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Ah well Christians obviously have different definitions for what the term "God" means. Omnisiant beings are not necessarily Gods. Angels, demons -or demigod to be more PC. Sorry, you and I are on different wave lengths. Silly for Pagans and Christians to debate the anture of God with each other. In that spirit, I have nothing else to say to you on the Topic WC.[/color][/size][/color][/size]
I never said God was the Creator. Merely an omniscient being.
As you wish.Ah well Christians obviously have different definitions for what the term "God" means. Omnisiant beings are not necessarily Gods. Angels, demons -or demigod to be more PC. Sorry, you and I are on different wave lengths. Silly for Pagans and Christians to debate the anture of God with each other. In that spirit, I have nothing else to say to you on the Topic WC.
how is it illusion if the choice is yours to make?Which is one of my conclusions: that free will is an illusion when an omniscient exists.
So...in other words, He is not omniscient. Limited omniscience is not omniscience, because it is unlimited by definition.
That is to say that one of God's "natures" contradicts one of his other "natures.". So God, by nature, condradicts Himself? The alternative is that omniscence is not part of His nature (because as stated earlier, limited omniscience is not omniscience).
Ok. The point of this thread, though, was whether true omniscience was compatible with free will.
On the contrary, the foreknowledge forces us to do it by proxy. We may believe we made the decision of our own free will, but, if an omniscient exists, this is simply not true: the foreknowledge of the omniscient collapses all probabalistic functions, restricts all possible outcomes of any given trial to but one outcome: the one it has forseen.how is it illusion if the choice is yours to make?
If the choice is yours to make, and you are not coerced or trapped(which is why i felt your supposition was flawed, and or a jab at Christianity)
then it is not an illusion, because the choice is not being made for you.
its outcome is just known before you or I are aware.
@WiccanActually after reading some more about this, and also about Biblical backing (here if anyone is interested) for the omniscient God my post still stands and in addition, the only thing that may be an issue is free will yet after some more reading I don't find any problem with it. God doesn't interfere with our lives, He doesn't stop us doing things that we would otherwise do, he doesn't disconnect my internet to stop me sending an angry forum post filled with hatred or disable my DVD player when trying to watch an adult film. We are free to choose.
By free will and the definition I gave earlier, we are free to choose what we do, when we do it. Without any interferance from God. God waking me up early in my theoretical scenario doesn't affect my freedom to make choices, it simply saves my life. I intended to go to go to work one way or another, I had already made the choice. Afterall, that is perfectly in line with what is said about God in the Bible, that He wants what is best for us, and that is more than just me being alive, it's my familys feelings and so on. I can still choose to go to work or not too, but God knows what my choice will be. Again that doesn't eliminate my freedom to actively make that choice, it simply puts the knowledge of it, and it's outcome in God's hands.
So... what's the problem?
Cheers,
Digit
Suppose I, an entity allegedly with free will, and God*, an entity allegedly omniscient, are in a room with two boxes, A and B. God asks me to pick one of the boxes.
God knows I will pick box A (in this scenario, at least). I don't know God knows this, nor have I made my decision (such that it may be).
This is why a true omniscient being cannot coexist with an entity with true free will.
- Can I pick box B?
- If so, then God is not omniscient.
- If not, then I do not have free will.
*The word is only a placeholder for 'the omniscient'. Don't read too much theology from this
Aha, I missed this@Wiccan
Thoughts, comments?
Digit
My issue is not with whether an omniscience can exist, but whether it can coexist with free will. I have some thoughts on what we can say about omniscients, but that would move us off-topic.Digit said:Actually after reading some more about this, and also about Biblical backing (here if anyone is interested) for the omniscient God my post still stands and in addition,
This argument is common on this thread: they assume that the omniscient is actively altering reality to conform it to it's predictions. But for a true omniscient, this is not the case. It's foreknowledge, even if it is private and uncommunicable to the rest of us, places restraints on the universe.Digit said:the only thing that may be an issue is free will yet after some more reading I don't find any problem with it. God doesn't interfere with our lives, He doesn't stop us doing things that we would otherwise do, he doesn't disconnect my internet to stop me sending an angry forum post filled with hatred or disable my DVD player when trying to watch an adult film. We are free to choose.
