In one of the atheism threads a while back, a topic came up that stuck with me, and I wanted to look into it again.
My question is: How can we have an all-powerful and all-knowing being, who created the universe and everything in it, and still have free will?
If He knows everything, then He must know what we’re going to do at every crossroads in life. Furthermore, since He created everything, he set up the conditions that you are in when you make a decision; that combined with knowing what you will do seems to imply that he has already decided exactly what you are going to do in life. How can free will fit into this picture?
It seems such a basic question that I’m sure the religious groups have answered it, I just don’t see how.
I’ll take a stab. Assuming Divine Power (to be referred to as DP) has absolute knowledge of everything I will do, I can still have free will as long as DP just sits back and watches without interfering. With me so far? Now, assuming DP can influence what I do, or knows what I’m going to do because DP will make me do it, then I don’t have free will.
Just my opinion Feel free to poke at the holes I’m sure are there.
Just a quick note - this topic was recently (past three months, I believe) covered in a couple of good threads. I don’t mean to say, “stop, we’ve done this”; I know there are a lot of new members and this debate is a good one to keep going. But you might want to read the other threads, too, to gain some insight.
Ah, but the thing is, it doesn’t matter whether He interferes with me at all. The moment He decided he would create the universe, He knew exactly what every person would do until the end of time. Also, He decided what everyone would do, by the way he created everything.
Gilligan:
Oops, I didn’t know that. Do you remember what any of the threads were named? I’m not really new, but I often miss threads.
i like the idea set in The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. For non-Jordan fans, it goes like this: The wheel of time is a wheel on a loom spinning thread into a pattern thats been preset. The"Creator" knows what the pattern is going to be, but the threads can be woven in so many different ways to create that pattern…
so… we may make our own choices, free will, but no matter our choices, they will eventually lead to the end results set for us by the Creator…
does that make sense the way i explained it? i figure it helps to understand how people can believe both can happen at once. when you sew a pattern, it’s your choice to weave the thread over or under, but the pattern is still the same pattern when its done.
-i’m just this regular guy, ya’ know? ~Zaphod Beeblebrox
PeeQueue:
“The moment He decided he would create the universe, He knew exactly what every person would do until the end of time. Also, He decided what everyone would do, by the way he created everything.”
I see your point and have to agree. I think maybe we need to define terms a little better. Is DP omniscient (“all-knowing”) or omnipotent (“all-powerful”)? Does one imply the other? Can you set something up and not influence it? Say I offer you a chocolate or a pretzel. I (somehow) know that you will choose the pretzel. Does it matter to your free will that I know which you will take? I’m wondering how important the exercise of free will is in the OP - can we have it without ever using it?
I’ve read all The Wheel of Time books, so I know what you’re talking about. I understand how the system there works, but I’m more interested in how the traditional religions reconcile this. Are you implying that Christianity views fate the same way the pattern works?
CuBorab:
I do think it is possible to have an omnipotent DP without Him being omniscient and vice versa, but I’m pretty sure all the traditional religions regard Him as being both.
It’s a much more gray question when the DP only has one or the other, but when he has both…
For example, in your chocolate vs. pretzel question, say you not only know what I’m going to choose, but you also created me, therefore setting up my chocolate and pretzel preferences. You can say I have free will to choose what I want, but it is a meaningless concept since it is all determined by you beforehand. Saying someone has free will in a situation like that is the same as saying my calculator has free will; when I press 5 + 3 it can choose to display 7, but I know it won’t.
Similarly, how can God be upset or even punish those without faith if he created them and knew when he created them that they wouldn’t have faith?
I think the exercise of free will is important mainly to prove that it is there. If it is never exercised, how can anyone say that it exists? Back to my calculator example - maybe all calculators have free will, they just never exercise it.
“I do think it is possible to have an omnipotent DP without Him being omniscient and vice versa, but I’m pretty sure all the traditional religions regard Him as being both.”
I think you’re right - I was looking for your ideas on the separation of the two, and the consequent effects.
