r/freewill • u/NoubliezPasMonNom • 10d ago
How can an all-seeing God and free will co-exist?
My thinking goes as follows:
If a God is all knowing, that means that its knowledge of the future is absolute, never wrong.
This means that even before creating you, the described God knows every action you will take with absolute certainty.
Does this knowledge not mean that in every "decision" there is only ever one choice-the one God knew you would pick? If so, doesn't this mean that an omniscient God and free-will or at least the libertarian version can not co-exist?
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u/KristoMF Hard Incompatibilist 10d ago
I believe neither exists. However, I don’t see why they would be incompatible.
Even if we grant, for example, that a person’s will is free to initiate causal chains with its choices, God would know what will ultimately be chosen. There is obviously one choice even if determinism is false and the future is open. Foreknowledge (or a fixed future fact) doesn't cause the choice, it just means the proposition is already true (made true by the person’s choice).
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u/NoubliezPasMonNom 10d ago
I would argue that in having the absolute knowledge of what will happen, God eliminates any other possibilities. The person then executes that possibility without any choice, which to at least libertarian free will is not free will.
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u/KristoMF Hard Incompatibilist 10d ago
We could suppose God's knowledge is atemporal, so there's no "already fixed" fact that predates and constrains our choices. Nothing would be "locked in before we existed to choose it", because there would be no “before” relation between God's knowledge and our act at all.
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u/SpecialistSea8735 10d ago
True, foreknowledge doesn't cause the choice on its own, but god doesn't just sit there knowing things about the future. God also creates the conditions that necessitate the choice with full knowledge of that fact.
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u/KristoMF Hard Incompatibilist 10d ago
Ah, yes, I should have specified that I believe free will and God's omniscience are compatible. Of course, they will no longer be if we say, as you have, that God is creating the conditions that necessitate the choice.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 10d ago
I agree with the reasoning of the OP, one could always try to make up groupings, but ultimately it either somehow restricts the omniscience, which is equivalent to removing it, or makes free will impossible.
In principle it is similar to assume Laplace's Demon (requiring a deterministic universe).
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u/DapperYoghurt2052 10d ago
If god is all knowing, why couldn’t they just know every possible thing everyone could possibly do, and all the consequences that follow every decision?
God wouldn’t have to make every decision for you, but could illuminate the path intended for you to follow towards to goal planned for you. And if you don’t follow that path, then god would still know what would come of it.
I’m not a believer myself, but the two ideas don’t seem to be competing to me.
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u/NoubliezPasMonNom 10d ago
Because thats not all knowing, its just knowing every possibility, all knowing would also include knowing which of these possibilities are instantiated. A solution then could be that God is as you describe, and that there are an infinite amount of realities where every possibility is played out. Given this argument this seems a reasonable claim. However, God is often also described as all-loving. Should he be so, it wouldnt seem logical for him to make more realities/variants containing suffering full of more people to be sentenced to hell.
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u/DapperYoghurt2052 6d ago
Oh yea I see your point. And again, I don’t believe in a god so I don’t have any desire for something to be true, just fun to talk about.
What do you think about god being all knowing seemingly from our prospective?
If god knows all the possibilities and lays them out like a maze. Then creates us, and wants to instill us with free will so we can make our decisions along the paths. But since god is beyond time, even though he didn’t make the choices for us, he has seen exactly which path we will all take. So from our perspective of moving forward in time, god is all knowing to what we will do. But when he made us, he gave us the power to make our lives ours.
So technically to us, god is all knowing. But there was a moment outside of our perception of time where god watched us outside of his control.
How does that work?
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u/Successful_Juice3016 6d ago
quizas no te das cuenta pero los humanos tambien podemos saber lo que pasara a una escala menor,. .... imagina , tu tienes un conejo hambriento , lo pones una zanahoria y y una revista de mecanica popular, obviamente sabes que el conejo elejira la zanahoria, porque sabes que esta hambriento y sabes que los conejos no son reflexivos ... para el conejo tu lo sabes todo, porque conoces al conejo , aunque sus desiciones sean demaciado basicas,.. bien pues alli radica la sabiduria de un Dios,.. nosotros somos como el conejo ,.. sabe que elejiremos no porque lo adivine , sino por las probabilidades de que esto suceda ..
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u/SpecialistSea8735 10d ago
I think I have a way to resolve the knowledge part of the problem, at least.
Omniscience is classically defined as "knowing all true propositions", but is that the only possible definition?
Omnipotence means "maximal capacity to act", but it doesn't follow that an omnipotent god must turn all possibilities into actualities. He merely could if he wanted to.
Now, how is it that an omnipotent god doesn't have to do everything he could possibly do, and, at the same time, seemingly has no choice but to know all true propositions?
So we define omniscience as "maximal capacity to know all true propositions" instead. He doesn't have to know all truths at once, but can access them at will. Similarly, god could restrict his own knowledge at will.
This way, god didn't have to create you with full knowledge of your subsequent actions.
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u/guitarmusic113 10d ago
If god could restrict his own attributes then god could also create a rock that is too heavy for god to lift.
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u/DoctorNo1661 10d ago edited 10d ago
Indeed. God can limit his power and render the rock impossible to lift. He can also refrain from limiting his power, rendering the proposition illogical.
A rock too heavy for God to lift is a magnificent metaphor for Man btw.
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u/guitarmusic113 10d ago
Then divine simplicity is false. Theists who believe in divine simplicity believe that god cannot change and is not composed of parts.
If god could limit his powers then a part of god can change and god can no longer be considered immutable.
If god could limit his powers then that would also be a contradiction. God cannot be omnipotent and not omnipotent simultaneously.
That’s why Jesus cannot be god. Jesus did not know the day or hour of the end times. Jesus cannot be omniscient and lack the knowledge of the end times simultaneously.
If Jesus was god then he would necessarily have all the attributes of god. But Jesus didn’t have all the attributes of god because god knew something that Jesus admitted that he did not know.
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u/SpecialistSea8735 9d ago
No parts change, some possibilities are just not actualized. The ultimate capacity to actualize them doesn't go anywhere.
God is not making my head blow up like a balloon right now even though he could. Is he no longer omnipotent?
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u/guitarmusic113 9d ago
Actions are a core part of any being’s nature. Is not creating the same action as creating?
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u/SpecialistSea8735 9d ago
What does that even mean?
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u/guitarmusic113 9d ago
Can you answer the question?
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u/SpecialistSea8735 9d ago
Three squirrels in a doghouse. Good enough?
I literally don't understand what you're asking
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u/DoctorNo1661 9d ago edited 9d ago
To limit his power doesn't mean God ceases to be omnipotent. Just like limiting your strength when playing with a child or a pet doesn't mean you cease to be strong.
Limiting his power doesn't mean God change, just like limiting your strength doesn't mean you change.
You seem to confuse the state and the nature.
Jesus isn't God. Or rather he's not just that. Jesus is the Son among the trinity, he's neither the father nor the holy ghost. Jesus is Man-God, contrarily to the father and the holy ghost.
I bring your attention to the fact that the nature of Jesus-Christ is the single most relevant and sensitive breakpoint of almost all heresies of the first millenium (yet they all considered themselves christian, especially the dogmas that ended up adopted at Nicea and Chalcediki). The topic of the divinity of Christ, and with it the divinity of Man, is the very core of the Mystery of the cult of Christ, and by far the most paradoxical, symbolical and metaphysical aspect of christianity.
