First of all, I would like to thank those on the previous thread regarding the "proof" that the Christian God cannot exist that have stayed germane and relevant, not going off on a tangent. I had to create a new thread in order to ensure that attention would be paid to this refute of the topic, as opposed to all of the political "spam" that has arisen in that thread.
Now, without further ado, a possible "refutation" of the so-called "proof". (This free will - omnisicience 'paradox' has been around for centuries, and has never proven anything, and may never will ). When one is paying attention to the omniscience of the Ultimate Being (from now on referred to as God), one must first define the definition of "omniscience". Now, the original "proof" poster posited the following:
Omniscience: Perfect knowledge of past and future events.
I tend to disagree with this assessment. First of all, I would like to present to you the following:
Omniscience: Simultaneous, complete knowledge of all that is knowable at all given points in space and time.
The difference here is that some things are not knowable. This would, in this definition, include the outcome of free choices. For example, noone on Earth knows who they are going to marry before they actually do so. Before the choice is made, probabilities only exist. Those probabilities may be extremely high, but sometimes, unforseen causes create otherwise impossible effects (for instance, sudden death of the husband/wife-to-be). If the person making the choice is unable to provide anything but probabilities, then the knowledge must not exist until the choices effects are actually resolved.
That being said, I am more than positive that you are now thinking about God' s role in this. Am I saying that He does not know our choices until we make them? Yes. In a way. Omniscience, according to the definition given above, relies on the externality of God with respect to not only time, but space as well. For instance, one may know anything at midnight, but at 1am, if the person knows nothing, then that person is not omniscient. Omniscient, by very word morphology means "all-knowing". It is also consistent with popular belief that knowledge transcends time and space (ie: historical facts). If this is to be true, complete, simultaneous knowledge must then be known by an eternal being. If the above definition is accepted, an eternal being is the ONLY being possible to have obtained it. Therefore, we have then required that whatever is omniscient be eternal. If, for the sake of argument, we are assuming God is omniscient, we must then assign Him the characteristic of timelessness.
That being said, we move on to the definition of free will. As stated before,
Free Will: the freedom to choose between alternatives without external coercion
This definition is somewhat cohesive, once analyzed. The very nature of the word "choose" implies that the alternatives are presented, and then further action ceases until the choice is made, whether there is coercion or not. This requires the chooser to be inside time, given the very nature of "choice". But, wait, you say: doesn't God have free will?
Of course, but he is also omnipotent. He can enter and exit time at will. We call this breaking of the temporal plane a "miracle", however it manifests itself. Often times, this miracle is also a result of God's will overriding, if you will, previously set "laws of nature", or even our own free will. Miracle has a positive connotation because of the ever-beneficence of God's will. He will never do wrong.
Returning to free will versus omnipotence, this states that we have free will as long as God never interferes. The above also states that God is omniscient, as long as he chooses to remain outside of time. In the instances we see otherwise, such as miracles (the interference of God's will with our own), or even the entry of God into time (Jesus' limited knowledge as recorded in the Bible), it can now be readily recognized and understood.
The key is to not label God's omnisicence as "foreknowledge" or "predetermined" because, those terms place God into time, which is contradictory to the definition and encompassment of "omniscient".
Looking forward to comments:
-Derek
Now, without further ado, a possible "refutation" of the so-called "proof". (This free will - omnisicience 'paradox' has been around for centuries, and has never proven anything, and may never will ). When one is paying attention to the omniscience of the Ultimate Being (from now on referred to as God), one must first define the definition of "omniscience". Now, the original "proof" poster posited the following:
Omniscience: Perfect knowledge of past and future events.
I tend to disagree with this assessment. First of all, I would like to present to you the following:
Omniscience: Simultaneous, complete knowledge of all that is knowable at all given points in space and time.
The difference here is that some things are not knowable. This would, in this definition, include the outcome of free choices. For example, noone on Earth knows who they are going to marry before they actually do so. Before the choice is made, probabilities only exist. Those probabilities may be extremely high, but sometimes, unforseen causes create otherwise impossible effects (for instance, sudden death of the husband/wife-to-be). If the person making the choice is unable to provide anything but probabilities, then the knowledge must not exist until the choices effects are actually resolved.
That being said, I am more than positive that you are now thinking about God' s role in this. Am I saying that He does not know our choices until we make them? Yes. In a way. Omniscience, according to the definition given above, relies on the externality of God with respect to not only time, but space as well. For instance, one may know anything at midnight, but at 1am, if the person knows nothing, then that person is not omniscient. Omniscient, by very word morphology means "all-knowing". It is also consistent with popular belief that knowledge transcends time and space (ie: historical facts). If this is to be true, complete, simultaneous knowledge must then be known by an eternal being. If the above definition is accepted, an eternal being is the ONLY being possible to have obtained it. Therefore, we have then required that whatever is omniscient be eternal. If, for the sake of argument, we are assuming God is omniscient, we must then assign Him the characteristic of timelessness.
That being said, we move on to the definition of free will. As stated before,
Free Will: the freedom to choose between alternatives without external coercion
This definition is somewhat cohesive, once analyzed. The very nature of the word "choose" implies that the alternatives are presented, and then further action ceases until the choice is made, whether there is coercion or not. This requires the chooser to be inside time, given the very nature of "choice". But, wait, you say: doesn't God have free will?
Of course, but he is also omnipotent. He can enter and exit time at will. We call this breaking of the temporal plane a "miracle", however it manifests itself. Often times, this miracle is also a result of God's will overriding, if you will, previously set "laws of nature", or even our own free will. Miracle has a positive connotation because of the ever-beneficence of God's will. He will never do wrong.
Returning to free will versus omnipotence, this states that we have free will as long as God never interferes. The above also states that God is omniscient, as long as he chooses to remain outside of time. In the instances we see otherwise, such as miracles (the interference of God's will with our own), or even the entry of God into time (Jesus' limited knowledge as recorded in the Bible), it can now be readily recognized and understood.
The key is to not label God's omnisicence as "foreknowledge" or "predetermined" because, those terms place God into time, which is contradictory to the definition and encompassment of "omniscient".
Looking forward to comments:
-Derek
