Jamie_L

Alright, here's some thoughts I have pertaining to the creation of beings with free will by an omnipotent, omniscient being (a.k.a. God).

For the purposes of this post, I'm assuming Free Will is real, and that it is possible for an omnipotent, omniscient being to create another being with free will. These are big assumptions (ones I don't even agree with necessarily), but I'm granting them for the sake of arguement.

Now, suppose our God fellow wants to make a person - Charlie. God wants Charlie to have free will, and God wants Charlie to freely choose to eat a lot of donuts over the course of his life.

Being omnipotent, God creates a special "test universe" separate from the real universe. He creates 100 potential Charlies and gives them all free will. Then he puts the Charlie's in the test universe and uses his omniscience to observe which Charlie will eat the most donuts, we'll say it's Charlie-72. He picks that one special, donut-muching Charlie and puts him in the real universe.

So, now God has created Charlie-72 in our universe. Charlie-72 will eat a lot of donuts. Does Charlie-72 eat those donuts of his own free will? Has God's selection process somehow robbed Charlie-72 of his free will? If so, how?

As far as I can see, Charlie-72 has free will. God gave him free will, and God has done nothing to influence that free will. Now, if this is true, let's consider a second scenario:

God imagines creating a test universe and populating it with 100 potential Charlies. He imagines creating each individual Charlie, and then he thinks about how they would behave if he put them in the test universe. Because he is omnscient, God can see which of these non-existent potential Charlies he would eat the most donuts if they were created. Indeed, he can see that Charlie-72 will be the master donut-muncher. Now, instead of making all 100 of those Charlies, God just makes Charlie-72. He puts Charlie-72 in our universe.

So, in scenario 2, our universe still gets Charlie-72, ace donut eater. Does Charlie-72 have free will under scenario 2? If not, why not? Is Charlie-72(2) any different from Charlie-72(1)?

Jamie

thomaq

i think charlie-72 has free will in both scenarios. i think there is no substantive difference between charlie-72(1) and (2).

Jamie_L

thomaq:

I tend to think the same thing, and it leads me to the conclusion that if one accepts that a god can create beings with free will, then a god can create beings with free will who choose to behave morally. Given this, free will becomes an invalid defense of the Problem of Evil.

I think.

Jamie

Pyrrho

Although I agree with Jamie_L about what this would mean for the Free Will Defense of God regarding the Problem of Evil (though there are several other problems with it anyway), the stumbling block for me is in the beginning: What, precisely, is meant by the expression "free will"?

Clearly, the actions motivated in the different persons are due to the "minds" of the different individuals. The actions are caused by the characters of the minds. But the characters of the minds are simply created by God. That is, God made them what they are, and whatever they do because of what they are is due to the way God made them. Where does "free will" enter into this?

sodium

Now, let's imagine an entirely naturalistic universe. As a result of its natural laws, it causes certain people to exist. Those people have free will. However, it only creates those people who, by their free will, just so happen to make choices entirely consistent with those natural laws. So free will isn't an argument against determinism either.

Koyaanisqatsi

Well, the biggest problem is with the omnimax qualities. You've chosen omnipotent and omniscient, which logically contradict each other in regard to free will (I'll illucidate summarily).

Ok, but right there you're at odds with your omnimax conditions. God wants Charlie to have free will and he wants Charlie to freely choose something.

So, first, how does god blind itself to its own omniscience in order to create a being with "free will?" Free will implies that all one hundred Charlies are each capable of doing something that god did not foresee or "program" (and, further, that Charlie does this without coercion or influence). If god can foresee it (or it was programmed into the Charlies to want to eat donuts) then can one really say Charlie has "free" will?

Also, having "free will" means that what this god wants cannot be relevant to Charlie and, further, that Charlie can, of course, never be aware of this want. God's "wants" can't effect Charlie in any way, or else he won't have free will.

So, you've got two disparate conditions; one in which god wants Charlie to be free of anything god wants and one in which god wants Charlie to actively choose something that god wants. Yes, perhaps, it's chosen of Charlie's own free will, but it is still something that god wants Charlie to do, which implies an imperative (a divine imperative, no less), so, caveat.