Direct interferance by an omniscient is, I believe, impossible.Digit said:By free will and the definition I gave earlier, we are free to choose what we do, when we do it. Without any interferance from God. God waking me up early in my theoretical scenario doesn't affect my freedom to make choices, it simply saves my life.
That is a very nebulous conceptualisation of choice. If I murder you, it is necessarily your choice: after all, you will die someday.Digit said:I intended to go to go to work one way or another, I had already made the choice.
The problem is that the existance of agents with free will belies the existance of foreknowledge of said agent's decisions. More generally, foreknowledge that an outcome will occur collapses all probabilities involved; if there is a chance that an outcome contrary to that foreseen, then the foreknowledge is not known, which is tantamount to saying A ≠ A.Digit said:Afterall, that is perfectly in line with what is said about God in the Bible, that He wants what is best for us, and that is more than just me being alive, it's my familys feelings and so on. I can still choose to go to work or not too, but God knows what my choice will be. Again that doesn't eliminate my freedom to actively make that choice, it simply puts the knowledge of it, and it's outcome in God's hands.
So... what's the problem?
I didn't bother reading through the thread.
I didn't because there is not much point in doing so when the flaw in the OP is obvious.
I disagree, but I'll say why in later comments.On the slim chance that nobody bothered mentioning it, the OP commits the fallacy of loading the situation where one of the conditions (free will/omniscience) will logically contradict the other. It is similar to the failed omnipotent paradox of "Can God create a stone so heavy that even He can't lift it?"
Logic dictates that the omniscient knows everything. It knows what the outcome will be, it knows my thought-processes that go into 'deciding' to pick box A, it knows the exact motion my body will enact to indicate my 'decision', etc.Notice that the OP says that God in His omniscience knows the person exercising free-will is going to pick box A. Logic dictates that the omniscient God sees the outcome and the person will pick box A, not that the option of picking box B was removed before it happened.
Which would demonstrate that the alleged-omniscient is not, in fact, omniscient: foreknowledge must be true.If the person picked box B, then the paradox's given omniscient outcome in the argument simply was not correct.
By all means, explain why the scenario is invalid.IOW - the error isn't in God's omniscience or with there being free will, but in giving a flawed paradox legitimacy.
I disagree, but I'll say why in later comments.
Logic dictates that the omniscient knows everything. It knows what the outcome will be, it knows my thought-processes that go into 'deciding' to pick box A, it knows the exact motion my body will enact to indicate my 'decision', etc.
For the record, it might have been helpful if you'd read the rest of this thread, or at least the last few pages: the issue of a 'forced' decision, or of box B being 'forcably unnattainable', has been addressed.
Which would demonstrate that the alleged-omniscient is not, in fact, omniscient: foreknowledge must be true.
By all means, explain why the scenario is invalid.
I saw no explanation of why my scenario gave a "flawed paradox legitimacy". So yes, if you don't mind.Give more than I already did?
Then why enter a discussion on the subject?Taking on the task of explaining how a choice can or can not exist with foreknowledge has had better minds than mine try to explain each side in a comprehensible way. It is a subject with its share of controversy and I have no motivation to try and make some claim for one side or another.
In reality? By all means, demonstrate the existance of choice in our universe. Indeed, demonstrate the existance of an omniscient in our universe.The givens are there - choice and omniscience.
What do you mean by 'choice is separate from omniscience'? Do they exist at alternate times?Man's ability or inability to comprehend those givens would be another issue. I simply pointed out that you as the author of the OP created a supposed paradox and now contend that choice cannot exist with omniscience. I contend that choice is separate from omniscience.
