# Omniscience v Free Will (Part Two) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 3, 2000, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401 "2000-02-03T00:48:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![StrTrkr777](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@StrTrkr777](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StrTrkr777)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/21 "2000-02-04T16:07:00Z")
Glitch, if we take the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis literally, we see that had God not wanted to give them free will He would not have even put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden. He knew that they would eat of the tree but He gave them the tree and that ate. Why? Because anything less would not allow man to truly love God. Let us say that you were to build a robot and as a part of its programming you have it tell you how great you are and how much it loves you. But since this robot has no ability to choose for itself what it says, does this mean anything to you? Not likely. They become just words uttered and become meaningless. Now instead you have children. These children grow and sometimes they tell you they love you and sometimes they may say they hate you. Because they are able to choose what they say, the words are not meaningless. If they say they love you, you feel good. It is meaningful. If they say they hate you, you feel hurt. It is this free choice that the child has that makes the bad so bad and the good so good. Same with God. Were he to not have given man choices, then the praises given to God would mean nothing. But because man can choose that makes them precious. Now A&E choose to eat of the forbiden fruit. They had to leave paradise. Cain killed Able, man doing things to hurt man continued. God knows what we are going to do, but he does not stop us due to free will. At best, he suggests a different course of action. Erratum, but the psychic did not take away the person’s free will. The person could have still decided what to do. If the psychic said, “Hey you are going to get hit by a bus.” The person could choose to ignore the message, they could choose to not believe the message, they could choose to heed the message. Then if they listen, they can choose a course of action. At no time was their free will violated. Sure they may have been given information about the future, but it was still up to them as to how they decided to act upon it. Let’s say the person going to get hit by the bus was trying to kill themself. Then when the psychic realizes that the message was not heeded, decides to take it upon themself to save this person. If the psychic acts accordingly, then the person wanting to die has had their free will compromised at least for a bit. They were stopped from doing what they wanted to do. God does not do this. Jeffery ---
**Author:** ![PeeQueue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@PeeQueue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeeQueue)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/22 "2000-02-04T16:23:00Z")
Ah, but you see, StrTrkr777, you bring up the very paradox itself. What free will did Adam and Eve have if God knew that if he put the tree there they would eat from it? Do you see it? If God is truly omniscient, then there are no different paths a man can take, because God knows the paths that he will take and God has set up the environment and is therefore responsible for the actions man made (again, because he knew what each man would do if faced with certain choices). PeeQueue ---
**Author:** ![PeeQueue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@PeeQueue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeeQueue)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/23 "2000-02-04T16:26:00Z")
I should have included this quote in my post: > [@](#): > > God knows what we are going to do, but he does not stop us due to free will. Do you see the contradiction in this statement? PeeQueue ---
**Author:** ![Erratum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cc9497/32.png) [@Erratum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erratum)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/24 "2000-02-04T16:35:00Z")
Jeffery: > [@](#): > > If the psychic said, “Hey you are going to get hit by a bus.” The person could choose to ignore the message, they could choose to not believe the message, they could choose to heed the message. Read my example again. An omnisicient psychic not only _knows_ what will happen, he _knows_ how we will react to it. The psychic _knows_ how his message will be responded to. The person crossing the street _believes_ he has free will, but the pyschic, by deciding what to yell, is _determining_ if the person lives or dies. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/25 "2000-02-04T16:43:00Z")
Are y’all equating determinism/free-will with cause-and-effect/chaos? ---
**Author:** ![PeeQueue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@PeeQueue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeeQueue)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/26 "2000-02-04T21:53:00Z")
Libertarian: I don’t think so. There doesn’t need to be chaos to be free will, and there can still be the notion of cause and effect alongside free will. Free will just implies that you can never put an **exact** cause/effect relationship together when _a human’s decision_ comes into play. An omniscient, omnipotent being, however, seems to, by its very existence, rule out free will, if you follow the above arguments. (OK, not sure what to do about all those commas) If the paradox mentioned above can be resolved, then I will rethink that. PeeQueue ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/27 "2000-02-04T22:10:00Z")
Well, I don’t think there _is_ any natural free will because of the self-referential problems that I see inherent in the natural brain/ego. You will simply do whatever your brain tells you to do. When I talk about free will, I mean simply as a free moral agent. It is a metaphysical, and not a natural, phenom as I see it. In other words, there are an infinite number of possible events and an infinite number of possible choices. All God did created, in a real sense, was the _potential_ for any of them. Yes, He knows what you will do **in every possible contingency situations in every one of the infinite potential universes**. But. But your decisions — your moral ones — are your own. Your free will is that you will choose which of the infinite potentials — all of which He knows, — will become manifest. ---
