God's knowledge doesn't contradict with man's free will.

[Flores]

I know this is an overly talked about icky subject, and I was thinking about an episode and I wanted to know how others feel about it.

If a man was shot in a random or accident shooting, and the gun wound caused his death... Which of the following statement would you support?

1- I believe the man would have died on the same time whether he have been shot or not, because his death was predestined and known by god.
2- If the man was not shot, he would have continued to live. no destiny and no god have any control over these things.
3- I do not know whether he would have died or not if he had not been shot. God knew the man was going to die due to a gun wound, but god's knowledge did not cause the death, the gun wound caused the death.

I support the third view because I believe in cause and effect.
In my view, 'Cause and effect' are not separable in the view of Destiny, meaning, it is destined that this 'cause' will produce that 'effect', and preknowledge of the events doesn't cause the events.

For anybody that believe in cause and effect, solution number 1 would not make any sense, because such an argument is baseless since that man is actually destined to die as a result of being shot. The argument that he would have died even if he had not been shot would mean that he died without a cause, and in this case we should not be able to explain how he died.

I'm not sure about solution number 2, and although that I'm sure that the death resulted from the gun wound, I still don't know if the guy would be alive or not if the bullet missed him, because another cause could have claimed the guy's life...So I'm sure that if the guy was shot that he would have died, but I'm not sure if the bullet missed him whether he would be alive or dead.

So what does this have to do with free will? I was looking at the relevant verses from the Quran regarding free will and I observed the following:

This [The Quran] is not but a reminder onto the worlds, onto whomever among you wills to walk straight. You do not will, unless God wills, the Lord of the Worlds (81:27-9)."

The verses above attribute absolute will to God but does not exclude man from having a will power to exercise in directing or designing his life. To me that's a pradox....In other verses and in the bible, it refers to meanings such as "Fulfill [your part of] the covenant so that I fulfill [My part of] the covenant (2.40)", If you help God ['s religion], He will help you and will make your foothold firm (47:7)", and "God changes not the condition of a people unless they change what is in their hearts (13:11)", it speaks about a contract or covenant between God and man, and openly declares that it is man himself who directs history and walk the path.

If you know beforehand that a certain thing will happen at a certain future time and that thing happens at exactly the time you predicted, it does not mean that that thing's happening was caused by your knowing beforehand that it would happen. Since every thing and every event in the universe is comprehended in God's Knowledge, He has written such a thing will happen at such a time and place, and it does. Although there is not the slightest difference between what God has written for a man and what that man does, this is not because God's having written it forces man to do it, rather it is because man willed to do that and did it and god comprehends it.

Consider this simplistic example: a bus is traveling between New York and Baltimore, at a certain speed according to the characteristics of its manufacture and the conditions of the roadway traffic, and Newyork is at a known distance from Baltimore. Also, there are a certain number of stations along the way, at each of which the bus stops for a certain time. Taking all these matters into consideration, a timetable is written in advance. The timetable's being prepared in advance is not the cause of the bus's traveling.

Also, the time and duration of events like the solar and lunar eclipses are known and written down beforehand through astronomical calculations. This does not mean that the sun or the moon is eclipsed at that certain time because astronomers knew it beforehand and recorded it. The truth is exactly the reverse: since astronomers knew beforehand when the sun or the moon would be eclipsed, they recorded it. There is the same relation between Destiny or god's knowledge and man's free will.

 

[Cris]

Flores,

Nice topic, again.

There are many issues with this and I’ll add the others as I find the time, but let’s start with the simplest.

Let’s accept for argument that cause and effect are true for everything. This means that each action you take, small or large is the direct result of a long preceding series of causes and effects going back to the beginning of time. And this would be true for every event, natural or man made.

If God is the original cause and set the original conditions for the universe then he is directly responsible for all the chains of events that were the result. With his perfect knowledge he knows everything before anything happens because he can predict perfectly the effects of the chains he began.

It is not his knowing that causes the effects but that he was the original cause that allows him to predict with absolute precision. Note that this provides an explanation on how the mechanism of omniscience could operate.

I would assert that man can have no free will under such conditions because every human action is the result of a preceding cause that ultimately God initiated.

