How are omniscience and free will not contradictory?

Poseidon · #1 May 22, '12, 7:25 pm

No matter how I think of it, I can't find any way to logically allow the coexistence of omniscience and free will. How do you view this, and how do you justify the two seemingly contradictory propositions?

Armor of Light · #2 May 22, '12, 8:32 pm

From Wikipedia:

Quote:

There is a distinction between:
inherent omniscience - the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known.
total omniscience - actually knowing everything that can be known.

Some modern theologians argue that God's omniscience is inherent rather than total, and that God chooses to limit his omniscience in order to preserve the freewill and dignity of his creatures.[2] John Calvin, among other theologians of the 16th Century, comfortable with the definition of God as being omniscient in the total sense, in order for worthy beings' abilities to choose freely, embraced the doctrine of predestination.

This actually is pretty accurate, from the catholic view (the bolded portion). I'm comfortable in this life realizing that I'm not going to understand fully the mind of God. I'm not comfortable in this life giving up trying to learn and grow in that regard however.

I look forward to how this thread will pan out.

maltmom · #3 May 22, '12, 9:00 pm

I've always believed that God is totally omniscient and that we have free will to accept or reject Him, to sin or not sin. In His omniscience I believe He knows what choices we will make. He doesn't make those choices for us. Personally I never had a problem reconciling the two.

fermat · #4 May 22, '12, 9:12 pm

The key to understand this is knowing that knowledge of an event does not cause the event.

Let's say I can go forward in time and I jump to tomorrow. I see you go to the store and buy chocolate ice cream. I zip back to today. Tomorrow rolls around and I know that you are going to go to the store and buy chocolate ice cream. Does my knowledge of that fact compel you to buy the ice cream? No.

Free will is just that, free. I can chose G-d or not. He will not force me to do one or the other. He already knows what I will freely choose to do, but he isn't causing or forcing the matter.

At the end of the day, we are all responsible for the choices we make.

Qoeleth · #5 May 22, '12, 10:22 pm

What is "free will"? it is the feeling that we are making a decision. We all experience decision making, and therefore we all experience 'free will'.

'Being free' and 'feeling free' are the same. Epictetus gives the example of Socrates, who, though in prison, was free, since he gave his consent to it. There is no objective meaning to 'freedom'.

Everything which happens though, is essentially determined. But the feeling of 'freedom' (and it is a feeling, nothing more) remains. The more we accord our will to what has been determined by God/chance/fate, then more we feel free.

To prove the free will is not anything but a feeling, try this- say, OK, I have free will to decide whether to get out of bed tomorrow , and go to work/college/school, whatever. But, at a deeper level, you already know perfectly that you WILL go to work tomorrow. Decision making is therefore often like a mere play or pretence.

yellow8yellowM · #6 May 22, '12, 10:55 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poseidon

No matter how I think of it, I can't find any way to logically allow the coexistence of omniscience and free will. How do you view this, and how do you justify the two seemingly contradictory propositions?

Hold your finger out.
Wiggle it up.
Wiggle it down.

God knew you would do that. Did He compromise your free will?

Sair · #7 May 23, '12, 3:09 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

What is "free will"? it is the feeling that we are making a decision. We all experience decision making, and therefore we all experience 'free will'.

'Being free' and 'feeling free' are the same. Epictetus gives the example of Socrates, who, though in prison, was free, since he gave his consent to it. There is no objective meaning to 'freedom'.

Everything which happens though, is essentially determined. But the feeling of 'freedom' (and it is a feeling, nothing more) remains. The more we accord our will to what has been determined by God/chance/fate, then more we feel free.

To prove the free will is not anything but a feeling, try this- say, OK, I have free will to decide whether to get out of bed tomorrow , and go to work/college/school, whatever. But, at a deeper level, you already know perfectly that you WILL go to work tomorrow. Decision making is therefore often like a mere play or pretence.

This being the case, why is the belief in god's omniscience any different, in effect, than belief that all our decisions are caused by prior states of the universe (including the state of our own brains, of course)?

Certainly it's true that merely knowing something to be the case does not cause it to be the case, but in effect, knowing (as opposed to merely predicting) that a person will make a particular choice means that they cannot actually make any other choice than that which they are already known to make - otherwise the knowledge would cease to be knowledge.

We don't necessarily know which choices we will make ahead of actually making and acting upon them - therefore we feel that we are free to make whatever choice we ultimately make. But if this choice is foreknown by an omniscient god, or foreordained by the prior states of our brains of which we are not consciously aware, the choice in question is an equally foregone conclusion.