**Author:** ![CowJason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CowJason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CowJason)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/28 "2000-02-04T22:52:00Z")
> [@](#): > > An omniscient, omnipotent being, however, seems to, by its very existence, rule out free will, if you follow the above arguments. This is probably nitpicking, but omnipotent implies omniscient. Libertarian, let me see if I understand what you are saying. As I understand it, you don’t disagree that an individual is only capable of making a single decision when faced with a specific situation where multiple decisions might be applicable, because a man has no internal duality to choose against. You’re saying that since a man is only what he is, he will choose only that which he will choose. Or, if I could manage a metaphor, the script is already written to our lives, it’s just that our choices are bound to write it. If I understand you correctly, I would venture to geuss that most here, as they’re using the term “free will,” would put you on the determinist side of the ball. You also state that you believe in free will, by which you mean that one is free as a “moral agent.” My stab in the dark as to what you were getting at would be that you were simply stating that, despite, from an objective standpoint, only having one path that they could possibly take, man is still culpable for his actions, since he did, in the end, choose to do what he did by doing it. Somehow I think that this is probably not what you were trying to say, so if you could explain further your stance, I would appreciate it. That being said, I think that, by taking the most obvious definition of omniscient, the very act of knowing an action before the person who takes the action knows what he is going to do implies an unalterable future. Whether or not an unalterable future ammounts to a lack of free will, is another question. ---
**Author:** ![Glitch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/0ea827/32.png) [@Glitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glitch)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/29 "2000-02-04T23:04:00Z")
LIb: I am not sure why you differentiate between a decision and a moral decision. The scenario stays the same. Imagine we have person X. Person X is poor. Person X is presented with an opportunity to steal some money. Well, if God presents the event of a stealing opportunity and knows whether they will steal or not, then we have a free will violation. CowJason: Omnipotence does not necessarily equal omniscience. Omnipotence is the ability to do all that is doable. This specifically excludes those things which are not doable. Now, if you include omniscience in the set of doables then of course they are equal, but I don’t think it is trivial that omniscience is, in fact, doable. It is entirely possible that omniscience is in the set of describeable (it is describeable obviously, omniscience is the set of knowables). I would be interested in seeing a proof (other than circular reasoning, which is the most obvious “proof”) that omniscience is in the set of doables. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2000, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/30 "2000-02-05T16:52:00Z")
Glitch: > [@](#): > > I am not sure why you differentiate between a decision and a moral decision. The scenario stays the same. The difference is that decisions are made with the brain. Moral decisions are made with the heart. > [@](#): > > Well, if God presents the event of a stealing opportunity and knows whether they will steal or not, then we have a free will violation. As I see it, Glitch, God _doesn’t_ present the event of a stealing opportunity. What He does is present _every possible event_ — all of them, practically an infinite number, knowing every choice you would make in each one. Then, by your decision, one event manifests into “reality”. ---
**Author:** ![Erratum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cc9497/32.png) [@Erratum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erratum)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2000, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/31 "2000-02-05T17:14:00Z")
**Libertarian** : “_The difference is that decisions are made with the brain. Moral decisions are made with the heart._” Presmably you don’t mean that literally. I also don’t think that you believe in a non-physical component. What is this “moral” aspect of decision, and _why_ or _how_ is it different from the regular decisions we meake? ---
**Author:** ![Glitch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/0ea827/32.png) [@Glitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glitch)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2000, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/32 "2000-02-05T17:16:00Z")
If God doesn’t know what events will happen to me, then God is not omniscient, and so yes, we have no free will problem. To state it differently, the events that will happen in the universe is clearly in the set of knowables. To not know it means no omniscience. Also, infinte possible events seems contrary to Christian philosophy. What about God’s plan? And tests of faith? These are specific events that God has choosen for us. Lastly, a decision is a decision. It doesn’t matter what it is made with. Again, if a person is confronted with the decision steal/no steal, how that decision is made doesn’t matter, what does matter is whether God knows the outcome or not. Omniscience says He does, philosophy tells us He choose/created the event. Free will violation. Just in case it is needed: We know God created the event, because He created this specific universe. He could have created any universe, but He made this one. Omniscience tells us that at the time He made the universe He would have to know all the events and outcomes of the universe He was about to make. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2000, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/33 "2000-02-05T17:30:00Z")