More later.

 

[everneo]

From the gun to the victim, the bullet follows the laws of nature. in normal course, in the absence of any obstacles the bullet would hit the target. man's free will cannot prevent the bullet if it happens to be an accident. But we can say God's will can prevent the man from dying by any means - diversion of the bullet, metallic object on the person of the target, bullet misses the vital parts of the body, anything.

The death is in the hands of God and it occurs 'through' natural laws. When to stop the game is God's decision. But exceptions are - suicide and murder. the free will of the person causes his/others' death. he snatches his/others' death from the hands of God. whatever may be the cause, the person violates God's authority and insults God by misusing his free will. he will be judged accordingly. These are all IMHO & no one knows God's intentions and how He operates.

 

[Raithere]

Originally posted by Flores
If you know beforehand that a certain thing will happen at a certain future time and that thing happens at exactly the time you predicted, it does not mean that that thing's happening was caused by your knowing beforehand that it would happen.

You're mistaking knowledge of an event and accurate prediction of an event, the two are not the same thing. Prediction can only be confirmed by the event itself. Another way to put this would be that the event is causal to knowledge; knowledge cannot come before the event because however small there remains the possibility that the event will not occur as predicted.

While I still find the claim of omniscience problematic I can think of two escapes from the dilemma.

One, God's knowledge is complete in that even though he does not know which choice we will make he knows the outcome of every possible choice. This would be similar (but not exactly the same) as flipping a coin; no matter which side lands up you know that it will be either heads or tail.

Two, God's knowledge is atemporal. That is, his knowledge is not constrained by the ordinary temporal order of causality. This would be similar to our knowledge of the past where, though events occurred through free choice ('what should I have for dinner', for instance) we can still have complete knowledge of the event. While this option sounds favorable at first it remains problematic for it absolutely restricts God from temporal action; he becomes a static entity. Likewise, from his perspective, the Universe would be static. Any action on his part would destroy his perfect knowledge.

Better, I find, to consider that perhaps God's knowledge does not constrain the future. That he has perfect knowledge of all that is and was but not about what is to be. For one, I find that this condition would be favorable even for him. Perfect knowledge of all events, past and future, would be perfect boredom.

~Raithere

 

[firingseeds]

flores

hi.
my view, flores, is simply this: u are predestined in spirit to receive, or not receive grace- apart from judgement of sentence, lord jesus being the only judge. it matters not in the flesh when your time be up, and there is cause and effect at work- not necessarily JUST cause and effort, but also providence and destiny; ( example: dr. bill smith was always gonna be a doc,' and his nature was always gonna be one of understanding and depth; ). hope that clears things up for u.
jesus the mighty truth.

...it's actually a lot more complicated, too

 

[everneo]

Raithere,

What i see is, there are 2 categories.

1. actions-reactions where free will is not involved. all the actions-reactions are controlled, decided by set of natural laws. If God decided these laws then He knows everything past, present and future because He decided them to be like that already.

2. Out comes of free will. It seems, given free will to sentinent beings, God has to restrict Himself/Herself/Itself to decide the course of events on the fly dynamically based on the actions out of free will. Here there is no point to predecide because doing so will make free will a joke. He can afford this sharing of 'will' with humans and teh self imposed restriction of 'on the fly decision making porocess' because He remains omnipotent to decide what is next. Being in such a position there is no need to be aware of the future. Because the future is nothing but What is going to be decided by Him. Ofcourse His decision considers the actions out of free will of humans.

But all these were our restricted view in 1 temporal dimension. If God pervades beyond that then all our logic fail to assess God's ability and knowledge. Omnipresence has wider meaning then.

 

[Jenyar]

The problem is that cause and effect theology does not reflect the nature of God accurately. It exists as part of the make-up of the world, i.e. that's how the world works, but not how God does things. By all accounts, Jonah expected Nineveh to be punished - to such an extent that he was mad at God for sparing the city when they repented. Ecclesiastics also describes that good things happen to bad people, and bad things to good people - with no apparent "cause". It's easy to confirm this just by looking at life.

