God's foreknowledge and free will

Chany said:

There is actually a really easy way to eliminate the paradox: argue that foreknowledge cannot account for free will. In other words, you can argue that it is logically impossible for God to have divine foreknowledge of the actions free creatures will take when they face alternative possibilities. Because it is logically impossible, it shouldn't create problems for the theist, as they already modified omnipotence to deal with logical impossibilities.

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The downside is you end up worshiping a god that can be tricked by a mere mortal. That's more for stories about Greek and Roman gods rather than the big guy they believe in.

Locutus said:

The problem for the theist is that if they relinquish the gooseberry, god's 'necessary goodness' collapses.

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If God's 'necessary goodness' equates God's nature with goodness by definition, then it's meaningless anyway; God's nature is goodness and goodness is God's nature - it resolves to a tautology, God's nature is God's nature. Also, the authority for it is circular - the Bible says so, and the Bible is the word of God...

Chany said:

There is actually a really easy way to eliminate the paradox: argue that foreknowledge cannot account for free will. In other words, you can argue that it is logically impossible for God to have divine foreknowledge of the actions free creatures will take when they face alternative possibilities. Because it is logically impossible, it shouldn't create problems for the theist, as they already modified omnipotence to deal with logical impossibilities.

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But God can't be omniscient if He doesn't know what will happen- can He?

Galen Strawson looks at freewill from the viewpoint of moral responsibility - he says our decisions depend on our nature, the way we are (if they didn't, they wouldn't be our decisions). So to be truly responsible for our decisions, we must somehow be responsible for the way we are. If we have, at some point, decided to become the person we are now, that decision would have depended on our earlier nature, the way we were, at the time of that decision. And so-on, back to our birth - the event that gave us our earliest nature, and for which we were clearly not responsible. So all our decisions are ultimately derived from a given nature, for which we were not responsible. The suggestion is that the everyday notion of freewill requires that we somehow cause ourselves.

FrumiousBandersnatch said:

But God can't be omniscient if He doesn't know what will happen.

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It is like the paradox of the stone, where the theist acknowledges that omnipotence cannot include things that would create logical contradiction, so therefore defines omnipotence as "the ability to do all things logically possible." God is still omnipotent, but god is not omnipotent in a way that is logically impossible, which, honestly, is not that big of a deal. If it is a logical impossibility to know certain propositions, then no being can no those things, even if the being is the one who knows all there is to know cannot do it. "Omniscience" is just a mass of sounds and images we call a word and attach meaning to, so the theist is free to define the word and posit their god has it as they see fit. The theist often wants to posit a being who is the maximally greatest being conceivable by logic; if the being isn't conceivable in the logically sense (it faces internal contradiction and is impossible to imagine, like a square-circle), then the theist doesn't have to worry about that being because it is not what they seek to show exists. The theist can, just like they did with the "naive" definition of omnipotence, limit the definition of omniscience to something that is still incredibly knowledgeable, but avoids logical contradiction with itself.

Also, the definition of omniscience that allows god to have divine foreknowledge of the decisions of free creatures has internal contradiction problems beyond free agents. For example, if a being knows all things, then there are certain things god cannot know. For example, god cannot know what it is like to be mistaken, nor can god know what it is like to gain knowledge, nor can god know what it is like to be a non-omniscient being. Therefore, the theist would have to change the definition anyway, so it is not really that big of an issue to a philosophical theist trying to show the greatest conceivable being exists to modify the "naive" definition of omniscience to something more philosophically rigorous.

Chany said:

..."Omniscience" is just a mass of sounds and images we call a word and attach meaning to, so the theist is free to define the word and posit their god has it as they see fit... The theist can, just like they did with the "naive" definition of omnipotence, limit the definition of omniscience to something that is still incredibly knowledgeable, but avoids logical contradiction with itself.

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But to my knowledge they haven't redefined it to exclude foreknowledge. As far as I understand it, they see foreknowledge as essential to omniscience...