"say you not only know what I’m going to choose, but you also created me, therefore setting up my chocolate and pretzel preferences. You can say I have free will to
choose what I want, but it is a meaningless concept since it is all determined by you beforehand. "
Hey, wait! Maybe this is where omniscient vs. omnipotent comes in - I create you, specifically leaving alone your chocolate vs. pretzel preferences, even though I KNOW what you’ll choose in the end. Does this negate your free will, in your opinion? Can I create you, but leave you to develop preferences?
“Similarly, how can God be upset or even punish those without faith if he created them and knew when he created them that they wouldn’t have faith?”
Humph. I’ll let you know when somebody finally gives me an answer I find satisfying.
“I think the exercise of free will is important mainly to prove that it is there.
If it is never exercised, how can anyone say that it exists?”
I agree completely. I think if you have it but don’t exercise it, it becomes a psychological/spititual appendix.
PeeQ, actually, i come from a Jewish background, and there, it says only that we must try to do what is right, and follow the 318 commandments, but who’s to stop us from doing what we will do? or won’t do? As it stands, for several years now i’ve been pracitcing Falun Dafa, not so much a faith as an everyday practice involving excercise and meditation, Buddhist origin and beliefs.
-To note, i brought up the Wheel of Time idea because i believe it makes it easier to understand the concept of both being able to exist together. An omnipotent/omniscient being with a plan (ie. the pattern) and us facilitating the end result of that pattern. (When its all done, will he/she/it just hang it on a wall? ) It just sounds logical, and reasonable, and if i were an all knowing god, i think it might be more fun that way, how many different paths lead to the same place…etc…
Well, I think omniscience is the real kicker. The very concept of it implies that everything is fate; all our choices are pre-ordained. Omnipotence just places the blame.
I guess this in effect removes the “creation” part from the equation, thus removing the “blame” for the decisions on the creator. I still don’t see the free will if my decisions are already known.
We need to get some Christians in here. Anybody out there?
318 commandments?!? Yikes I didn’t know there were that many. The Wheel of Time books never say that the creator is all-knowing, and he’s certainly not all powerful since then there wouldn’t be the constant struggle with the dark one (and he cannot touch the world for fear of unravelling the pattern). I don’t think those books are that good of an analogy for omniscience and free will. Also, they seem to imply that there is no free will - witness the taverin and all those prophesies and such.
OK, let’s say that we mere mortals can claim omniscience about a situation. Suppose that there is a dog/child/old person in a busy intersection as you are crossing the street. If I can say, “PeeQueue will help the poor unfortunate cross safely”, and you do, have I predetermined your action? Suppose you know I am there? Suppose you do not? Does my presence influence you?
Sorry all I seem to be coming up with is more questions, but it’s hard to think of omniscience when I don’t think we could find a common (and agreeeable) example.
Here are the longer threads from February. There were a couple of others started around the same time, but didn’t get very far, so I didn’t include them.
PeeQ, i stand corrected then. you are correct. and yes, the old testaments lists that many commandments, no biggy, just means were going to hell, oh… wait, Jews don’t believe in a hell. Whew! thank God. oh yeah, back to god and all that, why not free will?
If someone is capable of seeing into the future, then knows what will happen, does that make them omniscient? if they know every detail of what will happen? how does that give them control over others? others still have to make their everyday decisions don’t they? if one feels as if one is being controlled, and does not have free will to make ones own decisions, would they know? how if they are being forced to make decisions leading them to think otherwise? or otherwise, why would we think to make our own decisions unless we did have free will?
All knowing, all powerful, doesn’t mean all controlling, just very very intelligent. can predict based on some pretty heavy calculating what is going to happen based on certain events. Perhaps we wouldn’t question our having free will if we didn’t have free will, would we be able to? why would we be given the chance to fight back to have free will? doesn’t make sense. We must have free will or we wouldn’t be making any decisions. Just becuase someone knows what will happen ahead of time, that just means they’re more in touch with the universe and its events. Like a gut feeling. Having intuition. Only much clearer, and broader.
