Does God's foreknowledge take away from free will?

by Christ Alone 317 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Bobcat

  PS:

  After reading your most recent posts, I can see how "semantics" could make it difficult to evenly discuss this topic.

  For example, take a roll of the dice. There are only 6 possible variations of outcomes. So, before it is rolled, you already know every possible outcome of a roll.

  Does knowing that the outcome will be between 1 and 6 constitute foreknowledge? I could see where one person might say 'yes,' and another might say that true foreknowledge requires knowing the specific number that shows up after the roll.

  My feeling about that is that both sides of that question are involved. Or, to put it another way, both points of view are, in fact, the same point of view. In the case of a die (dice?), the fact that it has 6 numbered sides is just one of that object's characteristics. If that is the only characteristic that you are familiar with, then, your ability to foreknow the result is limited to knowing that a roll could produce anywhere from 1 to 6.

  If you could know how it's molecular weight was distributed throughout the cube, then, you could begin to weight the probabilities of which number was more likely to show up as compared to any of the other numbers. That additional knowledge increases your ability to foreknow.

  Using this as a basis, then, the amount of one's knowledge and/or understanding directly relates to his/her ability to foreknow the future. Weather forecasters might be another good example. As their equipment and experience improves, their forecasting improves.

  Transferring that to God, if he "knows all things," then, His foreknowledge should be total - unless, He has inserted random elements into His universe. In which case, His foreknowledge would have to be something less-than-total.

  Incidentally, in Bryan Green's book "The Elegant Universe" (or it might have been "The Fabric of the Cosmos," I can't remember which off hand), but he posits that if someone could know the state of every particle in the universe, he would also know the future. He wasn't trying to describe God, but I thought it was interesting his tying of present knowledge to the ability to see the future.

  I think some people would view "foreknowledge" as a seperate skill, unrelated to any other abilities, so that God can foresee anything, at will, regardless of any other factors. But I don't see it that way. But I do see the future as always related to the present. (Compare Gal 6:7)

  At any rate, thanks for putting up with my ramblings.

  Take care
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  PSacramento

  Transferring that to God, if he "knows all things," then, His foreknowledge should be total - unless, He has inserted random elements into His universe. In which case, His foreknowledge would have to be something less-than-total.

  There are those that share both views, yes.

  One view is that God knows all that He can know WHEN He wants to know it ( limited omniscience).

  EX:

  God's Omniscience

  Writing around 400 A.D., Augustine articulated the view that God created time and resides outside of it; thus God has immediate access to all knowledge, past, present, and future. Christians who hold to this tradition believe God eternally knows what creatures will do. Other Christians believe that in creating time God has limited his knowledge in such a way that God does not know in advance all the details of future occurrences. God knows everything that could happen. But until creatures act and/or freely choose, God does not know with absolute certainty which possible outcomes will be realized. However, neither of these perspectives conflicts with the existence of genuine chance – for Christians who understand chance in terms of God’s sovereign love, “divine sovereignty” does not mean “God always controls creatures.”

  We have seen that the existence of chance is fully compatible with God’s sovereignty. There is still a major outstanding question, though – even if we grant that God uses chance to accomplish his purposes, are chance and other natural mechanisms adequate to account for the diversity of life on earth from the most elementary creatures up through humanity? Two perspectives seem compatible with both the existence of chance and God’s sovereignty. One is that God has endowed his creation from the beginning with the capacity to unfold in certain ways; non-deterministic events are among the mechanisms by which this unfolding takes place. Recent discoveries in convergent evolution encourage this perspective. The other is that God guides the unfolding of creation by steering the operation of non-deterministic processes toward outcomes of God’s choosing. Both are plausible; in fact both may be true. But at this time neither scientific nor theological knowledge is adequate to say more.
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  Bobcat

  PS:

  Thanks for that bit of history!

  Take Care
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  EntirelyPossible

  Technically, I suppose there must be... because we have free will.

  Is He going to be wrong... no.

  Interesting attempt to cheat the question.

  It doesn't seem like a conflict, math wins. In the vast vast, vast number of things that happens in the universe, actions that people take, if there is a possbility that God will be wrong, some percentage of the time, it WILL happen. Otherwise it is foreknowledge, zero free will, your fate has been decided without you.

  He could make a very intelligent guess or surmising of what EP will eat for lunch, and probably would be right most of the time - if he had an interest in doing that.

  So God guesses? There is a chance he could guess wrong?

  God can never be wrong about what we will do if God knows every possibility.

  As I said before, on a flight I was on last week the flight attendant knew all possibilities when she asked me what I wanted for lunch. This is more about God know specific outcomes.

  One view is that God knows all that He can know WHEN He wants to know it ( limited omniscience).

  So this leads to thhe possibility that God could miss knowing something important. IOW, without knowing the future, how does he know when he needs to take a peek?
• 

  Bobcat

  EP:

  So God guesses? There is a chance he could guess wrong?

  When I used the term, "guess," I wasn't intending any derogatory meaning. To me, a prediction based on a probability would technically be a "guess." I 'guess' this is another example where "semantics" makes for some difficulty in communication. (Although, I did qualify "guess" with "intelligent.")

  And yes, a prediction, based on a probability, could be wrong. That is the heart of the "Heizenberg Uncertainty Principle."

  I would "guess" that the one making the prediction, if he had a reputation to maintain, would weigh out the possible cost to his reputation before deciding to make the prediction. Or, he might use whatever means are at his disposal to make sure the prediction comes true.

