If God is omnipotent, then s/he can make a stone so big even s/he can't lift it... But seriously: God could, for the sake of argument, take leave of absence from His/Her creation, on purpose... Is that stopping him/her from knowing the outcome in advance?
The question was very specific: If God is Omniscient then Human is not free. And I'm glad you see my point. If you wish to expand the question to include the role of God in the creation of the universe then we need to define the new parameters: Has the creating of the universe stopped? Is it an event of the past or is it an ongoing process? If the answer to my question is that the creation is an event of the past there is again the possibility of the Human having Free Will. God's knowing what the actions of Human will be does not limit Human's free will. Again: That is not what the question was: If the Creator KNEW of my decision to reply to this topic that does not limit my free will. If the Creator preordained my action then of course there is no free will. If the factors leading to my decision are all material or material based then this discussion is meaningless because then we are talking about robots. Robots definitely do not have free will. They are pre-programmed to follow a sequence of instructions. Wrong! An omniscient creator does not make free will meaningless. Omniscience on its own is not enough to limit free will. The fact that the omniscient entity cannot be surprised and will now in advance all of your actions does not limit your decision making. It takes more than omniscience to accomplish that. Mistake 1: It's not MY God. It's the Question's God. That's what we are discussing. Mistake 2: I'm not dodging any point. You have agreed with me that if God was simply an observer then you would agree. But this is EXACTLY what the question asks. "If God is Omniscient then Human is not free". Omniscient = observer. It does not mean actively affecting the ongoing events. Mistake 3: Your options are not limited by God's omniscience and they are all valid A simple example: You are in the desert dying of thirst. I give you a. a glass of water, b. a hammer, c. a rock. Based on your condition I am almost certain (almost omniscient) that you will choose the water. If I were God I would know for sure what you would choose. Do you have the free will to choose to any of the 3 options or no?
Gorski, the outcome would not be an event, it just "is". The same way it would be impossible for a being of limitless power to create a stone big enough that it couldn't lift it. When the irresistible force meets the immovable object, nothing happens. Likewise when the God concept meets commonsense, nothing happens
I consider your point if the God in question is an observer but H/She is not. How so?!? If the creator god is omniscient s/ he must have foreseen every event that is going to happen in his creation. Then the free will illusion also is a part of his plan and the creator is actually fooling us to think that we are doing things by our own choice. Yes, that is the point we're discussing. If you know or analyze the nature of the robots that follows the 'programmed order' which means it can't do anything other than preprogrammed. So, the real crux of the matter with concept of omniscience isn't about the knower, but about the subject of knowledge - the event itself. Now, omniscience includes knowledge of future events; knowledge, which by definition cannot be wrong, or it wouldn't be knowledge, and certainly not omni. But knowledge of an event X can come only after X has occurred. Again, that follows from the necessary characteristics of the concept of knowledge. Everything else is a prediction. It follows that future events to an omniscient agent, who is not bound by historical continuity, are seen as things already happened. What we will do has already happened for him. I don't see that how what has already happened can be anything else than what has already happened = if an event was knowable to absolute certainty before it happened (and I stress knowable, not necessarily known), it cannot happen any other way. Can't fit free will somewhere between there as far as I see it. And by "event" I mean an exercise of will by human agent, although I suspect any natural phenomenon would apply. Wrong! why? read this analogy. The problem is in OMNISCIENCE or "perfect foreknowledge". Omniscience precludes free will because it states unequivocally that the individual in question WILL do certain things at certain times, and nothing can change that. The best way to explain this is what is generally referred to as the "Prophet's Paradox"... Basically, that if a prophet alters the outcome of his prophecy, then obviously it wasn't a true prophecy. To take this to the God discussion, can God change the outcome? If God can change the outcome, then God isn't omniscient... If God can't change the outcome, then God isn't omnipotent. basically, this means that the two main attributes attributed to God, omniscience and omnipotence, are actually mutually exclusive. This is the conclusion from my above post. This takes us right back to the "Free Will" discussion. Can Man change what God has foreseen? If he can, then God isn't omniscient... IF he can't, then how can you say he has "free will"? I've presented enough argument for this.
I see the logic of your points and there won't be an end to this discussion if we continue approaching it this way. So I suggest we go back to basics and build our way up from there: We need to define "free will" (and compare it with the "illusion of free will" that you mention in your post) As per Merriam Webster: free will noun : the ability to choose how to act : the ability to make choices that are not controlled by fate or God I will not deal with the second definition for the time being, because this is what we currently discuss. Whether Omniscience can be interpreted as Control. Taking the first definition: Ability to choose how to act Question: If one has to make a decision and there is only one option does one have free will or not? Is "free will" possible anyway?: Consider the scenario of a God-less creation.We are nothing but a bunch of atoms that work in a very pre-defined, pre-programmed way. Doesn't that make "free will" an impossibility by definition? i.e. if everything about me was reconstructed is there a chance of the cloned me making another decision than me? If "free will" is an impossibility then God's omniscience is irrelevant.
Before we continue with this please have closure look at these links . Divine Providence , Omniscience and Foreknowledge and Free Will and the problems of foreknowledge and free will .
Before I read those articles (I did go through them and most of what is there is known to me) we need to agree on how we deal with my last paragraph of my previous post. Here it is again: If we decide that free will is an impossibility by design/by definition then the whole discussion is a moot point. So, please take some time to ponder whether a human being is more than just matter or not. If not then free will is an impossibility by default.
Well... Since God is Omni-Everything then why not? I mean ... why limit a God when is up to the believer to assign any attribute to Him/Her?
Yes, the totalising, newish monstrosities, we were debating... not the Greek ones, where the Ancient Greeks were negotiating with them, trying to deceive them etc. None of that is present, especially in Modernity, with Reformist s**te, a la Protestant nonsense...
You do realize that the more powerful a God is the less possible is for Him/Her to be doubted hence the easier it is to control the masses. The Ancient Greek Gods were very human-like and very easy to be doubted/disobeyed. Who can fight an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God?
it all boils down to what we percieve what a god really is, gorski.. here i am handicapped as an atheist..