Is omniscience compatible with human freedom?

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Khethil

Aye, though you take my rather rough example a bit too literally, it's used to illustrate the possibility. But you're quite right, and I believe we're on the same page.

Thanks

What is wrong with taking example literally? How else should be take them?

[Khethil]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

What is wrong with taking example literally? How else should be take them?

... as a representative illustration of the concepts discussed. In this case, whether or not it is possible to know, beforehand, how someone might choose. Knowing isn't the same as dictating or forcing; thus, freedom to choose isn't affected.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Khethil

... as a representative illustration of the concepts discussed. In this case, whether or not it is possible to know, beforehand, how someone might choose. Knowing isn't the same as dictating or forcing; thus, freedom to choose isn't affected.

I agree that knowing is not forcing. But what has that to do with taking things literally?

[Zetherin]

Originally Posted by fast

Well, we can be mighty confident that your son will do exactly as God says he will do.

Why? Isn't it feasible that God has lied to us? His infallible knowing doesn't necessitate that he tells us the truth, does it?

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Zetherin

Why? Isn't it feasible that God has lied to us? His infallible knowing doesn't necessitate that he tells us the truth, does it?

If God is all-good, then God does not lie. But it seems to me that is irrelevant. Whatever God knows someone will do, he will do. If he did not do it, then God would not know he would do. No one, including God knows anything that is false.

[Zetherin]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

If God is all-good, then God does not lie. But it seems to me that is irrelevant. Whatever God knows someone will do, he will do. If he did not do it, then God would not know he would do. No one, including God knows anything that is false.

Right. But he said "as God says...", so I was just curious. I can see how it's a bit irrelevant.

As I asked before, how would you like to continue this conversation?

[fast]

Originally Posted by Zetherin

Right. But he said "as God says...", so I was just curious. I can see how it's a bit irrelevant.

Well, I did say, "Suppose God tells you that next year on February 11th, your son will eat a snickers bar," and it was for illustrative purposes, but yes, I could have spent a little more time with it and worded it differently.

I do inadvertently slip in some irrelevancies sometimes.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Zetherin

Right. But he said "as God says...", so I was just curious. I can see how it's a bit irrelevant.

As I asked before, how would you like to continue this conversation?

But God's lying is really not the point, is it. The point is whether if God knows what you will do, must you do it. The answer is no. But if the question is whether if God knows what you will do, will you do it, the answer is unquestionably, yes. The puzzling question is whether if God is certain about what you will do, must you do it.

[xris]

Take god out of the equation. What if you went to bed tonight and you dreamed the winner of the 3.30 at cheltenham. Coincidence you might say, now you continue to dream the future in great detail. If you are convinced you are dreaming the future does that make you omniscient ? does it give you these godlike characteristics ? do the same problems arise that you bestowed on god ? knowing is not controlling, it only makes you aware of the inevitability of the future. The script is written but you wrote it. No one can alter the script, its your free will that has allowed you to write it. The problem for humans, time runs only one way and their conception of time and its consequences are blinkered by its view of time. If you could stand back and view time as a landscape the picture would be clearer.

I can remember as a youth we would enter the cinema at odd times and the film might have been running for sometime. We would settle down and watch it from when we entered. It would end and we would wait for it to restart, when it had got the point we entered the cinema, we would leave. The film was a story and the story did not change because we saw the end before the begining.

[Zetherin]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

The point is whether if God knows what you will do, must you do it. The answer is no.

If God's knowing is certain, as God's knowing is infallible, how is this a no? I must do what God knows, as what he knows is certain. And with this logic, the answer to your question here:

The puzzling question is whether if God is certain about what you will do, must you do it.

is yes.

Originally Posted by fast

I do inadvertently slip in some irrelevancies sometimes.

I actually meant I slipped into an irrelevance.