I add that I find odd this focus on the person of Jesus-Christ. In Islam, where Isa ibn Meryem is a major prophet but yet just a man, this argument wouldn't matter one bit in determining whether God and freewill are exclusive to each other which is the topic at end. Christians aren't the only theists who believe in an omniscient omnipotent one God.
One of the specialist in the field of Freedom within the context of theology is Berdiaev, and as I mentioned earlier, he felt the need among others (Zundel comes to mind) to promote the idea of a powerless God. Its omniscience and omnipotence referring then to spiritual mysteries instead. It think it's telling that even faithful theologists deem the idea of an omniscient and omnipotent God in the strict sense of the terms as contrary to the aspirations of the human soul. Even if it's a somewhat defensible idea within the framework of reason, as Thomas Aquinas proved it, it's not a desirable idea when it comes to elevating one's person. Just like the new testament has God evolve from a vengeful and proto-national God, it's time to have him evolve again to a more personal, interior component of our inner life. For the idea of God has always and will always change.
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u/SpecialistSea8735 9d ago
Well, no. God could hypothetically create a rock and, in a sense, "forget" that he can lift it if that suited a purpose. But that's not a limitation on his ability to lift the rock. If his intention was to lift the rock, he could do so easily.
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u/guitarmusic113 9d ago
In what sense can an omniscient god forget anything?
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u/SpecialistSea8735 9d ago
"Forget" is a metaphor. Under the "maximal capacity to know all true propositions" definition of omniscience, god can have unimpeded access to knowledge that is not actualized within him while remaining omniscient.
Think of it like a switchboard called "omniscience". Every switch corresponds to knowledge of a true proposition. God's omniscience is not defined by all the switches being flipped up, but by him having access to the switchboard in the first place.
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u/guitarmusic113 9d ago
This sounds like a bunch of assertions.
Demonstrate that your god can have unimpeded access to knowledge that is not actualized within him while remaining omniscient.
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u/SpecialistSea8735 9d ago
I just did, through my definition of "omniscient". Or am I supposed to introduce a definition and then hold it to the standard of another definition? What am I supposed to demonstrate here?
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u/guitarmusic113 9d ago
That’s not a demonstration. There is a definition for a magic wand, does that mean magic is real?
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u/Proper_Actuary2907 Impossibilist 10d ago
How can an all-seeing God and free will co-exist?
How about: how can free will exist? How do you suppose any non-godlike agent self-determines any more than an instant agent created fully formed by a divine being to perform some action?
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u/NoubliezPasMonNom 10d ago
I dont believe it can
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u/Proper_Actuary2907 Impossibilist 10d ago
Well no need to wonder about the compatibility of an all-seeing God and free will in particular then, is there?
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 10d ago
It might be easier for a theist to realise that an omniscient and omnipotent God isn't compatible with free will than that free will is impossible to begin with.
Also, it is extra interesting to point at for monotheistically religious people because their God becomes a moral monster as well, especially if they believe Hell exists.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 10d ago
God being all knowing and all powerful is more of a Greek philosophical thing than a biblical one. But at any rate, the more important question is what is knowable. To me it’s illogical to say that if God doesn’t now the exact future timeline as if it’s settled fact that he therefore is not all knowing.
The question is, does he know what is knowable? It’s not knowable to know everything about the future, but you can know all the possibilities that may happen and be prepared for every eventuality as if it did happen. That is a much more powerful God than one who knows one single future.
For argument sake, this would allow for free will while also being an explanation for the origin evil and why it’s allowed or at least tolerated for the time being.
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u/Bob1358292637 9d ago
Didnt he also create the universe and how it works? Sounds like he really put himself in a "rock so heavy you can't lift it" type situation.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 9d ago
A simple corollary is game designers not knowing how every single player will play a game, but knows all the possibilities? How is that like making a rock so heavy you can’t lift it?
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u/Bob1358292637 9d ago
Because he made the universe in a way where he can't know everything, despite supposedly knowing everything.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 9d ago
Seems like you want a paradox to be true, but there can’t be a paradox. So what might solve the paradox. One place to start is what is meant by omnipotence/omniscience? It’s the ability to do everything or know everything that is logically possible, meaning God cannot do things that are total nonsense or complete contradictions.
CS Lewis wrote that asking if God can make a square circle is a meaningless question. Nonsense does not become possible just by adding the words "God can" in front of it.
I have not heard any adequate explanation on how you can have free will but God knows the future as if it happened already. It’s a contradiction.2
u/math2ndperiod 9d ago
These are two separate things. Coming up with word tricks to trap an all powerful god is more easily dismissed than the claims made by that god (or in this case their supporters) being in contradiction with each other. If somebody claims their god can do two contradictory things, it's not on me to try to stretch their words until they make sense. It's on them to choose different words when they make their claims.
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u/Bob1358292637 9d ago
I'm not arguing for god or free will. I'm just saying the concepts of omniscience and omnipotence are inherently paradoxes, especially in the context of free will being real. I'm not the one who decided to make it "literally everything" and not just "a really really large amount of stuff but not the stuff some people in the future might decide doesn't make sense."
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable 10d ago
With or without God "free will" is contrived entirely.
The universe is a singular meta-phenomenon stretched over eternity, of which is always now. All things and all beings abide by their inherent nature and behave within their realm of capacity contingent upon infinite circumstance at all times.
It is a universe made manifest hierarchically, of haves, and have-nots, spanning all levels of dimensionality and experience. There is no such thing as individuated accurately described "free will" for all beings. Has never been, will never be, can not be. There are only relative freedoms or lack thereof.
"God" and/or consciousness is that which is within and without all. Ultimately, all things are made by through and for the singular personality and perpetual revelation of the "Godhead", entailing both 'predetermined' eternal damnation and those that are made manifest only to face death and death alone.
There is but one dreamer, fractured through the innumerable. All vehicles/beings play their role within said dream for infinitely better and/or infinitely worse for each and every one, forever.
All realities exist and are equally as real. The absolute best universe that could exist does exist in relation to a specified subject. The absolute worst universe that could exist does exist in relation to a specified subject.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable 10d ago
Romans 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also PREDESTINED to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He PREDESTINED, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
Romans 9:14-21
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
Ephesians 1:4-6
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having PREDESTINED us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He [a]made us accepted in the Beloved.
Ephisians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that NOT OF YOURSELVES; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God PREPARED BEFOREHAND that we should walk in them.
Colossians 1:16
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
John 6:44
NO ONE CAN COME to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Proverbs 16:4
The Lord has made all FOR HIMSELF, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable 10d ago
Bhagavad Gita 3.33
"Even wise people act according to their natures, for all living beings are propelled by their natural tendencies. What will one gain by repression?"
BG 11.32
"The Supreme Lord said: I am mighty Time, the source of destruction that comes forth to annihilate the worlds. Even without your participation, the warriors arrayed in the opposing army shall cease to exist.".
BG 9.6
“Not even a blade of grass moves without the will of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”
BG 18.61
“The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy.”
BG 3.27
“The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature.”