Also, what has god done to the test universe to get any Charlie to choose donuts? Is Charlie in any way programmed to want to eat donuts? Is the universe set up to guide the Charlies toward eating as many donuts as possible? If so, then, again, we're dealing with influence; influence that would negate the "free" part of the "free will" as well as the "will" part, since the influence would have to be felt in some way; pushing one Charlie's "will" in a direction to eat donuts. So, another caveat.

Ill set aside the fact that an omniscient being would have no need to actually create such a scenario since that has its own problems and you get to that in a minute anyway, so let's go with this for the sake of argument.

Let's say that somehow, god is able to blind itself to its omniscience and create a being that has "free will" and that being ate the most donuts.

Assuming what we've so far assumed, yes.

Not Charlie 72, since he was specially chosen according to certain (as yet undetermined) parameters. The question, however, now goes to Charlie 72's offspring and what god thinks of them.

Ok, then you're saying that this god chose Charlie 72 as the prototype for humanity and placed him into our universe, because Charlie 72 was in no way influenced or programmed or designed in a certain way; that blind, dumb chance led him to somehow be more hungry than the others who were designed identically to Charlie 72. How?

How could god create an identical series of Charlies and have only one of them eat the most donuts? Wouldn't they all have an identical need to eat? An identical desire for donuts? If not, then god's design was skewed in one of them, yes? Or did god place them in different environments and if so, why would an omniscient being do this? Wouldn't the omniscience determine that prior to ever having to actually do it? Sorry, getting ahead of myself (and reiterating a point already raised).

Back to what you had asked us to assume for the sake of argument.

Charlie 72 was chosen because he ate the most donuts; something god wanted (and we'll assume god didn't let that be known). So now god puts Charlie 72 into the universe (not the test one; let's not say "ours," because that's too cognitively dissonant). Charlie 72 (C72, to make it easier on the fingers) is now placed into "the" universe that god has created (and it's remarkably similar to ours ).

So, C72 is now all alone in "the" (non-test) universe.

Let's now assume that god has done an equal test scenario with Jane and picked Jane 12 (J12) to be his mate in order to populate "the" universe. Let's further assume that J12 ate the same amount of donuts as C72 to make them equally deserving to be in "the" universe.

So we have two templates (for procreation purposes) that somehow were created with free will and ate the most donuts.

Now what? Does god then tell C72 and J12 about his "plan" for them to create offspring that will choose "freely" to also eat the most donuts? How can god do this and still maintain "free will," both in C72 and J12 and also in their offspring?

Is it assumed by god that a template of two "most donuts eaten" will then result in offspring that will also seek to eat the "most donuts?" Why would that be, considering the other 198 test subjects that failed (99 other Charlies and 99 other Janes)?

Will the templates necessarily produce equally minded offspring (i.e., offspring that seek to eat the most donuts)? If not, wouldn't god's omniscience know this and seek to alter it? If so, wouldn't that be evidence of no generational "free will," since god would therefore be guilty of generational/genetic manipulation by choosing the templates, knowing they could only produce offspring with the most donut eating potential?

C72 and J12 might have had "free will" (again, assuming you could adequately address my earlier caveats), but would their offspring and their offspring's offspring have "free will" in kind to not eat any donuts if they so chose or would they be destined to seek out as many donuts as possible, due to god's manipulation of the gene pool?

Well, again, same things apply, since ultimately it results in the same scenario and the issue becomes one, not of C72, but of his offspring, but on to something more complex.

By imagining such a being, how could god not imagine all of them being C72's? Think about the qualitative difference between creating a realm of some kind (a mouse maze for ease of analogy) and just thinking about a realm.

The first scenario has many flaws, but it can be granted for the sake of argument that a god could, somehow, create an environment in which to place the 100 Charlies to see which one would eat the most donuts. This means that god could not have created the Charlies, by the way, but, again, let's sidestep that for a minute (since if god created the Charlies, then god would know which one would eat the most donuts through omniscience the second it created them).

For such a being to internalize the creation of the scenario means that this being would have to be able to imagine parameters that go beyond its imagination; a logical paradox.

Assuming this god can't do anything that isn't logically possible, how would it be able to imagine a scenario that is beyond its imagination in order for the scenario to be "free" enough to allow for one Charlie over another to eat the most donuts?

