While it’s true that the arguments are different, I still take issue with you asserting “God is destined to know what you’ll do” in favor of rejecting “you are destined to do what God knows you’ll do”.
The former statement limits God by time by implying that his destiny is premised on your actions. But God is not bound by what you do. He existed before existence.
What’s your view about God being able to create a square circle?
I think he can’t–not because there’s a limit on God, but because the rules of our language disallow us from being able to say “X created a square circle” and have the statement be true. The rules of our language force that sentence to be false.
I have a similar (but of necessity more complicated) view concerning God’s knowledge of our actions. Part of the definition of knowledge is that it is a true belief. When I say that God is “destined” to know what I’ll do, I don’t mean there’s a limit on God, rather, I mean that the rules of our language (what “know” means in our language, as well as “omniscient”) determine that whatever we do, we will have to affirm that God knew in advance that we would do it. We will always have to say “God knew it.” That’s what I mean by saying “God is destined to know it,” similarly to the way that when I say “God can’t create a square circle” that’s just because whatever he creates, we won’t be able to call it a “square circle.”
The limit (if it’s right to call it that) is to be found in our language, not in God’s relation to the world.
I don’t have a view about it, to be honest. But if someone held a gun to my head and forced me reason this out, I’d say that he could do this simply by altering how a circle and square are defined in an alternate universe.
So “God is destined to know what you will do” is equivalent to saying “God knew what you would do”.
And also, since God isn’t bound by time, this statement is equivalent to saying “God knows what you did, are doing, and are going to do.” He knew this always.
You’re saying that just because he knows all of this, it doesn’t mean you’re destined to act a certain way. You could do differently than what you actually do. You just didn’t/don’t.
To me, that’s like saying that Darth Vader could have squawked like a bird, he just didn’t. While this in theory is true, it is not possible for this character to have done this and still have the movie be the same Star Wars that we all know. It would be a different movie, and therefore, a different character. And in this new movie, Darth Vader would be stuck with squawking like a bird; no free will for him, either.
Do you have evidence of there being any different realities than the one you’re aware of now? No, you don’t. All you have is this one that you’re conscious of. The past, present, and future of this reality are already known by God. In this reality, you can’t do anything that causes the future to differ from what God knows will occur. Maybe in some other reality you will have an opportunity walk down a different path, but that’s not a given. The only given is this reality.
I don’t know if this makes anything clearer. Probably not, but at least I tried.
Hrm… it sounds like you think definitions are metaphysical realities independent of human minds. But they’re not, are they? Don’t definitions in every case depend for their existence and force on human conventions?
I think if Vader had squawked like a bird, he wouldn’t have been Vader, and it wouldn’t have been Star Wars.
If Vader, on the other hand, had said “You will find out who your father is soon enough!” and left it at that, he would still have been Vader and it still would have been Star Wars.
The fact that we know Vader won’t say that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have said that.
Again, my argument really is this simple:
Seeing things doesn’t make them necessary.
In a different universe, human conventions and natural law could very well be orderered so that there’s no conflict between a square circle. I’m a peanut-brained human, so who am I to say this is not possible.
But I will say that in the reality that you and I consciously inhabit (let’s call this Creation 1.0), a square circle is not possible. Following me?
Right. A square circle doesn’t exist in Creation 1.0. Maybe it exists in Creation 983.20353. But its incompatible with Creation 1.0, which is the only reference we have.
A squawking Darth Vader is incompatible with the Star Wars that we know, as well. Maybe it’s not incompatible with an alternate version of the saga. But we have to call this alternate version something else.
Tell that to the geek who lives and breathes the line “Luke, I am your father.” To the geek who adores Star Wars and knows the movie like only a geek can, your assertion here is blasphemy. Altering a single aspect, no matter how minute, about the original movie represents a violation; the movie ceases to be the same thing. This is why remastered versions of Star Wars are labeled as such. Becauses the purists will not tolerate confusion between the two. The differences may be slight, but it’s folly to say they’re the same movie.
You might as well be saying “The character that we know as Darth Vader didn’t squawk like a bird, but that doesn’t mean (the character that we know as) Vader couldn’t have done so.” But yes, we do know this. Because if he’d squawked like a bird, he wouldn’t be the same character that we know. He’d be some other character from some other movie who possibly has the same name but nevertheless exists independently from the character that we do know as Vader.
You can’t do this without committing oversimplification.
When it comes to square circles, you restrict yourself to Creation 1.0 when you conclude that God can’t do this. But when it comes to free will, you point to other realities that allow you to take alternative actions. I don’t think you’re aware that you’re doing this, but it’s clear to me that you are.
Maybe you should define what you mean by free will. In your example, the person thinks he has free will, in that he makes a choice with no visible input about which it would be. But the outcome of his choice is known from the beginning of time. Thus, there is a hidden variable here in someway ensuring that he makes the choice that God has seen ages ago. He may think he has a choice, but actually the results of his choice are constrained, predetermined, and not from God’s authorship but just from God’s knowing. It is of course absurd to think the person made the choice billions of years before he was born.
Maybe that would be a good argument for souls. Each of us makes all of our choices at the beginning of time, whenever god creates souls, but can’t implement them until we are born. Then you have free will and no conflict.
It’s not that I’m unaware I’m doing it–it’s that I reject the distinction.
There’s no such thing, in my opinion, as any kind of alternate reality in which there can be square circles. The rules of the language I speak rule out the possibility outright–there could not be anything which I could correctly call a “square circle.”
So you and I disagree, basically, on the nature of possibility. That’s a long conversation to have. But it’s because of this disagreement that we disagree about the issue at hand–I think there could be no square circles, and my action is logically prior to God’s knowledge. You think there could be square circles, and God’s knowledge is logically prior to my action. I think in both cases, your view is ruled out by the rules of the language we’re speaking. The square circle problem is easier to talk about, but I think the foreknowledge problem can be settled in a more complicated version of the very same way.
But, like I said, our fundamental disagreement is over the language and epistemology of possibility. That’s a huge conversation which I wouldn’t even know how to begin.
It may or may not be a good argument for souls, but it’s a perfectly good illustration of the fact that the argument “God foreknows, therefore I have no freedom” is invalid. You’ve provided a countermodel–you’ve shown that it could be that God foreknows, yet people have freedom. Thanks! ;)
(As for what I mean by “free will,” in this thread I’ve been assuming the Libertarian notion of free will, i.e., the idea that a will is free with respect to X if and only if it is physically possible both for the will to do X and for the will to refrain from doing X. That’s actually not my own notion of free will–but I’m a compatibilist, which most people think means I don’t really believe in free will anyway. I’m just pointing out that the argument’s invalid; I’m not arguing that we actually have free wills.)
(And my argument is that god’s foreknowledge doesn’t make it physically impossible for me to do otherwise any more than does my post-knowledge make it physically impossible for my kid to brush his teeth this morning.)
(In each case, the knowledge makes it epistemologically impossible for the knowing agent that things might be otherwise. But this has no implications for the question whether it was physically possible that things could have gone otherwise.)