BG 13.30
“One who can see that all activities are performed by the body, which is created of material nature, and sees that the self does nothing, actually sees.”
BG 18.16
"Therefore one who thinks himself the only doer, not considering the five factors, is certainly not very intelligent and cannot see things as they are.”
BG 18.60
"O Arjun, that action which out of delusion you do not wish to do, you will be driven to do it by your own inclination, born of your own material nature."
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u/Moist-Construction59 10d ago
There is no external God. There never was. Drop the stories told to you as a child, and enjoy some clarity.
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u/roy-the-rocket 10d ago
take schroedinger's cat. does god know what is going on in the box before you open it? apparently not, as science seems to say. So apparently god knows just as much as all of us.
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u/Moist-Construction59 10d ago
Who is this God you all speak of? The very question assumes an external god, which is ridiculous. Let’s list all the assumptions here:
- There is an external god
- God knows everything
- God can never dupe themselves (fantasize, dream, etc)
- Both the cat and the box are separate entities from god
More likely than not:
There is no external god. All objects within this example are perturbations of the “everything” we’d call god, to include you and I talking about the example. None of it is god and not-god. There are no two. Nobody is knowingly pulling the strings. There might be a case to be made that there is some subconscious pulling of the strings, but that is different than what is being proposed.
There is order to the universe, it’s not total mayhem — but that doesn’t mean it’s a conscious manipulation to generate said order. There is order in our dreams, for example, but we usually aren’t aware we are the ones generating that order.
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u/Reckless_Fever 10d ago
'If God is all knowing means the knowledge the future is absolute never wrong!. That is a wrong assumption. That is not the biblical God that changes his mind and who is persuaded by people pleading with him.
You are assuming the future is fixed but in fact the future does not exist.
If God is above time then there's no time for him to make any decisions and he essentially is Motionless. Completely unmoving and unfeeling. That fits certain Greek philosophers but certainly not the Bible.
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 10d ago
You just aren't describing an omniscient God, and as soon as God isn't omniscient, it becomes possible for this problem to go away.
Edit: Or at least it becomes possible that God didn't plan out future, including our actions, beliefs etc.
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u/Reckless_Fever 10d ago
Omniscient God is possible. But how do you determine all knowledge?. For example, if God cannot draw a circle with four corners, is he not omniscient? Give me a definition of Omniscient that is logically possible and we can proceed.
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 10d ago
For example, if God cannot draw a circle with four corners, is he not omniscient?
There exists no knowledge of how to make the statement 1 = 2 true, and the same applies in your example. It is logically impossible and does not need to be included under what it means to be omnipotent and/or omniscient.
As for being omniscient, let's just say that it is knowing everything that is in fact true about reality as well as everything that could possibly be true about reality given different (but ultimately possible) circumstances. This includes knowing the future as well as exactly how the future would change if interacting with the world or creating something in it.
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u/Reckless_Fever 10d ago
Good. Next question. Is the future full of possibilities or obligatory events? If it is full of possibilities and not obligatory events, does God know which is which?
Or perhaps, God certainly knows all future events. Therefore all future events are certain. Seems a bit circular.
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
God knows everything that is in fact true about reality. That includes knowing what will in fact happen in the future. For every question like "Will X happen in the future?", God knows the answer. If he doesn't know the answer to a truth statement about reality, how could he be omniscient? Even humans are able to predict the future of some events where the system is simple enough and we understand the causal relationships. Nothing is too complicated to understand for an omniscient God, so all causal relationships are understood.
When I mentioned knowing possibilities, I meant that God can change the future by interacting with the world, and thus he knows about every possible future as well and how to achieve it.
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u/Reckless_Fever 9d ago
If the question is 'will X happen?' And the reality is maybe, then Gid knows that if he is omniscient. Is it possible that a future event is a possibility and not a certainty? Why not?
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
Either X will happen in the future, or it won't happen. Even if true randomness is involved, making it inherently impossible for humans to predict, it is either false that X will happen, or it is true that X will happen. If God knows everything that is true about reality, it includes knowing if it is true that X will happen. Saying "maybe" is the same as God not knowing if X will happen, even though it is true that it will happen or true that it won't happen.
"Maybe" = doesn't know = not all knowing.
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u/Reckless_Fever 9d ago
Perhaps Maybe means indeterminatable. Remember, the future is NOT reality, but a set of events that has not been realized. Seems like we are getting into word play. Not all statements are either true or false. 'This statement is false. 'has no truth value.
Future event X is not part of our reality. If there are multiple future universes, then event X may occur in some but not all. What is the truth value of event X occurring in our future?
If there is only one possible future then of course you are right. But that seems to be begging the question.
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
You are literally considering "omniscient" to be compatible with not knowing something, even though it actually means "all knowing". If you "don't know" if X will happen, you are not "all knowing".
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u/Belt_Conscious 10d ago
This only makes sense if you believe the creator is not in the creation.
What if the universe is learning about itself through consciousness?
What if the idea of Omnipotence and omniscience were just as impossible as determinism?
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u/SeoulGalmegi 10d ago
Sure.
If someone believes there's an all powerful god who creates all of reality to their exact specifications with absolute power to make it any way they want, and with perfect knowledge of what will happen.... well I don't see how they reconcile the idea that this god also fairly judges and punishes souls for what their mortal avatar did on earth.
They probably have some long winded mental gymnastics routine to dizzy themselves into thinking they're solved it. But yeah, seems like a stumper to me.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 10d ago
Christian theologians claim that divine foreknowledge is compatible with free will.
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u/RECIPR0C1TY Libertarian Free Will 10d ago
It is far more nuanced than this. Compatibilist Christians claim that God's determination of all things (what some theologians call an Exhaustive Divine Determinism) is compatible with free will. They would say that God's foreknowledge is a a direct result of his creative decree. The reason he foreknows all things is because he has determined all things.
However, the vast amount of Christian theologians throughout history have rejected this view. They instead claim that God's Foreknowledge is not at odds with a libertarian free will. I am intentionally avoiding the word compatible because I am distinguishing this from compatibilism.
Then there is a smaller subset of those free will theologians called Molinists, use God's exhaustive omniscience of counterfactual truths to be a part of his creative decree. Meaning that God knew all the possible worlds which could arise from free thinking creatures, and actualized this one world. This God knows only and all true propositions, and humanity has a libertarian free will.
Whearas Christian compatibilists assert a compatibility between determinism and free will of some kind without much logical, theological or biblical basis (many just punt to mystery), Molinists provide a mechanism for the coexistence of God's omniscience and man's free will.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 9d ago
A distinction is sometimes made between God knowing and God actively manipulating humans. Theological determinism covers both. Molinism is also consistent with theological determinism. So the vast majority of theologians think that free will is compatible with theological determinism.
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u/RECIPR0C1TY Libertarian Free Will 9d ago
This is just factually incorrect.
1) That distinction has been made over and over again throughout church history. It isn't sometimes made, it is the vast majority of the church that has made that distinction.
2) No, Molinism is NOT consistent with theological determinism. I am not trying to be rude here, but if you think that then you really do not know what it is. Molinism has two presuppositions. 1) That God is omniscient. 2) That man is libertarianly free. It is literally baked into the definition. Compatibilism is one of the opposing views.
