# God cannot have free will himself...how can we? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 9, 2003, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739 "2003-06-09T23:34:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GodlessSkeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f9b8f/32.png) [@GodlessSkeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GodlessSkeptic)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/21 "2003-06-10T14:56:57Z")
RTFirefly:You are just restating the same “maybe God exists **beyond** our reality” argument.Two problems with that:1)You are attributing poorly defined and for all we know impossible traits to the already unsubstantiated God to expalin away a seemingly paradoxial set of characteristics.What you are in effect saying is “Maybe this is not a paradox from God’s perspective because his very existence is nonsensical to us”.2)If God exists in a reality where such constraints as logic and physics do not apply then he cannot have any impact on OUR existence.He effectively does not exist. ---
**Author:** ![ImNotMad2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f08c70/32.png) [@ImNotMad2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ImNotMad2)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/22 "2003-06-10T15:17:30Z")
How can God create our reality unless he is beyond it? Why wouldn’t the creator be actively involved in his creation? ---
**Author:** ![ImNotMad2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f08c70/32.png) [@ImNotMad2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ImNotMad2)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/23 "2003-06-10T15:19:39Z")
knowing != causing ---
**Author:** ![ImNotMad2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f08c70/32.png) [@ImNotMad2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ImNotMad2)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/24 "2003-06-10T15:37:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sirreal72 \* > **…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’s about our relationship with God himself. Being awed by God’s creation is nice, but the point of man is to love God. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/25 "2003-06-10T15:59:48Z")
Of course, this leads into the whole question of God’s motives in creating us then. Why does he need/want us to love him? Is that the single purpose of all of human existance and experience? And are we **required** to love “Him”? If not, then why give us options or circumstances to decide not to? Also, does omnipotence inevitably equal omniscience? Must the two go together or must one come from the other as a natural offshoot? If God is only one of these, would that be better or worse? ---
**Author:** ![GodlessSkeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f9b8f/32.png) [@GodlessSkeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GodlessSkeptic)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/26 "2003-06-10T16:09:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ImNotMad2 \* > \*\*How can God create our reality unless he is beyond it? > > Why wouldn’t the creator be actively involved in his creation? \*\* You are still ducking the question.The question is about predeterminism being incompatible with free will. I am saying nothing about whether God could be “beyond” our reality other than to say that in order for us to know/interact with such a being either our reality would have to change to allow for God’s existence within it or God would have to change to be constrained by the limitations of this reality.To say otherwise is akin to saying that a 3 dimensional object could exist in a universe of only 2 dimensions. ---
**Author:** ![ChordedZither](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9c0ed/32.png) [@ChordedZither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChordedZither)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/27 "2003-06-10T16:12:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GodlessSkeptic \* > \*\*RTFirefly:You are just restating the same “maybe God exists **beyond** our reality” argument.Two problems with that:1)You are attributing poorly defined and for all we know impossible traits to the already unsubstantiated God to expalin away a seemingly paradoxial set of characteristics.What you are in effect saying is “Maybe this is not a paradox from God’s perspective because his very existence is nonsensical to us”.2)If God exists in a reality where such constraints as logic and physics do not apply then he cannot have any impact on OUR existence.He effectively does not exist. \*\* I think your logic is sloppy, here, **GodlessSkeptic**. In case 1, **RTFirefly** does not have to assert that God definitely has that nature. _You_ have made the claim that there is a paradox - a set of mutually contradictory statements. He has simply pointed out a situation in which those statements are not, in fact, contradictory. There may be many (dare I say infinite) other ways to resolve this so-called paradox. That doesn’t matter. The existence of even one such resolution proves that this is not, in fact, a paradox. As to your second case, your thesis (physics and logic do not apply) is not implied by his statement, nor do your conclusions, either intermediate [no interaction possible] or terminal (God does not exist) follow logically even if we accept that thesis. I strongly recommend that anyone trying to cope with the ideas of omniscience, omnipresence, etc., begin by reading [Flatland](http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/) and consider the two sets of interactions between higher and lower dimension beings portrayed there. In