The book of Job is another illustration of the problem with such a theology. Job's friends all said that he must have done something terrible to deserve such "punishment", or that God was acting unjustly against him and he should "speak up against God and die". Job maintained his innocence, and said God had no case against him, but still refused to justify himself against God.

This went on until God stepped and said Job was right - his friends were wrong.

 

[firingseeds]

well done, jenyar. nice; god does actually show cause and effect.
" be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?
be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time."
...i just explained it earlier in an over-winded way.

 

[firingseeds]

ohhh, and i reckon theology's bullshit.

 

[Flores]

Originally posted by Jenyar
The problem is that cause and effect theology does not reflect the nature of God accurately. It exists as part of the make-up of the world, i.e. that's how the world works, but not how God does things. By all accounts, Jonah expected Nineveh to be punished - to such an extent that he was mad at God for sparing the city when they repented. Ecclesiastics also describes that good things happen to bad people, and bad things to good people - with no apparent "cause". It's easy to confirm this just by looking at life.

Jenyar,
you are confusing two things, justice and cause and effect. Bad things happening to good people have nothing to do with cause and effect. A good man that trusts others as a cause may cause the effect of others stabbing him in the back....But god's justice for that man will manifest in the day of judgement. The man's bad life is not an indication of his worth, it might be an indication that he is more worthy than the impure surrounding he was placed in. His surroundings failed him and not god. Justice and cause and effect have nothing to do with each other. Justice is a completely different equation that will be compared againest the cause effect in our lifes to determine our abode.

I agree with you that it seems like justice for Nineveh to be punished right away, but our temporary lives are not designed to be just, but to allow for respite, then god will settle it all out later and show us real justice. When we separate the gem from impurities, we excavate them out of the same mass of rock and boil them up in the same pot. But with time in the same exact pot, the gems will surface and the impure sill settle....the more you boil, the purer the gem will become. Same for us humans...Our lives is a test, we are all in the same pot, and some of us will surface, while others will sink.

 

[firingseeds]

adam and eve are typical examples of cause and effect. even including generational curses, and even including the jews roaming round the desert for 40 years...becoz' of their misbehaviour- until that disobedient generation was gone.
then: if u do that good thing, this good thing will happen, but if u do that bad thing, this bad thing will happen...( quoting the bible ).

 

[firingseeds]

adam and eve...the ripple of life

 

[Quigly]

What determines our cause? I think that man's free will or action would be considered the cause. Because of mans action, such and such action occurred. So if you say that the mans action was of completely free will then you ascertain that mans will has the freedom to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention. Thus, I do not believe in a free will. I believe that the "Free Will" belief is a fallacy. I think at any one time, your choice will be a cullimination of prior causes that in effect will cause you to make a choice and thus affect somebody else with a cause which in reaction will cause them to impliment their free will reaction.

Flores question.

Well lets say I pick Option #1
I saw that movie Final Destination 1 and 2, but in reality, how can we have changed anything that already happened in our life. Isn't the "What If" just a phantasm that makes us feel good or bad about a particular event.
If man A got shot and died, would there be any way for him to be back 5 minutes before he got shot and avoid certain death? The truth of the matter is that he was there at that time and got shot and never again would he have an oppurtunity to not be there and live, so this Option 1 is a futile fantasy.

Option 2
Ok, so he doesn't get shot and doesn't die, which means the prior causes didn't have the same effect on where Man A would be.
Option 3

I do not know whether he would have died or not if he had not been shot. God knew the man was going to die due to a gun wound, but god's knowledge did not cause the death, the gun wound caused the death.

I would say that this option doesn't accurately equate to the two prior Options, but rather strays in to your belief. Here is my take on this though.

This is limiting God I would think. This is like me saying.. Ok, so some soldiers are going to war on the frontlines of wherever. Some of them are going to die from a gun wound, my knowledge of this has no effect, but rather the gun would cause the death. Again heres another example:
My knowledge that my car will start doens't start the car, but the key starts it. I mean this is equating me to God in his reasoning isn't it. Why would we want to put a limit on God? Can God not say to his creation, I will cause what I want to cause and I will affect what I want to affect. The lord giveth and the lord taketh away.... is this talking about material things only? Could this be talking about life itself.

