Why does the existence of Hitler(s) worry you?
Does Omniscience Limit Free Will?
- Thread starter Mind Over Matter
- Start date
Why does the existence of Hitler(s) worry you?
I have an inexplicable aversion to madmen trying to take over the world and impose their views on me.
Could you nevertheless try to explain it?
What metaphysical implications does that fact that madmen exist have for you?
I don't know that I have metaphysical problems with it.
It's just that when someone arrives with doctrinaire policies they tend to issue diktats on how we should live/ behave etc. And have associates that try to enforce these policies.
The old problem of theodicy sums up this kind of problem well:
Given that there is evil in the world - disease, murder, earthquakes etc. - how can it be said that God exists and is good?
We, at least implicitly, operate out of some explanations of evil.
We feel discomforted by tyrants, sharks, smallpox, earthquakes etc. because we have some ideas about how the world should be (but isn't).
In order to get by on daily basis, we have to have some explanation for the evil that exists, otherwise, we'd be overwhelmed by it.
So, for example, we might believe that evil is relative, a matter of perspective and nothing more, or that it is transitory, or that existence is inherently meaningless.
But the fact that we feel troubled by tyrants means that we are operating out of some idea of how the world should be.
It is this idea that I am interested in.
Given that there is evil in the world - disease, murder, earthquakes etc. - how can it be said that God exists and is good?
We, at least implicitly, operate out of some explanations of evil.
We feel discomforted by tyrants, sharks, smallpox, earthquakes etc. because we have some ideas about how the world should be (but isn't).
In order to get by on daily basis, we have to have some explanation for the evil that exists, otherwise, we'd be overwhelmed by it.
So, for example, we might believe that evil is relative, a matter of perspective and nothing more, or that it is transitory, or that existence is inherently meaningless.
But the fact that we feel troubled by tyrants means that we are operating out of some idea of how the world should be.
It is this idea that I am interested in.
There's that, but there's also the fact any single solution (especially if imposed) reduces options for finding/ exploring other ways.
Plus of course it becomes difficult to for me to live life my life my way if I'm expected to conform to someone else's "ideal".
Not really.
"Wrong" to my way of thinking presupposes that I know how it "should" be.
But there are definite times when wish things/ people were different than they are.
Yep. But I'm aware that whatever I come up with is my reason.
Dunno, I have no idea what the US government gets up to. And not much more of what my own gets up to either.
What ? I never. I give free choice
No not really . People act as expected given the systems we live in . The ones that act out social abnormalities they are surprising sometimes yet I can see how someone could driven to it by there personal conditioning . I have even heard whispers that tell them to do the crazy things they do . Word combination in repetitiveness and then they get a notion in there brain you just can't knock out . One direct link is mass media . Events in news Media plays a big roll in Ideology too . You got to consider the radical is all hyped up on some belief system created or indoctrinated. It is a rare thing I believe, were someone for no reason at all goes out and mows down a shit load of people . Even that crazy guy in Arizona had a type of manifesto . He was driven by some thing , Idea , Ideology , self proclaimed knowledge ? Something .
It is all a reflection to Me . Opposition is part of the system . In the U.S. anyway . I think maybe everywhere there are humans more than likely
Take that word salad . Salads good for you . Eat your veggies too
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
The problem of Divine Foreknowledge is usually put in terms of free-will vs. determinism. The argument goes that if God knows that something will happen, then it will necessarily happen (otherwise God wouldn't be all-knowing). But if something will necessarily happen, how can I use my free-will to change it?
One of my professors didn't think the idea of an 'eternal now' fixed the problem. He summarized the argument this way:
1. Necessarily, if God knows that p, then p.
2. Necessarily God knows that p.
3. Therefore, necessarily p.
You can see that 3, the conclusion, does not follow from both premises. Basically, the "necessarily" in premise 1 surrounds the whole if/then statement. Premise 2 instantiates the if/then statement of premise 1, but 3 is not the result of the instantiation. The actual result would be just p, and not necessarily p.
I contend that my professor is right, and that the conclusion doesn't follow. However, I think that the idea of an 'eternal now' gets us closer to the vital insight that what determines the truth-value about our actions are the actions themselves, and not God's knowledge.
So perhaps we do not understand Divine Foreknowledge completely, but it at least doesn't seem to be incompatible with human free-will.
kx000
Valued Senior Member
You can't, your free will is what God bases his prophecy on. You don't know what choice you will make 5 years from now on any give situation, but God does.
Does it not?
Why so?
Still wrong.
Either god knows or he doesn't. If he does we can have no choice.
Because 1 is an if-clause.
True. With God being omniscient, the most we can have is an illusion of free will.
With God being omnipotent, everything we feel, think, say and do is held in check. So nothing can happen against God's will.
If we posit that God is good, the above is not a problem.
What I find more interesting is why theists focus on the free will issue and why they are in favor of arguing for free will.
The only relevant reason I can see for that is that if free will exists, the theists can blame the non-theists for being at fault for not being believers, and the theists themselves get to take credit for their own faith in God.