# Believers: Why doesn't God save martyrs from torture and death? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 21, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853 "2009-04-21T15:16:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/101 "2009-04-23T22:00:26Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Well, for there to be _precisely_ as many births as there are pre-created souls, the extinction of man needs to be precisely on cue. If the species makes it that far God can just kill everyone, but for that to happen, the human ability to make the free-willed choice to nuke the planet into sheet glass has to be curtailed somehow. It’s not hard to count up the total number of human individuals there’ll ever be if you’re omniscient. And extinction doesn’t have to be traumatic. It could be as boring as humans having fewer and fewer children until the several remaining end up having none. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/102 "2009-04-23T22:06:35Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Well, for there to be _precisely_ as many births as there are pre-created souls, the extinction of man needs to be precisely on cue. If the species makes it that far God can just kill everyone, but for that to happen, the human ability to make the free-willed choice to nuke the planet into sheet glass has to be curtailed somehow. That’s what the Justice League is for. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/103 "2009-04-23T22:22:16Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > It’s not hard to count up the total number of human individuals there’ll ever be if you’re omniscient. And extinction doesn’t have to be traumatic. It could be as boring as humans having fewer and fewer children until the several remaining end up having none. Like I said, the problem wouldn’t be god extincting us at the right time (though I dispute that a worldwide plague of infertility wouldn’t be traumatic); the problem is that God has to somehow prevent some human getting overambitious and doing in everybody too _early_. Which may be a mite tricky to do under some of the various definitions of “free will”. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/104 "2009-04-23T22:34:03Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Like I said, the problem wouldn’t be god extincting us at the right time (though I dispute that a worldwide plague of infertility wouldn’t be traumatic); the problem is that God has to somehow prevent some human getting overambitious and doing in everybody too _early_. Which may be a mite tricky to do under some of the various definitions of “free will”. No plague needed, just an overall birth rate below replacement level. And there’s no “early” when you’re omniscient. Yes, we’re assuming that free will and omniscience are not necessarily contradictory, but **Diogenes** has me convinced they’re not. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/105 "2009-04-23T22:36:59Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > No plague needed, just an overall birth rate below replacement level. And there’s no “early” when you’re omniscient. > > Yes, we’re assuming that free will and omniscience are not necessarily contradictory, but **Diogenes** has me convinced they’re not. What? Can you edit that last sentence to be less confusing? I THINK you’re saying that ‘free will & omniscience are necessarily contradictory,’ but I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/106 "2009-04-23T22:42:05Z")
Clarification: Yes, we’re assuming that free will and omniscience are not necessarily contradictory, and **Diogenes** has me convinced that they are not necessarily contradictory. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/107 "2009-04-23T23:02:34Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > All species will go extinct, eventually. There’s no reason to expect the human species to be different. True, but there’s a difference between extinction and sudden, total lack of fertility. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/108 "2009-04-24T01:25:00Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > That’s what the Justice League is for. Or the Legion of Super Heros depended on yer century ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/109 "2009-04-24T01:45:17Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Or the Legion of Super Heros depended on yer century I’m not prepared to trust a super-group that admitted Bouncing Boy and Matter-Eater Lad but declined entrance to [her](http://media.photobucket.com/image/laurel%20kent/hokeyboy/laurel20kent.jpg) and [her](http://www.legionpics.net/showphoto.php?photo=23&cat=507). Such decisions indicate criminal irresponsibility. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/110 "2009-04-24T01:55:31Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > True, but there’s a difference between extinction and sudden, total lack of fertility. And I’ve been only talking about the former, not the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Quell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Quell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Quell)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/111 "2009-04-24T03:49:12Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Bolding mine. > > Based on the first bolded section, Bob is _not_ predictable - in the sense that God cannot know before Bob reaches a fork which path he will take. This presumes an unpredictable sort of free will, which incidentally implies that God isn’t really all that omnitient. > > The second bolded section, however, is quite clear that Bob _is_ predictable. As there are both “good” and “bad” ways for Bob to exit his decision tree, the ability to predict a “good” outcome explicitly means that some decisions are known in advance - which actually implies that _all_ decisions are known in advance, because to know that Bob will make the right choice at fork 3455123b, you have to know he will _get_ to that fork - which requires you to know all the decisions prior to it. > > So, which is it? Is Bob predictable, or isn’t he? He is generally predictable, but like a lot of people he can be very spontaneous and unpredictable. My point was that God doesn’t just see the path(s) Bob will actually take. God sees all possible combinations of all the paths Bob _could_ take and the only two outcomes… but God leaves the decision to Bob… if God did not allow Bob to live because he was a bad soul, then Bob would never have made the choice to become a bad soul. God doesn’t make us do anything… Satan doesn’t make us do anything… we choose what to do based off of influence and every choice has a consequence. ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Quell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Quell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Quell)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/112 "2009-04-24T04:00:57Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > If nobody could sin before adam and eve sinned, how could they sin? There was nobody before Adam and Eve. They sinned by disobeying God. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/113 "2009-04-24T05:31:41Z")
> [@Lacunae\_Quell](#): > > There was nobody before Adam and Eve. They sinned by disobeying God. God is nobody? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/114 "2009-04-24T14:38:25Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > There has to be some kind of decision making process being employed by God as to what he will create, and that process involves perfect foreknowledge. He either has to consciously _decide_ to create people who knows will choose evil or he’s not omniscient. This comes into the idea of what is omniscience. Wikipedia mentions two possibilities, “inherent” and “total”. Inherent being the idea that you can know everything, and total meaning that you do know everything. I’m more comfortable with the concept of a creator that can know and do everything, but chooses to leave some aspects of the universe out of his knowledge/control. So, God creates Man, God gives Man free will to do whatever Man wants to do, even if it is evil or against God’s wishes. In this case, the creation of Man actually serves some sort of purpose. At least, the Earth retains a smidgen of interest rather than simply being the real world playback of some movie that God made. > [@](#): > > Why does it stop being free will for any one of them just because all the others are freely choosing good? The individual aspect of free will is maintained, but the global aspect of free will is tainted. Free will implies a certain independence. Individually, people would be independent. Globally, God is interfering constantly, the makeup of the population is entirely dependent on the traits that God is selecting for. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/115 "2009-04-24T15:51:22Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > And I’ve been only talking about the former, not the latter. I think there’s going to be widespread terror and panic from any method of extinction that is not globally instantaneous. Including global infertility. > [@Lacunae\_Quell](#): > > He is generally predictable, but like a lot of people he can be very spontaneous and unpredictable. > > My point was that God doesn’t just see the path(s) Bob will actually take. God sees all possible combinations of all the paths Bob _could_ take and the only two outcomes… but God leaves the decision to Bob… if God did not allow Bob to live because he was a bad soul, then Bob would never have made the choice to become a bad soul. > > God doesn’t make us do anything… Satan doesn’t make us do anything… we choose what to do based off of influence and every choice has a consequence. You don’t get it - this is a question of absolutes. Either Bob is completely predictable, or he isn’t. If he isn’t, then, well, there are things that God _can’t_ know (regardless of whether he would choose to know if he could), which makes him non-omniscient by any standard. If God is omniscient, of course, then Bob can’t be “spontaneous and unpredictable” - to be unpredictable is a limit on God’s ability to predict you. At the moment it seems you aren’t saying that God isn’t omniscient. Is that your position? If so, I’ll try to remember (in this thread at least) and not whack