Option 4
The Lord at anyone time can prod a heart toward right. Lets say that I am a murderer, well can God not prod my heart toward right doing, thus changing my cause and effect and in turn change the course of my destiny without him?

 

[Flores]

All the answers above are very interesting and completely in line with my expectations for the posters. Raithere and Cris are analytical and their posts shows willingness to entertain any thought, they approached this as a brand new concept to be solved free from all preconceptions. Jenyar, everneo, Quigly, ect...perceived this as a threat, and their justification gives away their frantic desire to confirm their preconception. They all gave the same exact answer.... Their answer means pretty much that, Jesus is running a puppet show....and please don't defend and justify, because the picture of the puppet show that you all have attempted to draw in my mind is pretty vivid.

I'll start with Cris and Raithere, because they're more in line with my thinking.

Originally posted by Cris
but let’s start with the simplest.
Let’s accept for argument that cause and effect are true for everything. This means that each action you take, small or large is the direct result of a long preceding series of causes and effects going back to the beginning of time. And this would be true for every event, natural or man made.

I agree with this completely. Everything that we experience and do is a result of long chain of cause and effect that goes back to the beginning of time, if there is a beginning per say.

Originally posted by Cris
If God is the original cause and set the original conditions for the universe then he is directly responsible for all the chains of events that were the result. With his perfect knowledge he knows everything before anything happens because he can predict perfectly the effects of the chains he began.

I concur that god, order, rule, singularity, ect, whatever we want to call it apart from the ridiculous notion that it's puppet master, is the original cause. But just to clarify, this is not a domino or a puppet show, and so the original cause is not at all an indication of the effect to follow, because for the show to continue, a puppet must make a choice, The original cause may have nothing to do or very little to do with subsequent events....The initial cause is way diluted by the time we reach the 100 or 1000 effect....I know I know, you are going like ...what the heck is she talking about? Let me explain.

God created humans and programmed them to deal with various scenarios using various alternatives. God didn't set the command of choice, but left it as a degree of freedom for the human to choose. This defines the concept of time, which a forward moving force that cannot be undone and is initiated by the choice. I for example when I post on sciforums, could A- click the send button , B- store my writing and save it to be sent later C- delete my pages and pages of rambling D- turn off cold turkey my computer, and many other alternatives. I have the free will to choose any of the options above and based on my choice or action, the universal clock ticks and record my action as a cause for the next action that will trigger Cris perhaps to reply back to me, and so on and so forth. The universal record is thus keeping track of everything that is going on and adjusting itself with minimal time lag for the next task...and time goes on.

If I where to develop a mental picture of this, I would say, I see god as a force or entity that has initiated a process of making an infinite seamless web with all possibilities. It takes an infinite time to seam the infinite web. No wonder god in the Quran and in the bible keeps telling us that for those that want to make the wrong or right choice, they'll find rope to take them to it. I never understood that obsession with using the word rope and path in the bible and Quran.

Originally posted by Cris
It is not his knowing that causes the effects but that he was the original cause that allows him to predict with absolute precision. Note that this provides an explanation on how the mechanism of omniscience could operate.

I agree completely. But the original cause could be the last action done if a choice was not made to react to it or reciprocate it. If we all (Humanity) went on a strike, which is still a choice and decided to act like stones, and caused ourselves to die from starvation, then we are done in three easy steps. God creates us, we choose not to live, we die. Of course you will say that this is not possible, because something in us prevents us from just killing ourselves, still we are capable of taking the most absurd route that we can imagine and using our will to act on it.

Originally posted by Cris
I would assert that man can have no free will under such conditions because every human action is the result of a preceding cause that ultimately God initiated.

Here I disagree. As I mentioned above, God have not seen the future yet, but he is recording it exactly as it happens in his existing grand book that he calls time. For us, we can only see the future because our actions are programmed as forward only. All options and scenarios are possible, but it's our actions that initiate the next step, because we are free to choose.