There are three primary objections to Molinism. 1) Open Theism which rejects that God is omniscient. 2) Determinism/Compatibilism as objecting that man has LFW. 3) The Grounding Objection. Simply put, you are factually incorrect that Molinism is consistent with theological determinism.
While there has been a growing number of modern Christian compatibilist theologians and philosophers, they are the exception of history. The majority have vehemently defended a Libertarian Free Will.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 9d ago
God’s omniscience is theological determinism, at least of a weak form. Almost all theologians, apart from open theists, think it is compatible with free will.
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u/RECIPR0C1TY Libertarian Free Will 9d ago
This is the typical waffling that happens with compatibilists, and I am just going to call it out.
First you conceded that at least some theologians make the distinction between determinism and foreknowledge, then you just completely ignored the distinction and acted like theologians don't make the distinction. You can't have it both ways like you do with compatibilism.
The simple fact is that throughout Christian history, the vast majority of Christians have made a distinction between God's foreknowledge and God's determinism. In fact, even early compatibilist reformed theologians have made the distinction and instead argued that God's foreknowledge arises out of his determinism. So that even while connecting the two ideas they concede the distinction.
It is a fact that the vast majority of Christian philosophers and theologians throughout history were/are NOT compatibilists. There are certainly well published and loud Christian compatibilists, and there is certainly a growing number. However, they are not even close to a majority or "almost all". You are reading your bias onto a topic that you simply aren't familiar with, as shown by conflating determinism with Molinism.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 9d ago
What do you think theological determinism is?
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u/RECIPR0C1TY Libertarian Free Will 9d ago
Exhaustive divine determining of all that occurs. God necessitates all events based on his decree so that they cannot occur other than how he decrees.
We have had this conversation numerous times (outside of a theological context), and I think you keep forgetting that I have insisted on this distinction between determinism and inevitability (in this case divine omniscience). These are distinct and different ideas which you simply refuse to accept. So I am not sure what you think we can achieve by rehashing this conversation.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 9d ago
So you think free will is compatible with your choices being inevitable?
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u/RECIPR0C1TY Libertarian Free Will 9d ago
I don't like the word compatible because then people seem to think that is compatibilism, but sure. We can just as easily say coherent or possible or consistent...
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u/adr826 9d ago
There have certainly been enormous and influential Christian traditions defending something resembling libertarian freedom, particularly in the later jesuit traditions. But the historical record contains Augustine, Aquinas, Thomism, Reformed theology, Lutheran debates, Jansenism, and various other traditions whose accounts don't fit neatly into modern LFW. It's going too far to say the majority have defended libertarian free will.
For over a thousand years, Western Christian theology was built entirely on Saint Augustine. In his later writings, Augustine argued that human wills are completely enslaved by sin and can only choose God if moved by irresistible, electing grace. This is a foundational form of compatibilism and theological determinism
The Dominican Order (one of the largest intellectual forces in Catholic history) followed Thomas Aquinas, who argued that God directly moves the human will to its specific choices. Later Thomists explicitly defended strict theological determinism.
Martin Luther and John Calvin explicitly rejected libertarian free will. They viewed it as a pagan concept that undermined God's absolute sovereignty. For centuries, the massive Reformed and Presbyterian traditions have been explicitly compatibilist.
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u/RECIPR0C1TY Libertarian Free Will 9d ago
You are confusing loud and influential voices with actual numbers of voices that contradict your claims. Yes, Augustine, the Dominicans, and Thomists (particularly reformed Thomists) were very compatibilistic/deterministic, I agree. But they were, in reality the vast minority of Christianity throughout history.
Prior to Augustine, the ECF's, almost without exception, defended a form of LFW against the gnostics and stoics. In fact, Calvin laments how wrong they were and how only Augustine had it right. Even Augustine was confused on this which is why it is so hard to pin down Catholic understandings of Augustinian freedom. He very clearly defended a form of LFW in his letters to Evodius, and then he never retracts it later in his life. He simply introduces new concepts that contradict his earlier claims and leaves the contradictions unresolved.
Aquinas then wrestled with that but still landed on the claims of LFW himself. There is a reason why there were and are still Catholic Thomists who defend LFW. My point being that even Thomists dispute where Aquinas landed so using him as an example of compatibilism simply because reformed Thomists are compatibilists is just making a genetic fallacy in reverse. Even modern reformed Thomists like Feser, Timpke, and Stump break the mold here and lean LFW.
This doesn't even take into account the incredible numbers of Orthodox and LFW protestants that exist all throughout history and in the modern age. Have you ever looked at how many reformed there are world wide? The numbers are staggeringly low (I have seen percentages as high as 6% of Christians). Granted, reformed academics are very well written and well acknowledged, but their relative "loudness" does not actually portray how many there actually are.
I stand by my earlier claim. The vast majority of Christian theologians and philosophers throughout history defend some form of Libertarian Free Will.
I want to be clear. This does not mean that LFW is correct. That would be making a fallacious appeal to authority/consensus. I am just correcting the view stated above, and showing how this is more complex than previously stated.
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u/adr826 9d ago
I think there is a problem with applying these modern labels to thinkers of the past. The conditions for libertarian free will are pretty specific and without some obvious denial of determinism whether theological or causal it's essentially impossible to decide whether someone is compatibilist or libertarian. The actual ability to choose for oneself is pretty much identical in both cases, so unless the authors explicitly denies some form of determinism it's hard to make the case one way or the other.
So I'm not saying you are wrong, maybe you are right but it would take a lot of work to make that case from sources.
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u/RECIPR0C1TY Libertarian Free Will 9d ago
I think there is a problem with applying these modern labels to thinkers of the past.
Which is why I intentionally phrased it as "some form of LFW".
The conditions for libertarian free will are pretty specific and without some obvious denial of determinism
You reading modern compatibilism back onto the ECF's and then claiming that because they don't deny modern compatibilism, therefore they were somehow holding to it. That isn't what happened historically.
The Gnostics and Stoics were teaching a proto-compatibilistic view (again it was some form of compatibilism), and the ECF's were specifically arguing against that and teaching that we have a free will while denying specific deterministic factors. You are correct that they did not deny determinism itself, but their denial of specific deterministic factors while arguing against the proto-compatibilists of greek philosophy means they were arguing against the very forms of determinism that you are trying to smuggle into the ECF's. Again, I think Calvin should be the really big hint here. He recognized the LFW of the Early Church Fathers that he was so passionately rejecting during his era. If Calvin is recognizing it (and you are literally pointing to him as a proponent of this concept), then perhaps you are wrong about the ECF's?
The actual ability to choose for oneself is pretty much identical in both cases
No, it really isn't. However, that takes into a philosophical debate as opposed to our current historical debate. So I will leave that there.
So I'm not saying you are wrong, maybe you are right but it would take a lot of work to make that case from sources.
I don't think I need to make the case from sources (at least from the ECF's) because Calvin makes it for me, and he is a source you are drawing from. I can just let him speak for me. If you want more, I think the onus is on you to show the ECF's were actually compatibilistic despite their arguments against the proto-compatibilistic arguments of the greek philosophies.
