needs clarification).

• I do not believe in any gods
• I do not believe in the existence of something called "Evil".

• There are some acts that can be considered evil, bad, horrible, etc.
• There are some people who are evil, bad, horrible, etc.

But "evil" in the sense that you and many other religious people believe, is not something I believe in.

But I question the postulation that God instilled in them a level of morality and that directly leads to God being responsible. The question I have is because the tree they eat from in the story is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Would this not mean that the morals came after they eat of the tree and not before?

That is an interesting question. Let's follow your logic. If god instilled no sense of morality into them and they obeyed god and never partook of the fruit, then mankind would never have morals. At least not the God-Given-Objective-Morals that many Christians often refer to.

My point is, in this story it is meant to illustrate our tendency to go it without God, that we think we can do one better.

After Eden God gives rules for a lot of things - eating pork and shellfish, cleanliness in a marital situation, stealing, killing, etc. Basic rules for civilized living that had been around for thousands of years before the advent of writing. There are two ways to try to get people to go along with rules: Threat and punishment.

The A&E story it is meant to illustrate "Disobey God and a lot of bad things are going to happen". It's kind of like "just you wait until your father comes home!".

Perhaps another way to say it is God created us to be in relationship with the Divine - love. But we desire more and so do not trust God and try to deal with good and evil on our own, screwing it up.
Perhaps the question is can God create a world with true love and free will that does not have evil or the possibility that evil can arise? After all evil did not start with Adam and Eve it was started with the Devils rebellion and then the Devil tricked Adam and Eve.

And, given an omnipotent, omniscient god, this was all part of god's plan.

 

[sparow]

It is just an illustration about a Paradox between foreknowledge and free-will. It does not mean that you have to check God for the Divine's will on everything - like if you should brush your teeth or take a shower.



You confuse me with what you are saying here Sparow. At first it appears you are contradicting yourself. If I follow you correctly you have the following thought process in this paragraph.

• God cannot predict the future although he would be aware of all possibilities.
• God knows the future because God engineers the future.
• Therefore God knows what you will do in the future.

These three statements don't follow - how can God not predict the future yet at the same time have decided what the future will be?

You really shouldn't be confused, if you understand the truth you can assume that is what I am saying. There is no paradox between foreknowledge and free will until man creates it. Gods foreknowledge is what He has planed and mans free will is man throwing a spanner in the works. God desires that man enter into His covenant but only a few do. God's plan is an infrastructure inside of which man may have free will to be with God or against him; it may be more appropriate to say man either has a will to be with God or a will to be against God and there is room for cultivating the will; in the KJV free will is mentioned in the OT but in conjunction with offering, freewill offering. If one follows the history of Israel, Israel's will to not follow God, which seemed to be most of the time, was not free and they were continually chastised.

You have a problem that could be called confusion but I refuse to accept responsibility for it.

 

[DogmaHunter]

It actually raises no such questions.

God knows the future. That doesn't mean that he "scripts" it. It's in his power to do that, of course, but there's no reason to conclude that his foreknowledge necessarily determines our actions in the future.

100% accurate foreknowledge cannot exist in a universe where "free will" also exists.

Free will adds an uncertainty ingredient. If it can accuratly be known (in whatever way) what I will decide BEFORE I decide it, then my choices are pre-determined.

Wheter or not it is god that "scripts" it or the laws of nature is quite irrelevant.
The point is that you can only know decisions before hand, if decisions are pre-determined one way or the other.

Seems perfectly logical to me.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I respectfully disagree. Given, for the sake of argument, an omniscient god, free will is equally feasible.

If "will" is truelly free, then how can accurate foreknowledge exist?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

About freedom, a new concpt to consider:

People say that we have the laws of standard physics which are deterministic, and the laws of quantum physics, which are more random and sponteneous.

They then present a dilemma... either way there cant be freedom. Determinism allows no freedom, and randomness allows no freedom.

But whats the "ontological scope of conscious life" and the will? Take the visual field, does it exist at the quantum scale, or the classical scale, or both? If both, then the will could exist at both levels too, making for a dual-aspect alternative to the dilemma. Will is somehow random and detemined, quantum and classical. Thats my new speculative definition of freedom, a "third way" to add to the mix of ideas...


Dialetheism is the view that some statements can be both true and false simultaneously. More precisely, it is the belief that there can be a true statement whose negation is also true. Such statements are called "true contradictions", dialetheia, or nondualisms. - Wikipedia

A classic example of dialetheism would be "John is in the doorway", or both in the room and not in the room...

Maybe freedom is somehow a case of dialetheism too?

Or it is a type-3 emergent phenomenon. Not quantum, not classical, but neological.... a case where old categories (determined, random) have to be abandoned. Man is neither of these, he is free...

A neologism (/niːˈɒlədʒɪzəm/; from Greek νέο- néo-, "new" and λόγος lógos, "speech, utterance") is the name for a relatively new or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. - wikipedia

So, are determined and random mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, or not? Could there be a third way?

 

[quatona]

About freedom, a new concpt to consider:

People say that we have the laws of standard physics which are deterministic, and the laws of quantum physics, which are more random and sponteneous.