you with “But God is supposed to omniscient!” arguments. > [@Lacunae\_Quell](#): > > There was nobody before Adam and Eve. They sinned by disobeying God. Man fell as a _result_ of Adam/Eve’s sin, so when they set about to _do_ the sin, they weren’t capable of doing so. This is a bootstrap issue - if sins aren’t allowed until after the first sin has taken place, there’s no way to get to the point where the first sin is possible. Or put another way, if the world is “good”, and can only become “ungood” after a prior “ungoodness” has occured, then the only way for “ungoodness” to _ever_ occur is if it was there all along. > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > This comes into the idea of what is omniscience. Wikipedia mentions two possibilities, “inherent” and “total”. Inherent being the idea that you can know everything, and total meaning that you do know everything. I’m more comfortable with the concept of a creator that can know and do everything, but chooses to leave some aspects of the universe out of his knowledge/control. So, God creates Man, God gives Man free will to do whatever Man wants to do, even if it is evil or against God’s wishes. > > In this case, the creation of Man actually serves some sort of purpose. At least, the Earth retains a smidgen of interest rather than simply being the real world playback of some movie that God made.The individual aspect of free will is maintained, but the global aspect of free will is tainted. Free will implies a certain independence. Individually, people would be independent. Globally, God is interfering constantly, the makeup of the population is entirely dependent on the traits that God is selecting for. For arguments like this, inherent omniscience is equivalent to total omnitience. Even if God chooses not to peek ahead and read the end of the book, the fact that he _could_ if he wants to means that the end of the book is fixed in stone and the characters within have no way to “change their destiny” by virtue of personal choice. If God has the mere _capability_ of knowing the future, then libertarian free will does not exist. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/116 "2009-04-24T16:14:16Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > This is a question of absolutes. Either Bob is completely predictable, or he isn’t. If he isn’t, then, well, there are things that God _can’t_ know (regardless of whether he would choose to know if he could), which makes him non-omniscient by any standard. If God is omniscient, of course, then Bob can’t be “spontaneous and unpredictable” - to be unpredictable is a limit on God’s ability to predict you. > > \ > > For arguments like this, inherent omniscience is equivalent to total omnitience. Even if God chooses not to peek ahead and read the end of the book, the fact that he _could_ if he wants to means that the end of the book is fixed in stone and the characters within have no way to “change their destiny” by virtue of personal choice. If God has the mere _capability_ of knowing the future, then libertarian free will does not exist. First off: begbergt, why do you keep writing _omnitience_. I believe the proper spelling is _omnipotence_. Are you using a different term, or is it simply a misspelling? Secondly: though I’m an atheist, I can see a way to resolve free will with omnipotence & omniscience. It begins by recognizing that omnipotent should not mean “capable of doing absolutely anything that can be expressed in words”; it should mean “capable of doing anything that is logically possible or self-contradictory.” An omnipotent being cannot make an invisible pink unicorn, because making an object invisible removes its pinkness, and vice versa. as someone quoted C. S.. Lewis as saying above, a nonsensical sentence does not become sensical merely because “God” is its subject. In the same vein, “omniscient” can be taken to mean “potentially capable of finding out anything desired,” rather than “constantly and simultaneously cognizant of all events and states in the universe, regardless of when said states & events occur.” With those two qualifiers in mind, I can postulate a Deity who desires the company of free-willed entities. To do so, this Deity creates a universe with given physical laws, and then ropes off part of that universe – specifically, the actions of the free-willed entities – from its control. In other words, the Deity _could_ know, if it chose to, what any given entity as going to do; but it _does_ not, because knowing, in the case of an entity with such power, is equivalent to causing, and the Deity prefers that some actions be uncaused. Such an entity would still be able to predict the actions of its creatures with great accuracy, in he sense that a meteorologist can predict the weather) because it knows their natures so well (having created them); but such predictions are not _bound_to be true, because the Deity has freed them of its direct control. Here’s an analogy. Let’s say I’m working on a story to amuse myself. I set up the rules by which my fictional universe works. But because I want the total story to be somewhat out of my conscious control, I decide that the protagonists’ actions in matters of say, walking to work will be determined by rolling a pair of dice., and choosing the route the character takes to work based on what number comes up. I still potentially have control over the character’s choice, because I can decide, rather than rolling the dice, to simplypick them up, reorient them,and them on the table with snake-eyes coming up. But I don’t, because I want to be surprised from time to time. I am thus, in terms of the story, omniscient and omnipotent in the senses I gave above–potentially, and limited only by my decision to limit the exercise of my power. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/117 "2009-04-24T16:22:03Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I think there’s going to be widespread terror and panic from any method of extinction that is not globally instantaneous. Including global infertility. Is anyone even reading what I write? I’m not talking about infertility. I’m talking about extinction because of the global birth rate being slightly below the global death rate. Something like 999 births for every 1000 deaths. The decline in population would be very very slow. No trauma because the change would be small in any individual’s lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/118 "2009-04-24T17:08:13Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > First off: begbergt, why do you keep writing _omnitience_. I believe the proper spelling is _omnipotence_. Are you using a different term, or is it simply a misspelling? It’s a misspelling that I have, until pretty much moments ago, mistakenly beleived was correct for _omniscience_. (The t was as in “creation”, in my mind). Nothing to do with omnipotence. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Secondly: though I’m an atheist, I can see a way to resolve free will with omnipotence & omniscience. It begins by recognizing that omnipotent should not mean “capable of doing absolutely anything that can be expressed in words”; it should mean “capable of doing anything that is logically possible or self-contradictory.” An omnipotent being cannot make an invisible pink unicorn, because making an object invisible removes its pinkness, and vice versa. as someone quoted C. S.. Lewis as saying above, a nonsensical sentence does not become sensical merely because “God” is its subject. > > In the same vein, “omniscient” can be taken to mean “potentially capable of finding out anything desired,” rather than “constantly and simultaneously cognizant of all events and states in the universe, regardless of when said states & events occur.” > > With those two qualifiers in mind, I can postulate a Deity who desires the company of free-willed entities. To do so, this Deity creates a universe with given physical laws, and then ropes off part of that universe – specifically, the actions of the free-willed entities – from its control. In other words, the Deity _could_ know, if it chose to, what any given entity as going to do; but it _does_ not, because knowing, in the case of an entity with such power, is equivalent to causing, and the Deity prefers that some actions be uncaused. Such an entity would still be able to predict the actions of its creatures with great accuracy, in he sense that a meteorologist can predict the weather) because it knows their natures so well (having created them); but such predictions are not _bound_to be true, because the Deity has freed them of its direct control. > > Here’s an analogy. Let’s say I’m working on a story to amuse myself. I set up the rules by which my fictional universe works. But because I want the total story to be somewhat out of my conscious control, I decide that the protagonists’ actions in matters of say, walking to work will be determined by rolling a pair of dice., and choosing the route the character takes to work based on what number comes up. I still potentially have control over the character’s choice, because I can decide, rather than rolling the dice, to simplypick them up, reorient them,and them on the table with snake-eyes coming up. But I don’t, because I want to be surprised from time to time. I am thus, in terms of the story, omniscient and omnipotent in the senses I gave above–potentially, and limited only by my decision to limit the exercise of my power. I think your analogy highlights the fact that, if the being is omniti- -omniscient by any definition, then unpredictability is _not_ possible. When you roll the dice, the action is by definition unpredictable (uh, assuming that you can’t predict dice). To _make_ the situation predictable, you have to _alter_ the decision-making process from dice-rolling to dice-placing. That is, _change_ the decision-making process from an unpredictable one to a predictable one. Basically you are not turning your ‘omniscience’ on and off - you aren’t omnitient, because if you were, you’d be able to predict the characters without changing _them_ into something predictable. I can make any animal’s behavior predictable by killing it, but that doesn’t make me omniscient; that means I’m asserting control over the situation. For a god to be truly omniscient, he would have to be capable of predicting _any_ circumanstances, _without_ changing them. Which means that all circumstances, including all human behaviors, are ultimately predictable. Whether or not god decides to pay attention or ask himself about it. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/119 "2009-04-24T17:58:37Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > It’s a misspelling that I have, until pretty much moments ago, mistakenly beleived was correct for _omniscience_. (The t was as in “creation”, in my mind). Nothing to do with omnipotence. [Amateur philologist] The “sc” in “omniscience” is pronouced as _sh_, which is **not** a blend of the sibilant _s_ and aspirated _h_ but a separate sound entirely. As that sound can also be spelled _ti_, and often is, your misspelling is understandable. [/amateur philologist] On to the meat of the discussion… > [@](#): > > I think your analogy highlights the fact that, if the being is omniti- -omniscient by any definition, then unpredictability is _not_ possible. When you roll the dice, the action is by definition unpredictable (uh, assuming that you can’t predict dice). To _make_ the situation predictable, you have to _alter_ the decision-making process from dice-rolling to dice-placing. That is, _change_ the decision-making process from an unpredictable one to a predictable one. > > Basically you are not turning your ‘omniscience’ on and off - you aren’t omnitient, because if you were, you’d be able to predict the characters without changing _them_ into something predictable. I can make any animal’s behavior predictable by killing it, but that doesn’t make me omniscient; that means I’m asserting control over the situation. > > For a god to be truly omniscient, he would have to be capable of predicting _any_ circumanstances, _without_ changing them. Which means that all circumstances, including all human behaviors, are ultimately predictable. Whether or not god decides to pay attention or ask himself about it. I disagree. The problem with the the usual notion of omniscience is that, in asserting that God has perfect knowledge of the future, it must also be true that God is somehow outside of time; that God exists in a time-frame separate from that experienced by mortals and that the mortal perception of linear time is flawed. If such is not true, then it’s possible for God surrender a portion of his/her/its omniscience voluntarily. The absolute omniscience many persons attribute to the Deity is a function of omnipotence. It’s much clearer that omnipotence need not be exercised; I’d say that the same is true of omniscience. But at this point we’re arguing over the meaning of the _word_ omniscience rather than the implications of a particular _definition_ of omniscience. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853/120 "2009-04-24T18:14:00Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I disagree. The problem with the the usual notion of omniscience is that, in asserting that God has perfect knowledge of the future, it must also be true that God is somehow outside of time; that God exists in a time-frame separate from that experienced by mortals and that the mortal perception of linear time is flawed. If such is not true, then it’s possible for God surrender a portion of his/her/its omniscience voluntarily. The absolute omniscience many persons attribute to the Deity is a function of omnipotence. It’s much clearer that omnipotence need not be exercised; I’d say that the same is true of omniscience. > > But at this point we’re arguing over the meaning of the _word_ omniscience rather than the implications of a particular _definition_ of omniscience. Well, I’m arguing that by _any_ definition/meaning of the word omniscience\* , if any being has omniscience, then it unavoidably follows that everything is predictable. The crux of my position is that the issue in question is if things are predictable. It’s about whether anybody is able to predict them, not whether they ever actually get around to doing so. Regardless of the mechanism by which a diety has its omniscience, that mechanism is either _capable_ of predicting human actions with certainty, or it isn’t. That capability is the determining factor in whether things are predictable, not whether the mechanism or omniscience is ever brought to bear on the individuals in question. To explore this with the analogy to omnipotence, if something is ‘uncontrollable’, then that means that God couldn’t control it _even if God wanted to_. It’s immaterial wether he tries to or not. If God _could_ control the object, then it isn’t uncontrollable, regardless of whether God ever actually does so. A failure on god’s part to _exercise_ its powers of omnipotence or omniscience merely makes it difficult to know if the individual is or isn’t subject to God’s power. It doesn’t change the fact that, wether or not we can tell either way, the object either is, or isn’t, subject to that power. - excluding explicity selective definitions of omniscience, like “God knows everything in the past or present, but cannot predict or know anything about the future at all”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-doesnt-god-save-martyrs-from-torture-and-death/493853.md?page=7)