Um, let me ask you. Does anyone care? 1 Corinthians 13:12.Suppose I, an entity allegedly with free will, and God*, an entity allegedly omniscient, are in a room with two boxes, A and B. God asks me to pick one of the boxes.
God knows I will pick box A (in this scenario, at least). I don't know God knows this, nor have I made my decision (such that it may be).
This is why a true omniscient being cannot coexist with an entity with true free will.
- Can I pick box B?
- If so, then God is not omniscient.
- If not, then I do not have free will.
*The word is only a placeholder for 'the omniscient'. Don't read too much theology from this
that is debatable but not something I wish to debate.On the contrary, the foreknowledge forces us to do it by proxy.
yet you are still unaware of that foreknowledge, and not influenced by it, other than your own inner conflict with it.We may believe we made the decision of our own free will, but, if an omniscient exists, this is simply not true: the foreknowledge of the omniscient collapses all probabalistic functions, restricts all possible outcomes of any given trial to but one outcome: the one it has forseen.
thats the point you can stop, and you could go, but you don't know which you will or will not do until you come to the choice.If an omniscient has forseen me writing this text, how am I free to not write the text? If an omniscient has not forseen me visitng Tibet, how am I free to go there?
I wasn't familiar with that term, but when I looked it up, it did mention the common lay misuse of the term, what way are you applying it?The omniscient does not do anything in and of itself. It is akin to the observer effect in quantum mechanics.
Those who subscribe to omniscience and free will should care: I believe I have demonstrated their premise wrong.Um, let me ask you. Does anyone care? 1 Corinthians 13:12.
Then leave this thread. It is, after all, the topic of discussion.that is debatable but not something I wish to debate.
On the contrary, that the foreknowledge exists at all influences the universe; or rather, the foreknowledge can only exist in a certain form of universe.yet you are still unaware of that foreknowledge, and not influenced by it, other than your own inner conflict with it.
Except the omniscient already knows what I will do. I, in my non-omniscient limitations, may not know what I will choose (until I make such a decision), but the omniscient does. To me, I have free will, but the omniscient knows better by definition.thats the point you can stop, and you could go, but you don't know which you will or will not do until you come to the choice.
See above; a particle's spin is know by measuring the spin of it's entanglement-partner. Before such a measurement is taken, each particle exists in identicle states of 'multi-spin'; that is, if they were merry-go-rounds, they'd be spinning clockwise and anti-clockwise.I wasn't familiar with that term, but when I looked it up, it did mention the common lay misuse of the term, what way are you applying it?
Naturally. Notice how I has not so arrogant as to say I had proved the wrong, merely that I believe I have proven them wrong. I concede that I may be wrongUnfortunately for you, your belief does not necessarily make it so.
What makes you think I'm notNow if you were omnicient....
Naturally. Notice how I has not so arrogant as to say I had proved the wrong, merely that I believe I have proven them wrong. I concede that I may be wrong
What makes you think I'm not
The flaw as I see it would be that the speculations with the proposed givens in place (free will and omniscience) was your responsibility as an author to make sure it wasn't a false dilemma or that you could simulate a fabricated situation involving an omniscient God. A tall order to fill.I saw no explanation of why my scenario gave a "flawed paradox legitimacy". So yes, if you don't mind.
Perhaps if I thought it would be of use or I was compelled for some reason, I might try despite the resistance I'm seeing with accepting the possibility of the two existing together. But I am not compelled.In reality? By all means, demonstrate the existance of choice in our universe. Indeed, demonstrate the existance of an omniscient in our universe.
What do you mean by 'choice is separate from omniscience'? Do they exist at alternate times?
Haha, touché! Reps for you, sir.What proves beyond a doubt that you're not omnicient is that a true omnicient cannot concede the possibility that they may be wrong. They probably couldn't even understand the concept of being wrong.
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