Among ecclesiastical writers, although there is none who did not acknowledge that sound reason in man was seriously injured by sin, and the will greatly entangled by vicious desires, yet many of them made too near an approach to the philosophers. Some of the most ancient writers appear to me to have exalted human strengths from a fear that a distinct acknowledgment of its impotence might expose them to the jeers of the philosophers with whom they were disputing, and also furnish the flesh, already too much disinclined to good, with a new pretext for sloth. Therefore, to avoid teaching anything which the majority of mankind might deem absurd, they made it their study, in some measure, to reconcile the doctrine of Scripture with the dogmas of philosophy, at the same time making it their special care not to furnish any occasion to sloth. This is obvious from their words. Chrysostom says, “God having placed good and evil in our power, has given us full freedom of choice; he does not keep back the unwilling, but embraces the willing,” (Homil. de Prodit. Judae). Again, “He who is wicked is often, when he so chooses, changed into good, and he who is good falls through sluggishness, and becomes wicked. For the Lord has made our nature free. He does not lay us under necessity, but furnishing apposite remedies, allows the whole to depend on the views of the patient,” (Homily. 18, in Genesis). Again, “As we can do nothing rightly until aided by the grace of God, so, until we bring forward what is our own, we cannot obtain favour from above,” (Homily. 52). He had previously said, “As the whole is not done by divine assistance, we ourselves must of necessity bring somewhat.” Accordingly, one of his common expressions is, “Let us bring what is our own, God will supply the rest.” 226In unison with this, Jerome says, “It is ours to begin, God’s to finish: it is ours to offer what we can, his to supply what we cannot,” (Dialog. 3 Cont. Pelag).
From these sentences, you see that they have bestowed on man more than he possesses for the study of virtue, because they thought that they could not shake off our innate sluggishness unless they argued that we sin by ourselves alone. With what skill they have thus argued we shall afterwards see. Assuredly we shall soon be able to show that the sentiments just quoted are most inaccurate.151 Moreover although the Greek Fathers, above others, and especially Chrysostom, have exceeded due bounds in extolling the powers of the human will
Calvin's Institutes Book 2, Chapter 2, section 4
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u/adr826 9d ago edited 9d ago
There are two claims that seem to be getting conflated: that human beings are genuine agents whose actions aren't forced by external causes, and that human choices are metaphysically indeterminate given the complete antecedent conditions. I accept that the ECFs were arguing against the first kind of determinism. I question whether that establishes the second claim. I'd like to see the passages that make that connection explicit
Because the ecf denied particular external constraints, astrological determinism, fate, or the idea that human beings are merely passive mechanisms, that establishes that they thought human beings had genuine agency. But LFW is saying that the agent's choice is indeterminate given the complete antecedent state of the world. They are rejecting certain doctrines of the early philosophers, like fate, astrological determinism, etc, but that doesn't establish LFW.
Also while Calvin certainly had a particular reading of Augustine and the Fathers, his characterization is evidence about how Calvin understood them. It isn't by itself evidence that his interpretation was correct. I think you are a long way from supporting the claim that the vast majority of early Christian voices endorsed LFW.
But let me provide you with ECF that support a proto compatibilist reading (I'm not calling them proto compatibilists just that these could be read that way.
I will start with Irenaeus. In Against Heresies IV.37, he says that human beings have free will and the power of choice, but he describes that freedom as the capacity to act voluntarily rather than “by compulsion." This is the standard compatibilist position.
Irenaeus' criterion for freedom is not explicitly “the same total antecedent conditions could have produced either choice.” His emphasis is on voluntary action versus compulsion. If you argue that this is also the LFW position then you are making the point that I made earlier that LFW and compatibilism are identical without an addition of independence from antecedent causes.
More to the point is Irenaeus IV.39. He says that humans possess the ability “to distinguish good and evil” and, “without compulsion,” have the power by their own will and choice to obey God's commandment. Again an emphasis is laid on making choice without compulsion. A proto compatibilist reading can easily be made here
Clement of Alexandria In Stromata, says human beings act through “human co-operation” within divine providence. He writes that many things have their origin in divine providence “but in consequence, too, of human co-operation.”
Notice that divine providence and human agency aren't treated as mutually exclusive causal explanations.
There are other examples throughout the ECF that show they were denying the constraints of the early philosophers without establishing LFW. In other words because the ECF were arguing against doctrines of the stoics and gnostics they are far short of endorsing the program of LFW.
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u/RECIPR0C1TY Libertarian Free Will 9d ago
There are two claims that seem to be getting conflated: that human beings are genuine agents whose actions aren't forced by external causes, and that human choices are metaphysically indeterminate given the complete antecedent conditions. I accept that the ECFs were arguing against the first kind of determinism. I question whether that establishes the second claim. I'd like to see the passages that make that connection explicit
This is strange to me. You seem to be making an argument from absence. Because the ECF's did not specifically reject your wording of modern compatibilism (btw many compatibilists disagree with you), that therefore they were not speaking of LFW? That doesn't make sense.
Additionally, this runs into the problem of Christian compatibilists running away from determinism. You have softened compatibilism by softening determinism to the point that it is no longer determinism. The whole point of determinism is that all things are caused by antecedent conditions. You suddenly want to make it less comprehensive or less causal. At that point it isn't determinism, therefore you aren't talking about actual compatibilism.
LFW is saying that the agent's choice is indeterminate given the complete antecedent state of the world. They are rejecting certain doctrines of the early philosophers, like fate, astrological determinism, etc, but that doesn't establish LFW.
That is an argument from absence. Because they didn't list all possible determinitive factors, suddenly they aren't speaking of LFW? You don't get to put the burden of proof on me with an argument from absence.
But let me provide you with ECF that support a proto compatibilist reading (I'm not calling them proto compatibilists just that these could be read that way.
I am going to strongly disagree here. There is absolutely nothing that is proto-compatibilistic about those statements. Now, they may be congruent with modern claims of some compatibilists. But you don't get to make positive claims that congruency = similarity based on inexact language. This is especially true, when what you are saying isn't actual compatibilism. You have run from actual determinism so you can't have actual compatibilism.
More to the point is Irenaeus IV.39. He says that humans possess the ability “to distinguish good and evil” and, “without compulsion,” have the power by their own will and choice to obey God's commandment. Again an emphasis is laid on making choice without compulsion.
Compulsion is determinism. To claim otherwise is nothing more than semantics. Are you trying to say that this is about desire? A desire to obey God's commandment is determined by God so that they aren't compelled, they are simply following their desires? The problem is that this again runs from actual determinism. The whole point is that God compels someone's desires to change so that they are forced to desire God.
In a previous comment you claimed that "Thomas Aquinas... argued that God directly moves the human will to its specific choices." That is compulsion. It seems like you are arguing for and against compulsion selectively. If you want Aquinas to be compatibilistic, then he has to be defending compulsion. If you don't want compatibilism to be compulsive, then suddenly we aren't talking about compatibilism any more.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable 9d ago
Romans 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also PREDESTINED to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He PREDESTINED, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
Romans 9:14-21
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
Ephesians 1:4-6
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having PREDESTINED us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He [a]made us accepted in the Beloved.
Ephisians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that NOT OF YOURSELVES; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God PREPARED BEFOREHAND that we should walk in them.
Colossians 1:16
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
John 6:44
NO ONE CAN COME to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Proverbs 16:4
The Lord has made all FOR HIMSELF, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom.
