First off, let me state that I fully recognise that not all theists subscribe to the Abrahamic notion of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent god or God.Here I am merely trying to illustrate an apparent paradox that exists with those who DO subscribe to this type of God belief and yet explain away the “problem of evil” by attrbuting the existence of “evil” to the free will of humanity which is granted by God(according to certain theists).
Free will can only exist in the uncertainty of knowledge.If God KNOWS that a human will do this then there cannot ever be a point which he had to make a decision as to whether to create humans or not.Either God does NOT “know” what will come of his own decisions(let alone OUR decisions) OR he DOES know ALL that will happen and could never have made a decision himself and certainly not hold us accountable for decions we could never have made.
For the sake or argument, I’m going to play Devil’s (God’s?) Advocate here. I propose that God is omniscient, but chooses to hide the future from His scrutiny just to make things interesting.
Another possibility is that our anthropomorphised vision of God is flawed, and concepts such as “free will” and “choice” are meaningless in the context of God’s actions. Intuitively, a being who created the universe must operate on principles seperate from, and possibly much different than, the laws of the universe that we are familiar with. Perhaps cause and effect have no meaning at that level.
Just a few ideas to make things a little more interesting.
FIrst off, how could he choose to hide what he does not already know?This is just another paradox.Either he KNOWS the future or he does not.Even if he “chooses” to not know, he would still lack omnicience.
As for the second part, this is the same old “God is not constrained by logic or physics” argument.It falls apart because either he exists as part of OUR reality and is therefore subject to the same constraints OR these constraints do not in fact exist themselves or his existence is “beyond” our reality and we cannot know of it until WE are ourselves “beyond” this reality.
Think of a 3 dimensional, spherical entity traveling through dimensions who comes upon and passes through a 2 dimensional universe.As the speher passes through he is percieved by the squares adn circles of 2 dimensional existence as just another circle that grows larger then shrinks before disappearing.
If the spere stopped and chatted with a “square” adn attempted to explain his 3 dimensional existence, it would all be gibberish.The square, being an entity that exists only in 2 dimensions could have no frame of reference from which to make sense of the sphere’s explanation.
If the sphere took the square by the “hand” and lead him into the 3 dimensional universe he would become a “cube” adn could no longer be constrained by 2 dimensions.
Either we become god-like ouselves to understand adn know his existence or he becomes an entity that is constrained by the limitations of logic and physics in OUR universe.
I’m curious…why do you assume “omniscient” means time does not apply to God? Maybe he knows all of “what is” and “what was”…why would he know all of what “will be”? I could see an argument for “cause and effect”…except that’s the whole point of free will isn’t it? A random factor that can change any equation.
I call myself agnostic…and of course nobody seems to agree on what THAT means…but I’m willing to admit to the possiblity of a Creator…maybe even lean towards that belief. What I want to know is: What is the POINT of man? What is our function? Some people say (religious phrasing aside) that our job is to recognize and be awed by Gods creations. I find that hard to believe…it would mean that He possess some of Man’s more primative emotions…ones that we strive (at least most of us "decent, hard working, NICE folks) to overcome. Would you think God is vain? If He saw His work and it was good…then why would he need us to stroke his ego? Then again, some people see humanity as having a function, involving free will as a mechanism…that is used to sort out Good and Evil. Collect all of Good in Heaven, Evil in Hell. Who knows…maybe this existance is mearly one “cycle” in a purification process…what’s after Heaven? Another life…where Good is further purified? (Ahh…incorporates Christian theology and Reincarnation too.) Then there is the “Defending Your Life” idea…which I kind of find interesting…where all of Life is but one stage in our individual evolution, that as individuals we spend many lives advancing ourselves to some unforseeable (as yet) end. (One of the counters to the reincarnation theory is that world population is increasing…well maybe Earth is a particularly hard task and some of us are taking longer to evolve than others!) And there is the Star Trek theory…that our “Creator” was mearly a more advanced being with a really cool chemistry set. Maybe he was lonely…maybe we were a mistake…maybe It exists on a different timescale and one day all the stars will go away when It wakes up from it’s nap and turns on the light to come back to this project. (And hope we aren’t some bacteria that sprang up and evolved to be removed with some cosmic Lysol!) One theory that I haven’t heard much of, but I find somewhat comforting is that when God was done with Creation he decided to give it to his children, but Life (meaning sentience) requires Life…and so He “died” and from his ashes came Mankind, the only creature that exists with a bit of God in us. Perhaps when we die our life force is gathered, pooled…and when mankind passes totally from this existance, He will be whole again, having experienced His creation from a billion billion different perspectives. Thus He/She/It will have evolved, becoming more omniscient…understanding Good and Evil, and Love and Hate, and peanut butter, and swedish message, etc.