I don't see how those who consider free will the supreme value of human existence - and the defeater for the problem of evil - can suppose there is actually a difference between god knowing all our choices before we make them, and physical determinism being true. These both seem to effectively demolish the idea of libertarian or contra-causal free will.

J_Peterson · #8 May 23, '12, 9:52 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by yellow8yellowM

Hold your finger out.
Wiggle it up.
Wiggle it down.

God knew you would do that. Did He compromise your free will?

Haha, I use this example to show that we (at least the conscious part) is not as free as we think we are. When you wiggle your finger try to pinpoint the moment you chose to wiggle it. Next, don't wiggle your finger and try to pinpoint the moment you decided to not wiggle it.

davidv · #9 May 23, '12, 10:00 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poseidon

No matter how I think of it, I can't find any way to logically allow the coexistence of omniscience and free will. How do you view this, and how do you justify the two seemingly contradictory propositions?

I view this as a case of equivocation, i.e., equating knowledge with causation.

If knowledge =/= causation, then there is no contradiction.

I have yet to see a logical argument showing that knowledge = causation.

Alberti_Devoveo · #10 May 23, '12, 10:15 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poseidon

No matter how I think of it, I can't find any way to logically allow the coexistence of omniscience and free will. How do you view this, and how do you justify the two seemingly contradictory propositions?

Perhaps you should explain how they are contradictory (even if seemingly so).

TheTrueCentrist · #11 May 23, '12, 10:25 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Armor of Light

From Wikipedia:

This actually is pretty accurate, from the catholic view (the bolded portion). I'm comfortable in this life realizing that I'm not going to understand fully the mind of God. I'm not comfortable in this life giving up trying to learn and grow in that regard however.

I look forward to how this thread will pan out.

But there are numerous examples in the bible and from contemporary stories where people claim to have learned of the future from God. If God were actually limiting his omniscience, this would not be possible. In other words, we would have to admit that any prophecy is illegitimate.

You might argue that prophecies are about natural phenomenon, not free will choices. However, not only is this not always true, but they are intermixed. Take for example the prophecy that Jesus would be betrayed by a friend. That is clear evidence that God knew the free will choices that someone would make ahead of time.

MichaelTDoyle · #12 May 23, '12, 10:44 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by maltmom

I've always believed that God is totally omniscient and that we have free will to accept or reject Him, to sin or not sin. In His omniscience I believe He knows what choices we will make. He doesn't make those choices for us. Personally I never had a problem reconciling the two.

This

+1

shoe · #13 May 23, '12, 2:09 pm

I think that God's omniscience does logically allow Him to co-exist with mankind's free will in that although God's omniscience makes it possible for Him to know in advance the choices people are going to make, His omniscience certainly doesn't mean that people are unable to make their choices willingly. And it certainly doesn't mean that people, after making a choice on their own volition, lose any of the human nature they had before making the choice; in other words, making choices do not make people less human and more machine-like. God's all-knowingness, then, neither contradicts nor interferes with mankind's decision making.

Poseidon · #14 May 23, '12, 2:10 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by fermat

The key to understand this is knowing that knowledge of an event does not cause the event.

Let's say I can go forward in time and I jump to tomorrow. I see you go to the store and buy chocolate ice cream. I zip back to today. Tomorrow rolls around and I know that you are going to go to the store and buy chocolate ice cream. Does my knowledge of that fact compel you to buy the ice cream? No.

Free will is just that, free. I can chose G-d or not. He will not force me to do one or the other. He already knows what I will freely choose to do, but he isn't causing or forcing the matter.

At the end of the day, we are all responsible for the choices we make.

But your knowledge does compel me to buy ice cream. I may think that I'm acting of my own accord, but in reality I'm just following along a preset path that I can't deviate from, because any choice I make is already set. For example, if I went to buy ice cream but then decided I wanted to thwart this preset path and buy a milkshake instead, you would already know that I was going to do that. Anything I decide to do would already be known by you, because you already saw it happen and there's nothing I can do to change it.

Obviously here I'm assuming that when you go back in time I do the same thing that I did before you came back.

Poseidon · #15 May 23, '12, 2:15 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by maltmom

I've always believed that God is totally omniscient and that we have free will to accept or reject Him, to sin or not sin. In His omniscience I believe He knows what choices we will make. He doesn't make those choices for us. Personally I never had a problem reconciling the two.

God knew the choices we would make before we even existed. If I didn't exist, but the choices I would make did exist, then I didn't make those choices. I wasn't around to make them. Therefore, someone else made them for me.