 

[Flores]

I want all of you to read Raithere's posts carefully....and to start examining yourselves if you don't start converging with his points of view quickly enough..I can hardly respond to the man anymore, because everything he says is convincing...That guy is a fluke in sciforums history.

 

[Raithere]

Originally posted by everneo
1. actions-reactions where free will is not involved. all the actions-reactions are controlled, decided by set of natural laws.

Quantum physics, however, seems to contradict the notion of a purely deterministic Universe. This appears to be more than simply a technological limitation but is how the Universe works.

2. It seems, given free will to sentinent beings, God has to restrict Himself/Herself/Itself to decide the course of events on the fly dynamically based on the actions out of free will.

Indeed this is another possibility, however it would mean that God is not omniscient due to his own volition.

But all these were our restricted view in 1 temporal dimension. If God pervades beyond that then all our logic fail to assess God's ability and knowledge. Omnipresence has wider meaning then.

Modal Logic can handle atemporal or multiple temporal frames of reference. The question here is whether we can apply logical thought to God. If not, all questions are moot.

Originally posted by Jenyar
The problem is that cause and effect theology does not reflect the nature of God accurately. It exists as part of the make-up of the world, i.e. that's how the world works, but not how God does things.

The question is not whether God acts in a purely logical manner but whether or not we can apply logic in understanding the nature of God. It is the assertion of the mystics that one cannot apply logic or even common rationality to the concept of God (which brings up an entirely different set of issues). But the western tradition is indeed to use logic and reason and in doing so brings up a number of logical dilemmas that therefore need to be addressed.

Originally posted by Quigly
Why would we want to put a limit on God? Can God not say to his creation, I will cause what I want to cause and I will affect what I want to affect.

The problem is that if we do not have free will our faults are not our own. God would therefore be unjust to punish us for something we have no control over.

~Raithere

(edited to correct a typo)

 

[everneo]

Raithere,

Originally posted by Raithere

Originally posted by everneo
1. actions-reactions where free will is not involved. all the actions-reactions are controlled, decided by set of natural laws.

Quantum physics, however, seems to contradict the notion of a purely deterministic Universe. This appears to be more than simply a technological limitation but is not how the Universe works.

I used the term natural laws as simplified general term. indeterminancy being more than a technological limitation does not indicate that it could not be governed by natural laws unknown to us ; but i would prefer to say that the indeterminancy might be an indication of lack of understanding or degree of validity of current interpretations of QM events / models.

btw, some sort of indeterminancy is on the scale. i can confidently predict number of heads if the number of tosses of the coin is considerably large. similarly i can predict the mass of a radioactive element with 'm' initial mass though at more specific level which atom is going to undergo beta emission at 't' is still difficult. though as a theist i can say indeterminancy is also determined by God to be that way, i would restrict from saying that now for apparent lack of our proper understanding of quantum entities / events as of now.

Originally posted by Raithere

Originally posted by everneo
2. It seems, given free will to sentinent beings, God has to restrict Himself/Herself/Itself to decide the course of events on the fly dynamically based on the actions out of free will.

Indeed this is another possibility, however it would mean that God is not omniscient due to his own volition.

I would like to repeat in another way. if you are able to determine / decide fate of the next state of universe then for you it is not necessary to have any prior knowledge or plan to follow. future is what you are going to decide, may be, based on past and present, or even you could decide to freeze the universe with no future. ofcourse, provided if you are omnipotent. this in no way makes you non-omniscient. we have reason to think that time is progressing temporal dimension unlike pre-existing spacial dimensions. varying rate of progression (ref. SR & GR) or the model of space-time structure need not be confused with actual non-existence of future.

Originally posted by Raithere

Originally posted by everneo
But all these were our restricted view in 1 temporal dimension. If God pervades beyond that then all our logic fail to assess God's ability and knowledge. Omnipresence has wider meaning then.