-i’m just this regular guy, ya’ know? ~Zaphod Beeblebrox
Then it’ll really make you jump when I say that Orthodox Jews believe there are 613.
Of course, we believe that non-Jews are only required to observe the seven universal (aka Noahide) laws.
soulsing:
See above: Re # of commandments. And (Orthodox) Jews do believe in a hell.
Now, as others have said, this issue has been debated before. Here’s what I’ve said:
Yes, G-d knows the future. But the reason he knows what you will do in the future is because you chose to do that thing. In other words, your free choice was made prior to his knowledge of it.
However, our view of events is bound by physical time; his is not. Hence, he is omniscient…but that never constrained our free will.
Hope that helps; I’ve got a headache just thinking about the debates I had on this point a few months ago.
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
Thanks for the links. I must have seen at least the title of that thread before, since even my naming of this one is exactly the same! Some kind of subliminal stuff going on there…
Anyway, I will check out those threads and see if they came to any conclusions.
Without getting too deep into it for now:
I’m not doubting that we have free will, I’m doubting that there is some being out there that knows what I’m going to next, and pointing out a contradiction that I thought I saw in the teachings I had as a child.
cmkeller, that’s a good shot at an explanation. I’m gonna have to think it over. It’s obviously very hard for me to picture things without time as a framework.
Two questions for you, if you don’t mind:
Are you saying that the only reason He knows what we’re going to do is because He can view time the same way we can look at two ends of a road, and not necessarily because He can predict what we will choose? That is, when we were created, He left us with free will, and can tell what we are going to do because He can view what we did and will do, but prior to creation He did not know what His creation would do?
Is anything mentioned in the Bible about the creation of time?
Sorry, that’s kind of 3 questions.
CuBorab:
Sorry, I’m kind of skimming now since I want to look at those other threads too. My short answer is that I have a problem with the existence of omniscience at all - if you know what I’m going to do then my acts are pre-ordained and my choices are not my own. cmkeller seems to be putting forth a slightly different version of omniscience than I’ve heard before, so I’ll reserve my opinions on that for now.
Sheesh, I even posted in that other Omniscience vs. Free Will thread you gave me a link to. I must be losing it. After reading it again, though, I realize why the topic stayed it my head. There never was a real satisfactory answer to the paradox. If you read it, you’ll see what I mean.
That is what I’m saying. “Two end of a road” is as good an analogy as I’ve heard. Of course, G-d is capable of predicting anything he wants to, like we can…I predict that my beloved Royals will not come anywhere close to the 2000 World Series…however, we have the free will to surprise.
Also, do not take this to mean that he would be incapable of influencing our free will if he so desired. However, for reasons known only to him, he wants independently-thinking beings to exist, and therefore, he grants us free will.
Well, it’s kind of hard to say what “prior” means in G-d’s sense, and to what degree this sense existed prior to creation. I’ll simply say that G-d does not present a person with a choice knowing what he or she will do, but to see what he or she will do.
Not directly, but it does say in the Midrash that time was created at the same time the heavens and Earth (as per Genesis 1:1) were, and given what we know about the relativity between time and physical mass and acceleration, it stands to reason that time as we know it did not exist until G-d created the physical world.
And more will follow, no doubt…never apologize for honest inquiry.
thank you cm, again, i stand corrected. i’m not orthodox, nor observant, but i did attend yeshiva early in my childhood, and remember being told there was no hell. 613 sounds right though. thanx.
so…
your’re saying that we have already made our decisions, and the big cheese just knows that already, yet we don’t know it yet?
im a little confooosed.
-i’m just this regular guy, ya’ know? ~Zaphod Beeblebrox
That’s pretty much the gist of it. It is confusing, because our existence is so tightly bound with physical time such as we experience it. In the sentence above, you use the terms “already” and “yet”…we have no analog to describe that which is not bound by a time-line such as we are, so we are forced to use our own terms, which make the task very confusing. But G-d is (in Orthodox Jewish belief) not a physical being, and physical time indeed does not apply to him…confusing though it is for us to try to imagine such an existence.
Feel free to poke at the holes I’m sure are there.