They then present a dilemma... either way there cant be freedom. Determinism allows no freedom, and randomness allows no freedom.

But whats the "ontological scope of conscious life" and the will? Take the visual field, does it exist at the quantum scale, or the classical scale, or both? If both, then the will could exist at both levels too, making for a dual-aspect alternative to the dilemma. Will is somehow random and detemined, quantum and classical. Thats my new speculative definition of freedom, a "third way" to add to the mix of ideas...


Dialetheism is the view that some statements can be both true and false simultaneously. More precisely, it is the belief that there can be a true statement whose negation is also true. Such statements are called "true contradictions", dialetheia, or nondualisms. - Wikipedia

A classic example of dialetheism would be "John is in the doorway", or both in the room and not in the room...

Maybe freedom is somehow a case of dialetheism too?

Or it is a type-3 emergent phenomenon. Not quantum, not classical, but neological.... a case where old categories (determined, random) have to be abandoned. Man is neither of these, he is free...

A neologism (/niːˈɒlədʒɪzəm/; from Greek νέο- néo-, "new" and λόγος lógos, "speech, utterance") is the name for a relatively new or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. - wikipedia

So, are determined and random mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, or not? Could there be a third way?

I fail to see how random and determined are antagonists, in the first place.

 

[ecco]

About freedom, a new concpt to consider:

People say that we have the laws of standard physics which are deterministic, and the laws of quantum physics, which are more random and sponteneous.

What people say that we have the laws of standard physics which are deterministic?
What laws of standard physics which are deterministic?

 

[FireDragon76]

If I throw a ball into the air and it comes down, that's different from God doing it... because when God does it, he causes the law of gravity in the first place, which means it can be said he caused the ball to fall.

Apologetics that try to "get God off the hook" prematurely are no good.

 

[Albion]

If I throw a ball into the air and it comes down, that's different from God doing it... because when God does it, he causes the law of gravity in the first place, which means it can be said he caused the ball to fall.

Apologetics that try to "get God off the hook" prematurely are no good.

Well, this is just another example of taking issue with the example or analogy rather than with the point. If it happens, and God knew it would, that doesn't mean that God willed it.

 

[ecco]

ecco said: ↑​

I respectfully disagree. Given, for the sake of argument, an omniscient god, free will is equally feasible.​

If "will" is truelly free, then how can accurate foreknowledge exist?

Qualifier: Science rules out the supernatural because, if, for example, things like LastThursdayim are allowed, every nonsensical concept must be given equal credence.

However, for the sake of argument/discussion, we can create an alternate reality wherein we accept the existence of an Omniscient God hovering over a world in which man has Free Will.

To try to understand that Omniscience and Free Will can co-exist, in this alternate reality, I will propose an analogy.

An ant can see that the Golden Gate bridge exists. Even if that ant had seen its construction, it could not comprehend how that structure came to exist. Biologically, an ant is closely related to man, relatively speaking. By contrast the difference between man and an Omniscient God is almost infinitely greater. It is far, far, far beyond the capabilities of mere humans to comprehend how Free Will and an Omniscient God can coexist.

An ant cannot comprehend how the bridge came to exist.
An ant can accept that the bridge exists.
Man cannot comprehend how Free Will and an Omniscient God can co-exist.
Man can accept that Free Will and an Omniscient God can co-exist.

 

[brocke]

God predestinates people He foreordains things. God, because He can and in order to ensure that His purpose is fulfilled, controls and has determined everything that comes to pass. He does so indirectly in His determining where you are born, who you are born to, what influences you will have that shape you into who you are and the circumstances you find yourself in. He sometimes directly influences your thoughts and decisions. But you do exactly as you desire to do and exactly as God has determined before for you to do.

So to answer your question yes it is impossible for you to not do what God has determined before for you to do but you still do it because you choose to.

You position is a contradiction. You are saying we have free-will but everything is determined already. This makes us simply robots acting out a play already scripted by another. This would imply that God is the ultra controlling dictator that Hitchens' described.

I don't see how you can justify this contradiction. If what you will do has been determined/predestined then you are not making free choices. In fact there is no choice at all. In your position of God predestinating people and foreordaining things - then choice is an illusion. This would make God a great deciever, and that then God had decided before creating people that they would or would not be condemned to hell already. Again this falls into the trap of Hitchens' insecure irrational controlling god.

 

[Cearbhall]

God knows that in 50 years on a given Sunday you will go out and mow the grass. When that Sunday in 50 years comes along, you decide to watch football instead of mowing the grass.

This wouldn't happen to a being that has foreknowledge.

 

[Locutus]

To know the future is not to predetermine it. It's not.

Yes it is, if that future was according to a plan. One of the most common refrains I hear from Christians is that God planned everything that would ever happen. If this isn't true, then clearly this god is not Omni-everything, another claim made by Christians on a regular basis.

On the off chance this god DIDN'T plan things, and merely has foreknowledge as you claim, can you tell me if it's possible to choose something OTHER than what is foreknown?