Also, the definition of omniscience that allows god to have divine foreknowledge of the decisions of free creatures has internal contradiction problems beyond free agents. For example, if a being knows all things, then there are certai'n things god cannot know. For example, god cannot know what it is like to be mistaken, nor can god know what it is like to gain knowledge, nor can god know what it is like to be a non-omniscient being. Therefore, the theist would have to change the definition anyway, so it is not really that big of an issue to a philosophical theist trying to show the greatest conceivable being exists to modify the "naive" definition of omniscience to something more philosophically rigorous.

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Well yes (although it may be possible to quibble about whether knowledge of something requires one to experience it); all those omni's fall to reductio ad absurdum.

E.T.A - corrected omnipotence to omniscience.

Chany said:

Blind post. I apologize if someone brought this up already.

If alternative possibilities (it is within a person's power to actually do either option A or B at time T2, not just hypothetical) are a necessary condition to having free will (a pretty basic and common assumption), then God's foreknowledge creates problems.

1. God knows all things and he is never wrong, per omniscience.
2. At T1, at the beginning of the universe, God knows that Chany will be given the choice between moving for a job or staying with his family. God knows that Chany will move for the job.
3. At T2, 2020, Chany is faced with the choice between moving for a job or staying with his family. Chany chooses to move for the job.

In this scenario, it would appear that I do not have free will. Why? Because one of the requirements for free will is that I have alternative possibilities. I have to have the power to access (or will to access, to be more specific) either the world in which I move for the job or the world in which I stay with my family. However, at T1, well before I made my decision at T2, God knows that what I will do at T2. Because God's knowledge is necessarily true and accurate, whatever propositional knowledge he has must be true, including about future events. We assume that knowledge of future events does not carry metaphysical weight because of our own human experiences. But these feelings do not apply to a being who, by definition, cannot be wrong; reality must conform to God's knowledge because God's knowledge must be true. When God knows the proposition, "At T2, Chany will decide to move for a job," the proposition is necessarily true; I must decide to move for a job at T2. But if I must decide to move for a job at T2, then I could not have done otherwise. I cannot access the world where I decide to stay with my family at T2 because, if I did, that would contradict God's knowledge, which is impossible. Because I cannot access multiple worlds, I do not have alternative possibilities. Because I do not have alternative possibilities, I do not have free will. Therefore, divine foreknowledge by an omniscient God is incompatible with free will.

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Thank you for your well thought out position. I have seen this position argued a number of times before in various ways and they all seem to fall victim to the same subtle logical fallacy and ambiguities of language. Basically you are arguing that foreknowledge and free will result in a logical contradiction. I disagree with that, so let's look at your argument. I prefer to use symbolic logic since it is more precise. Most people are not familiar with the symbols, so I'll explain as I go.

Let P stand for some proposition describing a state of affairs, in this case "In the year 2020, Chaney moves for a job." Its negation is ~P (not P); "In the year 2020, Chaney does not move for a job".

"God knows P" is a different but related proposition. I'll express this with G(P).

In philosophy, there are certain conditions that need to be met in order to say "X knows P". The most fundamental of these conditions is that P is true. (Others include beliefs regarding P and evidence of P.)

P = "On Mar 2, 2016, Barak Obama is president of the United States." - True
X knows P = "AgentSmith knows that on Mar 2, 2016, Barak Obama is president of the United States." - True, but what makes this proposition true?
P = "On Mar 2, 1916, Barak Obama is president of the United States." - False
X knows P = "AgentSmith knows that on Mar 2, 1916, Barak Obama is president of the United States." - False, but what makes this proposition false?

The truth value of the proposition X knows P directly depends on the truth value of P. One cannot know P is true if P is actually false. Truth is a necessary condition for knowledge. In the case of omniscience, it is also a sufficient condition, since an omniscient being would not have either false beliefs or a lack of beliefs with regard to propositions. It is the state of affairs that the proposition describes that makes the knowledge true, not the other way around. It is your action of moving for a job (or not) that makes God's knowledge about it true.

So now let's define a few things and construct your argument more formally.

1. P = (◊P & ◊~P) defines P as a contingent proposition. It says that P is true in some possible worlds and false in other possible worlds. This allows for free will, per your definition.

2. ∀P [G(P) ↔ P] which means for all values of P, God knows P is true if, and only if, P is true. This expresses the notion that God knows all things and will never have any incorrect knowledge. (It also covers if P is false, God will know P is false.)