each case, omnipresence and at least one kind of omniscience arise naturally from the higher dimensionality of one of the participants, without in any way restricting either the free will of the lower-dimensioned beings and without forgoing the possibility of interaction. ---
**Author:** ![GodlessSkeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f9b8f/32.png) [@GodlessSkeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GodlessSkeptic)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/28 "2003-06-10T16:18:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ImNotMad2 \* > \*\*It’s about our relationship with God himself. Being awed by God’s creation is nice, but the point of man is to love God. \*\* This brings up another paradoxial trait of Abrahamic gods…the notion that God is “perfect”.If God was perfect then he could want or need for nothing.Why then does he apparently need to create humans to love and worship him? WHy do people assume there is a “point” to man anyway?We will one day perish in a mass extinction just as dinosaurs and tons of other species have and right up until the moment that happens we will be reflecting on our supposed “grand purpose”(which is according to some, merely to fill an emotional vacuum felt by God!). ---
**Author:** ![GodlessSkeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f9b8f/32.png) [@GodlessSkeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GodlessSkeptic)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/29 "2003-06-10T16:29:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ChordedZither \* > \*\*I think your logic is sloppy, here, **GodlessSkeptic**. In case 1, **RTFirefly** does not have to assert that God definitely has that nature. _You_ have made the claim that there is a paradox - a set of mutually contradictory statements. He has simply pointed out a situation in which those statements are not, in fact, contradictory. There may be many (dare I say infinite) other ways to resolve this so-called paradox. That doesn’t matter. The existence of even one such resolution proves that this is not, in fact, a paradox. > > As to your second case, your thesis (physics and logic do not apply) is not implied by his statement, nor do your conclusions, either intermediate [no interaction possible] or terminal (God does not exist) follow logically even if we accept that thesis. > > I strongly recommend that anyone trying to cope with the ideas of omniscience, omnipresence, etc., begin by reading [Flatland](http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/) and consider the two sets of interactions between higher and lower dimension beings portrayed there. In each case, omnipresence and at least one kind of omniscience arise naturally from the higher dimensionality of one of the participants, without in any way restricting either the free will of the lower-dimensioned beings and without forgoing the possibility of interaction. \*\* Then according to YOUR logic, no paradoxes ever exist since we can explain them all away by simply stating that there might be a way around them which we don’t understand. \*Flatland \* is exactly where I pulled the examples of 3 dimensional beings interacting with 2 dimensional ones.It is largely responsible for this thread.Like most great literary works you can extract more than one “message” from it.What I got from it was the realization that the “Square” could never truly be a mere square again after becoming aware of the third dimension adn also could not explain this new knowledge to his former kin in the 2 dimensional universe. ---
**Author:** ![Sirreal72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sirreal72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sirreal72)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/30 "2003-06-10T17:37:17Z")
I _think_ I understand the original post now; Your not asking an open-ended question about God, you are contesting someone’s stated opinion that a) God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. b) Evil is a product of free will. (And this is where I’m guessing b/c otherwise I have misunderstood the question…again) c) God does not want evil to exist. Is this the paradox you speak of? “Evil cannot exist without God willing it?” No…I must be confused again. “A” and “B” you state…but what is “C”? What is the paradox? ``` As for predetermination and free will...well, I guess you have to define the rules for both terms. Attach a bomb to a Big Shiny Button, if you press the button you are predetermined to die in the resulting explosion. If you chose not to push the button you are predetermined not to die...by YOUR choice of pushing the button. (This isn't to say you won't die by explosion from a faulty ``` detonator, lightning striking the bomb, or ME pushing the button…but then you have no free will in those situations) We aren’t given free will over our own predetermination. That’s why I don’t understand why you think God can’t be omniscient and yet we still have free will…once you have made a decision your Fate is set in stone…until the next free will decision which will set your Fate in stone…until the next free will decision. The fact that there are a LOT of decisions made is just a matter of complexity…but it doesn’t change the lineiar existance we live. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/31 "2003-06-10T17:52:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GodlessSkeptic \* > RTFirefly:You are just restating the same “maybe God exists **beyond** our reality” argument. Where else would a God exist? A super-powerful being residing within our spacetime bubble wouldn’t be its creator, so wouldn’t be ‘God’ in the standard Western conception, which is the conception you appear to be disputing. And Western conceptions of God aside, a super-powerful being residing within the strictures of spacetime would be just that, no more and no less; what would make such an entity ‘divine’? > [@](#): > > Two problems with that:1)You are attributing poorly defined and for all we know impossible traits to the already unsubstantiated God to expalin away a seemingly paradoxial set of characteristics. What you are in effect saying is “Maybe this is not a paradox from God’s perspective because his very existence is nonsensical to us” OK, now you’re saying the Western-style God can’t exist at the same time as free will, because such a deity can’t exist to begin with. Then why involve free will in the discussion? Complaining that it’s unfair of me to place God outside of spacetime is to assume up front that there is no God. > [@](#): > > 2)If God exists in a reality where such constraints as logic and physics do not apply then he cannot have any impact on OUR existence.He effectively does not exist. Why? I’ve never played with ‘Sim City’ or any of these things, but presumably the game involves intervention in the lives of the Sims by the human players. How is the one different from the other with respect to the ability to invervene, despite not being subject to the rules of the lower universe? ---
**Author:** ![ChordedZither](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9c0ed/32.png) [@ChordedZither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChordedZither)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/32 "2003-06-10T17:53:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GodlessSkeptic \* > **Then according to YOUR logic, no paradoxes ever exist since we can explain them all away by simply stating that there might be a way around them which we don’t understand.** No. A paradox arises because simultaneously held statements are in fact contradictory. No one but you has claimed that a higher-dimensional scenario would be unbound by physics and logic. No one but you has claimed that this scenario is impossible to understand. From a mathematical perspective, I maintain that a resident of a higher-dimensional space intersecting our own within our conventional 3 dimensions could be omnipresent and omniscient (within the context of our subspace) without incurring the paradoxes you postulate. “A = B, A = 1, B =2” is a paradox. But what we have here is “P implies A=B, P implies A=1, P implies B=2”, which is _not_ a paradox because we retain the possibility that P is false. So if you want to state, “If a deity is constrained to reside entirely within our conventional 3-D space, then omniscience and omnipresence imply pre-destination”, you might be right. But remove the constraint, and the paradox goes away as well. The higher-dimension scenario may not be true, but it suffices to show that the coencepts you have challenged are not necessarily mutually contradictory. There may be other ways to show the same thing as well. This is not a matter of dismissing the paradox by invoking laws we don’t or can’t understand. This is child’s play compared to some some of the work in Physics using higher-dimensional explanations of unified theory. (Now _there’s_ a set of laws that I don’t understand!) > [@](#): > > \*\* > \*Flatland \* is exactly where I pulled the examples of 3 dimensional beings interacting with 2 dimensional ones.It is largely responsible for this thread.Like most great literary works you can extract more than one “message” from it.What I got from it was the realization that the “Square” could never truly be a mere square again after becoming aware of the third dimension adn also could not explain this new knowledge to his former kin in the 2 dimensional universe. \*\* Glad to hear it. But you’re talking about the psychological reaction of the characters to their novel experences, which is an entirely different discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Sirreal72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sirreal72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sirreal72)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/33 "2003-06-10T17:57:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GodlessSkeptic \* > \*\*…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. \*\* Isn’t that the second definition of agnostic that you provided? “One who does not profess a belief or disbelief in God”? And why would the question be pointless if we cannot know the answer? Can’t a question have value in and of itself, regardless of the answer? (“If a tree falls in the woods…”) Is it pointless to ask this question? Is there no value in philosophy? Personally I think atheists have tried to co-op the term agnostic. Atheism is a religion where the god is Null. I think agnostisim is the religion of accepting all religions (including atheism) as possible. OF course this is merely my opinion, and if yours differs…well, you might be right. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sirreal72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sirreal72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sirreal72)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/34 "2003-06-10T18:32:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GodlessSkeptic \* > \*\* > WHy do people assume there is a “point” to man anyway?We will one day perish in a mass extinction just as dinosaurs and tons of other species have and right up until the moment that happens we will be reflecting on our supposed “grand purpose”(which is according to some, merely to fill an emotional vacuum felt by God!). \*\* Because there is no point in NOT believing in a point? It gives us something to think about…and the human animal has evolved that trait above all others. If we were to decide thought was not worthwhile we’d have to evolve some other trait such as strength or speed. Mass extinction be damned…you’ll die long before that by slipping in the tub, or choking on a bone, or cancer, or be shot by a drunk with a gun, or etc…what is the point of living if you’re just going to die anyway? What’s the point of having kids that will one day die? Why create medicine to prolong the life of someone that will only live 80 years or so anyway? [P] If you truely want to believe everything is pointless then you have to understand you will not be warmly welcomed by the rest of humanity, because you will be a threat to the group. And maybe in the end your belief will have been the “right” one…but who cares? We had happier lives and that 's all there is in the world, right? ---
**Author:** ![sghoul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@sghoul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sghoul)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/35 "2003-06-10T19:04:20Z")
I don’t understand how you come to the conclusion that knowing the outcome of something means that there was no choice involved. I often “know” how people are going to act, or how a situation is going to happen, but that doesn’t stop it’s participants from making their choices. When I make a decision, God knows I was going to make it, yes. Because he knows me better than I know myself. That in now way means that I didn’t have choice. It simply means that my choice was foreseeable but someone who exists on the level that God does. ---
**Author:** ![ImNotMad2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f08c70/32.png) [@ImNotMad2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ImNotMad2)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/36 "2003-06-10T19:29:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GodlessSkeptic \* > **This brings up another paradoxial trait of Abrahamic gods…the notion that God is “perfect”.If God was perfect then he could want or need for nothing.Why then does he apparently need to create humans to love and worship him?** 1. The Abrahamic God is perfect _in all his ways_. 2. God needs for nothing: true, he’s infinite God. 3. God wants for nothing: false; after all, he does have a will 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![dal\_timgar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@dal\_timgar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dal_timgar)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/37 "2003-06-10T20:15:30Z")
God doesn’t have the option of being stupid. We do. ---
**Author:** ![Lilairen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lilairen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lilairen)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/38 "2003-06-10T20:26:31Z")
**Sirreal72** , it might be worth keeping in mind that “there is no intrinsic purpose for existence” is not the same as “existence is pointless”. Purpose is a creation of the mind; existence is a property of reality. I believe that purpose is intrinsically individual; my purpose has much more to do with my family than it does to do with my gods. An appeal to the divine for meaningfulness is, for me, superfluous. _My_ point is in living the best life I can, as the best person I can be; grand schemes and plans for the universe bore me to tears. Plant you seeds. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/39 "2003-06-10T21:54:42Z")
Isn’t it possible that we DO in fact have free will, and have freely willed God into existence? In other words, it may be that humans have free will, but God is merely a construct of humankind. WE have free will, but God does not-- nor is he omniscient or omnipotent because he exists only in our imaginations. ---
**Author:** ![Sirreal72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sirreal72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sirreal72)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739/40 "2003-06-10T23:19:26Z")
®/?-?i]Originally posted by Lilairen \* \*\* I believe that purpose is intrinsically individual; my purpose has much more to do with my family than it does to do with my gods. An appeal to the divine for meaningfulness is, for me, superfluous. _My_ point is in living the best life I can, as the best person I can be; grand schemes and plans for the universe bore me to tears. \*\* [/QUOTE] Sorry…it seems to me people sometimes use logic to argue about how things “should be” rather than what is…when of course if you take logic to extremes it has as much/little to do with reality as any other philosophy. I understand your point about individuals having distinct purpose…but we are not random creations, we all have affiliations. You declare your purpose to involve your family. Understandable…it is your chosen group. But we are usually part of more than one group or subgroup and we are loyal to them to different degrees…thus they influence your “purpose” to different degrees. I see religion to be a collective agreement on a standard of behavior…a way of determing what “being a good person” means. Politics and national identity can serve the same purpose. In small enough groups, family can serve. You don’t choose your religion/race/family/nationality … but you do decide how much you will follow the ideas they represent. You don’t want to be told there is a god, fine…you don’t want to be told there isn’t a god, fine. But everyone else feels the same way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-cannot-have-free-will-himself-how-can-we/180739.md?page=3)