You can't just say, "God can do anything," because that's not true. Presumably, your god must do that which is logically possible to do, yes? Otherwise we're stuck with such a god creating a rock it cannot lift. Oh, wait, that's a similar logical paradox, but it effectively destroys omnipotence, sorry.

We're on omniscience.

So, back on track. How could god imagine a scenario in which its imagination is not constrained by its imagination; which must be the case if it is to arrive at a C72?

No, the "real" C72 does not, since the "real" C72 never actually existed with free will, but was rather created as a sort of subset of C72Alpha (the imaginary C72). He would have to be C72Beta; created from the template of C72Alpha, no doubt, but still a secondary creation whose donut eating "free will" has not been tested.

So, all we'd have in the second scenario is a "factual" prototype based on the template of the imaginary "winner" of god's internal contest.

Factoring in "free will" again, however, now means something else. Does C72Beta necessarily eat the most donuts of his own "free will," or is it simply a design condition based on the C72Alpha template and if it is merely a design condtion, then how can it be said that C72Beta has "free will?"

mimi

That was a nice long one, Koyaanisqatsi - I only clicked on this thread because it had donuts in the title.

Jamie_L

I agree with you completely, which is why I had to include the big assumptions in my post. I don't buy into the concept of theological free will, but in conversations on the topic, I sometimes grant the assumption and go on to argue that if it is possible for an omniscient diety to create a being with free will, it's also possible for that omniscient being to beings with free will that choose to be moral more often than immoral, or eat donuts more often than not, or whatever.

Jamie

Jamie_L

Yes. I'm aware of that. See my response to Pyrrho above. I'm granting this assumption because its the what so many I've debated with argue: God wants us to freely choose to be moral. I've argued against the flaws in this concept itself, but sometimes I try to take a different tack.

So, to take that different tack, I just take for granted that an omniscient being can somehow disentangle his will from the will of the being he's creating, in order to create this magical Free Will. No one can explain to me how that would work, but if it did, it seems there's still flaws in the arguement. Which is what I was trying to get at.

Let me see if I can frame it differently. I'll use the morality/heaven analogy this time. Say everyone has free will. At the end of time, God will pick all the "moral" people that ever lived and put them in heaven. Then heaven will have only the subset of humanity that was moral. Well, back at the beginning of time, an omniscient God should have been able to see who would end up in heaven. Being omnipotent, could God have created only those people, and not all the rest of us poor shmucks who would be infidels, murders, and the like? Then God would be creating only moral people, and if they were made from the eact same "recipe" as the moral people with Free Will, wouldn't these people have Free Will too?

Or, if God can make people with Free Will and then select the best ones, can't God make only the best ones, and still give them Free Will?

Jamie

(Note: For those keeping score at home, I don't actually believe in God, and I do think the omnimax concept is incompatible with free will. This is just another way I've thought of to try to argue against the Free Will defense that gets thrown in my face so often.)

Santas little helper

Jamie , in the scenario you're proposing I don't see what guarantee there is that Charlie72(2) will
behave in the same way ( ie eat a lot of donuts ) as Charlie72(1). Does C72 behave in a deterministic
manner ? By that I mean if at some moment in time the test universe and the "real" universe are in
exactly the same state ( ie every particle is in the same position , has the same momentum etc. ) does
this mean that C72(1) will act in exactly the same way as C72(2) ? If C72 is thus deterministic then I
don't see how he can be said to have free will.But if he's not deterministic then the test universe
doesn't help God to choose a specific Charlie.


Koyaanisqatsi
Why won't Charlie have free will if he knows God's desires ?


If God wants Charlie's and Jane's children to eat a lot of donuts he will simply repeat the
same process ( test universe and all that ) with their children.He doesn't have to manipulate
the gene pool.
As I've stated I see a problem with Jamie's scenario.But if we accept that the scenario works
for one person , then I don't think that making it work for any number of persons presents any
additional difficulties regardless of whether these persons are related or not.
In fact I would add that if the scenario is to work at all then it really has to be done
for a number of persons simoultaneously.Clearly our actions are often influenced by the actions
of other humans.So God would really have to put in a test universe not only Charlie but also
every person who might influence Charlie's actions.After testing all possible combinations of
humans then he would put in the "real" universe that particular combination where everyone
behaves as God wants them to behave.