3. ~◊[G(P) & ~P] says it is not possible for P to be false while God knows it's true.

4. G(P) → □P says that if God knows P is true (or false) then P is necessarily true (or false)

5. G(P) ; God knows P is true

6. ∴ □P ; therefore P is necessarily true

7. ∴ ~◊~P ; therefore it is not possible for P to be false, i.e. no free will (contradicts 1).

Would you say I've expressed your argument accurately and fairly?

Also, on a less robust and more intuitive level, it is hard to how one can defend against this objection to divine foreknowledge of free will without opening the floodgates to determinism. If God can somehow predict my actions so far in advanced with 100 percent certainty, it is hard to see how determinism is not true. It also hints at a B-Theory of Time view of the world, and, if anyone here is aware of William Lane Craig's work in even passing interest, they know the B-Theory of Time creates problems for the modern Kalaam Cosmological Argument.

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Yes, I would say that foreknowledge of any kind favors B-theory over A-theory.

I am trying to read through and make sure there are no issues. However, I am seeing nothing that stands out to me other than emphasizing that the logical contradiction only results when God's knowledge is foreknowledge; if God gains knowledge at the same moment the free agent decides to actualize possible world, there is no contradiction.

Obviously, you have an objection. Please state which premise you disagree with and what rule of logic being misused/logical fallacy being used. I am familiar with symbolic logic (though I learned a slightly different set of symbols), but not really the modal symbols or the rules of logic thereof.

Chany said:

So, not a lot?

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not a lot what?

Chany said:

It is like the paradox of the stone, where the theist acknowledges that omnipotence cannot include things that would create logical contradiction, so therefore defines omnipotence as "the ability to do all things logically possible." God is still omnipotent, but god is not omnipotent in a way that is logically impossible, which, honestly, is not that big of a deal. If it is a logical impossibility to know certain propositions, then no being can no those things, even if the being is the one who knows all there is to know cannot do it. "Omniscience" is just a mass of sounds and images we call a word and attach meaning to, so the theist is free to define the word and posit their god has it as they see fit. The theist often wants to posit a being who is the maximally greatest being conceivable by logic; if the being isn't conceivable in the logically sense (it faces internal contradiction and is impossible to imagine, like a square-circle), then the theist doesn't have to worry about that being because it is not what they seek to show exists. The theist can, just like they did with the "naive" definition of omnipotence, limit the definition of omniscience to something that is still incredibly knowledgeable, but avoids logical contradiction with itself.

Also, the definition of omniscience that allows god to have divine foreknowledge of the decisions of free creatures has internal contradiction problems beyond free agents. For example, if a being knows all things, then there are certain things god cannot know. For example, god cannot know what it is like to be mistaken, nor can god know what it is like to gain knowledge, nor can god know what it is like to be a non-omniscient being. Therefore, the theist would have to change the definition anyway, so it is not really that big of an issue to a philosophical theist trying to show the greatest conceivable being exists to modify the "naive" definition of omniscience to something more philosophically rigorous.

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The naïve definition is the one most run theists appear to run with. That's the definition we address here.

Locutus said:

The naïve definition is the one most run theists appear to run with. That's the definition we address here.

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Perhaps, but a lot of those theists either:

1) Have never encountered these arguments, but, when confronted with them, can counter the argument or are willing to redefine them

2) Have never thought about their faith in an incredibly rigorous manner.

I also tend to hang out around, learn from, and read theists who tend to be on the higher end of the philosophical spectrum, so that's the kind of definition-making process I am most familiar with. It's also the only one I care about. I can defeat the common person's naive definition of omnipotence as "the ability to do all things" easily with the paradox of the stone, but that's not what intellectually matters in philosophy once we run into a theist who has already accounted for the paradox in their definition.

Again, it's mostly my environment: my theist friends and professors would skip right to the internally-valid definitions.

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QUOTE="Locutus, post: 69334126, member: 353469"]not a lot what?[/QUOTE]

I cannot think of many theists who would assert that God determines and plans every single event that ever happened and will happen, besides the occasional hard-determinist Calvinist type.

Unless I misunderstood you, which is entirely possible.