Sirreal72:As I stated in the first post, I was mostly addressing a particular type of theist who DOES define omniscient as knowing all, including the future.If you do not believe in a god who can know the future then this post probably does not apply to you.
As for agnosticsm, agnostics can be either theistic or atheistic.I myself am an agnostic-atheist.An agnostic is not someone who is unsure of whetehr a god exists but rather someone who thinks that if a god existed then we could never know of it’s existence anyway and so the question is pointless.
Could you rephrase your original post, Godless?
What do you mean?Rephrase it how?
I disagree. An agnostic is someone who believes in a supreme something. We just aren’t sure it’s “mans” God.
I’m afraid that you’re incorrect. Perhaps there are some groups who misuse the term agnostic to mean what you say it means, but the dictionary definition is:
Not only is that the dictionaty definition, but that is the only definition that I have ever heard.
How can even an omnipotent, omniscient God be omnibenevolent, rather than omnimalevolent, except by choice?
How can a person love (or hate) God except by choice?
It’s also the definition which is used by The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Lately, it has become fashionable to describe that worldview as “soft atheism,” but every single reference book on philosophy that I’ve encountered so far uses the definition that you described.
By rephrase, I mean that I can’t make sense of your post right now. Also, there’s alittle confusion between posters…
Joe Random:That definition is mostly correct minus any atheistic/theistic clarification.The term was coined originally by Thomas Huxley in rection to the gnostics who seemed quite convinced that they had attained certain knowledge of God.Huxley was not only lacking in this knowledge himself but he was quite convcinced that that knowledge could never be had by ungodly minds(remember my analogy about the 3d entity communicating with the 2D entitiy?).In his view the question was unanswerable and pointless.
I am a Huxlian agnostic in that sense but really atheistic-agnosticism is not much different than “weak” or negative atheism.
While this does nothing to answer the paradox I presented it is interesting.“Benevolence” and “love” are subjective terms.A god who “chooses” to act benevolently according to his view of benevolence might be acting quite malevolently in some human’s view.In any case no matter how he acted he could not be doing so by choice if his actions were already determined beforehand and if all actions are predetermined then nothing has free will…only the illusion of choice at best.
In any case no one should be held accountable for things that were destined to happen before they were even born, which they could do nothing to change.
What part specifically has you confused?
I will try and make it simpler…
Premise:Decisions/choices are only made in uncertainty of knowledge.
Premise:For God to KNOW the outcome of each and every action…for God to know the future as he does the past, the future must be “set” and unchangeable(otherwise he cannot “know” it)
Conclusion:If the future is set and unchangeable then no one(including God) is making any decisions, for if they could make decisions which would affect future happenings then the future would not be set or knowable.
An example:God is looking into his scrying pool/crystal ball/whatever and he sees that I am about to step off of the curb into the path of an oncoming truck adn be killed.
As i stand on the curb waiting for the light to change can I suddenly decide to turn around and duck into the coffee shop as the truck goes by?If I do then I thwart the omniscience of God.If I cannot thwart the omniscience of God then I cannot make sucha decision.
GodlessSkeptic wrote:
Unless people are indeed making decisions everyday, and God happens to know what their decisions are going to be.
Not to hijack or anything (just to try and clarify my point), it’s like that scene in Matrix: Reloaded…
… where the Oracle tells Neo that he has already made his decision, now he just needs to figure out why he made the decision he did.
LilShieste
That would not change the fact that we could not be making any decisions.It would only go to us having the illusion of free will or not knowing everything was already decided.
The paradox remains:If God KNOWS This will happen then you cannot decide to do that.
Let me try adn clarify this a bit more because I always get this Matrix stuff whenever I post this question…
Example:God is sitting around 25 million years ago doing whatever a god does in his liesure time.He takes a quick pek into the year 2003 adn sees that I am going to post this very message to this message board right now.As soon as he KNOWS this it is SET.There is no changing it if it is absolutely known with certainty by an all-knowing god.
Therefore, when this moment comes around adn I am sitting at my keyboard I cannot decide to do ANYTHING different.I am not deciding anything at all becuase it has already been determined long before the creation of humanity.
Sorry about the typos.I have an annoying habit of switching my 'N’s adn 'D’s in the word “and” when I get to typing to fast.
OK, we’ve got us inside a 4-dimensional spacetime bubble, and our hypothetical God outside it. What rules of causality apply outside the spacetime bubble, we have no idea, so we don’t know jack about this God’s free will or lack thereof.
So God sees the cause and effect in here simultaneously. Predestination? Not exactly; more like simuldestination. He doesn’t know I will do X, or that I have done X; he knows I am doing X - for all my X’es at once.
Sure, from this God’s POV, we’re locked into our future - at the very instant that future happens. Simuldestination.