> [@](#): > > The one question God never answers is “What if…?” Consider the concept of a plenum where all events are laid out in a space-time gridwork. Then consider your state as an observer of this plenum. Do _you_ as observer cause all those events? If yes, then you are God. If no, then free will must exist. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2000, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/34 "2000-02-06T06:22:00Z")
Poly: I wish I had your gift of expression and clarity. Erratum: On the contrary, I do indeed believe in a non-physical component. Specifically, I believe in a spiritual one. As I see it, a natural decision is a choice made by the ego, whereas a moral decision is a choice made by the spirit. The whole _purpose_ of the natural universe, in my opinion, is to serve as a context for the _real_ universe, the spiritual one, to act out its morality. Glitch: Forgive my boldness, but you cannot make a decision to steal with your brain. In a hypothetical theft, it is the heart that decides to steal. The brain merely decides how to carry out what the heart has commanded. ---
**Author:** ![Glitch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/0ea827/32.png) [@Glitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glitch)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2000, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/35 "2000-02-06T06:34:00Z")
Even if I accept your distinction, and it seems reasonable enough, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the event, and the outcome, both of which God knows if He is omniscient. Please show how a “heart made” decision makes any difference. There is still an outcome and God knows it. It sounds to me like you are trying to say that God doesn’t know the outcome of moral decisions. I don’t see why not. Why aren’t outcomes of moral decisions in the set of knowables? It sounds to me that you are saying they just aren’t, which if that is your opinion, okay, I’ll respect it, but it doesn’t make for a solid basis of point and counter-point. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2000, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/36 "2000-02-06T06:50:00Z")
Glitch: > [@](#): > > It sounds to me like you are trying to say that God doesn’t know the outcome of moral decisions. Gosh, you and Poly both! There you’ve summed up in one sentence what I’ve been trying to say now for months. [/quote] I don’t see why not. Why aren’t outcomes of moral decisions in the set of knowables? [/quote] Because He, in His omnipotence, _willingly and perfectly_ **disregards** , in His omniscience, _any and all knowledge_ about your moral choices. This was the only way that He could create you as a free moral agent. As such, you are _utterly_ free from His coercion. In other words, He _gave over_ to **you** His own knowledge. _You_ are the only one who knows what moral choices you will make. (Forgive the bolding and italicizing. Being unclear as I am in my expository, I hoped that a feeling of my speaking it might help.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2000, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/37 "2000-02-06T06:53:00Z")
And Glitch, this is the nature of the ablative relation you’ve heard me talk about. You really are, in a very real way, a very real part of God. A part of His knowledge, but apart from His. A part of His spirit, but apart from Him. ---
**Author:** ![Glitch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/0ea827/32.png) [@Glitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glitch)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2000, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/38 "2000-02-06T06:55:00Z")
That is exactly what I said in the other thread. The only way to maintain free will was with no omniscience or limited omniscience (i.e. God doesn’t peek). Everybody rejected that notion back then. Anyway, this proves my point, omniscience (with omnipotence) don’t mix with free will. Now, anybody interested in examining what the ramifications are of a universe created by God, in which He sets up events that He doesn’t know what will happen? ---
**Author:** ![Erratum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cc9497/32.png) [@Erratum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erratum)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2000, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/39 "2000-02-06T06:57:00Z")
**Libertarian** : “_On the contrary, I do indeed believe in a non-physical component. Specifically, I believe in a spiritual one._” Alright, then I am totally lost about your position. From your posts that I’ve read in the other Free Will threads, you seemed to be implying that humans were purely physical, and that God’s will was “merely” an objective standard by which to measure decisions made by physical humans. Now you say there is a spiritual component. Do you believe in a “ghost in a machine” dualistic philosophy? Please try to explain what you mean in plain language. Fact: Our actions in the physical world are caused by contractions of our muscles. Fact: The contraction of our muscles is caused by neuro-chemical messages from our central nervous system. Fact: Either the central nervous system itself must have caused these actions, or some ohter force interacts with the central nervous system to cause the actions. Question: Do you believe in a non-physical force which interacts with the central nervous system? If yes, why do you believe that this force is only in operation when “moral” decisions are made, and not when decisions like what to eat for lunch are made? (Some vegetarians would call that a moral choice ;)). Also, Glitch is absolutely right about the distinction you make between physical and spiritual being irrelevant. The question merely becomes “does the spirit have free will”. Also, in the other Free Will threads, you said that the spiritual component _always_ makes the correct moral judgement (and, I would argue, does not have free will in and of itself). You then asserted that free will was the ability to choose to follow the spirit or not, which moves the question _right back to the physical body_. Please try to explain what you mean clearly. I want to understand what you believe, but you are not articulating it in a way that I can understand. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2000, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401/40 "2000-02-05T19:01:00Z")
Glitch, I know it wasn’t on purpose, but you’ve completely ignored me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omniscience-v-free-will-part-two/17401.md?page=3)