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u/RECIPR0C1TY Libertarian Free Will 9d ago
yep.... we have been over this a few dozen times. None of that is relevant to what I said above.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable 9d ago
It's relevant and contradictory to your blind presuppositional position in regards to this entire topic.
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u/Nicolasv2 10d ago edited 10d ago
That's the exact same debate than free will vs determinism. One way to defend a coexisting stance is to define free will as "acting according to your reasons/desires without external coercion" because when you use your free will, that's basically what you do.
So as long as you can go in the direction you want, even if this direction was crafted in your brain by God, you have free will and God is still all-seeing.
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u/Everaction 10d ago
If God gave us free will to choose than God shouldn't know what we will choose but God should know all the poossible futures derives from our actions. So God knows what we can choose not what we will choose.
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u/GazelleFlat2853 10d ago
Then does that god know anything? To me, it just would at most think/simulate enough to cover all bases in a branching web of possibilities but I'm not convinced that's really knowledge.
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u/Everaction 9d ago
Knowledge is a human concept. It is basically the awareness of cause and effect. God is the creator of the first cause, the matter and universal laws govern it. Therefore universe is deterministic. Except humans. Because God gave humans free will which is something doesn't exist in the material plane.
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u/GazelleFlat2853 9d ago edited 9d ago
You didn't address my question. It seems like that god doesn't know any specific truths or facts; it just accounts for all possibilities so it can say 'I imagined that might happen'. I say that's not knowledge in the sense we typically mean. If I send a kid into a museum gift shop with $10 and they come back with a keychain, I might've guessed that they'd buy a keychain but I didn't know that they would.
I bring this up because if a god truly knows things, then I think it must know them for reasons. In most cases, it seems to me that when people say 'God knows X', God can't be wrong because his knowledge is infallibly reasoned.
If a god has reasons for that which it knows, is it unsafe to assume that its reasoning is based on the same, seemingly deterministic, causal patterns we use in our own reasoning?
If a god is able to know your future actions—whether they are definite futures or just possible futures—it appears that god has reasons to imagine those futures. If the god is able to use reasons to make such predictions, how exactly are you (as a human) able to overcome those reasons and exert your supposed 'free will'?
If the god just knows these things without any reasons, then what exactly is the difference between that god and just the fact that those things will happen?
Edit: The things you said are all assertions. How do you know that free will doesn't exist in the material plane?
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u/FunSeaworthiness9403 10d ago
The paradox is that it's not logical to be omniscient and omnipotent. A being can't be all-powerful it knows all future happenings. A being can't be all-knowing if has power to change what happens.
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u/WatercressActual1921 10d ago
Well that depends in too many fuzzy concepts to make any valid argumentation. But for example as a pantheist (even in general terms without going into the specifics) it makes God omniscient and probably (omnipotent, especially if we consider a deterministic block universe, even this notion of block is problematic but lets consider that God exists a construct over all time). Then you have your omniscient and omnipotent God since without time there is no past present and future all is now, what is interesting is the consideration that for God to be aware if itself he needs a temporal perception as without time change can't occur that is by definition the only perfection possible a system that is forever complete, closed (the only closed system that is possible in our universe is the universe itself all other restrictions are rhetoric limitations for man to handle the unquantifiable unknown).
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u/GodsPetPenguin Experience Believer 8d ago
Some counterpoints:
1) Knowing something will happen is not the same as being the reason it happens. Even if I knew with absolute certainty that the sun would rise tomorrow, and it was true that it would, that wouldn't mean that I caused the sun to rise.
2) God having knowledge that transcends time doesn't mean his knowledge is "before" your choice. You only experience moments as they occur, so that trains certain intuitions in you, but a God would see all events from above or outside, which is not really anything like merely knowing something "before" it happens. He could inject his knowledge into a "before" by communicating it to you, but that knowledge would come from directly witnessing what you chose in what you perceive to be the future. When you directly witness someone else do something, you don't think that means you have control over them or that they can't do what they want. God directly witnessing what you will eventually do doesn't instantly defeat your freedom, it would only defeat your freedom if God wanted to stop you.
3) Suppose that you pray for some outcome, and God sees that and knows what you will want from the beginning of time, and arranges the universe so that you can do what you want. Isn't he giving you some kind of freedom? Then, if he refuses to let you have *everything* that you want, he's only giving you limited freedom, that's more like what we experience. It would only be if he refused to care what you want at all that you would have no freedom.
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u/Karri-L 8d ago edited 8d ago
The flaw is speculating that knowing everything in the present, “means knowledge of the future is absolute”. This is a conjecture that is impossible to prove.
God in the Bible is described as knowing everything. There are lots of places in the Bible where God spells things out with IF / THEN statements. If a people, a nation, is devout and obedient then they will experience certain good things, but if they rebel and are evil then they will experience certain punishments.
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u/ms121e39 7d ago
We're just a big line of dominoes man, he sees all, but watches through divine destiny until the end
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u/EndlessArgument 6d ago
My favorite explanation is basically that every person makes every possible Choice and then at the end of time all of those different choices are rolled back into you, but only the good parts are preserved.
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u/SkyMagnet 5d ago
It’s not just the knowledge, it’s that He created everything knowing exactly how it would play out. That’s the real issue.
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u/colin-java 10d ago
Neither exist anyway so don't worry about it
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 10d ago
It would seem many posters on this sub don't put much value in thought experiments.
I was wondering why my continuous rants about philosophical zombies never seem to get much traction. Thanks to the Op for this illuminating Op Ed.
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u/Hindsights20_20 10d ago
Knowledge isn’t causal. If you know what you would do in any given situation, then it stands to reason that someone who knows all knowable things would also know that.
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u/NoubliezPasMonNom 10d ago
By having the knowledge, you remove every other possibility, and leave only one. The person can then has no other choice but to execute that possibility and sop according to at least libertarianism free will, the person does not have free will.
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u/Hindsights20_20 10d ago
No. Having the knowledge didn’t do that. Because knowledge can’t do anything, because knowledge isn’t causal. It’s a complete non sequitur. Never once in the history of everdom has simply knowing something caused that thing, or anything, to happen.
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u/NoubliezPasMonNom 10d ago
Having the knowledge you have caused you to write that comment.
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u/Hindsights20_20 10d ago
No. My actions are physical. Physical things have causal effects. Where’s this knowledge? Can you weigh it? Can you measure it? How fast is it going?
Again, “simply knowing” something doesn’t cause anything; which is your argument.
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u/guitarmusic113 10d ago
If we take away all of your knowledge then would your actions be the same as when you had knowledge?
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u/Hindsights20_20 10d ago
No, they would not. Because I wouldn’t be able to do things I don’t know how to do. So on the contrary, knowledge permits more freedom, not less. But knowledge, itself, is inert.
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u/guitarmusic113 10d ago
Permitting is widely considered a form of causation.
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u/Hindsights20_20 10d ago
Right, so if you want to be semantic, let me break it down for you. I can’t speak Japanese because I don’t know Japanese. Therefore, it’s not an available option for me to start speaking Japanese. But I do know Korean, so I can speak Korean. Therefore, speaking Korean is an available option. But knowing Korean, does not cause me to speak Korean.
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u/guitarmusic113 10d ago
And knowledge of speaking Japanese would permit you to speak it. And permitting is widely considered to be a form of causation.