  Interestingly, the first atomic device was detonated near Alamagordo(?) with the scientists knowing that there was a small percentage possibility that the explosion would be much bigger than it turned out to be - with dire consequences to the earth. The detonation amounted to a prediction, based on a probability.

  By the way, I hope you don't think I was holding any derogatory views towards you. I just found the idea in this discussion very intellectually stimulating. The lunch example included you simply as a convenience, nothing else.

  Take Care
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  tec

  EP... and that brings us right back to square one. Knowing what someone is going to do ... is not taking away their free will. It is simply a matter of knowing them well enough to know what they will choose (or not choose) to do. That can be demonstrated, albeit on a small scale.

  Can we be right about everything we think we know? No, we can't... because we are limited in our perspective. VERY limited. God is not so limited. You stay with the human race from its conception, seeing what they do, what their words are as opposed to what their deeds are, their actions time and time again, the choices that they make. Scholars in behavioral sciences can make educated predictions or statements about certain types of people... and even THEY are extremely limited.

  Peace,

  tammy
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  EntirelyPossible

  (Although, I did qualify "guess" with "intelligent.")

  It's still a guess that has a percentage chance of being wrong.

  I would "guess" that the one making the prediction, if he had a reputation to maintain, would weigh out the possible cost to his reputation before deciding to make the prediction. Or, he might use whatever means are at his disposal to make sure the prediction comes true.

  So only guessing about thing that you are 100% sure about or things where you can affect the outcome upholds your reputation? Reputation as chicken, perhaps.

  The detonation amounted to a prediction, based on a probability.

  So they honestly said it was a prediction with a percentage to be wrong? Science (and math) wins again.

  By the way, I hope you don't think I was holding any derogatory views towards you. I just found the idea in this discussion very intellectually stimulating.

  Not at all.

  The lunch example included you simply as a convenience, nothing else.

  Or... it's a perfect example.

  OK, off to take my 4th flight of the day. Yay....
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  EntirelyPossible

  EP... and that brings us right back to square one. Knowing what someone is going to do ... is not taking away their free will.

  OK, once again, is this know as is guess or know as in there is zero percent change the knowledge could be wrong?

  It is simply a matter of knowing them well enough to know what they will choose (or not choose) to do. That can be demonstrated, albeit on a small scale.

  Yes, with the certainty of being wrong sometimes. Does that happen with God?

  Can we be right about everything we think we know? No, we can't... because we are limited in our perspective. VERY limited. God is not so limited.

  Of course not. No one suggesting humans are. So, again, is there ANY chance God could be wrong in his guess?
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  prologos

  A factor in Gods ability to "forsee" events is the fact that it might not be foresight at all, but just Gods "Sight" period.

  Consider the fact that all information we receive is from the past. The most stunning demonstration of that is to see a thunderbolt and then have the bang arrive 3 seconds later, or to watch a space launch and feel it starting to rattle your teeth later. . so:

  You could awe a blind person with your "foreknowledge" by "predicting" that in x seconds she will hear an earth-shattering noise,--- because you just saw a lightening flash, but she could not.

  compared to the 600mph/ 100kmh sound perception, the absolute speed for US to get ANY info is "c" 300 000km/sec a nice round figure=186K M iles/sec.

  Because we MOVE TROUGH TIME, all info we receive is already UNALTERABLE history. We send messages into the future, but they will be received from the past.

  But it can be shown that the Creator does not MOVE through time as we do, --GOD IS-- in time. He IS eternal in the past and future. He is able to see events as they happen. To illustrate: He could tell us all what has happened on a recently dicovered galaxy 14 billion light years away, and what are the events there "now", only to seen in 14 billion hence in this neck of the woods. it is most likely gone. the woods too. For us that would be a prediction, not for a Being that is outside our "moving time", and "c" constraint.

  There are other factors that make this concept applicable in our narrow "bible prophecy" domain, but the principle is stands.

  IF Jehovahs dwells in the Pleiades, (as opined by somebody definitely not of the FDS)*, its possible that human bible history would there just now become visible to the Pleiadians, But He could have "predicted" -read describe- it all to the Pleiadians 6000 years in advance as He saw it by just looking from His " not moving in time" heavenly abode. None of our ancestors would be at all restrained from exercising their free will by that observation and reporting cum prediction.

  ALL THIS OBSERVATION OF THE PAST DOES NOT RETROACTIVELY EFFECT ITS OUCOME. God sees it instantly, we will see it later, sometime 6000 years later. beabeorean.com on time, space and the scriptures.

  *note: not all WT new light is inaccurate * note: respectful treatment: calling CTR a "somebody" not a nobody.
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  prologos

  The time-space-energy-matter laws work the same way for atheists, agnostics, so substitute your favored entity or abstract for GOD, CREATOR.

  A real fast- talking god could have told the awe-inspiring predictor of THOR'S hammer- thunder that a flash was on the way before she saw it, before her blind friend heard it.

  The illustrations used just work with the knowns, givens. . A being with better senses, not embedded in an expanding, through-time-moving universe could describe events that are not perceived yet by those that are. In that sense God can be a pleasently surprised spectator of the "--spectacle-- paul was mentioning in I Cor.4:9 or to quote the Bard : "-- the world is a stage--".

  I would love to hear falsification, rebuttals, not to details sematics, but the point.