Modal Logic can handle atemporal or multiple temporal frames of reference. The question here is whether we can apply logical thought to God. If not, all questions are moot.

what i meant by using the term 'fail' is that it might be possible to handle but need not be correct.
yes, as you said i prefer to agree that all logical attempts to explore God's exact nature would be indeed moot. whatever you could achieve through such attempts might be, at best, a glimpse rather than the whole.

edit : typo etc

 

[firingseeds]

not quite, flores. god also shows that a good man who gets stabbed in the back by a bad man, was an idiot to begin with....cause and effect. so, tho he was a good man, he- in a round about way- was his own cause and effect. god's teaching: never turn your back on the wicked. ( i feel sorry for idiots, for their hatred of god is their own cause and effect....brainlessness. )
jesus the mighty teachings

 

[Raithere]

Originally posted by everneo
does not indicate that it could not be governed by natural laws unknown to us ; but i would prefer to say that the indeterminancy might be an indication of lack of understanding or degree of validity of current interpretations

Actually that is exactly what I was getting at. This does not seem to be the case. Rather, the Universe seems to truly operate in a rather bizarre fashion on a quantum level. I don't want to derail the topic by delving too far into quantum uncertainty here; the point of the matter is that if the Universe is indeed operationally deterministic then the discussion is moot anyway because free-will doesn't exist no matter what we think about the effect of omniscience. In fact omniscience itself becomes rather mundane; merely a matter of route calculation.

i can confidently predict number of heads if the number of tosses of the coin is considerably large.

But again, you're talking about prediction not knowledge.

if you are able to determine / decide fate of the next state of universe then for you it is not necessary to have any prior knowledge or plan to follow. future is what you are going to decide, may be, based on past and present, or even you could decide to freeze the universe with no future. ofcourse, provided if you are omnipotent. this in no way makes you non-omniscient.

This is, in fact, what I suggested originally, "Better, I find, to consider that perhaps God's knowledge does not constrain the future. That he has perfect knowledge of all that is and was but not about what is to be. "

But the interpretation depends upon what we mean by omniscience. To many, it means complete knowledge of past present and future events. Which presents us with the conundrum we are discussing.

what i meant by using the term 'fail' is that it might be possible to handle but need not be correct.

Well, yes, but that's a given no matter what method we use.

yes, as you said i prefer to agree that all logical attempts to explore God's exact nature would be indeed moot.

Have to be careful with that one. It's disingenuous to use logic for your argument and then simply conjure illogic as an escape clause whenever you run into a dilemma.

~Raithere

 

[everneo]

Originally posted by Raithere
the point of the matter is that if the Universe is indeed operationally deterministic then the discussion is moot anyway because free-will doesn't exist no matter what we think about the effect of omniscience. In fact omniscience itself becomes rather mundane; merely a matter of route calculation.

The universe cannot be completely deterministic (operationally / conceptually ). if indeterminancy at quantum level is part of nature so be it. i am concerned at free will though it is limited but significant enough to prove that the universe cannot be deterministic when free will is involved.

Originally posted by Raithere

Originally posted by everneo
if you are able to determine / decide fate of the next state of universe then for you it is not necessary to have any prior knowledge or plan to follow. future is what you are going to decide, may be, based on past and present, or even you could decide to freeze the universe with no future. ofcourse, provided if you are omnipotent. this in no way makes you non-omniscient.

This is, in fact, what I suggested originally, "Better, I find, to consider that perhaps God's knowledge does not constrain the future. That he has perfect knowledge of all that is and was but not about what is to be. "

But the interpretation depends upon what we mean by omniscience. To many, it means complete knowledge of past present and future events. Which presents us with the conundrum we are discussing.

this reminds me of Cris's response to one of my similar post expressing about the concept of future and omniscience in relation to God. i was* disappointed, then and now, that conservative definitions still rules.!

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=363915#post363915

Well, yes, but that's a given no matter what method we use.

That is your known point of view.

Originally posted by Raithere

Originally posted by everneo

yes, as you said i prefer to agree that all logical attempts to explore God's exact nature would be indeed moot.

Have to be careful with that one. It's disingenuous to use logic for your argument and then simply conjure illogic as an escape clause whenever you run into a dilemma.

All our classical notion about matter/motion/time would work counter-intuitive and confuse when trying to understand relativity or quantum theory. should we abondon all our classical methods as flawed and useless.? every valid tool has its own limitations and proper, limited use of the same is not disingenuous.

*edit : gram. mistake corrected.