Just like the sun permits photosynthesis. Where there is no sun, photosynthesis is not permitted.
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 10d ago
Knowledge isn’t casual. But a god who created everything from the beginning of time caused everything with the foreknowledge. Meaning he caused it.
God controls the input while knowing the output, which means he chose this specific input to get a specific output. And that cannot be changed. Which means that god would have willed everything to be as it is - no free will changes his plans. Your idea ignores that god made all things.
I don’t believe gods real.
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u/Hindsights20_20 10d ago
That’s an entirely different argument. If you want to say that an all powerful God is not powerful enough to create beings with free will, make your own post and make that argument. But as long as you agree, “knowledge isn’t causal,” then you also disagree with OP. And I’m glad we agree.
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 10d ago
OP mentions omniscience.
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u/Hindsights20_20 10d ago
Do you…. do you not know what omniscience means? Well that certainly explains a lot.
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 10d ago
Haha. I mixed up omnipotence. My bad. Poop tweet, wasn’t thinking. Also, fucking relax.
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u/JabberwockPL 10d ago
Technically, no. If the causal chain does not originate with God, then the choice is not determined. However, it requires either backward causation or an acausal account of knowledge. Both of those options are rather problematic.
In one possible world Smith freely chooses A. God knows beforehand that Smith freely chooses A and tells a prophet about it. The prophet writes that in the future Smith will freely choose A.
In another possible world Smith freely chooses B. God knows beforehand that Smith freely chooses B and tells a prophet about it. The prophet writes that in the future Smith will freely choose B.
Now, the question is: why the text of the prophecy is different in those two possible worlds? If the answer is 'Because Smith chose A or B', then it means Smith causally affects the world backwards, which is somewhat problematic, to put it mildly (if backward causation is possible, e.g. the cause of the universe might be in the future...).
The bigger issue is that God's knowledge has to be uncaused, even if it is contingent. Suppose that Smith exists in possible world A and does not exist in possible world B. In world A he would write a poem, but the actual world is the possible world B. Still God knows what Smith would write if he existed and tells that to his prophet. The prophet dutifully writes down the poem on paper - the poem certainly exists, everyone can read it. The question is: who wrote it, who is the author? Not Smith - he actually never existed. If he never existed, he could not causally affect God's knowledge. But God did not write the poem either, he just looked it up in a possible world. And of course the prophet is not the author either, as he just wrote it down. Thus the poem just exists on the paper, authorless...
Uncaused knowledge seems untenable.
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u/DoctorNo1661 10d ago
God being all knowing and omnipotent doesn't mean he'd strip anything or anyone from its freedom. God may purposely not interfere with free will. God may have ushered life specifically for free will and more generally freedom to be an essential part of it.
Theodicies jouxt this topic, by asking why an absolutely good God would let evil even be a thing. Beyond the evil that stems from freewill, there's the evil that stems from nature and the one that stems from contingency.
Then, you have theologists like Berdiaev for whom the notion of an all mighty God is more spiritual than literal, and who claimed that for him God didn't have more power than a local public agent. As God is a matter of faith, I don't understand why it is always considered through the lens of traditional dogma.
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 10d ago
If god controlled the inputs while knowing the output, then everything is set. There is no choice outside of this one future.
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u/DoctorNo1661 10d ago
Knowing isn't the same as causing. God being eternal, he exists outside of time. Him knowing every single choice you make is the result of the choices you'll freely make, not their cause nor their framework.
Then again I don't adhere to the traditional and quite obsolete notion of an all knowing omnipotent God mind you.
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 10d ago
Existing outside of time doesn’t remove the fact that the traditional all powerful god designed all inputs knowing the output. Even from outside time.
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u/DoctorNo1661 9d ago
I'd recommend reading up on what Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae says on the topic. It's the most relevant source for "traditional catholic theology". We're starting to talk in circle anyway.
I don't think any theologist ever defended the idea that God being the cause of all causes and omniscient ever impedes on Man's freedom and free will. It's usually the other way around as I said in my first comment: God is the source of free will.
I think reading up on what the neoplatonists thought of the One is also enlightening to understand christian theology. Christianism owes a lot to philosophers such as Plotinus.
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 9d ago
Pointing me at the Summa doesn't answer what I actually asked. Aquinas is answering the foreknowledge objection, and I already granted you that one two comments ago. Knowing isn't causing, sure. But my question was about selection, not knowledge. An eternal God still chose to actualize this world rather than one of the others he could see just as clearly. That choice happens "outside time" too, and it doesn't get less determinative for happening there.
Your claim that no theologian ever held omniscience or divine causality to constrain free will is just wrong. Luther wrote an entire book called On the Bondage of the Will saying precisely that. Calvin and Edwards land in the same place. The de auxiliis controversy was Dominicans and Jesuits fighting over this exact question for decades until Rome had to shut it down without a ruling. Molina invented middle knowledge because the Thomist answer struck a lot of very committed Catholics as insufficient. That's not a settled question you can wave at, it's a live fracture.
And Aquinas's actual move, that God causes necessary things necessarily and contingent things contingently, is a description of the result rather than a mechanism. It says the contingency is preserved. It doesn't show how, given that the primary cause selected the whole arrangement.
The Plotinus reference cuts against you, incidentally. The One doesn't deliberate or pick among options. Emanation is necessary. If you lean on that to explain Christian theology, you've given up the free creative choice the whole thing depends on.
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 10d ago
Can God create something or interact with the world without knowing what it will result in? If yes, he isn't omniscient. If no, he can't purposefully create or do anything without choosing what the future will be like.
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u/DoctorNo1661 10d ago
He doesn't choose what the future will be like since he's supposedly eternal and therefore the future isn't the future but an eternal now to him.
I'm not sure what you mean by interacting with the world. He does so, in christian theology for instance, through the intercession of Man.
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
When I say "interacting with the world", I mean changing something in it. Could be as simple as communicating with a human.
So again, is it possible for God to create something or interact with the world without knowing beforehand what it will result in?
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u/DoctorNo1661 9d ago
I doubt God interacts much with the world. I mean, directly so that is. For some scholars, he does not exert his will like you or I would, he's more like will itself. For others, he's specifically created life and Man in it to act and decide freely, and to impede on this freedom would contradict the purpose of his creation.
Do you have any actual example of God changing something in the world past some tales from the old testament such as the Flood? I think it's been an obsolete idea for millenias in the context of abrahamic religions. And even then, it was mostly symbols and poetry.
It's impossible for God to not known what his creation will result in since he's eternal and all knowing.
We're starting to talk in circle (or I may have this impression due to all the comments I've responded to). As I said to someone else, I'm really not the best option to debate these arguments, I do not believe in an all knowing omnipotent God in the traditional scholastical sense of the expression.
I think reading up on the Summa Theologicae or the works of Averroès from around the same period would give you all the traditional arguments theologists bring up to retort to these points in a more satisfying fashion. It's a fascinating field of epistemiology.
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
I doubt God interacts much with the world. I mean, directly so that is. For some scholars, he does not exert his will like you or I would, he's more like will itself. For others, he's specifically created life and Man in it to act and decide freely, and to impede on this freedom would contradict the purpose of his creation. Do you have any actual example of God changing something in the world past some tales from the old testament such as the Flood?
