Rhea

Spurly, you said:
and then you said

So which is it?
All have sinned?
All Except those who can't?
All except those about whom is it anathema to think of burning forever?


So you're saying that God had the ability to create people who are not capable of sinning. And that he does it by the millions every day.

It appears that you have answered the question quite completely. How can god do it? Create babies and kill them before the magic age at which they are capable of sin. You know, kids are generally a happy bunch. It sounds like a great world. Nobody ever needs to grow up. Why did God invent growing up? It's clearly not needed by the tens of thousands of kids every day who die before reaching whatever age you are going to state as the age of sin-capability. They are born, live sinless, die early, go to heaven. The only reason any of them suffer on earth is because of the presence of grown-ups anyway.

So, are you willing to go into what would be wrong with the earth as a giant nursery? Sounds like a great place of non-stop play. No sin. And God changes the cribsheets.

Thanks for answering Radorth's perpetual question: "What's a better plan?"

Philosoft

This seems intuitively true, but it appears to deny omniscience in any meaningful sense. It also seems to necessitate that God create an inherently flawed human decision-making system.

Okay. So, what level of divine influence is allowed at any point in the generation of a possible world? Presumably God didn't create truly random beings. How much influence at any point is God allowed to have before violating free will?

Is there a divine intervention scale by which we can measure potential free-will violation? Otherwise, I don't see how we're qualified to judge what violates free-will and what doesn't.

But if God doesn't know which trail he's going to take, God's alleged omnipotence becomes trivial. It also means the consequences of God's miracles are indeterminate. God could end up doing actions himself that have non-good outcomes without some kind of foreknowledge. In fact, if we are to believe the common theodicy, whatever evil we observe is necessary to bring about whatever God has planned.

But if he doesn't, it means what God wants is a random world.

Stephen T-B

Religious beliefs are inherently contradictory because they are contributed to by very many people with contradictory notions; the result is an amalgam, and the religious person (outside the strictest religious groupings which forbid independent thought) therefore chooses the doctrinal elements which are consistent with his or her particular view of things, and discards the rest. A certain incoherence, however, cannot be avoided – as Jamie_L has proved in this thread.

The attempt to make Free Will compatible with an omniscient god leads the religionist into all sorts of blind alleys from which specious argument is the only escape, and the reason?
Belief in gods is as delusional as a belief in Free Will; bring the two things together and the result is a fantasy world in which a person can make up any rules he or she likes, and they are no more sensible than anyone else’s

Angrillori

Other than the fact that your argument stems only from the personal belief that god would not do anything to infringe upon our free will, I will point out several discrepancies:

But you see, God knows the future (ostensibly) and knew what choice we will make in each set of circumstances. And he gets to choose the circumstances. (Whether it's the circumstances that came after a long causal chain from the begining or not is irrelevant, since he knows every 'branch' exactly.)

Then god chose one particular 'possibility path' which he FOREKNEW would happen if he set up initial conditions 'just so.'

And the one he chose was this reality.

But is god blocking free will? Your analogy is flawed. Consider:

God knows under which circumstances man P will choose EACH path. But he has to choose one set of circumstances to inflict upon the poor man. He HAS to choose one. Take it how you like.

God's never blocked anything, but he had to choose ONE set of circumstances, and in this set, man P will choose ONE way. A way God foreknew.

Mind blowing eh?

(Note: If you notice how many times you said 'it would seem' I think you'll realize how tenous your argument is.)
Furthermore:
You're missing the point. We have free will, but God just knows exactly how we will exercise it in each circumstance, and did, himself, make the circumstances.

But we don't even have to talk about the nature of the person at all. It is irrelevant. All that matters are:
1) God's foreknowledge.
2) God creating one universe.

But again, god foreknew which decision you will make, as well as what motivated you to make that decision, and chose to create a universe where you choose whichever it is you choose.

BUT he did KNOW what will happen after time 0 with the starting conditions he set. He also knew EVERY other set of starting points, all infinity of them that would lead to all the finite sets of choices made. Therefore he did know which starting conditions would lead to: 'No evil actions taken' and chose to NOT take this set. Pretty rude eh?

mike_decock

Angrillori, I want to thank you for presenting your argument regarding foreknowledge at the point of creation. I intuitively knew there was "something" wrong with the foreknowledge/freewill paradox but you have filled in the blanks where I couldn't find the words.

Thanks,

-Mike...

The_Ist

Darn. I had my response to your posts written out, but accidentally did something with my computer that caused it to be lost. I will get back to you when I have the time.

Angrillori

That's ok.

I'm glad I got the chance to further clarify.

I'll start right at the beginning. (For that's a very good place to start!)

If we grant God Omniscience, Foreknowledge, and Omnipotence, then:

Consider C0, a set of conditions under which the unverse is started, and under which God knows what choice will be made in every decision faced by every person that will exist.

Now consider C1, a set of conditions, different from C0 so that at some point in the future, some decisions are made differently. God also knows what choice will be made in every decision faced by every person that will exist after these initial conditions.

Now repeat for C2-C(Infinity).

As long as there are always a finite number of decisions made, then it is a statistical certainty that in infinite tries, a set of conditions will lead to the result 'no evil choices chosen.'

(But you ask, will there always be a finite number of choices? As long as humanity has a start point, and an end point as a species, and each discrete decision-making-unit also has a distinct beginning and end, then yes, the total number of choices after each set of initial conditions will be finite.)

Note that free will is not hindered by choosing this C(such that 'no evil choices chosen') any more than if C17654 was picked, or even if C7864536489476348489, which coincides perfectly with the choices we are making now, was picked as the starting condition.

Or, to make the point more clearly, God knew, before creation, that if he did things the way he did, at 10:00PM Central Time, I would freely choose to sit at a computer and type this explanation.

To clarify the plant analogy from a previous post, imagine you have one plant and a pot which can be filled with any of an infinite number of soil combinations. You also have a device which tells you exactly how healthy the plant will be when grown in each particular type of soil. You obviously have to choose a soil for the plant to grow in, and while you're not choosing its health, (you're only choosing its soil) you do know how healthy it will be ahead of time.

Or, to use your traveler example.
A man comes to four crossroads, and I know that
under C1 he will choose path 1, and
under C2 he will choose path 2, and
under C3 he will choose path 3, and
under C4 he will choose path 4,
I also know that for him to exist he must necessarily be under some C.

I can now can (and indeed must, for our poor traveler to even exist!) choose which C he exists under. I choose conditions, and know how he will choose in each condition, but am I making his choice?

To bring the final message home, add hungry bears at the ends of paths 1-3, and remember, Xians want us to believe in a God that chose C2 for the vast majority of the world.

Stephen T-B

Angrillori - Can you provide us with an instance when you exercised your free will?
Thanks

Angrillori

I'm glad you asked that.

Obviously you're aware that 'fate,' like 'god,' and the IPU cannot be DISproven. However, I choose to live my life and make decisions as if I am free-willed.

However, I joined this discussion to discover how free will can jive with omniscience and omnipotence. Therefore I had to postulate free will, and an omnipotent, omniscient God. I will gladly prove free will when you prove an omnipotent and omniscient god. Ok?

(As an aside, which will not, I hope, derail the thread: )
If a creator did not give me free will, AND is sending me to hell, that's almost worse than the situation I described above in which it arbitrarily chose a set of conditions such that my free will choices would necessarily lead me to hell.

Stephen T-B

(Totally confused here, as usual; hadn’t looked at your profile, Angrillori, and was under the misapprehension that you were defending the Free Will / Omniscient God hypothesis on the basis that you believe it.
I shall just slip quietly into the background, now, and disappear.)