• Can An Omniscient God and Free Will Co-Exist?
    104 replies, posted
This is a question I've been having for a long time and I just wanted to see FP's thoughts on it. Is it possible to believe in a God that is all knowing and free will at the same time? My reasoning behind this question is that I was thinking if God is omniscient and all-knowing wouldn't he know every decision I would ever make in my lifetime and what my final outcome would be? Isn't that completely contrary to the concept of free will? To me it seems like that would make free will an illusion, but I ask you facepunch, what do you think?
There's another way of looking at the 'Do we have free will' argument, however you'd have to believe in god to use it as an argument against it.
It's a problem a lot of people have with god. The early people wanted their god to be the biggest best around so they gave him the best powers ever. Unfortunately now he's just a big clusterfuck of contradictions while the chuch has to try and confuse and subdue people enough so they don't ask those questions.
Interesting view, but I suppose even if your God already knows what you're going to do it's still your decision to do it.
It does google [QUOTE=Mavericks;24539350]Is it possible to believe in a[B] God that is all knowing[/B] and free [/QUOTE] google knows all google is everywhere and sooner or later, google will think for itself.
[QUOTE=Nerdrage;24539390]It does google[/QUOTE] you're violating my free will by ordering me to google
No it cannot. This is just one of the many flaws in religion. Omniscience and free will (or in gods case - omnipotence) cannot exist. It's a paradox. Here's a quote from Karen Owens - "Can omniscient god, who Knows the future, find The omnipotence to Change his future mind?" In other words god himself, either has to be all powerful or all knowing. Being both is a paradox. Though being omnipotent is logically impossible too. By the way, many people will talk about gods "devine plan" or say things like "it's gods will". If there's a devine plan, obviously we don't have free will ... and saying "it's god will" - I guess we don't have free will yet again, since it's gods will.
Ive thought about this many times. If we supposedly have free will and if we dictate our future, but apparently, there is a god that knows everything and has traced a future for us, and we can't avoid it... That pisses me off...
free will doesn't exist. We are all puppets.
[QUOTE=BlackBirdNL;24539635]free will doesn't exist. We are all puppets.[/QUOTE] the illuminati conrols everything fuck life!!!!
i thought it was pretty obvious that freewill doesnt exist in a universe with an all knowing god.
Best gods are found in video games, they are omnipotent but they still get sealed away in a dark place where they need YOU to save them so they can plot revenge.
[QUOTE=wonkadonk;24539668]the Illuminati controls everything fuck life!!!![/QUOTE] I thought the Illuminati were just a bunch of scientists and philosophers that opposed church in the inquisition times. They are heroes. I don't know about today's Illuminati tho
God knows what you are going to do before you do it, but you have choices on what you will do, however no matter what choice you make god will know it, therefore ending up with the choice paradox, if you chose to take the other way to fool god, he will already have known you would take that way. ETC.ETC.
[QUOTE=wonkadonk;24539668]the illuminati conrols everything fuck life!!!![/QUOTE] Not quite like that. If you imagine everything as particles, and have enough information you can accurately predict what's going to happen next. This means that if you were given the information of every blip of matter in the universe from it's beginnings, you could probably predict exactly what was going to happen for the rest of existance, therefore meaning the future could be already pre-determined.
A. God knowingly created humanity, with the knowledge that a lot of them would be sent to a place of eternal torture, not only that, but he gets pissed at Adam and Eve for eating from the tree, even though he knew it would happen. -Either God doesn't exist or is benevolent and Christians actually worship a dark, twisted God. B. If God is all powerful, he should be able to bring about a contradictory statement, right, like oh I don't know, having free will and yet everything being nice at the same time? Well that isn't happening is it. -Either God is not all powerful or he doesn't exist.
Yes, it can coexist. Omniscient God [i]does[/i] know the results of our free will, but if he doesn't interfere, it's still our choice.
[QUOTE=Rubs10;24539830]A. God knowingly created humanity, with the knowledge that a lot of them would be sent to a place of eternal torture, not only that, but he gets pissed at Adam and Eve for eating from the tree, even though he knew it would happen. -Either God doesn't exist or is benevolent and Christians actually worship a dark, twisted God. B. If God is all powerful, he should be able to bring about a contradictory statement, right, like oh I don't know, having free will and yet everything being nice at the same time? Well that isn't happening is it. -Either God is not all powerful or he doesn't exist.[/QUOTE] I vote B.
[QUOTE=wonkadonk;24539668]the illuminati conrols everything fuck life!!!![/QUOTE] That's what I want you to believe.
If god exists, we have to harvest him for power.
Shove a banana up your ass. Did you want to do that? Probably, you kinky bastard. Did God want to see that? I doubt it, he's probably seen it enough times it's not funny.
[QUOTE=EdoI;24539927]Yes, it can coexist. Omniscient God [I]does[/I] know the results of our free will, but if he doesn't interfere, it's still our choice.[/QUOTE] Almost right however, if the god knows exactly what you're going to do in your entire life (by your own choices) whatever you do you'll always follow the path the god has foreseen. Example: It's like walking in darkness and no matter how many times you change the direction you always follow the path as it's been laid exactly where you're going walk. If the god knows what you're going to do despite of your choices it means the future is set and you're not going to avoid it. (Unless you could see a point of the road somehow, then you'd be able to change and avoid the former road since that point)
[QUOTE=EdoI;24539927]Yes, it can coexist. Omniscient God [i]does[/i] know the results of our free will, but if he doesn't interfere, it's still our choice.[/QUOTE] If he knows the outcome of our choice before we make the choice, then it's either not free will or he's not omniscient, because we can't choose the outcome that God didn't know, if we did he wouldn't be omniscient. However we don't know what outcome he knows we're going to choose, therefore we have the [b][i]illusion[/b][/i] of free will. They cannot co-exist.
They can't co-exist but it's not a problem since there's no god.
The real question is can a largely mechanical universe and free will coexist? And if so, how? Through unpredictable quantum phenomena? Stop talking about god. God doesn't matter.
[QUOTE=EdoI;24539927]Yes, it can coexist. Omniscient God [i]does[/i] know the results of our free will, but if he doesn't interfere, it's still our choice.[/QUOTE] If the omniscient god also was the designer of the universe, then he would've known what all the possible outcomes of his design would be. If he was clever enough, all it would take would be moving a few atoms to the left to start a series of events that lead to hitler never being born. Omniscient Omnipotent God == No free will
[QUOTE=Smasher 006;24539777]Not quite like that. If you imagine everything as particles, and have enough information you can accurately predict what's going to happen next. This means that if you were given the information of every blip of matter in the universe from it's beginnings, you could probably predict exactly what was going to happen for the rest of existance, therefore meaning the future could be already pre-determined.[/QUOTE] Not true. According to quantum mechanics there are events which cannot be predetermined. Like for example, radioactive decay is truly random.
I've always assumed that God does gives us the illusion of free will, while meantime, he just made us to be OK with the plan.
There is another form of determinism, which is your psychology. You don't do shit, you onlu like puppies because you saw one back when you were a child. you only kill that bee because you were told her sting hurts... that kind of stuff, basically.
It's quite difficult to predict something presumably completely beyond our comprehension.
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