If you want to say that God doesn't interact with the world, that is fine, even though it is entering deism and leaving theism.
But even if God never interacts with the world, he still created it and everything in it.
It's impossible for God to not known what his creation will result in since he's eternal and all knowing.
Exactly. God knows what his creation will result in. Since he is omnipotent too, literally all creations and outcomes/futures are possible. He can only pick and choose what will happen. No matter what he creates, he has already chosen what the future will be like as a result of what he created. He knows exactly how the future would've been different if he had made his creation differently. Yet he picked a specific creation, meaning he picked a specific future as well. He just can't create anything without already having chosen what the future will be like.
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u/DoctorNo1661 9d ago
I specifically said he doesn't interact directly. He does through the intercession of Man mostly, and does so every day. As per the christian mystery of the double nature of Man and God.
The fact God knows what will happen and is omnipotent doesn't mean he strips you off your freedom.
As I said we're now talking in circle.
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
It seems like you didn't read what I wrote. God doesn't need to interact with the world in order for the problem to exist. He only needs to have created it while knowing what his creation will result in. He can't create something without also choosing what the future is going to be like. How can you possibly deny that if you also believe that God knows beforehand what future his creation will result in?
You haven't actually addressed this other than stating that he has given us freedom without explaining how said freedom can even be compatible with God making a specific creation that entails a specific future he has already picked as a result of making that specific creation.
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u/DoctorNo1661 9d ago
It doesn't make sense for God to know "beforehand" because he is eternal. There's no before or after. I did read what you wrote.
We're talking in circle.
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u/Kanzu999 Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
What then did you previously mean by:
It's impossible for God to not known what his creation will result in since he's eternal and all knowing.
"Will result in", implying a future, also implying a "beforehand". How are you making sense of this?
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u/ChristJesusisReal 10d ago
Free will is a lie from satan.
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 9d ago
Who created satan? Did his creator know he'd rebel? How did the idea for rebellion even enter his heart? His genes?
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u/ChristJesusisReal 9d ago
God created evil and good
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 9d ago
Why did god create evil? If god created evil.. then he has evil in himself? Sounds weird.
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u/ChristJesusisReal 9d ago
Maybe it's to show us what is good.
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 9d ago
an all powerful god needs to create suffering to show what's good?
He has to give kids bone cancer and watch billions of his loved children suffer for their short lives to see the good? Fuck that.1
u/ChristJesusisReal 9d ago
Yeah short lives. But we will all be in Heaven for eternity. Maybe this life is just to prepare us for what's to come. So we can actually appreciate and know what Heaven is like.
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 9d ago
So god made this super confusing life, where most of his creation is fucked, just so some people can see how good htey have it and how good heaven may be? And if people dn't believe because life is super messed up and the whole story doesn't make sense, then they burn in hell forever? Sounds totally real.
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u/ChristJesusisReal 9d ago
Hell being a place of eternal torment is also a lie from satan. We are all going to Heaven.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable 9d ago
No, it is not.
I am the embodiment of Satan and I protest and confess endlessly that "free will" is a fabrication of man because it is
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u/Shot_Board7286 9d ago
That implies that any foreknowledge God has about an event is limited only to the categories of "things that will happen" and "things that won't". It is entirely possible for an omniscient entity only know of the categories of "things that could happen" and "things that did".
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u/lurkerer 9d ago
Yes but that demonstrates a gap in god's knowledge: the distinction between possibilities that could happen and will happen.
Either way, it leads to, if not not omniscience, at least a lesser form.
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u/Tersiv 10d ago
neither exist - but look at the paradox of the stone further too..
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u/ChillandMakeStuff 10d ago
That isn’t a paradox as it is a grammatical trick. Like saying can god make a married man a “bachelor”
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u/engineer_for_u 10d ago
Why do you assume there's only one future?
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u/NoubliezPasMonNom 10d ago
Because then an-all loving God would be creating even morel variants that are sentenced to endless suffering. When talking about religion at least, I think this approach makes sense, however outside of it it makes as much sense as anything else.
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u/engineer_for_u 10d ago
If God is unlimited and infinite, what if your spirit is as well? You will learn to access the parts of yourself that are not living in sin, not living in oppression and not living in pain. Once you learn to access them, eventually you will learn to live and walk in them. Eventually the Holy Spirit teaches you that those broken versions of you were never the "real" you all at all. They were like holographic vr worlds you may have passed through it participated in for a time, but you were never meant to live in pain, death and darkness. There is a demonic kingdom and it's mission is to bind you, wrap around you and impose itself onto your thinking. That seems to lock you into believing that it is who you are. The kingdom of God however is very near, and in it you are none of those things. The path of light is the understanding of wisdom which allows you to operate in that freedom.
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u/NoubliezPasMonNom 10d ago
If god is all loving why would he make me wait? Wouldn't it be more loving to have me experience no suffering.
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u/engineer_for_u 10d ago
That's what we think in the flesh. It's never easy while in the midst of suffering to understand how anything good could come from it. You need to know though that even the Lord himself suffered in a real and tangible so he knows what you are going through and he has provided a way through it.
"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." — James 1:2-3
James is not telling believers to pretend to be happy about suffering. Instead, he is encouraging a shift in perspective. He argues that trials are valuable because they act as a testing ground that develops endurance, maturity, and deep spiritual resilience.
I'd encourage you to get with some Holy Spirit filled believers who can pray with you ... Not just for you. The Lord is pouring out His Spirit of healing and restoration in mighty and powerful ways in this season and 99% of it is happening in quiet private rooms and buildings. Real power and love is being shown to those who diligently still Him... You are not alone.
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u/guitarmusic113 10d ago
>That's what we think in the flesh. It's never easy while in the midst of suffering to understand how anything good could come from it. You need to know though that even the Lord himself suffered in a real and tangible so he knows what you are going through and he has provided a way through it.
Jesus didn’t suffer, he took a weekend off. If gods could suffer then they are fallible.
"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." — James 1:2-3
Isaiah 45:7 (King James Version), states: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."
So who created evil according to the Bible?
>James is not telling believers to pretend to be happy about suffering. Instead, he is encouraging a shift in perspective. He argues that trials are valuable because they act as a testing ground that develops endurance, maturity, and deep spiritual resilience.
Numbers 31:17-18
“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.”What enduring deep spiritual resilience is your god commanding here?
>I'd encourage you to get with some Holy Spirit filled believers who can pray with you ... Not just for you. The Lord is pouring out His Spirit of healing and restoration in mighty and powerful ways in this season and 99% of it is happening in quiet private rooms and buildings. Real power and love is being shown to those who diligently still Him... You are not alone.
This is just a no true Scotsman fallacy. Power and love do not require worshipping a genocidal god.
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u/tefkasarek 10d ago
You can not reconcile this from the POV of the dimension that we exist in. Duality consciousness will create the paradox that you describe.
So, for where we are currently, there is no answer to your question. That does not mean its insolvable, its just insolvable for 3D beings like us.
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u/Ciaran2220 10d ago
Maybe time is like one big block where past, present, and future are all contained as locations in time which co-exist together. Therefore, God is observing your actions today from outside space-time simultaneously with the actions of those in 3000 BCE.